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© J. Glenn Friesen |
Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte
der Wetsidee The Dutch Academy of Sciences has made all three volumes of De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee available online (in Dutch). These three volumes can also be downloaded here in .pdf format from the website of The Association for Reformational Philosophy. The text below is a provisional translation. Copyright is held by the Dooyeweerd Centre, Ancaster, Ontario, and publishing right is held by Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York. A definitive translation will be published in the series The Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd. Chapter II: Philosophy and Life- and World-View §1 The Antithesis in Philosophical Thought and the Postulate of a “Perennial Philosophy” [WdW I, 80] Study Notes The Philosophy of the Law-Idea, which demands a radical self-critique by practitioners of philosophy, must lead to the discovery of an antithesis in philosophic thought, which cannot be bridged by any compromise and whose dividing line is different than has been previously thought. Now that critical self-reflection has disclosed the all-ruling meaning of the Archimedean point for philosophy, and has shown the non-self-sufficiency of philosophic thought in its own domain, it can be understood how radical a break with immanence philosophy is necessarily brought by Christianity to philosophic thought. The word from the Scriptures: “Out of the heart are the issues of life” touches the root of the whole of existence, and it discloses the one place that we can find the Archimedean point of philosophy, whether in an apo-static or in an ana-static sense, through which we discover our self to our self.] [In contrast to this Christian view], how does it help to merely point to the universally valid conformity to law of our functions of knowledge? The law is the same for everyone, but our subjectivity, which is subjected to the law, is fallen from the fullness of meaning of the law, and now from out of itself it no longer understands the law in its temporal particularized meaning. In answer to this the popular view of science usually answers, 2 X 2 = 4, whether or not a Christian or a heathen makes this judgment! But philosophically this argument is not worth much, whenever we for even a moment want to give an account of this mathematical judgment. [WdW I, 81] Study notes The judgment 2 X 2 = 4 is not true “in itself,” but only in the relative joining of meaning of the particularized meaning of the laws of number and of logic. This joining together of meaning is only possible in the all-sided coherence of meaning of all law-spheres, and presupposes a totality of meaning, of which the numerical sphere and the logical sphere are both only particular refractions of meaning. Partial truths that are in themselves self-sufficient do not exist. The fall from the totality of meaning of truth makes us see the particularized meaning of the laws in a false light. Partial theoretical truth is only truth in the coherence of meaning of theoretical truths, and this relative coherence of meaning presupposes the fullness, the totality of meaning of truth. In this way the Archimedean point of philosophic thought influences from the outset any philosophic view of the mutual relation of the meaning of number and of logic, and influences the meaning itself of number and logic. We shall show this in more detail. What then remains for us of the ancient thought of a “perennial philosophy,” which is jealously maintained even in the relative isolation of modern Thomistic philosophy? Christian philosophy takes an antithetical attitude with respect to the whole immanence philosophy in its evolution from Greek philosophy and earlier up to recent time. Has it not thereby cut off all relation with the historical development of philosophic thought? If that were really so, then such a conclusion would at the same time pronounce a sentence of doom on the attempt that we take in this work to the reformation of philosophic thought from out of a Christian standpoint. Reformation is not creation out of nothing. [WdW I, 82] Study Notes But whenever an appeal is made to the idea of a “perennial philosophy,” we need to know what is meant by this term. As postulated by our law-Idea itself, philosophic thought as such stands in relation with historical development, and no thinker can withdraw himself from the progressive evolution of philosophic thought. In this sense, our law-Idea itself demands the acknowledgement of the idea of a “perennial philosophy.” It rejects the arrogant thought that a thinker could start with a clean slate and separate himself from the development of centuries of philosophic reflection. But we must never turn this postulate of the “perennial philosophy” against the religious apriori of philosophy with the intention of relativizing this in a historicistic way. For whoever does that, necessarily falls into a historicistic relativism with respect to truth, just as we see in a striking manner in Dilthey’s life- and world-view philosophy or in Oswald Spengler. Whoever takes the trouble to immerse himself in the philosophical system developed in this book will soon see how it is attached with a thousand ties to the historical development of philosophical and scientific thought. At least this is so with respect to its immanent philosophic content, although we can nowhere follow such immanence philosophy. The basic principle of
sovereignty in its own sphere, which Calvinism
puts in the foreground at the outset, could not have been worked out in
this book without the whole preceding development of humanistic philosophy
and its synthetic view of science–even though we have turned in
principle against such a humanistic view of science on the basis of our
philosophic Idea of sovereignty
in its own sphere. [WdW I, 83] Study Notes The philosophic working out of this system in its application of the law-Idea may be bound to historical development. Insight may grow in wealth of meaning of the cosmic law order, even through the work of directions of thought against which ours is set in an irreconcilable antithesis. Nevertheless, the religious starting point and with it the whole direction that philosophic thinking acquires through it, remains fixed and unmovable, grounded in the absolute truth. And it is necessary for both religion and philosophy that this starting point not be given up in any phase of Christian philosophic thought if it does not want to fall back in a standpoint of accommodation [with immanence philosophy]. Up to a certain point, each direction of thought works together towards the development of human knowledge, and no single one can be credited with a monopoly in this. No single intellectual direction of thought, even if it has enmity towards God, appears in world history without its own task. In spite of itself, this task must work together towards the completion of the Divine Counsel’s plan in the unfolding of the powers that He also allows to keep working in the fallen creation. In the development of the basic features of our philosophy of history we will work out this point more precisely. But the acceptance of “God’s direction in history” implies that whenever we enter the great confusing labyrinth of world culture, we must hold fast to the Augustinian Biblical thread in the history of the world, his insight into the continuing struggle between Civitas Dei [City of God] and the Civitas terrena [City of Earth]. The immanent historical meaning of God’s guidance must for now remain problematic until we have come to the philosophic analysis of the meaning of the historical aspect]. [WdW I, 84] Study Notes Taken in itself, the thought of an antithesis is not in any way foreign to immanence philosophy, namely in its modern form of “Weltanschaungslehre” [theory of life- and world-views]. On the contrary, many antitheses are construed here. One of the oldest is that between idealism and naturalism. And it is noteworthy that “idealism” in all its variations always is of the opinion that this antithesis can be resolved (in favour of idealism) by the path of pure philosophic thought. In this view, no help is needed from the life- and world-view that transcends philosophy. Idealism believes that one only needs to reflect on the act of thinking itself in order to see immediately, that each attempted reduction of human rational functions to natural objects already presupposes actual thought as its own power over against all “natural reality.” Furthermore, various modern thinkers have tried to neutralize within philosophic thought the struggle with respect to [life- and world-views] that are said to transcend philosophy by extending philosophy itself as a neutral life- and world-view, so that philosophy does not have to take a position with respect to the various antitheses. In this way Dilthey [1] arrived at the position that there are three recurring types of “philosophic worldviews” in historic development: 1. materialistic positivism (Democritus, Epicurus, Hobbes, the Encyclopedists, Comte, Avenarius); 2. objective idealism (Heraclitus, the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Shaftesbury, Goethe, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Hegel; 3. Freedom-idealism (Plato, Christian philosophy, Kant, Fichte, Maine de Biran). Rickert’s classification [2] is much more detailed, and is oriented to the typology of the possible “life- and world-views” in neo-Kantian philosophy of values. He offers us a detailed outline in which the following types are analyzed from the standpoint of a philosophy of values: 1. intellectualism 2. aestheticism 3. mysticism 4. moralism 5. eudaemonism 6. eroticism 7. theism, polytheism. What is typical of this and similar typologies of “life- and world-views” is that they, from out of their immanence standpoint, wipe out the only truly absolute antithesis, namely that between immanence and the Christian transcendence standpoint. Instead, they attempt to place the Christian starting point in philosophy under one of many –isms of immanence philosophy. At the same time, what are really only relative oppositions are proclaimed as absolute according to the immanence standpoint (at least insofar as the thinker who makes these classifications does not present himself as a complete relativist with respect to life- and world-views). The first insight that we obtain by comparing the Philosophy of the Law-idea to the “Weltanschauungslehre” of immanence philosophy is that on the immanence standpoint, all oppositions based on a life- and world-view are completely relative. Actually we should understand idealism and naturalism as a polar opposition based on the common root of the modern humanistic law-Idea. It is polar because from the outset the basic structure of this law-idea has a hidden inner antinomy between the ideals of science and personality [nature and freedom]. Aestheticism and moralism are not even polar oppositions. They remain wholly in the hypostasis of particular aspects of our cosmos (either law-sides or subject-sides). Even in the so-called “theistic” type, the immanence standpoint is only apparently abandoned. This clearly appears from the fact that from the outset “theistic philosophy” is built on a metaphysical Idea of God, which found its origin in the hypostasis of the nous. Consider Aristotle’s theistic philosophy. The divine nous, as pure act, first transcendent cause, unmoved mover and final goal of the cosmos–these are all only theistic masks which hide the hypostasis of human reason. They are the idol-Ideas of immanence philosophy. It is no different in the theistic philosophy of Descartes or of Leibniz. What does such a philosophic “theism,” which is rooted in the proclamation of the sovereignty of reason, have in common with the radical Christian attitude in philosophic questions about life and world? All absolutizing of the relative, all absolutizing of meaning, is a fall from God and a rejection of His sovereignty. [WdW I, 86] Study Notes In the light of the law-idea thee exists only one fundamental and absolute antithesis in philosophy—the antithesis between on the one hand absolutizing (deifying of meaning, in fall from God and thereby from the totality of meaning) and on the other hand the return of philosophic thinking to God in Christ, which leads to the insight into the complete relativity and lack of self-sufficiency of everything that exists in the creaturely mode of being of meaning, and to the acknowledgement of the radical influence of the fall on philosophic thinking. If this antithesis is absolute and unbridgeable, then there is next to it no place for a fundamental antithesis of any other kind. At most there are polar tensions, already in principle in the basic structure itself of the philosophic Ground-Idea. For a philosophy that is rooted in the Christian transcendence point, there can then be no talk of idealism versus naturalism, moralism versus aestheticism, rationalism versus irrationalism, theism or mysticism. all such –isms can only be grounded in the immanence standpoint. It therefore appears that such –isms, insofar as they may have obtained entry into Christian philosophic thought, are atavisms within the framework of the Christian law-idea. They are atavisms in the literal sense of this word–rudiments of pagan thought that cannot be in any way compatible with the Christian Ground-Attitude. § 2 The Distinction Between Philosophy of Life- and World Views, and the Criterion [WdW I, 87] Study Notes Must then life- and world-views be mixed together with philosophic thought? Is the relation between philosophy and life-and world-view perhaps this, that philosophy is nothing other than a worked out life- and world-view, perhaps an “Anweisung zum seligen Leben” [a guide to the blessed life] under the mask of a philosophic theory? If it is accepted that the absolute antithesis that we have formulated above in fact is unavoidable for a life-and world-view, must then philosophy, which wants to maintain its theoretic character, therefore just for this reason refuse for making a choice of position if it does not want to completely wipe out the boundary between it and life- and world-views? In these questions we find again the philosophic neutrality postulate, and these questions force us to give a more precise account of the relation between philosophy and life- and world-views. [WdW I, 87b] Study Notes It is very difficult to enter into discussions with immanence philosophy on this point because from its point of view there are strongly divergent opinions about the question: What do you really understand by life- and world-view and does it stand in opposition to philosophy? Heinrich Rickert for example wants to approach the nature of the life- and world-view in an axiological way, from out of his theoretical philosophy of values. He sees the essential in the personal a-theoretical choice of position with respect to the question: What is for you the highest value? Another defender of the neutrality postulate, Theodor Litt, reproaches Rickert for already exceeding the boundaries of philosophy in his theoretical philosophy of values. According to Litt, value is ex origine a-theoretical, and therefore, the attempt to find a foundation of the absolute validity of theoretical truth in a value of truth (as Rickert does) is already “of the Devil.” Litt seeks the criterion between philosophy and life- and world-view; he says that in philosophic thought, no single valuation may be one of the determining factors or even the decisive factor” [“mitbestimmend oder gar ausschlaggebend”]. For Litt, valuation is “conclusive evidence for the fact that the subject has not sacrificed his concrete-personal relation to the totality of reality for the sake of striving after pure knowledge.” [3] Measured by this criterion, the development of immanence philosophy throughout the centuries has been full of life- and world-views, and the purification process has really only just begun. In Nietzsche’s philosophy of life, the task given to philosophy is just the reverse. It is the practical “ordering of values according to rank.” In his Geneaology of Morals (p. 38) philosophers are named “Befehlende und Gesetzgeber” [commanders and law-givers). Philosophy then becomes the “art of living,” which has in common with the sciences only the fact that it expresses itself in concepts. Modern existentialism was strongly influenced by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. It wants to be a philosophy of the full existence of life. Its understanding of the relation between philosophy and life- and world-view follow the same line. According to Karl Jaspers, philosophy at the outset was more than a mere “universal theory.”
[ABRIDGED] [I have not included WdW pages 89-120] [WdW I, 121] Study
Notes As we shall show in the discussion of epistemology, the situation is this: Theoretical judgments are scientific judgments that distinguish and then join together meaning. They embody scientific knowledge, which stands in a synthesis of meaning between logical thought and the meaning of a non-logical law-sphere that has been made into a “Gegenstand.” These judgments are subjected to the norm of theoretical truth, which holds for scientific knowledge. The non-theoretical, so-called “practical” judgments are not a-logical–no judgment at all can be a-logical––but merely “non-Gegenständlich.” In other words, they are not grounded in the theoretical, logical attitude of thought that sets logical thought over-against an abstracted a-logical aspect of reality. Non-theoretical judgments are subjected to the norm of pre-theoretical truth, which holds for pre-scientific knowledge, but also possesses universal validity as the norm for theoretical truth.[5] Whereas all temporal truth is founded in the temporal coherence of meaning of the logical and the non-logical aspects of reality, this temporal truth refers above itself towards the fullness of meaning of truth, which is only given in the religious totality of meaning of our cosmos. Each judgment appeals for its meaning to the fullness of truth, in which no temporal restriction has any more meaning. For [full] truth does not allow any limitation as to its fullness of meaning. Whoever relativizes truth to a supposed “pure” theoretical thought (i.e. thought that is merely determined by oneself), and at the same time acknowledges that the theoretical, scientific judgments do not exhaust the domain of judgments, falls into the logical self-refutation of skepticism. For such a person denies the fullness of truth, and relativizes truth to the particularized meaning of the theoretical as contrasted with the non-theoretical, but at the same time demands for his understanding full validity of truth without any restriction.[6] [WdW I, 122] Study
notes Litt makes a sharp distinction between truth in its proper sense of theoretical, universally valid truth, and the “so-called” “Weltanschauliche” truth, or truth of a “life – and world-view. This distinction in itself might have a good sense if it were not that Litt actually denies each truth of a “life – and world-view.” For when it is used in the sense of a “life – and world-view,” Litt says that the word ‘truth’ should be used only as a predicate that is applied in assertions from a world- and life-view, in order to express:
[WdW I, 122] Study
Notes As soon as we seriously try to carry out Litt’s assertion, it appears to dissolve itself in an inner contradiction. If the judgments given in our life-and world view are not subjected to a norm of universally valid truth, they lose all meaning. And if they are really not judgments, they cannot contain any individual “Lebensdeutung” [interpretation of life]. A subjective “interpretation of life,” which is asserted in a series of judgments, only makes sense if the temporal cosmos in which we live in fact exists as a coherence of meaning. If that is so, then the judgments in which our subjective “interpretations of life” are given must be necessarily subjected to a universally valid norm of truth. This norm of truth requires that my subjective interpretation of meaning must agree with the true state of affairs, in other words if it agrees with the meaning of our cosmos. But if there is no universally valid truth concerning the truth of our cosmos, then I can also give no subjective “interpretation of life,” because I can only interpret that which I can judge as to its truth, that it has a meaning, even if I personally leave undecided the truth of my personal interpretation of meaning. Litt supposes that he can evade these destructive consequences of his standpoint in that he makes theoretical truth in its universal validity to the judge as to essence, meaning and the limits of the so-called “life- and world-view truth.” In this way the judgments of our life- and world-view appear again to be subjected to the mysterious “theoretical universally valid truth”–but only to find them immediately dissolve from any norm of truth! For the universally valid truth is then that the judgments of a life- and world-view, as assertions of a merely individual impression of live, lie “jenseits von Wahrheit und Falschheit” [beyond truth and falsity]. Because of the law-Idea of his philosophical system, Litt is much more adverse to an intellectualistic philosophy than Rickert. “Truth” must be restricted to the theoretical particularized meaning if theoretic thought is not to rule in the old intellectualistic way over the life- and world-views of the sovereign personality. But if he persists in the view that for example the judgments, “God is the Creator of our cosmos, which He has made to His glory” or “Religion must give way to science” lie “beyond truth and falsity” because they comprise merely individualistic interpretations of life, then there can no longer be any universally valid truth regarding the totality of meaning of our cosmos and its relation to the diversity of meaning. Even Litt himself acknowledges that the totality must be more than mere theoretic meaning. And if this conclusion [that there is no universally valid truth] is also accepted, then we have denied the meaning of a life- and world-view as well as the meaning of philosophic theoretical thought and the meaning of “theoretical truth.” Theoretic thought has then by means of “universally valid truth” destroyed its own foundations. Philosophic thought is always directed to the totality of meaning. It is distinguishing and joining together of meaning. If there is no universally valid truth concerning the relation of totality of meaning, particularized meaning and coherence of meaning, then philosophic thought also has no norm of truth by which it can be tested. The pole of absolute skepticism is in this way reached and with it the pole of absolute self-refutation. The concept of an “absolute merely theoretical truth” dissolves itself in an inner contradiction. And the critique of the law-Idea forces its way behind the logical contradictions in which the teaching of the self-sufficiency of the “pure theoretical truth” is entangled, and to the root of this immanence philosophy. It lays bare the relativistic bottom on which it builds its theoretic system. Only this relativistic Ground-Attitude explains the emphasis that this direction of modern thought makes in trying to protect theoretical truth from the relativism that has long since undermined its life- and world-view. Christian philosophy does not have to learn from the humanistic Ideal of personality that theoretic thought cannot rule over religion and life- and world-views. But humanistic philosophy can certainly learn from Christian philosophy that philosophic thought is dependent on the religious attitude. § 6 More Precise Determination of the Relation Between Philosophy and Life- and World-View [WdW I, 125] Study Notes In what sense must philosophy give an account of life- and world-views? It must bring the life- and world-view to the clarity of theoretical thought, through the distinguishing and joining together of meaning and in the light of the law-Idea. Insofar as it includes other life- and world-views that have a different religious foundation than what is expressed in its own law-Idea, it must try to specify the Ground-Idea that is the foundation [of these different views]. This means a theoretical illumination of these other life- and world-views. This is the only way in which it is really possible to do justice to the various types of life- and world-views. [WdW I, 125b] Study
Notes Here the problem necessarily comes to the fore, why can philosophy never been in a position to replace the life- and world-view? The reason it cannot do this is that it cannot replace naïve experience by a knowledge involving the synthesis of [differentiated and particularized] meaning. There remains a residue of living immediacy in each life- and world-view that must necessarily escape theoretical concepts. A true life- and world-view is never a system. This is not because a life-and world view would be lost in belief or in feeling, but because in it, thought must remain in enstasis [ingesteld] in the full concrete reality, and this cannot be done by a theoretic, systematic thought. As soon as we try to make a system of a life-and world-view, it will lose its own universality. It will not be able to speak to us any more out of the full reality, but rather from out of the distance. Scientific abstraction keeps this distance from life in order to furnish us with theoretical knowledge. A radical Christian view of science also undoubtedly belongs to the Calvinistic life- and world-view. How is such a view of science born? It is not born out of a tendency to systematic philosophy, but it is born in the middle of a concrete situation of life. Already at the time of the Renaissance the pressure of the scholastic notion of science on the one hand and the necessity to oppose the coming humanistic view of science on the other stimulated Calvinism to its religious calling in the domain of science. When Christianity was still being persecuted by fire and sword in the Roman Empire, its relation with respect to politics and worldly culture was generally a negative one. A positive choice of position with respect to the Christian task could only come when the possibility of practicing influence in these domains had been created. Without the concrete idea of the “Enlightenment” Idea on all life, the reaction of the personality Ideal would never have revealed itself in humanistic circles. This was to bring an important turning point in the humanistic life- and world-view. Without it there would never have been the requirement for the neutrality of science over against the personal choice of position in a life-and world-view. And we can continue giving examples. We repeatedly find the development of a life- and world-view in immediate contact with concrete situations in full life. And it shall remain so, since the immediacy of life is essential to a life- and world-view. Therefore it is incorrect to assert that a Christian philosophy is nothing more than a scientific working out of a Christian life- and world view. A life- and world-view does not allow itself to be philosophically “worked out.” It works itself out in the series of immediate life- and world-situations. Is a life- and world-view then prevented from making any claim to “universal validity” because it belongs to concrete individuality? [WdW I, 127] Study
Notes In order to satisfactorily answer the question just posed, it is first necessary to give an account of the correct meaning of the concept “universal validity.” Until now we have learned to know this concept only in the framework of speculative thought, of “unconditioned pure thought” in which it took the place of a concept of law. As is known, Kant was the first to give to the concept an apriori epistemological meaning. For him, “universally valid” means: independent from all “empirical subjectivity.” It is valid for the “transcendental consciousness,” the “transcendental cogito,” which is itself in its apriori synthesis the origin of all universal validity. ‘Universally valid’ in this sense is the synthetic apriori of all experience, which first makes experience possible. In contrast to the synthetic apriori, Kant views perception as having merely “subjective validity,” because it is dependent on subjective sensory impressions, in which no objective, necessary validity can be grounded. Kant has expressed this opposition in the judgments by distinguishing between mere judgments of perception and judgments of experience:
Kant illustrated this distinction in the following examples. The judgment, “The room is warm, sugar is sweet, wormwood is revolting” and “The sun warms the stone” are mere subjectively valid judgments of perception.[8] However, the last judgment referred to becomes a judgment of experience, with a genuine claim to universal validity, whenever I say, “the sun causes the heat of the stone,” for here,
This whole understanding of universal validity stands and falls with the critical immanence standpoint and its view of the structure of experience and of temporal reality. A break with this immanence standpoint necessarily means a break with this understanding of universal validity. In the light of our Christian law-Idea the claim of universal validity claimed by a judgment can only be understood in the sense of agreement of the judgment with the religious cosmic law that is elevated above all arbitrariness. That is, it is agreement with the divine law for the cosmos in its particularized meaning, coherence of meaning and fullness of meaning, without which no judgment could have validity. [WdW I, 129] Study
Notes The possibility of universally valid judgments rests only and exclusively on the universal (elevated above all individual subjectivity) validity of the structural laws of human experience. “Universal validity” is a normative qualification, which presupposes the subjected-ness of the judging subject to the law, which can never take its origin from this subject itself. The judging subject can in fact come into conflict with this law. As such it is very closely connected with the structure of truth. We can therefore only discuss the problem of universal validity in the more particular discussion of epistemology, and in the present context we must be content with introductory remarks. First we notice that universal validity can not be limited to the judgments of theoretic thought. This is because the laws of theoretic thought are not valid “an sich” [“in themselves”], but only in the cosmic coherence of meaning and in the dependence on the religious root unity of the divine law. Universal validity applies to each judgment that each judging subject ought to agree with. It does not apply to a judgment that has meaning only for an individual subject that is judging. the judgments “I do not believe in God,” or “I do not find Rembrandt’s Night Watch beautiful” can never have universal validity, because they only express a subjective opinion, which remains limited to the individual ego [ik] in the subjective function of judgment itself. In contrast to this, for a universally valid judgment it does not matter whether it is an assertion about a concrete, individual state of affairs outside of the subjective function of judgment, or about abstract theoretical states of affairs. The judgment of naïve experience, “This rose, which stands on my table, is red,” if it is to be taken seriously, makes an appeal to concrete truth and universal validity for each possible perceiving subject at this moment, since it is not limited to the subjective function of judgment of the individual ego. Its universal validity depends on the structural laws of pre-theoretical experience, in which thinking is still wholly enstatic [ingesteld] within the temporal reality. Undoubtedly there are structural differences in the universal validity of judgments. In the first place, there are differences of structure between theoretical and pre-theoretical judgments. [WdW I, 130] Study
Notes The validity of a judgment of perception, as we have formulated it, does not depend on the concrete hic et nunc [here and now] of the subjective-sensory aspect of perception. If that were so, then Kant would be correct that a judgment of perception would have mere subjective validity and that it could make no claim to universal validity. But as already pointed out, it is really the structural laws of naïve experience that guarantee the universal validity of a correct judgment of perception. As we shall see in our discussion of epistemology, these laws are at the same time the structural laws of cosmic reality itself. The structural laws also regulate the subject-object relations in naïve experience (which we will later examine). They also guarantee the plastic structure of the experience of things both with respect to their subjective-objective sensory and logical aspects. And these laws first make possible the universally validity of a concrete judgment of perception. The reason that Kant can acknowledge only subjective validity to these judgments is due to his construction of experienceable reality as a chaotic sensory material that must first be formed by a transcendental consciousness into a cosmic reality (a reality ordered in a universally valid way). Kant’s view is also grounded in the old metaphysical prejudice that the so-called secondary qualities of things (i.e. the sensory qualities) have only a subjective character and do not belong to the full reality of things. [10] And above all the reason for Kant’s view is the circumstance that from his critical immanence standpoint he has totally wiped out the structural differences between theoretical knowledge and naïve experience. All these points will be elaborated in more detail later. [WdW I, 131] Study
Notes In the second place there is a fundamental structural difference between a supra-theoretical religious judgment such as “God is the Creator of the world,” or “All laws are grounded in absolute Reason” on the one hand, and judgments that make assertions about cosmic or cosmological states of affairs within the temporal boundary of the cosmos on the other hand. The universal validity claimed by the first kind of assertions depends on whether or not they agree with the religious root unity of the structural laws of human experience, to which the judging selfhood in the heart of its existence is subjected, as to the religious concentration law of its temporal experience. All universal validity claimed by a judgment depends in the final instance upon the universal, unconditional validity of this religious concentration-law. No single particular law, even the cosmic law order itself (which maintains the coherence of meaning among the law-spheres) is self-sufficient to guarantee the universal validity of any human judgment. This is because the universal validity of these laws has creaturely-character. Law that is not connected with its Origin is nothing. In the light of the Christian law-Idea it should therefore be clear that the universal validity of a religious judgment of the Christian life- and world-view is not dependent on the larger or smaller circle of those who affirm it. Nor can it be detracted from by the circumstance that because of the fall into sin human thought has been withdrawn subjectively from the fullness of meaning of truth, and that man is not in himself capable of directing his thought to the fullness of meaning. [WdW I, 132] Study
Notes By the hypostasis of the so-called “transcendental consciousness” to the Arché [Origin] of universal validity, the foundation for the validity of truth is undermined. For in this hypostasis, truth is made dependent on the really universal fall of thought. It is not the laws of human thought that take the subjective act of knowing away from the fullness of meaning of truth. It is the fallen self-hood, who tries to take these laws out of their coherence of meaning and out of their religious root. Through this the fallen selfhood subjectively falsifies the particularized meaning of these laws in judgments. The concept “normal consciousness” is not identical with the “norm of consciousness!” And the truth and universal validity of a judgment do not find their criterion in a fallen “normal consciousness.” Litt says that the fact that there are so many life- and world-views is an indication that they are particular impressions of life, and that they are not subjected to the universally valid norm of truth. Whoever uses his arguments and takes this path in fact is not doing a service to the view that only judgments of theoretic thought can claim universally valid truth. A simple reference to the divisions among philosophical and even of special scientific theories should give a sufficient incentive to leave this bypath rather speedily! [WdW I, 133] Study
Notes In our discussion of epistemology, we shall demonstrate that the opposition: universal validity in theoretic thought versus concrete individuality in life- and world-view is not a pure opposition. For in the subjectivity of theoretic thought, the individuality of the thinker cannot be disconnected in any way. The notion that theoretic thought has no place for the individual is a remnant of the rationalistic understanding of science from the Enlightenment, which tried to separate the subject-side from the logical law-sphere. We have shown how a life- and world-view in its development cannot follow any systematic tendency, but that it must remain in immediate proximity to the concrete situations of life, even though it correctly gives a universal formulation to its judgments. Enstatically within the full temporal reality, such a worldview (or rather its adherent) directs the religious view of totality onto the reality of life in its concrete structure. Historical development, whose tempo it must follow in its thinking, is not understood in a scientific way, but rather in its continuous inter-wovenness through all of temporal reality, as a not yet explicitly distinguished component of reality in which the adherents of this world-view are enstatically placed, with the full actuality of their thinking and belief, and which they in this enstasis live to the fullest. With this, Litt’s thesis as to the unscientific character of a life- and world-view is reduced to its proper proportions. What is the case with his view that a life- and world-view, in distinction from philosophy, lives in a sphere of communal convictions? [WdW I, 134] Study
Notes A life- and world-view is in its origin not individualistic, but in fact social [samenbindend]. It is ex origine a communal conviction, subjected to the norm of the full truth, of a human community in itsantithetical religious roots. In the religious ground of the matter, there exist only two life- and world-views, which fight with each other in an irreconcilable struggle. Within the framework of each these, we find individual, often strongly divergent variations, which join together temporal relations under the leading of personalities, and which are subjected to historical development. Philosophic thought is also bound to this historical development within the coherence of meaning. And as we shall demonstrate in the discussion of epistemology, it is not individualistic thought, but rather relational-thought, a communal thought, where leading thinkers predominate. And by reason of the religious cosmic coherence of philosophy and life- and world-view, it is impossible that they would not mutually influence each other. Philosophic thought should find in life- and world-views a continual and actual stimulus towards religious self-reflection. And on the other hand, life –and world-views should find in philosophic thought a stimulus to come to theoretical clarity. But just as philosophy may not with impunity fall into the concrete tone of a life- and world view, as little may a life- and world-view accept with impunity the distance from the full reality, which is suitable to theoretic thought. One in their root, and reciprocally appealing to each other and influenced by each other, they nevertheless need to be sharply distinguished, each with its own task and essential character.
Go to next page of translation: Gegenstand Footnotes for these excerpts [1] Dilthey: Die Typen der Weltanschauung in “Weltansch.” Berlin 1911. [2] System der Philosophie. In the South-West-German school of neo-Kantianism Windelband already proclaimed philosophy as the “Wissenschaft der Weltanschauung.” See his Einleitung in die Phil. (2nd ed., 1920), p. 19ff. [3] “der bündige Beweis dafür, dasz das Subjekt sein konkret-persönliches Verhältnis zum Ganzen der Wirklichkeit nicht dem Willen zu reiner Erkenntnis aufgeopfert hat.” Einleitung in die Philosophie (Leipzig und Berlin 1933), p. 261. [4] “Sie gab Impulse, stellte Werttaflen auf, gab dem Menschenleben Sinn und Ziel, gab ihm die Welt, in der er sich geborgen fühlte, gab ihm mit einem Wort: Weltanschauung.” Psychologie der Weltansch, (3rd ed. 1925), pp. 1-7. [5] In the discussion of epistemology wee shall demonstrate that theoretical truth cannot stand dualistically next to pre-theoretical, but that they appeal to each other in a deepening of meaning. [6] Op. Cit. p. 255. “Die ungeschminkte Aufrichtigkeit, miet der in Denker sich vor sich selbst und anderen zu seiner Lebensdeutung bekennt, die innere Folgerichtigkeit mit der er sie entwickelt, die übedrzeugende Kraft,mit der er si vorzutragen und zu begründen weisz und…die ¨Übereingstimmung zwischen ihr und seiner tätigen Bewährung im Leben.” [7] Prolegomena zur einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik (Prolegomena to any future metaphysics) (Werke, Grossherzog Wilhelm Ernst, 4th ed., p. 422): “Empirische Urteile, so fern si objektive Gültigkeit haben, sind Erfahrungsurteile; die aber, so nur subjectiv gültig sind, nenne ich blosze Wahrnehmungsurteile: Die letztern bedürfen keines reinen Verstandesbegriffs, sondern nur der logischen Verknüpfung der Wahrnehmungen in einem denkenden Subjekt. Die ersteren aber erfordern jederzeit über die Vorstellungen der sinnlichen Anschauung noch besondere, im Verstande ursprünglich erzeugte Begriffe, welche es eben machen, dasz das Erfahrungsurteil objektiv gültig ist.” [8] Ibid., p. 423, note p. 426. [9] Note 426. “kommt über die Wahrnehmung noch der Verstandesbegriff der Ursache hinzu, der mit dem Begriffe des Sonnenscheins den der Wärme notwendig verknüpft, und sas synthetische Urteil wird notwendig allgemeingültig, folglich objektiv, und aus einer Wahrnehmung in Erfahrung verwandelt.” [10] See Prolegomena § 19, note, where Kant with respect to the examples given by him of judgments of perception makes the following comment: “I gladly confess, that these examples do not represent such judgments of perception as could ever become judgments of experience, even if a concept of the understanding were to be added, since they are related merely to feeling, which everyone recognizes to be merely subjective and which consequently can never be attributed to the object, and so can never become objective.” (“Ich gestehe gern, dass diese Beispiele nicht solche Wahrnehmungsurteile vorstellen, die jemals Erfahrungsurteile werden könnten, wenn man auch einen Verstandesbegriff hinzu täte, weil sie sich bloss auf Gefühl, welches jedermann als bloss subjectiv erkennt und welches also niemals dem Objeckt beigelgt werden darf, beziehen und also auch niemals objectiv werden können.” This subjectivististic understanding of the so-called secondary qualities we will refute in Volume II in the discussion of the subject-opbject schema. Go to next page of translation: Gegenstand Revised Oct 13/08 |