"The system of logic is the realm of shadows, the world of simple essentilialities, freed of all sensuous concretion. To study this science, to dwell and to labor in this realm of shadows, is the absolute culture and discipline of consciousness. Its task is one which is remote from the intuititions and the goals of the senses, remote from feelings and from the world of merely fancied representation."
Sunday, July 12, 2020
The Realm of Shadows
I have been working through Hegel's science of logic of late, and in the process I came across a nice enigmatic quote I thought I would share.
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Not immediately pertinent -- but it's Hegel, so maybe anything can be made pertinent -- I had a Scotist prof who told of a scholar he knew who, all his life, wrote against Scotus. But then, that scholar started comparing/contrasting Hegel and Aquinas and got spooked: Aquinas, he found/thought he found, led to Hegel. So what did that Scholar do? He converted to Scotism on his deathbed. (No, I don't know who the scholar is; I should have asked.)
Well, it is an interesting story. It does illustrate the dangers of the 'led to' approach to philosophy. I don't think Aquinas would grant a pure concept of being, for example, unlike Hegel and Scotus, though this is famously debated in later Thomism.
Could you elaborate on how that illustrates the dangers of the 'led to' approach to philosophy?
Wait, what do you mean you think he (Thomas) wouldn't grant a pure concept of being? I guess I don't know what else a concept of being could be...
because it is still the villain approach to philosophy, not a philosophical approach. He abandons Aquinas because he thinks Aquinas makes certain claims that could be developed logically in a certain way, that 'lead to' Hegel's position, that he already thinks is bad. So he drops Aquinas because Aquinas is aligned with Hegel and adopts Scotus. Maybe I am reading into your description, but that is what the 'leads to' is, basically, narrative.
I am not sure what Aquinas thinks. i don't think i have seen him talk about 'pure being' save in De veritate. Thomists normally won't grant that there is a concept of being distinct from the concept of God or distinct from the concept of created being. I think maybe Suarez does, and Cajetan maybe, I can't remember. But contemporary Thomists won't admit this. Henry of Ghent goes this route too, there is just the two kinds of being, no third kind possible, save by error of the intellect.
To the first, aha, ok, yes, that is what happened.
To the second, I can't remember Aquinas speaking of pure being, either. It doesn't sound like something he'd say. It just seems to me weird to talk of a "non-pure" concept of being, but I guess that's right, insofar as , for Aquinas, the concept of being is either abstracted from/regards primarily created beings. (If you go the route of the-first-principles-are-infused, then, I guess, things could get interesting.)
Yes, Suárez thinks that the conceptus entis objectivus is most simple and prescinds from the considerations of divine and created being (Disp. Metaph. 2.2.8). In this consideration he would be followed by a number of Jesuit scholastics (e.g., Hurtado de Mendoza and Rodrigo de Arriaga). Interestingly, unlike Scotus, Suárez thinks that the simple objective concept of being remains analogical. Hurtado thinks the same but for different reasons, but Arriaga returns to the path of univocity. It's interesting how the unity of being begets such a diversity of opinion!
Best,
Victor
Victor, I haven't read Suarez on that, but it sounds reasonable. Weird that he still thinks the Co[O]B (concept of [objective] being] is analogical. Why does he think so?
But yes, the plurality of opinions within the unity of being probably should suggest something to us, although I don't know what that something is.
Matthew, Suarez thinks the concept of being is analogical because it does not descend to its inferiora (i.e., God-creature, substance-accidents) indifferently (as would be required for univocity according to his thinking) but "of itself" descends according to priority and posteriority (i.e., first to God, then creatures; first to substance, then accidents). Much of his thinking has to do with his understanding of the immanent transcendence of being wherein being is contained in all of its differences, modes, and attributes. As such, his conception of being differs from Scotus's conception wherein being is not predicated 'in quid' of its differences, modes, attributes, but only 'in quale.' As such, the concept of being is, for Scotus, simpliciter simplex and easily understood to be univocal. In short, Suarez's transcendental theory, which is divergent from that of Scotus, also leads to a different conclusion regarding analogy-univocity.
Best,
Victor
Thanks!
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