A SHORT HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Paul Gerard Horrigan

CONTENTS

1. Ancient Philosophy 2. Medieval Philosophy 3. Renaissance Humanism to Kant 4. Fichte to Gadamer Bibliography

CHAPTER 1 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

A number of social, political and economic conditions permitted the rise of philosophical speculation in the Grecian colonies of Ionia. In the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., the Greek colonies along the Ionian coastline, through contact with the civilizations of the East, managed to establish a veritable commercial trading empire. The Ionian seamen and traders brought in a steady flow of goods and riches from the East and, in time, the colonies became so well-off that many of her citizens were endowed with that essential leisure time needed for philosophical contemplation and speculation. The Greek colonies were also in contact with the other ancient civilizations of the Orient (which had, at that time, a superior scientific knowledge and where the arts and sciences were flourishing), and because of this constant interaction the Greeks developed a natural love for observation, speculation, and research. The republican spirit of the Grecian city-states also encouraged free debate in various fields, something which the older, blood-thirsty and warlike tyrannical regimes had sought to stamp out. Thus, we find the first philosophical schools developing in the Greek colonies. Though many of the early Greek philosophers were scientists, mathematicians, astronomers and doctors, they also sought to investigate the first principles and ultimate causes of all things by means of human reasoning (the characteristic mark of the true philosophical spirit). We also see a passage from the anthropomorphic, mythological solutions of old concerning God, cosmos, and man, to philosophical ones based on reasoning and argumentation.1[1] Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (spanning over a millennium, from the 6th century B.C. to Justinians decree closing the pagan-oriented philosophical schools in 529 A.D.) can be divided into five distinct periods: 1. The Pre-Socratic
1[1]

For general studies on Ancient Philosophy, see: E. ZELLER, Die Philosophie der Greichen in iher geschichtlichen Entwicklung dargestellt, 5 vols., Tbingen and Leipzig, 1859-1868 ; T. GOMPERZ, Greek Thinkers, 4 vols., London, 1901-1912 ; R. ADAMSON, The Development of Greek Philosophy, London, 1908 ; A. W. BENN, The Greek Philosophers, London, 1914 ; J. BURNET, Greek Philosophy, Part I: Thales to Plato, Macmillan, London, 1914 ; W. T. STACE, A Critical History of Greek Philosophy , Macmillan, London, 1920 ; W. WINDELBAN, Geschichte der abendlndischen Philosophie im Altertum, Munich, 1923 ; L. ROBIN, Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit , London, 1928 ; J. STENZEL, Metaphysik des Altertums, Oldenbourg, Berlin, 1929 ; E. ZELLER, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy , Kegan Paul, London, 1931 ; W. JAEGER, Paideia, Die Formung des griechischen Menschen , Berlin, 1933 ; C. WERNER, La philosophie grecque, Payot, Paris, 1938 ; A. M. ARMSTRONG, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, Methuen, London, 1947 ; F. C. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1: Greece and Rome , The Newman Press, Westminster, Md, 1948 ; G. DI NAPOLI, La concezione dellessere nella filosofia greca , Marzorati, Milan, 1953 ; W. CAPELLE, Die griechische Philosophie, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1954 ; G. FRAILE, Historia de la filosofia, vol. 1: Grecia y Roma , BAC, Madrid, 1956 ; J. HIRSCHBERGER, The History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Medieval Philosophy , Bruce, Milwaukee, 1958 ; DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Diogenis Laertii vitae philosophorum, critical edition of H. S. Long, 2 vols, Oxford, 1964 ; R. MONDOLFO, Il pensiero antico. Storia della filosofia greco-romana esposta con testi scelti dalle fonti, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1967 ; G. REALE, I problemi del pensiero antico, 2 vols., CELUC, Milan, 1972-1973 ; I. YARZA, History of Ancient Philosophy, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1994.

period (which was centered upon the cosmological problem). The Pre-Socratics include the Ionians (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus), Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics (Parmenides and Zeno), and the Pluralists (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) ; 2. The Sophists (where we find a shift from an objectivist cosmocentrism to a relativistic and subjectivistic anthropocentrism. Sophisms main exponents include Protagoras and Gorgias) versus Socrates (who, though focusing his philosophical musings almost wholely on man, was, nevertheless, an ardent seeker of objective truth) ; 3. Plato and Aristotle (where Greek philosophy, without a doubt, reaches its highest systematic development) ; 4. The Hellenistic period (which includes Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism, and the later diffusion of Eclecticism) ; and 5. Neo-Platonism (whose most famous exponent is Plotinus).

The Ionian School

The very first philosophical school in Greece was called the Ionian or Ionic school2[2] because her principal exponents, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, had come from Ionia, which was then the name of the Western coast of Asia Minor (now part of Turkey). 3[3] The first Ionian philosopher is Thales (c. 624 c. 562 B.C.) who sustained that the principle or ultimate cause of all things was water. It is the ultimate constitutive material principle of everything, remaining as a permanent substratum throughout the different changes of things. Aristotle conjectures that the observation of nature may have led Thales to such a conclusion: Thales got this notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got his notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.4[4] Anaximander5[5] (c. 610c. 540 B.C.) instead held that the first principle of all things was the indeterminate or infinite (peiron), which is a compound of all contrary elements. All things originate from it and return to it. The Stagirite understood the apeiron to mean unlimited extension in space and qualitative
2[2]

A. MADDALENA, Ionici. Testimonianze e frammenti, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1963 ; R. LAURENTI , Introduzione a Talete, Anassimandro, Anassimene, Laterza, Bari, 1971. 3[3] J. D. GARCIA BARCA, Los Presocrticos, 2 vols., Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Mexico, 1943-1944 ; H. DIELS-W. KRANZ, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 vols., Weidmann, Berlin, 1951-1952 ; G. COLLI, La sapienza greca, 3 vols., Adelphi, Milan, 1977-1980. For in-depth studies on pre-socratic philosophy, see: E. ZELLER, A History of Greek Philosophy from the Earliest Period to the Time of Socrates , 2 vols., Longmans, London, 1881 ; A. FAIRBANKS, The First Philosophers of Greece , London, 1898 ; J. BURNET, Early Greek Philosophy, Black, London, 1930 ; A. COVOTTI, I presocratici, Naples, 1934 ; H. CHERNISS, Aristotles Criticism of Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1935 ; M. GENTILE, La metafisica presofistica, Cedam, Padua, 1939 ; K. FREEMAN, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1946 ; W. JAEGER, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, Oxford, 1947 ; K. FREEMAN, Companion to the PreSocratic Philosophers, Blackwell, 1949 ; G. S. KIRK-J. E. RAVEN, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge, 1957 ; A. PASQUINELLI, I presocratici, 2 vols., Einaudi, Turin, 1958. 4[4] ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, I, 3, 983 b 23-27. 5[5] C. H. KAHN, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, Columbia University Press, New York, 1960.

indetermination. It is wholely indeterminate, that is, it is without any formal determination. Anaximander also believed that the apeiron was a divine principle, encompassing and governing all things as an immortal and indestructible principle. Anaximenes (c. 585c. 528 B.C.), considered air to be the primordial principle of all reality. Air, for this Ionian thinker, is infinite, encompassing all things, and is in constant motion. Anaximenes probably chose air because all living things need air for respiration. Heraclitus6[6] (c. 540c. 480 B.C.) was the first thinker to delve deeply into the nature of change and becoming in the world. He is the philosopher of change. For him, what exists is not being but becoming ; change is the only reality. The sole material of this universal becoming is fire, since it is at once the most elusive and the most active of elements and is perpetually in movement. Change and becoming have their own cause and law which Heraclitus calls the logos (or universal reason). Maintaining that all reality is pure change or becoming, that nothing is and everything changes, that whatever is, insofar as it is, is not, since it is subject to change, he denied the principle of non-contradiction which states that it is impossible to be and not to be at the same time and in the same respect. Heraclitus philosophy of pure flux holds that we go down, and we do not go down into the same river ; we are, and we are not ; sea water is at once the purest and the most tainted ; good and evil are one and the same thing.7[7] He also held that the soul was fire; the drier the soul the more wisdom it will have, and the more humidity it has the lesser its reasoning powers become. The main importance of these first philosophers, our Ionians, lies in the fact they raised the question as to the ultimate nature of all things, rather than in any particular answer given to the question they raised.

Pythagoras
Pythagoras8[8] (c. 571c. 497 B.C.) was a thinker of many talents, occupying himself in such fields as astronomy and music, and, in particular, in arithmetic and geometry. He was also the initiator of a famous school named after him. Pythagoras held that the essential nature of the universe consisted in numbers. Aristotle, writing of the Pythagorean school, explains that the Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced in this study, but also having been brought up in it, they thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since these principle numbers are by nature the first, and in numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into being more than in
6[6]

G. S. KIRK, Heraclitus, The Cosmic Fragments, University Press, Cambridge, 1954 ; P. WHEELWRIGHT, Heraclitus, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1959 ; R. WALZER, Eraclito, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1964 ; R. LAURENTI, Eraclito, Laterza, Bari, 1971. 7[7] F. J. THONNARD : A Short History of Philosophy, vol. 1, Descle, Tournai, 1956, p. 16. 8[8] J. E. RAVEN, Pythagoreans and Eleatics, London, 1948 ; C. J. DE VOGEL, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism, Assen, 1966 ; M. TIMPANARO CARDINI, Pitagorici. Testimonianze e frammenti , 3 vols., La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1969.

fire and earth and water, since, again, they saw that the modifications and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in numbers ; since, then all other things seemed in their whole nature to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. 9[9] For Copleston, it seems clear that the Pythagoreans regarded numbers spatially. One is the point, two is the line, three is the surface, four is the solid. To say then that all things are number, would mean that all bodies consist of points or units in space, which when taken together constitute a number.10[10]11[11] Pythagoras had a very spiritualistic conception of man and proposed a strict moral and ascetical code for his followers. He also taught the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of transmigration of souls (metempsychosis).

Parmenides The philosophical genius of Parmenides12[12] (c. 520c. 440 B.C.) discovered that betweeen being and non-being there existed a radical distinction: being is and non-being is not ; being is thinkable and non-being cannot be thought of. He was the first formulator of the principle of non-contradiction, holding that being is and non-being is not. Though Parmenides affirmed that being was the object of the intellect, he went to excess, holding that being was the only reality, thus denying all change in the world. Change, motion, and becoming are illusory for him. There exists only being, the one, perfect, complete, immutable and eternal. Thus, he ended up a monist. He laudably wanted to re-establish the truth of being in opposition to the philosophy of pure becoming of Heraclitus. But he understood his principle Being is, non-being is not in a rigid, inflexible manner and rejected every non-being, including relative non-being. Thus, he concluded that all limitation, multiplicity and change were impossible and therefore all reality was but a single, homogeneous, immobile being. Parmenides, reaching the opposite pole to Heraclitus, fixed, as he did, once for all one of the extreme limits of speculation and error, and proved that every philosophy of pure being, for the very reason that it denies that kind of non-being which Aristotle termed potentiality and which necessarily belongs to everything created, is obliged to absorb all being in absolute being, and leads therefore to
9[9]

ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, I, 5, 985 b 23 ff. STCKL, Hist. Phil. vol. 1, translated by Finlay, 1887, p. 48. 11[11] F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, book 1, vol. 1, Image Books, New York, 1985, p. 34. 12[12] G. CALOGERO, Studi sulleleatismo, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1932 ; J. D. GARCIA BACCA, El poema de Parmnides, Imprenta universitaria, Mexico, 1942 ; J. ZAFIROPULO, Lcole elate, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1950 ; F. MONTERO MOLINER, Parmnides, Gredos, Madrid, 1960 ; L. RUGGIU, Parmenide, Marsilio, Venice, 1974 ; A. CAPIZZI, Introduzione a Parmenide, Laterza, Bari, 1975 ; G. CASERTANO, Parmenide: il metodo, la scienza, lesperienza, Guida, Naples, 1979.
10[10]

monism or pantheism no less inevitably than the philosophy of pure becoming.13[13] Parmenides notion of being was not analogical but univocal. He failed to draw a distinction between the infinite and the finite. A correct solution to the problem of Parmenides lies in the doctrine of act and potency later developed by Aristotle, and in the teaching that being is not univocal but analogical. Thus all the difficulties raised by Parmenides could easily be solved by dividing Being into two kinds, two realities, two essentially different realizations (rationes simpliciter diversae secundum quid eaedem) of the same analogical idea of Being: 1. Being realized in a supreme and infinite degree, i.e. the essentially existent, the purely actual ipsum esse subsistens to which are applicable all Parmenides metaphysical inferences, provided all material elements be excluded ; and 2. Being realized in varyingly limited degrees, in things affected more or less with potentiality, the objects of sense experience. In regard to beings of this kind, the Eleatic arguments have no validity.14[14] The Atomist School Though Leucippus (who flourished sometime during the fifth century B.C.) is the founder of atomism,15[15] Democritus16[16] (460360 B.C.) is undoubtedly its most famous exponent. Atomism is a philosophy which holds that being is constituted by atoms, indivisible and immutable particles, different from each other only in form and dimension. Atoms are constantly in movement, and the diversity of things is caused by the movement of atoms in a vacuum, an existent reality. When atoms unite they bring about generation, and when they separate from one another corruption is brought about. Every corporeal being that exists is composed of atoms that are separated from one another by a vacuum. The cause of movement of the atoms lies in their very instability ; they are by nature in constant motion. Knowledge, according to Democritus, takes place by means of the action of atoms upon the sensitive organs. Atoms constantly flow out of things, and when they reach the senses they affect similar atoms present in the senses.

13[13] 14[14]

J. MARITAIN, An Introduction to Philosophy, Sheed and Ward, 1979, p. 46. F. J. THONNARD, op. cit., p. 22. 15[15] V. E. ALFIERI, Gli atomisti, frammenti e testimonianze , Laterza, Bari, 1936 ; V. E. ALFIERI, Atomos-Idea: Lorigine del concetto di atomo nel pensiero greco, Congedo, Galatina, 1953. 16[16] M. L. SILVESTRE, Democrito ed Epicuro. Il senso di una polemica, Loffredo, Naples, 1985.

The Pluralistic Physical School The main philosophers of this school are Empedocles and Anaxagoras. The school is described as pluralistic because they chose a plurality of elements for their first principle. Empedocles 17[17] (c. 483c. 423 B.C.) held that the ultimate cause of all things resided in the four original and immutable elements of earth, fire, air, and water. These elements are the ungenerated, incorruptible, and immutable substances that constitute the origin of all things. From these things all other beings have proceeded those that existed in the past, those that exist at present, and those that will exist in the future trees, men and women, animals, birds, the fish that live in the water, and also the gods who live long lives and who enjoy special prerogatives. For only these elements exist ; and by combining themselves in different ways, they take on a variety of forms, each particular combination giving rise to a particular kind of change.18[18] The four elements never change; it is through their different combinations that other things are brought into existence. He also sustained that the change and becoming that we experience in the world are a result of the conflict between the two primordial forces of love and hate. Hate and love make the four elements unite with or separate themselves from one another. Love brings things together and brings about generation, while hate is divisive and brings about corruption. Love and hate are in constant opposition with each other, and the predominance of one over the other is in perpetual alternation, giving rise to the cosmic cycles of generation and corruption. Empedocles theory of knowledge is materialist ; knowledge is the result of the contact between the elements of things and the elements of the senses. Anaxagoras19[19] (c. 500c. 428 B.C.) sustained that the first principle of all things consists in a great indeterminate mixture composed of an infinite number of qualitatively diverse substances, infinitely small in size. Aristotle called Anaxagoras first principle the homeomeries. They are the seeds all things. The homeomeries in a way embody all things in itself. All beings are made up of a mixture of homeomeries, and different mixtures give rise to different things, depending on the element which has the biggest proportion in the mixture. Movement in the world
17[17]

J. ZAFIROPULO, Empdocle dAgrigente, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1953 ; E. BIGNONE, Empedocle. Studio critico, traduzione e commento delle testimonianze e frammenti, LErma di Bretschneider, Rome, 1963. 18[18] DK 31 B 21, vols., 9-14. 19[19] J. ZAFIROPULO, Anaxagore de Clazomne, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1948 ; D. LANZA, Anassagora. Testimonianze e frammenti, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1966 ; F. ROMANO, Anassagora, Cedam, Padua, 1974.

is caused by the Supreme Intelligence or Mind ( Nous). The Nous, it should be noted, did not create the world but rather sets the world in motion whereby things begin to differentiate themselves from one another and take on particular characteristics. The motion initiated by the Nous is what determines the diverse proportions of homeomeries in things. Anaxagoras describes his Nous: While all other things are composed of a mixture of all things, the Intelligence is infinite and independent, not mixed with other things, but is by itself alone. Otherwise, if it were mixed with something else and were not alone by itself, it would participate in all other things, for everything is in everything as I said earlier. The things mixed with it would prevent it from governing any of them in the manner rendered possible only by its independence from all other things. The intelligence is the most subtle and pure of beings. It knows everything completely and has maximum power.The Intelligence ordains everything that is brought into being those things that existed in the past and exist no longer, those that exist at present and those that will exist in the future. It also causes the rotation of the stars, the sun and the moon, the air and the ether that are separating from one another. It is this rotation that causes their separation.20[20] The Sophists The adherents of Sophism came from various parts of the Greek world but their center was in Athens. The Sophists21[21] were characterized by their mistrust of metaphysics, which they considered illusory, and their concentration on dialectics, rhetoric, and eloquence at the expense of truth. Maritain describes them: They did not seek truth. Since the sole aim of their intellectual activity was to convince themselves and others of their own superiority, they inevitably came to consider as the most desirable form of knowledge the art of refuting and disproving by skillful arguments, for with men and children alike destruction is the easiest method of displaying their strength, and the art of arguing with equal probability the pros and cons of every question, another proof of acumen and skill. That is to say, in their hands knowledge altogether lost sight of its true purpose, and what with their predecessors was simply a lack of
20[20] 21[21]

H. DIELS, W. KRANS, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1, Weidmann, Berlin, 1951-1952, DK 59 B 12. M. TIMPANARO CARDINI, I sofisti, Laterza, Bari, 1954 ; A. LEVI, Storia della sofistica, Morano, Naples, 1966 ; M. UNTERSTEINER, Sofisti. Testimonianze e frammenti, 4 vols. (volume 4 written in colloboration with A. Battegazzore), La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1967 ; M. UNTERSTEINER, I sofisti, 2 vols., Lampugnani Nigri, Milan, 1967 ; G. CASERTANO, Natura e istituzioni umane nelle dottrine dei Sofisti , Il Tripode, Naples, 1971 ; S. ZEPPI, Studi sul pensiero etico-politico dei Sofisti, Cesviet, Rome, 1974.

intellectual discipline became with them the deliberate intention to employ concepts without the least regard for that delicate precision which they demand, but for the pure pleasure of playing them off one against the other an intellectual game of conceptual counters devoid of solid significance. Hence their sophisms or quibbles. Their ethics were of a piece. Every law imposed upon man they declared to be an arbitrary convention, and the virtue they taught was in the last resort either the art of success, or what our modern Nietzscheans call the will to power. Thus, of the spirit which had inspired the lofty intellectual ambitions of the preceding age, the Sophists retained only the pride of knowledge ; the love of truth they had lost. More ardently than their predecessors they desired to achieve greatness through knowledge, but they no longer sought reality. If we may use the expression, they believed in knowledge without believing in truth. A similar phenomenon has recurred since in the history of thought and on a far greater scale. Under these conditions the sole conclusion which Sophism could reach was what is termed relativism or scepticism.22[22] Sophisms main exponents were Protagoras and Gorgias. Protagoras23[23] (c. 481c. 411 B.C.) elaborated an essentially relativistic and anthropocentric doctrine of knowledge and life. It was he who coined the phrase man is the measure of all things, 24[24] by which he meant that all was relative to the dispositions of the human subject, the truth being that which appears true to him. Gorgias (c. 484c. 375 B.C.) instead rejected the anthropocentric relativism of Protagoras for an even more radically skeptical (and one should add nihilist) view of reality, negating the existence of being as well as the correspondence between being and thought. His three theses are: First: nothing exists. Second: if anything existed, it cannot be known by man, Third: if it can be known, it cannot be transmitted and explained to others.25[25] Not having any faith in philosophy Gorgias concentrated his efforts on rhetoric; though words have no truth content they can be utilized in order to control and manipulate the minds of others.
22[22] 23[23]

J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 49. I. LANA, Protagora, Pubblicazioni Fac. Lettere, Turin, 1950 ; A. CAPIZZI, Protagora. Testimonianze e frammenti, Sansoni, Florence, 1955 ; S. ZEPPI, Protagora e la filosofia del suo tempo, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1961. 24[24] DK 80 B 1. 25[25] DK 82 B 3.

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Socrates The great Athenian philosopher Socrates26[26] (469399 B.C.) dedicated his fruitful life to the search and communication of truth. We do not have any of his writings so in order to know his philosophical thought we have to have recourse to those who have written of him, namely, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, and the Minor Socratics. The method that Socrates used (called the socratic method) in the quest for truth consisted first of all in the use of irony in which he would appear to know nothing of the subject matter and his student everything. Through his superior knowledge and wit he would make his student realize his utter ignorance regarding the subject matter which he boasted about knowing in the first place. The second part of the socratic method consisted in the maeiutic or intellectual midwifery, wherein Socrates helps his student awaken the dormant knowledge of things possessed in him so that the latter in the end is able to define the nature of the subject matter at hand by his very own power. Socrates was a zealous opponent of sophistry, teaching his disciples to know themselves, objective truth, and the inestimable worth of their souls. Though he occupied himself mainly with human problems, something he shares with the Sophists, Socrates differs from them in his findings, such as the affirmation of the existence of the immortal soul, the ability of the human mind to attain the universal concept, and in the effective use of the inductive method. Again, against the Sophists, he insisted on the essential distinction between good and evil, of vice and virtue. Happiness, for him, consists in the virtuous life. Socrates is rightly said to be the founder of ethics. Unfortunately he committed the intellectualist error of confusing the knowledge of virtue with being
26[26]

E. MAIER, Sokrates, sein Werk und seine geschichtliche Stellung , Tbingen, 1913 ; R. W. LIVINGSTONE, Portrait of Socrates, Oxford University Press, London, 1928 ; A. M. FESTUGIRE, Socrate, Paris, 1932 ; A. K. ROGERS, The Socratic Problem, H. Milford, London, 1933 ; A. E. TAYLOR, Socrates, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1933 ; R. GUARDINI, The Death of Socrates, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1949 ; V. DE MAGALHESVILHENA, La problme de Socrate, PUF, Paris, 1952 ; C. MASON, Socrates, the Man Who Dared to Ask , Beacon Press, Boston, 1953 ; A. H. CHROUST, Socrates, Man and Myth, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1957 ; A. E. TAYLOR, El pensamiento de Scrates, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Mexico, 1961 ; A. TOVAR, Vida de Scrates, Rev. de Occidente, Madrid, 1966 ; H. KUHN, Socrate. Indagini sullorigine della metafisica , Fabbri, Milan, 1967 ; W. K. C. GUTHRIE, History of Greek Philosophy, volume 3, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1969 ; M. A. RASCHINI, Interpretazioni socratiche, Marzorati, Milan, 1970 ; G. GIANNANTONI, Che cosa ha veramente detto Socrate, Astrolabio, Rome, 1971 ; F. SARRI, Socrate e la genesi storica dellidea occidentale di anima, 2 vols., Abete, Rome, 1975 ; F. ADORNO, Introduzione a Socrate, Laterza, Bari, 1978 ; W. K. C. GUTHRIE, Socrate, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1986 ; A. BANFI, Socrate, Mondadori, Milan, 1987.

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virtuous. He mistakenly held that the knowledge of a virtue was sufficient to put it into practice. But experience shows us that one can know, for example, what the virtue of justice is yet fail to be a just person; one becomes just not merely by possessing a knowledge of justice but by habitually doing just acts. Socrates was an outspoken person who took on the corrupt leaders of his time, holding them to account. And in the process, he inevitably produced enemies who wanted him out of the way. A trial took place wherein he was accused of impiety, of corrupting the youth of Athens. But Socrates countered that it was his very judges who were corrupting the youth and all of Athens by their vice and corruption. He in fact told his accusers that far from being a threat to Athens, Athens in reality needed him. Faced with the possibility of death he nevertheless was not cowed by fear. He was once a soldier and his accusers and all in the trial knew of his unimpeachable bravery in battle. Not in the least intimidated by his accusers he told them that he had to obey God rather than men: for know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soulThis is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.27[27] He then warned his listeners that a person who does injustice suffers a far greater injury than the one suffering it. He then said: And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of a gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy with his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I advise you to spare me.28[28] They did not spare him, condemning him to death by drinking hemlock, a deadly poison. Before being led away Socrates warned the jury of the justice that awaits them: If you think that by killing men you
27[27] 28[28]

Excerpts from the speech of Socrates at his trial as recorded by Plato in the Apology. Ibid.

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can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves.29[29] The hour of departure has arrived, said Socrates in conclusion, and we go our ways I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.30[30] And he died with the utmost serenity. In the conclusion of Platos Phaedo we read this testimony: Such was the end of our friend, concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.31[31] Plato Plato32[32] (427347 B.C.) was one of the greatest philosophers of all time. The time he spent with his master Socrates deeply influenced his philosophy. After the death of Socrates, Plato travelled to various cities, sojourning above all in Syracuse. He returned to Athens in 387
29[29] 30[30]

Ibid. Ibid. 31[31] PLATO, Phaedo, 118 b. 32[32] E. ZELLER, Plato and the Older Academy, Longmans, London, 1876 ; B. JOWETT, The Dialogues of Plato, 5 vols., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1892 ; W. PATER, Plato and Platonism, London, 1893 ; R. L. NETTLESHIP, Lectures on the Republic of Plato, Macmillan, London, 1898 ; J. BURNET, Platonis Opera, 5 vols., Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1900-1907 ; P. SHOREY, The Unity of Platos Thought, Chicago, 1903 ; J. A. STEWART, The Myths of Plato, Oxford University Press, London, 1905 ; L. ROBIN, La thorie platonicienne des Idees et des Nobres daprs Aristote , Alcan, Paris, 1908 ; J. A. STEWART, Platos Doctrine of Ideas, Oxford University Press, London, 1909 ; R. ROBIN, La physique de Platon, Paris, 1919 ; WILLIAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORF, U. VON, Platon, 2 vols., Berlin, 1919 ; A. E. TAYLOR, A Commentary on Platos Timaeus, Oxford University Press, London, 1928 ; A. E. TAYLOR, Plato, the Man and His Work, The Dial Press, New York, 1929 ; C. C. FIELD, Plato and His Contemporaries, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930 ; A. DIS, Platon, Flammarion, Paris, 1930 ; P. E. MORE, Platonism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1931 ; C. RITTER, The Essence of Platos Philosophy, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1933 ; F. CORNFORD, Platos Theory of Knowledge, Kegan Paul, London, 1935 ; W. F. R. HARDIE, A Study in Plato, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1936 ; F. CORNFORD, Platos Cosmology, Kegan Paul, London, 1937 ; F. CORNFORD, Plato and Parmenides, Kegan Paul, London, 1939 ; R. DEMOS, The Philosophy of Plato, Scribners, New York, 1939 ; F. CORNFORD, The Republic of Plato, Oxford University Press, London, 1941 ; H. F. CHERNISS, Aristotles Criticism of Plato and the Academy , Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1944 ; J. WILD, Platos Theory of Man, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1948 ; L. STEFANINI, Platone, 2 vols., CEDAM, Padua, 1949 ; C. C. FIELD, The Philosophy of Plato, Oxford, 1949 ; W. D. ROSS, Platos Theory of Ideas, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1951 ; R. HACKFORTH, Platos Phaedo, University Press, Cambridge, 1952 ; W. F. LYNCH, An Approach to the Metaphysics of Plato, University Publishing Co., Georgetown, 1959 ; L. ROBIN, La thorie platonicienne de lamour, PUF, Paris, 1964 ; J. PIEPER, ber die platonischen Mythen, Munich, 1965 ; L. ROBIN, Platon, PUF, Paris, 1968 ; V. GOLDSCHMIDT, La religion de Platon, PUF, Paris, 1971 ; A DIS, Autour de Platon, 2 vols., Beauchesne, Paris, 1972 ; FESTUGIRE, Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon, Vrin, Paris, 1975 ; H. KRAMER, Platone e i fondamenti della metafisica , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1982 ; G. REALE, Per una rilettura e una nuova interpretazione di Platone , CUSL, Milan, 1984 ; M. F. SCIACCA, Platone, LEpos, Palermo, 1991 ; T. A. SZLEZAK, Come leggere Platone, Rusconi, Milan, 1991 ; M. ERLER, Il senso delle aporie nei dialoghi di Platone, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; K. ALBERT, Sul concetto di filosofia in Platone , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; L. CECCARINI, Il mito in Platone, Marietti, Genoa, 1991 ; G. DROZ, I miti platonici, Dedalo, Bari, 1994.

13

where he founded the Academy, which could be called Europes first university. The academy continued until 529 A.D. when it was suppressed by the Emperor Justinian. Plato went to Syracuse another two times but was unsuccessful in his attempt to educate the citys tyrant. He returned to Athens, this time for good, dying there at the age of around 80 years. Plato wrote many works, some of which have been lost to posterity. Many of his philosophical works were written in dialogue form. His philosophy is centered round and dominated by his Doctrine or Theory of Ideas which may be summed up in the following principle: The specific object of human knowledge is the real world of Ideas, of which the world of the senses is but the shadow or the copy. Real being, according to our philosopher, is not to be found in the particular sensible objects that make up what we call Nature, but rather in the universal essences which are the objects, not of sense, but of the conceptions of the intellect. Particular beautiful persons or things, for example, are not real beauty ; only the universal essence or Idea Beauty is. Particular sensible things only imitate reality insofar as they imitate the Ideas ; particular horses are only imitations of the one, eternal, universal Horse, or the Idea Horse. The very essence of Platos Doctrine of Ideas is that the universals are the true realities and the particulars, the individual things that we experience in Nature, are only half-real imitations of these true realities. Platos Ideas are not something in our mind but are primarily objective realities in themselves. They are objective universal essences existing apart from the phenomena of the sense world and apart from our conceptual representations. How did he arrive at such a false conclusion, that universal Ideas really exist apart from the human mind? According to Jacques Maritain, failing to analyze with sufficient accuracy the nature of our ideas and the process of abstraction, and applying too hastily his guiding principle, that whatever exists in things by participation must somewhere exist in the pure state, Plato arrived at the conclusion that there exists in a supra-sensible world a host of models or archetypes, immaterial, immutable, eternal, man in general or man in himself, triangle in itself, virtue in itself, etc. These he termed ideas, which are the object apprehended by the intellect, the faculty which attains truth that is to say, they are reality. 33[33] Platos system can be classified as an exaggerated realism which retains that universals are real things existing by themselves. Universal concepts would exist independently of the individuals they are predicated of. To correct this error of Plato we have the position of moderate realism as espoused by
33[33]

J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 57.

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the likes of Aristotle and St. Thomas. In moderate realism what is known exists as universal in the intellect, but as individual outside the mind. Our words and universal concepts no doubt signify certain natures, but these natures do not exist in themselves but are individualized in things. Only individual beings exist in reality, for the things that exist cannot be predicated of another. Universality is a property only of our abstract concepts ; it is by virtue of their universality that they are predicable of many. Something is a universal not only because it can be predicated of many, but also because what is signified by its name can be found in many.34[34] For example, justice is a virtue proper to human nature ; hence, the foundation of its demands is found in every individual subject who possesses that nature. The common nature that is possessed by many individual beings is common not numerically but formally. If I write A twice A and A , I reproduce the same form in two numerically distinct letters ; in the same way, human nature is actualized in John, Frederick, and Timothy, in such a way that numerically, each one has his own individual nature. For a nature to be multiplied in several individuals, the form must be capable of being received in several material subjects. The answer to the problem of the universals is, therefore, linked to the hylemorphic composition (the union of matter and form) of material beings (John and Peter are both men because they share the same nature ; but they are distinct individual men because the formal principle of that nature has been received in different matters). As regards accidental properties, the answer of moderate realism involves the distinction between substance and accident (the property yellow can be multiplied if there are many substances capable of receiving it).35[35] A thing exists in the mind as a universal, in reality as an individual. That which we apprehend by our ideas as a universal does indeed really exist, but only in the object themselves and therefore individuated not as a universal. For example, the human nature found in Paul, Billy, Edward, and Bobby really exists, but it has no existence outside the mind, except in these individual subjects and as identical with them ; it has no separate existence, does not exist in itself. To summarize Platos error, he believed that that which our ideas present to us as a universal really exists extra-mentally as a universal. To correct this, moderate realism holds that that which our ideas present to us as a
34[34] 35[35]

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, In I Perih., lecture 10. J. J. SANGUINETI, Logic, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1992, pp. 41-42.

15

universal does not exist outside the mind as a universal but rather individuated. For Plato, man is essentially soul, a pure spirit forcibly united with a body. The soul existed before it was joined to the body, and its present existence in the body, which is its prison, is a punishment. What about the Platonic doctrine of knowledge? For Plato, the Ideas alone have reality in the strict sense ; they exist as real entities (noumena) apart from the world of sense (phenomena). The objects of the sense world are but faint, changing replicas or imitations of the eternal, unchanging Ideas ; the Ideas are the eternal prototypes or exemplars of the objects of the sense world. The universal ideas of the human mind are true representations of these noumenal Ideas and cannot have their origin in the changeable and changing objects of this visible universe. It follows, according to Plato, that mens souls must have had a pre-existence in a former life in the noumenal world, where they contemplated the Ideas as these Ideas existed in themselves. On being united to the body in its present earthly existence, the soul forgot the knowledge of the Ideas, but the universal ideas thus acquired slumber in the soul until awakened ; they lie innate in the recesses of the mind. For every object existing in the universe (tree, dog, sky, house, rose, etc.) there exists a corresponding Idea in the noumenal world. On seeing such an object in the present life (some individual tree, dog, etc.), we remember what we have known before and have forgotten: the innate slumbering universal idea is awakened and brought to consciousness. Hence, Platos theory of innate ideas is also called the theory of reminiscence.36[36] While he believed in the immortality of the soul, he also held the Pythagorean tenet of transmigration of souls, or metempsychosis. That man is essentially a pure spirit (that pre-existed the body) forcibly trapped in the body, and that knowledge is reminiscence, are erroneous doctrines not faithful to experience and consciousness. For one thing, Plato supposes that the connection between body and soul in mans earthly life is forced and unnatural ; the relationship between the two is extrinsic, similar to the relationship between a horse (body) and its rider (soul). In this view, death should be a welcome event, a release for the soul from the imprisonment in the body. We know, however, that man dreads death. Man is by nature, as all evidence proves, a psycho-physiological integral organism. The dread of death shows clearly that the union of the body and soul is natural. If their union were merely extrinsic, it is inexplicable
36[36]

C. BITTLE, The Whole Man, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1945, pp. 303-304.

16

how the union of the body with the soul could blot out the knowledge of the Ideas formerly contemplated, because the body could not possibly influence the inner activities of the soul. Aristotle opposed Platos theory on the grounds that it is poetic and fantastic and contrary to the testimony of consciousness. If we actually had a former existence, the awakening of the innate universal ideas should also revive the memory of this previous existence itself. But we have no such memory. The theory is pure assumption on the part of Plato.37[37] What about Platos practical philosophy, his conception of ethics? All of his philosophy has an ethical orientation: man is on this earth as a wayfarer in expectation of the next life. In order to attain happiness it is necessary to renounce pleasures and riches and to dedicate oneself to the practice of virtue and contemplation. He taught that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. Nevertheless, his moral philosophy has serious flaws, as Maritain points out: As a result of his exaggerated intellectualism he failed to distinguish the acts of the practical from those of the speculative intellect and identified virtue, which requires rectitude of will, with knowledge, which is a perfection of the reason alone. He therefore misapplied the principle, in itself true, that the will always follows the guidance of the understanding, and maintained that sin is simply due to lack of knowledge and that no one deliberately does evil : the sinner is merely an ignorant person. The consequence of this theory, which Plato did not intend, is the denial of free will.38[38] And what of Platos sociology and political philosophy? Maritain is again critical: Platos sociology betrays the same idealist and rationalist tendency which leads him to misapply another true principle, namely, that the part exists for the whole ; so that in his ideal republic, governed by philosophers, individuals are entirely subordinated to the good of the state, which alone is capable of rights, and disposes despotically of every possible species of property, not only the material possessions, but even the women and children, the life and liberty, of its citizens (absolute communism). It appears that the radical source of Platos many errors seems to have been his exaggerated devotion to mathematics, which led him to
37[37] 38[38]

C. BITTLE, op. cit., p. 304. J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 60.

17

despise empirical reality. They were also due to an overambitious view of the scope of philosophy, in which Plato, like the sages of the East, though with greater moderation and discretion, placed the purification, salvation, and life of the entire man.39[39] Aristotle Aristotle40[40] (384322 B.C.), also called the Stagirite, was born in the town Stagira in Trace on the northern coast of the Aegean Sea. In 367, his seventeenth year, he entered the Academy and became a disciple of Plato, but his philosophy is very different from his masters. After the death of Plato, he left the Academy and in 335 set up his own school in Athens called the Lyceum. He was also for a time teacher to the famous conqueror Alexander the Great. Aristotles philosophical and scientific work, unparalleled for its extent and variety, was practically a vast encyclopedia of all the knowledge at that time as well as the most profound system of philosophical thought in all the ancient world. The noted Aristotle scholar W. D. Ross had this to say of the Stagirite: Aristotle fixed the main outlines of the classification of the sciences in
39[39] 40[40]

J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 60. G. GROTE, Aristotle, London, 1883 ; E. ZELLER, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics , 2 vols., Longmans, London, 1897 ; C. PIAT, Aristote, Paris, 1912 ; F. RAVAISSON, Essai sur la mtaphysique dAristote, 2 vols., Paris, 1913 ; W. D. ROSS, Aristotles Metaphysics, 2 vols., Oxford University Press, London, 1924 ; W. D. ROSS, Aristotle, London, 1928 ; J. A. SMITH-W. D. ROSS, The Works of Aristotle, 12 vols., Oxford, 1928-52 ; G. R. G. MURE, Aristotle, Benn, 1932 ; W. JAEGER, Aristotle. Fundamentals of the History of His Development , Oxford University Press, London, 1934 ; W. D. ROSS, Aristotles Physics, Oxford University Press, London, 1936 ; A. E. TAYLOR, Aristotle, Nelson, London, 1943 ; L. ROBIN, Aristote, Paris, 1944 ; F. NUYENS, Lvolution de la psychologie dAristote, Institut superieur de Philosophie, Louvain, 1948 ; G. SOLERI, Limmortalit dellanima in Aristotele, SEI, Turin, 1952 ; C. VIANO, La logica di Aristotele, Taylor, Turin, 1955 ; L. CENCILLO, Hyle, Origen, concepto y funciones de la materia en el Corpus aristotelicum , CSIC, Madrid, 1958 ; F. CUBELLS, El concepto de acto energtico en Aristteles , Imp. Jos Macher, Valencia, 1960 ; I. LUGARINI, Aristotele e lidea di filosofia, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1961 ; E. RIONDATO, Storia e metafisica nel pensiero di Aristotele , Antenore, Padua, 1961 ; J. OWENS, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics , Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 1963 ; E. BERTI, Lunit del sapere in Aristotele , CEDAM, Padua, 1965 ; M. MIGNUCCI, La teoria aristotelica delle scienze , Florence, 1965 ; J. VANIER, Le bonheur, principe et fin de la morale aristotlicienne, Descle de Brouwer, Paris-Bruges, 1965 ; P. AUBENQUE, Le problme de ltre chez Aristote, PUF, Paris, 1966 ; I. DRING, Aristoteles. Darstellung und Interpretation seines Denkens , Heidelberg, 1966 ; G. REALE, Il concetto di filosofia prima e lunit della Metafisica di Aristotele, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1967 ; C. CARBONARA, La filosofia greca. Aristotele , LSE, Naples, 1967 ; G. CALOGERO, I fondamenti della logica aristotelica, Le Mounier, Florence, 1968 ; W. F. R. HARDIE, Aristotles Ethical Theory, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968 ; R. A. GAUTHIER, La morale dAristote, PUF, Paris, 1973 ; C. NATALI, Cosmo e divinit. La struttura logica della teologia aristotelica , Japadre, LAquila, 1974 ; G. REALE, Introduzione a Aristotele, Laterza, Bari, 1974 ; F. BRENTANO, On Several Senses of Being in Aristotle , University of California Press, Berkeley, 1975 ; E. BERTI, Aristotele: Dalla dialettica alla filosofia prima , CEDAM, Padua, 1977 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Articles on Aristotle, 3 vols., Duckworth, London, 1977 ; E. BERTI, Profilo di Aristotele, Studium, Rome, 1979 ; C. NATALI, La sagezza di Aristotele , Ed. Bibliopolis, Naples, 1990 ; C. VIGNA, Invito al pensiero di Aristotele , Mursia, Milan, 1992.

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the form which they still retain, and carried most of the sciences to a further point than they had hitherto reached ; in some of them, such as logic, he may fairly claim to have had no predecessor, and for centuries no worthy successor.41[41] As was said Plato and Aristotles philosophies are very different. The famous Goethe, commenting upon the famous theme of Raphaels magnificent fresco The School of Athens, gives us a comparison between the two master philosophers: Plato seems to behave as a spirit descended from heaven, who was chosen to dwell a space on earth. He hardly attempts to know the world. He has already formed an idea of it, and his chief desire is to communicate to mankind, which stands in such need of them, the truths which he has brought with him and delights to impart. If he penetrates to the depth of things, it is to fill them with his own soul, not to analyze them. Without intermission and with the burning ardour of his spirit, he aspires to rise and regain the heavenly abode from which he came down. The aim of all his discourse is to awaken in his hearers the notion of a single eternal being, of the good, of truth, of beauty. His method and words seem to melt, to dissolve into vapour, whatever scientific facts he has managed to borrow from the earth. Aristotles attitude towards the world is, on the other hand, entirely human. He behaves like an architect in charge of a building. Since he is on earth, on earth he must work and build. He makes certain of the nature of the ground, but only to the depth of his foundations. Whatever lies beyond to the center of the earth does not concern him. He gives his edifice an ample foundation, seeks his materials in every direction, sorts them, and builds gradually. He therefore rises like a regular pyramid, whereas Plato ascends rapidly heavenward like an obelisk or a sharp tongue of flame. Thus have these two men, representing qualities equally precious and rarely found together, divided mankind, so to speak, between them.42[42] Aristotle wrote many works, many of which have been lost to us, but still a substantial body of writings remain. He wrote on many philosophical and scientific topics. Instead of the dialogue method which his master Plato constantly used, he preferred the philosophical treatise as the definitive model for his works. Let us treat briefly of his logic, his
41[41]

W. D. ROSS, Aristotle, Methuen, London, 1930, in BRO. BENIGNUS, Nature, Knowledge, and God, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1953, p. 44. 42[42] J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 68.

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metaphysics, his physics, his psychology, his ethics or moral philosophy, and his political philosophy. 1. Logic. Aristotle is in fact the inventor of logic. In the field of reasoning he proposed two methods: induction and deduction. He is also the inventor of the syllogism ; 2. Metaphysics. Aristotle believed that science was superior to spontaneous knowledge or to common experience because science was knowledge through causes. In his work, the Metaphysics, he treats of the first principles and ultimate causes of all reality. The first fundamental truth of all reality is the principle of non-contradiction. As to the essential constitution of things the Stagirite refutes the Platonic Theory of Ideas for, in his opinion, the theory does not explain the essences of things, nor the becoming, nor their rapport with the Ideas, nor in what way the human mind can have a knowledge of them. So, where does Aristotle turn to? To reality itself which is constituted of substances and accidents and the constitutive elements of matter and form. Matter and form exist only together ; as regards the substance, the form confers its specific characteristics while the matter confers its individual characteristics. Through an analysis of change in the world Aristotle discovers the theory of act and potency. It is potency that renders becoming or change possible ; 3. Physics. Physics is the study of nature, that is, of corporeal beings in movment or motion. The fundamental principle of all change or motion is that all that is in motion is moved by another. Becoming is matters passage from one form to another, something which happens in space and time ; 4. Psychology. Aristotle is held to be the founder of psychology. Man is a rational animal, a substantial unity of body (matter) and soul (form). The soul is defined as the first act of an organic physical body. Man is different from the plants and the animals because he possesses a rational soul. There are three functions of the human soul: vegetative, sensitive, and rational. Human knowledge is initially had though sensitive knowledge, and from this knowledge we can proceed to intellective knowledge. The Stagirite firmly rejected the pre-existence of the soul as well as innate ideas. The mind is a blank slate before its starts knowing initially from the senses ; 5. Ethics or moral philosophy. The ultimate end of man, according to Aristotle, is happiness. We attain happiness through the virtuous life ; and 6. Political philosophy. The State has a natural, not a conventional end. The goal of the State is to facilitate the full realization of mans capacities. He recognizes three just forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and polity, and three unjust forms of government, namely, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy (or mob rule).
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Stoicism Stoicisms main exponents include Zeno43[43] (336274 B.C.), Crisippus (281208 B.C.), Epictetus44[44] (50-138 A.D.), Seneca45[45] (4 B.C.?65 A.D.), and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius 46[46] (121180 A.D.). Stoicism47[47] is essentially a moral doctrine, but also includes quite developed gnoseological and cosmological doctrines. Its moral doctrine consists in the acquisition of happiness through the practice of the virtues, refusing any concession whatsoever to the senses and passions. Emotions and passions were considered to be unworthy of the wiseman. They considered them to be transgression of the right order, irrational, and even diseases of the soul. The ideal of the virtuous wiseman, though not insensitive to others, should be an emotionless and passionless detachment in all the trying situations of life. Though Stoicisms norm of morality based on the nature of man as a rational animal is quite sound the stoic system is nonetheless arbitrary, basing its norm on reason alone to the exclusion of every other part of mans composite nature. Consequently, the Stoics condemned all emotions and passions as irrational and evil. But this is erroneous since passions and emotions are not evil in themselves but are just a part of human nature as reason is. They should indeed be governed by reason according to the hierarchy of mans being but should not be excluded from this hierarchical order as such. As regards gnoseology or philosophy of knowledge, the Stoics did
43[43] 44[44]

A. JAGU, Zeno de Cittium, Paris, 1946. A. JAGU, Epictte et Platon, Paris, 1946 ; E. RIONDATO, Epitteto: esperienza e ragione, Antenore, Padua, 1965. 45[45] C. MARCHESI, Seneca, Principato, Milan, 1944 ; G. SCARPAT, Il pensiero religioso di Seneca e lambiente ebraico e cristiano, Paideia, Brescia, 1977 ; M. BELLINCIONI, Educazione alla sapienza in Seneca , Paideia, Brescia, 1978 ; P. GRIMAL, Seneca, Garzanti, Milan, 1992. 46[46] MARCUS AURELIUS, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, edited with translation and commentary by A. S. L. Farquharson, 2 vols., Oxford University Press, London, 1944 ; D. PESCE, Epicuro e Marco Aurelio, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1959. 47[47] E. ZELLER, The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1870 ; W. W. CAPES, Stoicism, SPCK, London, 1880 ; J. CHOLLET, La morale stocienne en face de la morale chrtienne , Paris, 1898 ; H. VON ARNIM, Stoicorum Veterum fragmenta, Teubner, Lipsiae, 1903-1924 ; R. D. HICKS, Stoic and Epicurean, Longmans, London, 1910 ; E. V. ARNOLD, Roman Stoicism, Cambridge, 1911 ; E. E. EVAN, Stoics and Sceptics, Oxford, 1913 ; M. FESTA, I frammenti degli Stoici antichi, 2 vols., Laterza, Bari, 1932-1935 ; P. ROTTA, Gli Stoici, La Scuola, Brescia, 1943 ; A. VIRLEUX-REYMOND, La logique et lepistemologie des stociens, Librarie de lUniversit, Lausanne, 1949 ; B. MATES, Stoic Logic, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1953 ; J. BRUN, Le Stocisme, PUF, Paris, 1958 ; S. SAMBURSKY, Physics of the Stoics, Routledge, London, 1959 ; E. BREHIER, Les Stociens Textes, dits sous la direction de P. M. Schuhl , Gallimard, Paris, 1962 ; M. MIGNUCCI, Il significato della logica stoica , Patron, Bologna, 1965 ; L. EDELSTEIN, The Meaning of Stoicism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1966 ; M. POHLENZ, La Sto, 2 vols., La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1967 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Problems in Stoicism, edited by A. A. Long, London, 1971 ; M. I. PARENTE, Introduzione allo stoicismo ellenistico, Laterza, Bari, 1994.

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not hold the Platonic and Aristotelian doctrine on truth. While Plato and Aristotle held that truth essentially consists in the correspondence of the mind with extra-mental reality, for Zeno and his disciples, truth consists in the total comprehension of the object by which the mind is obliged to assent. As for Stoic cosmology or philosophy of nature, the world is believed to be essentially constituted by two primordial elements: matter and the Logos. The former, being indefinite and inert, represents the passive principle, while the latter, being animate and full of energy, represents the active principle. Epicureanism This philosophy, founded by Epicurus48[48] (c. 341c. 270 B.C.), is radically different from Stoicism, refusing its ethical rigorism and anthropological and metaphysical spiritualism. Its doctrine on knowledge is sensistic: the sole true knowledge of man comes from his senses and the ultimate criterion of truth is sensation. It gives a materialistic conception of man and the world: the primordial element of the world are atoms and the void. The various deviations of the atoms give rise to all things. Even the gods are constituted by atoms. For the Epicurean, the supreme good consists in pleasure which should be calm and tranquill. Pleasure is the only unconditioned good ; all other things, including virtue, can have only relative value. Skepticism

48[48]

E. ZELLER, The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, Logmans, Green and Co., New York, 1870 ; E. JOYAU, Epicure, Paris, 1910 ; E. BIGNONE, Epicuro.Opere, frammenti e testimonianze sulla sua vita, tradotti con introduzione e commento, Laterza, Bari, 1920 ; C. BAILEY, Epicurus. The Extant Remains, with Short Critical Apparatus, Translation, and Notes, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926 ; C. BAILEY, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus: A Study, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1928 ; E. BIGNONE, LAristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro, 2 vols., La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1936 ; G. CAPONE BRAGA, Studi su Epicuro, Milan, 1951 ; A. J. FESTUGIERE, Epicuro e i suoi dei, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1952 ; N. W. DE WITT, Epicurus and His Philosophy, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1954 ; D. PESCE, Saggi su Epicuro, Laterza, Bari, 1974 ; C. DIANO, Scritti epicurei, Olschki, Florence, 1974 ; P. INNOCENTI, Epicuro, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1975 ; J. M. RIST, Epicurus. An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, London-New York, 1977 ; D. PESCE, Introduzione a Epicuro, Laterza, Bari, 1981 ; W. SCHMID, Epicuro e lepicureismo cristiano, Paideia, Brescia, 1984 ; S. MASO, Letica di Epicuro e il problema del piacere nella filosofia antica , Paravia, Turin, 1990 ; M. GIGANTE, Cinismo ed epicureismo, Ed. Bibliopolis, Naples, 1993.

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The fundamental thesis of Skepticism 49[49] is that man can never know the truth. Its principal exponents are Pyrrho, Carneades, and Sextus Empiricus. Pyrrho50[50] (360270 B.C.) held that man must suspend his judgment on all things and such a suspension is the foundation of peace of soul. Carneades (214129 B.C.) proposed a surpassing of radical skepticism, believing in the possibility of choosing by way of the grades of probabilities offered by experience. Sextus Empiricus 51[51] (180220 A.D.), philosopher as well as medical doctor, was the last major exponent of skepticism. He had developed quite a complete system of skepticism. He believed that there was no possibility whatsoever for absolutely certain knowledge: one cannot pronounce upon precise assertions regarding the nature of exterior things. Sextus Empiricus denied the validity of the Aristotelian syllogism and of causality, and of all dogmatic doctrines of preceding philosophers. However, if absolutely certain knowledge must be combatted as dogmatism, the research that our minds conduct in the knowledge of phenomena is useful for experience gives us always the possibility of bettering our knowing powers. Eclecticism Eclecticism,52[52] a term derived from the Greek eklghein which means to choose, is a philosophy that picks and chooses elements of truth in all the preceding philosophical schools and coordinates and harmonizes them. In Rome, the most famous eclectic was Cicero53[53] (10643 B.C.), who was also very much influenced by Stoicism and Platonism. Cicero chose the philosophical elements of preceding philosophers and schools which he thought most noble and in conformity with common sense which he considered to be criterion of certainty. Neo-Platonism

49[49]

N. MACCOLL, The Greek Sceptics from Pyrrho to Sextus, London, 1869 ; E. ZELLER, The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1870 ; E. E. BEVAN, Stoics and Sceptics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1913 ; V. BROCHARD, Les sceptiques grecs, Paris, 1932 ; M. DAL PRA, Lo scetticismo greco, Bocca, Milan, 1950 ; L. ROBIN, Les sceptiques grecs, PUF, Paris, 1950 ; A. RUSSO, Scettici antichi, UTET, Turin, 1978. 50[50] L. ROBIN, Pyrrho et le scepticisme grec, Paris, 1944. 51[51] H. MUTSCHMANN-J. MAU, Sexti Empirici Opera, 3 vols., Teubner, Lipsiae, 1912-1952. 52[52] E. ZELLER, A History of Ecclecticism in Greek Philosophy, London, 1883. 53[53] E. BERTI, Il De re publica di Cicerone e il pensiero politico classico , CEDAM, Padua, 1963 ; L. PERELLI, Il pensiero politico di Cicerone, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1990.

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Neo-Platonism54[54] is a philosophical movement that takes up and develops Greek Platonism. The foundations of the School of Alexandria was set up by Ammonius Sacca, but Neo-Platonisms principal philosopher is Plotinus55[55] (205-270). After his death his work came to dominate the Greek philosophical world and also had a great influence on later thinkers such as St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Plotinus had developed a more profound concept of the Absolute than Plato had done. This Absolute or One is an absolute principle and the foundation of all being. It is over and above all being, above all determination or form. At the origin of everything, lying beyond being itself as the foundation of being, is the One. This One is absolutely simple and is a principle without principle. It is also infinite, having the fullness of perfection and an absolute power or energy. It is wholely immaterial and is the fullness of actuality without any limitation whatsoever. Yet its Being is not limited ; what is there to set bounds to it? Nor, on the other hand, is it infinite in the sense of magnitude; what place can there be to which it must extend, or why should there be movement where there is no lacking? All its infinitude resides in its power: it does not change and will not fail; and in it all that is unfailing finds duration.56[56] The One does not have any determination and cannot be expressed by any words whatsoever. Plotinus believed that we have an immediate knowledge of this Absolute or One which is simple and transcendent and therefore ineffable (negative theology). He sometimes uses the term Good to designate the One. They are identical. The One is the Good above all that is good.57[57] All things have their origin from
54[54]

C. BIGG, Neoplatonism, SPCK, London, 1895 ; T. WHITTAKER, The Neoplatonists, Cambridge, 1918 ; P. MERLAN, From Platonism to Neo-Platonism, M. Nijhoff, Den Haag, 1953 ; W. BEIERWALTES, Pensare LUno: studi sulla filosofia neoplatonica e sulla storia dei suoi influssi , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; W. BEIERWALTES, Plotino: un cammino di liberazione verso linteriorit, lo spirito e lUno , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1993. 55[55] B. A. G. FULLER, The Problem of Evil in Plotinus, Cambridge, Mass., 1912 ; F. HEINEMANN, Plotin, Paris, 1921 ; R. ARNOU, Le dsir de Dieu dans la philosophie de Plotin , Paris, 1921 ; E. BRHIER, La philosophie de Plotin, Paris, 1928 ; W. R. INGE, The Philosophy of Plotinus, 2 vols., Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1928 ; E. KRAKOWSKI, Plotin et le paganisme religieux, Denel et Steele, Paris, 1933 ; P. HENRY, Plotin et lOccident, Louvain, 1934 ; G. H. TURNBULL, The Essence of Plotinus, London, 1935 ; P. HENRY, Etudes plotiniennes, Brussels, 1938 ; A. P. ARMSTRONG, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus , Cambridge, 1940 ; K. H. VOLKMANN-SCHLUCK, Plotin als Interpret der Ontologie Platos , 1941 ; G. FAGGIN, Plotino, Garzanti, Milan, 1945 ; C. CARBONARA, La filosofia di Plotino, LSE, Naples, 1954 ; V. VERRA, Dialettica e filosofia in Plotino , Facolt di Magistero, Trieste, 1963 ; J. M. RIST, Plotinus, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1967 ; V. CILENTO, Saggi su Plotino, Mursia, Milan, 1973 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Plotino e il neoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1974 ; M. I. PARENTE, Introduzione a Plotino, Laterza, Bari, 1984 ; A. MAGRIS, Invito al pensiero di Plotino, Mursia, Milan, 1986 ; P. PRINI, Plotino e la fondazione dellumanesimo interiore , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1992 ; V. MATHIEU, Perch leggere Plotino, Rusconi, Milan, 1992. 56[56] PLOTINUS, Enneads, V, 5, 10. 57[57] PLOTINUS, Enneads, VI, 9, 6.

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the One by emanation. From the One comes Life, Intelligence and the Soul of the world. Man is composed of soul (which pre-exists) and body. The goal of the soul is to return to the One through a free operation that does not contradict metaphysical necessity. The phases of such a return are threefold: ascetic or catharsis (through the exercise of the four cardinal virtues), contemplation (the knowledge of the One through philosophy), and ecstasy (immediate mystical union with the One).

CHAPTER 2 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY Jewish Philosophy In the Hebrew tradition there was a notable philosophical potential around God, man, and history. The Jewish people were the first in developing a rigorous monotheism. God, for the Jews, is the One and absolutely transcendent Person, Infinite and Almighty, Creator of the world. God preserves man in the world in being, and Who speaks through His prophets. Man was made in the image of God ; with the spiritual powers of intellect and will, the human person is master of his acts for which he is accountable. History, therefore, for the Jews, is the story of God and His relationship with His people, a people at times faithful and at other times rebellious. The Jewish people had a special rapport with Almighty God ; they had a sacred alliance with Him, Who protected and guided them through times of crisis, as when they were under bondage and servitude in Egypt. Philo of Alexandria

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Philo of Alexandria58[58] (c. 20 B.C.c. 50 A.D.) came from a wealthy and prominent Jewish family. Having become a rabbi he developed a passion for philosophy and sought to work out a synthesis between the Bible and the philosophy of Plato through the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Though he admitted a literal sense in the reading of Scripture he believed it to be inferior to the allegorical sense which he espoused. He also held that philosophy provided an ancillary role with respect to theology which he calls wisdom: In the same way as general culture is handmaid to philosophy, philosophy is handmaid to wisdom.59[59] For Philo, the universe has a pyramid structure: at the top is God, and at the bottom material beings. Man is situated between spiritual beings and that of material ones. God is so absolutely transcendent that He remains, for Philo, unknowable to man. Human words are unable to express what He is. He is ineffable, incomprehensible. However, by means of a limited and negative knowledge of God we are able to know some of Gods properties such as His incorporeity, unicity, and simplicity. But the best term to designate Gods nature is, for Philo, the name God Himself revealed to Moses: I am Who Am. 60[60] For him, God is the Supreme Being, the Being Who Is and Who will be forever, and the Being Who causes all things to exist. The object of Philos philosophy is to get man to detach himself from material things and ascend to God through contemplation and esctasy. Christian Philosophy Copleston gives us a good description of the beginnings of Christian philosophy61[61]: Christianity came into the world as a revealed
58[58]

F. H. DELAUNAY, Philon dAlexandrie, Didier et Cie, Paris, 1867 ; J. DRUMMOND, Philo Judaeus, Williams & Norgate, London, 1888 ; M. FREUDENTHAL, Die Erkenntnislehre Philos von Alexandria , Verlag von S. Calvary & Co., Berlin, 1891 ; L. COHN-P. WENDLAND-S. REITER, Philonis Alexandrini Opera quae supesunt, 6 vols., Reimer, Berlin, 1896-1915 ; A. LOUIS, Philon le juif, Paris, 1911 ; H. MARTIN, Philon, Paris, 1913 ; T. H. BILLINGS, The Platonism of Philo Judaeus , Chicago, 1919 ; E. R. GOODENOUGH, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, New Haven, 1940 ; H. A. WOLFSON, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy, 2 vols., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1954 ; J. DANILOU, Philon dAlexandrie, Paris, 1958 ; C. K. REGGIANI, Filone Alessandrino e unora tragica della storia ebraica , Morano, Naples, 1967 ; B. MONDIN, Filone e Clemente. Le origini della filosofia religiosa, SEI, Turin, 1969 ; M. MADDALENA, Filone Alessandrino, Mursia, Milan, 1970 ; F. SICILIANO, Alla luce del Logos. Filone dAlessandria , LPE, Cosenza, 1975 ; S. SANDMEL, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York, 1979 ; R. RADICE, Platonismo e creazionismo in Filone di Alessandria, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1989 ; D. FARIAS, Studi sul pensiero sociale di Filone di Alessandria, Giuffr, Milan, 1993. 59[59] PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA, De congressu eruditionis, 79. 60[60] Exodus 3 : 14. 61[61] For in-depth studies on the notion of Christian philosophy, see: M. BLONDEL, Y a-t-il une philosophie chrtienne?, Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale, 36 (1931), pp. 570-599 ; R. KREMER, S. Augustin,

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religion: it was given to the world by Christ as a doctrine of redemption and salvation and love, not as an abstract and theoretical system, and He sent His Apostles to preach, not to occupy professors chairs. Christianity was the Way, a road to God to be trodden in practice, not one more philosophical system added to the systems and schools of antiquity. The Apostles and their successors were bent on converting the world not on excogitating a philosophical system. Moreover, so far as their message was directed to the Jews, the Apostles had to meet theological rather than philosophical attacks, while, in regard to the non-Jews, we are not told,
philosophe chrtien, La Vie Intellectuelle, 31 (1931), pp. 220-235 ; R. JOLIVET, Essai sur les rapports entre la pense grecque et la pense chrtienne, Paris, 1931 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, La philosophie chrtienne. Compterendu de la Sance du 21 Mars 1931 , Socit Francaise de Philosophie, Bulletin de la Socit Francaise de Philosophie, 31 (1931), pp. 37-86. Contributors: E. GILSON, L. BRUNSCHVICG, J. MARITAIN, E. LE ROY ; J. WERL, Le rapport intrinsque de la philosophie et de la religion daprs M. Blondel , Bulletin des Anciens Elves de S. Suplice, 34 (1932) pp. 812-834 ; R. JOLIVET, La philosophie chrtienne et la pense contemporaine , Paris, 1932 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Compte-rendu de la Sance du 26 Novembre 1932 , Socit des Etudes Philosophiques, Les Etudes Philosophiques, 1 (1933), pp. 3-98. Contributors: J. PALLIARD, G. BERGER, E. CASTELLI, J. DEVOLV, H. GOUHIER, J. MARCHAL, M. BLONDEL ; E. GILSON, Bibliographie pour servir lhistoire de la notion de philosophie chtienne , in LEsprit de la philosophie mdivale , Paris, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 297-324, vol. 2, pp. 279-290 ; M. BLONDEL, Le problme de la philosophie catholique, Paris, 1932 ; M. SOURIAU, Quest-ce quune philosophie chrtienne? , Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale, 37 (1932), pp. 358385 ; F. MENTR, La philosophie chrtienne, Revue de Philosophie, 8 (1933), pp. 425-447 ; L. LACHANCE, La philosophie chrtienne, Revue Dominicaine, 39 (1933), pp. 633-677 ; B. DE SOLAGES, Le problme de la philosophie chrtienne, La Vie Intellectuelle, 30 (1933), pp. 215-228 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, La philosophie chrtienne. Compte-rendu de la Deuxime Journe dtudes: Juvisy, 11 Septembre 1933 , Socit Thomiste, 1934. Contributors: A. FOREST, A. MOTTE, B. DE SOLAGES, J. FESTUGIRE, R. JOLIVET, J. FEULING, F. VAN STEENBERGHEN, J. PENIDO, A. MASNOVO, E. GILSON, L. COCHET, J. MARITAIN, J. ROLANDGOSSELIN, R. BAUDIN, J. RABEAU ; J. MARITAIN, De la philosophie chrtienne, Paris, 1933 ; B. ROMEYER, Autour du problme de la philosophie chrtienne. Essai critique et positif , Archives de Philosophie (V), 4 (1934), pp. 419-482 ; L. COCHET, En vue dune philosophie chrtienne, Revue Apologtique, 58 (1934), pp. 257-269, 59 (1934), pp. 129-249, 60 (1935), pp. 272-295 ; M. CANAL GMEZ, La controversia en torno a la filosofia cristiana, Contemporanea, 7 (1935), pp. 466-479 ; J.-J. MAYDIEU, Le bilan dun dbat philosophique. Rflexions sur la philosophie chrtienne , Bulletin de Littrature Ecclsiastique, 36 (1935), pp. 193-222 ; B. ROMEYER, La philosophie chtienne jusqu Descartes , Paris, 1935-1937 ; B. DE RUB, El concepto de filosofa cristiana, Criterion, 11 (1936), pp. 238-253 ; E. GILSON, Christianisme et philosophie, Paris, 1936 ; B. BAUDOUX, Quaestio de philosophia christiana, Antonianum, 11 (1936), pp. 489-552 ; B. JANSEN, Christliche Philosophie, Stimmen der Zeit, 128 (1935), pp. 229-238, 131 (1936), pp. 31-38 ; G. M. MANSER, Gibt es eine christliche Philosophie?, Divus Thomas, 16 (1936), pp. 19-51, 123-141 ; R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, De relationibus inter philosophiam et religionem ac de natura philosophiae christianae , in Acta II Congressus Thomistici Internationalis, 1937, p. 379-394 ; J. KELLEY, J. F. McCORMICK, H. McNEIL, Was There or Is There a Christian Philosophy?, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 12 (1937), pp. 17-45 ; E. GILSON, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages , New York, 1938 ; A. RENARD, La querelle sur la possibilit de la philosophie chrtienne , Paris, 1941; M. BLONDEL, La philosophie et lesprit chrtien, 2 vols., Paris, 1944-1946 ; J. IRIARTE, La controversia sobre la nocin de filosofia cristiana , Pensamiento, 1 (1945), pp. 7-29, 275-298 ; A. D. SERTILLANGES, Le christianisme et les philosophies, Paris, 1946 ; J. IRIARTE, La filosofa cristiana en la Sociedad Francesa de Filosofia, Pensamiento, 3 (1947), pp. 173-198 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Filosofia e cristianesimo. Atti del secondo Convegno di studi filosofici cristiani: Gallarate, 4-6 Settembre 1946 , Centro di Studi Cristiani, Milan, 1947. Contributors: L. STEFANINI, U. PADOVANI, M. F. SCIACCA, E. CASTELLI, G. BONTADINI, C. MAZZANTINI ; R. MEHL, La Condition du philosophe chtien, Neuchtel-Paris, 1947 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Etienne Gilson, philosophe de la chrtient , includes articles by J. MARITAIN, A. FOREST, and H. GOUHIER, Paris, 1949 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Le problme de la philosophie chrtienne, Paris, 1949. Articles by P. RICOEUR, J. BOISSET, M. NEESER, P. ARBOUSSE-BASTIDE, J. BOIS, E. ROCHEDIEU ;

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apart from the account of St. Pauls famous sermon at Athens, of their being confronted with, or of their approaching, Greek philosophers in the academic sense. However, as Christianity made fast its roots and grew, it aroused the suspicion and hostility, not merely of the Jews and the political authorities, but also of pagan intellectuals and writers. Some of the attacks levelled against Christianity were due simply to ignorance, credulous suspicion, fear of what was unknown, misrepresentation ; but other attacks were delivered on the theoretical plane, on philosophical grounds, and these attacks had to be met. This meant that philosophical as well as theological arguments had to be used. There are, then, philosophical elements in the writings of early Christian apologists and Fathers ; but it would obviously be idle to look for a philosophical system, since the interest of these writers was primarily theological, to
M. BLONDEL, Exigences philosophiques du christianisme, Paris, 1950 ; P. VALORI, M. Blondel e il problema duna filosofia cristiana, Rome, 1950 ; I. TRETHOWAN, An Essay in Christian Philosophy, London, 1950 ; A. HILCKMANN, Christliche Philosophie?, Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 60 (1950), pp. 457-463 ; H. MEYER, Christliche Philosophie?, Mnchner theologische Zeitung, 11 (1951), pp. 390-430 ; J. LECLERQ, Pour lhistoire de lexpression philosophie chrtienne , Mlanges de Sciences Religieuses, 38 (1952), pp. 222-226 ; A. DEMPF. Christliche Philosophie. Der Mensch zwischen Gott und Welt , Bonn, 1952 ; F. OLGIATI, Il problema della filosofia cristiana e la metafisica , Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica, 45 (1953), pp. 38-51 ; A. MUOZ ALONZO, Valores filosoficos del cristianismo, Barcelona, 1954 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Philosophies chrtiennes, Centre Catholique des Intellectuels Francaise, Paris, 1955. Contributors: J. DANILOU, J. GUITTON, O. LACOMBE, P. A. LESORT, J. MAUDIT ; M. NDONCELLE, Existe-t-il une philosophie chrtienne?, Paris, 1956 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Atti del primo Convegno di studi filosofici cristiani: Gallarate, 6-9 Ottobre 1945 , Padua, 1956. Contributors: M. F. SCIACCA, R. LAZZARINI, U. PADOVANI, L. STEFANINI ; E. GILSON, What is Christian Philosophy?, in A Gilson Reader, edited by A. Pegis, New York, 1957, chapter 8, article 1 ; R. VANCOURT, Pense moderne et philosophie chrtienne , Paris, 1957 ; L. BOGLIOLO, Il problema della filosofia cristiana, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1959 ; J.-M. LE BLOND, Libert et joie du philosophe chrtien , Etudes, 25 (1960), pp. 225-231 ; A. NAUD, Le Problme de la philosophie chrtienne. Elments dune solution thomiste , Montral, 1960 ; C. J. GEFFR, Philosopher dans la foi. Etienne Gilson Jacques Maritain , La Vie Spirituelle, 36 (1961), pp. 220-230 ; C. TRESMONTANT, La mtaphysique du christianisme et la naissance de la philosophie chrtienne, Paris, 1961 ; G. VAN RIET, Foi chrtienne et rflexion philosophique, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 37 (1961), pp. 417-449 ; E. A. RUCH, The Problem of Christian Philosophy, Philosophy Today, 6 (1962), pp. 251-265 ; C. TRESMONTANT, Les Ides matresses de la mtaphisique chtienne , Paris, 1962 ; A. VERGA, Il concetto di filosofia cristiana di E. Gilson , in Studi di filosofia e di storia della filosofia in onore di F. Olgiati, Milan, 1962, pp. 494-515 ; P. PRINI, Cristianesimo e filosofia, Annali della Facolt di Lettere e Filosofia dellUniversit di Perugia, 1 (1962-1963), pp. 129-140 ; R. MONDOLFO, Momenti del pensiero greco e cristiano, Napoli, 1964 ; H. VAN LUIJK, Philosophie du fait chrtienne. Lanalyse critique du cristianisme de Henry Dumry, Paris-Bruges, 1964 ; C. GIACON, Intorno alle condizioni di possibilit del filosofo cristiano , Filosofia e Vita, 6 (1965), pp. 331-342 ; P. TOINET, Existence chrtienne et philosophie. Essai sur les fondements de la philosophie chrtienne, Paris, 1965 ; G. DI NAPOLI, Teodorico Moretti-Costanzi o del filosofare cristiano , Antonianum, 66 (1966), pp. 19-38 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Lunit della filosofia cristiana, Filosofia e Vita, (1963-1966). Articles by G. BONTADINI, F. BATTAGLIA, U. PADOVANI, N. PETRUZZELIS, A. SANCIPRIANO, E. NICOLETTI, L. BOGLIOLO ; E. NICOLETTI, Filosofia e cristianesimo, in VARIOUS AUTHORS, Filosofia, religione, religioni, Turin, 1966, pp. 135-147 ; D. BONIFAZI, Filosofia e cristianesimo. Discussioni recenti, Rome, 1968 ; A. LIVI, Il cristianesimo nella filosofia, Japadre, LAquila, 1969 ; A. LIVI, tienne Gilson: filosofia cristiana e idea del limite critico, Pamplona, 1969.

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defend the Faith. Yet, as Christianity became more firmly established and better known and as it became possible for Christian scholars to develop thought and learning, the philosophical element tended to become more strongly marked, especially when there was question of meeting the attacks of pagan professional philosophers.62[62] Christianity, though being a religion, has exercised a decisive role in the general development of philosophy and upon the acquisition of certain truths of capital importance such as the concepts of the person, freedom, history and time, God, and evil, as Battista Mondin explains: 1. The concept of person. In ancient Greek philosophy the term to express personality does not even exist (Zeller). It was Christianity that created a new dimension for man, that of the human person. This notion was so extraneous to classical rationalism that the Greek Fathers were not able to find the categories and words in Greek philosophy to express this new reality. Hellenic thought was unable to conceive the fact that the infinite and universal could express itself in a person. Only thanks to the concept of the person a being gifted with infinite dignity and absolute value brought to light by Christianity, which makes all men images of God created directly by Him, could all discrimination based on sex, age, race, language, power, possessions, cult and so forth become illegitimate, unjust, and odious. All men are equally worthy of esteem, respect and love, even ones enemies, especially the weak, the poor and the most humble. Thanks to the revolutionary concept of the person, Christian philosophers were able to substitute Greek aristocratic and racist humanism with a truly universal humanism. 2. The concept of freedom. Freedom in the sense of mans sovereignty over himself, his own decisions, and hence in a certain way over nature, was a concept unknown to the Greeks, who considered man chained by the three unshakable powers of Fate, Nature, and History. Entire parts of the world, such as Africa and the Orient, have never had this idea and still do not have it.63[63] On the contrary, they knew only that man is truly free thanks to his birth (as an Athenian, Spartan, etc., citizen), to his character and culture, and to philosophy (the slave, even chained, is free). This idea came into the world through the work of Christianity, for which the individual as such has infinite value. Being the
62[62] 63[63]

F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, Book 1, volume 2, Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, pp. 13-14. Hegel, was, of course, writing during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

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object and goal of Gods love, this individual is destined to have an absolute relation with God as spirit and to make his spirit rest in God. That is, man is of himself destined for the greatest freedom.64[64] 3. The concept of history and time. The Greeks saw history and time as mechanical and fatal chronological sequences, not as a totality of events propitious (kairoi) to man and for which man takes responsibility. The Christian concept of time and history is diametrically opposed to the Greek concept of a circular movement returning to the beginning after a certain number of years (generally calculated by the ten thousands). Christians have a linear and ascending concept of time and history ; and history has already indicated a decisive moment (kairs), that of Christs coming. For Christians, historical time has a completely different character from that of the cosmic cycle, given the fact that history has preserved the unique event of Christs coming, which is a central date () Hence, in the Christian era, the ancient idea of the cyclical nature of world history has evolved into a linear dimension () With the admission of linear time and its central date, there came the complete exclusion of ancient conceptions from the Christian consciousness, for example, the one of all things complete return. Christs appearance took place once and for all in a definitive way ; hence the history into which he entered is a unique event.65[65] 4. The concept of God. The anthropomorphic and polytheistic conception of the divine which prevailed in Greco-Roman culture was challenged by an absolutely new concept in which we see an admirable balance of some qualities expressing His infinite distance from man and the world (such as uniqueness and infinity) and His closeness and intimacy to man and the world (such as paternity, goodness, Providence, mercy, etc.). It is the originality and singularity of this concept of God which allowed Christianity to propose new concepts of the person, freedom, and history. 5. The concept of evil. Historians of ideas recognize that the concept of moral evil is a Christian concept making up part of the logic of the cultural framework established by the four preceding concepts. In effect, the concept of moral evil implies a personal relation between man and the divinity, as well as an autonomy, a responsibility and a freedom
64[64] 65[65]

G. W. F. HEGEL, Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche, Bari, 1951, pp. 442-443. E. HOFFMANN, Platonismo e filosofia cristiana, Bologna, 1960, p. 158.

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of man before the divinity. This the Greek culture did not possess, although it did become part of the Christian message. 6. The concept of creation. For the Greeks, the world was a divine and eternal reality without origin and without end. The archetypes of reality (Platos ideas, Aristotles forms, the Stoics logoi spermatikoi, Epicurus atoms) were essentially unchangeable. Hence the concept of creation, understood as the complete production of something from nothing, was totally extraneous to the Greeks. The only type of action they recognized was that of transformation, the production of a new form in matter through the elimination of the preceding form. Even the Demiurge and the Logos do not go beyond these limits. Ex nihilo nihil fit was always the first axiom of Greek ontology, shared not only by Parmenides and Heraclitus, but also by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus. Creation, understood as the production of something from an absolute (and not only a relative) nothingness, is an exclusively Biblical and Christian concept, a concept exalting the absolute transcendence of God with respect to all other realities while fundamentally underlining the dependence of all things on God. Creation means contingency and precariousness of things, but at the same time it attests to Gods goodness and munificence. Creation means that the world is not eternal but that it is not the product of malignant divinities who do not care for the worlds fate. The world is not the fruit of chance. It is not cyclically born, but it is a marvellous effect of Gods goodness. Thanks to this rich philosophical potential, Christianity was able to exercise an influence and stimulus on the development of subsequent philosophical thought stronger and more profound than that of any earlier religion.66[66] St. Clement of Alexandria St. Clement of Alexandria67[67] (c. 150c. 215) was the first Christian thinker who had sought to elaborate a synthesis between the teaching of Christian doctrine and Greek philosophy. For him philosophy had a propaedeutic function, that is, preparatory, to the faith. Philosophy is a preparation that sets in motion man who must be perfected through
66[66] 67[67]

B. MONDIN, A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1991, pp. 6-9. G. BARDY, Clment dAlexandrie, Paris, 1926 ; G. LAZZATI, Introduzione allo studio di Clemente Allesandrino, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1939 ; C. MONDSERT, Clment dAlexandrie, Aubier, Paris, 1944 ; A. BRONTESI, La soteria in Clemente Alessandrino, Universit Gregoriana, Rome, 1972 ; U. BERNER, Origenes, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesselshaft, Darmstadt, 1981 ; B. MONDIN, Filone e Clemente, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1984.

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Christ68[68] Regarding the other relationships between philosophy and theology, Clement retains that: 1. philosophy by itself is not sufficient to assure mans salvation ; 2. because it produces salvation faith is superior to philosophy ; 3. nevertheless, faith should not distrust philosophy as certain religious zealots have taught ; and 4. philosophy comes to the aid of faith by bettering its knowledge of truths and their formulation. For Clement, faith is superior to philosophy in its effects (faith saves while philosophy does not) and in some of its essential properties such as amplitude of knowledge and probative force (the volume of knowledge and probative force is greater in faith than in philosophy). For the Alexandrian, faith is the most certain knowledge (he is talking here of argumentative force and not of evidence, for regarding evidence, faith, being an argument of authority, is inferior to philosophy). Philosophy is utilized to better understand the faith. It is placed in the service of faith: 1. to predispose oneself towards accepting the Word of God ; 2. to better understand, as much as possible for a human creature, the Divine Word ; 3. to be able to better teach revealed truth ; and 4. to be able to efficaciously defend the truth against the various heresies opposing it. These are the four services which philosophy gives to faith: preparatory, critical, educational, and apologetic respectively. Origen Origen69[69] (c. 185c. 254) was a prolific writer, a commentator of Sacred Scripture, to which he applied allegorical interpretations, and elaborated a vast attempt to explain Christian doctrine. The most important philosophical aspect of his thought consists in his theory regarding the origin and end of things. St. Augustine

68[68] 69[69]

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, Stromata, I, 5-28. W. FAIRWEATHER, Origen and the Greek Patristic Philosophy, London, 1901 ; H. DE LUBAC, Histoire et esprit, Aubier, Paris, 1950 ; M. HERL, Origne et la fonction revlatrice du Verbe Incarne , Aubier, Paris, 1956 ; H. CROUZEL, Origne et la philosophie, Aubier, Paris, 1962 ; H. URS VON BALTHAZAR, Parola e mistero in Origene, Jaca Book, Milan, 1991.

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One of the greatest thinkers of all time, St. Augustine 70[70] (354430) was the maximum exponent of Christian philosophy during the patristic period. He managed to work out a harmonious synthesis between Christianity and Neo-Platonism. Born in Tagaste, which is now part of Algeria, North Africa, from a pagan father (Patricius) and a Christian mother (St. Monica), Augustine dedicated himself to literary and philosophical studies and then to teaching. He adhered to many diverse philosophies, and was for a time a Manichean and skeptic. He
70[70]

J. ALFARIC, Lvolution intellectuelle de saint Augustin, Paris, 1918 ; J. N. FIGGIS, The Political Aspects of Saint Augustines City of God, Longmans, London, 1921 ; M. J. MCKEOUGH, The Meaning of the Rationes Seminales in St. Augustine, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., 1926 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, A Monument to Saint Augustine, Sheed and Ward, London, 1930 ; J. HESSEN, Augustins Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, Berlin, 1931 ; R. JOLIVET, S. Augustin et la noplatonisme chrtien , Paris, 1934 ; P. HENRY, Lextase dOstie, Paris, 1938 ; H. I. MARROU, Saint Augustin et fin de la culture antique , Boccard, Paris, 1938 ; M. P. GARVEY, Saint Augustine: Christian or Neoplatonist? , Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 1939 ; A. MASNOVO, S. Agostino e S. Tommaso, concordanze e sviluppi, Milan, 1942 ; C. BOYER, Essai sur la doctrine de saint Augustin, Paris, 1943 ; A. C. PEGIS, The Mind of St. Augustine, Mediaeval Studies, 6 (1944), pp. 1-61 ; V. J. BOURKE, Augustines Quest of Wisdom. Life and Philosophy of the Bishop of Hippo , Bruce, Milwaukee, 1945 ; A. MASNOVO, S. Agostino, Brescia, 1946 ; G. BARDY, Saint Augustin, Paris, 1946 ; B. SWITALSKI, Neoplatonism and the Ethics of St. Augustine, New York, 1946 ; J. D. BURGER, Saint Augustin, Neuchtel, 1947 ; J. M. LE BLOND, Les conversions de saint Augustin, Vrin, Paris, 1948 ; M. F. SCIACCA, S. Agostino, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1949 ; H. POPE, St. Augustine of Hippo, Westminster, Md., 1949 ; P. COURCELLE, Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin, E. de Boccard, Paris, 1950 ; . GILSON, Les metamorphoses de la cit de Dieu, Paris, 1952 ; J. J. OMEARA, The Young Augustine. The Growth of St. Augustines Mind up to His Conversion , Longmans, London, 1954 ; H. MARROU, Saint Augustine and His Influence Through the Ages , Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1957 ; E. PRZYWARA, St. Augustine. His Life and Thought, Meridian Books, New York, 1957 ; E. PRZYWARA, An Augustine Synthesis, Harper, New York, 1958 ; E. GILSON, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine, Random House, New York, 1960 ; E. PORTALI, A Guide to the Thought of Saint Augustine , H. Regnery, Chicago, 1960 ; S. COTTA, La citt politica di santAgostino, Ed. di Communit, Milan, 1960 ; C. BOYER, SantAgostino filosofo, Patron, Bologna, 1965 ; . GILSON, La citt di Dio e i suoi problemi , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1965 ; P. BROWN, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, London, 1967 ; F. CHIEREGHIN, Fede e ricerca filosofica in santAgostino, CEDAM, Padua, 1969 ; G. SCHWARZ, Che cosa ha veramente detto santAgostino, Ubaldini, Rome, 1971 ; R. A. MARKUS, Augustine, New York, 1972 ; A. TRAP, S. Agostino, Esperienze, Fossano, 1979 ; G. P. ODALY, Augustines Philosophy of Mind, London, 1987 ; G. VIGINI, Agostino dIppona, Paoline, Milan, 1988 ; A. TRAP, Il maestro interiore, Paoline, Cinisello Balsamo, 1988 ; M. PERRINI, SantAgostino: litinerario della mente, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1988 ; B. MONDIN, Il pensiero di Agostino, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1988 ; M. VANNINI, Invito al pensiero di santAgostino, Mursia, Milan, 1989 ; R. PICCOLOMINI, La filosofia di santAgostino, Augustinus, Palermo, 1991 ; J. WETZEL, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue, Cambridge, 1992 ; J. M. RIST, Augustine. Ancient Thought Baptized, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994 ; M. T. CLARK, Augustine, Georgetown University Press, 1994 ; T. D. J.CHAPPELL, Aristotle and Augustine on Freedom, St. Martins Press-Macmillan, 1995 ; H. ARENDT, Love and Saint Augustine, University of Chicago Press, 1996 ; W. A. BANNER, The Path of St.Augustine, Rowman & Littlefield, 1996 ; R. J. TESKE, Paradoxes of Time in Saint Augustine, The Aquinas Lecture 1996, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 1996 ; R. J. OCONNELL, Images of Conversion in St. Augustine's Confessions , Fordham University Press, New York, 1996 ; D. X. BURT, Augustine's World, An Introduction to His Speculative Philosophy, University Press of America, 1996 ; A. J. CURLEY, Augustines Critique of Scepticism, A Study of Contra Academicos , Peter Lang, 1996 ; J. J. OMEARA, Understanding Augustine, Four Courts Press, 1997 ; M. MANZIN, Ordine politico e verit in sant'Agostino. Riflessioni sulla crisi della scienza moderna , Cedam, 1998 ; E. STUMP-N. KRETZMANN (editors), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001 ; G. W. SCHLABACH, For the Joy Set Before Us, Augustine and Self-Denying Love , University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 2001 ; R. W. DYSON, The Pilgrim City, Social and Political Ideas in the Writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, The

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travelled to Rome and then to Milan where he met the learned and saintly bishop St. Ambrose. He subsequently converted to Christianity and received baptism in 387 from the hands of Ambrose. He then returned to Africa in 388, became a priest and later bishop of Hippo in North Africa. During this period he engaged in polemics against the Manichaeans, Donatists and Pelagians. He died in 430 just as the barbarian Vandal hordes were beseiging his beloved city of Hippo. He wrote a great number of works, his most famous ones being the Confessions, De Trinitate, and The City of God. Regarding his philosophical thought let us treat briefly of his conceptions of knowledge and truth, God, the world, evil and freedom, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and history. 1. Knowledge and Truth. Augustine was a fierce critic of skepticism, holding against the academic skeptics that we can in fact know objective truths. We can know for example the first of all principles, namely, the principle of non-contradiction with certainty. 71[71] He notes that even the skeptics are certain of a number of truths, such as, for example, the fact that of two disjunctive propositions one must be true and the other false. One is also certain of ones existence for even if one doubt his own existence, the doubt itself is a proof of existence. He notes that even if you fall into error, your being mistaken shows that you exist: Si fallor, sum (if I am mistaken, I exist). If you did not exist, you could not be deceived in anything. 72[72] He states that I am most certain of my being, knowing and loving; nor do I fear the arguments against these truths by the academics who say, and what if you deceive yourself? If I deceive myself, that means that I am, that I exist. Certainly, he who does not exist cannot deceive himself; if I deceive myself, then through this very fact I am. Since I exist, from the moment in which I deceive myself, how can I deceive myself about my being when I am certain that I am, through the fact itself that I deceive myself? Therefore, if I would exist, I who deceive myself, even given the hypothesis that I deceive myself, I still undoubtedly do not deceive myself in knowing myself.73[73] Even doubts of the senses cannot make us doubt our existence and our being alive: In reference to this, we must not have any fear unless we are deceived by some plausible probability, since it is certain that the man who is deceived is alive. Nor does
Boydell Press, 2001. 71[71] ST. AUGUSTINE, Contra Academicos, 3, 10, 23. 72[72] ST. AUGUSTINE, De Libero Arbitrio, 2, 3, 7. 73[73] ST. AUGUSTINE, De Civitate Dei, 11, 26.

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knowledge depend on visual images which are presented from without, so that the eye is deceived in these images; for example, when an oar immersed in water seems broken and the keel seems in movement to those who navigate, or in a thousand other cases where things are not what they seem. The truth of which I am speaking is not perceptible through the eyes of the flesh. It is in virtue of internal cognition that we know we are aliveAs a result, the man who asserts that he knows he is alive does not have the possibility to err or to deceive himself. Thousands of illusions of the senses may present themselves; he will not fear any of them from the moment when the man who is deceived must be alive in order to be deceived.74[74] Sensation, the lowest level of knowledge for Augustine, consists in a spiritual act of the soul, very different from the Aristotelian doctrine of the passive reception of images from the external world initially by means of the external senses. It is an act of the soul using the organs of sense as its instruments. Sensory images are caused, he says, by the soul. When we see a body and its image begins to exist in our soul, it is not the body that impresses the image in our soul. It is the soul itself that produces it with wonderful swiftness within itself.75[75] As for the knowledge of the eternal truths, which is the apex of intellective knowledge, this takes place through divine illumination, a doctrine which replaces the Platonic theory of reminiscence. Augustine holds that we can indeed make necessary and immutable judgments and the doctrine of illumination is meant to explain such a fact. Through the divine illumination from God, when man makes a true judgment the mind is in contact with the immutable and necessary truths in the Divine Mind. Though this contact does not enable us to see the Ideas in Gods Mind, it does account for the immutability and necessity of our knowledge. 2. God. Augustines philosophy is very interioristic, something he inherited from Platonism and Neo-Platonism, and therefore, it is essentially through human interiority that man ascends to God ; 3. The World. Augustine explains the creation of the world by means of his doctrines of the eternal reasons and the seminal reasons ( rationes seminales). He substitutes Platos erroneous subsisting Ideas or Forms for his doctrine of the eternal reasons in the Divine Mind, and which the
74[74] 75[75]

ST. AUGUSTINE, De Trinitate, 15, 12, 21. ST. AUGUSTINE, De Genesi ad Litteram, 12, 16, 33.

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rationes seminales are the created material counterpart: God knew all things from eternity: everything that he had made, and those that he can make and will make, as well as those that he can make but will never make. This knowledge of God is in the divine ideas, which are also known as the eternal reasons. 76[76] On the basis of the eternal reasons, God freely created the world out of nothingHe created first formless matter, which contained the rationes seminales, that is, the seeds of things that were to come into being in the course of time. Afterwards, with the passage of time, those seminal reasons developed all the virtual power that they contained.77[77] God made the world at one moment, sowing in the primal amorphous matter the seminal reasons or seeds of everything that would come to be later on in time. Such seminal reasons are the created material counterpart of the uncreated eternal reasons78[78] ; 4. Evil and Freedom. Our saintly bishop of Hippo teaches that evil is not a positive reality but rather a privation of reality. Evil cannot exist in itself as a substance ; rather, it exists in a substance which is ontologically good in itself since the being is made by God. A killer is ontologically good in his metaphysical make-up since he was created by God. But what makes him evil is his freely-willed deordination from right reason, the good and the true, and from his Maker. The cause of evil is not God but the perverted will of man. True evil is moral evil or sin, and sin is a result of the bad use of human freedom. Convinced that man has need of supernatural grace in order to be saved, Augustine combated the raging Pelagian heresy of his time ; 5. The Spirituality and Immortality of the Soul. The Augustinian definition of man is a rational soul that makes use of a body. Though not denying that a part of man is his body, Augustine states that man is above all his soul. The spirituality of the soul is demonstrated by self-consciousness, and the souls immortality is proved by its continuing relationship with truth. 6. History. Augustines concept of history is found in his monumental work The City of God. History is divided into three periods: origin, past, and future. While Greek philosophys conception of history is circular, Augustines concept was linear. In his monumental work De civitate Dei (The City of God) Augustine speaks of the civitas Dei and the civitas terrrena: Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self, even to the contempt of God ; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in
76[76] 77[77]

J. SARANYANA, History of Medieval Philosophy, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1996, p. 40. J. SARANYANA, op. cit., p. 41. 78[78] Ibid.

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the Lord.79[79] Those who follow the Holy Will of God make up the City of God (civitas Dei), while those who sin and follow their passions and evil desires make up the members of the Earthly City (civitas terrena). Therefore, the City of God and the Earthly City should not be understood as referring to the institutions of Church and State. The Church is populated by members of the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena, and both the friends and enemies of God populate the State. Augustines philosophy is indeed magnificent but is also open to some criticism. As Joseph de Torre points out, it is characteristic of St. Augustine that his teaching is profound but incomplete, and this gives an idea of Christian philosophy in its process of formation. As for man, he is also influenced by Platonic ideas: he cannot explain very well how the soul is united to the body, as he did not know the Aristotelian doctrine of the soul as substantial form of the body. For him, following Plato, man is rather a soul using a body, although he did admit that the body is part of man. Likewise, he could not explain very well the nature of sense perception. Plato had said, as we saw, that sensible things do not really exist, but are only an imitation of the ideas (reality doesnt change ; but sensible things change ; therefore they are not real), and St. Augustines tendency is to think in this way too. According to him, our sense knowledge is not to be put on the same level as our knowledge of ideas: there is a sharp division between the sensible and the intelligible worlds. St. Thomas would also correct this Platonic tendency: without confusion, there is union and continuity of sense and intelligence, as of body and soul. All the above explains why some Christian philosophers who have followed St. Augustine more than St. Thomas have fallen into error and even heresy, not because there are errors or heresies in St. Augustine, but because his doctrine contains some unsettled or obscure points which, without the clarifications of St. Thomas, could lead to misunderstandings. This is why the Church insists that we should study St. Thomas above all. The other Christian teachers are also very good, but the Angelic Doctor is the universal teacher (Doctor communis): if we follow him, the Church guarantees that we will not go astray.80[80] Boethius

79[79] 80[80]

ST. AUGUSTINE, The City of God, XIV, 28. J. DE TORRE, Christian Philosophy, Vera-Reyes, Manila, 1980, pp. 287-288.

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Born in Rome from a noble family, Severinus Boethius 81[81] (480-524) was both a philosopher and a politician. Consul and prime minister to the Ostrogoth king Theodoric, Boethius was accused of treason and was imprisoned, tried and executed at Pavia. While in prison he wrote his celebrated work The Consolation of Philosophy wherein he sought to solve the problem of the suffering of the innocent and of the problems connected with it, such as the providence of God and human freedom. Regarding the demonstration of the existence of God he espoused the a posteriori demonstrations from grades of perfection and from the order and unity of things. Regarding the latter argument he writes: This world could not have obtained in any way a unified form from parts so different and contrary, unless He who brought together realities so different were one. The very diversity of the various natures opposed to each other would have become disassociated and detached as soon as it was unified unless there were a One keeping all He joined together. The order of nature would not be so stable, nor would places, times, effects, spaces, and qualities express themselves in movements so harmonious, if there were not One regulating this multiple variety of changes while remaining immutable Himself. This being, whoever He may be, through whose work created realities remain and change, with a name used by all, I call God.82[82] He also wrote profoundly upon the themes of time and eternity. Regarding the questions of evil, freedom, and Divine Providence Boethius explains: 1. that evil is not a substance but a privation ; 2. that evil has its origin not in God but in creatures themselves, either because of their physical finiteness (physical evil) or in their poor use of freedom (moral evil) ; 3. that man is free ; 4. that God is always the prime cause of all that happens, of everything that comes into being, and of everything that perseveres in being ; and 5. that the action of Gods Providence is not suspended when man acts freely. Boethius is considered one of the Fathers of Scholasticism for two reasons: first, for his translations of Plato, Aristotle and the NeoPlatonists, which the Scholastics had obtained many of their doctrines ; and second, for his definitions of some crucial concepts utilized in Scholastic philosophy, such as the concepts of person, eternity, and
81[81]

H. J. BROSCH, Der Seinsbegriff bei Boethius, Innsbruck, 1931 ; H. R. PATCH, The Tradition of Boethius. A Study of His Importance in Medieval Culture , New York, 1935 ; H. M. BARRETT, Boethius: Some Aspects of His Times nd Work, Cambridge, 1940 ; K. DRR, The Propositional Logic of Boethius, Noth Holland Pub. Co., Amsterdam, 1951 ; G. VANN, The Wisdom of Boethius, Blackfriars, Oxford, 1952 ; E. RAPISARDA, La crisi spirituale di Boezio, Catania, 1953 ; L. ORBETELLO, Severino Boezio, 2 vols., Accademia ligurie di scienze e lettere, Genoa, 1974 ; A. CROCCO, Introduzione a Boezio, Liguori, Naples, 1975 ; A. CROCCO, La Consolatio philosophiae di Boezio, DAuria, Naples, 1980. 82[82] S. BOETHIUS, The Consolation of Philosophy, III, 12, 10-20.

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happiness. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite83[83] is a pseudonym of an unknown Christian philosopher and theologian who lived during the end of the fifth century A.D. He is the author of a number of letters and four Greek treatises of Neo-Platonic inspiration that has exercised an enormous influence upon Medieval thought. Translated into Latin from the Greek, the four treatises are: 1. De divinis nominibus (On the Divine Names), which is an explanation of the names and attributes which the Sacred Scriptures give to God. It also treats of the value of our knowledge and of the possibilities and limits of theological language ; 2. De mystica theologia (The Mystical Theology), is a synthetic review of the preceding work, and continues on the theme of the divine transcendence ; 3. De coelesti hierarchia (The Celestial Hierarchy) is a treatise on the angels ; and 4. De ecclesiastica hierarchia (The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy) is a treatise on ecclesiology. The central theme of his works concerns the problem of the knowledge and unknowableness of God. His fundamental contribution consists in having introduced into Christian theology the distinction between positive and negative theology. St. Anselm of Aosta

83[83]

G. DELLA VOLPE, La dottrina dellAreopagita e i suoi presupposti neoplatonici , Ciuni, Rome, 1941 ; F. DONDAINE, Le Corpus Dionysien de lUniversit de Paris au XIIIe sicle , Rome, 1952 ; R. ROQUES, Lunivers Dionysien. Structure hirarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys , Aubier, Paris, 1954 ; E. CORSINI, Il trattato De divinis nominibus dello Pseudo-Dionigi e I commenti neoplatonici al Parmenide, Giappichelli, Turin, 1962 ; R. SCAZZOSO, Richerche sulla struttura del linguaggio dello Pseudo-Dionigi areopagita , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1967 ; A. BRONTESI, Lincontro misterioso con Dio. Saggio sulla teologia affirmativa nello PseudoDionigi, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1970.

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St. Anselm84[84] (1033-1109) was born in Aosta, and as an adolescent entered the Benedictine Abbey of Bec in Normandy. In 1086 he became its Abbot and some ten years later he became bishop of Canterbury in England. His main works include the Monologion, the Proslogion, Cur Deus Homo, De veritate, and De grammatico. Anselm is considered by scholars to be the greatest Christian thinker of the eleventh century and gave impetus to the rebirth of philosophical and theological thought in the Middle Ages. He delved into two fundamental problems for Christian philosophy: 1. the problem of the relationship between faith and reason which he resolves according to the way of harmonious submission of reason to faith ; and 2. the problem of the existence of God which he attempts to solve, erroneously at that, with his famous Ontological Argument (moving from the concept that God is the greatest being that one can conceive of, of which nothing greater can be thought of ). Anselm formulated his Ontological Argument in his Proslogion in the following way: in the human mind there is the idea of a being of which nothing greater can be thought of. But such a being God must also exist in reality. In fact, to exist in the mind and in reality is more than existing only in the mind. Now, if the being of which nothing greater can be thought of did not exist in reality, it would not be then the being of which nothing greater can be thought of, given that it would be possible to think of a greater being, that is, a being which, existing in the mind as the greatest that one can think of, would exist also in reality. Therefore, the being of which nothing greater can be thought of exists both in the mind and in reality, that is, God exists. Expressed schematically the Anselmian reasoning goes through the following
84[84]

A. W. CHURCH, St. Anselm, London, 1873 ; M. RULE, The Life and Times of St. Anselm, 2 vols., London, 1883 ; J. M. RIGG, St. Anselm of Canterbury, London, 1898 ; D. DE VORGES, Saint Anselme, Flix Alcan, Paris, 1901 ; A. C. WELCH, Anselm and His Work, Edinburgh, 1901 ; J. FISCHER, Die Erkenntnislehre Anselms von Canterbury, Mnster, 1911 ; C. FILLITRE, La philosophie de saint Anselme, ses principes, sa nature, son influence, Paris, 1920 ; A. KOYR, Lide de Dieu dans la philosophie de saint Anselme , Paris, 1923 ; H. OSTLENDER, Anselm von Canterbury, der Vater der Scholastik , Dusseldorf, 1927 ; A. LEVASTI, SantAnselmo. Vita e pensiero, Bari, 1929 ; J. CLAYTON, Saint Anselm: A Critical Biography , Bruce, Milwaukee, 1933 ; E. GILSON, Sens et nature de largument de saint Anselme , Achives, 9 (1934), pp. 5-51 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, S. Anselmo e la filosofia del secolo XI , Bocca, Milan, 1949 ; A. CIECHETTI, L'agostinismo nel pensiero di Anselmo d'Aosta, Rome, 1951 ; G. B. PHELAN, The Wisdom of Saint Anselm , The Archabbey Press, Latrobe, PA., 1960 ; P. MAZZARELLA, Il pensiero speculativo di S. Anselmo dAosta , CEDAM, Padua, 1962 ; R. W. SOUTHERN, Saint Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge, 1963 ; C. HARTSHORNE, Anselm's Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for God's Existence, Open Court, 1964 ; D. P. HENRY, The Logic of Saint Anselm, Oxford, 1967 ; G. CENACCHI, Il pensiero filosofico di Anselmo dAosta, in VARIOUS AUTHORS, Saggi di una nuova storia della filosofia, CEDAM, Padua, 1971, pp. 107-283 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Introduzione a Anselmo dAosta, Laterza, Bari, 1987.

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phases: God is the most perfect Being. All consider God as the most perfect Being. Existence is a perfection. Therefore, only the concept of God implies His real existence. St. Thomas criticized this argument in a number of his works. 85 [85] He observes: 1. Not all people who hear the name God think of that whom which nothing greater can be thought of. In fact, there have been persons who have held that God is a body as the Stoics did. Thus, even the point of departure of the argument is unacceptable ; 2. Supposing that all men really did retain God as that which nothing greater can be thought of, it doesnt follow that this Being conceived in the mind really exists ; it is rather but a concept in the mind. In short, there is an illegitimate passage from the conceptual order of the mind to the real order of being. Therefore, the Ontological Argument of Anselm is invalid as a demonstration of the existence of God. Only the a posteriori quia demonstration of Gods existence from effect to cause is valid. Peter Abelard Peter Abelard86[86] (1079-1142), born in Nantes, was a French philosopher and theologian who had an encyclopedic mind and a formidable dialectic. He studied in Paris under his master the nominalist Roscellin and under the ultra-realist William of Champeaux. He early on took positions contrary to that of his masters, opening new roads in philosophy with the solution to the problem of the universals with his theory of moderate realism, and in theology with his dialectical method of sic et non. Rejecting Roscellins nominalistic solution to the problem of the universals as well as William of Champeauxs ultra-realistic one, Abelard proposed the realistic solution wherein the universal is not a thing existing outside the mind nor is it a simple flautus voci but rather a concept existing in the mind gleaned from things existing outside the mind through a process of abstraction. Thomas Aquinas was later to perfect the solution to the problem of the universals.
85[85]

In I Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 2 ; In Boeth. De Trinitate, q. 1, a. 3 ; De Veritate, q. 10, a. 12 ; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1 ; Summa Contra Gentiles, chapters 10-11. 86[86] B. GEYER, Die philosophischen Schriften Peter Abelards, 4 vols., Mnster, 1919-1933 ; C. OTTAVIANO, Pietro Abelardo. La vita, le opere, il pensiero , Rome, 1931 ; J. G. SICKES, Peter Abaelard, University Press, Cambridge, 1932 ; H. WADDELL, Peter Abaelard, Constable and Co., London, 1933 ; J. R. MCCALLUM, Abelards Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1935 ; E. GILSON, Hlose and Ablard, H. Regnery, Chicago, 1952 ; R. PADELLARO DE ANGELIS, Dialettica e mistica nel XII secolo: Abelardo e san Bernardo , Elia, Rome, 1967 ; M. T. BEONIO BROCCHIERI, Introduzione a Abelardo, Laterza, Bari, 1974 ; A. CROCCO, Abelardo, laltro versante del Medioevo, Liguori, Naples, 1979.

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Avicenna There was also a Scholasticism that developed in the Islamic world, its two most famous exponents being Avicenna and Averroes. 87[87] What these two did was an attempt to elaborate a synthesis between the Koran and Aristotle (an Aristotle revised by the Neo-Platonists that is). The Persian Avicenna88[88] (980-1037), a genius, had an encyclopedic mind and was famous even in the West as a distinguished physician. His cosmological vision is Neo-Platonic and in metaphysics, he attributed great importance to the distinction between essence and existence, the distinction that fixes the demarkation line between God (the Necessary Being) and creatures (the possible beings). Reality is divided into beings necessary for themselves and beings necessary in force of their cause: We say that what makes up part of being can be subdivided by the intellect into two groups. To the first group belong those which, considered in themselves, have a being which is not necessary, but which is not impossible, or it would not belong to being. Therefore, this is a possible being. To the other groups belong those which, considered in themselves, have a necessary being. Therefore, we say that what is necessary for itself has no cause (necesse esse per se non habet causam), and what is possible for itself has a cause. Moreover, what is necessary for itself is the reason for the necessity of all, other things. 89[89] Avicenna presents a distinction between essence and existence, an important distinction, for it is precisely this distinction that establishes the boundary between God and creatures, between the necessary being and possible beings. Everything that is, except for the being which is identified with its own being, acquired being from another, and hence is not identifed with being.90[90] Everything that has a quiddity (essence) is caused ; and
87[87]

T. J. DE BOER, History of Philosophy in Islam, London, 1903 ; B. CARRA DE VAUX, Les penseurs dIslam, 5 vols., Paris, 1921-1926 ; D. L. OLEARY, Arabic Thought and Its Place in History , London, 1922 ; L. GAUTHIER, Introduction ltude de la philosophie musulmane, Paris, 1923 ; S. MUNK, Mlanges de philosophie juive et arabe, Paris, 1927 ; G. QUADRI, La philosophie arabe dans lEurope mdivale , Payot, Paris, 1947 ; L. GARDET-M. M. ANAWATI, Introduction la thologie musulmane , Vrin, Paris, 1948 ; H. CORBIN, Storia della filosofia islamica, Adelpi, Milan, 1973. 88[88] D. SALIBA, tude sur la mtaphysique dAvicenne , Paris, 1927 ; A. M. GOICHON, Introduction Avicenne, Paris, 1933 ; A. M. GOICHON, La distinction de lessence et de lexistence daprs Ibn Sin (Avicenna) , Paris, 1937 ; A. M. GOICHON, La philosophie dAvicenne, Paris, 1944 ; M. CRUZ HERNANDEZ, La metafisica de Avicenna, Granada, 1949 ; L. GARDET, La pense religieuse dAvicenne , Vrin, Paris, 1951 ; F. RAHMAN, Avicennas Psychology, Oxford University Press, London, 1952 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Avicenna nella storia della cultura medioevale, Rome, 1957 ; S. M. AFNAN, Avicenna, His Life and Works, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1958. 89[89] AVICENNA, Chifa, I, 7. 90[90] AVICENNA, Chifa, III, 3.

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all other things, outside of the being necessary for itself, are quiddity which have being in potency, which comes to them from outside. On the contrary, the prime being does not have quiddity. 91[91] Avicenna also held the doctrine of the emanation, that is, that the world proceeds from God through an emanative process. Averroes Averroes92[92] (1126-1198) is famous as the commentator on Aristotle and the author of The Destruction of Destruction (Destructio destructionis or Tahfut al-Tahfut) in defense of philosophy. His philosophy advocated the eternity of the world hierarchically structured. Regarding man, he considered the agent intellect as but one for all men. Even if Averroess rejection of emanation makes him in a sense more orthodox than Avicenna, he did not follow Avicenna in accepting personal immortality. Averroes did indeed follow Themistius and other commentators in holding that the intellectus materialis is the same substance as the intellectus agens and that both survive death, but he followed Alexander of Aphrodisias in holding that this substance is a separate and unitary Intelligence. (It is the intelligence of the moon, the lowest sphere). The individual passive intellect in the individual man becomes, under the action of the active intellect, the acquired intellect, which is absorbed by the active intellect in such a way that, although it survives bodily death, it does so not as a personal, individual existent, but as a moment in the universal and common intelligence of the human species. There is, therefore, immortality, but there is no personal immortality. Ths view was earnestly combated by St. Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastics, though it was maintained by the Latin Averroists as a philosophical truth.93[93] Moses Maimonides

91[91] 92[92]

AVICENNA, Chifa, VIII, 4. M. HORTEN, Die Metaphysik des Averros, Halle, 1912 ; L. GAUTHIER, Ibn Roschd (Averros), Paris, 1948 ; B. ZEDLER, Averroes on the Possible Intellect, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 25 (1951), pp. 164-178. 93[93] F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, book 1, volume 2, Image Doubleday, New York, p. 198.

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The most famous exponent of Jewish philosophy94[94] in the Middle Ages was Moses Maimonides 95[95] (1135-1204), born in Cordoba, Spain and died in Cairo, Egypt. Maimonides attempted a synthesis between the Jewish faith and the doctrines of Neo-Platonism. He is known for the work Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nebukim) wherein he seeks to show that there is no hostility between faith and reason but rather a profound harmony, and that there is only one truth by which man learns through philosophy on one level and by theology on a higher level. Man acquires his perfection by the speculative contemplation of God. St. Albert the Great St. Albert the Great96[96] (1205-1280) was a German philosopher and theologian. He studied first at Bologna and then at Padua. In 1223 he entered the Dominican order and taught at Paris and then at Cologne were he died. In Paris he had as his student the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas. Albert was one of the first Medieval thinkers to value highly and utilize to great effect the philosophy and science of Aristotle, declaring it to be compatible with the Christian faith. He also sought to free the thought of Aristotle from the distortions of the commentator Averroes. In such a way he opened the way for his student Thomas Aquinas who worked that great synthesis of Aristotelian thought with
94[94]

J. HUSIK, A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1916 ; J. GUTTMANN, Die Philosophie des Judentums, Munich, 1933 ; G. VAJDA, Introduction la pense juive du moyen ge, Vrin, Paris, 1947 ; E. BERTOLA, La filosofia ebraica, Bocca, Milan, 1947 ; S. MUNK, Mlanges de philosophie juive et arabe, Paris, 1955 ; M. J. ADLER, Philosphy of Judaism, New York, 1960 ; A. ALTMANN, Essays in Jewish Intellectual History, London, 1981 ; A. CHOURAQUI, Il pensiero ebraico, Queriniana, Brescia, 1989 ; G. STEMBERG, Il giudaismo classico, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1992 ; C. SIRAT, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. 95[95] D. ROSIN, Die Ethik Maimonides, Breslaw, 1876 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben, seine Werke und sein Einfluss, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1908 and 1914 ; G. FOCK, Moses ben Mamon, sein Leben, seine Werke und sein Einfluss, Leipzig, 1908 ; J. MUNZ, Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben und seine Werken , Frankfurt a. M., 1912 ; FR. KUNTZ, Die Philosophie Salomon Maimons, 1913 ; L. ROTH, Spinoza, Descartes, and Maimonides, Oxford, 1924 ; L. G. LVY, Mamonide, Paris, 1932 ; A. HESCHEL, Maimonides, Eine Biographie, Berlin, 1935 ; M. VENTURA, Maimonide, Terminologie logique, Paris, 1935 ; S. BARON, Essays on Mamonides, New York, 1941 ; H. SEROUYA, Maimonide. Sa vie et son oeuvre , PUF, Paris, 1964 ; I. EFROS, Philosophical Terms in the Moreh Nebukhim, New York, 1966 ; D. YELLIN-I. ABRAHAMS, Maimonides, His Life and Works , New York, 1972 ; J. I. DEINSTAG (editor), Studies in Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas , New York, 1975 ; D. HARTMANN, Maimonides, Torah and Philosophic Quest, Philadelphia, 1976. 96[96] P. G. MEERSSEMAN, Introductio in Opera Omnia B. Alberti Magni, Bruges, 1931 ; H. WILMS, Albert the Great, Burns Oates & Washbourne, London, 1933 ; G. C. REILLY, The Psychology of Albert the Great Compared with that of St. Thomas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D. C., 1934 ; L. KENNEDY, The Nature of the Human Intellect According to St. Albert the Great , Modern Schoolman, 37 (1960), pp. 121-137 ; B. BERTON, Virt e felicit in S. Alberto Magno , CEDAM, Padua, 1969 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, SantAlberto Magno: luomo e il pensatore, Pontificia Universit San Tommaso, Massimo, Milan, 1980 ; CRAEMERRUEGENBERG, Albertus Magnus, Beck, Munich, 1980 ; G. WILMS, SantAlberto Magno, ESD, Bologna, 1991.

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Christian revelation, which constitutes the greatest conquest of the Middle Ages. Similarities between the Angelic Doctor Aquinas and his teacher Albert include, according to Saranyana, the following points: 1. All creation is composed of quod est and esse. Only in the Creator is his quod est equal to his esse. 2. Prime matter is pure potency. It is neither intelligible by itself nor does it subsist by itself, because considered in itself it is devoid of any form. 3. In all beings that are composed, man included, the substantial form is only one. 4. The concept of spiritual matter is contradictory. Thus, universal hylemorphism is impossible, granting the existence of spiritual beings distinct from God. 5. Both philosophers emphasize the superiority of the intellect over the will, since nothing can be desired unless it had been previously known, although they add that in the present state of man as viator the will usually exerts a certain control over the intellect.97[97] Regarding the difference between the two doctors of the Church, Saranyana writes: Albert maintained that intellectual activity, specifically in the highest levels of mystical union, is carried out without the need for images or phantasms. But Thomas always taught during his lifetime that man as viator cannot know without having recourse to images. 2. Albert identified being eternal with being uncreated. Consequently, he considered it contradictory that a world that is eternal were created. For St. Thomas, eternity does not exclude being created ; it only means not having a beginning in time. From the metaphysical viewpoint, therefore, he found no obstacle to thinking of a being created eternally. 3. The Universal Doctor did not identify the angels with the separated substances of the Peripatetics, that caused the movement of the heavenly spheres. In contrast, the Angelic Doctor had no qualms in considering them the same, metaphysically speaking. In his mind, it is only through Revelation that we can know that angels are messengers of God, and that they are in his service. 4. Albert the Great held that the human embryo develops progressively in such a way that from the very beginning of its growth everything is already present, including its intelligence. In contrast, Thomas Aquinas thought that the human embryo becomes an individual of the human species only after a series of generations and corruptions, that is to say, after various substantial changes the most important of it being the infusion of the spiritual soul some weeks after fertilization (the doctrine of the delayed infusion of the soul). 5. Albert and Thomas differed also as to the ontological of metaphysical composition of finite beings. A contemporary of both, Siger of Brabant, said that Albert understood esse
97[97]

J. SARANYANA, History of Medieval Philosophy, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1996, p. 176.

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as something extrinsic to the essence and, in some way, accidental to it. On the other hand, Thomas stated that esse is something added to the essence of a thing, constituted out of essential principles, and neither does not belong to the essence itself of the thing nor is it accidental. In sum, both philosophers held the real distinction between essence and esse, but Alberts esse lacks transcendental quality.98[98] St. Thomas Aquinas St. Thomas Aquinas99[99] (1224/5-1274), of the counts of Aquino, was born at Rocasseca, in the south of Italy, either late 1224 or early 1225. As a child he studied under the Benedictines of Montecassino. From 1239 to 1244 he pursued studies at the University of Naples, which had been founded in 1224 by the emperor Frederick II,
98[98] 99[99]

J. SARANYANA, op. cit., p.177. K. WERNER, Der hl. Thomas von Aquin, 3 vols., J. Manz, Regensburg, 1858-1859 ; E. ROLFES, Die Philosophie von Thomas von Aquin, Meiner, Leipzig, 1920 ; F. OLGIATI, Lanima di San Tommaso, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1923 ; A. FOREST, Saint Thomas dAquin, Mellotte, Paris, 1923 ; M. GRABMANN, Das Seelenleben des heilegen Thomas von Aquin , Munich, 1924 ; F. OLGIATI, A Key to the Study of St. Thomas , St. Louis, 1925 ; E. CHIOCCHETTI, San Tommaso, Athena, Milan, 1925 ; J. RIMAUD, Thomisme et mthode, Paris, 1925 ; L. ROUGIER, La scolastique et le thomisme , Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1925 ; E. PEILLAUBE, Initiation la philosophie de S. Thomas, Paris, 1926 ; J. HESSEN, Die Weltanschauung des Thomas von Aquin , Strecker, Stuttgart, 1926 ; P. SIMON, Thomas von Aquin und die Scholastik, Reinhardt, Munich, 1927 ; E. DE BRUYNE, St. Thomas dAquin, Le milieu, lhomme, la vision du monde , Brussels, 1928 ; A. D. SERTILLANGES, Les grandes thses de la philosophie thomiste , Paris, 1928 ; M. GRABMANN, Die Werke des heiligen Thomas von Aquin , Mnster, 1931 ; M. DARCY, Thomas Aquinas, London, 1931 ; A. D. SERTILLANGES, Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy, London, 1931 ; G. MANSER, Das Wesen des Thomismus, Freiburg, 1932 ; F. J. THONNARD, Saint Thomas dAquin, Bonne Presse, Paris, 1933 ; G. SAITTA, Il carattere della filosofia tomistica , Sansoni, Florence, 1934 ; J. WBERT, Saint Thomas dAquin, le gnie de lordre , Denol et Steele, Paris, 1934 ; E. GILSON, The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Cambridge, 1937 ; G. VANN, Saint Thomas Aquinas, London, 1940 ; A. CRESSON, S. Thomas dAquin. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa philosophie , PUF, Paris, 1942 ; M. MARESCA, Tommaso dAquino e la scolastica, Garzanti, Milan, 1943 ; A. WALZ, San Tommaso dAquino. Studi biografici sul Dottore Angelico, Edizioni Liturgiche, Rome, 1945 ; J. MARITAIN, St. Thomas Aquinas, London, 1946 ; H. MEYER, The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1946 ; G. K. CHESTERTON, St. Thomas Aquinas, London, 1947 ; M. D. CHENU, Introduction ltude de Saint Thomas dAquin , Vrin, Paris, 1950 ; A. CALORI, Tomas de Aquino, la luz de Paris, Buenos Aires, 1952 ; S. M. GILLET, Thomas dAquin, Dunod, Paris, 1952 ; R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Doctrine , B. Herder, St. Louis, 1952 ; C. FABRO, Breve introduzione al tomismo, Descle, Rome, 1960 ; L. JUGNET, La pense de saint Thomas dAquin, Bordas, Paris, 1964 ; P. GRENET, Le thomisme, PUF, Paris, 1964 ; B. MONDIN, La filosofia dellessere di S. Tommaso dAquino, Herder, Rome, 1964 ; V. J. BOURKE, Aquinas Search of Wisdom, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1965 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Introduzione a Tommaso dAquino, Laterza, Bari, 1973 ; J. WEISHEIPL, Friar Thomas dAquino: His Life, Thought and Work, Doubleday, New York, 1974 ; R. SPIAZZI, San Tommaso dAquino, Nardini, Florence, 1975 ; F. COPLESTON, Aquinas, Penguin, Drayton, Baltimore, 1975 ; R. MACINERNY, St. Thomas Aquinas, Hall, Boston, 1977 ; C. FABRO, Introduzione a san Tommaso, Ares, Milan, 1983 ; M. F. SCIACCA, Prospettiva sulla metafisica di san Tommaso, LEpos, Palermo, 1990 ; I. TAURISANO, La vita e lepoca di san Tommaso dAquino, ESD, Bologna, 1991 ; B. MONDIN, Il sistema filosofico di Tommaso dAquino , Massimo, Milan, 1992 ; B. MONDIN, Dizionario enciclopedico del pensiero di san Tommaso dAquino , ESD, Bologna, 1992 ; A. LIVI, Tommaso dAquino. Il futuro del pensiero cristiano , Mondadori, Milan, 1997 ; J. F. WIPPEL, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D. C., 2000.

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and a little while after that entered the newly founded Dominican order. This decision was met by strong opposition from his family; Thomas brothers actually abducted him and confined him at Rocasseca for about a year. However, seeing Thomas firm resolve to pursue his vocation with the Domincans, his family relented. By the fall of 1245 Thomas was sent to Paris for the novitiate and studies. From the summer of 1248 to the fall of 1252 he sojourned at Cologne, studying under St. Albert the Great. During this time Thomas commented extensively on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. From the fall of 1252 to the spring of 1256 he was Baccalaureus Sententiarius at Paris. By 1256 Thomas had completed his De Ente et Essentia (On Being and Essence). Between May and June of 1256 he was named master in theology at the University of Paris. Between 1256 to 1259 Thomas produced the De Veritate. By the end of 1259 he left Paris for Naples. Here is a chronology of his stay in Italy: Naples (1259-1261), Orvieto (1261-1265), Rome (1265-1267), and Viterbo (1267-1268). It was during this time that he composed some of his greatest works: Summa Contra Gentiles, the first part of the Summa Theologiae, the Quaestiones disputatae, De Malo, De Potentia Dei, and De Spiritualibus Creaturis. From 1269 to 1272 Thomas was in Paris occupying a chair at the University. He was recalled to Paris in order to defend the use of Aristotles philosophy in the service of the Christian Faith and to expose the errors of the Averroists who, among other things, held a sole agent intellect for all men. During this second sojourn in Paris, Thomas commented extensively on the works of Aristotle, producing the Super Physicam, the Super Metaphysicam, the Sententia libri Ethicorum, and the Sententia super De Anima. Also during this time he completed the second part of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologiae and authored many other works, including the De aeternitate mundi contra murmurantes, the De unitate intellectus contra averroistas, and a number of commentaries on Sacred Scripture. In the summer of 1272 he left Paris for the last time to go to Naples where he was a regent of theology. During this time he was working on his sermons on the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Commandments, on his Compendium theologiae and on the third part of his Summa Theologiae. On the sixth of December, 1273 Thomas ceased writing after an extraordinary vision from God. He had told his faithful secretary Brother Reginald of Piperno that whatever he had written thus far was but straw compared to what was revealed to him by God in the vision. Thomas died on 7 March 1274 while on his way to participate in the Second Council of Lyons. He was later canonized by Pope John XII at Avignon on 18
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July 1323, and was given the title Doctor of Church by Pope St. Pius V on 11 April 1567. Modern endorsements by the Magisterium of St. Thomas include the following: the Encyclical Aeterni Patris (Pope Leo XIII, August 4, 1879) ; the Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici (Pope St. Pius X, June 29, 1914) ; the 1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 1366 ; the Encyclical Studiorum Ducem (Pope Pius XI, June 29, 1923) ; the Address Singulari Sane (Pope Blessed John XXIII, September 16, 1960) ; numbers 15 and 16 of the Decree Optatam Totius (Vatican II, October 28, 1965) and the reply given by the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities in connection with number 15 (December 20, 1965) ; number 10 of the Declaration Gravissimum Educationis (Vatican II, October 28, 1965) ; the Letter Lumen Ecclesiae (Pope Paul VI, November 20, 1974) ; the 1979 Address at the Angelicum University, Rome (Pope John Paul II, November 17, 1979) ; the 1979 Address delivered at the 8th International Thomistic Congress (Pope John Paul II, September 13, 1980) ; the 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 252 ; and numbers 43 and 44 of the Encyclical Fides et Ratio (Pope John Paul II, September 14, 1998). The following are some excerpts: Pope Leo XIII (Aeterni Patris): Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, as Cajetan observes, because he most venerated the ancient Doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.100[100] The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. Philosophy has no part which he did not touch finely at once and thoroughly; on the laws of reasoning, on God and incorporeal substances, on man and other sensible
100[100]

Cajetans commentary on Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 148, a. 4 ; Leonine ed., vol. 10, no. 6, p. 174.

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things, on human actions and their principles, he reasoned in such a manner that in him there is wanting neither a full array of questions, nor an apt disposal of the various parts, nor the best method of proceeding, nor soundness of principles or strength of argument, nor clearness and elegance of style, nor a facility for explaining what is abstruse. Moreover, the Angelic Doctor pushed his philosophic inquiry into the reasons and principles of things, which because they are most comprehensive and contain in their bosom, so to say, the seeds of almost infinite truths, were to be unfolded in good time by later masters and with a goodly yield. And as he also used this philosophic method in the refutation of error, he won this title to distinction for himself: that, singlehanded, he victoriously combated the errors of former times, and supplied invincible arms to put those to rout which might in after-times spring up. Again, clearly distinguishing, as is fitting, reason from faith, while happily associating the one with the other, he both preserved the rights and had regard for the dignity of each; so much so, indeed, that reason. borne on the wings of Thomas to its human height, can scarcely rise higher, while faith could scarcely expect more or stronger aids from reason than those which she has already obtained through Thomas. For these reasons most learned men, in former ages especially, of the highest repute in theology and philosophy, after mastering with infinite pains the immortal works of Thomas, gave themselves up not so much to be instructed in his angelic wisdom as to be nourished upon it. It is known that nearly all the founders and lawgivers of the religious orders commanded their members to study and religiously adhere to the teachings of St. Thomas, fearful least any of them should swerve even in the slightest degree from the footsteps of so great a man. To say nothing of the family of St. Dominic, which rightly claims this great teacher for its own glory, the statutes of the Benedictines, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Society of Jesus, and many others all testify that they are bound by this law. And, here, how pleasantly ones thoughts fly back to those celebrated schools and universities which flourished of old in Europe--to Paris, Salamanca, Alcala, to Douay, Toulouse, and Louvain, to Padua and Bologna, to Naples and Coimbra, and to many another! All know how the fame of these seats of learning grew with their years, and that their judgment, often asked in matters of grave moment, held great weight
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everywhere. And we know how in those great homes of human wisdom, as in his own kingdom, Thomas reigned supreme; and that the minds of all, of teachers as well as of taught, rested in wonderful harmony under the shield and authority of the Angelic Doctor. But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull In Ordine; Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull Pretiosus, and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull Mirabilis that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull Verbo Dei, affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same. 101[101] Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.102[102] Pope St. Pius X (Doctoris Angelici):

101[101] 102[102]

Constitutio 5a, data die 3 Aug. 1368, ad Cancell. Univ. Tolos. Sermo de S. Thoma.

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We therefore desired that all teachers of philosophy and sacred theology should be warned that if they deviated so much as a step, in metaphysics especially, from Aquinas, they exposed themselves to grave risk. -- We now go further and solemnly declare that those who in their interpretations misrepresent or affect to despise the principles and major theses of his philosophy are not only not following St. Thomas but are even far astray from the saintly Doctor. If the doctrine of any writer or Saint has ever been approved by Us or Our Predecessors with such singular commendation and in such a way that to the commendation were added an invitation and order to propagate and defend it, it may easily be understood that it was commended to the extent that it agreed with the principles of Aquinas or was in no way opposed to them The experience of so many centuries has shown and every passing day more clearly proves the truth of the statement made by Our Predecessor John XXII: He (Thomas Aquinas) enlightened the Church more than all the other Doctors together; a man can derive more profit from his books in one year than from a lifetime spent in pondering the philosophy of others (Consistorial address of 1318)... therefore that the philosophy of St. Thomas may flourish incorrupt and entire in schools, which is very dear to Our heart, and that the system of teaching which is based upon the authority and judgement of the individual teacher and therefore has a changeable foundation whence many diverse and mutually conflicting opinions arise . . . not without great injury to Christian learning (Leo XIII, Epist, Qui te of the 19th June, 1886) be abolished forever, it is Our will and We hereby order and command that teachers of sacred theology in Universities, Academies, Colleges, Seminaries and Institutions enjoying by apostolic indult the privilege of granting academic degrees and doctorates in philosophy, use the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas as the text of their prelections and comment upon it in the Latin tongue, and let them take particular care to inspire their pupils with a devotion for it. Such is already the laudable custom of many Institutions. Such was the rule which the sagacious founders of Religious Orders, with the hearty approval of Our Predecessors, desired should be observed in their own houses of study; and the saintly men who came after the time of St. Thomas Aquinas took him and no other for their supreme teacher of philosophy. So also and not otherwise will theology recover its pristine
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glory and all sacred studies be restored to their order and value and the province of the intellect and reason flower again in a second spring. In future, therefore, no power to grant academic degrees in sacred theology will be given to any institution unless Our present prescription is religiously observed therein. Institutions or Faculties of Orders and Regular Congregations, also, already in lawful possession of the power of conferring such academic degrees or similar diplomas, even within the limits of their own four walls, shall be deprived of such a privilege and be considered to have been so deprived if, after the lapse of three years, they shall not have religiously obeyed for any reason whatsoever, even beyond their control, this Our injunction. This is Our Order, and nothing shall be suffered to gainsay it. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 29th day of June, 1914, the eleventh year of Our Pontificate. Pius PP. X. Pope Pius XI (Studiorum Ducem): Most philosophers as a rule are eager to establish their own reputations, but Thomas strove to efface himself completely in the teaching of his philosophy so that the light of heavenly truth might shine with its own effulgence. This humility, therefore, combined with the purity of heart We have mentioned, and sedulous devotion to prayer, disposed the mind of Thomas to docility in receiving the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and following His illuminations, which are the first principles of contemplation. To obtain them from above, he would frequently fast, spend whole nights in prayer, lean his head in the fervour of his unaffacted piety against the tabernacle containing the august Sacrament, constantly turn his eyes and mind in sorrow to the image of the crucified Jesus ; and he confessed to his intimate friend St. Bonaventure that it was from that Book especially that he derived all his learning. It may, therefore, be truly said of Thomas what is commonly reported of St. Dominic, Father and Lawgiver, that in his conversation he never spoke but about God or with God. Pope John Paul II (1979 Address at the Angelicum):

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what are the qualities which won for Aquinas such titles as: Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor?The first quality is without doubt his complete submission of mind and heart to divine RevelationThe second quality, one which has to do with his excellence as a teacher, is that he had a great respect for the visible world because it is the work, and hence also the imprint and image, of God the Creator Lastly, the third quality which moved Leo XIII to offer Aquinas to professors and students as a model of the highest studies is his sincere, total and life-long acceptance of the Teaching Office of the Church, to whose judgment he submitted all his works both during his life and at the point of deathThese three qualities mark the entire speculative effort of St. Thomas and make sure that its results are orthodox. Pope John Paul II (Fides et Ratio, no. 44): Saint Thomas was impartial in his love of truth. He sought truth wherever it might be found and gave consummate demonstration of its universality. In him, the Churchs Magisterium has seen and recognized the passion for truth ; and, precisely because it stays consistently within the horizon of universal, objective and transcendent truth, his thought scales heights unthinkable to human intelligence. Rightly, then, he may be called an apostle of the truth. Looking unreservedly to truth, the realism of Thomas could recognize the objectivity of truth and produce not merely a philosophy of what seems to be but a philosophy of what is. The Philosophical Thought of St. Thomas With regard to his philosophical thought let us treat of his concepts of faith and reason, his philosophy of being, his anthropology, his philosophy of God, and his political philosophy. 1. Faith and Reason. For Thomas, there is a harmony between faith and reason. They are distinct spheres but should never contradict themselves. Reason has its own sphere but is incapable of penetrating the mysteries of God. It, however, can provide a precious service to the faith by: (a) demonstrating the preambles of faith such as Gods existence, human freedom, and the immortality of the soul ; (b) explaining the truths of faith with examples and illustrations ; and (c) defending against the objections raised against the faith. 2. Philosophy of Being. Thomas philosophy can rightly be
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described as a philosophy of being. Its primary tenets are the following doctrines: the maximum perfection is being understood as the act of being (esse) the perfection of esse is one and is identified with God ; the origin of finite beings is due to creation, which is a participation by similarity of the perfection of being. And the limitation of the perfection of being is due to potency (that is to essence). 3. Anthropology. Man is a hylemorphic composite of body and soul, soul being the sole substantial form of the body. Human knowledge is self-sufficient and has no need of the extraordinary intervention of God in order for it to take place. The soul is immortal of personal immortality because it is an absolute form, not dependent upon matter. 4. Philosophy of God. Thomas rejects the a priori demonstration of the existence of God. The only valid way is the a posteriori quia (effect to cause) demonstration. The constitutive elements of the a posteriori demonstration are the following: 1. The attention is drawn to a certain phenomenon (change, secondary causality, possibility, the grades of perfection, finality) ; 2. The relative, dependent and caused character (that is, the contingency) of the phenomenon is evidenced. Whatever changes is moved by another ; second causes are, in turn, caused ; the possible receives its being from others ; the grades of perfection receive perfection from the highest perfection ; finality always requires intelligence, while natural things in themselves do not have intelligence ; 3. It is demonstrated that the effective and actual reality of a contingent phenomenon cannot be explained by postulating the intervention of an infinite series of contingent causes ; 4. It is concluded that the only valid explanation of the contingent is God. He is the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, necessary being, the most perfect being, and the supreme ordering intelligence. 103[103] He gives us his Five Ways to demonstrate the existence of God: 1. From motion or change we ascend to the Unmovable Mover ; 2. From secondary causes we ascend to the First Efficent Cause ; 3. From contingent being we ascend to Necessary Being ; 4. From grades of pure transcendental perfections we ascend to the Absolutely Perfect Being ; and 5. From the finality of nonintelligent bodies we ascend to the Supreme Orderer of the universe. As to the Nature of God, Thomas rejects both agnosticism and anthropomorphism. 5. Political philosophy. Aquinas reaffirms the Aristotelian doctrine of the State which is a perfect society because it has a proper end, the common good, and the sufficient means to realize it. Regarding the rapport between Church and State, Aquinas recognizes the
103[103]

B. MONDIN, A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1991, p. 320.

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autonomy of the State but also the preeminence of the Church whose end is the supernatural good of man. St. Bonaventure Born in Banoregio (Viterbo), the philosopher and theologian St. Bonaventure104[104] (1221-1274) entered the Franciscan order while still a youth. He studied theology in Paris and was nominated Master of Theology. He was later named superior general of the Franciscans. Bonaventure was a great champion of the harmonious coexistence of faith and reason and the subordination of the latter to the former. The object of philosophy is exemplarism, that is, the property that things have by being made in the image of God. He held that man, though having but one nature, was constituted by body and soul. Human knowledge is gotten through abstraction or by illumination. Will, in man, is more important than intellect. Gods existence is evident. In Him there are three types of knowledge: approval, vision, and intelligence. The divine Essence is the model of all things. Saranyana summarizes the main points of Bonaventures philosophy for us: First: In the study of the divine attributes, he especially emphasized and analyzed the eternal reasons. Closely related to this doctrine is that of exemplarism. He considered impossible and contradictory a creation ab aeterno. Second: In the context of the Aristotelian doctrine of act and potency, he held the view that all of creation is composed of matter and form, angels and the human soul included. Matter endowes a thing its being concrete and particular, that is, its existence. The form gives matter its essential determination, its essential actuality (actus essendi). Essence and existence are related to each other as matter and form. They have neither a transcendental
104[104]

E. LUTZ, Die Psychologie Bonaventuras, Mnster, 1909 ; G. PALHORIS, Saint Bonaventure, Paris, 1913 ; B. A. LUYCKX, Die Erkenntnislehre Bonaventuras, Mnster, 1923 ; G. SESTILI, La filosofia di San Bonaventura, Turin, 1928 ; J. BISSEN, Lexemplarisme divin selon st. Bonaventure , Vrin, Paris, 1929 ; C. J. OLEARY, The Substantial Composition of Man According to St. Bonaventure , Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1931 ; P. ROBERT, Hylmorphisme et devenir chez S. Bonaventure , Montral, 1936 ; C. M. ODONNELL, The Psychology of St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1937 ; E. GILSON, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure , Sheed and Ward, New York, 1938 ; L. VEUTHEY, S. Bonaventurae philosophia christiana, Rome, 1943 ; M. M. DE BENEDICTIS, The Social Thought of St. Bonaventure, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1946 ; R. LAZZARINI, San Bonaventura, filosofo e mistico del cristianesimo , Milan, 1946 ; J. C. BOUJEROL, Introduction ltude de saint Bonaventure , Descle, Paris, 1961 ; J. C. BOUJEROL, St. Bonaventure et la sagesse chrtienne, Seuil, Paris, 1963 ; G. NIEDDU, Il problema di Dio in san Bonaventura, Cagliari, 1969 ; L. VEUTHEY, La filosofia cristiana di san Bonaventura , Rome, 1971 ; E. BETTONI, San Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Gli aspetti filosofici del suo pensiero , Milan, 1973 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, San Bonaventura, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1974 ; L. MAURO, Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Genoa, 1976 ; J. RATZINGER, San Bonaventura: la teologia della storia, Nardini, Florence, 1992 ; G. DINO, Il concetto di creazione in S. Bonaventura, Palermo, 1992 ; A. POMPEI, Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Rome, 1993.

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relation nor a logical one, but merely a modal relation. Modal relation involves a distinction between essence and existence which is neither a real distinction nor purely a distinction of reason. It is more of a formal distinction, as Duns Scotus would later on explain. Bonaventure would also distinguish following Boethius doctrine enriched in the course of centuries between quo est (humanity), quod est (man, the essential composite), and quis est (the individual composite, e.g., Henry). Third: Prime matter is not pure potentiality ; there is in it a degree of inherent formality or basic form. In other words, prime matter is precisely so because it contains a certain intrinsic form from the very moment of creation. That form acts like the beginning and seed of all other forms (seminal forms) which it could give rise to, dependent on the kind of agents that act over it. In the absence of that first formality relatively indeterminate to be this or that, but in itself is perfect it would be impossible to even speak of prime matter. That does not imply, nevertheless, that this semi-formed prime matter exists independently of particular things. St. Bonaventure spoke of that material and actual substratum present in all things only in his commentary on the Hexameron ; the Bonaventurian universe, besides, is not a single substance evolving accidentally, because we know that he admitted the multiplicity of substantial forms in the composite. But it is incontestable that prime matter is already something in a certain sense, because otherwise, it would be nothing and from nothing, nothing comes. Fourth: The first substantial form given to prime matter is light, which is manifested by an accident, the lumen (luminosity). This characteristic resplendence is found in all things (God is uncreated light), and has a lot to do with the process of knowing which, in the Augustinian tradition, is a process involving light. The light-form coexists with other substantial forms, the last of which, called complete form, gives a specific perfection to being. Bonaventure also considered philosophically erroneous the doctrine of the unicity of the substantial form. Fifth: The agent intellect is insufficient, as will soon be discussed below, so Bonaventure proposed an alternative gnoseology with an Augustinian slant. He argued thus: It is said that the agent intellect does not know although it makes things intelligible. But how can it make things knowable if by itself it does not know? There must be another explanation for our knowledge. And Bonaventure found it in the doctrine of eternal reasons because they know being ontologically identical with the Divine Word and in them God knows everything. Thus, with the eternal reasons, man is able to know, amd they make things intelligible to
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him. But for the Seraphic Doctor, man cannot know everything in the divine ideas (that would be ontologism, contrary to Bonaventurian thought); he says, on the other hand, that the human mind after abstracting the species of a thing, which is inevitably a copy of the divine ideas needs a kind of divine illumination that leads it to discover the exemplar in the species or copy. The eternal reasons, therefore, are guides and controllers of human knowledge, but they are inadequate without divine illumination. Sixth: The human soul is a substance, an hoc aliquid, capable of existing, acting and feeling by its own. The soul, composed of matter and form, is the form of the body which is itself a substance composed of matter and form. The soul, therefore, is the ultimate substantial form that gives man his specific perfection in conjunction with other substantial forms, for instance, the substantial form that gives corporeal characteristics to a body. Being a substance, the soul is apt to separate itself from the body, subsisting nonetheless. Bonaventure distinguished the soul from its two faculties (the sense faculties being part of the body), but he did not go far enough in making that distinction as to consider the intellect and the will as accidents of the soul. He considered the powers of the soul as having the nature of a substance, although strictly speaking they are not substances. That ambiguous position taken by Bonaventure would flourish in other Franciscan thinkers (Duns Scotus among them) as the denial of the real distinction between the soul and its powers, and the view that the powers of the soul are merely active manifestations of the soul when it knows and loves.105[105] Duns Scotus

105[105]

J. SARANYANA, op. cit., pp. 184-186.

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Duns Scotus106[106] (1265-1308) was born at Maxon in Scotland. He entered the Franciscans in his youth and studied at Oxford and Paris. At Paris he obtained the title of Master of Theology. In 1298 he returned to England where he began a commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. He returned to Paris and ended his life in Cologne. Scotus sought to work out a synthesis between the current Franciscan current and Aristotelian philosophy. The more original doctrines of his metaphysics are his doctrines of the univocity of being, ecceity, and the formal (not real) distinction between essence and existence. The object of metaphysics is being as the maximum indeterminate perfection. Ecceity is a particular form that confers individuation. Between essence and existence there is no real distinction but only a formal one. The existence of God must be demonstrated, the most convincing proof being that of causality. Whether in God or in man the will has priority over the intellect. Mondin explains Scotus univocal concept of being for us: The object of metaphysics is being, but not being as the greatest perfection (esse perfectio omnium perfectionum) of St. Thomas, but the ens comune, or being as the most common perfection, which precedes every determination, including the division between finite and infinite being. This is the being that is pedicable of all that is. Being conceived in this way is univocal (esse est unius rationis) and is predicated in the same way of everything. Ens dicitur per unam rationem de omnibus de quibus praedicatur. In all cases, being means the same thing, the opposite of non-being. The reason which led Scotus to the theory of the univocal concept of being is probably theological. According to Scotus, if the concept of being were not univocal with respect to God and creatures,
106[106]

B. LANDRY, Duns Scot, Paris, 1922 ; E. LONGPR, La philosophie du B. Duns Scot, Paris, 1924 ; P. TOCHOWICZ, Joannis Duns Scoti de cognitionis Dei doctrina , Fribourg, 1926 ; C. HARRIS, Duns Scotus, 2 vols., Oxford, 1927 ; J. KRAUS, Die Lehre des Johannes Duns Scotus der natura communis , Paderborn, 1927 ; P. MINGES, J. D. Scoti doctrina philosophica et theologica , 2 vols., Quaracchi, 1930 ; S. BELMOND, Etude sur la philosophie de Duns Scot, Beauchesne, Paris, 1933 ; C. L. SHIRCEL, The Univocity of the Concept of Being in the Philosophy of Duns Scotus, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1942 ; M. J. GRAJEWSKI, The Formal Distinction of Duns Scotus , Washington, D.C., 1944 ; A. W. WOLTER, The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus , New York, 1946 ; E. GILSON, Jean Duns Scot. Introduction ses positions fondamentales, Vrin, Paris, 1952 ; E. BETTONI, Duns Scoto filosofo, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1966 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Giovanni Duns Scoto nel VII centenario della nascita, Naples, 1967 ; O. TODISCO, Lo spirito cristiano nella filosofia di Giovanni Duns Scoto , Abete, Rome, 1975 ; W. HOERES, La volont come perfezione in Giovanni Duns Scoto , Liviana, Padua, 1976 ; C. GOM (editor), Jean Duns Scot ou la rvolution subtile, Fac, Paris, 1982 ; O. TODISCO, G. Duns Scoto e Guglielmo dOccam: dallontologia alla filosofia del linguaggio, Cassino, 1989 ; B. BONANSEA, Uomo e Dio nel pensiero di Duns Scoto , Jaca Book, Milan, 1991 ; M. PANGALLO, La libert di Dio in San Tommaso e Duns Scoto , Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 1992 ; G. LAURIOLA, Giovanni Duns Scoto: recenti documenti, Rome, 1992.

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then any knowledge of God working from creatures would be impossible.107[107] William of Ockham An English Franciscan, William of Ockham108[108] (1290-1349) studied and taught at Oxford. For his doctrines that were suspected of heresy he was ordered to present himself at the papal court at Avignon to respond to the heretical ideas which he was accused of. Ockham fled Avignon with a group of dissident Franciscans and sought refuge at Munich in Bavaria with the Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria. He was subsequently excommunicated. Ockham affirmed that the universals exist only in the mind and do not have any relation to real things. They are but pure concepts. Man is incapable of knowing the essences of things. Abstraction, for him, is a fount of error which conjures up hidden and unnecessary entities like essences and substantial forms. Therefore, it is necessary that one eliminate uselessly multiplied abstract entities (Ockhams razor: non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate). So how do we know? Ockham postulates that we know only what is known intuitively, either by sense intuition or by an intellectual intuition. Centuries later rationalism was to adopt the latter (in its direct knowledge of essences) and empiricism the former. Ockham also held the antinomy between faith and reason, which has become a cardinal tenet of modern philosophy from Descartes to our day.

CHAPTER 3

107[107] 108[108]

B. MONDIN, op. cit., p. 372. N. ABBAGNANO, Guglielmo di Ockham, Lanciano, 1931 ; E. A. MOODY, The Logic of William of Ockham, London, 1935 ; S. U. ZUIDEMA, De Philosophie van Occam in zijn Cammentaar op de Sententin , 2 vols., Hilversum, 1936 ; E. HOCHSTETTER, Studien zur Metaphysik und Erkenntnislehre des Wilhelms von Ockham , Berlin, 1937 ; C. GIACON, Guglielmo di Occam, 2 vols., Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1941 ; A. HAMANN, La doctrine de lglise et de ltat chez Occam , Paris, 1942 ; R. GUELLUY, Philosophie et thologie chez Guillaume dOckham, Louvain, 1947 ; L. BAUDRY, Guillaume dOccam. Sa vie, ses oeuvres, ses ides sociales et politiques , Paris, 1949 ; G. MARTIN, Wilhelm von Ockham, Berlin, 1949 ; O. FUCHS, The Psychology of Habit According to William Ockham, New York, 1952 ; C. VASOLI, Guglielmo di Occam, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1953 ; M. C. MENGES, The Concept of the Univocity of Being Regarding the Predication of God and Creature According to William Ockham, New York, 1958 ; P. BOEHNER, Collected Articles on Ockham, New York, 1958 ; A. GHISALBERTI, Guglielmo di Occam, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1972 ; A. GHISALBERTI, Introduzione a Guglielmo dOckham, Laterza, Bari, 1976.

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RENAISSANCE HUMANISM TO KANT From renaissance humanism to Kant, modern philosophys main characteristics that make it different from medieval philosophy are essentially three: 1. The complete autonomy of philosophical research from sacred theology. Philosophy is not just not studied in view of presenting its findings to theology in order to form a rational base for the latter, but the very harmony between faith and reason, between philosophy and theology, has been shattered. 2. A pluralism, not just of method as was the case in the Middle Ages, but primarily a pluralism with regard to the very content studied by philosophy. Medieval philosophers and theologians did not have this radical pluralism of content because they were Christian philosophers and theologians and could not doubt the content of their faith. For the most part, modern philosophers (who were overwhelmingly laymen and not Christians who adhered to all the tenets of the faith) did not share this view, sustaining an absolute autonomy of philosophy from theology, the latter not anymore providing a negative rule for the former. Free from the constraints of the Christian faith the modern philosopher now felt free to sustain just about any philosophical position that seemed rational. Thus, in the modern epoch, we encounter systems that affirm and deny the existence of God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, human freedom, and the moral law. 3. We also see in modern philosophy the progressive disinterestedness and even elimination of metaphysics as first philosophy, first with the mathematicism of Descartes and later with Kants dismissal of metaphysics as a transcendental illusion. Secularization Secularization refers to that activity which affirms the complete autonomy of man and the world from God, assigning to man the authority which before had been ascribed to the Divine Creator. It is a type of thinking and way of acting wherein God is left out of mans affairs; human life and the passage of history is comprehended as something that has nothing to do with Gods providence and intervention. For the secularized man, the affairs of this world are to be efficiently accomplished without having recourse to God, without waiting to ask what in fact is the will of the Almighty at the present moment. The world has witnessed a vast secularization in the modern epoch, contrasted with
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the sacralized theocentrism of the preceding Catholic Christian epoch, the times of great Catholic intellectuals like Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. Our contemporary age has seen the almost total obliteration of every trace of the sacred in practically every form of cultural expression. Secularization is essentially the expulsion of the sacred from the profane, with the intention of exalting the profane in its mere profanity. That which pertains to the divine and supernatural is transformed, in the process of securalization, into the worldly, mundane, and purely natural sphere. What is rightfully divine is secularized, that is, naturalized and humanized. And what is but human and natural becomes, in Pelagian and pantheistic terms, divinized. Secularization can also be described as the passage from a vertical understanding of reality to a purely horizontal comprehension of man, the world, and of history. It is a mind set that considers all things within the enclosed sphere of a rationalized, worldly, and merely natural comprehension, with the total exclusion of Revelation, sacred theology, revealed religion, and the Holy Church. It is a declaration of the emancipation of man, the world, and of history from the bonds of the true Lord of History: God, who transcends the world and is the Creator of all. The modern epoch is a secular epoch. Its reference point is not nature or the cosmos as it had been in Ancient Greece and Rome. Nor is it the Trinitarian God, Creator of heaven and earth, as was the case during the Catholic Middle Ages. Rather, it has man occupying the center stage. It is anthropocentric. Man has attempted to dethrone the Supreme Being as Lord of History, setting himself up as master of the universe. It is man who has become the final arbiter of good and evil, of life and death. Man feels that he has come of age, that he is mature enough to do things on his own, to resolve all philosophical, ethical, and political problems without recourse to the Supreme Being. The self-sufficient man of the modern epoch reasons that the immature and fearful man of centuries past had need to have recourse to God in times of pestilence, war, social chaos, etc. But now he feels certain that it is merely sufficient to have recourse to man himself and he only for each and every solution to the problems of the world. Thus he turns to the experts: the doctors,
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the politicians, the psychologists, the sociologists, the economists, the specialists and educators. He is confident that the present times are within his control and that it is his destiny to master and dominate the future. Therefore, he begins to meticulously plan elaborate strategies that are to be realized with the sole force of his intellect and will, without pausing to find out if this indeed is the Will of God or not. The modern epoch has distanced itself from God and has ended up in irreligiosity, agnosticism, and theoretical and practical atheism. Reference to God has been omitted from the public square, from political discourse, from legislation and from education. The wondrous scientific and technological discoveries of the last centuries have expanded mans ego to planetary proportions. From now on, all problems are to be automatically solved by means of science and technology and all ultimate questions are to be answered through verification by the empirical sciences and scientific experimentation. There were many positive characteristics of the modern epoch such as the progress of the empirical sciences and the development of mathematical physics. A better empirical knowledge of the physical world and the adoption of various methods of empirical research are indeed good and noble endeavors. Also, the rediscovery of the poetry, art, architecture, literature and law of the Greek and Roman civilizations were also magnificent accomplishments. However, there were also many negative characteristics, like formalism, or the preoccupation and exaltation of form over content, of rhetorical style over the substance and deeper meaning of the work, of esthetical taste over virtue and religion. Another negative aspect of the modern epoch is its cult of individualism: the glorification of selfishness and egoism over social concern and morality, of pragmatic shrewdness over the cardinal virtues and the virtue of humility. This new type of shrewd individualist is exemplified in The Prince of Machiavelli, the cunning and ruthless political pragmatist for whom end justifies the means. A third dark side of the modern epoch is its cult of the pagan, or its unabashed neo-paganism. One finds working in these centuries a progressive pagan evaluation of mans earthly existence, the loss of concern for God and the eschatological truths of death, judgment, heaven, and hell, the despising of the eternal truths of religion and the absolute norms of morality, the exaltation of purely worldly accomplishments and exploits, and the triumph of utility,
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success, pride, domination, cunning, pragmatic action, and lust over faith, hope, charity, contemplation, sincerity, purity, and humility. The main reasons for the secularization of the modern epoch were the weakening of Christendom through schisms and heresies and the absolute independence of reason from faith. The first fundamental reason for secularization lies in the weakening of Christendom through its being battered by schisms and various heresies. The separation of the Eastern Church from the Catholic Church had been a cause of scandal and of the weakening of Christianitys influence upon the world. The Western Schism had also done its job of eroding the influence of Christianity in Europe, but the great push towards the massive secularization of Europe did not take place until the Protestant Reformation which did immense damage to Christendom. The Protestant Reformation had initiated a radical separation of Christian faith and philosophical reason, upturning its once harmonious relation for a new hostility between the two forms of knowledge. Luther had a deep distrust for Scholastic philosophy and looked upon it as an enemy of the faith, now purged from its superstitious aberrations, pagan accretions, and papist manipulations. What Luther had accomplished in the religious sphere Descartes was to initiate in the realm of philosophy. The second fundamental reason for the massive secularization of Europe had been the appearance of a new rationalist and immanentist philosophy absolutely independent from the guiding light of faith and the negative rule of sacred theology. For Descartes, philosophy was to become the summit of all intellectual endeavors, toppling theology from its position as the supreme science. This new animosity between philosophy and theology was to prove damaging for mans faith as well as for his reasoning capacities. The split between faith and reason was to be the great cause of the weakening of mans philosophical-sapiential dimension of human knowing. This separation would cause a substantial weakening of mans intellect, which would now have to rely solely upon the natural light of human reason to solve all problems regarding God, man, and cosmos. Without the guiding light of theology, philosophical thought, now purely rationalistic, would be greatly impoverished as regards the capacity of the mind to respond to the ultimate questions regarding God, man, and cosmos.
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The new orientation in human thought was to attempt to solve all problems confronting man without having recourse to the Church, Gods revelation, and to the supernatural science of sacred theology. Pure reason was to be sufficient. A unified and common sacralized theological conception of the supreme ideals of human life and of mans eternal destiny, something that had been in function during the preceding sacralized theocentric Christian epoch, was simply dissolved in the anthropocentric, rationalistic modern epoch, despite the heroic efforts of many saints, churchmen, and Christian intellectuals to preserve it. Man was now to solve all problems using pure reason alone in order to preserve justice, order, peace, security, and freedom in society. In time, the ultimate and most profound questions regarding God and mans true happiness and eternal destiny were to be relegated out of the public square, to be confined within the restricted spheres of private worship and personal opinion. Cartesian rationalism rejected the harmonious relationship between faith and reason. With Descrates there emerged a rationalist and immanentist philosophy which was to be separate and totally independent from the truths of faith. Regarding Descartes pivotal role in this tragic separation and opposition between faith and reason, Maritain writes: In the seventeenth century the Cartesian reform resulted in the severance of philosophy from theology,109[109] the refusal to recognize the rightful control of theology and its function as a negative rule in respect of philosophy. This was tantamount to denying that theology is a science, or anything more than a mere practical discipline, and to claiming that philosophy, or human wisdom, is the absolutely sovereign science, which admits no other superior to itself. Thus, in spite of the religious beliefs of Descartes himself, Cartesianism introduced the principle of rationalist philosophy, which denies God the right to make known by revelation truths which exceed the natural scope of reason. For if God has indeed revealed truths of this kind, human reason enlightened by faith will inevitably employ them as premises from which to obtain further
109[109]

Maritain notes: It may, it is true, be replied that Descartes intention was simply to emancipate philosophy from the authority of a particular theological system Scholasticism which he regarded as worthless, because it took its philosophical metaphysical principles from Aristotle. In reality, however, it was with theology itself that he broke, when he broke with Scholasticism, which is the traditional theology of the Church. And moreover his conception of science implied his denial of the scientific value of theology. In any case the result of this reform was the assertion of the absolute independence of philosophy in relation to theology. (JACQUES MARITAIN, An Introduction to Philosophy, Sheed and Ward, New York 1962, p. 96.) (Cf. MAURICE BLONDEL, Le Christianisme de Descartes, Revue de Metaph. et de Morale, 1896.).

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knowledge and thus form a science, theology. And if theology is a science, it must exercise in respect of philosophy the function of a negative rule, since the same proposition cannot be true in philosophy, false in theology.110[110] Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino111[111] (1433-1499) founded and directed the Platonic Academy112[112] in Florence and translated the works of Plato, Plotinus, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. He elaborated a pious philosophy or docta religio where, through a philosophical process embued with religiosity, one works out a synthesis between philosophy and faith. Man must be freed from error through a rational rigor acquired through a knowledge of self and of God. His works include: The Christian Religion (1474), Platonic Theology (1482), and Life (1489). Pico della Mirandola Pico della Mirandola113[113] (1463-1494) exalted man and his elevated dignity in such works as his famous Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486). In this philosophical-theological work the incomparable greatness of man is shown, above all, in the actuation of his spiritual powers of will and intelligence. His other works include the Heptalus (1490) and Being and the One (1492). Nicolo Machiavelli

110[110] 111[111]

J. MARITAIN, op. cit., p. 96. W. DRESS, Die Mystik des Marsilio Ficino, Berlin, 1929 ; H. HAK, Marsilio Ficino, Paris, 1934 ; J. FESTUGIRE, La philosophie de lamour de Marsile Ficin , Paris, 1941 ; M. SCHIAVONE, Problemi filosofici in Marsilio Ficino, Marzorati, Milan, 1957 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone , La Lettere, Florence, 1984 ; P. O. KRISTELLER, Il pensiero filosofico di Marsilio Ficino, Le Lettere, Florence, 1988. 112[112] A. DELLA TORRE, Storia dellaccademia platonica di Firenze, Florence, 1902. 113[113] A. DULLES, Princeps concordiae. Pico della Mirandola and the Scholastic Tradition , Cambridge, Mass., 1941 ; E. GARIN, Pico della Mirandola, Le Monnier, Florence, 1963 ; P. O. KRISTELLER, Lopera e il pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola nella storia dellUmanesimo , Olschki, Florence, 1965 ; G. DI NAPOLI, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e la problematica dottrinale del suo tempo , Descle, Rome, 1965 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Lopera e il pensiero di Pico della Mirandola nella storia dellUmanesimo , Olschki, Florence, 1965 ; H. DE LUBAC, Lalba incompiuta del Rinascimento: Pico della Mirandola , Jaca Book, Milan, 1977 ; J. JACOBELLI, Pico della Mirandola, Longanesi, Milan, 1986 ; A. RASPANTI, Filosofia, teologia, religione: lunit della visione in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Edi Oftes, Milan, 1991.

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One of the most famous men of the Renaissance was the Florentine Niccol Machiavelli114[114] (1469-1527). Machiavelli was a master in the newly born field of political science. He is famous above all for his book entitled The Prince (written in 1513 but published posthumously in 1531). In this work, inspired by naturalism and princely absolutism, he affirms the necessity and validity of politics as a sphere autonomous and beyond good and evil. The interest of the people, identified in the prince himself, is the supreme law of good. Thus, moral principles and religion are true if they are useful towards the political goals of the prince. In case of the opposite, the prince must resolutely oppose them. God and His Providence are not anymore the highest authority and rulers of men and the world, but rather man himself, bent on achieving his worldly goals through shrewdness, cunning, and opportunity. From his sinister amoral and opportunistic vision of the ruler and his politics comes the term Machiavellian. Erasmus The humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam 115[115] (1469-1536) placed his vast knowledge of the Ancient Classics, the New Testament, and the Fathers of the Church, towards the service of reform in the Church. Instead of AristotelianThomistic Scholasticism which he thought too dry and abstract, Erasmus preferred the down to earth sapiential philosophy of life, above all a wisdom and practice of the Christian life. Instead of abstract intellectual disputations on the doctrines of the Faith, he preferred a sincere and simple faith and a non-hypocritical charity. Erasmus brand of philosophy is clearly manifested in his most famous work In Praise of Folly (1511). At times a harsh critic of the Renaissance
114[114]

P. VILLARI, The Life and Times of Niccol Machiavelli , 2 vols., London, 1892 ; G. SASSO, Studi su Machiavelli, Morano, Naples, 1967 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Il pensiero politico di Machiavelli e la sua fortuna nel mondo, Olschki, Florence, 1972 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Machiavelli nel V centenario della nascita , Boni, Bologna, 1973 ; J. J. MARCHAND, Niccol Machiavelli: i primi scritti politici (1499-1512). Nascita di un pensiero e di uno stile, Antenore, Padua, 1975 ; F. GILBERT, Machiavelli e il suo tempo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1977 ; R. RIDOLFI, Vita di Niccol Machiavelli , Sansoni, Florence, 1978 ; U. DOTTI, Niccol Machiavelli: la fenomenologia del potere, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1979 ; F. CHABOD, Scritti sul Machiavelli, Einaudi, Turin, 1982 ; G. SASSO, Niccol Machiavelli: storia del suo pensiero politico , Il Mulino, Bologna, 1984 ; N. BORSELLINO, Machiavelli, Laterza, Bari, 1986 ; G. COPPINI, Analisi critica dei contenuti filosofici del Principe di Machiavelli, Firenze Libri, Florence, 1990. 115[115] N. PETRUZZELLIS, Erasmo pensatore, DAnna, Bari-Naples, 1948 ; W. E. CAMPBELL, Erasmus, Tyndale and More, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1950 ; S. A. NULLI, Erasmo e il Rinascimento, Einaudi, Turin, 1955 ; J. HUIZINGA, Erasmo, Mondadori, Milan, 1958 ; L. BOUYER, Erasmo tra Umanesimo e Riforma, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1962 ; P. MESNARD, Erasmo. La vita, il pensiero, i testi esemplari , Sansoni, Florence, 1971 ; C. AUGUSTIN, Erasmo da Rotterdam, la vita e lopera , Morcelliana, Brescia, 1989 : C. AUGUSTIJN, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1991.

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Church of his time, he however sided with the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation led by ex-Augustinian monk Martin Luther. He found Luthers denial of free will particularly revolting. Against him, Erasmus wrote a defense of free will in a work entitled On Free Will (1524). He died in Basilea in 1536. St. Thomas More The English humanist, philosopher, theologian, and Chancellor of England St. Thomas More116[116] (1478-1535) was a martyr of the Faith during the reign of the carnal king Henry VIII who, against the primacy of the Pope, had declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England. More, a devout man, wrote many theological treatises, but he also delved into philosophy, writing Utopia (1516). In this work he sought to delineate a model for the reform of the real world. Treated were his ideal vision of human freedom, the promotion of culture, and the formation of a complete human personality. Montaigne The French writer Michele Montaigne117[117] (1533-1592), author of the Essays (1580 and 1588), adhered to many of the tenets of humanism, but was not attracted to the theme of mans grandeur and exalted powers of intellect and will. The greatness of man, he believed, consisted in the acceptance of ones own mediocrity. Profoundly influenced by Sextus Empiricus, he held a skeptical view of life.
116[116]

D. SARGENT, Thomas More, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1933 ; F. BATTAGLIA, Saggi sullUtopia di Tommaso Moro, Zuffi, Bologna, 1949 ; J. FARROW, The Story of Thomas More, Image Books, Doubleday, 1968 ; R. PINEAS, Thomas More and Tudor Polemics, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., 1968 ; E. E. REYNOLDS, The Field is Won: The Life and Death of Saint Thomas More , Bruce, Milwaukee, 1968 ; G. PETRILLI, San Tommaso Moro, Martello, Milan, 1972 ; R. W. CHAMBERS, Thomas More, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1973 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, 1478-1978: Idea di Thomas More, Pozza, Venice, 1978 ; W. NIGG, Tommaso Moro, il santo della coscienza , Paoline, Milan, 1980 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Tommaso Moro e lUtopia, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1980 ; J. A. GUY, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1980 ; E. E. REYNOLDS, Il processo di Tommaso Moro, Ed. Salerno, Rome, 1985 ; R. MARIUS, Thomas More: A Biography, Vintage Books, New York, 1985 ; A. PAREDI, Vita di Tommaso Moro, Ed. O. R., Milan, 1987 ; L. MARTZ, Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990 ; C. QUARTA, Tommaso Moro: una reinterpretazione dellUtopia, Dedalo, Bari, 1991 ; J. MONTI, The Kings Good Servant but Gods First: The Life and Writings of St. Thomas More , Ignatius, San Francisco, 1997. 117[117] F. STROWSKI, Montaigne, Paris, 1906 ; V. LUGLI, Montaigne, Carabba, Lanciano, 1937 ; P. MOREAU, Montaigne, lhomme et loeuvre, Paris, 1939 ; H. FRIEDRICH, Montaigne, Berne, 1949 ; G. TOFFANIN, Montaigne e lidea classica, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1949 ; E. TRAVERSO, Montaigne e Aristotele, Le Monnier, Florence, 1975.

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Giordano Bruno After a troublesome and reckless life the ex-Dominican Giordano Bruno118[118] (1548-1600) was imprisoned and eventually burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. His philosophy is essentially characterized by a dynamic pantheism, the idea of not a finite but infinite and eternal universe, the exaltation of a naturalist religion free of dogmas, and by a rationalist ethics. Cajetan The Italian Dominican Cardinal Thomas de Vio, commonly known as Cajetan (1468-1533), was a profound commentator of both Aristotle and St. Thomas and helped revive both thinkers for a time during his life. His works include commentaries on St. Thomas De Ente et Essentia and Summa Theologiae, on Aristotles Categories, Posterior Analytics, and De Anima, and on Porphyrys Praedicabilia. He also wrote an influential work on analogy, the De nominum analogia. Francisco de Vitoria The Spanish Dominican Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546), likewise a profound expert on the Angelic Doctor, is considered to be the founder of international law. For him, the State is of natural, not contractual, origin. At the foundation of human co-existence is the natural law, which is a participation in the Eternal Law of God. He died in Salamanca in 1546. Suarez The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Surez119[119] (1548-1617) was the brightest star of the so-called Second Scholasticism. In his Metaphysical
118[118]

A CORSANO, Il pensiero di Giordano Bruno nel suo svolgimento storico , Sansoni, Florence, 1940 ; L. CICUTTINI, Giordano Bruno, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1950 ; N. BADALONI, Il pensiero di Gioradano Bruno, Parenti, Florence, 1952 ; A. GUZZO, Giordano Bruno, Edizioni di Filosofia, Turin, 1960 ; E. GARIN, Bruno, CEI, Rome-Milan, 1966 ; F. PAPI, Antropologia e civilt nel pensiero di Giordano Bruno , La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1968 ; G. ACQUILECCHIA, Giordano Bruno, Rome, 1971 ; I. VECCHIOTTI, Che cosa ha veramente detto Bruno, Ubaldini, Rome, 1971 ; A. INGEGNO, Cosmologia e filosofia nel pensiero di Giordano Bruno , La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1978 ; M. CILIBERTO, Lessico di Giordano Bruno, 2 vols., Ateneo, Rome, 1979 ; F. A. YATES, Giordano Bruno e la tradizione ermetica , Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1985 ; F. A. YATES, Giordano Bruno e la cultura europea del Rinascimento, Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1988.

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Disputations (1597) he presented a systematic treatment of the standard questions dealt with in the First Scholasticism. Surez is more famous for his science of law than for his metaphysics. In his De legibus (1612) he made essential contributions to the doctrine of the State, international law, and to the theory of democracy. Francis Bacon The English philosopher and politician Francis Bacon120[120] (1561-1626) was born in London in 1561. After studies at Cambridge he spent two years in France with the British ambassador and then took to the practice of law. In 1584 he entered Parliament and in 1618 became Lord Chancellor. In 1621 he was found guilty of accepting bribes in his judicial capacity and was fined and sent to the Tower. He died in London on April 9, 1626. His works include Of the Advancement of Learning (1609), the De sapientia veterum (1609), and the Novum Organum (1620). Bacon managed to work out a new inductive method: through experimentation wherein one gathers sufficient information, and then through reasoning, one then must elaborate general hypotheses that enable one to arrive at a knowledge of the phenomena studied. The end of science is of a practical nature; its object is the cause of natural things.
119[119]

R. CONDE Y LUQUE, Vida y doctrinas de Surez, Madrid, 1909 ; R. DE SCORRAILLE, Franois Surez de la Compagnie de Jsus , 2 vols., Paris, 1911 ; F. PLAFFERT, Surez als Vlkerrechtslehrer , Wrzburg, 1919 ; L. MAHIEU, Franois Surez, Paris, 1921 ; A. BOUET, Doctrina de Surez sobre la libertad , Barcelona, 1927 ; L. RECASNS SICHES, La filosofia del derecho en Francisco Surez , Madrid, 1927 ; H. ROMMEN, Die Staatslehre des Franz Surez, Mnchen-Gladbach, 1927 ; P. AGUIRRE, De doctrina Francisci Surez circa potestatem Ecclesiae in res temporales, Louvain, 1935 ; J. ZARAGETA, La filosofa de Surez y el pensamiento actual , Granada, 1941 ; C. GIACN, Surez, Brescia, 1945 ; E. GMEZ ARBOLEYA, Francisco Surez (1548-1617), Granada, 1947 ; J. HELLN, La analoga del ser y el conocimiento de Dios en Surez , Madrid, 1947 ; J. M. ALEJANDRO, La gnoseologa del Doctor Eximio y la acusacin nominalista , Comillas, Santander, 1948 ; J. ITURRIOZ, Estudios sobre la metafisica de Francisco Surez , S. J., Madrid, 1949 ; A. DE ANGELIS, Ratio teologica nel pensiero giuridico-politico del Suarez , Giuffr, Milan, 1965 ; F. CULTRERA, Carit e vocazione nel De religione di Suarez, Herder, Rome, 1967. 120[120] J. DE MAISTRE, Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, Paris, 1836 ; J. SPEDDING, Account of the Life and Times of F. Bacon, 2 vols., London, 1879 ; G. FONSEGRIVE, F. Bacon, Paris, 1893 ; J. NICHOL, Francis Bacon, His Life and Philosophy, 2 vols., London, 1901 ; K. FISCHER, Francis Bacon und seine Schule, Heidelberg, 1923 ; A. LEVI, Il pensiero di F. Bacon, Turin, 1925 ; C. D. BROAD, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, Cambridge, 1926 ; J. BROCHARD, La Philosophie de Bacon, Paris, 1926 ; W. FROST, Bacon und die Naturphilosophie, Munich, 1927 ; M. STURT, Francis Bacon. A Biography, London, 1932 ; S. CASELLATO, Francesco Bacone, CEDAM, Padua, 1941 ; F. H. ANDERSON, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon , Chicago, 1948 ; R. W. GIBSON, Francis Bacon, Oxford, 1950 ; B. FARRINGTON, Francis Bacon: Philosopher of Industrial Science , London, 1951 ; A. W. GREEN, Sir Francis Bacon, His Life and Works , Denver, 1952 ; A. SABETTI, Francesco Bacone e la fondazione della scienza, Liguori, Naples, 1968 ; P. ROSSI, Francesco Bacone: dalle magia alla scienza, Einaudi, Turin, 1974 ; E. DE MAS, Francis Bacon, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1978.

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In the Novum Organum he attempts to replace the old Aristotelian logic, which is essentially deductive, with his new inductive logic. In the first part of his work, the pars destruens, he demolishes those obstacles (which he calls idols) which may impede true scientific research. In the second part, the pars costruens, he indicates to the reader the procedure for arriving at results. Bacons merit lies in being the first thinker to present in a systematic manner the problem of the proper method, object, and end, of the experimental sciences. Though he did not contribute to the progress of a particular science, his contributions presented above were fundamental to the progress of the experimental sciences in general. Bacon coined the famous phrase knowledge is power which De Torre interprets him to mean that knowledge has to be eminently practical and utilitarian, to enable or empower man to master nature; what matters is not contemplation, but production and action. Bacon thus introduces the primacy of praxis over theory.121[121] Descartes The father of modern philosophy Rene Descartes 122[122] (15961650) was born at La Haye in Touraine, France in 1596 from parents who belonged to the lower nobility. He received his early schooling at the famous Jesuit college of La Flche from 1604 to 1612 where he studied, among other things, philosophy and mathematics. After La Flche Descartes studied law at the university of Potiers, obtaining a degree in 1616. In 1618, he decided to see the world, enlisting in the armies of various German princes to be able to do so. A year later, on the tenth of November 1619, he had three consecutive dreams which convinced him to devote his life to the search of truth by means of the cultivation of reason. He sojourned at Paris for a number of years and eventually made his home in Amsterdam in 1628, where he remained until 1649. During this time Descartes wrote his Trait du monde (Treatise on the World,
121[121]

J. DE TORRE, The Humanism of Modern Philosophy, Southeast Asian Science Foundation, Manila 1989, p.

33.
122[122]

J. MARITAIN, Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau , London, 1928 ; F. OLGIATI, Cartesio, Milan, 1934 ; F. OLGIATI, La filosofia di Descartes , Milan, 1937 ; J. MARITAIN, The Dream of Descartes , New York, 1944 ; L. VEGA, Letica di Cartesio, Celuc, Milan, 1974 ; C. CARDONA, Ren Descartes: Discurso del mtodo, EMESA, Madrid, 1975 ; A. PAVAN, Allorigine del progetto borghese: il giovane Descartes , Morcelliana, Brescia, 1979 ; G. CANSIANI, Filosofia e scienza nella morale di Descartes , La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1980 ; A. DEL NOCE, Riforma cattolica e filosofia moderna: Cartesio , Il Mulino, Bologna, 1990 ; A. DEL NOCE, Da Cartesio a Rosmini, Giuffr, Milan, 1992 ; A. MALO, Certezza e volont nelletica cartesiana , Armando, Rome, 1994 ; R. DAMASIO, Lerrore di Cartesio, Adelphi, Milan, 1995 ; J. DE FINANCE, Essere e pensiero: il cogito cartesiano e la reflexio tomista, Soc. Ed. Dante Alighieri, Rome, 1996.

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which was published posthumously in 1677), his famous 1637 work Discours de la mthode pour bien conduire la raison et rchercher la verit dans les sciences (Discourse on Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences) written in French and commonly known as the Discourse on Method, his Meditations on First Philosophy published in 1641 in Latin, his Principles of Philosophy in 1644, and his 1649 book Passions of the Soul written in French. In September of 1649 Descartes left for Holland upon the request of the Swedish queen Christina who sought to establish an Academy of Science in her land and also wished to be instructed in philosophy by the famous Frenchman. But the cruel Swedish winter took its toll on the frail body of Descartes, who caught a bad fever and died in Stockholm on the eleventh of February 1650. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy for it was he who gave modern philosophy its fundamental driving principle: that of immanentism. Contrary to methodical realism wherein being is prior to thought, for Descartes, thought is prior to being. For him, all philosophical inquiry must commence with the cogito. Mathematics replaces metaphysics as first philosophy. In the second part of his Discourse on Method, he presents his four rules of the mathematical method which, if followed, enables philosophy to attain to certainty: 1. Never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt 123[123] ; 2. To divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution 124[124] ; 3. To conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend little by little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence 125[125] ; and 4. In every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be asssured that nothing was omitted. 126[126] These steps are

123[123] 124[124]

R. DESCARTES, Discourse on Method, II. Ibid. 125[125] Ibid. 126[126] Ibid.

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the hallmarks of the new universal method which closely follows the science of mathematics: intuition, analysis, deduction, and induction. Descartes doubts our cognitive powers the senses are not to be trusted all reality is placed in a state of critical doubt. The first stage of the Cartesian method is the universal methodic doubt: In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.127[127] This absurd doctrine of universal doubt (which does so much violence to the certainties of common sense) means not only to doubt the extra-mental world that we see around us, and the first principles governing it, such as the principle of non-contradiction (to do so being the height of foolishness), but also to doubt Gods very existence (no wonder all Descartes writings were put on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican from 1663 onwards after a commission found these works to be harmful to the faith). From this radical doubt emerges the certainty of the thinking subject. When all has been placed in doubt there remains one thing that cannot be doubted, he says, namely, that I am thinking and that it is by thinking that I exist. Hence the famous line of Descartes: I think, therefore I am (cogito, ergo sum). He writes in his Discourse on Method: I noticed that whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the I who thought this should be somewhat, and remarking that this truth I think, therefore I am was so certain and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions brought forward by the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the Philosophy for which I was seeking. 128[128] This is clearly immanentisms making human thought prior to real existence. The Cartesian first principle is not a demonstration but rather an immediate intuition of fact. From this first certainty (cogito, ergo sum) one obtains, through mathematical deduction, further certainties. He then comes to the thought of God, but without really transcending the context of his mental representations of God. Still not trusting his senses, Descartes, departing from the idea of perfection that he finds in himself, goes on to attempt a
127[127] 128[128]

R. DESCARTES, Principles of Philosophy, I. R. DESCARTES, Discourse on Method, IV.

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demonstration of the existence of God,129[129] and then finally, the existence of the world. The world that our senses reveal to us is now proven, through a mathematical methodology, to exist. The existence of the world is not a natural evidence that we should not doubt in the first place, but is now, through the mathematical method, proven to exist. The only thing evident in the existential sphere is the reality of the thinking subject. The clear and distinct ideas that we have, he says, are innate, not initially obtained through the medium of our senses from experience. Descartes universal methodic doubt endeavors to make us doubt all things not only the whole of the corporeal world, our own body, our sense-perceptions, our internal states of consciousness, but also the very trustworthiness of our knowing powers and the first principles of reality such as the principle of non-contradiction. And such a doubt is truly a real, genuine, not simulated (or faked), doubt, as he himself relates: As I desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thoughtthat I ought to reject as absolutely false all in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly undubitable.130[130] Note the words to reject as absolutely false which refers not just to a suspension of judgment but to a conviction that he must reject them as absolutely false, rejecting everything until he reaches the one indubitable fact: Cogito, ergo sum. Is Descartes universal doubt possible? No. Anyone who affirms that absolutely everything must be doubted is already making a judgment which represents his own thesis and which, therefore, is an exception to what he is affirming: since if everything is to be doubted, nothing can be affirmed, not even the thesis which maintains that everything must be doubted. Nor can one have recourse to maintaining the thesis as merely probable, because even probability has to have some sort of foundation in certainty. And, it is meaningless to affirm that it is doubtful that everything is doubtful, since this affirmation, and all others which are added to it in indefinite regress in order to increase doubt, simply become so many more exceptions to the universality of doubt. He
129[129]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 51 : He (Descartes) first states that if we have the innate idea of God as the most perfect being, then God must exist, because the idea of God in my mind as the most perfect being is as clear and distinct as the idea of the imperfection of my own being, which cannot therefore have produced the idea of the most perfect being. This manner of arguing from thought to reality, from idea to thing, confusing the logical order with the real order of things, was already denounced by Aquinas in reference to St. Anselms ontological argument. 130[130] R. DESCARTES, Discourse on Method, IV.

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who says he is in doubt already knows something: he knows that he doubts; if he did not know it, how could he possibly affirm it? The awareness of doubt is itself certain knowledge.131[131] What Descartes has done with his new philosophy, which was to change in a most radical way the history of philosophical thought, was to make thought, and not being, the point of departure of philosophy, whether it be subjective, as in thought as act, or whether it be objective, as in the clear idea. What is accepted as real is not extra-mental reality extra-mental substances substantial beings that exist apart from whether we think of them or not but rather the clear idea devoid of any immaginative or sensible element. In philosophical realism, instead, it is being (ens) that we know we are able to grasp its form apart from the things material reality in an immaterial way ; the idea is the representation by means of which we know. On the other hand, Cartesian immanentism dictates that the idea itself is what we know. Then, through mathematical deduction we endeavor to show if there is in fact a reality the extra-mental world, God etc. which would be the cause of these ideas that we know. But what we in fact have is the Cartesian fracture between ideas and reality for ideas are not reality but rather representations through which we know reality. In realism what we know is the extra mental thing itself, not its representation in our minds. The expressed intelligible species (the idea) is not that which we understand, but that by means of which we understand. What is known in the first instance is the object itself. The idea is simply an instrument of knowledge, not the object of knowledge.132[132] As instruments of knowledge, ideas or concepts refer intentionally to what the intellect understands, that is, to the order of extra-mental things (beings) in reality. The philosophical error of subjective idealism is ultimately traced to the gnoseological error that confuses what we know with the medium whereby we know. John Locke commits this disastrous mistake, writing, for example, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, that an idea is defined as an object of the understanding when a man thinks,133[133] Idea is the object of thinking.134[134]
131[131] 132[132]

A. MILLAN PUELLES, Fundamentos de filosofa, Rialp, Madrid, 1976, p. 464. It is, of course, true that ideas may become objects of knowledge in a secondary sense, to the degree that we reflect upon them. It is knowing that we know what we know. 133[133] J. LOCKE, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Introduction, no. 8 (what idea stands for), taken from The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill, ed. E. Burtt, The Modern Library, New York 1939, p. 247. 134[134] J. LOCKE, op. cit., Book II, chapter 1, no. 1

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Unlike the Idealists, Descartes philosophical system is a mediate realism as his goal was the recovery of reality through mathematical deduction. But the tragedy of his immanentism is that, for him, things are not really intelligible in themselves and in the ultimate account do not really count because what he in the end arrives at is not true reality as it is in itself, but rather a thought of reality. Malebranche The French rationalist philosopher and Oratorian priest Nicholas Malebranche135[135] (1638-1715) openly distanced himself from the Aristotelian-Thomistic Scholastic tradition and was a disciple of Descartes. He agreed with the fundamental theses of his master in metaphysics (wherein reality is divided into thought and extension) and in gnoseology (where the supreme criteria of truth is the clear and distinct idea). But he went beyond Descartes in two points: in the problem of knowledge and in that of causality. For Malebranche our ideas are the perfections of God that He shows us in His infinite Essence. The vision of the ideas in God is possible because He is immediately present in our spirits. He makes use of his occasionalism in order to resolve the philosophical problem of the relationship of the soul with the body. Being two completely diverse realities, the soul and the body cannot enter into direct communication nor exercise an influence upon each other. The disposition of the body and the soul serve only as an occasion for the intervention of God who manages to directly and exclusively develop all the actions of both body and soul. His works include the Search of Truth (1674-1675), Clarifications on the Search of Truth (1678), Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680), Christian Meditations (1683), Treatise on Morals (1684), Conversations on Metaphysics and Religion (1688), the Laws of Communication and Movements (1692), and the Treatise on the Love of God (1697). Spinoza

135[135]

S. NICOLOSI, Causalit divina e libert umana nel pensiero di Malebranche , CEDAM, Padua, 1963 ; A. DE MARIA, Antropologia e teodicea di Malebranche, Ed. di Filosofia, Turin, 1970 ; S. NICOLOSI, Causalit divina e libert umana nel pensiero di Malebranche, CEDAM, Padua, 1963.

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The rationalist Baruch Spinoza136[136] (1632-1677) was born in Amsterdam on November 24, 1632 of the Jewish faith. Though educated in the Jewish tradition his readings of Giordano Bruno and Descartes made him reject his Jewish faith for pantheism. In 1656 he was solemnly excommunicated from the Jewish faith at the early age of twenty-four. In order to support himself he took to grinding lenses. He led a quiet and reclusive life of study and writing. In 1660 he went to Leiden and in 1663 he moved to the neighborhood of the Hague. In 1673 he was offered a teaching position in philosophy at Heidelberg, which he refused. He died of tuberculosis on February 21, 1677 at the age of 44. His works include A Brief Treatise on God, Man, and Happiness (written in 1658 but published only two hundred years later), the Principles of the Philosophy of Rene Descartes published in 1663, his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus which appeared anonymously in 1670, and his Ethics Demonstrated According to the Geometrical Order, together with his Political Treatise and his Tractatus de emendatione intellectus, which appeared immediately after his death in 1677. Spinoza attempted to resolve the Cartesian dualism of res cogitans and res extensa by considering them as but two attributes of a sole existing substance which would be God. This God would be constituted by an infinity of attributes. For him, the world is not separate from God. For Spinoza, the world (Nature) is identified with God: Deus sive Natura (God or Nature). They are one and the same thing. Men and things are but modes of the one Divine Substance. God would be natura naturans, that is, infinite productive activity that produces the world. The world, instead, is natura naturata, that is, the infinite product. Spinoza, using the traditional word substance with a new meaning, forthwith identifies this one infinite divine Substance with Nature, that is, with this visible cosmos. Hence the famous phrase Deus sive Natura, which recurs unforgettably in his writings in his careful and precise Latin. The Latin language has two words for or: vel, to state that the two terms are distinct; and sive, to state that they are identical. When Spinoza says God or Nature, therefore, he means that they are one and the same.
136[136]

E. GILSON, Spinoza interprte de Descartes , La Haye, 1923 ; C. GALLICET CALVETTI, Spinoza. I resupposti teoretici dellirenismo etico, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1968 ; A. J. WATT, Spinozas Use of Religious Language, The New Scholasticism, 46 (1972) ; S. BRETON, Spinoza, Cittadella, Assisi, 1975 ; C. MORALES, Baruch Spinoza: Tratado teolgico-politico, Coleccin Crtica Filosfica, EMESA, Madrid, 1976 ; G. CAMPANA, Liberazione e salvezza delluomo in Spinoza, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1978 ; C. VINTI, La filosofia come vitae meditatio: una lettura di Spinoza, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1979 ; A. GUZZO, Il pensiero di Spinoza, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1980 ; F. MIGNINI, Introduzione a Spinoza, Laterza, Bari, 1983 ; F. ALQUI, Il razionalismo di Spinoza, Milan, 1987 ; P. MARTINETTI, Spinoza, Bibliopolis, Naples, 1987.

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When he uses the word God, as he does constantly, he does so deceptively, for he means Nature. And when he uses the word Nature he means what pantheism calls the Divine. This confusion between existing in itself and existing of itself erases the distinction between the Creator and His creatures, who are indeed independently existing substantial realities because they have received from Him a participated form of existence. They exist in themselves as distinct substantial realities. But in Spinoza the doctrine of creation disappearsThe doctrine of the eternity of matter follows as a quick and necessary corollary. And matter is introduced as an element of God: thus the very concept of God suffers a reduction to nothingness. For God has become only a word. Pantheism is a disguise for atheism137[137] Spinozan ethics object is the intellectual love of God (or Nature), that is, in the knowledge of the Divine Substance that one attains when one has triumphed through reason and has dominion over his passions. A consequence of his pantheism of the sole Divine Substance with innumerable modes (individual men and the things of the world) is his negation free will in men and the elimination of the problem of evil. Since pantheism denies liberty, Spinozas morality merely states the facts which occur, denying the idea of evil, and replacing it by that of a man being of little repute.138[138] As regards his political thought, Spinoza was one of the first architects of the contractual theory of the State. In his political philosophy, Spinoza uncovers the ultimate consequences of his system. His Tractatus politicus, written after his Ethics and unfinished, is decidedly Machiavellian and inspired by Hobbes. In it he shows the most profound contempt for the people, the rabble, the masses, the populace: they are despicable, they do not count, since they live by the imagination, and so fall easily into superstitious beliefs. For Spinoza, the ruler must be an enlightened despot, a philosopher-ruler who, enlightened by reason, will impose it on the people dominated by ignorance. The enlightened despot must rule with an iron-fist, since he has the privilege of the intellectual vision of things. He must treat the people like dangerous and ignorant animals who submit to fear and not to love. This philosopher thus justifies all political tyrannies in a more radical manner than Machiavelli.139[139]
137[137] 138[138]

R. CHERVIN, E. KEVANE, Love of Wisdom, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988, pp. 222-223. F. J. THONNARD, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 549. 139[139] J. DE TORRE, The Humanism of Modern Philosophy, Southeast Asian Science Foundation, Manila, 1989, p. 63.

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For Spinoza, people are but modes, emanations of the One Substance which is God identical with Nature ( Deus sive Natura). Freewill is illusory; men live and breathe in a world of strict determinism. Men are insignificant parts of a larger whole, which is Nature. He says that men think that they are free because they are ignorant of the causes that determine their actions. Ones feeling that we are the causes of our free acts is only an illusion. He gives the example that if a stone were thrown up in the air and while falling were to become conscious it would imagine that it was flying of its own free will, but this would all be an illusion for other causes that determine the stones descent are at work. Though free will is an illusion, one can be free, he says, in the detached acknowledgement that everything in the end is determined or necessary: Spinozas answer is that we shall be free by understanding and acceptance understanding that we are part of a bigger whole and seeing that, as such, nothing that happens to any one of us could have fallen otherwise, given the state of the whole from which it arises. Once we see this clearly we shall stop fretting and we shall come free from the cycle of ego-centric, reactive transactions in which we are puppets on a string.140[140] Spinoza holds that it is not by fighting what constitutes such determinism that human beings can find freedom, move from a state of bondage to one of freedom, but, paradoxical as it may sound, by accepting it. Such acceptance is achieved through detachment and selfknowledgeGiven that the situation that faces him cannot be changed, how can he come out of such a state of bondage, emerge into a state of freedom? Spinozas answer is: by accepting his situation, by stopping to fight it. This involves detachment, which is not the same as indifference. The detachment in question is from the egoif in my feelings I am at one with Nature then everything that happens will be what I am in agreement with, not because of what it is, but regardless of what it is. Paradoxically in yielding myself, in the sense of giving up my ego and becoming part of nature, I stop yielding to something external to myselfthe will of Nature, as it were, is imposed on one because one separates oneself from it by rooting oneself in ones ego. If one embraces it, makes the will of Nature ones command, one will be set free.141[141] Refutation of Spinozas Pantheism. God is not identified with Nature; He is infinitely distinct from the world, whose finite and
140[140] 141[141]

I. DILMAN, Free Will, Routledge, London, 1999, p. 129. I. DILMAN, op. cit., pp. 134, 138.

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imperfect beings merely participate in the act of being given to them by the Infinite Being in whom act of being and essence are identified. To say, as Spinoza does, that there is only one Substance (Deus sive Natura), contradicts the testimony of common sense. Everyday experience shows that there are many things in the world, distinct from one another because of their specific essences, and those of the same form (apple, horse, cat, etc.) are many because their form is received in different parcels of matter (matter is the principle of individuation142[142]). If the world were identical with God, the world would necessarily be a single being, for God is Himself supremely one, undivided and indivisible. 143[143] But such a position blatantly contradicts both the testimony of the senses and of reason. Leibniz Born in Leipzig the German rationalist Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz (1646-1716) was a thinker of vast interests and was, with Newton, the inventor of infinitesimal calculus. He was also the precursor of mathematical logic. His works include the Discourse on Metaphysics (1686), the New System of Nature and of the Interaction of Substances (1695), his Essays on Theodicy (1710), and his Principles of Nature and Grace and Monadology (1714). At one time one of the most famous of intellectuals in Europe, he died forgotten in 1716, his burial attended only by his secretary.
144[144]

142[142]

For in-depth studies on individuation, see: G. M. MANSER, Das thomistische Individuationsprinzip, Divus Thomas, 12 (1934), pp. 221-27, 279-300 ; E. HUGUENY, Rsurrection et indentit corporelle selon les philosophies de lindividuation, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques, 23 (1934), pp. 94-106 ; J. B. WALL, The Mind of St. Thomas on the Principle of Individuation , The Modern Schoolman, 1940-1941, pp. 41 ff. ; U. DEGLINNOCENTI, Il pensiero di San Tommaso sul principio di individuazione, Divus Thomas, 45 (1942), pp. 35-81 ; U. DEGLINNOCENTI, De Gaetano e il principio dindividuazione , Divus Thomas, 26 (1949), pp. 202-208 ; J. BOBIK, La doctrine de Saint Thomas sur lindividuation des substances corporelles, Revue Philosophique de Louvain, 51 (1953), pp. 5-41 ; J. BOBIK, Dimensions in the Individuation of Bodily Substances, Philosophical Studies, 4 (1954), pp. 60-79 ; J. KLINGER, Das Prinzip der Individuation bei Thomas von Aquin, Mnsterschwarzacher Studien (II), Vier Turme Verlag, Mnsterschwarzacher, 1964 ; U. DEGLINNOCENTI, Il principio dindividuazione dei corpi e Giovanni di S. Tommaso , Aquinas, 12 (1969), pp. 59-99 ; U. DEGLINNOCENTI, Il principio dindividuazione nella scuola tomistica , Pontificia Universit Lateranense, Rome, 1971 ; S. P. SFEKAS, The Problem of Individuation in Aristotelian Metaphysics , New York, 1979 ; J. OWENS, Thomas Aquinas: Dimensive Quantity as Individuating Principle , Medieval Studies, 50 (1988), pp. 279-310. 143[143] See the third and eleventh questions of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae. 144[144] F. OLGIATI, Il significato storico di Leibniz, Milan, 1934 ; F. AMERIO, Leibniz, La Scuola, Brescia, 1943 ; J. GUITTON, Pascal et Leibniz, Paris, 1951 ; D. O. BIANCA, Introduzione alla filosofia di Leibniz , La Scuola, Brescia, 1973 ; V. MATHIEU, Introduzione a Leibniz, Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1991.

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Leibniz is famous for his monadology. Against Descartes, he held that the primordial element of the natural world is not extension but force. The metaphysical principle is the monad (unity), a simple substance, endowed with quality. There are, however, no two monads alike. All monads are also endowed with appetition and perception. The monad is a mirror of the universe and has, with the other monads, a relation of representation. Things are constituted by an entelecheia (active principle) and by prime matter (passive principle). Between body and soul there is an effective rapport that is derived from a preestablished harmony produced by God. He refutes the rejection of the innate ideas by Locke. Unlike Descartes who held that innate ideas were clear and distinct, Leibniz believes that they are minute perceptions (virtual innatism). The cognitive powers of man are threefold: sense, memory, and reason. The knowledge of reason is divided into two: truths of reason (the principle of non-contradiction) and truths of fact (the principle of sufficient reason). Regarding Gods existence, Leibniz is an ontologist. Founding his theory upon the principle of sufficient reason, he also sustained that this world was the best possible of worlds created by God, the Almighty choosing the best of possible worlds containing the least amount of evil. But such a theory jeopardizes divine freedom with regard to creation.145[145] Thonnard explains the reason why he would conclude to such a position: The initial lack of precision on the meaning of sufficient reason led Leibniz to other lacks of precision. Thus, Leibniz practically denied divine and human liberty, for he could not recognize in a perfect efficient cause (as the free agent), an extrinsic sufficient reason fully explicative of action, yet openly distinct from the intrinsic, essential reason. The latter is brought back into his system under the guise of a necessary bond between every cause and its effect. The best possible world tends to become a formal effect, indispensable to the divine perfection, which is its formal cause; this is more similar to the series of modes constituting Spinozas world than Leibniz would like to admit.146[146] Pascal Author of the celebrated Pensees (Thoughts), the French thinker Blaise Pascal147[147] (1623-1663) was a scientist, mathematical prodigy, apologist for the Christian Faith, and a philosopher who
145[145] 146[146]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 73. F. J. THONNARD, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 564.

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conducted a sustained critique of Cartesian rationalism. He concentrated his critique upon the Cartesian geometric method, a mathematicism that replaced metaphysics as first philosophy. According to him such a rationalist method is opposed to the reasons of the heart, that is, to spiritual intuition. He also sharply criticized the Jesuits in his Provincial Letters for teaching moral laxism and espoused an austere form of Christianity of the Jansenistic type. He also reprimanded the irreligious and freethinkers for their lack of concern for the last things, that is, for death, judgment, heaven and hell. He was a resolute apologist for Christianity underlining the reality of original sin and the need for redemption in Jesus Christ. To the incredulous he proposed the wager regarding the existence of God, now known as Pascals wager. It is the best thing for man to wager that God really exists: if one wins, he wins everything (eternal life and beatitude) ; if he loses he loses nothing. Hobbes Born in Malmesbury, England, Thomas Hobbes148[148] (15881679) travelled extensively in France and Italy and knew both Descartes and Galileo. His philosophical thought consists of a nominalist logic, a materialist metaphysics, a naturalist anthropology, and a hedonist ethics. In his work Leviathan, he upholds the absolutism of the State. His theory of the State is contractual, not natural. He had a pessimistic view of man, considering him egoistic and individualistic by nature, seeking his own interest, and regarding all other men as rivals or enemies unless, of course, they could be used to his advantage. It was he who coined the famous phrase, homo homini lupus, meaning man is a wolf to man. In this state of nature of man there was a war of all against all, no right or wrong, no justice and injustice, for there was no law. Brute force and deceit governed mens actions. Observing that this state of rivalry between men because of their essentially egoistic and individualistic nature was not ultimately to mans advantage he reasoned that in order to pursue peace and order in society the people would have to renounce certain rights and vest absolute power on the sovereign or an assembly of
147[147]

R. GUARDINI, Chrisliches Bewusstsein. Versuche ber Pascal, Leipzig, 1935 ; A. D. SERTILLANGES, Bliase Pascal, Paris, 1941 ; M. F. SCIACCA, Pascal, Brescia, 1944 ; J. GUITTON, Pascal et Leibniz, Paris, 1951 ; L. PAREYSON, Letica di Pascal, Giappichelli, Turin, 1966 ; A. BAUSOLA, Introduzione a Pascal, Laterza, Bari, 1973. 148[148] A. PACCHI, Introduzione a Hobbes, Laterza, Bari, 1979 ; A. CAMPODONICO, Metafisica e antropologia in Thomas Hobbes, Res Editrice, Milan, 1982 ; M. RHONHEIMER, La filosofia politica di Thomas Hobbes, Armando, Rome, 1998.

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men. This would be done in an irrevocable manner to preserve the efficacy of the sovereigns or assemblys authority. Men in this social contract would have no rights except those granted to them by the sovereign or assembly of the all-powerful state. Hobbes describes how he believes a political society is formed in his Leviathan: The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that, by their own industry, and by the fruits of the earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person; and everyone to own and acknowledge himself to be the author of whatsoever he, that so beareth their person, shall act or cause to be acted in those things which concern the common peace and safety; and therein to submit their wills, everyone to his will, and their judgments to his judgment. This is more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man should say to every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in right manner. This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a commonwealth, in Latin civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to whom we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defense.149[149] But this artificial construct, this social contract theory of the state that Hobbes has conjured up, is false in light of common sense, experience, and historical facts. First of all, 1. Man is naturally social, not antisocial or extrasocial. He is neither utterly depraved nor thoroughly upright in nature, but inclined both to good and evil2. There never was a state of nonmorality without rights, duties, justice or law. There was always the natural law, and from it rights and duties immediately flow.3. The function of the family in preparing for the state cannot be overlooked. Human beings had to live at least temporarily in some society to be able to survive as a race. A mere animal life, whether predatory or carefree, is impossible for man, for no man can supply his needs unaided. Family life naturally develops into the clan or tribe. 4. The social contract as the origin for political society as such is pure fiction. That some later states have originated in this way is
149[149]

T. HOBBES, Leviathan, ch. XVII.

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readily granted, but it is absurd to think that this is the only way in which men could have passed from a condition of civil society. The family forms a natural link between the two. 5. There are certain inalienable rights of the individual and of the family. It is immoral to transfer such rights to another, for they belong to the dignity of the human person and to the very nature of the family. The social contract theory requires the transference of all rights, and this is contrary to the natural law. 6. The social contract could not bind posterity. The unborn were not parties to the contract and might refuse to enter into it. The theory supposes that the contract is not a requirement of human nature as such, but a mere convention. No one would become a citizen of the state by birth...7. The social contract cannot have greater authority than the contracting parties give it. There are rights of the state which no individual can possess, such as the right to declare war and to inflict capital punishment. In the contract theory there is no way in which the state can legitimately obtain these rights.150[150] Locke The English empiricist John Locke151[151] (1632-1704) concentrated his philosophical efforts on the theory of knowledge and on politics. His most famous work appeared in 1690 under the title Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A severe critic of Cartesian innatism, he distinguishes four phases of the knowing process: intuition, synthesis, analysis, and comparison. Ideas are either simple, complex, or abstract. Complex ideas are grouped into three classes: of substance, of modes, and of relations. Words are signs of ideas and not directly of things. The human mind cannot know the essences of things but only their existence. Central to Lockes whole empiricist philosophy is his theory of ideas which Celestine Bittle describes: Here is his understanding of an idea: It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking.152[152] In this superficial definition Locke unfortunately lumps together as ideas things which might conceivably be radically different
150[150] 151[151]

A. FAGOTHEY, op. cit., pp. 387-388. W. EUCHNER, La filosofia politica di Locke , Laterza, Bari, 1976 ; M. SINA, Introduzione a Locke, Laterza, Bari, 1982 ; J. W. YOLTON, John Locke, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1985 ; 152[152] J. LOCKE, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Introduction, Oxford, 1894, p. 32.

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in nature, namely phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which can be employed about in thinking. By thus arbitrarily blurring the nature of the idea so as to include the images of sense-perception (phantasm, species), he laid the foundation for sensism, in which all thinking is nothing but a form of sensation. Descartes placed all sense-perception in the spiritual mind, thus identifying sense-perception with spiritual activity; Locke here does the reverse, by reducing ideas, at least in part, to the level of sense-perception. This confusion of ideas and images is present in all his philosophy.153[153] Bittle then proceeds to criticize Lockes empiricist sensism: For one thing, Locke simply assumes without proof that ideas and images are identical. This identification of ideas and images wipes out the distinction between sensory and intellectual knowledge simply by definition. Again, according to his definition of the idea the idea is the object of our understanding, instead of the reality of things being the object of our intellectual knowledge. All we can know, then, are ideas, internal states of mind; in that case, however, we can acquire no knowledge of the material world as it is in itself. If carried out to its logical conclusion, such a theory must inevitably end in subjective idealism.154[154] Berkeley The Anglican bishop and philosopher George Berkeley 155[155] (1685-1753) had a mission to defend theism and to affirm the primacy of the spirit over matter against the growing materialist trend among British intellectuals. He calls his system immaterialism since it is aimed at responding to the errors of materialism. His fundamental thesis is that by which the being of things is resolved into thought-of-being. Primary sensible qualities were considered by him to be subjective as they are known through secondary sensible qualities. Bodies are, therefore, for Berkeley, nothing but sensible qualities and so one should not suppose that there is some sort of substance holding up those qualities. Their esse consists in their percipi (to be perceived), and it is not possible for them to have any existence outside the minds which perceives
153[153] 154[154]

C. BITTLE, The Whole Man, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1945, pp. 314-315. C. BITTLE, op. cit., p. 315. 155[155] A. LEVI, La filosofia di George Berkeley, Turin, 1922 ; M. M. ROSSI, Saggio su Berkeley, Laterza, Bari, 1955 ; M. M. ROSSI, Introduzione a Berkeley, Laterza, Bari, 1970 ; P. F. MUGNAI, Segno e linguaggio in George Berkeley, Edizioni dellAteneo, Rome, 1979 ; S. PARIGI, Il mondo visibile (George Berkeley) e la perspectiva , Olschki, Florence, 1995.

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them.156[156] We should not suppose a substance underlying our ideas of the accidents of bodies, since the true support of these ideas, namely, our very own mind. For Berkeley, things exist therefore only as objects of our senses, as phenomena (from the Greek, what appears before me). It may be that Berkeley did not want to deny the existence of the world of bodies but just to combat materialism by means of the immateriality of knowledge. Nevertheless, by virtue of the principle of immanence, which he follows, he turns the in-itself into a for-myself. There is no matter in itself: it exists only in my consciousness. And my consciousness consists in perceiving ideas (in the Lockean sense) and in perceiving itself intuitively. () Kant would dismiss Berkeleys philosophy as dogmatic idealism.157[157] For Berkeley, it is in the human or divine Mind that ideas exist. Ones own existence is known immediately. Knowledge of God is mediate and evident. General and abstract ideas do not exist. Inspired by Neo-Platonism, he believed that philosophys role is to study ideas and language through which God reveals Himself. Only revealed Faith is capable of enlightening man on the meaning of life and is able to produce truly beneficial effects for him. Hume David Hume158[158] (1711-1776) was born in Edinburgh on April 26, 1711. Originally groomed for a legal career he instead pursued a literary and philosophical course. He sojourned in France between the years 1734-1737 were he wrote his famous Treatise on Human Nature, which failed to attract attention. In 1737 he returned to Scotland and a few years after published his Essays, Moral and Political (1741-1742) which proved to be a success. In 1748 he published An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (which was a revision of the first part of his early unsuccessful Treatise). A second edition of this work appeared in 1752, its final title called An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. That same year saw the appearance of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (which is a reworking of the third part of his earlier Treatise). In 1752 he published Political Discourses, which made him very famous, and in that year became librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. All throughout the 1750s Hume
156[156] 157[157]

G. BERKELEY, Principles of Human Knowledge, I, 3. J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 90. 158[158] A. SABETTI, Hume filosofo della religione, Liguori, Naples, 1965 ; M. DAL PRA, Hume e la scienza della natura umana, Laterza, Bari, 1973.

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worked on a series of volumes on the history of England. In 1756 he published a history of Great Britain from the accession of James I to the death of Charles I, followed by a history of Great Britain up to the revolution of 1688 that same year. In 1759 he published his History of England under the House of Tudor, and in 1761 his History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Accession of Henry VIII . In 1762 Hume was in Paris as secretary to the British Embassy in France. In 1766 he brought Rousseau back with him to England but soon after their friendship ended because of the Frenchmans difficult and suspicious character. From 1767 to 1769 Hume was an Under-Secretary of State. He died in Edinburgh on August 25, 1776. His controversial Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, written by him before 1752, was published posthumously in 1779. With the empiricist gnoseology of Hume we find human knowledge restricted to the level of the senses. For Hume, all mans knowledge consists of perceptions, which can either be strong (impressions) or weak (ideas).159[159] All these impressions and ideas have their origin in sense experience. Impressions, for him, are very vivid and immediate, the first products of the mind. Ideas, on the other hand, would be of a derivative and inferred character, mere reproductions or copies of those original impressions or elaborations of them, and can be manipulated and ordered among themselves by the imagination, according to the law of association (resemblance, contiguity in time and place, and causality). These laws of association of ideas are psychological laws. For Hume there are no universal concepts, only general ideas, ideas being simply blurred images expressing a resemblance common to a collection of particular sense perceptions. Therefore, all the contents of our experience must be particular and contingent, the consequences being that we would be unable to have a basis at all for any universal and necessary knowledge. The core of Humean empiricist epistemology is that what we know are our perceptions, not external, extra-mental reality. What the human mind knows is not something existing outside consciousness, but merely facts of consciousness. What is known are not real things but only
159[159]

Cf. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I (Of the Understanding), Part I, Section I (Of the Origin of Our Ideas).

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our perceptions which are subjective modifications produced in us by sensible experience. Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are derived from something antecedently present to the mind, it follows that it is impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can we conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produced.160[160] Then comes the attack on the principle of causality 161[161]: Hume denies the universal and necessary validity of this principle. It is simply not universally and necessarily true, he argues, that every effect has a cause, since in human perception cause and effect are in fact two phenomena with two separate existences, one following after the other. We cannot therefore conclude that the latter phenomena is due to the causality of the former just because it comes after it. The only conclusion that we can come up with is that, owing to the laws of the association of ideas, it is believed (felt) that a certain phenomenon is caused by another, because, by habit, we have grown accustomed to believe it. For him, causality is not an extra-mental reality but is rather a subjective phenomenal complex idea, a creation of the human mind. With this doctrine Hume dismisses the traditional a posteriori demonstrations of the existence of God as being devoid of demonstrative capacity.162[162]
160[160] 161[161]

D. HUME, op. cit., I, 2, 6. Hume repeatedly denies the universal and necessary validity of the principle of causality in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which is contained in his work Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1748. 162[162] Having eliminated an objective origin for the idea of active power and the causal bond, Hume had to trace them to purely subjective conditions within the perceiver. The objects of perception are atomic, unconnected units which may, nevertheless, follow one another in a temporal sequence and pattern. Through repeated experience of such sequences, the imagination is gradually habituated to connect antecedent and consequent objects in a necessary way. The necessity does not arise from any productive force or dependence on the side of the objects so related but comes solely from the subjective laws of association operating upon the imagination to compel it to recall one member of the sequence when the other is presented. The causal bond consists entirely in our feeling of necessity in making the transition, in thought, from one object to the other. The philosophical inference from effect to cause is abstract and empty until it is strengthened by the natural relation set up by the workings of habit and association upon the imagination. Given this all-embracing psychological basis, however, causal inference can have nothing stronger than a probable import. Absolute certainty cannot be achieved, since the mind is not dealing with dependencies in being, on the side of the real things, but is confined phenomenalistically to its own perceptions and their relations. It is very likely that our habitual connection among ideas corresponds to some causal link among real things, but this can never be verified. Hence causal inference can yield only probability and belief, not certainty and strict knowledge. Hume rigidly applied this conclusion to the a posteriori argument for Gods existence, maintaining

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So, in Humes system, there is no way we can infer the existence of extramental reality. We cannot say, for example, that our perceptions have been produced or caused by extra-mental real things, therefore these things must exist, because the simple fact is that we do not have a perception of a cause. All that is perceived, experienced, are successive sensations. There is no intrinsic connection between these sensations nor any necessity for such a connection. So, what is this principle of causality that the scholastics boast about? Simply a subjective product of habit. We have gotten so used to seeing fire burn that, by habit, we say that fire causes the burning; but since Hume states that we cannot sense this causing, this causing can be but a subjective product of the imagination. Therefore, Humean philosophy cannot admit that there is anything real, anything objectively existing outside the states of human consciousness. The verdict of Humes radical empiricism is that the real existence of things can be but a hypothesis incapable of verification, a postulate that can neither be proved nor disproved. An evident conclusion that one can gather from Humean skeptical empiricism is that it is impossible to prove the existence of God for it is impossible to prove the existence of anything. There is nothing we can know beyond our sense perceptions, whether noumena in the world or God. All we can do is believe as our imagination fancies. We are unable to prove the existence of God by means of the metaphysical principle of causality for causality has no objective value. With the empiricist doctrine of the inability of the mind to ascend from the level of experience to the establishment of the existence of a cause that exists and operates on a level of reality above the level of the senses, Hume has wiped out (from his own skeptical mind) metaphysics and, with it, philosophy of God, the highest branch of metaphysics. For Hume, one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God for there is no power of insight and understanding in man different in kind from the bodily senses. Such is Humean skeptical empiricist agnosticism. How then does he explain the fact that so many people have a notion of a Supreme Being, whom they do not hesitate to call God? His answer: that too is a product of the imagination, something concocted out of many varied sense impressions. He does not deny its psychological
that it is, at the very most, a probable inference and nowise a demonstration(J. COLLINS, God in Modern Philosophy, Regnery, Chicago, 1967, p. 117).

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value and use, as does the psychological utility of many of our other products of the imagination. But the simple fact is that the real existence or non-existence of God is outside the minds power to know. Hume did not want to be branded an atheist and, at times, admitted religions utility and practical value for society. Nevertheless, his writings reveal his philosophical views that describes supernatural Christian religion as nothing but a creation of mans fertile imagination, and that even a deistic illuminist religion founded on the rational metaphysical principles of philosophy of God had no experiential or rational foundation. All religions are of equal value for they all lack any empirical basis. Religious beliefs and their habits of association are explained through instinct and in the habits of association which arise from it. A religion may be permitted if it has practical utility: as a source of consolation, altruism, fraternity, etc. Naturally, the permitted religions should be devoid of all unreasonable fictions of the imagination, such as belief in mysteries and miracles; the only useful religion, according to Hume, would be a purely natural religion devoid of mysteries and miracles whatsoever.163[163] Humes skepticism regarding extra-mental reality must also be addressed. Contrary to his radical empiricism, the existence of things is not an hypothesis or a postulate, that is, something that we must assume since we cannot prove it. An hypothesis or assumption is something that we cannot, at the moment, prove or disprove; for example, that the cure for cancer will be discovered in 2089. One can assume that the cure for cancer will be discovered at that point in time, but we simply cannot prove it. We can neither prove that it will not occur at that point in time. But if the cure for cancer is discovered in 2095, then we are no longer dealing with an assumption but with an accomplished fact. Now the existence of things in the world that we see around us is not an hypothesis but a fact. They are not assumed but given. Naturally, the existence of the things of the world cannot be proved because they need no proof; they are self-evident. We start with the things of the world; we say that these things are, for these things are there to begin with. They are thus judged to exist for they simply do exist.

163[163]

Cf. D. HUME, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (written before 1752 and published posthumously in 1779).

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A detailed refutation of Humes skeptical empiricism properly belongs to the field of epistemology. His main problem lies with his reduction of human knowledge to the level of the senses, thus denying that man has the power of abstraction. For Hume, sense experience was the ultimate source of valid human knowledge. Thrown out together with metaphysics are substance and causality. Having done this he remained agnostic concerning Gods existence, a natural consequence of his sensism. Criticizing Humes radical empiricism, Celestine Bittle notes a number of things: First, Humes explanation of ideas as faint images of sense-impressions is totally inadequate. Since both are of a sensory character, they are concrete and individualized. Our ideas, however, are abstract and universal. There is, as we have shown, a radical difference between sensations and images on the one hand and intellectual ideas on the other. To ignore or deny these differences is a serious error. Second, Humes explanation of universal ideas is totally inadequate. The process of forming universal ideas is not at all the way Hume pictures it. We acquire them by a process of abstraction, taking the objective features common to a number of individuals and then generalizing the resultant idea so that it applies to the whole class and to every member of the class. It is not a question of merely labeling objects with a common name. Intellectual insight into the nature of these objective features, not custom or habit, enables us to group them together into a class. Third, Humes explanation of the origin and nature of the necessarily and universally true axioms and principles, such as the principle of causality and the principle of non-contradiction, is totally inadequate. He explains their necessity and universality through association. Now, the laws of association are purely subjective laws with a purely subjective result. Consequently, the necessity which we experience relative to the logical connection between subject and predicate in these principles would not be due to anything coming from the reality represented in these judgments, but solely to the associative force existing in the mind. It is a subjective and psychological, not an objective and ontological, necessity. The mind does not judge these principles to be true because it sees they cannot be otherwise; it cannot see them to be otherwise because the mind in its present constitution must judge them to be true. So far as objective reality is concerned, 2 + 2 might equal 3 or 5 or any other number; and there might be a cause without an effect, or an effect without a cause. If Humes contention were correct, that our observation of invariable sequence is the reason for assuming an antecedent event to be the cause of the subsequent event, then we should perforce experience the
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same psychological necessity of judgment in all cases where we notice an invariable sequence in successive events. Experience, however, contradicts this view. For instance, day follows night in an invariable sequence; but nobody would dream of asserting that the night is the cause of the day. In an automobile factory one car follows the other on the belt line in invariable sequence; but this association does not compel us to think that the preceding car is the cause of the one following. Reversely, when an explosion occurs but once in our experience, we search for the cause of this effect and are convinced there must be a cause present; here, however, there can be no question of an invariable sequence of events. Fourth, Humes theory, if accepted as true, must destroy all scientific knowledge. The very foundation of science lies in the principles of non-contradiction, sufficient reason, and causality. If these principles are valid only for our mind and do not apply with inviolable necessity to physical objects in nature, the scientist has no means of knowing whether his conclusions are objectively valid. His knowledge is nothing but a purely mental construction which may or may not agree with extra-mental reality. But science treats of physical systems and their operations, not of mental constructions. Since, according to Hume, we can know nothing but our internal states of consciousness, we could never discover whether the external world and other minds exist at all; driven to its logical conclusions, such a theory can end only in solipsism or in skepticism.164[164] Rousseau The difficult and passionate Jean Jacques Rousseau 165[165] (17121778) is the greatest exponent of the French Enlightenment. Author of Emile (1762), the Social Contract (1762), and the Confessions (published posthumously) he is famous above all for his political philosophy and pedagogy. His philosophical thought includes writings on the passage from the state of nature to the social state, an analysis of the social contract where he underlines the general will and sovereignty of the people. Bittle summarizes Rousseaus social contract for us, writing that he viewed man in the natural state, in opposition to Hobbes, as naturally and completely free, fully self-sufficient, and altogether
164[164] 165[165]

C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 317-319. J. MARITAIN, Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau, London, 1945 ; H. GOUHIER, Filosofia e religione in J. J. Rousseau , Laterza, Bari, 1977 ; J. STAROBINSKI, La trasparenza e lostacolo. Saggio su JeanJacques Rousseau, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1982.

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virtuous. Each man was a peer among peers, endowed with equal rights, and no one was subordinate to anyone else. There was no work or toil of any kind, but all lived in an idyllic, arcadian life of ease and comfort and tranquility. If Hobbess concept of man in the natural state was pessimistic, Rousseaus was optimistic in the extreme. Unfortunately, according to Rousseau, this paradisiac condition did not last. It was not sin which disturbed the scene, bringing evil and misery in its train; at least not sin in the Christian sense. Nature endowed man with the fatal gift of perfectibility. Slowly and gradually man began to learn the arts, acquire objects as his own, fashion tools of various sorts, and communicate and associate with others; and so he left the condition of the innocent savage for the more turbulent condition of social contacts and activities with his fellows. The result was fraud and deceit, dissension and conflict everywhere, and the loss of primitive peace and tranquility of spirit. Conditions became so bad that men found it useful to establish the state in order to restore and preserve peace. The state came into being through the free consent and social contract of all concerned, whereby everyone grants all his individual rights and ruling power to the general will embodied in the authority of the community. In this way, Rousseau thought, it was possible to find a form of association which shall defend and protect with all the strength of the community the person and the goods of each associate, and whereby each one, uniting himself to all, may nevertheless obey none but himself and remain as free as before.166[166] To the question as to how men in the state can remain free as before, Rousseau answers: Each of us puts into a common stock his person and all his power under the supreme direction of the general will; and we receive in our turn the offering of the rest, each member as an inseparable part of the whole.167[167]168[168] Criticizing Rousseaus theory, Bittle makes this evaluation: There are many flaws in Rousseaus theory. As in the case of Hobbes, Rousseaus view of mans nature in the natural state is purely imaginary and arbitrary. Rousseau confuses physical and moral freedom. We admit that man possesses physical freedom as an essential attribute of his rational nature, so that he has freedom of choice in the activities of his will. But this does not mean that he is free from all moral obligation. The natural law is in force at all times, and the natural law confers certain
166[166] 167[167]

J. J. ROUSSEAU, Social Contract, Book I, Chapter, 6. Ibid. 168[168] C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 539-340.

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inalienable rights on persons, with corresponding moral obligations or duties on the others. Like Hobbes, Rousseau conceived the pre-state condition of man as essentially individualistic; but, whereas, Hobbes considered primitive man to be anti-social, Rousseau considered him to be non-social by nature. Rousseau was guilty of a serious oversight. The family certainly existed at all times, and the family has not changed essentially. As was pointed out against the theory of Hobbes, family life is by its very nature social in character, not individualistic. Furthermore, the very nature of membership in the family precludes the possibility of perfect equality; the relation between husband and wife and between parent and child brings with it a natural individual inequality, with differences in rights and duties in domestic society which are ineradicable and unescapable. And family life naturally demands private property, so that private property did not have its origin in fraud and force, as Rousseau contended, but in the needs and requirements of the rational nature of man. These same needs and requirements prompted man to till the soil, to learn the arts, to associate with others, and finally to form the state, because the perfection of his nature demanded these things. Since the formation of civil society, of the organization of the political state, is an outgrowth of mans natural needs, the origin of the state is a dictate of the natural law, not of an exclusively human agreement and social contract.169[169] In the field of pedagogy, Rousseau denied original sin, sustaining the innate goodness and original innocence of man who is corrupted by society. He proposed a new education of youth, developing their sensitive faculties, educating their reasoning powers, the development of their moral sense, the development of an autonomous personality, and in instilling in them the primacy of action. In religious matters Rousseau was a naturalist. God is reached through the contemplation of Nature and with sentiment. Already famous during his time, Rousseau had a very powerful influence on culture after his death. Kant Kant
169[169] 170[170]

170[170]

The German transcendental idealist philosopher Immanuel (1724-1804) was born in Knigsberg, East Prussia (which is

C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 340-341. V. MATHIEU, La filosofia trascendentale e lOpus postumum di Kant , Turin, 1958 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Introduzione allo studio di Kant , La Scuola, Brescia, 1968 ; A. RIGOBELLO (editor), Ricerche sul

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now the Russian city of Kaliningrad) on the 22 nd of April, 1724, the son of parents belonging to the Pietist sect. As a youth Kant studied at the Collegium Fridericianum from 1732 to 1740 where he acquired a good knowledge of Latin. In 1740 he began his studies at the university of Knigsberg where he studied Newtonian physics, mathematics, and philosophy, finishing in 1746. Because of financial reasons, he became tutor to various families from 1746 till 1755. In 1755 he obtained his doctorate and received permission to be a Privatdozent or lecturer. In March of 1770 he was appointed as ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics at the university of Knigsberg. The years 1755 to 1770 are commonly known as Kants pre-critical period, where he was profoundly influenced by Leibnizian and Wolffian rationalism. The 1770 dissertation On the Form and on the Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World signals the beginning of his evolution to what is called his second or critical period, where he says that he was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by the reading of the radical empiricism of David Hume. In 1781 Kant published his first major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (a second revised edition came out in 1787). In 1783 he published the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics , in 1785 his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, in 1786 the Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science, in 1788 his Critique of Practical Reason, in 1790 the Critique of Judgment, in 1793 his controversial work Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (which got him into trouble with the Prussian authorities), in 1795 the treatise On Perpetual Peace, and in 1797 the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant spent almost all of his life within the confines of Knigsberg, leading a methodical, meticulously planned life. He died in that same city on February 12, 1804. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant sought out the value of the human sciences, especially that of metaphysics. In order to do so he believed that it was necessary to inquire into the origins of scientific knowledge, searching the reason why such knowledge is formed in us. The point of departure of his inquiry would be the scientific judgments of mathematics, physics, and first principles such as the principle of causality, foundation of scientific knowledge. He asks: How are such universal and necessary judgments possible? There were two historical
trascendentale kantiano, Antenore, Padua, 1973 ; H. J. DE VLEESCHAUWER, Levoluzione del pensiero di Kant, Laterza, Bari, 1976 ; A. GUERRA, Introduzione a Kant, Laterza, Bari, 1980 ; G. RICONDA, Invito al pensiero di Kant, Mursia, Milan, 1987 ; F. MENEGONI, Finalit e destinazione morale nella Critica del Giudizio di Kant , Trent, 1988 ; P. FAGGIOTTO, Introduzione alla metafisica kantiana della analogia, Massimo, Milan, 1989.

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solutions: the first was the rationalist claim that science has a totally a priori origin in us through a pure analysis of one or more primitive concepts. Such scientific judgments were called analytic judgments. The second solution was the empiricist claim that science has its absolute origin from sensible experience through a posteriori synthetic judgments. But Kant was unconvinced by these explanations since he observed that scientific judgments had the following essential characteristics: universality-necessity and increment of new knowledge. In the case of the rationalist claim, yes, universality and necessity were explained but not increment of new knowledge. As to the empiricist claim, yes, increment of new knowledge was explained but not universality and necessity since all that comes from sense experience can only be particular and contingent. What was needed was a union between the necessity and universality of the analytic judgments of the rationalists and the increase of new knowledge provided by the synthetic a posteriori judgments of the empiricists. So, Kants solution was that man obtains scientific knowledge through synthetic a priori judgments. Scientific judgments have their origin by way of synthesis between something caused in us by something external to us and subjective elements which the mind possesses by force of its very constitution. He believed that the ultimate root of the errors of the rationalists and the empiricists was the erroneous concept of human knowledge. The rationalists claimed that all knowledge comes from the subject, while the empiricists held that all knowledge is derived from the object. Because of these errors, Kant claimed that scientific knowledge would be impossible because the object would only supply an increment of new knowledge and the subject would give only universality-necessity. Knowledge, for him, is not the fruit of the subject solely or of the object solely, but rather, it is a synthesis of the combined action of subject and object: the subject procures the form and the object the matter. Knowledge would be the result of an a priori element (the subject) and an a posteriori element (the object). The resulting judgments would not just be only analytic or only synthetic but would be synthetic a priori. Synthetic a priori judgments would be a sufficient guarantee for the validity of the sciences which acquires increment of new knowledge from the object and universalitynecessity from the subject. This new relationship between subject and object in the knowing process is Kants Copernican Revolution. Realism claims that man can really know extra-mental things, obtaining immaterial ideas
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(which are universal) by abstraction from sense experience. It believes that it is the mind that revolves around things in the extra-mental universe. Truth would mean the conformity (adequation) of our minds or judgments to real things. Kant rejects this realism as illusory and ingenious. His claim is that it is not the mind that revolves around the thing but rather the thing that revolves around the mind. It has hitherto been assumed that our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to ascertain anything about these objects a priori, by means of conceptions, and thus to extend the range of our knowledge, have been rendered abortive by this assumption. Let us then make the experiment whether we may not be more successful in metaphysics, if we assume that the objects must conform to our cognition. This appears, at all events, to accord better with the possibility of our gaining the end we have in view, that is to say, of arriving at the cognition of objects a priori, of determining something with respect to these objects, before they are given to us.171[171] To answer the basic question, What can I know with scientific certitude?, Kant wrote The Critique of Pure Reason. In this work he examines in a critical way the very structure of human reason, assigning to man a threefold knowing power: sensibility, intellect and reason. Out of the threefold knowing power of man arises, respectively, the three parts of the Critique: the transcendental esthetic, the transcendental analytic, and the transcendental dialectic. The transcendental esthetic. Kant calls transcendental every knowledge that has something to do with the way the human mind knows objects. Transcendent is that which goes beyond all experience. The transcendental esthetics scope is to examine how mathematics and geometry are possible. He retains that these sciences are possible because the mind is endowed with two a priori forms that have the characteristics of universality and intuitivity: space and time. Space and time are not, for him, extra-mental realities but a priori forms of the human mind.172[172] The only form of intuition that man is endowed with is sensible intuition. Thus the mind can reach only phenomena (things which appear to us) and not noumena (things-in-themselves). We only know things as they appear to the human mind and not extra-mental reality as it is in itself. In The Critique of Pure Reason and in the Prolegomena to any Future
171[171] 172[172]

I. KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason, xvi, J. M. D. Meiklejohn translation. I. KANT, op. cit., B 42 and B 49.

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Metaphysics Kant affirms the existence of noumena (things-inthemselves) that are the cause of the phenomena, but as to what noumena are in themselves, we simply do not know.173[173] The transcendental analytic. Just as phenomena stir the sensibility to act, so the finished products of sensation stir the next knowing power, the intellect, to act. The intellect takes in these finished products of sensation which are empirical intuitions and conforms them to its shape, its inborn a priori forms. These forms are four sets of triple judgments called the twelve categories. These categories are like molds into which the molten metal of empirical intuitions is poured, and the resulting piece of knowledge is, in each case, a judgment. The four master categories (each of which has three branches) are: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Thus the judgment A comes from B as effect from cause is not the objective knowing by the human mind of a state of fact, as it is in realism, but rather, it is merely the result of the action of the intellect putting the empirical intuitions of A and B through the mold or category of relation, and through that branch of relation called cause-effect. Causality is not, for Kant, something that occurs in extra-mental reality between things but is rather subjective and immanent to human consciousness. The transcendental dialectic. In this final part of The Critique of Pure Reason Kant analyzes the function of reason (understood as a faculty that inquires into the unconditioned) so as to ascertain if metaphysics as a legitimate science is possible. The ideas of reason are three in number: 1. the soul, which is the unconditioned lying at the foundation of psychical phenomena; 2. the world or cosmos, which is the unconditioned lying at the foundation of physical phenomena, and 3. God, the unconditioned lying at the foundation of all reality. Kantian transcendental idealism retains that metaphysics arises from a legitimate exigency but nevertheless concludes that it is impossible for us to demonstrate the objective noumenal value of these ideas of reason. The idea of soul can only be the result of paralogisms, the idea of cosmos or world falls into a pit of antinomies, and the idea of God is grounded upon three proofs which are all invalid since they are all reducible to the erroneous ontological argument. Thus, the three ideas of reason possess only a regulative use, indicating a point of problematic convergence, and
173[173]

I. KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason , A 19, A 109, B 34; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics , Prologue 13, remark 2.

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not a constitutive use as they do not in any way represent objects to us. Regarding the existence of God Kant was an agnostic, a logical consequence of his transcendental idealist gnoseological immanentism where one is trapped in appearances within human consciousness and incapable of transcending to extra-mental reality and knowing things-inthemselves. A Critique of Kants Transcendental Idealism. Kants philosophical system is plagued with numerous contradictions and errors. For one thing, he affirmed the existence of the noumenon but added that it was impossible to know anything about it. But if we know that it exists then Kants claim that we know nothing of the thing-in-itself (noumenon) is not true. He also claimed that the noumenal world is a chaotic mass. It is the mind that eventually structures the object and not the mind conforming to the laws of extra-mental reality. But how can we know that the noumenal world is a chaotic mass since the Kantian claim is that we can know nothing of the thing-in-itself (the noumenon)? Again, he is inconsistent. Kant goes to great efforts to analyze and describe the intellect and its operations. He appears to know the intellect and its functions extremely well. But isnt that analyzing and describing a noumenal reality, a thing-in-itself? If the noumenon is totally unknowable then the intellect and its operations would be unknowable. The intellect and its operations are not phenomena for they are not the objects of sense experience. We cannot see and touch human reason. Again, his system breaks down. Kant claimed that existing extra-mental things-in-themselves (noumena) are the causes of the phenomena that appear to us. Phenomena would be effects of their causes which are noumena. 174[174] In the Prolegomena we read that things-in-themselves are unknowable as they are in themselves but that we know them through the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures for us.175[175] But this is making use of the objective metaphysical principle of causality and acknowledging causality in the extra-mental world. This is a plain violation of his philosophical system that claims that causality is not something of the extra-mental real world but rather something
174[174] 175[175]

Ibid. I. KANT, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Prologue 13, remark 2.

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rooted in the very structure of the human mind as a category. 176[176] In order to rectify this blatant error Kant revised his doctrine on the noumenon in the second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason which came out in 1787.177[177] His second new doctrine claimed that the noumenon should not be thought of as an extra-mental thing existing in reality but merely as a limiting concept. 178[178] In its negative sense, which should be adopted, the noumenon is that which is not the object of sense intuition.179[179] What does he do here? He denies the objectivity of the thing-in-itself thus correcting his own violation of his own principle of causality immanent to the human mind.180[180] But though he gives us a new doctrine on the noumenon, even now affirming that we do not know if it exists or not, there are still many parts of his work in his critical period that clearly affirm the existence of noumena and their being the causes of phenomena, as B 34 of the second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason and Prologue 13, remark 2 of the Prolegomena attest to. Kant could not, even with his new doctrine of the noumenon, free himself from contradictions in his philosophical system. It is not true, as Kant claims, that man is endowed only with sense intuition. We are endowed with intellectual intuition as for example when we know ourselves through reflection. And to think that the knowledge of mathematics and geometry is due solely to sense intuition is absurd. Bittle lists a number of other problems with Kantian idealism: Kants theory is contrary to the science of psychology. He maintains that space and time are subjective forms of the mind, given prior to all experience. The findings of psychology are definitely opposed to this claim. Sensory experience contributes its share to our perception of space and time, as experimental psychology has definitively established. We acquire our knowledge of space and time from a perception of objects which are larger or smaller and which are at rest or in motion. Persons suffering from a congenital cataract have no antecedent knowledge of visual space; after a successful operation, they
176[176]

Cf. F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, Volume 6: Wolff to Kant , Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, pp. 270-271. 177[177] Cf. N. ABBAGNANO, Storia della filosofia. Volume Quarto: La filosofia moderna dei secoli XVII e XVIII , TEA, Milan, 1995, pp. 346-351. 178[178] I. KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason, B 311. 179[179] I. KANT, op. cit., B 307. 180[180] Cf. B. MONDIN, Corso di storia della filosofia, volume 2, Massimo, Milan, 1993, p. 358.

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must acquire knowledge of space through experience and perception. If the subjective mental form of space were, as Kant claims, a necessary condition for perception, making the perception of phenomena possible, then there seems to be no valid reason why the mind cannot impose the form of visual space upon the incoming impressions, even though a person be congenitally blind. The evidence, however, points clearly to the fact that the knowledge of space on the part of the mind is conditioned by the perception of objects, and not that the perception of space is conditioned by some a priori form present in the mind antecedent to experience. But if space is an attribute of bodies, then so is time, because both are on a par in this respect.181[181] Kants theory is contrary to the fundamental principles of the physical sciences. Kant evolved his theory for the expressed purpose of revindicating scientific knowledge and freeing it from the bane of Humes skepticism. He failed. Science treats of the physical objects of the extra-mental world and not of mental constructions; Kants world, however, is a world of phenomena, and these phenomena are mental constructions which give us no insight whatever into the nature and reality of things as they are in themselves. According to Kants conclusions, the physical, noumenal world is unknown and unknowable. Science is convinced that it contacts and knows real things outside the mind. Science is based on the objective validity of the principle of cause and effect operating between physical objects and physical agencies; according to Kant, this principle is an empty a priori form merely regulating our judgments and applying only to phenomena. The laws which science establishes are considered by scientists to be real laws operating in physical bodies independent of our thinking; according to Kant, these laws merely relate to phenomena within the mind and not to nature at all. Kant states: It sounds no doubt very strange and absurd that nature should have to conform to our subjective ground of apperception, nay, be dependent on it, with respect to her laws. But if we consider that what we call nature is nothing but a whole (Inbegriff) of phenomena, not a thing by itself, we shall no longer be surprised. 182[182] We are indeed surprised that Kant would accept this conclusion of this theory rather than see therein the utter fallaciousness of the theory itself which could consistently lead to such a very strange and absurd conclusion. That
181[181] 182[182]

C. BITTLE, op. cit, p. 312. I. KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed., trans. by Max Muller, Macmillan, New York, 1900, p. 94.

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such a conclusion destroys the validity of science in its very foundations, must be obvious.183[183] Kants theory destroys the foundation of all intellectual knowledge. Ideas and judgments are supposed to reflect and represent reality; they are supposed to tell us what things are. Truth and error reside in the judgment. In forming judgments we first understand the contents of ideas and then have an intellectual insight into the relation existing between the subject-idea and the predicate-idea. According to Kant, we do not make judgments because we perceive the objective relation of the subject-idea and the predicate-idea, but because a blind, subjectively necessitating law of our mental constitution draws certain sense-intuitions under certain intellectually empty categories prior to our thinking, and we do not know why these particular categories, rather than others, were imposed by the mind on these sense-intuitions. Our knowledge is as blind as the law that produces it. Intellectual knowledge is thus utterly valueless, because it gives us no insight into the nature of the reality our ideas and judgments are supposed to represent.184[184] Kant claimed that nothing universal can come from experience. This is false since the universal can come from experience by way of the realist doctrine of abstraction.185[185]
183[183] 184[184]

C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 312-313. C. BITTLE, op cit., p. 313. 185[185] The corporeal things of the extra-mental world impinge on our external senses, impressing their qualities on the individual external sense organs capable of receiving such stimulation. The products of the external senses are then differentiated, compared and synthesized by the internal sense power central sense (or sensus communis), producing the perceptual whole (the percept, which is the impressed species of a sensible order). Our percepts, in turn, provide the stimuli for the other internal senses, namely, imagination, memory, and the cogitative, each of which is capable of forming an image (or phantasm) of the object presented to sense. This image or phantasm is the expressed species of a sensible order, and completes the knowledge of the thing on the sensory level. After this comes the role of the agent intellect with its activity of abstraction. It is the power of the mind to abstract . The intellect forms its ideas by turning its attention upon the content of the image, either of the central sense or of the imagination. By means of abstraction, the intellect grasps the essential elements of the thing represented in the image, leaving aside the individualizing material determinations, thereby making the image intelligible. This power or capacity of the intellect, whereby it actively modifies itself so as to represent within itself in an abstract manner what is concretely represented in the image, is termed the active or agent intellect. The result of this abstractive process is the

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Kant on the Existence of God. Regarding the question of the capacity of mans reason to demonstrate the existence of God Kant replies that, since all our experience is limited to what is in our sensibility and if the categories of the human understanding can operate only on the objects given to our understanding in and through the forms of sensibility, then all theoretical knowledge of God is rendered impossible. God, who is supra-sensible, is not given in the mass of sense impressions that we receive and is incapable of being an object of theoretical knowledge to the human mind. He applies to God the conditions required of all objects of experience and hence of all knowable realities. The judgments constitutive of philosophical knowledge are only possible when we relate the formal conditions of a priori intuition, the synthesis of imagination and the necessary unity of this synthesis in a transcendental apperception, to a possible empirical knowledge in general.186[186] Those things alone are knowable which are temporal, subject to some finite, concrete pattern of imagination, included within the order of appearances, and given through empirical, sensuous intuition. On all four counts, God (as conceived by Western theists) lies patently outside the scope of speculative knowledge. He is eternal and not temporal; His being is infinite and unimaginable; He is not an
abstracted nature, the impressed species of an intelligible order, which is the idea in a rudimentary, primitive form. Then we have the role of the potential intellect (also called the passive or possible intellect), which is the power of the mind to understand . It is the capacity or power of the mind to express the essence of the represented thing in an idea or concept. The essential elements, after being abstracted from the image, are presented by the agent intellect to the potential intellect; the latter expresses the elements in conceptual terms by gathering them together into an abstract intellectual representation of the thing. This completed idea or concept is the expressed species of an intelligible order, a mental sign that signifies the essence of a thing. It is important for us know that the concept is not that which we understand but that by means of which we understand. What is known in the first instance is the object (the thing) itself in reality. An idea is simply an instrument of knowledge, not the object which we know in the first instance. We can, of course, make ideas the objects of our knowledge in a second instance, in a second movement, which is in reflection, but it is crucial to make clear that what we know in the first movement of our mind is the thing in extra-mental, extrasubjective reality. To say that what we know in the first instance can be only our ideas and impressions in our mind is to fall into the error of subjectivism.
186[186]

I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, A 158 ; B 197, 2nd ed., trans. N. K. Smith, Macmillan, London, 1933, p.

194.

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appearance but the supreme intelligible reality or thing-in-itself; He lies beyond all sensuous intuition, and man is endowed with no intellectual intuition for grasping His intelligible reality. Not only His existence but also His nature and causal relation with the world remain intrinsically impenetrable to our speculative gaze. Natural theology has no possibility of providing us with true knowledge about God and should be abandoned.187[187] Kant could not formulate a valid demonstration of the existence of God because of his negation of abstraction, the metaphysical value of our primary concepts in favor of a reduction of knowledge to what appears to the senses, and the inevitable negation of the objective validity of the principle of causality, which is at the foundation of every valid a posteriori demonstration of Gods existence. All this because of his acceptance of sensism and his absolutization of Newtonian physics that would replace metaphysics as first philosophy. Kant criticizes the a posteriori demonstrations of God, namely the cosmological and teleological arguments, but these are not the arguments of the third and fifth ways of St. Thomas, which are by no means reducible to the ontological argument, a type of argumentation which Aquinas himself refutes. Rather, the Thomistic five ways are valid effect to cause quia demonstrations that have as their starting points objects given in sensible experience which are then interpreted metaphysically. Using the objective metaphysical principle of causality (and the impossibility of infinite regress in the first, second, and third ways) one successfully arrives at God. From a real starting point one concludes to a real Supreme Being. There is no question here of an illegitimate transfer from the logical order to the existential order of being (which the ontological argument does). Why then does Kant erroneously dismiss all possible a posteriori arguments for Gods existence? It is because he is operating within the framework of his immanentist theory of experience and theory of existence, which excludes a realist point of departure, as Collins explains: The Kantian explanation of the three stages in any a posteriori demonstration of Gods existence rests upon his theory of experience and his conception of existence. The steps in the process impose themselves
187[187]

J. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 182-183. Collins notes that the coercive force of the Kantian critique of natural theology depends upon acceptance of his view that the requirements for the knowledge proper to classical physics are the requirements for all knowledge, that the conditions of the object of physics are therefore the same as the conditions for all knowable experience, that experience is confined to sensible appearances and their formal conditions, that the general, formal factors in knowledge derive entirely from the nature of consciousness, and that man has only sensuous intuition(J. COLLINS, op. cit., p. 183).

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upon human intelligence not through any necessity inherent in the human intellect itself or in Gods own being but only on condition that the intellect is operating within the framework of the Kantian view of experience and existence. What has been described, then, is the way an a posteriori inference to God must adapt itself to the exigencies of this view, not the way in which such an inference must always develop. Thus the analysis has a sharply limited scope. Kants four empirical criteria (temporality, synthesis in imagination, limitation to appearances, and presence through sensuous intuition) are determinants of the objects studied in classical physics. It does not follow that they are the defining marks which characterize everything we can either know experientially or infer from experience. They constitute the empirical principle operative within Newtonian physics, but they are not identical with the experiential principle operative within our ordinary acquaintance with the existing world and our metaphysical analysis of this world. Human experience and its existentially based causal inferences are not restricted to the factors required for the construction of the physical object of Newtonian mechanics. Kants fourfold empirical principle is a univocal rule for testing the validity of scientific reasoning. By its nature, it can extend only to objects which already belong to the world of the physicists investigation. Hence it cannot be used to answer the question of whether experience contains causal implications, leading to the existence of a being distinct from the world of physics. It can settle nothing about whether our inferences, which start with the sensible world, must also terminate with this world and its immanent formal conditions. Hence, Kants use of the empirical principle to rule out the a posteriori demonstration of Gods existence is unwarranted. Granted that the starting point is found in sensible things, it cannot be concluded, by the deductive application of such a principle, that these objects are the only things we can know from causal analysis of experienceIt is because Kant failed to grasp the precise starting point of the realistic argument from changing and composite sensible existents that his account of the general procedure of a posteriori demonstration is inapplicable to the realistically ordered inference.188[188] But it is true that man forms his notion of God and can ask a great many questions regarding a Supreme Being, the First Cause of all reality. How is this so? The reason for this, according to Kant, lies in the very structure of the human mind, for its categories of understanding (of
188[188]

J. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 184-185.

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cause, substance, etc.) enable the mind to posit questions about a first cause, a necessary substance, etc. But there can never be a real answer to these questions for here the minds categories are working without anything, without content. Now, categories can only work on content, and that content must come in and through the forms of sensibility. Content without form is unintelligible and, likewise, is form without content. Thus, questions regarding the existence, nature, attributes, etc., of God are, for Kant, empty questions, for it is simply impossible to provide an answer to them in terms of theoretical or speculative knowledge. Man can speculate about, organize, make relations through cause and effect, only objects of experience, and such objects are strictly limited, for speculative theoretical knowledge, to the phenomena given to the understanding through the a priori forms of sensibility. So, Kant rejects the existence of God as an object of speculative reason. Yet, he believes that His existence is a postulate of practical reason. For Kant, God is postulated as something practically necessary to the carrying out of our moral obligations, so that we may be happy in the doing of our duty; He is a postulate of mans practical reason, posited by the will of man, and held by a blind faith. God is not inferred by the practical reason, He is postulated. He answers a need. Did Kant believe in the extra-mental real existence of God, as postulated by practical reason? How could he possibly do so since his faith was blind. He could say that there was a God, or think there was a God, but the simple fact is that he truly did not know if there was a God. Is knowledge through faith possible? Yes in as much as faith is an act of the intellect moved to assent by the authority of another. We know, for example, that Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and his co-conspirators. This is not a postulate or an hypothesis but an historical fact. But we know this only on faith, our intellects being moved to assent by the authority of another (in this case written testimonies, historical documents, historians of eminent professional standing and competence). But this is not Kants faith in God for he postulates Him by an act of the will, and hence he can never be sure whether there really is a God or not. His position is that of agnostic, and a dogmatic agnostic at that. So, what exactly is this God that he writes about in his critical period? A simple postulate of practical reason that does not transcend the domain of his own mind. The subject of the categorical imperativeis God. That such a being exists cannot be denied but it cannot be affirmed that it exists outside of the man thinking
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according to reason.189[189] There is a God in the moral practical reason, i.e., in the idea of the relation of men to right and duty. But not as a being outside of men.190[190] The categorical imperative does not presuppose a highest command-giving substance that is outside of me but lies in my own reason.191[191] The categorical imperative does not presuppose a highest commanding substance which would be outside of me but is a command or prohibition of my own reason.192[192] God, for him, is not the extra-mental reality of the Supreme Being, but a subjective certainty made up by the mind that serves or is useful towards mans practical or moral life. In the final position of Kant, as found in his Opus Postumum, we find that God is but the immanent self-legislating practical reason itself: The concept of God is the idea of a moral being which as such is directing and commanding overall. This is not a hypothetical thing but pure practical reason itself.193[193] The concept of such an essence (God) is not that of a substance, i.e., of a thing that exists independent of my thinking but the idea (self-creation) thing of thought ens rationis of a reason constituting itself as a thing of thought which produces a priori according to the principles of the transcendental philosophy synthetic propositions an ideal from it194[194] God is the concept of a personality of a being of thought and ideal being which reason creates for itself.195[195] The concept of God is the idea of a moral being which as such is directing and commanding overall. This is not a hypothetical thing but pure practical reason itself.196[196] The Kantian position on God is the bridge that links agnostic phenomenalism with the crypto-atheist pantheistic systems of absolute idealism, which in turn would pave the way for the openly atheistic philosophies of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Marx, the architects of the horrors of the twentieth century. Kant expounds upon his moral philosophy in his Critique of Practical Reason. The moral law, according to him, cannot come from the experience of objective reality; it is the a priori condition of the will. Kantian morality is not teleological but deontological. There are three
189[189] 190[190]

I. KANT, Opus Postumum, VII.V.3-XXII, 55.6. I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.4-XXII, 60.14. 191[191] I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.3-XXII, 56.13. 192[192] I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.2-XXII, 51.2. 193[193] I. KANT, op. cit., VII.X.1-XXII, 118.14. 194[194] I. KANT, op. cit., I.III.1.-XXI, 27.16. 195[195] I. KANT, op. cit., I.IV.3-XXI, 48.4. 196[196] I. KANT, op. cit., VII.X.1-XXII, 118.4.

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formulas that explain the criteria of morality: one based on the universality of the law, another based on humanity as end, and the last based on the universal legislative will. The conditions that make moral life possible (or the postulates of practical reason) are three: free will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. Morality consists in the conformity of the will to the law for laws sake.

CHAPTER 4 FICHTE TO GADAMER With the exception of a few Thomists like Gilson and Maritain, a few other realists, a number of personalists, and a handful of others, there are essentially three main traits of philosophers from Kant onwards: agnosticism, atheism or pantheism. We have seen an example of pantheism in Spinoza who identified Nature or the world with God. Now, let us first treat of agnosticism and then of atheism. Agnosticism Agnosticism,197[197] a term first proposed in its modern sense by Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) in 1869, is etymologically derived from the Greek word agnostikos which means not knowing, ignorant. It is the philosophical doctrine which professes that the human mind is incapable of reaching a knowledge of anything immaterial (in particular, any knowledge regarding the existence, nature and attributes of God). Agnosticism is different from atheism. The agnostic does not explicitly negate the existence of God, as does the atheist. The agnostic position is that the human mind, restricted to the level of sensible phenomena, simply cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God by means of
197[197]

For a general description of agnosticism and its principal tenets, see: R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, God: His Existence and Nature, vol. 1, chapter 1 and section 2 of chapter 2, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1949, pp. 3-60, 84-109 ; C. FABRO, Luomo e il rischio di Dio , chapter 2 (Lagnosticismo), Studium, Rome, 1967, pp. 97-131. For a description of Anglo-American agnostic doctrines during the first quarter of the twentieth century, see: F. J. SHEEN, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy, Longmans, Green, and Co., New York, 1925. For a brief description of the agnosticism of neo-positivism and analytical philosophy, see: B. MONDIN, Dio: chi ?, Massimo, Milan, 1990, pp. 261-270. For a treatment of agnosticism and atheisms foundations in the principle of immanence, see: C. FABRO, God in Exile: Modern Atheism, Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1968, pp. 1061-1085, 1144-1153.

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speculative reason. Many agnostics deny that they are atheists. Kant, for example, retains that, although man cannot demonstrate Gods existence through pure reason, He, nevertheless, is a postulate of practical reason. The modernists or syncretists claim that, though Gods existence cannot be rationally demonstrated, one can instead arrive at His existence by means of religious sentiment. Forms of Agnosticism. There are two main forms of agnosticism: 1. Agnosticism of unbelief or skeptical agnosticism ; and 2. Agnosticism of belief or dogmatic agnosticism. 1. Agnosticism of Unbelief or Skeptical Agnosticism. The skeptical agnostic holds that one simply cannot know if God exists or not. This is so because it is simply beyond mans cognitive capacity (which is restricted to sensible phenomena) to give an answer to the question as to whether or not there corresponds in extra-subjective reality anything which resembles the common notion we have concerning God. The skeptical agnostic does not deny that there may in fact exist something in reality corresponding to the common notion that we have of God, but what he indeed stubbornly affirms is that we can never know if this reality exists as fact, since all we know are material-sensible phenomena. Though these thinkers profess agnosticism instead of atheism their agnosticism is evidently one of unbelief in that they refuse to hold the existence of this unknowable reality on faith, religious sentiment, feeling or any other extrinsic reason. 2. Agnosticism of Belief or Dogmatic Agnosticism . The dogmatic agnostic professes to know nothing concerning the real existence and nature of God but maintains that, to the common notion that we have of God, there does in fact exist a corresponding reality, but the existence of this reality is held on purely subjective or dogmatic grounds. According to the dogmatic agnostic doctrine the existence of God can never be rationally demonstrated by speculative reason for any such argument would reveal something about the very nature of God, whereas such a nature is simply unknowable by means of human reason. In spite of this difficulty, the dogmatic agnostic blindly asserts the existence of God for some non-rational motive, whether it be a need, sentiment, feeling, etc. While the radical empiricist David Hume belongs to the category of skeptical agnostic the transcendental idealist Immanuel Kant professes a dogmatic agnosticism.
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Atheism Atheism198[198] comes from the Greek (a-thes = without God) and means the negation of God. An atheist is one who affirms that God does not exist. There are two types of atheism: practical atheism and theoretical atheism, though a number of philosophers like Battista Mondin and Augusto del Noce include a third: militant atheism. Practical atheism is the behaviour of those who live as if God did not exist. The practical atheist leads a religiously indifferent and materialistic life-style with no concern at all for the next life, conducting his existence without reference to the moral law established by God. Theoretical or speculative atheism, on the other hand, is a philosophical vision that excludes the reality of God. God is negated as a conclusion of a process of reasoning. The philosophies of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Sartre are examples of theoretical or speculative atheism. Militant atheism is active, aggressive, propagandistic atheism which conducts an intellectual warfare against God and the believers of God, with the goal of constructing a truly godless social order. An obvious example of militant atheism today is that of Communist China. Before 1989 the center of militant atheism was undoubtedly the Soviet Union. I retain that the philosophical principle of immanence or immanentism (the incapacity for the mind to know noumenal reality, as
198[198]

For in-depth studies on atheism, see: J. LACROIX, Le sens de lathisme moderne, Casterman, Tournai, 1959 ; G. SEIGMUND, Storia e diagnosi dellateismo contemporaneo , Paoline, Rome, 1961 ; A. DEL NOCE, Il problema dellateismo, il concetto dellateismo e la storia della filosofia come problema , Il Mulino, Bologna, 1964 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Lateismo contemporaneo, Edizioni Centro Cristologico, Naples, 1965 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Il problema dellateismo, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1966 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Lateismo contemporaneo, in 4 vols., SEI, Turin, 1967-1969 ; G. SIEGMUND, God on Trial: A Brief History of Atheism, Desclee, Tournai, 1967 ; C. FABRO, God in Exile. Modern Atheism, Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1968 ; H. DE LUBAC, Ateismo e senso delluomo, Cittadella, Assisi, 1968 ; G. COTTIER, Horizons de lathisme, Du Cerf, Paris, 1969 ; G. F. MORRA, Dio senza Dio. Ateismo, secolarizzazione, esperienza religiosa , Zanichelli, Bologna, 1970 ; L. BOGLIOLO, Ateismo e cristianesimo. Confronto dialettico , Paoline, Rome, 1971 ; V. MICELI, The Gods of Atheism, Arlington House, New Rochelle, New York, 1971 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Con Dio e contro Dio, 2 vols, Marzorati, Milan, 1972 ; G. GIANNINI, Ateismo e speranza, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1973 ; C. TRESMONTANT, I problemi dellateismo, Paoline, Rome, 1973 ; J. MARITAIN, Il significato dellateismo contemporaneo, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1973 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Dio e lateismo moderno , Cittadella, Assisi, 1974 ; V. MARCOZZI, Ateismo e cristianesimo, Massimo, Milan, 1974 ; E. GILARDI, La scelta di Dio. Ateismo e fede a confronto, Elle Di Ci, Turin-Leumann, 1977 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Lateismo. Natura e cause, Massimo, Milan, 1981 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Evangelizzazione e ateismo, Paideia, Brescia, 1981 ; P. MICCOLI, Sui sentieri dellateo, LIEF, Vicenza, 1981 ; J. MARITAIN, Ateismo e ricerca di Dio, Massimo, Milan, 1982 ; E. GILSON, Lateismo difficile, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1986 ; S. PALUMBIERI, Lateismo e luomo, Edizioni Dehoniane, Naples, 1986 ; D. MORIN, Lateismo moderno, Queriniana, Brescia, 1987 ; H. DE LUBAC, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995 ; P. VITZ, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, Spence, Dallas, 1999.

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all one can ever know are ones ideas, impressions, or sensations) is the central reason why we live in an atmosphere of atheistic unbelief today. The philosopher Karl Marx, for example, the author of communist dialectical materialism, accepted the principle of immanentism as a given a priori starting point of his atheistic system, and his philosophy still rules more than a billion people in Red China. The Marxist Mao was himself an idealogue thoroughly imbued with the immanentist spirit. One should note that what rules in the academic settings of the classrooms and salons of the intelligentia is usually implemented as social policy a generation later. By the second half of the nineteenth century, openly atheistic philosophical systems that had germinated from the pantheistic systems of absolute idealism (which were crypto-atheistic systems) had reached their zenith (Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx, Engels), and it took only a couple of decades for their doctrines to be implemented in the political and social spheres, with disastrous consequences (the World Wars, the Communist purges and failed Five-Year Plans, with all the dozens of millions of tragic deaths and lives plunged into the blackest despair). Though they did not take everything from Nietzsche, the Nazis made this atheist the semi-official philosopher of their godless and supremacist199[199] National Socialism. Adolf Hitler himself was an admirer of Nietzsches writings, and paid public obeisance to the latter, usually in the presence of Elizabeth Frster-Nietzsche, the philosophers racist sister. The atheistic philosophies of Nietzsche and Sartre likewise accepted immanentism as their points of departure, and their rotten nihilism still rules over much of the intellectual elite in the morally corrupt academic circles of the rapidly disintegrating West. But there are a number of other reasons why someone becomes an atheist, namely: 1. Evil and suffering in the world (If God is so good why does evil and suffering happen?). Response: true evil is not physical evil but moral evil or sin which is gotten through free choice. Free will is a great thing. It distinguishes us from the animals. God respects our freedom so much that He does not force us to love Him. Much of the suffering that mankind has endured and is still enduring is often the result of the perverse wills of men (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, who all caused millions to suffer and die, terrorists, serial killers, drug pushers, etc.).
199[199]

Nietzsche was violently bigoted and racist against believing Christians and Jews, whom he considered to be herd animals and inferior slaves, inimical to the advent of the Superman who would be faithful to the earth. Does this sound familiar?

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2. Phenomenalism, often through the use of the principle of verification, which states that all meaningful propositions must be verifiable in sense experience (in short, we cannot know, says the phenomenalist, that which is beyond the world that our senses present to us). Response: the principle of verification itself is unverifiable in sense experience, it being a metaphysical principle. Man has not only sense knowledge; he also has intellectual knowledge (we are not just animals, but rational animals). He has the power to abstract universal natures (like justice, which is not sensible; you cant place justice or patriotism in a tin can). 3. The seeming incompatibility between human freedom and God (If God is the Almighty then man, according to the atheist, is but a slave deprived of his freedoms. Therefore, we must negate God so that man may regain his true freedom. God must be eliminated so that man may be exalted). Response: freedom cannot be divorced from the true and the good. True freedom is not merely anthropological freedom or the pure capacity for choice between various possibilities (e.g., the simple power to choose between fifty types of beers). A teenager has the anthropological freedom (the pure capacity for self-determination) to choose between a sachet of heroin and a bag of cocaine, but does choosing the one over the other make him freer? A man has the power to choose to drink himself dead drunk night after night, but do these choices make him a freer person? Do not these bad choices make him rather a slave to his passions? The mere self-determination between possibles, therefore, is not true freedom. Rather, it entails the choosing and doing of the true and the good. The more one does the true and the good the freer one becomes. The more one utilizes his anthropological freedom to opt for God (who is Truth and Goodness), the freer one becomes (the freest persons in the world who consecrated themselves to God often did not have anything as regards material wealth, for example, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio, and St. Thrse of Lisieux. No other person probably has as much anthropological freedom or the power of self-determination than Bill Gates with all his billions. But is he freer than the holy hermit in the desert who has found his God?). 4. The bad example of believers (Why should I believe in God when these believers are bigger liars and crooks that your regular lawabiding unbeliever?). Response: The scandalous lives of believers are indeed stumbling blocks for unbelievers. Nothing turns off people from
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approaching religion better than a hypocrite. But I believe that Gandhi once said that if Christians practiced what Jesus taught the whole world would become Christian. We Christians ought to practice what we believe in, and when we do so we will not repel but rather attract unbelievers to the Faith. The pagans of old were amazed by the love that the early Christians had for God (even unto martyrdom) and for one another. See how they love one another, they said in amazement, and began their conversion to the Faith. 5. The superabundance of temporal goods that blind man from his true end (Why should I think of God now when I have all the creature comforts I need?). Response: Wealth is often a factor that prevents one from acknowledging Gods existence and His moral law. Attachment to riches is a sure way of horizontalizing ones existence. It is to be observed that as a country rises in wealth, there is a corresponding rise in the pagan hedonism of its citizens (e.g., the affluent, post-Christian countries of the First World). The answer to this problem lies in a detachment from things. Wealth has the tendency to corrupt people, but not all wealthy people are necessarily corrupt hedonists. Rather, it is how one uses ones wealth and talents for the good that matters. The detached millionaire businessman who uses his wealth wisely to help the poor and to glorify God is better than the poor miser who spends his evenings counting the handful of dollars that he possesses and is unnaturally attached to. Now, there is a vice that is common to those who possess riches, which is: they believe that what they have earned legally is theirs absolutely to disposed by them in any way that they see fit. They say: I didnt rob anyone; the money that I possess was earned through my sweat and tears; therefore, I am going to buy my fifth car and second yacht and nobody can say anything to the contrary. Its my money, period. What these wealthy people dont realize is that they are really only stewards of the talents and wealth given to them by God. And they have a grave obligation to use those and talents and wealth for the good. They are obliged to help those who are destitute (Lazarus) by works of charity, and to glorify Him who made them (by contributing to the building of churches, the printing of catechisms, religious books etc.). One ought also to have the habit of mortifying oneself so that the spirit may dominate over the flesh. If the spiritual combat is a long and fierce war for those who have consecrated themselves to God in religious life and are spared many of the temptations of the world, what more for those who have riches and are living in the world! A great book that I
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recommend for success in the spiritual warfare is Dom Lorenzo Scupolis famous classic The Spiritual Combat, available from Tan Books (www.tanbooks.com) and Sophia Institute Press (www.sophiainstitute.com). A commentary on Scupolis magnum opus by the Oratorian Jonathan Robinson, entitled Spiritual Combat Revisited, is available from Ignatius Press (www.ignatius.com). Finally, it is all too often true that comfortable persons come to God only after some big crisis hits their lives (losing ones spouse, job, friends, house, news that one has cancer, etc.). But one should be close to God not only on rare occasions; rather, one should have a constant presence of God all throughout the day, in work and in rest. 6. Disorders of the sentiments and passions (Teenager: I dont feel like believing in God or going to church anymore). Response: One ought to free oneself from any addiction to vice whatsoever by practicing the habit of mortifying ones passions, by persevering in prayer (and calling out to God and His Mother200[200] in times of temptations) and by frequenting the sacraments (confession and the Holy Eucharist). If one is addicted to a vice such as that of lust (which is the predominant vice of youth), then ones outlook can only be but horizontal or earth-centered. In general, one can say that the dominant vice in each of the three stages of life is the following: lust (in youth), power (in middle age), and avarice or greed (in old age). 7. The need to remove guilt for ones sins and crimes (If I negate God, then I will not be oppressed by moral guilt and be free) Response: Such an option can only prove to be illusive. Humble yourself, acknowledge and confess your sins to Gods ministers, the bishops and the priests,201[201] and you will be free from your heavy burden. Remember
200[200]

For those Non-Catholics who have a problem with Marys power of intercession with God, I suggest they read the three volume work of Robert Payesko, entitled The Truth About Mary, available from Queenship Publishing (www.queenship.org). 201[201] We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) the following: Only God forgives sins. Since He is the Son of God, Jesus says of Himself, The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins, and exercises this divine power: Your sins are forgiven. Further, by virtue of His divine authority He gives this power to men to exercise in His name (CCC, 1441). We read in John 20:21-23 that Christ gives His apostles the power to forgive sins in His name: Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. The Catechism goes on to explain: Since Christ entrusted to His apostles the ministry of reconciliation (cf. Jn 20:23; 2 Cor. 5:18), bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit(CCC, 1461).

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that God is a loving Father who wills that we return to Him, who is willing to forgive any sin, provided that we be humble. I recommend Scott Hahns book Lord Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession , published by Doubleday, and available at Dr. Hahns website:( www.scotthahn.com ). 8. Propagandistic indoctrination into atheism by atheistic governments (such as the one in Red China, where Big Brother controls what people are to think and believe) and in many of the universities of the free world (by atheist professors masking as agnostics and freethinkers, who indoctrinate their unsuspecting students into godlessness while hiding under the mantle of academic freedom). Response: there is an urgent need to de-brainwash those indoctrinated into atheism by showing, among other things, the reasonableness of realism (that we can indeed know reality in the first instance and thus be able to rationally demonstrate the existence of God) and the unreasonableness of immanentism or the incapacity to transcend the prison of our minds to know what is (which is the suicide of reason, truth and morality). For once we deny that we can know reality or the thing-initself, since all we can ever know are our ideas or impressions (the principal tenet of immanentism), then three things follow: first, we are unable to demonstrate the existence of God and either fall into agnosticism, or one step further, declare ourselves to be atheists; second, since we are unable to know the thing-in-itself or the noumenon, as it exists in extra-mental reality, then there can be no objective truth, for truth is the conformity or adequation of our minds (that is, our judgments) with reality (or things); and lastly, if we are unable to know reality then we will be unable to know the objective nature of the human person, and when this happens there can be no objective morality. So, no God, no truth, and no morality (as preached by Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre, and all their surrogates in the universities), and what happens? The horrors of the death camps of World War II, the abortion chambers of our dying free world, the countless suicides, murders, broken lives, etc. For a detailed expos of the ring leaders of the Culture of Death destroying our world, see Donald De Marco and Benjamin Wikers book Architects of the Culture of Death, published by Ignatius Press (www.ignatius.com). Fichte
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte202[202] (1762-1814) developed Kants transcendental idealism into an absolute idealism that assumes an ethical character: the essence of the ego consists in the will; the world (non-ego) is romantically conceived as an obstacle that must be surpassed. Why the opposition of the non-ego? Fichte replies that here we can see the creativity of the absolute spirit. It is a creativity by opposition: the ego creates the non-ego as in opposition precisely in order to conquer it and master it, as a self-imposed challenge. And this is the struggle whereby by means of science and of action the ego gradually conquers the nonego or the world. It is the struggle of the Subject to master the Object created by it. The real manifestation of the Ego is therefore the will to conquer. The will is the real manifestation of the Ego, and so the moral life (the life of the will) is superior to the intellectual life and to the animal life. Fichte grounds theoretical reason on practical reason more radically than KantThis is how the Ego fulfils Himself: by mastering the non-ego, and realizing in the end that everything is Ego. 203[203] This radical egoism and voluntarism is the absurd consequence of immanentism taken to its idealist extreme. He pursued the immanentist principles of the rationalism begun by Descartes towards an idealism that would attempt to reason away the real existence of an extra-mental world apart from the subject who perceives it. Fichte locks himself up within his mind, precluding any rational ascent to the intelligible order of rational truth, an thus establishes the human self at the center of the universe. According to Fichte, there are only two possible philosophical systems: dogmatism where the fundamental reality is the thing-initself, and idealism where the ego-in-itself is the ultimate reality. He opted out for the latter, negating the thing-in-itself (Absolute Idealism) in order to give more unity to philosophy and to once and for all resolve the problem of the relationship between subject and object (the object is simply eliminated). The sole principle of reality is the principle of identity. According to Fichte, the human spirit creates everything, even the thing-in-itself. Nevertheless, as Kant noted, it is not up to me to change my observation: what is given to me in my consciousness appears to be distinct from me. But why is there a distinction between the ego and the non-ego? Why does the non-ego (external world) appear to the ego as opposed, if the ego creates the non-ego, i.e. if the principle of the non202[202] 203[203]

L. PAREYSON, Fichte, Turin, 1950. J. DE TORRE, op. cit., pp. 132-133.

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ego is the ego? Fichte replies that if we scrutinize the human mind we will find that its most simple statement is the principle of identity: A is A. This principle is purely formal: it does not imply the existence of anything (A is A does not imply that A exists); it expresses a purely formal identity, without content. But how does the mind pass from this formal identity to an identity with existential content (in which A is a really existent A)? Here Fichte turns to Descartes: I am myself is the most basic judgment where we find formal identity and material content together. Thus, it is by way of my own existence (I am) that I pass from purely formal identity to a formal identity with content. But I say that I am myself when I am conscious of myself as thinking: this is the first affirmation of my existence with content. Therefore, every other affirmation of existence with real content is real to the extent that it is related to my consciousness. Fichte then declares that the I in the I am, i.e. the transcendental Ego (not the individual and finite ego) is thus the origin of all existence. For example, when I affirm that this table is round, what I do is to affirm the existence of a round table by relating it to my consciousness of it. The empirical fact that the existence of a thing is related to my consciousness confirms that the reality of the existence of the non-ego is grounded on the reality of the existence of the ego. 204[204] The primordial reality is thought: the spiritual principle of man, the pure ego, also constitutes the foundation of the non-ego. In fact, in thought functions, there is a distinction between the thinking subject and the object thought of. Therefore, to the pure ego there is added the empirical ego and the non-ego: the first is indivisible; the other two are divisible. The ultimate end of the empirical ego lies in the attainment of the pureego. Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling205[205] (1775-1854) differed from Fichte in that, though both are idealists, Fichtes philosophy reveals a passion for the struggle to overcome and conquer obstacles, to master the non-ego, while Schelling sought harmony, love and unity. Fichte was fascinated by dualism and opposition while Schelling was captiviated by
204[204] 205[205]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 132. A. BAUSOLA, Saggi sulla filosofia di Schelling, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1960 ; A. BAUSOLA, Metafisica e rivelazione nella filosofia positiva di Schelling , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1965 ; A. BAUSOLA, Lo svolgimento del pensiero di Schelling (Ricerche) , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1969 ; X. TILLIETTE, Attualit di Schelling, Mursia, Milan, 1974 ; A. BAUSOLA, F. W. J. Schelling, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1975 ; L. PAREYSON, Schelling. Presentazione e antologia, Ed. di Filosofia, Turin, 1975 ;

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monism and union. Fichte had been influenced to some extent by Kants Critique of Practical Reason while Schelling was much influenced by the Critique of Judgment. Schelling had a conception of the absolute as a synthesis of opposites : of the I and nature, of subject and object, of the spirit and the world. The absolute is the origin of nature, the objective form to acquire a greater consciousness of ones proper subjectivity by means of it. Therefore, nature is the pre-history of consciousness, petrified thought. Man is the being in which the absolute acquires consciousness of itself becoming spirit. The comprehension of the universe, wherein nature and spirit are not anymore opposed against each other, is actuated in aesthetic activity. Works of art are the manifestation of the infinite under finite form. Hegel The most famous of absolute idealist philosophers, Georg Wilhelm Hegel206[206] (1770-1831) was born in Stuttgart on August 27, 1770. After early studies at Stuttgart he enrolled at the University of Tbingen where he became friends with the idealist philosopher Schelling and the poet Hlderlin. After his university studies Hegel earned a living as a tutor to various families, first at Berne from 1793 to 1796, and then at Frankurt from 1797 to 1800. In 1801 he managed to obtain a post at the University of Jena and was able to publish a work on the Difference between the Philosophical Systems of Fichte and Schelling. During this period he collaborated with his friend Schelling in editing the Critical Journal of Philosophy of 1802 to 1803. In 1807 Hegel published his first major work The Phenomenology of Spirit. From 1807 to 1808 he edited a newspaper at Bamberg and was appointed rector of the Gymnasium at Nuremberg, a position which he held until 1816. While at Nuremberg Hegel produced his second major work the two volume Science of Logic between 1812 and 1816. In 1817 he was made more famous by the publication of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline. From 1818 onwards Hegel was a professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin, a post which he held until his death from cholera on November 14, 1831. During his tenure at
206[206]

S. VANNI ROVIGHI, La concezione hegeliana della storia , Milan, 1942 ; F. OLGIATI, Il panlogismo hegeliano, Milan, 1946 ; H. A. OGIERMANN, Hegels Gottesbeweise, Rome, 1948 ; S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Hegel critico di Kant, Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica, 42 (1950), pp. 289-312 ; C. TAYLOR, Hegel e la societ moderna, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1984 ; V. MANCUSO, Hegel teologo e limperdonabile assenza del Principe di questo mondo, Piemme, Casale Monferrato, 1996.

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Berlin he published his Outlines of the Philosophy of Right in 1821 and new editions of his Encyclopaedia came out in 1827 and 1830. Hegel elaborated a pantheistic, pan-logical and historicist, absolute idealism where we find an absolute humanism that generates absolute atheism: man is the immanent foundation of reality itself. He sought to rationally found reality understood as a logical construction of the world. The object of Hegelian philosophy is the rational comprehension of the world and of history. History is characterized by splits between being and non-being, good and evil, the infinite and finite, and God and the world. Knowledge of this reality engenders an unhappy conscience in man who desires to free himself from contradictions. In his work Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel examines in a scientific way the various manifestations of the spirit in its historical dimension. The fundamental principles of the Hegelian system are two: in the logical sphere, that of the identity of the ideal and that of the real; in the ontological sphere, the principle is the absolute in which being is its becoming. Hegels method is the dialectic: the sole adequate method for the study of reality is that of speculative logic (or the dialectic). It is made up of three moments: thesis (the moment of being-in-itself), antithesis (the moment of being-outside-itself), and synthesis (the moment of reunion). Reality is structured by an immense triangular pyramid that explodes from the absolute and develops in an infinite number of triads. The fundamental triad is given by: idea, nature, and Spirit, and the three principal parts are, correspondingly: logic, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of the Spirit. History is the study of the manifestations of the objective spirit. It is the progressive manifestation of the absolute; in it all that happens has a rational character. Evil is only a moment in the dialectic of reason. To manifest itself in history the spirit makes use of the State and of Nation. A critique of Hegels philosophy. As was said Hegel was a pantheist. His Absolute is not the transcendent Supreme and Almighty God of Christianity but rather, this Absolute is immanent in the cosmos, and now specifically in the human consciousness that makes up the human world of history, with its institutions, social entities and movements, and especially its organization into political states. The Absolute is not prior to this world of men or above it; it is not the creating source whence earthly reality derives, nor is it distinct from it. Thus the Absolute is not a substance, meaning an existing and already
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achieved Being or Reality, but rather a subject, that is, a process of development in and of and through the earthly human social reality. Hegel was also the father of modern dictatorships, both of the fascist and communist types. In his Philosophy of Law (1821) Hegel teaches that the political state is the moving progress of God in the world, to be honored as a reality at once human and divine. Progess is the operating word in this concept : it denotes the presence of the dialectic, the dynamic process or mechanism by which political states are constituted as the embodiment of social movement in human history. From the viewpoint of the present study it is clear that the fundamental metaphysics of pantheism is leading directly to the divinization of the state as the supreme manifestation of the World Spirit moving in historical time.207[207] When Hegel presents the German world as the goal of the dialectic of the World spirit across six thousand years of human culture, he has explicitly in mind the Prussian state of his own day. For him this is the final embodiment of the World Spirit and the final aim of its progression, a concept to which one now must turn in order to understand fully what Hegel has in mind with the application of his dialectic in the Philosophy of History. The principles of the successive phases of Spirit, he writes, that animate the nations in a necessitated gradation are themselves only steps in the development of the one universal Spirit This necessarily implies that the present form of Spirit comprehends within it all earlier stepsThe life of the everpresent Spirit is a circle of progressive embodiments. With this concept of the embodiment of the World Spirit in the succession of political entities across time, the student of Hegel stands before his work The Philosophy of Law, which may well be called the rationale of the totalitarian state, and which reveals how truly it has been said that Marx can be understood only in the light of Hegels philosophy but in an application that Hegel himself did not forsee. Hegel writes: The state is the Spirit that lives in the world and there consciously realizes itself The state is the march of God through the worldThe state is the world that the Spirit has made for itselfWe must therefore worship the state as the manifestation of the Divine on earth.208[208] At the foundations of Hegels pantheism lie his panlogicism (his identification of the real order of being with the logical order
207[207] 208[208]

R. CHERVIN, E. KEVANE, op. cit., p. 281. R. CHERVIN, E. KEVANE, op. cit., p. 282.

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resulting in his failure to distinguish between the ontological concept of God as the Being a se, and the logical concept of universal being) and his denial of the objective validity of the principle of non-contradiction, resulting in pan-fieri and monism. There is indeed a distinction between the metaphysical concept of God as the Ens a se and the logical concept of universal being. Bittle writes that a comparison of the two concepts will bring our their radical difference. The concept of God is that of a concrete being; the concept of universal being is abstract. The absolute being of God has the fullest comprehension, because He comprises within Himself the plenitude of being in an infinite manner; but the concept of God is the smallest in extension, because He is only one in number. The reverse is true of the abstract, logical entity of the concept of universal being. From the standpoint of its comprehension, it is the most meager of all concepts, because it consists of the single item of being in general and as such is next to nothing; from the standpoint of its extension, it is the widest of all concepts, since it can be predicated of every sort of actual and possible being, of substances and accidents and modes. Furthermore, God and universal being differ altogether in regard to the manner of their origin. The concept of God is the result of reasoning, acquired through the process of applying the principles of reason to the data of experience. On the other hand, the concept of universal being is formed through the logical process of abstraction, by ignoring the manifold differences existing in the actual realities. Again God and universal being differ completely in their mode of existence. God exists as an individual being, independent of any creatural mind. Universal being exists formally only in the abstracting mind and as such has only a mental existence; in actuality, individual beings alone exist, and universal being does not exist as a real being anywhere in nature. Finally, God and universal being are totally different in their properties. Both are simple; but this simplicity is predicated of them in radically diverse meanings. God is said to be simple in the sense that He is infinitely perfect; He possesses ontological indivisibility in the fullness of His being. Universal being, however, is said to be simple only because of its indeterminateness, logical incompositeness, and poverty of content.209[209] The Hegelian claim is that the beings that we find in the world are but modes or modifications of the divine substance through a necessary process of historical becoming. Such modes or modifications
209[209]

C. BITTLE, God and His Creatures, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1953, pp. 260-261.

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are but thought modes or thought modifications of the divine being in the process of historical becoming. But this is a manifest error for creatural beings (substances in their own right) are not modes or modifications (accidents) of any substantial being. The things that we observe in the world around us are complete substances in themselves, really distinct from God numerically and essentially, and really distinct from one another numerically and, in numberless cases, specifically and also generically. What is more, unless we wish to admit that our cognitive faculties are utterly and absolutely untrustworthy, we must admit that we ourselves and the rest of the creatures in the world are not mere thoughtmodifications of any being, but have an existence in the physical world, an existence, namely, really distinct from, and outside of, the intellect or thought of any being, even God. To insist that the world is a mere illusion of Gods intellect or of our intellects is intellectual suicide. To attempt to live practically in accord with such a theory is impossible. Even the idealists themselves admit this.210[210] Feuerbach The father of modern atheism Ludwig Feuerbach 211[211] (18041872) was born at Landshut, Bavaria on July 29, 1804. In 1823 he began his theological studies at Heidelberg, which he gradually abandoned for life of philosophy. In 1824 he frequented the courses of Hegel at Berlin, which profoundly affected him. Four years later he became an unsalaried lecturer at the university of Erlangen but because of his radical ideas his academic career stalled. He then decided to devote the remainder of his life to writing. His works include On Philosophy and Christianity (1839), the famous Essence of Christianity (1841), the Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843), The Essence of Faith in Luthers Sense (1844), the Essence of Religion (1845), Lectures on the Essence of Religion (1851), the Mistery of Sacrifice or Man is What He Eats (1862), and his Spiritualism and Materialism published in 1866. He died at Nuremberg on September 13, 1872. Feuerbach resolved theology into anthropology and transformed idealism into materialism. The idea of God has its origin when man attempts to project various qualities that he has in himself onto
210[210] 211[211]

W. J. BROSNAN, God Infinite and Reason, America Press, New York, 1928, p. 220. C. FABRO, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels: Materialismo dialettico e materialismo storico , La Scuola, Brescia, 1962 ; C. FABRO, Ludwig Feuerbach: La essencia del cristianismo, EMESA, Madrid, 1977.

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a Divine Person. God is, for Feuerbach, nothing but the fantastic representation of the absolute dominion of the human will over nature and the complete satisfaction of all human desires. It is not thought that causes matter but matter that develops thought when it reaches the apex of its material evolution. He maintains that the task of philosophy is to show that it was not God who created man, but rather man who created the concept of God. His Copernican Revolution consists in the resolution of theology into anthropology. He writes: What do you affirm when you affirm God? My answer: you affirm your own understanding. God is your highest idea and power of thought, the sum of all the affirmations of your understanding.212[212] God is for man the common place book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical album into which he enters the names of the things most dear and sacred to him.213[213] God as the epitome of all realities or perfections is nothing other than a compendious summary devised for the benefit of the limited individual, an epitome of the generic human qualities distributed among men, in the self-realization of the species in the course of world history.214[214] God, for Feuerbach, is nothing but the essence of man: The divine essence is the glorified human essence transfigured from the death of abstraction.215[215] It is the essence of man that is the supreme beingIf the divinity of nature is the basis of all religions, including Christianity, the divinity of man is its final aimThe turning point in history will be the moment when man becomes aware that the only God of man is man himself. Homo homini Deus!216[216] Religion would be nothing but the projection of man, his feelings, and his experience of life out of a given historical situation. Feuerbachs explanation of religion and God is wholely in function of mans nature and its tendencies: When religion is defined as the awareness of the infinite, this can be understood as an awareness of the infinity of mans own essential being. But at first the religious mind does not see that the proper object of its worship is the unlimited essence of man. Man first of all sees his nature as if outside of himself, before he finds it in himself. His own nature is in
212[212] 213[213]

R. CHERVIN, E. KEVANE, op. cit., p. 297. L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity, translated by George Eliot, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1957, p. 132. For a critique of this book, see: J. C. OSBOURN and P. H. CONWAY, Pen and Sword versus God, The Thomist, 6 (1943), pp. 285-317. 214[214] L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. xvi. 215[215] L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. 173. 216[216] L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. 159.

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the first instance contemplated by him as that of another being.217[217] God is nothing more than this alienated way of viewing the human essence as though it were another being. He is the ideal human essence, which we abstract from empirical individuals and then set apart as a real depository of all the attributes and perfections of human nature. Religion is the very process of projecting our essential being into the ideal sphere of divinity and then humbling ourselves before our own objectified essence. In worshipping God, men are really paying homage to their own relinquished essence, viewed at an ideal distanceAs soon as man pierces the real significance of religion, he can dispense with God or the absolute spirit and devote himself to cultivating the potentialities of his own essential being.218[218] We see in Feuerbachs philosophy the gruesome consequences of being trapped in the prison of immanentism and the denial of the realist metaphysics of being. The troubles of modern man began when he shifted his attention from God to his own consciousness of God. Thereupon, he went on to shift his attention from this human consciousness of God to his own consciousness of this attention. And at this point he began to wonder who created whom. The assumption had always been that it was God who created man, and hence ought to be worshipped by man, with adoration and gratitude, petition and reparation. But when man became conscious of his own consciousness of God, he set out on a road toward his own deification: God became for man the ultimate product of human consciousness, the goal of a self-developing immanent humanity.219[219] He, who once was rightly proud of being made to the image and likeness of God, began to boast that he was his own Creator and that he made God to his image and likeness. From this false humanism came the descent from the human to the animal, when man admitted he came from the beast, and immediately proceeded to prove it by acting like a beast in war. More recently he has made himself one with nature, saying that he is nothing more than a complex arrangement of chemical elements. He now calls himself the atomic man, as theology becomes psychology, psychology becomes biology, biology becomes physics.220[220]

217[217] 218[218]

L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. 13. J. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 242-243. 219[219] J. DE TORRE, op. cit., pp. 9-10. 220[220] F. J. SHEEN, The Worlds First Love, Image Books, New York, 1956, pp. 230-231.

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Like Nietzsche and Sartre, Feuerbach is classified as an anthropological (or humanist) atheist: God must be eliminated so that man may reclaim his true dignity, power, and freedom. He writes: I deny only in order to affirm. I deny the fantastic projection of theology and religion in order to affirm the real essence of man. 221[221] While I do reduce theology to anthropology, I exalt anthropology to theology; very much as Christianity while lowering God into man, made man into God.222[222] But does man reclaim his true dignity when he negates God? The twentieth century was the time when atheistic totalitarian systems had their hour (the products of the atheistic philosophical systems of the preceding century), producing rivers of blood with tens of millions of deaths. Never in the history of mankind was the dignity of the human person so debased as it was in that godless century, the century of Nazism and Communism. No, man loses his dignity when he severs himself from his Maker, and can only reclaim it when, with the help of Gods grace, he acknowledges, loves, and obeys Him, in whose image and likeness he was made. The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. The invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his Creator.223[223] To acknowledge God is in no way to oppose the dignity of man, since such dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in God. Man has in fact been placed in society by God, who created him as an intelligent and free being; but over and above this he is called as a son to intimacy with God and to share in His happiness. She further teaches that hope in a life to come does not take away from the importance of the duties of this life on earth but rather adds to it by giving new motives for fulfilling those duties. When, on the other hand, man is left without this divine support and without hope of eternal life his dignity is deeply wounded, as may so often be seen today. The problems of life and death, of guilt and suffering, remain unsolved, so that men are not rarely cast into despair.224[224]

221[221] 222[222]

L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. 4. L. FEUERBACH, op. cit., p. 43. 223[223] VATICAN II, Gaudium et Spes, no. 19. 224[224] VATICAN II, op. cit., no. 21.

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Copleston, like his fellow Jesuit Henri De Lubac, 225[225] does not think that Feuerbachs theoretical philosophy is profound, but admits his massive influence on thinkers like Marx and Engels: Feuerbachs philosophy is certainly not outstanding. For example, his attempt to dispose of theism by the account of the genesis of the idea of God is superficial. But from the historical viewpoint his philosophy possesses real significanceIn particular, the philosophy of Feuerbach is a stage in the movement which culminated in the dialectical materialism and the economic theory of Marx and Engels.226[226] Marx The most influential atheist of all time was Karl Marx 227[227] (1818-1883), whose philosophy of communism ruled at one time a third of the peoples of the earth until the collapse of Soviet Marxist ideology in 1989. There are still a number of nations today that are still communist like China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany on May 5, 1818. His father was a Jew who converted to Protestantism and had his son Karl baptized in 1824; however, the Marx family did not practice their Christianity and young Karl grew up in an atmosphere of religious indifferentism. His early education was at Trier and after this he studied at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. While at Berlin he mixed with members of the Hegelian Left, especially with Bruno Bauer. In 1842 we find him editing a newspaper, the Rheinische Zeitung, at Cologne where he expressed his radical views. For such
225[225]

For De Lubacs treatment of Feuerbachs atheistic humanism, see: H. DE LUBAC, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995. 226[226] F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, vol. 7, part 2, Image Books, New York, 1965, p. 67. 227[227] N. BERDYAEV, The Russian Revolution, Sheed and Ward, London, 1931 ; F. SHEEN, Communism: Opium of the People, St. Anthonys Press, Paterson, 1938 ; G. MACEOIN, The Communist War on Religion, Devin-Adair, New York, 1951 ; F. OLGIATI, Carlo Marx, Milan, 1953 ; M. DARCY, Communism and Christianity, Penguin, London, 1956 ; G. COTTIER, Lathisme du jeune Marx: ses origines hgliennes , Paris, 1959 ; H. CHAMBRE, Christianity and Communism, Burns and Oates, London, 1960 ; M. CLMENT, The Communist Challenge to God, Burns, Glasgow, 1961 ; F. J. SHEEN, Communism and Man, Sheed and Ward, London, 1962 ; C. FABRO, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels: Materialismo dialettico e materialismo storico , La Scuola, Brescia, 1962 ; C. MCFADDEN, The Philosophy of Communism, Benziger, New York, 1963 ; I. BOCHENSKI, Soviet Russian Dialectical Materialism, Reidel, Holland, 1963 ; R. N. CAREW HUNT, The Theory and Practice of Communism, Pelican, Baltimore, Md., 1963 ; M. WOLFSON, A Reappraisal of Marxian Economics , Penguin, Baltimore, Md., 1966 ; A. DEL NOCE, Caratteri generali del pensiero politico contemporaneo, vol. 1: Lezioni sul Marxismo , Giuffr, Milan, 1972 ; R. TUCKER, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1972 ; O. TODISCO, Marx e la religione, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1975 ; T. ALVIRA-A. RODRIGUEZ LUO, K. Marx-F. Engels: Miseria de la filosofa y Manifesto del Partido Comunista , EMESA, Madrid, 1976 ; G. MORRA, Marxismo e religione, Rusconi, Milan, 1976 ; R. GMEZ PREZ, El humanismo marxista, Rialp, Madrid, 1978 ; A. DEL NOCE, Karl Marx: Scritti giovanili, Japadre, LAquila, 1979 ; J. DE TORRE, Marxism, Socialism, and Christianity, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1983.

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radicalism he became a hunted man, and to escape the German authorities he fled to Paris in 1843, where he began his intense collaboration with fellow radical and countryman Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) dating from 1844. In 1845 both men published The Holy Family directed against Bruno Bauer and his circle (who were described as the Holy Family). In early 1845 Marx was expelled from France and went to Brussels were he penned his Thesis on Feuerbach which came out that same year. In 1847 he published his Poverty of Philosophy, which was a reply to Proudhons Philosophy of Poverty. In 1848 both Marx and Engels published their most famous work, the Manifesto of the Communist Party which first appeared in London. Marx left for Germany when the revolutionary movement started there but had to flee to Paris when the uprising failed. In 1849 he was expelled from France for a second time, and journeyed to England where he remained for the rest of his life, receiving financial aid from his revolutionary collaborator Engels. In 1859 Marx published his Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, which like the earlier Manifesto, is another statement of the dialectical materialist conception of history. In 1864 he founded the First International which, after the congress at the Hague in 1872 was transferred to New York. The first volume of his Capital (Das Kapital) was published at Hamburg in 1867, but he did not publish the other volumes. He died on March 14, 1883 and was buried in London. Engels continued the Communist struggle, publishing his friends second and third volumes of Das Capital in 1885 and 1894 respectively. Engels published some works of his own including his work on The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in 1884, his series of essays entitled Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of the Classical German Philosophy in 1888, and his Critique of the Erfurt Program of 1891, directed against the social democrats of his time. He died of cancer in August of 1895. Marxs inspiration came from Hegel, the Hegelian Left, and the materialist and evolutionist scientists and writers of his time, including Darwin and Ricardo. He transported the Hegelian dialectic of the spirit into the material world and history. The material conditions of existence condition our perception of the world. The fundamental structure of all ideology is economic. It is the social being of men that determines their consciousness. Theory is subordinated to action (praxis): what matters is not the interpretation of the world but rather the changing of it. Economic evolution determines social evolution (that of the classes) and through it,
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that of politics. The historical epochs of the world according to the various types of economic structures are the following: primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and future communism. For Marx, capitalism implies the defrauding of the worker (surplus-value theory). It, however, infallibly provokes an economic crisis and, in the end, provokes a proletarian revolution and the rise of the communist society. For him, religion is the opium of the people, a contingent superstructure that diverts man from his true end, which is wholely earthly and material. Atheism is founded upon three postulates: 1. metaphysical and dialectical materialism ; 2. historical materialism ; and 3. absolute humanism which places man on the top of the cosmos. Marx had already been an atheist before he absorbed the projection theory of Feuerbach228[228]; the writings of free-thinkers and anti-clericals had been staple reading at the Marx household of Karls youth, and he later gravitated towards Epicurean materialism and Democritan atomism. When Marx and Engels adopted the Feuerbachian thesis that God is nothing but a projection of mans ideals for perfection and omnipotence, and accepted the substitution of Hegelian idealism for Feuerbachian materialism, Engels later wrote in retrospect: Then came Feuerbachs Essence of Christianity. With one blow it pulverized the contradiction, in that without circumlocution it placed materialism on the throne againNothing exists outside nature and man, and the higher beings our religious fantasies have created are only the fantastic reflection of our own essenceOne must have himself experienced the liberating effect of this book to get an idea of it. Enthusiasm was general; we all became at once FeuerbachiansWith irresistible force Feuerbach is finally driven to the realizationthat our consciousness and thinking, however suprasensuous they may seem, are the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is merely the highest product of matter.229[229] Man, Marx taught, suffers from a religious alienation. Religion is the opium of the people, a superstructure to prop up the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. It makes the worker forget his oppression (and his duty to revolutionize the social order) by concentrating his attention on heavenly, otherworldly things that do not
228[228] 229[229]

Cf. G. SIEGMUND, op. cit., p. 261 ; I. LEPP, Atheism in Our Time, Macmillan, New York, 1963, p. 64. F. ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy , in Marx and Engels: Selected Works, vol. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955, pp. 366, 367, 371.

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exist. Therefore, the fundamental task of the Marxist revolution must be the elimination (by any means230[230]) of this religious alienation towards the emancipation of the proletariat. Marx writes: The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man, who either has not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society produce religion, a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point dhoneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore mediately the fight against the other world, of which religion is the spiritual aroma. Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
230[230]

Marx and Engels, at the end of their Communist Manifesto, state that the Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!(K. MARX-F. ENGELS, Manifesto of the Communist Party , 1848, conclusion). However, for propaganda purposes, Communists have in fact strategically concealed their persecution of believers from the view of the Western powers, often presenting the smokescreen that priests, pastors, and religious are being put in prison for political crimes, not for their religious beliefs. This tactic is being pursued, for example, by the Communists in Red China even to this day. That the Soviet Union pursued this policy during the existence of that bloody corporation is undeniable. For example, in his testimony to the United States Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Evangelical minister Reverend Richard Wurmbrand, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Communists for fourteen years for religious reasons, had this to say: Mr Sourwine: What has been the policy and practice of the Communists with respect to religion in the countries where they have come to power? Reverend Wurmbrand: They used three great instruments. First of all, the persecution, to make everybody afraid. They never accepted that they have put anybody in prison for religious motives. They found always political motivesThere has been, secondly, the method of corruptionFor the first time in church history the leadership of churches is dominated by the central committee of an avowed atheistic power. The central committee of the party decides who must be patriarch, who must be Baptist preacher, Pentacostal preacher, and so on. Everywhere they have found weak men or men with some sin. Those they have put in the leadership of churches and so you could hear in our theological seminary in Bucharest the theology that God has given three revelations once through Moses, second through Jesus, and third through Karl Marx, and so on. Religion is corrupted from within. Religion has been widely used, and is still, as the tool of Communist politics. The priests everywhere had to propagate the collectivization of agriculture and everywhere when Communists have something important to do, knowing the influence of religion, priests and pastors are put to preach these things. Mr. Sourwine: Have the Communists shown themselves to be opposed only to Christianity, or to all religions? Reverend Wurmbrand: To all religions. The Jewish religion has been persecuted just as the Christian religion. In the prison of Gherla we had a whole room with rabbis who were in prisons. We had in prison the Moslem priests and so on(Communist Exploitation of Religion, Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Ninth Congress, Second Session. Testimony of Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, May 6, 1966, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1966, pp. 12, 13).

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heartless world, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion.231[231] Dr. Harry Wong observes that a revolution of the spirit is the answer to the Marxist revolution espousing an anti-human economic theory, It is clear that Marx had spotted an evil mark of the bourgeois society (i.e., the exploitation from some employers against their employees), but what he failed to see was that evil is to be found in men, rather than in things. Communism has witnessed economic exploitation but failed to see that such evils are caused by the immoral actions of individuals and of the State and by mans deficient knowledge and application of sociological and economic laws. Therefore, the communists think that to solve the problem of exploitation, they have to get rid of the ruling class by means of the proletarian revolution; whereas, anyone who acknowledges the dignity of the human person knows that the true solution to the problem is a revolution within man, a revolution of the spirit which purifies the hearts of men, and also a reorganization of society: to remind the State of its principal purpose of promoting the welfare of men, and finally to make a sincere and persevering attempt to devise means of assuring an equitable distribution of wealth of the earth to all men, without supressing freedom. 232[232] Criticizing the Marxist economic theory, De Torre makes a number of important observations: It is undeniable that in liberal society there were indeed painful cases of exploitation, which could be traced to the liberal utilitarian outlook. Let us take into account, however, that Marx criticizes those injustices not from an ethical angle, as an ordinary person would, from the standpoint of the natural law. He rather confronts that exploitation (with dramatic exaggerations) from a dialectical angle; but he continues to believe, going along with liberalism, that the end of man is the economy. That is why industrialized communist societies are as materialistic as the capitalist systems affected by utilitarianism. But for a vision of human and social facts free from ideological prejudices, injustice is corrected by justice, by a right distribution of goods, by the
231[231]

K. MARX, Towards the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right , in Marx & Engels: Basic Writings, Doubleday, Anchor Books, New York, 1959, pp. 262-263. 232[232] H. WONG, A Critique of Marxism, Theological Centrum, Manila, 1991, p. 8.

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laws, authority, the natural law, religion, in short by a right set of priorities in human activity. This is the basic error of approach of Marxs economic critique, aside from technical details. Business, capital, freedom of the markets, inheritance, private property, financial investment and so forth, are not of themselves unjust. Admittedly they may be handled in an unjust manner, but the solution is not to eliminate them, for thereby what is thrown away with them is personal freedom, and man is thus enslaved by the revolutionary State. The solution lies rather in correcting in them what actually needs to be corrected according to the demands of natural morality.233[233] Comte The French positivist Auguste Comte234[234] (1798-1857), considered to be the father of sociology, was born at Montpellier on January 19, 1798 of devout Catholic parents who tried to raise young Auguste in the faith. Nevertheless, the youth breathed in the skeptical and anti-Christian atmosphere of his time and lost all belief in God at the early age of fourteen. He studied at the renown cole Polytechnique where he was formed in the sciences. However, two years later, in 1816, he was expelled from the cole on account of his radicalism. A year later we find him as secretary to the leading socialist thinker Claude Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825) where he learnt much in the fields of social and political philosophy. The relationship between the two did not last, Comte being suspicious that Saint Simon was going to publish an article of his under the latters name. In 1826 Comte began his lecture series on positivist philosophy but was interrupted in this by a mental breakdown due to over work and marital difficulties. In 1829 he resumed his lectures and a year later published the first volume of his Course on Positive Philosophy (in six volumes between 1830-1842). In 1844 he published his Discourse on the Positivist Outlook, and in 1848 his Discourse on Positivism as a Whole. In both works he describes in detail his idea of a religion of humanity which was to worship humanity instead of God. In 1844 he fell in love with a married woman, Madame Clothilde de Vaux, whose husband went into hiding in order to flee prosecution for embezzlement. Between 1851 and 1854 Comte published his four
233[233] 234[234]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 181. H. GOUHIER, La vie dAuguste Comte, Paris, 1931 ; H. GOUHIER, La jeunesse dAuguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, 3 vols., Paris, 1933-1941 ; J. J. SANGUINETI, Augusto Comte: Curso de filosofia positiva, EMESA, Madrid, 1977.

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volume System of Positive Polity, and in 1852 his Positivist Catechism. In 1856 he published the first volume of his Synthesis on the Universal System of Concepts Proper to the Normal State of Humanity , a work which was destined to remain unfinished due to his death a year later at Paris on September 5, 1857. Comtes principal intention was to construct a philosophy of history based upon the principles of evolution. For him there are three principal phases or stages of history : theological, philosophical, and scientific. These phases are said to constitute the three fundamental epochs of the history of humanity. In the theological stage man gives an explanation of natural phenomena by having recourse to supernatural causes fantastically conceived under anthropomorphic forms. In the philosophical or metaphysical stage the same phenomena are explained by having recourse to abstract rational principles using concepts such as substance, cause, essence, etc. In the last stage, the positive phase, man has come of age and searches for scientific explanations by means of natural laws which are sufficient to explain all phenomena that appear to us. For Comte what happens in history of humanity also happens in the phases of a persons life: the theological stage is one of infancy, the metaphysical one of youth, and the positive one of manhood. The laws of the three stages are also applied to knowledge itself. Comte desired to elevate all the sciences to the positivist state and above all to construct a social physics. There are three fundamental sciences: physics, biology, and sociology, the last being the most important. The role of philosophy is to classify the sciences. A severe critic of Christianity and all forms of dogmatic religions, he proposed in its place the positivistic cult of humanity. Stuart Mill The speculative problem that most occupied the English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill235[235] (1806-1873) was the elaboration of a valid and complete inductive logic based upon the gnoseology of English empiricism which did not admit the possibility of abstract concepts and universal ideas. Towards this end he managed to work out various methods, the principal ones being the method of accord,
235[235]

G. TAROZZI, J. S. Mill, 2 vols., Athena, Milan, 1929-1931 ; F. RESTAINO, J. Stuart Mill e la cultura filosofica brittanica, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1968 ; G. GENCHI, Unit della ragione e controllo sociale: saggi su John Stuart Mill, Laterza, Bari, 1980.

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the method of difference, and the method of accord and difference. Though Jeremy Bentham is credited with being the founder of Utilitarianism, with John Stuart Mill it reached its full development. Utilitarianism has its strong roots in hedonism. Mill writes: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.236[236] But, whereas Bentham held that units of pleasure and pain could be calculated arithmetically, and that ethics could be made into an exact science, Mill recognized qualitative as well as quantitative differences in pleasure : It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.237[237] The end of human action and the standard of morality lies in an existence as free from pain and as rich in pleasure as possible, both in quantity and quality, for all mankind. The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each persons happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.238[238] Here, Mill adheres to the truth of ethical utilitarianism, advancing a doctrine of psychological hedonism instead of a mere ethical hedonism espoused by Bentham. Ethical hedonism mere claims that pleasure ought to be the only thing desired, while Mills psychological hedonism stipulates that the only thing man can and does desire is pleasure. Mill believes that the happiness of the individual and of the aggregate of all persons (the human race) is the supreme good of man and that pleasure and pain is the norm of morality.
236[236] 237[237]

J. S. MILL, Utilitarianism, chapter II. Ibid. 238[238] J. S. MILL, op. cit., chapter IV.

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Bittle gives us a critique of Mills utilitarianism: There can be no question about the fact that utilitarianism is a great improvement on the older system of egoistic hedonism. It at least makes a brave attempt to bring mans social nature into the general field of ethical conduct. Nevertheless, utilitarianism must be rejected as deficient and inadequate. First. John S. Mill admits that a distinction must be made between quantitative and qualitative pleasures and that the latter are preferable because they are higher. On the mere basis of pleasure there are no such things as higher and lower pleasures, and Mill has no right, from a utilitarian standpoint, of making such a distinction ; pleasure is simply pleasure. By making such a distinction, Mill surreptitiously introduces a moral classification that has no foundation in utilitarian principles. If there are higher and lower pleasures of higher and lower moral value (and we do not deny this), we admit some other criterion and norm as the standard which measures the morality of actions, independently of their pleasurable and painful effects, so as to know which pleasures are higher and which lower and why they are to be adjudged in this manner. That, however, is a relinquishment of the fundamental position of utilitarianism, and utilitarianism collapses as the true interpretation of moral conduct. () As a criterion and norm of morality the greatest happiness principle is valueless. Everybody without exception is bound by the law of morality. But how is the average man to know what actions are conducive to the general happiness of all concerned? The interests of the various individuals and groups and communities and nations are so different, depending so much on circumstances of time and place and social conditions, that even the wisest statesmen often are not in a position to decide what course of action is best for the promotion of the general welfare. The consequences of actions are as a rule so manifold and complex that general happiness as a norm of moral action is undeterminable and inapplicable and therefore useless.239[239] Schopenhauer The German pessimist and voluntarist Arthur 240[240] Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was born at Danzig on February 22, 1788 from a wealthy family. In 1809 he entered the University of Gttingen to pursue studies in medicine but then changed to philosophy
239[239] 240[240]

C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 171-173. F. C. COPLESTON, Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher of Pessimism, London, 1946.

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during his second year at the university. By 1811 we find him listening to the lectures of Fichte and Scheiermacher. Two years later he obtained his doctorate at the University of Jena with the dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason . In 1816 he wrote the essay On Vision and Colours and in 1819 published his most famous work entitled The World as Will and Representation . In 1820 he lectured in philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he sought to rival, if not to surpass, the famous Hegel. He even scheduled his lectures during the same time as Hegels but this enterprise proved to be an utter failure. In 1833 Schopenhauer moved to Frankfurt am Main and in 1836 published his On the Will in Nature. In 1841 his work The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics was published. In 1844 he came out with a second edition of his The World as Will and Representation, with an additional fifty chapters, and in 1851 published a collection of essays under the title Parerga and Paralipomena. In 1859 he published the third and final edition of his most famous work. He died in 1860. Schopenhauer went against the Hegelian idealist thesis of the rationality of history and endeavoured to show the negative elements of nature and of history. He identified the world of phenomena (of representation) with the world of reason and the world of noumena (real and true) with that of the will, a blind and irrational will from which all other reality is derived. Individuals are nothing other than the objectivation of will. Individuality is pure illusion. Everything in the world is will, desire of what one does not possess, and therefore humanity is in the throes of a continuous suffering born from the nonsatisfaction of its desires. For Schopenhauer, the noumenon or thing-initself, what is most real, is the will as undifferentiated with itself. This is Schopenhauers supreme principle, although it must be noted that for him the will is no more than sensible desire. Schopenhauers will has nothing to do with that of Aristotle or of the later Nietzsche. () Schopenhauer endeavors to reduce all reality to pure and blind will, which in man becomes conscious. Thus our bodies are the objectivation of the will: the hand is the objectivation of the will to grasp, the nose of the will to smell, the eyes of the will to see, the feet of the will to walk. The entire body is the objectivation of the will to live.241[241] Schopenhauer believed that the essence of the will was evil. Since, according to him, the sole reality is will, it being pain and deficiency, therefore, evil is the only reality. The sole way to liberate oneself from this suffering consists in the
241[241]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 196.

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renunciation of ones own individuality through three phases: art, sympathy or compassion, and the renunciation of all desires through asceticism which will lead to the complete cessation of willing: voluntas becomes noluntas (nothingness or nirvana) where there is the complete cessation of willing, complete indifference to the world. Redemption is attained, according to Schopenhauer, through this path. Describing the nature of Schopenhauers philosophy, Copleston observes that in spite of Schopenhauers constant abuse of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel his system undoubtedly belongs in some important respects to the movement of German speculative idealism. Will is indeed substituted for Fichtes Ego and Hegels Logos or Idea, but the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon and the theory of the subjective and phenomenal character of space, time and causality are based on Kant. And it is not unreasonable to describe Schopenhauers system as transcendental voluntaristic idealism. It is idealism in the sense that the world is said to be our idea or presentation. It is voluntaristic in the sense that the concept of Will rather than that of Reason or Thought is made the key to reality. And it is transcendental in the sense that the one individual Will is an absolute Will which manifests itself in the multiple phenomena of experience.242[242] Kierkegaard The founder of existentialism, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard243[243] (1813-1855) was a severe critic of the Hegelian system and the official Lutheran Church of his time which he accused of being cold and formalistic. The objective of his philosophy was to revive the concepts of existence and interiority making them gravitate around the fundamental category of the singular person, that is, man in the concreteness of his specificity. Human existence could not be a part of the Hegelian system, not being reducible to logic. Man, for Kierkegaard, is in a continuous becoming. There are three stages in this becoming: aesthetic (enjoyment), ethical (struggle and duty), and religious (suffering). His works include Either-Or (1843), Fear and Trembling
242[242] 243[243]

F. COPLESTON, op. cit., book 3, vol. 7, pp. 286-287. R. JOLIVET, Introduction to Kierkegaard, New York, 1951 ; C. FABRO, Tra Kierkegaard e Marx, Florence, 1952 ; J. COLLINS, The Mind of Kierkegaard , Regnery, Chicago, 1953 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Studi Kierkegaardiani, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1957 ; L. PAREYSON, Letica di Kierkegaard nella prima fase del suo pensiero, Ed. di Filosofia, Turin, 1965 ; M. GIGANTE, Religiosit di Kierkegaard, Morano, Naples, 1972 ; G. MODICA, Fede, libert, peccato: figure ed esiti della prova in Kierkegaard , Palumbo, Palermo, 1992 ; P. RICOEUR, Kierkegaard: la filosofia e leccezione, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1995.

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(1843), Repetition (1843), The Concept of Dread (1844), Philosophical Fragments (1844), Stages on Lifes Way (1845), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Christian Discourses (1848), and Sickness unto Death (1849). Nietzsche The radical atheist of the will to power and the superman, Friedrich Nietzsche244[244] (1844-1900) was born at Rocken, Germany on October 15, 1844, the son of a Lutheran pastor. When his father died in 1849, the young Friedrich was brought up in the feminine company of his mother, sister, two aunts, and his grandmother. He studied at the local Gymnasium from 1854 to 1858 and was a student of the well-known boarding school at Pforta from 1858 to 1864. He was, from an early age, an admirer of Greek civilization, his favorites being Plato and Aeschylus. In October of 1864 Nietzsche took up studies at the University of Bonn, and a year later moved to the university of Leipzig to continue his studies in philology under Friedrich Ritschl. It was during this period that Nietzsche abandoned his Lutheranism for atheism, being acquainted at this time with the atheistic voluntarism of Arthur Schopenhauer. In November of 1868, he met Richard Wagner for the first time and formed a friendship which was to end in emnity. In January of 1869 he found himself occupying the chair of philosophy at the university of Basel, upon the recommendation of his master Ritschl, without having obtained his doctorate, which was unheard of at that time. Within a few months he delivered his inaugural lecture on Homer and Classical Philology. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Nietzsche found himself serving in the Prussian army, where he, at this time, became very ill. In 1872 he published The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music , which extolled the spirit of his friend Wagner. From 1873 to 1876 he published four essays under the title Untimely Meditations. In the first essay he attacked the thinker David Strauss; in the second, he attacked the idolization of historical learning at the expense of a living culture; in the third he praised Schopenhauer as educator; and in the fourth, he extolled Wagner as the originator of the rebirth of the Greek genius. By 1878 his friendship with Wagner became strained and was eventually to break apart altogether. Between 1878 and 1879 Nietzsche published his Human, All Too Human in three parts. Because of bad health and
244[244]

F. C. COPLESTON, Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher of Culture, London, 1942 ; G. SEIGMUND, Nietzsche, der Atheist und Antichrist, Paderborn, 1946.

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disappointment with his tenure, he resigned from his chair at Basel and began a ten year wandering seeking to better his health at various spas in Switzerland and Italy, with occasional returns to Germany. In 1881 he published The Dawn of Day and in 1882 his book the Joyful Wisdom, whose fifth part was added only in 1887 which virulently attacked Christianity as being hostile to life. Between 1883 and 1885 he published his most famous work Thus Spake Zarathustra in four parts, which speaks of the Superman and the transvaluation of all values. In 1886 he came out with Beyond Good and Evil and in 1887 published A Genealogy of Morals. In 1888 he launched a ferocious attack on his former friend Wagner with his book The Case of Wagner, followed by Nietzsche contra Wagner. His last writings include The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, and Ecce Homo. By 1889 Nietzsche was insane. He died in this state of madness more than a decade later on August 25, 1900. Even the notorious Nietzsche at one time believed in God. Contrary to his written denials found in such last works as Ecce Homo,245 [245] his early notes reveal a believer: I have already experienced many things, joy as well as sadness, lightness of heart as well as depression, but in all these things God has certainly led me as a father might lead his helpless little child. He has already imposed much suffering on me, but in all this I recognize with reverence His majestic power which has everything turn out for the best. I have firmly resolved to devote myself to His service forever. May the dear Lord give me the power and the strength I need for this resolution. And may he protect me on my way through life. As a child I trust in His grace. He will protect us all so that no evil will befall us. But may His holy will be done! I will accept with joy whatever He sends me, whether happiness or unhappiness, whether poverty or riches. And I will boldly look death itself in the eye. Death will one day unite us all in eternal joy and blessedness. Yes, dear Lord, let the light of your countenance shine upon us forever! Amen! 246[246] But, as happens with untold numbers of university students defrauded of
245[245]

Atheism is not for me a consequence of something else; still less is it a thing which has befallen me; in my case it is, something that goes without saying, a matter of instinct(F. NIETZSCHE, Ecce Homo, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, p. 1). God, the immortality of the soul, redemption, the beyond mere notions on which I wasted no time or attention, not even as a child(F. NIETZSCHE, Ecce Homo, VIII, p. 332). Recent scholarship has shown that these affirmations by a manic-depressive, almost insane Nietzsche, were falsifications of reality, as his early writings attest, as well as the testimony of his intimates, such as that of Lou Salom. Salom held that any profound study of Nietzsche would have to be above all about his psychological relationship with religion. 246[246] F. NIETZSCHE, Werke in Drei Bande, vol. 3, Hauser Verlag, Munich, 1953, p. 7, 155.

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their Christian heritage, he soon loses his faith 247[247] through indoctrination by unbelieving professors and by the perusal of atheistic works like that of Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. Henceforth, he will devote his life to the violent attack on God and the persecution of Christians. Mysterium iniquitatis. Nietzsche too succumbed to the demonic attraction that lies in the enjoyment of power, a power that revels in the destruction of all that has long been considered unassailable and worthy of deep reverence. This is what draws him to what he calls the ranks of the blasphemers. It is Nietzsches ambition to run the whole gamut of the modern soul, including its night side; to explore its every fold and cranny; to experience consciously and fully the antithesis of a religious soul; to become acquainted with the devil and know God from the devils perspective.248[248] Nietzsche revolts against God and then blackness engulfs him: I stand still, suddenly I am tired. The road ahead seems to drop steeply; in a flash the abyss is all about me. I am loathe to look down. Behind me tower the mountains. Trembling, I grope for a hold. What? Has everything turned to stone and precipice? This shrub it breaks to pieces in my hand, and sallow leaves and scraggy roots trickle downwards. I shiver and close my eyes where am I? I peer into a purple night; it looks at me and beckons.249[249] Nietzsche was a resolute opponent of the idealism of Hegel as well as of the pessimism of Schopenhauer. He believed that the Hegelian absolute idealism of the absolute spirit was but a stage towards the position of atheism; in fact, he maintained that Hegel in a way stunted the growth of atheism by prolonging the trappings of a rationalized Christianity, its dogmas and symbols.250[250] He writes in the Joyful Wisdom, that the decay of the belief in the Christian God, the victory of scientific atheism, is a universal European event, in which all races are to have their share of service and honor. On the contrary, it has to be ascribed precisely to the Germans those with whom Schopenhauer was
247[247]

Nietzsche speaks of his loss of faith to his sister Elizabeth in a letter dated June 11, 1865. See: F. NIETZSCHE, Unpublished Letters, Peter Owen, London, 1960, pp. 33-34. 248[248] G. SIEGMUND, op. cit., p. 290. 249[249] F. NIETZSCHE, Werke, XII, p.223. 250[250] Georg Siegmund writes that Hegelian philosophy struck Nietzsche as little more than a final stop on the way to honest atheism. Hegel had made one last effort to rescue foundering Christianity with his philosophy of the absolute logos, a philosophy in which history is considered the gradual coming to self-consciousness of unconditional genius, and religion the imperfect self-presentation of that genius. To Nietzsche, says Karl Loewith, this equivocal union of theology and philosophy, of religion and atheism, of Christianity and paganism at the zenith of metaphysics seemed only a vain attempt to check the triumphal march of atheism(G. SIEGMUND, op. cit., p. 279).

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contemporary, that they delayed this victory of atheism longest, and endangered it most. Hegel especially was its retarder par excellence, in virtue of the grandiose attempt which he made to persuade us of the divinity of existence, with the help at the very last of our sixth sense, the historical sense. As philosopher, Schopenhauer was the first avowed and inflexible atheist we Germans have had: his hostility to Hegel had here its background. The nondivinity of existence was regarded by him as something understood, palpable, indisputable; he always lost his philosophical composure and got into a passion when he saw anyone hesitate and beat around the bush here. It is at this point that his thorough uprightness of character comes in: unconditional, honest atheism is precisely the preliminary condition for his raising the problem, as a final and hardwon victory of the European conscience, as the most prolific act of two thousand years discipline to truth, which in the end no longer tolerates the lie of the belief in a God.251[251] I disagree with Nietzsches opinion that Hegel retarded the advent of atheism by his clinging to Christian fables; in fact, the very use of Christian symbolism to propagate pantheistic idealism was a great victory for the atheistic cause as it deceptively led many unsuspecting Christians, like the young Feuerbach, into the pit of absolute immanentism. Hegelian pantheism, like all pantheism, is crypto-atheism. In the final analysis, Hegel propagated atheism more extensively than Schopenhauer ever could. Unconditional, honest atheism repels the majority of men, but pantheistic atheism under the guise of gnostic, enlightened Christianity is eminently seductive. Nietzsche is famous for his cry God is dead!, which has become the battle cry of so many of those who have lost their faith, especially after indoctrination by their godless professors, and fueled by the nihilistic, materialistic consumer society. He proclaims that death of God in the Joyful Wisdom: The Madman. Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the marketplace calling out unceasingly: I seek God! I seek God! As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! Is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated? the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. Where is God gone? he called out. I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I. We are all his
251[251]

F. NIETZSCHE, Joyful Wisdom, Frederick Unger Publishing, New York, 1960, pp. 307-308.

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murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed had bled to death under our knife, who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed to great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event, and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto! Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. I come to early, he then said, I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is travelling, it has not yet reached mens ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the farthest star, and yet they have done it It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?252[252] Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century Nietzsche had proclaimed the death of God and the advent of the Superman, but his books did not get a wide audience. However, it took only a generation for his theories to be implemented in the social sphere by tyrants like Hitler and Stalin who adopted the Superman ruling over the herd animals mentality. Nietzsche, in fact, became the semi-official philosopher of the Third Reich, and was praised and often quoted by Hitler and his dwarfish,
252[252]

F. NIETZSCHE, The Joyful Wisdom, Frederick Unger Publishing, New York, 1960, pp. 167-169.

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clubfooted propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who by the way received a Ph.D in philosophy from the university of Heidelberg in 1920. Why the joinder We have killed him, added to the cry God is dead? Because for Nietzsche God could only have been a projection of man, of his desires, his longing for omnipotence and perfection, a view he obviously picked up from Feuerbach. He does not even bother to attempt to see if a demonstration of the existence of God is in fact possible, a characteristic mark of philosophical inquisitiveness. Rather, he assumes a priori that God could only have been a product of mans mind. For Nietzsche, Kant forever banished the a posteriori demonstrations for the existence of God as metaphysical nonsense. So, from the beginning of his conversion to unbelief he, like most of the modern philosophers, became locked up in the asylum of gnoseological and metaphysical immanentism. For Nietzsche, reality is an explosion of disordered force. In light of such a wondrous spectacle three attitudes are possible: of weakness (symbolized by the camel), of force (the freedom of the lion), and of innocence (the freedom of the child). The conduct of the mediocre man is determined by fear. His defensive arms are religion and morals. Man must refuse to live like sheep and transform himself into a strong, autonomous, man, master of his own actions. The strong man must be a superman, audacious and insensible to the miseries and cries of others, beyond good and evil, creating his own values. Like a child, the innocent man must say yes to life in all its forms and create new ideals of existence, new sacred symbols (Dionysius in place of God). The Slavery of the Camel. In the camel, says Nietzsche, we see the actual pitiful condition to which humanity has fallen. The camel is the herd animal, patient, submissive, disposed to accept any genre of weight to carry around. The camel is the mediocre man, the herd animal, the Christian, and his conduct is determined by fear. His defensive arms are religion and morals. The Freedom of the Lion. Man must refuse to live like sheep and transform himself into a strong, autonomous man, master of his own actions (metamorphosis from the camel to the lion). The strong man must be a superman, audacious and insensible to the miseries and cries of others, beyond good and evil, creating his own values. He must be able to
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feel that he can infringe upon any ethical law or social convention. To recognize a limit, to follow a norm, would mean for the lion a suffocation of ones own ego, a mortification of ones own autonomy. The lion must instead exert his will to power without any scruple whatsoever. The freedom that the superman exercises in the figure of the lion is an aggressive, belligerent one, a violent freedom, a freedom that exerts all its force, its will to power, in order to be able to escape from the iron cage in which he has been kept in by those who tamed him, namely the Christian philosophers, the Christian moralists, and the Christian priests who have invented values that dont exist, virtues that dont exist, and beings (God, angels, immortal souls) that dont exist. The Freedom of the Child. Having accomplished the task of dismantling and destroying the chains and cage that had kept him imprisoned and tamed, the lion is now able to be transformed into the figure of the child (the third metamorphosis). Like a child, man must say yes to life in all its forms and must create new ideals of existence, new sacred symbols (Dionysius in place of God), and new values (beyond good and evil) that are earthbound and sensual (faithful to the earth). Erroneously basing his thesis on the first principle of thermodynamics, the principle of the conservation of energy, Nietzsche revived the ancient, pagan doctrine of the eternal return (of Babylonian origin, later picked up by some of the pre-Socratics, particularly the Pythagoreans) having as its own center the creative will of man. One day in August 1881 Nietzsche was struck by the pagan myth of the eternal return, according to which the world is perpetually repeating itself in cycles like the seasons of the year. Thus, the wills quest for eternity will rest for Nietzsche not in God but in the false eternity of the eternal return of the like, whereby the will, independently from God, loves itself eternally.253[253] Nietzsche writes: This life as you now live it and have lived it you must live again and countless times over; nothing about it will ever be new, yet every pain and every pleasure and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great moments of your life must return again and again for you, all exactly in the same order even as this spider must come again, and this moonlight between the trees, and this moment, and I myself. The everlasting hourglass of existence will be

253[253]

J. DE TORRE, op. cit., p. 202.

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turned upside down over and over again and you with it, dust mote from the dust that you are.254[254] Post-modernity has its father in Nietzsche, for he was not only the severest critic of modernity and its synthesis between Christian values and technical-instrumental knowledge, fighting modernity with all his might to see it dead, buried, and forgotten, but it was also he who was the architect and the layer of the foundations of the post-modern nihilistic culture, a cultural design that, after the effective demise of the modern epoch, is now zealously being followed by vast sectors of society, especially in the ideologically exhausted countries of Europe. Nietzsche had an acute sense for delineating the symptoms of the crisis that in the end buried modernity, and his passionate and polemical works attacking rational scientific modernity and Christianity would contribute towards the ending of the modern epoch, and to the substantial reduction of Christianitys influence, especially in Europe. Nietzsche had strongly denounced the state of decadence, resignation, the lack of vitality, creativity, and ardor which permeated the society of his time, which was the Europe of the second half of the nineteenth century. The reason for such decadence and mediocrity was, for him, due to the slave morality of Christianity with its Christian God, who had preached the love for mortification and the need for humility. This was, for him, anathema to the formation of the new man, the superman. The first and greatest obstacle towards the creation of a new and more dynamic culture and higher type of mankind was the crucified Christian God and the Christian religion, and therefore, Nietzsche made it his mission to preach the death of God. The second obstacle to the higher humanity was, for him, Christian morality which he had judged to be a degrading, inhuman, and despicable slave morality. The slave morality which the Christians sheepishly adhered to taught men to despise the most elemental and vital instincts of life, so preoccupied were they with the controlling of their passions and instincts with a complex variety of asceticisms and mortifications. He had identified, for example, the Christian virtue of humility with plain cowardice and weakness, which was the shameful opposite of the fearless lover of the sensual life and worldly glory. Nietzsches third obstacle to the higher type of
254[254]

F. NIETZSCHE, Werke, V, pp. 265f.

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humanity was traditional philosophy and its formulations regarding God, man, soul, and cosmos. All such metaphysical formulations were, for him, useless abstractions of a demented reasoning and plain falsifications of reality. Nietzsches man has no ontological or metaphysical foundation. His superman is pure will to power, Wille zur Macht, and nothing else. The fourth obstacle towards the new humanity of the superman would be the Christian interpretation of history as a sequence of events designed by God and willed by man. The nihilist interpretation of history, instead, can be none other than a simple game of the so-called eternal return, a game willed by the force of life in which man cannot be an essential actor but is simply an unmoved spectator. Thus, all the great pillars on which modernity rested upon had been systematically demolished: the subject as a rational suppositum and his historicity, the value of the human person made in the image and likeness of God, his inalienable rights, his solidarity with others, brotherly love and justice, humility, objective moral absolutes, the need for the spirit to dominate over the flesh all had been attacked by Nietzsche as being inimical towards the formation of the new man. They were to be despised as illusory products of a sick and decadent world that had lost its zest for life, which for him coincided with the Christian world of herd morality. All these sick and decadent forms of inhumanity would have to be abandoned for the higher type of man, the superior man, the superman who is Wille zur Macht existentialized. The superman is the formula of supreme affirmation, born from the fullness of overabundance, an unreserved affirmation of life and instinct in the midst of the suffering and fear that he sees around him. Behold, I teach you the Superman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing stock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the Superman: a laughing stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now too, man is more ape than any ape. Whoever is wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I

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teach you the Superman. The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the Superman shall be the meaning of the earth.255[255] The superman is the esthetic man and has as his model, not the wiseman Socrates seeking truth, but Dionysius, the Greek god of wine and sensual life. The fundamental values pursued by Dionysius and by the Nietzschean superman are eminently vitalist and bodily values, such as the values of pleasure, the exaltation of the ego, the preservation of health and bodily being, the use of force to dominate and subjugate the weak, the triumph of heroism and glory, and the accumulation of temporal riches. The unreserved affirmation of life is the sole commandment that the superman must obey, for he is none other than will to power and cannot be distracted by a measely slave morality that distinguishes between true and false, good and evil, honest and dishonest, and sacred and profane. The superman and the higher humanity must be set apart from the common herd. Does this type of philosophy sound familiar? For those scholars who categorically deny any connection whatsoever between the Nazis and Nietzsche, let me contradict this nave view by reading one passage, out of so many, of Nietzsches biological racist supremacism which inspired the ideology of the Aryan Master Race, even if the Nazis did not take everything from this aristocratic neopagan: What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome. Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue but fitness. The weak and the failures shall perish: first principle of our love of man. And they shall even be given every possible assistance to perish. What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all the failures and all the weak.256[256] Vincent Miceli writes that Nietzsches arbitrary doctrines of Will to Power, Superman, Blond Beast, racial purity, anti-theistic atheism, inflamed and fed to militant madness such ugly, egotistic monsters as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini who, with their millions hypnotized by these extremisms, strove to devour each other in an orgy of cannibalistic fury. Nietzsche, the immoralist, gave such tyrants the moral code they needed to justify their pogroms

255[255]

F. NIETZSCHE, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufmann, Viking Press, New York, 1967, p. 188. 256[256] F. NIETZSCHE, The Antichrist, translated by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche, Viking Press, New York, 1967, p. 57.

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the secular religion of Superman and the dominating morality of the masters.257[257] Though we do find Nietzsche vehemently attacking Germany and Germans in such works as The Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo, it was specifically aimed at bourgeoisie Christian Germany and Germans (who had no appreciation for his aristocratic neo-pagan philosophy), for which he had an utter contempt for. The famed historian of philosophy Johannes Hirschberger writes that behind his ridicule lies a secret love for the German of the hardy race, of the Germans who have died out, of the Norseman and Aryan. One of his most vehement attacks against Christianity was based on the fact that Nietzsche regarded it as an anti-Aryan religion, the anti-Aryan religion par excellence. It was Christianity which had thrown the aristocratic Germans into monasteries, making sinners of them, spoiling the blond beast beyond repair. His ideal was the same as that of Hlderlin. The spirit of pre-Christian Germany should be wed to the spirit of preSocratic Greece. From this union would come the noblemen of the future. Nietzsche had pinned his hopes on Wagner, and was thus immensely disappointed when Wagner became a Christian.258[258] Did Nietzsche just hate the Christians? No, he included the Jews and all that he thought of as being mediocre herd animals influenced by belief in an Almighty God. In fact, a main reason why he hated Christianity was because of its Jewish roots, the Jews being for him a perpetually enslaved and mediocre race. Nietzsches pathological hatred for Christianity is well-known. Here are two passages, from many, of his bigoted invectives against the Christians and their God: The Christian conception of God God as god of the sick, God as spider, God as a spirit is one of the most corrupt conceptions of the divine ever attained on earth. It may even represent the low-water mark in the descending development of divine types. God degenerated into the contradiction of life, instead of being its transfiguration and eternal Yes! God as the declaration of war against life, against nature, against the will to live! God the formula for every slander against this world, for every lie about the beyond. God the
257[257] 258[258]

V. MICELI, The Gods of Atheism, Arlington House, New Rochelle, New York, 1971, p. 83. J. HIRSCHBERGER, The History of Philosophy, vol. 2, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, p. 507.

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deification of nothingness, the will to nothingness pronounced holy!259[259] the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal the Christian.260[260] Is Christianity to blame for the destruction of life, as Nietzsche claims? A resounding no! Only an ignoramus would fail to acknowledge that Christian civilization produced the overwhelming majority of the greatest works of art, music, and literature known to man. Beethoven, Haydn, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Bernini, Mozart, Bach, all came from Christian European societies where the Faith influenced almost every aspect of society and culture. The works by these Christian artists are timeless works of genius, judged from human standards of counterpoint, perspective, harmony, form, etc. These Christian geniuses stand out. What is Nietzsche talking about? It is easy to tear down like he does, but it is hard to build up, like what these Christian marvels managed to accomplish as instruments of God. I say instruments for an artists absolute mastery of his medium, combined with consecration to God, making him a participant in the Divine power and beauty , is the spark that produces classic works that never die (e.g., The Last Judgment of Michelangelo, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, the Requiem of Mozart, the Messiah of Handel, the Creation of Haydn and the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven). Compared to these master works of Christian civilization Nietzsches productions are utter rubbish. What was the root cause of Nietzsches revolt against God? A devilish pride and a black envy of Christ. Siegmund notes that as Nietzsches life unwinds it becomes more and more evident that the ultimate reason for his rejection of faith lies in his attitude of inordinate pride, the hybris of Greek tragedy. The attitude proper to human reason is that of humble receptivity to truth, which must be pursued long and ardently before it reveals itself. The subject in search of truth must subordinate himself to the data of truth. This basic and normal order of procedure is reversed and destroyed when the subject attempts to subordinate truth to his human ego, which claims for itself the right to posit truths. By so doing the arrogant ego becomes the source of all being and value. It does not pride itself on its achievements and values as compared with those of others for it no longer seriously compares itself
259[259] 260[260]

F. NIETZSCHE, op. cit., pp. 585-586. F. NIETZSCHE, op. cit., p. 571.

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with others; it considers itself on an entirely different plane. Everything connected with such an ego is held to be superior to everything that has no part in it. Stepping out of the actual order of the world, the arrogant ego exalts itself, investing itself with the radiance of the absolute. Everything that does not belong to it must be kept at an absolute distance, even God. Inevitably, true arrogance refuses to recognize the supremacy of God.261[261] Ida Overbeck, an intimate of Nietzsches, reveals in her memoirs that the normal person, no matter how gifted, is inclined to seek the company of others. Nietzsche hated normal people because his inability to be normal himself condemned him to a uniqueness that was absolute. Conscious of the terrible strain this cost him, he exalted himself above everyone normalWhat would Nietzsche have done had he ever met his equal? Probably killed him or himself, he could not have borne it!262[262] Miceli believes that Nietzsche suffered from a God-complex, from an obsession to be humanitys Saviour, and burned with envy at Jesus having pre-empted him two thousand years back. 263[263] He quotes with approval Andr Gides thesis that Nietzsche fumed with jealously against Christ: In the presence of the Gospel, Nietzsches immediate and profound reaction was it must be admitted jealously. It does not seem to me that Nietzsches work can be really understood without allowing for that feeling. Nietzsche was jealous of Christ, jealous to the point of madness. In writing his Zarathustra, Nietzsche was continually tormented with the desire to contradict the Gospel. Often he adopted the actual form of the Beatitudes in order to reverse them. He wrote Antichrist and in his last work, Ecce Homo, set himself up as the victorious rival of Him whose teaching he proposed to supplant.264[264] Miceli goes on to point out that when he finally went mad, Nietzsches fascination with Jesus attained the illusion of identity. He signed his last letters to Gast and Brandes, The Crucified One.265[265] Nietzsches atheistic philosophy of the will to power and the superman has drawn wide sectors of society into the fold of self-worship. An overwhelming majority of the messages received by todays betrayed generation through the powerful and influential means of social communication the television, the movies, the glossy magazines are nihilistic cultural lures that glorify the right to annihilate the most
261[261] 262[262]

G. SIEGMUND, op. cit., pp. 296-297. C. A. BERNOULLI, Franz Overbeck and Friedrich Nietzsche, Eine Freundschaft, vol. 1, 1908, p. 250. 263[263] Cf. V. MICELI, op. cit., p. 84. 264[264] A. GIDE, Oeuvres Completes, as quoted in V. MICELI, op. cit., p. 84. 265[265] V. MICELI, op. cit., p. 84.

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defenseless (the unborn in abortion and the elderly in euthanasia), the sensual life (pornography, prostitution), and the exaltation of the ego (Ive gotta be me! and FAME, I wanna live forever, I wanna learn how to fly, high! Remember my name!), messages that glorify materialism, selfishness, hedonism, and sheer paganism. A great part of the world today, above all in the developed countries of the West, is steeped in a post-Christian, hi-tech neo-paganism that would have made Nietzsche smile (and pagan Rome blush). Dilthey A German of Scottish ancestry, the historicist Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) underlined with vigour that spiritual phenomena can be grasped through Erlebnis or lived experience, its aspects being life, expression, and comprehension. He also distinguished between the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit. With a number of others, Dilthey contributed to the development of Historicism. For him, philosophy and history are identical : man can only be known through history. The diverse systems of philosophy are in contrast with one another if one considers their conceptual formations, but the contrast disappears when they are considered in relation to life. For Dilthey, the diverse philosophical systems throughout history are reducible to three fundamental conceptions of life : materialism, objective idealism, and subjective idealism, which respectively put into play the categories of cause, value, and end.
266[266]

Husserl Edmund Husserl267[267] (1859-1938) is the founder of phenomenology, a type of philosophy which studies essences, outside of their existences, insofar as they are manifested to the contemplating consciousness of the knowing subject. Phenomenology was born as a
266[266]

C. VICENTINI, Studio su Dilthey, Mursia, Milan, 1974 ; G. CACCIATORE, Scienza e filosofia in Dilthey, Guida, Naples, 1976 ; N. AUCIELLO, Senso e comunit: studio su Dilthey , Naples, 1982 ; A. MARICI, Alle origini della filosofia contemporanea: Wilhelm Dilthey, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1984 ; A. G. MANNO, Lo storicismo di W. Dilthey, Naples, 1990 ; M. A. PRANTEDA, Individualit e autobiografia in Dilthey, Milan, 1991 ; M. FAILLA, Dilthey e la psicologia del suo tempo, Milan, 1992. 267[267] A. A. BELLO, Husserl e le scienze , Rome, 1980 ; C. DI MARTINO, Invito al pensiero di Husserl , Mursia, Milan, 1985 ; X. TILLIETTE, Breve introduzione alla fenomenologia husserliana , Lanciano, 1983 ; P. MICCOLI, Edmund Husserl e la fenomenologia, Citt Nuova, Rome, 1983 ; A. A. BELLO, Husserl: sul problema di Dio, Studium, Rome, 1985 ; R. BERNET-I. KERN-E. MARBACH, Edmund Husserl, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1992 ; E. FRANZINI, Fenomenologia: introduzione tematica al pensiero di Husserl, Angeli, Milan, 1992.

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reaction against the scientistic positivism and materialistic naturalism of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, which attempted to reduce man to a spatio-temporal physical being, deprived of freedom and self-determination. The phenomenological method consists of two principal moments, namely, the negative and the positive. In the negative moment, which Husserl calls epoch or phenomenological reduction, the object is isolated from all that is not proper to it in order for it to reveal itself in all its purity. For Husserl, facts are grasped by a sensible intuition, which are limited to spatial-temporal coordinates, but nevertheless contain a universal and necessary essence, which can be known by bracketing out or placing between parentheses their existences, which are contingent and variable. By means of this phenomenological eidetic reduction there emerges to the consciousness of the knowing subject ideal nuclei essences like flower, pot, tree, red, which lead to the intuition of essences. In the positive moment of the phenomenological method, the gaze of the intelligence is directed towards the object itself, immersing itself in it and leaving the object to manifest itself. This, for Husserl, is an authentic intellectual intuition (a vision and not a Kantian construct of the mind), corresponding to the evident and objective presentation of phenomenical essences as manifested to human consciousness. It should be noted that, even though Husserl constantly makes use of the Brentano-inspired theme of subject-object intentionality (and doing so he goes against the excesses of absolute, subjective idealism), nevertheless, his intentionality is immanentist-inspired; it is not directed at external reality, the transsubjective world that really exists, which is the case in the moderate realism of Aristotle and Aquinas, but rather toward ideal objects, which are found within the sphere of consciousness. Husserlian phenomenological method is not concerned with individual, real existence (which is the case in Aristotelian-Thomistic realism) as it is bracketed out, placed between parentheses, and consequently, such an immanentist methodology can be aptly described as a sort of mathematically inspired non-metaphysical Platonism gravitating towards idealism. Sanguineti has noted that the idealistic turn was not lacking in Husserl, who speaks of a phenomenological reduction, through which is
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placed between parentheses the entire phenomenal world, reascending to its original root, the transcendental I. The phenomenological epoch, according to Husserl, implies the abandonment of the natural attitude of the person who believes that he lives in a world of existent things. In a mode somewhat similar to Cartesian doubt, one suspends every judgment on the existence or reality of phenomena of the consciousness (a judgment not yet precluded in the eidetic reduction), and finally one arrives at the constitutive principle of every phenomenical appearance that is, at the consciousness where the phenomenon appears. In any case, the I is an irreducible phenomenological residue, an absolute element, even if intentionality makes of it a cogito cogitarum, always turned to the object.268[268] In contrast to the idealist, immanentist phenomenological method of Husserl, authentic realism (i.e., Aristotle, Aquinas) intends to know essences as they are, not as they present themselves to human knowledge. Hence the use of analogy, of rational discourse (which phenomenology does not utilize), and the use of concepts such as actpotency, substance-accidents, being-essence, which refer not to the isolated essence of a thing, but to the profound contents of the real being of thingsThe risk of the phenomenological method, if used exclusively, is the distancing from the world of nature, abandoned to the hands of the positive sciences, and also the detachment between two spheres, that of the real world and that of the I with its contents of consciousness. Categories such as substance and causality are generally rejected by phenomenology as naturalistic or as bound to the sciences.269[269] Criticizing Husserls alleged adherence to realism, De Torre writes that, according to Husserl on the epoch, Whenever we focus on any noema, we have to isolate the original essence referred to by its intentionality from all the subsequent accretions added to the concept culturally and historically, including the very existence of that reality outside our consciousness of it. The epoch is therefore used as a bracketing: I put in brackets all that is not of the original essence referred to by the intentionality of the noema or concept under consideration. Not that I reject or eliminate those additions to the pure essence: I simply suspend my judgment on them. I do not consider, for example, whether a real tree exists or not: I only try to grasp and describe what the ideal
268[268] 269[269]

J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 193. J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 194.

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object tree represents such as it presents itself to my noetic consciousness. The first thing to put in brackets is the existence itself of that essence outside my consciousness. For instance, when we consider the concept of immortality, the first thing we have to put in brackets is whether there is such a thing as immortality, and focus our attention on the meaning of the term referred to by its intentionality. The entire world is given to us in our consciousness, and therefore it would be nave to study the existence of those things outside our consciousness: what we have to study is their essence. This is what Maritain has dubbed the Husserlian refusal: the refusal to accept being on its own terms. 270[270] The aim of the phenomenological reduction is to arrive at a pure, almost mathematical, grasp of an a priori essence, necessary, detached from existence, which is merely factual, transient, contingent. For Husserl, this is the only way to surpass historicism and positivism, and make philosophy a rigorous science. Husserls doctrine in this regard thus follows the rationalist pattern of dividing reality into ideal essence and factual existence, making philosophy a knowledge of essences. Classical rationalism, however, tried rather to elaborate a deductive system starting from a priori definitions, while Husserls phenomenology, more attentive to the contents, intends to describe essences. But immanentism cannot be overcome in this way. For Husserl every object is such to the extent that it presents itself to the consciousness which makes the phenomenological reduction. All transcendence comes about only in the life of consciousness. That is why the only thing which cannot be put in brackets is the ego, which is like the top or ceiling which cannot be surpassed. Husserl holds on to the Cartesian cogito, but now it is a cogito cogitatum, a thinking about the world: I in the world; an ego and a world which are seen as inseparable poles. In proceeding thus writes Husserl towards the end of his life, one has always anew a living truth drawn from the living source of the absolute life and a self-consciousness turned towards that absolute life in a constant sentiment of responsibility to self. Granting that this is not constitutive idealism (the ego creates the world), it is however immanent idealism (ego and being correspond to each other): in this, Heidegger will follow him. In actual fact, in his last years, Husserl gave his allegiance clearly to idealism, which is the logical sequence of his approach: Only he who does not understand the meaning of intentional analysis, or the meaning of the transcendental reduction

270[270]

Cf. J. MARITAIN, The Peasant of the Garonne, Macmillan, Toronto, 1969, pp. 124-132.

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(epoch), or both, only he can attempt to separate phenomenology from transcendental idealism.271[271]272[272] Scheler Max Scheler273[273] (1874-1928), strongly influenced by Husserl, applied the phenomenological analysis to moral experience, assuming an axiological perspective. The axiology of Scheler is constructed as realistic, hierarchical, personalist, and theocentric. He manages to stay away from the immanentist risk of the phenomenological method distinguishing the phenomenology of values from philosophy of religion. However, this distinction is abandoned in his last writings, and he falls into the trap of metaphysical immanentism. Abandoning the Catholic Church, he ended his days subscribing to a type of cosmic pantheism. Fideist and Traditionalist Agnosticism Fideism rejects that man can demonstrate the existence of God through human reason. The fideist retains that Gods existence is arrived at solely by means of faith, which for him would be the sole fount of true knowledge. Human reason, whether intellectual or sensible knowing, is incapable of providing man with certainty. For a particular branch of fideism called traditionalism, all faiths derive from a primitive revelation of God to man, which is transmitted to him by means of tradition. Fideist traditionalisms greatest exponents are Louis de Bonald (1754-1840) and H. F. R. de Lammenais (1782-1854). Within traditionalism there are two schools: the radical school and the semi-traditionalists. The radical school (traditionalism in the strict sense, to which de Bonald and de Lammenais belong) maintains that human reason is incapable of demonstrating the existence of God, which they make the object of an act of faith based on a primitive revelation handed on to us by society. Since the advent of Christ this revealed deposit has been entrusted to the Church. The semitraditionalists also maintain that in the first instance unaided reason is incapable of attaining to a knowledge of the existence of God, but are distinguished from the radical school of traditionalists by professing that
271[271] 272[272]

Quoted by R. VERNEAUX, Historia de la filosofia contempornea, Herder, Barcelona, 1971, p. 189. J. DE TORRE, op. cit., pp. 239-240. 273[273] F. BOSIO, Lidea delluomo e la filosofia nel pensiero di Max Scheler , Abete, Rome, 1975 ; O. N. DERISI, Max Scheler: Etica material de los valores , EMESA, Madrid, 1979 ; G. MORRA, Max Scheler: una introduzione, Armando, Rome, 1987 ; A. LAMBERTINO, Max Scheler: fondazione fenomenologica delletica dei valori , La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1996.

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after a revelation of the fact it will now be possible to demonstrate His existence. The most prominent upholders of semi-traditionalism are L. Bautain (1796-1867), A. Bonnetty (1790-1879), and G. Ventura (17921861). Let us explain in detail the first school of traditionalism, namely, the radical school, before refuting it. It was Louis de Bonald who first systematized fideist traditionalism. The starting point of this system would be the primitive fact of language. De Bonald believed that man could not have invented language to explain his proper thoughts, since one cannot invent anything without thinking and one does not think without a determinate language, which is nothing other than the natural expression of thought. Man is what he is because of his language, and it is precisely language which is an original gift given to man by God together with his very being. Man had, by a divine act, received from his Creator language and thought, and thus, de Bonald presents the theory of the divine origin of primitive language to postulate the existence of God. According to him, the first concepts and primary truths had been given to man by God through a primitive revelation, and these concepts and truths were transmitted in our language. Our language, therefore, permits us know these truths which are transmitted by means of tradition. Tradition, therefore, would be the objective rule of truth. Reason, de Bonald concludes, is simply incapable of giving man truth or certainty. As reason is incapable of creating language and of making an act of thought which is really its own, it is necessary that the explanation for these activities lie in a primitive revelation, the teachings of which we receive by faith. A critique of de Bonalds traditionalist position rooted in the argument from language: De Bonald sustains an argument rooted in an appeal to the origin of language, which must be due to divine revelation, but one should ask: the problem of how language came into existence is not solved by him through induction but rather a priori. But even if the first premise of his argument be granted, namely, that language, together with all the notion it embodies, could only result from a divine teaching made known to early mankind, it still remains to be said that: 1. A teaching is not necessarily a revelation: the former may be an appeal made by a master to the intelligence of his disciple, while the latter is an appeal to the faith of a believer; 2. If it is supposed that human reason is incapable of ever attaining to certainty and truth (as the traditionalists maintain), a divine revelation is not sufficient to explain how a human
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person is able to arrive at a certain knowledge of the existence and nature of God. If a person accepts a revealed truth, it is not by an irrational act of blind faith, but only after the person has satisfied himself about the claims that this proposition has to be received by faith; and it is only through the exercise of human reason that a person can satisfy himself about its credibility. In contradiction to this, the doctrine of traditionalism is founded upon the assertion that human reason is totally incapable of arriving at truth and certainty. Now, the believer admits the object of his faith by a reliance on the authority of God. 274[274] Therefore, this very act of the believer presupposes a rational knowledge of the existence of God and of the historical fact of Divine Revelation. Thus, the traditionalists will never be able to succeed in their proposition that the existence of God must be accepted on a pure act of faith apart from human reason (which, for them, is absolutely incapable of ever reaching certainty and truth). Such a proposition leads back to an agnostic position. The fideist traditionalist de Lammenais likewise retains that man is simply incapable of reaching truth and certainty (and the existence of God) by means of human reason. He retains that it is only through faith that man knows that God exists. Man, he says, cannot be sure of any truth by means of his reason, even more so if he uses his senses. So what does de Lammenais propose so as not to completely fall into the pit of absolute skepticism? The proposition that the rule and norm of truth derives from the universal or common consensus of mankind. And the first truth of this universal or common consensus of mankind is the fact that that God exists. The first common article of faith of the universal or common consensus of mankind is belief in God the Creator of the universe. Gods existence is not demonstrated by human reason; it is simply held on faith. The only valid philosophy for de Lammenais would be that which would proceed by an original revelation transmitted through the medium of tradition. If there is a foundational error in the traditionalism of de Bonald and de Lammenais it is this: the positing of an act of pure faith as the basis of philosophy, and as preceding all science. But such an act is simply impossible, for to understand is, essentially, to see the truth. Since faith is an intellectual act endowed with legitimate certitude, it requires
274[274]

We should say on the authority of God and not on the evidence which we have of that authority, for in the latter, the motives of credibility, are necessarily finite; the former, on the other hand, which is the motive of faith, is unlimited, and faith is a supernatural gift from God.

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the vision (or extrinsic evidence) of the motives of credibility; otherwise, it would be an irrational act, or an act of blind reason. Therefore, the point of departure of philosophy cannot be an act of faith, but rather the intuitive vision of being. The supreme criterion of truth must be intrinsic to human intellection. This is evidence, the property of our intellective process of expressing simply that which it sees or that which is. Let us now refute the second type of traditionalism, the socalled semi-traditionalism. It was said previously that this position retains that in the first instance unaided human reason is incapable of attaining to a knowledge of the existence of God. But after revelation of His existence by God Himself, it holds that one could then be able to demonstrate Gods existence by means of human reason. Therefore, the semi-traditionalists claim that one needs divine revelation in order to discover God, but then grant human reason the power of rationally demonstrating His existence only after this revelation has been discovered. What they are driving at is that man can arrive at a demonstration of the existence of God only under the guidance of the light of revelation. But, contrary to this opinion, the intellectual operation of the mind which discovers Gods existence is intrinsically the same as the operation which enables it to accept as a rational truth the knowledge it has acquired by divine revelation. It is indeed true that, after a revelation of a truth that our intellectual faculties are capable of attaining by their very own power, the extrinsic difficulties of its proof are lessened. But since the discursive act of human reason which is necessary for the attainment of a truth hitherto unknown is in itself the same as the act by which we prove a truth already known, it follows that to admit that human reason has the capacity to make this last operation is to likewise admit its intrinsic capability of producing the first operation. So, this intellectual half-way house in which the semi-traditionalists find themselves in cannot be accepted. If their doctrine is to be logical they must either accept the doctrine of the radical school of traditionalism (and thus fall into a skeptical agnosticism), or else they must carry to its ultimate consequences the concession they have made to the realist position, acknowledging that a demonstration of the existence of God from human reason is indeed possible. Pragmatism

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In its application as a method, pragmatism holds that a thought is true, not because it agrees with some extra-mental reality, but because it works out right when it is applied to some specific situation; it is false, not because it misrepresents reality, but because, when it is used, it does not work out right. Truth, therefore, for pragmatism, consists in the usefulness of an idea in practice: a proposition is not true or false in itself as an inactive thought in the human mind; it is verified or falsified, that is, made true or false, by proving usable in practice. Pragmatisms two most noted exponents are William James (1842-1910) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). James philosophy is clearly voluntaristic. We see that the dominating aspect of man is will, not reason. With regard to the ultimate questions facing him man attains truth and certainty not with reasoning but rather with the will to believe. It is not reasoning that matters, but rather, will, sentiment, emotions, and feelings. Let us now treat of the application of the pragmatist method to the existence of God and to religion. For pragmatism, the function of thought is to produce habits of action; we have simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. Peirce, one of the creators of pragmatism, had been an admirer of Kant. In Kantianism, when a belief is merely contingent, that is, when it is affirmed with the consciousness that fuller and further knowledge may prove it wrong, yet at the same time gives us a workable norm in order to reach certain desirable ends, such a belief is called pragmatic. On the other hand, moral beliefs like the existence of freedom and the existence of God are necessary postulates of practical reason. They are necessary and not contingent postulates, since the need that gives rise to them is not one that further knowledge or future experiences will not do away with, whereas the pragmatic is simply what will work, what is effective and useful for present action. So how does pragmatism function and how is it applied to religion and the existence of God, in contrast to Kantianism, where the existence of God is a postulate of practical reason? As was said, the pragmatic is simply what will work, what is in fact effective for present action, and pragmatism finds in this norm the sole criterion for the determination of the truth or falsity of ideas. The very function of the human intellect is ordered towards, and gets its very meaning from, action. The end of knowledge would be none other than the furnishing for the pragmatist with the rules for acting. When the
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pragmatist discovers these sets of rules, he rests there, content with what he deems to be belief, that is, an immediate and necessary preparation for activity. The entire meaning of what is known lies in the action that is performed; the whole value of human understanding would be found there. Thought receives its value and meaning in its practical consequences. How is the pragmatic criterion of truth applied to the sphere of our ideas concerning God and religion? The pragmatist applies to the problem of God and religion the same meticulate scientific experimentation that is carried out in a science laboratory towards what something is that he experiences. For example, the most basic examination of what light means in terms of direct experience will reveal that we never experience light itself but rather, human experience deals with things that are lighted. This elemental reality is never modified by the sophisticated physical experiments invented by human ingenuity. From the perspective of operation, light can mean nothing more than the things lighted. Thus, the truth concerning light consists in that it lights objects; a thing is what it does, for it is all that we can know about it. How does the pragmatist approach the question of God? He begins by affirming that people have a certain common notion about God, namely, that He is. Now, is such a common notion in fact true? It will have to be put to the test by asking if any contradiction would ensue in our activity if God existed. Of course not. Then, the pragmatist must ask if any fruitful results would benefit himself personally and for society in general on the supposition that there is a God. Yes, in fact the pragmatist can furnish a long list of benefits for the person and for society in general from the notion of some Supreme Being. Therefore, the pragmatist concludes, the belief that God exists is true because it benefits man and society; it has been seen to be pragmatically fruitful, therefore it is true. For the pragmatist God is not something that is known, something that is understood. He is something that is used.275[275] And what would be false? All knowledge about the nature and attributes of God and all the other endless metaphysical speculations regarding Him. Why? Because they fail the test, not having any practical utility for man and for society. It is true that in pragmatism, the existence
275[275]

Quoted by William James from Leuba, in The Varieties of Religious Experience , Simon and Schuster, New York 1997, p. 392.

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of God cannot in any way be rationally demonstrated for Kant had once and for all made such a demonstration impossible by showing that how mans notions of causality and finality cannot be valid when applied to God. But the existence is God can be reinstated from a pragmatic point of view, for it is undeniable that belief in God does have many beneficial results for both the individual and society. It is possible to gather up a ton load of psychological and sociological evidence with regard to this. God and religion have been put to the test by the pragmatist and, observing the good habits and effects they involve, concludes that such beliefs are true, that is, useful. What is the catastrophic error of pragmatism as regards the existence of God? It is in thinking that the empirical methods of science can be applied to the metaphysical problem of being, in particular, to the Subsistent Supreme Being. For the pragmatist, to inquire into reality does not mean to achieve an understanding of being but rather to experiment with our experience as a scientist experiments with his physical data. The pragmatist investigation cannot reveal to us why things are nor why they are what they are, but merely reveal how things operate or how they should operate to obtain useful results. In pragmatism, God is not a being with objective, independent, transcendent, extra-mental real existence; rather, he is a workable hypothesis, an idea that gets things done. At the conclusion of his influential book The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James quotes with approval Professor Leuba from his article The Contents of Religious Consciousness published in The Monist, who writes that the truth of the matter can be put in this way: God is not known, he is not understood, he is used sometimes as meat purveyor, sometimes as moral support, sometimes as friend, sometimes as an object of love. If he proves himself useful, the religious consciousness asks for no more than that. Does God really exist? How does he exist? What is he? Are so many irrelevant questions. Not God, but life, more life, a larger, richer, more satisfying life, is, in the last analysis the end of religion. The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse.276[276] And James also quotes, with admiration, the anthropocentrism of W. Bender in his 1888 book Wesen der Religion who says: Not the question about God, and not the inquiry into the origin and purpose of the world is religion, but the question about Man. All religious views of life are anthropocentric. Religion is that
276[276]

W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 392.

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activity of the human impulse towards self-preservation by means of which Man seeks to carry his essential vital purposes through against the adverse pressure of the world by raising himself freely towards the worlds ordering and governing powers when the limits of his own strength are reached.277[277] Thus, the pragmatist, in confronting the problems of God and religion, asks first of all: is God and religion useful for me? Are there psychological benefits that I can receive from accepting a certain religion and notion of God? Will going to Mass make me feel good, make me a more popular and loved person? Does God, religion, and the Mass make me live longer? Do they contribute to my getting along with people in society? The pragmatist asks these questions because, for him, God and religion is reduced to its useful function, for the individual and for society. But this is a grave error for religion is not a utility to be used by man to satisfy himself psychologically and corporeally, even though belief in God and adherence to religion truly produce beneficial psychosomatic effects. Rather, religion implies the notion of being bound to God, to be subjected to a transcendent Supreme Being, Creator of all, Who is the Subsistent Being, and from Whom all creatures receive being and are preserved in being. In religion, it is the finite human creature, created in the image and likeness of God, who adores, praises, and prays to his infinite, transcendent Supreme Creator. It is a binding of oneself to God, an ordering of oneself to the transcendent Lord of all, a virtue which prompts man to render to God the worship and reverence that is His by right. Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce278[278] (1839-1914) can be said to be the founder of pragmatism. In a writing dated the year 1871 he had formulated two significant propositions: 1. the question of the validity of knowledge can be resolved through induction ; and 2. verification is based upon an examination of the practical consequences of a given knowledge. Peirce departs from empiricist and experimentalist premises,
277[277] 278[278]

W. JAMES, op. cit., 392, from W. BENDER, Wesen der Religion, Bonn 1888, pp.38, 85. W. B. GALLIE, Introduzione a Peirce e al pragmatismo, Florence, 1965 ; N. SALANITRO, Peirce e i problemi dellinterpretazione, Roe, 1969 ; R. F. LEO, Sulle tracce del segno: semiotica, faneroscopia e cosmologia nel pensiero di Charles S. Peirce , La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1986 ; G. PRONI, Introduzione a Peirce, Bompiani, Milan, 1990.

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but denied that that his theses would have subjectivistic and utilitarian outcomes. James The American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) gave to pragmatism a decidedly voluntaristic character. The principal faculty of man is not intelligence but will. As for ultimate questions man reaches certainty not through reasoning but through faith that occurs through sentiment. Something is true not because reason recognizes it as true but rather because the will finds it useful for the attainment of a determinate objective. James also defended a pluralistic universe, a finite God, and individualism. His works include The Principles of Psychology (1890), The Will to Believe (1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902, his most famous work), Pragmatism (1907), The Meaning of Truth (1909), A Pluralistic Universe (1909), and Essays on Radical Empiricism (published posthumously in 1912).
279[279]

Dewey John Deweys280[280] (1859-1952) philosophical journey passed from idealism to his so-called instrumentalism which is a type of naturalistic evolutionism influenced by pragmatism. The function of the human mind and therefore of knowledge is to research to most secure ways for progress. Thus, thought, for him, has an essentially instrumental character (hence his instrumentalism). Man should not be understood as part of a natural mechanism but rather as a force whose actions can modify for the better the conditions of the world. Mans actions must therefore tend toward socialization and solidarity so that one can construct a truly democratic society capable of dominating nature, submitting it to mans ends. In the field of pedagogy, Dewey insisted upon activism in apprehension and upon the social end of education which is capable of resolving all social problems and of realizing a true democracy. His many works include My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School and Society (1900), Studies in Logical Theory (1903), Logical
279[279]

G. A. ROGGERONE, James e la crisi della coscienza contemporanea , Milan, 1961 ; G. RICONDA, La filosofia di W. James, Turin, 1962 ; G. ARGERI, Concetti fondamentali del pragmatismo nel James e nel Dewey , Palermo, 1974 ; L. BELLATALLA, Uomo e ragione in W. James, Turin, 1979. 280[280] A. BAUSOLA, Letica di John Dewey, Milan, 1960 ; T. MANFERDINI, Lio e lesperienza religiosa in John Dewey, Patron, Bologna, 1963 ; G. CORALLO, John Dewey, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1972.

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Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality (1903), Ethics (1908), How We Think (1910), Democracy and Education (1916), Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), The Quest for Certainty (1929), Art and Experience (1934), A Common Faith (1934), Experience and Education (1938), Theory of Valuation (1939), Education Today (1940), Problems of Men (1946), and Knowing and the Known (1949). Whitehead In collaboration with Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead281[281] (1861-1947) wrote Principia mathematica in 1903 in order to demonstrate that pure mathematical propositions are analytic, not synthetic a priori judgments as Kant had maintained. For the integration of mathematical formalism an integration of philosophy should occur, conceived of as the real science of the world. Reality is a flowing of events (or data of sensible perception). The human subject is also an event. God must necessarily exist in order to explain the phenomena that we see in the world. Whiteheads most famous work is Process and Reality (1929). Santayana George Santayana (1863-1952) criticized idealism and professed a realism based on the dualism of essence and existence. The life of reason is a marriage between the life of immediate impulses and the life of reflection. Modernism A philosophical-theological doctrine, some of modernisms major exponents have been Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), George Tyrrell (1861-1909), A. Fogazzaro (1842-1911), and A. Buonaiuti (1881-1946). Though introducing the evolutionist element, the vital immanentism of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is in basic agreement with the agnostic immanentism of modernism. As regards philosophical doctrine,
281[281]

P. A. ROVATTI, La filosofia del processo: saggio su Whitehead , Milan, 1969 ; A. DEREGIBUS, Ragione e natura nella filosofia di Whitehead, Milan, 1972 ; M. BONFANTINI, Introduzione a Whitehead, Laterza, Bari, 1972 ; G. RICONDA, La metafisica dellesperienza: introduzione alla lettura di Process and Reality, Turin, 1975 ; L. V. ARENA, Comprensione e creativit: la filosofia di Whitehead, Milan, 1989.

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modernism has two fundamental tenets, namely, agnosticism and vital immanence. The Kantian agnostic position is accepted by the modernists: man cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God for human reason is enclosed within the sphere of phenomena; the human mind is simply incapable of knowing the thing-in-itself, what Kant calls the noumenon. But though speculative reason has no objective value in the supra-sensible order, as this order lies outside phenomena or objects of speculative reason, the modernist maintains that one is justified in holding truths that transcend the phenomenal order (i.e. the existence of God), this justification to be sought within man himself, in the immanent propensities and affections of his very nature. Modernists (a good proportion of them being professors and religious in Catholic universities today) refuse to be branded as unbelieving agnostics for they say that, though man cannot rationally demonstrate Gods existence, he arrives to God through vital immanence, which is a sentiment produced in us without previous intellectual judgment. Wholely operating within the principle of immanence, the mind of man, says the modernist, cannot get beyond his states of consciousness. The divine is really within man, and it is only in folding back upon itself and searching the conditions of its own proper activity that the mind discovers God. Explaining the origin of mans knowledge of the existence of God and the certitude he has of this existence, the modernist holds that man has within his subconscious a certain religious sense or power. This sense or power is actuated by the human persons need for God, which arises from inner tensions and anxieties within himself when confronted with the many problems and mysteries of the unknown that besets his life. Now actuated, this religious sense ushers forth into consciousness, and it is in this consciousness that man perceives the reality of God and affirms His existence. Such an act of faith is not elicited by the intellect but is rather a simple perception of Gods presence in man as revealed by this religious sense. This consciousness of God constitutes a religious experience which, for the modernist, is the sole valid criterion for holding the truths regarding the Deity. With this experience, the intellect can now continue its Kantian intellection, thinking about this faith, reflecting upon this religious experience. This is the process in which the modernist generates
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his idea of God. Thus, God is impervious to human reason, but He is attained and grasped in this blind movement of human consciousness. A critique of modernist agnosticism: Though mans religious experiences may well be, when properly reflected upon, a confirmation of what he believes, or may be a preparation for a coming to the knowledge of God, in themselves however, subjective feelings cannot be an adequate criterion for the truths we know about God or even for our faith in Him. Independent of the judgments of reason, religious experiences are simply subjective states, affective experiences which can prove nothing. Mans emotions, that is, the products of sense appetites and the operative faculty of will, are not an illuminating power which sees and judges, but are rather blind inclinations and movements towards the possession of the good. Apart from knowledge and intellect, such emotions are not only blind, but are in fact impossible, as Mercier explains: To resolve the problems raised by our consciousness, reflecting reason must always have the last word. Feeling, of its very nature, is blind, and reason itself must show that such feeling is wellfounded. Man is not obliged to admit that there is a God, unless he demonstrates His existence; nor are the acts of religion meritorious unless they are founded on reason and conviction. Reason alone is the instrument that can judge the truth or falsity of any position. Without an appeal to reason, feeling is unable to establish anything.282[282] Bergson The French spiritualist Henri Bergson283[283] (1859-1941) was a fierce critic of the positivism and scientism of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. He exercised a great influence on the subsequent French existentialist movement, on pragmatism, and also on the phenomenological school. Bergson elaborated an antimechanistic and anti-materialistic philosophy founded upon two fundamental theses: 1. reality is enduring; and 2. reality is grasped through intuition. Reality flows from a creative evolution filled with powerful energies differently utilized (vegetative torpor, instinct, and
282[282]

D. MERCIER, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy , vol. 2 (Natural Theology or Theodicy), Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., London, 1950, p. 28. 283[283] F. OLGIATI, La filosofia di Enrico Bergson, Turin, 1914 ; J. MARITAIN, La philosophie bergsonienne, Paris, 1930 ; A. D. SERTILLANGES, Henri Bergson et le Catholicisme, Paris, 1941 ; V. MATHIEU, Bergson: Il profondo e la sua espressione, Turin, 1954 ; F. C. COPLESTON, Bergson and Morality, London, 1955 ; J. GUITTON, La vocation de Bergson, Paris, 1960 ; H. GOUHIER, Bergson et le Christ des vangiles, Paris, 1961.

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intelligence) and orientated in two directions: ascending (towards life) and descending (towards matter). The object of philosophy is vital immanence which is manifested in the continuous becoming of beings: from matter to spirit and from spirit to matter. His most famous work, Creative Evolution, was first published in 1907. Blondel Inspired by the voluntaristic method of Augustine and Pascal, Maurice Blondel284[284] (1861-1949) sought out a sure foundation for arriving at a knowledge of the existence of God by means of action. To act is to will, and to will is to will something. That which is proper to action is the continuous resurgence in it of an equilibrium between power and will, between will-willed (la volont voulue) and will-willing (la volont voulante). From this derives an unsatisfaction which is not quelled until the will-willed has fully satisfied the infinite desire of the will-willing by reaching an adequate object of its desires: God. The book for which he is best known, LAction, was first published in 1893. Maritain The French philosopher Jacques Maritain285[285] (1882-1973) was one of the greatest exponents of Thomism in the twentieth century. He developed Thomistic philosophy in fields that were still not touched upon and was an acute critic of contemporary philosophical immanentism. He was a Thomist who espoused a Christian democracy
284[284]

P. VALORI, Maurice Blondel e il problema duna filosofia cattolica, Rome, 1950 ; M. F. SCIACCA, Dialogo con Maurice Blondel, Milan, 1962 ; R. CRIPPA, Profilo della critica blondeliana, Marzorati, Milan, 1962 ; C. TRESMONTANT, Introduction la mtaphysique de Maurice Blondel , Paris, 1963 ; A. LIVI, Blondel, Brhier, Gilson, Maritain: il problema della filosofia cristiana, Patron, Bologna, 1976. 285[285] G. B. PHELAN, Jacques Maritain, New York, 1937 ; C. A. FECHER, The Philosophy of Jacques Maritain, Westminster, Maryland, 1953 ; N. PADELLARO, Maritain: la filosofia contro le filosofie , Morcelliana, Brescia, 1953 ; J. CROTEAU, Les fondements thomistes du personnalisme de Maritain , Ottawa, 1955 ; N. W. MICHENER, Maritain on the Nature of Man in a Christian Democracy , Hull, Canada, 1955 ; H. BARS, Maritain en notre temps, Paris, 1959 ; A. TIMOSAITIS, Church and State in Maritains Thought , Chicago, 1959 ; H. BARS, La politique selon Jacques Maritain, Paris, 1961 ; P. VIOTTO, Jacques Maritain, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1962 ; J. W. EVANS (editor), Jacques Maritain: The Man and His Achievement , New York, 1965 ; G. FORNI, La filosofia della storia nel pensiero politico di J. Maritain, Bologna, 1965 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, J. Maritain, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1967 ; A. SCOLA, Lalba della dignit umana (La fondazione dei diritti umani nella dottrina di Jacques Maritain) , Jaca Book, Milan, 1982 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Jacques Maritain oggi, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1983 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Jacques Maritain e la liberazione dellintelligenza , Morcelliana, Brescia, 1983 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Jacques Maritain e il pensiero contemporaneo (Il destino delluomo e lesigenza della verit) , Massimo, Milan, 1983 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Conoscere Maritain, Ancona, 1985 ; M. LORENZINI, Luomo in quanto persona: lantropologia di Jacques Maritain, ESD, Bologna, 1994.

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and, in works such as Integral Humanism (his most famous work), called for a new Christian civilization. Maritain proposed an integral humanism, assigning to Christian democracy five characteristics: pluralism, recognition of a proper and autonomous temporal order, conceived of as an intermediate end, freedom of the person, delegated authority, and collaboration. A prolific author, his works include Art and Scholasticism (1920), St. Thomas Aquinas, Angel of the Schools (1923), The Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, and Rousseau (1925), The Degrees of Knowledge (1932), Integral Humanism (1936), Education at the Crossroads (1943), The Person and the Common Good (1947), Man and the State (1951), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953), Moral Philosophy (1960), and The Peasant of the Garonne (1966). Gilson The great French Thomist Etienne Gilson 286[286] (1884-1978) was a philosopher, theologian, and historian. Together with Maritain, he was responsible for the rebirth of Thomism in the first half of the twentieth century and for its diffusion in North-America. Gilson made two principal contributions to the theoretical sphere: the concept of Christian philosophy and knowledge of the act of being (esse). In the former he considered any philosophy Christian which, though distinguishing the order of Christian revelation from the order of reason, considers revelation as an indispensable helper of reason. In the latter contribution, that of the problem of the knowledge of the act of being (esse), considered as the act that confers reality to the essence ( essentia), he solves this by showing that such a knowledge is not realized through abstraction, which regards only essences, but through judgments of existence. It is only through this judgment that man intellectually grasps the act of being (esse), already perceived as fact on the plane of sensibility. Gilsons two most famous works are The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (1932) and History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (1922 with a second revised edition in 1945). Renouvier
286[286]

C. J. EDIE (editor), Mlanges offerts Etienne Gilson, Paris-Toronto, 1959 ; J. M. QUINN, The Thomism of Etienne Gilson: A Critical Study, Villanova, Pa., 1971 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, tienne Gilson, filosofo cristiano, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 1985 ; M. TOSO, Fede, ragione e civilt (Saggio sul pensiero di Etienne Gilson, LAS, Rome, 1986 ; L. K. SHOOK, Etienne Gilson, Jaca Book, Milan, 1991 ; M. L. FACCO, Etienne Gilson: storia e metafisica, Japadre, LAquila, 1992.

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The Frenchman Charles Renouvier287[287] (1815-1903) was the founder of the movement called personalism. A convinced personalist, he centered his philosophical efforts on the human person as a knowing being, open to transcendence, whether in the direction of the world or in the direction of the Absolute. Such a knowledge leads man to recognize the existence of a first and creative Person. His works include The Laws of General Criticism in four volumes (1854-1864), The New Monadology (with L. Prat, 1889), The Dilemma of Pure Metaphysics (1901) and his most famous work Personalism (1903). Mounier Emmanuel Mouniers288[288] (1905-1950) personalism is developed departing from a strong critique of both marxism and capitalism. According to him, man today is in need of a new humanism, a personalist humanism whose fundamental characteristics are: 1. a psychophysical structure; 2. transcendence with respect to nature; 3. openness towards others and the world; 4. dynamicity; 5. vocation; and 6. freedom. The whole universe tends towards personalization and the promotion of the person necessitates both an economic and sociopolitical democracy. His most important works include the Personalist and Communitarian Revolution (1935), From Capitalist Property to Human Property (1936), Personalism and Christianity (1936), Manifesto in Service of Personalism (1936), Treatise on Character (1946), and What is Personalism? (1947). Buber Martin Buber289[289] (1878-1950) is the chief representative of religious personalism inspired by the Hassidic Hebrew tradition. For Buber the person is a being-for-relation, a structure that dialogues (IThou). Dialogue with God is a guarantee of communion between men.
287[287] 288[288]

R. VERNEAUX, Lidalisme de Renouvier, Paris, 1945. A. RIGOBELLO, Il contributo filosofico di Emmanuel Mounier , Rome, 1955 ; V. MELCHIORRE, Il metodo di Mounier e altri saggi, Milan, 1960 ; L. GUISSARD, Mounier, Paris, 1962 ; M. MONTANI, Il messagio di E. Mounier, LDC, Turin, 1977 ; G. CAMPANINI, Il pensiero politico di E. Mounier, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1984 ; M. MONTANI, Una rivoluzione esigente: il messagio di E. Mounier , LDC, Turin, 1985 ; G. LIMONE, Tempo della persona e sapienza del possibile: valori, politica e diritto in E. Mounier , Naples, 1988 ; G. GOISIS-L. BIAGI, Mounier tra impegno e profezia, Gregoriana, Padua, 1990 ; A. LAMACCHIA, Mounier: personalismo comunitario e filosofia dellesistenza, Ed. Levante, Bari, 1993 ; 289[289] W. HERBERG, Martin Buber: Personalist Philosophy in an Age of Depersonalization , West Hartford, Conn., 1972.

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Characteristics of the I-Thou relationship are: dialogue, presence, devotion, love, freedom, being, and destiny. Outside this relationship is dominion, possession, arbitrariness, and fatality. His most famous work, I-Thou, was first published in 1923. Neo-Positivism The neo-positivism of the Circle of Vienna, 290[290] basing itself on the principle of verification, had declared metaphysics and religion to be meaningless, reducing them to the level of irrationalist sentiment. For the neo-positivist or logical positivist, all philosophical problems must be resolved through a sole analysis of language; linguistic analysis is identified as the proper task of philosophy itself. The only propositions that make sense are experimental, factual, or scientific propositions. Thus, metaphysical propositions like God exists, as well as those propositions of religion and aesthetics, are deprived of content inasmuch as every content must be derived from experience. Affirmations like God exists and the human soul is immortal are, for the neo-positivist, nonsensical. The central thesis of neo-positivism is that the fundamental propositions of metaphysics, ethics, religion, and aesthetics, are meaningless, for they fail the test of empirical verifiability. Neo-positivism or logical positivism is an attempt to establish the validity of what man knows by an analysis of what he says. Since mans knowledge of reality is expressed in propositions, a linguistic analysis should reveal whether a given enunciation is meaningful or simply verbal manipulation. Neo-positivists and logical positivists agree that the Humean view of causality and empirical induction are givens, and that all philosophy is, in fact, logical analysis consisting in the analysis of the language which ordinary people speak. There is also a common point of agreement in the fact that such a linguistic verification eventually leads to the rejection of metaphysical propositions such as those that regard causality, substance, accidents and so forth. Such metaphysical enunciations are to be declared meaningless, at least in their
290[290]

The Circle of Vienna (Wiener Kreis) was begun in 1895, initially as a chair of the philosophy of the inductive sciences at the University of Vienna, which went to Ernst Mach, who taught a series of courses there until 1901. In 1922 the chair went to Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) who, together with a number of like-minded philosopherphysicists, published in 1929 The Scientific Vision of the World: The Circle of Vienna (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: der Wiener Kries), which became the groups manifesto. Aside from Schlick, members of the group included Rudolf Carnap (its most celebrated theorist), Kurt Gdel, Otto Neurath, Hans Reichenbach, Richard von Mises, Gustav Hempel, Karl Menger, Hans Hahn, Friedrich Herbert Waismann, and Victor Kraft.

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original intent. A certain proposition can only be sensical, and therefore true, if its elements, after a linguistic analysis, can be reduced either directly or indirectly to some sense experience or sense data. If this is not possible, then the proposition is rendered nonsensical or meaningless. An example. What does the common expression apples exist mean? This philosophical system will answer that there are no such things in reality as apples, for this is simply a verbal constant applied to what is an almost unlimited number of sense impressions and sense references, organized and focused upon by the thinker. The logical positivist declares that there can be no such thing in reality as a substance apple, and since this is a fact, apples do not exist in noumenal reality. Locked up in an anthropocentric immanentism and empirical phenomenalism, it is not possible to apply the existential metaphysical word exist to apples, but only to the conglomeration of what is sensibly perceived when we see what we call an apple. Ideally, a proposition like apples exist would have to read: there is something such that this something is an apple. But can the expression apples exist have any meaning? Yes, for such an expression can be directly reduced to sense experience and sense data. What happens when logical positivism is applied to the problem of the existence of God? To ask the question Does God exist? is to ask whether the expression God exists has any meaning; whether it is possible to reduce it, either directly or indirectly, to sense experience. The answer is an obvious no, for it is impossible to have an experience of the verbal elements in any way; the proposition cannot be transcribed in terms of any known experience. Therefore, the expression God exists is meaningless; not true or false, but simply nonsensical. Aside from adopting the erroneous position of empiricist phenomenalism, logical positivism adds its own so-called principle of verification which is the principle that every meaningful proposition must be verifiable in sense experience. The only trouble with such a principle is that it fails to pass its own test: the principle of verification is itself unverifiable in sense experience, it being a metaphysical principle grasped in intellection. Wittgenstein

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Ludwig Wittgenstein291[291] (1889-1952) is probably the most influential of logical positivists. His two greatest works, Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (part 1: 1945, part 2: 1948-1949) represent two diverse conceptions of philosophy of language, so much so that we should speak of Wittgensteins two periods: the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus and the Wittgenstein of the linguistic games. In the First Wittgenstein (that of the Tractatus), we see that our philosopher conceives of language as the representation of things, giving scientific language, in true neo-positivist fashion, pre-eminence over all the others by making the principle of verification the criteria of meaning. In the Second Wittgenstein (that of the Philosophical Investigations) he considers language as a game of arbitrarily fixed rules. There are, he argues, many valid linguistic games, provided that they be regulated by a precise and stable group of norms or standards. He also retains that the function of language-guide, which is criterion for the verification of every other language, is not given to scientific but rather to ordinary language. Carnap Rudolf Carnap292[292] (1891-1970) sustained that it is not the competence of philosophy to elaborate theories and construct systems but rather to develop a method, namely the neo-positivist method of logical or linguistic analysis. With this method, one evaluates all that comes to be affirmed in the various fields of knowledge. This method has a twofold function, namely: 1. to disquality and cut out all words that are nonsensical, that is, deprived of meaning ; and 2. to clarify concepts and enunciations that have meaning in order to give a logical foundation to the experimental sciences, and to physics in particular. To decide upon the meaning of propositions or enunciations, Carnap opts for the criteria of experimental verification by which a proposition makes sense because it passes the test of empirical verification. Naturally, all metaphysical and theological enunciations would be eliminated as nonsensical, mere verbiage, as they would fail to pass the test empirical verifiability. They cannot have in any way a theoretical, speculative, and cognitive meaningfulness but simply a subjective, irrational and emotional one.
291[291]

G. E. ANSCOMBE, Introduzione al Tractatus di Wittgenstein , Astrolabio, Rome, 1980 ; S. MARINI, Etica e religione nel primo Wittgenstein, Vita e Pensiero, Milano, 1989. 292[292] A. PASQUINELLI, Introduzione a Carnap, Laterza, Bari, 1972 ; P. A. SCHLIPP (editor), La filosofia di R. Carnap, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1974.

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Russell The British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a thinker in continual evolution of thought, adhering successively to idealism, realism, neo-positivism, linguistic analysis, and to phenomenism. But he remained faithful to the empiricist perspective in questions of the epistemological and moral order. In a work written in collaboration with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, Russell wanted to demonstrate that mathematics is reducible to logic. In matters of logic, he made important contributions to the definition of individual, of classes, of types, and of descriptions. In matters of philosophy of knowledge (gnoseology) Russell was a convinced empiricist : knowledge comes from purely sensorial data. He also proposed a dualistic conception of truth (correspondence between facts and propositions). In the field of philosophy of language he shared a number of points in common with the neo-positivists but disagreed with their criteria of signification, he distinguishing sense from meaning (or signification). Among his many works we find: The Principles of Mathematics (1903), Philosophical Essays (1910), The Problems of Philosophy (1912), Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), The Analysis of Mind (1921), Why I am Not a Christian (1927), An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948).
293[293]

Popper The Austrian-born philosopher Karl Popper294[294] (1902-1994) held that scientific theories were not accumulations of observations but rather systems of conjectures. The scientific method consists in learning from our errors in a systematic way. Scientific objectivity consists in the critical approach. It is also important to distinguish between controllable and non-controllable theories. Poppers criteria of falsifiability establishes that a theory can be considered scientific only if it is falsifiable, that is, deniable in line of principle and not for being
293[293]

A. GRANESE, B. Russell, Ubaldini, Rome, 1971 ; A. CORSANO, Introduzione a B. Russell, Lacaita, Manduria, 1972 ; E. RIVERSO, Il pensiero di Bertrand Russell, Naples, 1972. 294[294] B. MAGEE, Il nuovo radicalismo in politica e nella scienza. Le teorie di K. Popper , Armando, Rome, 1975 ; M. ARTIGAS, Karl Popper: Bsqueda sin trmino, EMESA, Madrid, 1980.

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established as false in fact. His principal works include: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), The Poverty of Historicism (1944-1945), The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Conjectures and Refutations (1963), Objective Knowledge (1972), and Autobiography (1974). Heidegger The German existentialist Martin Heidegger295[295] (1889-1976) was born in Messkirch, Swabia in 1889. Raised in his youth a Catholic he was at one point a novice of the Jesuits before leaving them and breaking away from Christianity altogether. In 1916 he came out with his doctoral dissertation entitled Duns Scotus Doctrine of Categories and Concepts. In 1923 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Marburg and in 1929 succeeded his much admired Husserl to the chair of philosophy at the University of Freiburg. Two years earlier he had published his most famous and influential work Being and Time. In 1929 he published On the Essence of Fundament and Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. A year later he produced What is Metaphysics? When Hitler came into power in 1933, Heidegger, who was pro-Nazi, became rector of the University of Freiburg. In 1937 he published Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry, his Doctrine of Plato on the Truth in 1942, his Letter on Humanism and The Essence of Truth a year later, his Introduction to Metaphysics in 1953, his What is Philosophy? in 1956, and his two volume work Nietzsche in 1961. He died in 1976. Heidegger perceived the necessity of a new ontology wherein the gateway to being would be man. Phenomenologically analyzing man he discovers the following traits : being in the world, existence, and temporality. To these three temporal traits correspond the three modes of knowing : feeling, intending, and discoursing. There is a contrast between being-in-the-world and existence. There is an alternative to the inauthentic or banal life: the authentic life. Death and anxiety pertain to the fundamental structure of the world. Being is that which makes being (ens) present and is that which is manifested in it. But being is inexpressible. Man is the guardian of being, but it is not given to him to

295[295]

T. LANGAN, The Meaning of Heidegger, Columbia University Press, New York, 1961 ; J. JAHL, Verso la fine dellontologia: studio sullIntroduzione alla metafisica di Heidegger , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1971 ; M. MARASSI, Ermeneutica della differenza: saggio su Heidegger , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1990 ; G. BERTUZZI, La verit in Martin Heidegger: dagli scritti giovanili a Essere e tempo, ESD, Bologna, 1993.

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know how is happens that being ( ens) constitutes itself by means of being. The epiphany of being is realized through language. Jaspers The German existentialist Karl Jaspers296[296] (1883-1969) was born at Oldenburg on February 23, 1883. After a time devoted to psychology he began to shift to the field of philosophy, teaching it for many years at the University of Heidelberg, a post which he had to leave in 1937 due to his opposition to the Nazis. After the war he resumed teaching, obtaining a post at the University of Basilea where he taught philosophy until his death in 1969. His works include the three volume work Philosophy (1932), Reason and Existence (1935), Nietzsche (1936), Descartes and Philosophy (1937), Philosophy of Existence (1938), Truth (1947), Philosophical Faith (1948), Origin and End of History (1949), and Introduction to Philosophy (1950). The existentialist philosophy of Jaspers departs from the distinction between being-there (Dasein) and existence (Existenz). Being-there is the reality, the given. By existence, which is given only through freedom, man transcends the situation. Being, accessible to man through comprehension, is the horizon in which the I moves about. Existence, which is developed in communication, is a historical existence. Reason is unable to attain absolute truth but it is systematically drawn towards transcendence. There are limit-situations: the fundamental one being death. The sole faculty capable of unveiling the mystery of death is love. Sartre The French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre297[297] (1905-1980) was born in Paris on June 21, 1905. He studied at the Ecole Normale Suprieure and then began his career as a journalist. He later wrote a number of plays for the theatre and taught philosophy at schools in Havre and Paris. During World War II he was captured by the Germans and later released and later became involved in the Resistance. For nearly two
296[296]

L. PAREYSON, La filosofia dellesistenza e Carlo Jaspers, Marietti, Casale Monferrato, 1940 ; G. PENZO, Dialettica e fede in Karl Jaspers , Patron, Bologna, 1981 ; G. PENZO, Il comprendere in K. Jaspers e il problema dellermeneutica, Armando, Rome, 1985 ; G. PENZO, Jaspers: esistenza e trascendenza, Studium, Rome, 1985. 297[297] R. JOLIVET, Sartre ou la thologie de labsurde, Paris, 1965 ; J. J. SANGUINETI, Jean-Paul Sartre: Critica della Ragione Dialettica e Questioni di Metodo, Japadre, LAquila, 1976.

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decades after the war Sartre was center stage in the intellectual life of France and was famous throughout Europe. He was a prolific author and many of his plays were pedagogical pieces which promoted his atheistic and nihilistic, marxist existentialism. In 1936 he published The Transcendence of the Ego, in 1938 his famous novel Nausea, in 1939 his work on the emotions entitled Sketch for a Theory of Emotions, and a number of stories published under the title Intimacy. During the war he published The Psychology of the Imagination, and his most famous philosophical work Being and Nothingness in 1943. The play The Flies also came out that year. The Age of Reason and The Reprieve were published in 1945, as well as his play In Camera. In 1946 he published Portrait of an Anti-Semite and in 1949 his novel Iron in the Soul. 1960 saw the publication of the first volume of his Critique of Dialectical Reason. Sartre was a spokesman for the European leftist culture of nihilism and communism. He died at Paris in 1980. Sartre lost all belief in God at the early age of eleven; the religiously indifferent household in which he was brought up in had much to do with this loss. His father had died when he was only two years old. Sartre recounts in his biography of his early childhood, The Words, that until the age of ten, I was alone between one old man and two womenI was an impostorI could feel my actions changing into gesturesI had been convinced that we were born to playact to each otherLacking more precise information, no one, beginning with myself, knew what the hell I had come on earth to doBut I remained an abstractionI was not stable or permanent; I was not the perpetuator-tobe of my fathers work; I was not necessary to the production of steel. In short, I had no soulI felt superfluous so I had to disappear. In other words, I was condemned, and the sentence could be carried out at any time.298[298] Charles Schweitzer (my grandfather)never missed an opportunity of poking fun at CatholicismI was in danger of being a victim of saintliness. My grandfather disgusted me with it for good: I saw it through his eyes, and this cruel folly sickened me with its mawkish ecstasies and terrified me with its sadistic contempt for the bodyI was both Catholic and Protestant and I united the spirit of criticism with that of submissionI was led to unbelief not through conflicting dogma but through my grandparents indifference.299[299] For several years longer, I kept up public relations with the Almighty; in private, I stopped
298[298] 299[299]

J. P. SARTRE, The Words, Penguin, London, 1967, pp. 54-61. J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., pp. 63-64.

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associating with Him. Once only I had the feeling that He existed. I had been playing with matches and had burnt a mat; I was busy covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands; I turned round and round in the bathroom, horribly visible, a living target. I was saved by indignation: I grew angry at such a crude lack of tact, and blasphemedHe never looked at me again. 300[300] I have just told the story of a missed vocation; I needed God; He was given to me, and I received him without understanding what I was looking for. Unable to take root in my heart, he vegetated in me for a while and then died. Today, when he is mentioned, I say with the amusement and lack of regret of some ageing beau who meets an old flame: Fifty years ago, without that misunderstanding, without that mistake, without the accident which separated us, there might have been something between us.301[301] God does not exist for Sartre.302[302] He has been described as an anthropological atheist: God must be eliminated because He is a hindrance to mans full realization. He must be put aside so that man can regain his freedom. But Sartre cannot really be classified as a typical humanist atheist because of his pessimistic, annihilistic view of man, which debases him as a radical nothingness, a useless passion, a poursoi condemned to be free, which certainly is not the glorification of man we find in Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. Sartre concentrates his philosophical analysis on being, which is conceived by him as an absurd, contingent, inert mass. Man is distinguished from other beings because he has consciousness, which is capable of nullifying being. In him there is an immediate consciousness and a reflective consciousness. The nullifying activity of consciousness has nausea as an outlet, provoked by the superabundant absurdity of reality found in things. The essence of man is freedom. This freedom is not bound by any law but is the pure capacity to choose (anthropological freedom). Sartre regards man as condemned to freedom. In contrast to the animal man has no nature. The animal lives out its existence according to laws it is simply born with; it does not need to deliberate
300[300] 301[301]

J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 65. Ibid. 302[302] Regarding his professed atheism, Sartre writes that atheism is a cruel, long-term business. I believe I have gone through it to the end. I see clearly; I am free from illusions; I know my real tasks and I must surely deserve a civic prize(J. P. SARTRE, op cit., p. 157). Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position(J. P. SARTRE, Existentialism and Humanism, Methuen and Co., London, 1966, p. 56).

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what to do with its life. But mans essence is undetermined. It is an open question. I must decide myself what I understand by humanity, what I want to do with it, and how I want to fashion it. Man has no nature but is sheer freedom. His life must take some direction or other, but in the end it comes to nothing. This absurd freedom is mans hell. What is unsettling about this approach is that it is a way through the separation of freedom from truth to its most radical conclusion: there is no truth at all. Freedom has no direction and no measure. 303[303] But this complete absence of truth, this complete absence of any moral and metaphysical bond, this absolutely anarchic freedom which is understood as an essential quality of man reveals itself to one who tries to live it not as the supreme enhancement of existence, but as the frustration of life, the absolute void, the definition of damnation. The isolation of a radical concept of freedom, which for Sartre was a lived experience, shows with all desirable clarity that liberation from the truth does not produce pure freedom, but abolishes it. Anarchic freedom, taken radically, does not redeem, but makes man a miscarried creature, a pointless being.304[304] While the universe is an eternal being-in-itself (en-soi), deprived of meaning or justification, man, in contrast, is a pour-soi (a being-for-itself), a conscious being. He has no stable nature. He creates his own essence. He is an existence seeking his essence. He is making. Man is an existence seeking his essence, what he is to become through the exercise of his freedom. The true me is presently unknown, in as much as I am free to continue constituting myself through the exercise of my liberty, until death supervenes and extinguishes all my possibilities Mans essence is what he freely makes or made of himself up to the moment of death.305[305] Now God is an impossibility, says Sartre, for He would be a for-itself-in-itself synthesis, which is simply unrealizable in reality. This, he says, is what happens when man conceives his project to become an in-itself that is solid and eternal. But he wishes to do this without renouncing his freedom and clarity of mind as a pour-soi. Thus, God, the pour-soi-en-soi synthesis, cannot be realized. God, for Sartre, is nothing but a projection of man, something he appropriates (with
303[303]

Cf. J. PIEPER, Kreaturlichkeit und menschliche Natur. Anmerkungen zum philosophischen Ansatz von J. P. Sartre, in Uber die Schwierigkeit, heute zu glauben, Munich, 1974, pp. 304-21. 304[304] J. RATZINGER, Freedom and Truth, 1996 Communio, paragraph 17. 305[305] V. MICELI, op. cit., p. 222.

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modifications) from the father of modern atheism, Feuerbach; God could only be that projection of mans unrealizable ambition. There are no moral absolutes for Sartre. There is no such thing as an objective morality or objective truth: The most important conclusion which Sartre drew from his atheism was this: Since there cannot be any God, there cannot be logically any universally mandatory moral law; there cannot be any absolute fixed values. Dostoevsky was right when he wrote: If God did not exist everything would be permitted. And that is existentialisms starting position. Man alone creates his own values; he is incurably free. Man is freedom. There are no values nor commands from above, nor from within himself as from a permanent nature that can legitimize his conduct. Man is alone, with the full responsibility to create himself through the exercise of his freedom. Thrown into an absurd world, he must choose his own values for he cannot help acting in this worldThe choice of motives and values depends on the project to which man chooses to commit himself. Thus, as a free, self-transcending subject, man inevitably projects an initial, freely chosen ideal in the light of which he constitutes his values. Man is the sole source of values, his freedom being their foundation Mans liberty isunlimited; it is absolutethe freedom which is my liberty remains total and infinitein choosing he is creating his essence.306[306] Ultimately therefore, each individual creates his own being, values, history, world-meaning and moral law.307[307] Man should exercise his absurd and anarchic freedom for its own sake in any way whatever, free from the shackles of objective morality, objective truth, and God. Fleeing from the exercise of anarchic and absurd freedom by the acceptance of and submission to objective morality, objective truth, and God this flight is being in bad faith. One who believes in such things, in such flights of fancy, is an immoral person. Man, says Sartre, should exercise his freedom for its own sake, curse though it is, and in any way whatsoevereach man should go on living vigorously, with defiant exercise of libertythis is mans meaning and glory, the exercise of his liberty for its own sake. And it makes no difference how he is exercising it so long as he is consciously exercising it. For all human activities are equivalent, all in principle, doomed to
306[306] 307[307]

V. MICELI, op. cit., pp. 224-225. V. MICELI, op. cit., pp. 227-228.

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failure. And this amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations.308[308]309[309] Though Sartre says that man is condemned to freedom, which is anarchic, absurd, a hell, hell is also other people. Sartrean philosophy proclaims the social impossibility of interpersonal love. Sartres philosophical atomism dictates that the presence of anyone else is an intolerable situation. There was not much he could do about the indignity of being surrounded by a world of other free individuals. He could not free himself from their circumscribing looks and intrusions into his lifeAccording to Sartre, the interpersonal relation is one of isolation; its social atmosphere is one of conflict. While I attempt to free myself from the hold of the other, the other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the other, the other seeks to enslave me Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others. 310[310] And the first hostile act in the conflict is inflicted by the look, The other as look dispossesses me, steals my freedom, reduces me to an object to be used for his interests. The other breaks into my egocentric consciousness, reveals to me my nakedness, limitations, contingency. Indeed, the other regarding me as I cannot regard myself, holds a secret against me. The other haunts me continually with the suspicion of the existence of the Absolute Other. Why? Because the essential interpersonal conflict over unification in love is the same sort of illusion as the conflict of contradictory beingsen-soi-pour-soiin God. It follows that love is as impossible as God. There can be no love, therefore there is no love between human beings. How does Sartre explain this impossibility? I can never get inside the others subjectivity. We are intrusions into each others lives, without ever being able to control each others freedom or subjecthood. And love is the project seeking this control. Thus, the interpersonal relationship remains essentially one of isolation while paradoxically functioning as attack and counterattack to reduce each other into objects through the complete domination of the others liberty. Unity with the other is, therefore, unrealizable both in theory and fact. Its realization would necessarily entail, as in Hegels dialectically evolving Spirit, the annihilation through absorption of the other.
308[308] 309[309]

J. P. SARTRE, Being and Nothingness, Methuen and Co., London, 1966, p. 627. V. MICELI, op. cit., pp. 226-227. 310[310] J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 364.

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Now love is the primitive relation to the other. It is mans project for possessing not merely the body, but the liberty, the whole person of the other. Love wants to reduce the other to being a freedom subject to my freedom.311[311] Love, as a unification or fusion of two freedoms, is destined to eternal frustration. In all his novels and plays, Sartres characters try to engulf the freedom of the other. But though separation is surpassed, isolation is never surmounted even in the most intimate of relations. Lovers strive to become absolutes, the ultimate meaning of life to each other. Instead they remain outsiders, strangers to each other. My original fall is the existence of the other, Sartre writes. 312 [312] For, in terrible reality, to love is to choose to be either dominant or dominated, or each in turn. At its maddest extremes, love may drive one to transform himself for the pleasure of the other into a thing; love then becomes masochism. Or at the opposite extreme of madness, love may attempt to pulverize the other for its own pleasure and power; love then becomes sadism. But these perversions are merely the bipolar sexual extremes of the love-project which is inherently contradictory. Love is the futile, endless attempt to merge two bodies, two liberties, two selves. This sado-masochistic love-project pervades the whole work of Sartre as an ineradicable stain. Every other subject for him is a drain through which my universe leaks away. Others steal my world, my person, my liberty. And the persons in his drama Huis Clos (No Exit) discover to their despairing frustration that "L'enfer, c'est les Autres; Hell is other people. Adams original sin or fall was not the eating of the apple; it was the arrival of Eve. For sin, as the failure and fall of mans being, is the presence of others. Now far from reconciling me to myself, the intrusion of others shocks me into a realization of the cleavage within my own conscience. In Sartre we are back again to Hegels and Nietzsches Master and Slave relationship and morality. The lover seeks the mastery of his beloved whom he must enslave; he demands the beloveds freedom first and foremost.313[313] From the enterprise of seduction, which begins with the look, through language, indifference, desire, to the perversions of hate, masochism and sadism, Sartre has few peers as an analyst of the techniques used by man to dehumanize his fellow man. Thus love in Sartre displays a triple power of destructibility. First, it deceives man into striving to become the Absolute Other, to attain a
311[311] 312[312]

J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 366. J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 263. 313[313] J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 370.

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unification hopelessly out of reach. Thus it begets in man perpetual dissatisfaction. Second, through love the other reduces me to an object, thereby afflicting me with perpetual insecurity. Third, the presence of many others besides my beloved threatens our mutual, absolute relationship thereby arousing in us perpetual shame.314[314] In the final analysis, life for Sartre is absurd and he accuses people of being cowards for believing that life has some kind of meaning and goal to which our efforts should be directed to. One man strives to become a great author, another hopes to be a great leader of his country, another dreams of being a successful businessman, and yet another strives to help others with the wealth he has acquired, believing that in doing so he will be happy. But Sartre objects that all these are merely absurd projections of the for-itself trying vainly to become an in-itself. As it will be impossible for man to become a god, so too will it be impossible for him to become a happy man, or a successful man, or a happy man. All of his projections are inevitably doomed to failure. Man, he says, must honestly and courageously admit that life is absurd, that there is an insurmountable divide between the pour-soi and the en-soi, between what we expect from life and what life can actually offer us. We can only renounce all eternal ambition. Unlike Nietzsche who blames Christianity for destroying life, Sartre takes the opposite view: he blames Christianity for the deadly esprit de srieux, the spirit of seriousness. Christianity, he maintains, should be condemned for giving life a meaning when there is no such meaning. Since man is by nature nothingness, all he can in the end do is nothingness. He believes that it is the task of existentialism to abolish this false spirit of seriousness. To attack and mock all values, to scoff at religion, to despise country, creed and even revolution, is the ultimate task of the existentialist, says Sartre. The drunkard who drinks himself senseless, he believes, is in fact more existentially authentic than the president of a country who deludes himself with the esprit de serieux, in the solemn belief that he is accomplishing great things and bettering the world. For Sartre, it is the former who is authentic while the latter is in bad faith. Though Sartres influence among the youth has been immense (he has destroyed, and is still destroying, the lives of countless people), I
314[314]

V. MICELI, op. cit., pp. 228-230. Cf. J. P. SARTRE, op. cit., p. 377.

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believe that his brazen, scandalous sophistry has driven many fencesitting, lukewarm Christians to a new resolve to come to the defense of God and absolute values, for the disastrous consequences of his nihilistic atheism on the human person and on society is soberingly clear. Sartres philosophy is a doctrine of frustration, despair, suicide, isolation, hate, and absurdity,the philosophy of hell. Marcel The French existentialist-personalist Gabriel Marcel 315[315] (1889-1973) was born in Paris and early on adhered to the tenets of idealism, later shifting to existentialism. In 1929 he converted to Catholicism. His principal works include the Metaphysical Journal (1927), Being and Having (1935), Homo Viator (1944), and The Mystery of Being (1951). He died in Paris in 1973. Marcel considered his philosophy to be a type of Christian Socratism. Metaphysics is, for him, a search for being and underlines that the philosopher is personally involved in this search. Truth becomes a personal experience. Being enjoys a double primacy: in confrontation with thought and in confrontation with having. Man is an itinerant and incarnated being. One arrives at transcendence by means of intuition : man is made for God. The New Hermeneutics The New Hermeneutics, whose main exponents include Gadamer and Habermas, conceives of philosophy as a re-reading and interpretation of texts, traditions, schools of thought, and philosophical systems. The precursor of this new philosophy is the Protestant liberal theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher316[316] (1768-1834); its father is the historicist Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). Unlike the Old Hermeneutics of the Ancient and Scholastic period, the New Hermeneutics makes the subject interpreter directly involved in the interpretation. Its exponents apply the theory of interpretation which the transcendental idealist Kant
315[315]

P. PRINI, Gabriel Marcel e la metodologia dellinverificabile, Studium, Rome, 1977 ; G. RICCIARDI, Il socratismo cristiano di Gabriel Marcel , Japadre, LAquila, 1983 ; F. RIVA, Corpo e metafora in Gabriel Marcel , Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1985 ; F. RIVA, Essere e avere di Marcel e il dibattito su esistenza ed essere nellesistenzialismo, Paravia, Turin, 1990. 316[316] J. NEUMANN, Schleiermacher, Berlin, 1936 ; R. B. BRANDT, The Philosophy of Schleiermacher , New York, 1941.

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had prescribed for the theory of knowledge: the priority of the subject over the object, which becomes, in the New Hermeneutics, the priority of the interpreter over the text. The most complete exposition of the New Hermeneutics comes from the German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer who saw hermeneutics as the permanent condition of human thought inasmuch as it is necessarily historical thought. Gadamer The classical text exposition of the New Hermeneutics is contained in Hans Georg Gadamers most famous work, Truth and Method, first published in 1960. In this work he writes of the institution of an hermeneutic circle which comes to be created between interpreters and the text interpreted. The goal of hermeneutics is to grasp the meaning of the text. The interpreter manages to do this, not in an absolute way, but rather starting from a certain mental situation, that is, from the horizon of comprehension of his culture with certain preconceptions, prejudices and expectations. Comprehension is always accomplished through a certain cosmo-vision that is already given in the language and culture of the interpreter. Through these initial prejudices and pre-comprehension the interpreter gives us a first interpretation of the text. Such an interpretation of the text is nothing but our conjecture upon the message or content of the text, upon what the text says. The so-called hermeneutic circle arises when after an initial interpretation, necessarily imperfect, there comes another, and then another (in one or more interpreters). The horizon of comprehension is enlarged and a hermeneutic circle is begun, like the growing reel of thread on a fishing line or an enlarging ball of thread. Such a circle goes on to infinity for one is never able to attain to an absolute comprehension of the thing being interpreted. In essence, Gadamers system is a linguistic, existentialist historicism. Conclusion The scientific technological revolution that man has witnessed in the past hundred years, especially during the last decades before the beginning this new millennium, has obviously transformed his life. Science has given us, for example, nuclear power which has greatly expanded mans dominion over the forces of nature, a domination which man had only superficially but a mere century ago. Today, man has the
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capacity to produce creature comforts for literally billions of people which would easily surpass the luxuries of the privileged few living centuries ago. But though man has this ability to alleviate human suffering and increase creature comforts, he also has the sobering capacity to end life on earth with a few hundred well-placed nuclear bombs out of an immense present-day arsenal of tens of thousands of ballistic missiles positioned around the globe. This greater dominion over the forces of nature which man possesses today is indeed a positive development, but the explosion of newer and newer scientific discoveries and more and more sophisticated and advanced technologies, as well as mans obsessive concern with these scientific advancements, has created a situation wherein, though man has the zeal and capability to develop more and more technological wonders, the very ethical norms, standards, and objective absolutes which must guide and govern science and technology has suffered an eclipse. There has indeed been a catastrophic confusion and one can even speak of a systematic suppression of mans philosophical-sapiential knowledge which must prudently govern the sciences. The tremendous problem confronting man in the third millennium is not the rapid progress of science and technology but rather the prudent, wise, and ethical use of these discoveries and technologies. These many scientific discoveries and technologies are but means, and not ends in themselves. Science and technology is for man and not man for science and technology. They must be used by man in a theocentric way: for the glory of the Creator. But sadly, so many have become veritable slaves of technological scientism, an erroneous way of thinking quite different from the scientific discoveries themselves. For technological scientism the highest and most valuable knowledge is mathematical-empirical knowledge. Such a knowledge is utilized by science in order to assure a complete dominion over the forces of nature. The technological scientistic mentality then, in a methodical pragmatic way, organizes these discoveries and technologies which provide man with a dominion over nature, in order to provide him with as much creature comforts as possible, utilizing elaborate and impressive standards of efficiency in order to assure a maximum amount of profit on the part of those in control of these new scientific discoveries and technological advancements.
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Technological scientism has its remote roots in the anthropocentric scientism of Bacon and the rationalist mechanism of Descartes. There had been a Platonic revival in the Renaissance and there arose once again a push towards a reduction of all physical reality in the cosmos to its mathematical intelligibility. We also find at the same period in history a fierce revival of anthropocentrism where man, once again as in pagan times, becomes the measure of all things, all scientific and cultural accomplishments being for the glorification of man and not for God. We find such an anthropocentric and scientistic spirit in Bacon and in the rationalist Descartes, the founder of modern philosophical immanentism. From the Renaissance onwards anthropocentrism, science, and mathematics increasingly took center stage throughout all of Western civilization. Since quantity is the most basic accident of corporeal substances, it would reasonably follow that the use of mathematics, the science of abstract or pure quantity, to the study of corporeal beings, would be of immense help in the advancement of the physical sciences. But what happened was that an excessive and obsessive concern for a mathematical analysis of the physical world led many minds to make the realm of the physical sciences intrude into the realm of metaphysics, and thus, a scientistic reductionism took place making mathematics and mathematical-empirical knowledge the first philosophy instead of metaphysics which is the science of being as being and is the rightful king of the human sciences. Mathematics now replaces metaphysics as first philosophy. We see this very clearly in the rationalist and mechanistic philosophy of Descartes. The glorification of mathematical-empirical knowledge over metaphysics, of mathematics over the science of being as being, had convinced many to identify the sensible, quantifiable, material universe with the totality of reality, with nothing transcending it. Mechanism became the fashion throughout Europe and inquiries into the processes of human understanding began to replace metaphysical treatises. Human knowing began to replace being itself. The being of things in the cosmos underwent a transformation into being as known by the human mind. Men began to concern themselves solely with the corporeal beings of this world; what undergoes an eclipse is the desire to know the first causes and ultimate principles of all things, which is the proper task of first philosophy, head of the human sciences.
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Francis Bacon wrote that knowledge is power. This is the new attitude towards the highest form of human knowledge: not anymore something intended for the discovery of the first principles and ultimate causes of all things, and for the glorification of God, but rather a knowledge that is to be practical and utilitarian, enabling man to have control and dominion over his environment, to have a mastery over the forces of nature. Speculative knowledge is despised in favor of practical, useful knowledge. Action and domination over the things of the cosmos are praised over and above the contemplation of absolute truth. Eternal truths and transcendent reality is mocked and despised in favor of action and production towards the glorification of man himself. Praxis would have its primacy over theory, a rule to be followed by the marxist communists, secular humanists and liberal pragmatists centuries later. From the anthropocentric Renaissance onwards one witnesses the progressive development of one type of human knowledge technical-instrumental knowledge to unheard of heights, especially in the last hundred years. But the obsessive concern of this one type of human knowledge has greatly underdeveloped, and even suppressed, the other dimensions of mans intelligence. The first among these other dimensions is the highest and most profound type of human knowing, which is none other than philosophical-sapiential knowledge. The many ethical disasters that we have seen especially in the last hundred years or so are a direct result of the suffocation and even systematic suppression of these other very important dimensions of mans mind such as the metaphysical knowledge of being, an epistemology rooted in a methodical realism, and an ethics which takes into account the reality of finality, virtues, and the existence of moral absolutes and intrinsically evil acts. The technical-instrumental knowledge which man is capable of permits him to dominate the object at hand and to orient himself in his own environment. Such a knowledge guarantees his survival in an often hostile environment; it also enables him to satisfy his most basic needs. It is a practical knowledge which produces concepts, intuits the various relations between things and ideas, grasps the real order of the physical world in which he operates in, always with the objective of dominating and controlling the forces of nature. What is the role of concepts and words regarding technical-instrumental knowledge? They become the
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powerful instruments of man to dominate and possess the corporeal cosmos. On the other hand, the philosophical-sapiential knowledge that we are capable of developing is not concerned with the practical use of words and concepts for the domination of the forces of nature and for the acquisition of creature comforts; rather, it endeavours to grasp the first principles and ultimate causes of all things. It attempts to fathom the profound significance of human existence, of mans immortal soul, of death and the eternal destiny of the human person. This knowledge utilizes words and concepts, not in order to tame nature, but to know the last end of man and the Ultimate End and First Cause of the entire universe. What has happened during the last few centuries, especially during the last hundred years or so? The development to a very high degree of the technical-instrumental knowledge of man, reinforced by the awesome and undeniable accomplishments of science and technology, has to a great extent underdeveloped, and one can even say suppressed, the other dimensions of the human intelligence, above all the most important type of knowledge which must guide and direct the other types of knowledge: mans philosophical-sapiential knowledge. So, man today is capable of constructing nuclear submarines, newer and faster supersonic jet-fighters, hundred storey steel and glass skyscrapers, and is able to provide the consumer with 50 different types of beers to choose from. But, on the other hand, contemporary man remains confused and baffled by the questions of human existence, the real value of human life, the real meaning of freedom which cannot ever be separated from the truth, the problem of death and of his eternal destiny with or away from his Creator. Unless man begins to develop his philosophical-sapiential knowledge to a level sufficient to theocentrically guide and prudently govern his practical know-how, he will continue to witness ethical nightmares, wholesale violations of human rights, murders and social chaos, and a wallowing in the sickening mire of pragmatism, secular humanism, nihilism, and relativism that continues to destroy men and societies who have forsaken their God.

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Footnotes:

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