Philosophia OSAKA No.7

ISSN 1880-862X
Philoso
No.7
2012
Philosophia
OSAKA
No. 7 March 2012
phia
Contents
Theses
Philosophia
Wiep van BUNGE
Spinoza and the Netherlands
Wiep van BUNGE

Spinoza and the Collegiants
Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN
OSAKA
Reasoning and its limits
Hitoshi NAGAI
Why Isnt Consciousness Real? (2) (translated by Shogo SHIMIZU)
OSAKA
Waka YOSHINAGA
Le supplment et le vide pour lautre :
la possibilit de lhtro-affection chez Derrida
Yukio IRIE
Identity Sentences as Answers to Questions
Yasuyuki FUNABA
Zum Kongress als einer willkrlichen,
zu aller Zeit auflslichen Zusammentretung
OSAKA
Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture

University
Division of Studies on Cultural Forms

Graduate School of Letters
No.7 2012
OSAKA UNIVERSITY
OSAKA University
1111-0319 Philosophia 7 1-4

Philosophia
OSAKA
No. 7
Edited by
Osamu U ENO
Yukio I RIE
Norihide S UTO
Yasuyuki F UNABA

OSAKA UNIVERSITY
March 2012
Note from the Editors
The editors are pleased to present this 7th volume of Philosophia OSAKA. The journal is a single
annual volume, including articles on various topics of philosophy currently produced by the specialists
affiliated with OSAKA UNIVERSITY. It will cover not only studies of modern and contemporary
philosophy, but also studies addressing current issues in ethics. Submissions are not accepted unless
specifically requested.
The editors of Philosophia OSAKA are:
Osamu UENO
Yukio IRIE
Norihide SUTO
Yasuyuki FUNABA
The editorial office is:

OSAKA UNIVERSITY
1-5 Machikaneyama-cho
Toyonaka-shi
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560-8532 JAPAN
Email: funacho@let.osaka-u.ac.jp
http://www.let.osaka-u.ac.jp/english/graduate/
Contents
Theses
Wiep van B UNGE

Spinoza and the Netherlands .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
Wiep van B UNGE
Spinoza and the Collegiants .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (13)
Kanit (Mitinunwong) S IRICHAN
Reasoning and its limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (31)
Hitoshi N AGAI
Why Isnt Consciousness Real? (2) (translated by Shogo SHIMIZU).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (47)
Waka Y OSHINAGA
Le supplment et le vide pour lautre :
la possibilit de lhtro-affection chez Derrida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (65)
Yukio I RIE
Identity Sentences as Answers to Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (79)
Yasuyuki F UNABA
Zum Kongress als einer willkrlichen,
zu aller Zeit auflslichen Zusammentretung .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (95)

OSAKA UNIVERSITY
Philosophia OSAKA No.7, 2012
Wiep van BUNGE (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Introduction
Historians of philosophy pursue a wide variety of different goals: while some of us are
mostly interested in establishing predominantly textual facts, and as a consequence spend
most of our time editing texts, others are interested in the history of philosophy for strictly
philosophical reasons. To the extent that the results produced by members of the former
category are perceived as supplying their colleagues pertaining to the latter category with
the materials to work with, both types of historians would seem to be looking primarily
for philosophical truths. A third group of historians of philosophy, however, is commonly
referred to as intellectual historians. They prefer to regard their efforts as part of a more
broadly historical quest: they are mainly concerned not to deliver any philosophical truths,
but rather to come up with interpretative hypotheses relating to the varying historical
functions a certain text or a philosophical oeuvre may have had throughout the ages, the
changing roles these texts played, the different purposes they served.
I have come to prefer this third approach, and I would to hate cause offence at a
conference organised by philosophers, but I must admit that I would rather be taken seriously
by fellow historians than by my fellow philosophers. Still, historians of philosophy or
intellectual historians primarily concerned with the historical meaning of texts are bound
by the same conceptual demands philosophers obey. Over the last few decades the most
influential school of thought among intellectual historians has been the Cambridge School
in the history of Political Thought. It owes its methodology largely to a sustained reflection
on such concepts as intention, causality, meaning, understanding and context.
John Dunns and Quentin Skinners celebrated papers on method could never have been
written had it not been for J.L. Austins How to do Things with Words and Wittgensteins
Philosophical Investigations. Both Austins insistence on the need to regard language as a
tool for action and Wittgensteins conception of meaning as resulting from use have procured
intellectual history with a philosophical basis of its own, as did their analysis of the particular
Most relevant texts are to be found in James Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context. Quentin Skinner
and his Critics (Cambridge, 1988). See also Richard Rorty, J.B. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner
(eds.), Philosophy in History. Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge, 1984), and
more recently, Tom Sorrell and G.A.J. Rogers (eds.), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy
(Cambridge, 2005). Theres also an interesting intellectual biography available: Kari Palonen, Quentin
Skinner. History, Politics, Rhetoric (Cambridge, 2003).
Wiep van BUNGE
importance to be attached to the contexts in which texts are being written and read, since it is
precisely these contexts which enable us to capture their use, that is their meaning.
1. The Netherlands and Spinoza

Moving to my topic of Spinoza and the Netherlands, two separate questions present
themselves: what did the Netherlands mean to Spinoza, and reversely, what did Spinoza
mean to the Netherlands? As far as the first question is concerned, it would seem obvious that
the Dutch Republic represented first and foremost a safe haven for the De Spinoza family,
after its flight from Portugal. It enabled the Spinozas to make a living as merchants and to
reconstruct their Jewish identity. We all know the passage in the TTP, celebrating the freedom
Amsterdam was offering its citizens. The title page of his introduction to Cartesianism,
the only book Spinoza was able to publish under his own name, proudly refers to its author
as Amstelodamensis. Spinozas sedimentary lifestyle only adds further significance to his
commitment to the Netherlands: unlike Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Bayle, and Leibniz, he
never left the country in which he was born. We know of only a single occasion at which he
left the province of Holland for a brief journey, when in 1673 he visited Utrecht in a failed
attempt to meet the prince de Cond, but the circumstances of this diplomatic mission are
still shrouded in mystery.
Unless I am mistaken, however, the decisive element in Spinozas relationship to the
Republic was the novelty of this budding state, which by the time Spinoza had reached
maturity, was famously characterised as the envy of some, the fear of others, and the wonder
of all their neighbours. At the time Spinoza was born, however, it was still fighting for its
international recognition, that was only achieved in 1648, and the state which emerged from
the Revolt was not the realisation of any particular idea. No blueprints were available, it was
rather the unforeseen outcome of a series of clashes with Spanish troops as well as of an
extremely violent civil war raging in the province of Holland in particular. Following the
stunning economic successes of what soon would be termed the Golden Age of the Dutch
Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus. Trans. Samuel Shirley (Leiden etc., 1989), p. 298.
Steven Nadler, Spinoza. A Life (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 316-319.
Sir William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands, ed. Sir George
Clark (Oxford, 1972), p. 1.

See, most recently Henk van Nierop, Treason in the Northern Quarter. War, Terror and the Rule
of Law in the Dutch Revolt (Princeton N.J., 2009). The best general survey is Jonathan I. Israel, The
Dutch Republic. Its Greatness and Fall, 1477-1808 (Oxford, 1995). See, on its cultural history, Karel
Davids and Jan Lucassen (eds.), A Miracle Mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European Perspective
(Cambridge, 1996); Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Assen-Basingstoke,
2004); Maarten Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2005).
Republic, many twentieth-century historians have concentrated on the modernity of the

Dutch Republic, but from a constitutional perspective it was essentially a late medieval state,
in which local and provincial elites successfully preserved their ancient privileges, enabling
them to translate their financial prowess into political power. Again Spinoza in the TTP
provides an interesting illustration, referring to the illegitimate claims of the king of Spain,
posing as count of Holland. Everybody knew that the last real count of Holland, Floris
V, had died in 1296, and as early as 1610, Grotius had argued that it was only among the
successors of the indigenous House of Holland that the original sovereignty of the States had
been questioned.
From a contemporary perspective, on the other hand, much in the Dutch Republic must
have looked very new indeed, for this ancient political infrastructure harboured, for instance,
a stunning confessional diversity, predominantly Protestant, but including a large Catholic
community and a small Jewish congregation. The Amsterdam community of Portuguese
sefardim was only established, however, in the early seventeenth century. It was made up of
refugees facing the challenge to reinvent a way of life that had been denied to them for some
eight generations: following the forced conversion to Christianity which got under way from
the late fourteenth century onward first in Spain and subsequently also in Portugal, so-called
new Christians of Jewish descent had been transmitting a cultural and intellectual heritage
that had been outlawed.
The conversos families who settled in Amsterdam during the early 1600s often found
it very difficult to decide what this heritage actually demanded of them. During the first
decades of its existence, the Portuguese community often had to seek advice from more
established Jewish communities and their leaders, including most notably the Venetian rabbi
Leon de Modena. Saul Levi Morteira, one of Modenas pupils gradually managed to establish
rabbinical authority, but it was only by the 1650s that Morteira, together with Menasseh ben
Israel, finally succeeded in acquiring some prestige beyond the Jewish world. At the same
time, the Portuguese community remained acutely aware of the exceptional position it held in
Amsterdam, and indications are that its leaders went out of their way not to cause offence to
their Christian hosts. This may help to explain the eagerness with which the local elderlies,
the parnassim, excommunicated members whose unruly conduct could draw attention
Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, p. 279.

Hugo Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, ed. Jan Waszink a.o. (Dordrecht, 2000), Ch.
5-7.
The literature is immense, and most of it is to be found in my Baruch of Benedictus? Spinoza en de
marranen, Mededelingen vanwege Het Spinozahuis 81 (2001) and Spinozas Jewish Identity and
the Use of Context, Studia Spinozana 13 (1997) [=2003], pp. 100-117. Steven Nadler has taken issue
with my conclusions regarding the relevance of Spinozas Jewish background: The Jewish Spinoza,
Journal of the History of Ideas 70 (2009), pp. 491-510.
Wiep van BUNGE
to the community at large. As will be only too familiar, during the seventeenth century
some 200 people were banned by the Amsterdam parnassim for one reason or another. So
as long as we do not know exactly why in 1656 the young Spinoza was banned, both the
internal insecurities as well as the external pressure on the Jewish community living near the
Vlooienburg may help to explain why he was punished so severely at such an early age, for
there is nothing to suggest that by the mid 1650s Spinoza spawned anything resembling a
genuine philosophy of his own.
Of course, I am not implying that if the Portuguese community of Amsterdam had
been more stable, more self-confident perhaps, Spinozas ban could have been prevented.
(Just as it has been argued that had it not been for Menassehs journey to London, Spinoza
might have been saved by his former teacher.) I find it difficult to imagine the author of
the Tractatus theologico-politicus an observant member of Menassehs congregation. Then
again, one might wonder what the Tractatus theologico-politicus would have looked like, had
Spinoza not been excommunicated as early as he was and in the way that he was?
A second novel aspect of life in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, that appears
to have been crucial to Spinozas Werdegang concerned its academic culture, which was the
immediate and very recent outcome of the Revolt itself. Faced with the necessity to educate a
home grown professional class of theologians, lawyers and physicians, from 1575 to 1648 the
cities of Leiden, Franeker, Groningen, Utrecht and Harderwijk inaugurated universities, some
of which soon were excellent. Most of all, however, they were newly established, and this
definitely held considerable advantages, in particular to philosophers. Thus it could come to
pass that as early as the1640s at Utrecht and at Leiden University the philosophia vetus started
crumbling to be replaced by the philosophia nova, which in most cases was quite simply
the philosophy of Descartes, who had spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic.10
At a time in which the more ancient Catholic universities of Europe were still dominated by
Peripateticism, Dutch universities found it relatively easy to abandon Aristotelianism, owing
to the lack of any deep rooted Aristotelian tradition. In a much quoted phrase, Adrien Baillet,
in his late seventeenth-century biography of Descartes would have it that Utrecht University,
in 1636, was actually ne cartsienne11: Cartesian from its very incipience.
By the time Spinoza grew interested in philosophy both Leiden and Utrecht University
had appointed a series of young, brilliant and very promising professors all dedicated to
the cause of this new philosophy, and by the time Spinoza started to publish, Cartesianism
Paul Dibon, LEnseignement philosophique dans les universits nerlandaises lpoque pr-
cartsienne, 1575-1650 (Leiden, 1954).
10 Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch. Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637-1650
(Edwardsville, 1992).
11 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de M. Des Cartes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1691), II, p. 2.
had turned very much into the normal academic school of thought in philosophy. This is
not to say that during the second half of the seventeenth century Aristotelianism vanished
altogether from the academic curricula a handful of popular professors continued to
uphold Peripateticism for several decades. What is more, many Dutch Cartesians held
views Descartes would have abhorred the example of Descartes one time ally Henricus
Regius will be only too familiar.12 But during the 1660s and 1670s in Leiden as well in
Utrecht, and also in Groningen and Franeker, key notions from the Aristotelian conceptual
vocabulary had become definitely unfashionable and most of its critics were acutely aware
of belonging to a faction if you will, a party, a group of scholars and scientists with a
common cause.13 Spinoza must have had every opportunity to become acquainted with this
Cartesian revolution while he was still living in Amsterdam. Amsterdam friends of Spinoza
such as Lodewijk Meyer and the Koerbagh brothers studied with the main proponents of
Cartesianism at Leiden and Utrecht. Living in Rijnsburg enabled him to visit Leiden on a
daily basis, and while his name does not occur in the Album studiosorum, most experts agree
that he must have taken regular classes, for instance with De Raey, perhaps with Geulincx.14
The simple fact that in 1663 he was able to compose his introduction to Cartesianism in just
a few weeks time clearly demonstrates the extent to which at an early age he had mastered
Descartes philosophy.
A third aspect of life in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic that could perhaps be
identified as particularly meaningful in relation to Spinozas philosophy could perhaps be
found in its relatively egalitarian social make up. I only offer this as a suggestion, but I know
Jonathan Israel for instance adds great importance to the apparent lack of the essentially
feudal social hierarchy which during the Old Regime still structured social life in Germany,
England, and certainly in France.15 The budding Republic allowed for a remarkable social
mobility, and while some regent families could boast noble pedigrees, most of them could
not. First, the Netherlands were simply too small to accommodate massive land holdings.
The nobility that had actually survived the Revolt several of the most illustrious indigenous
families had perished was superseded by merchants operating in Holland and Zeeland,
12 Theo Verbeek (ed.), Descartes et Regius. Autour de lExplication de lEsprit humain (Amsterdam-
Atlanta, 1993).
13 From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Leiden-
Boston, 2001), Ch. 2.

14 Nadler, Spinoza, Ch. 8.
15 Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750
(Oxford, 2001), Ch. 3 and 4. See, on the notion of the burger: Remieg Aerts and Henk te Velde
(eds.), De stijl van de burger. Over Nederlandse burgerlijke cultuur vanaf de Middeleeuwen (Kampen,
1998); Joost Kloek and Karin Tilmans (eds.), Burger. Een geschiedenis van het begrip burger in de
Nederlanden van de Middeleeuwen tot de 21ste eeuw (Amsterdam, 2002).
Wiep van BUNGE
whose sense of decorum was defined not by the moral codes of the European aristocracy, but
of the burgher. Foreign observers were shocked to find out that the mayor of Amsterdam,
who incidentally was just as rich and certainly as powerful as many of his noble counterparts
elsewhere in Europe, every morning simply took a walk to City Hall. (To this day some of
our ministers of state take their bike to work.)
I must admit that I find it hazardous to link this relative lack of social hierarchy to
Spinozas mature political philosophy let alone to what could be called his horizontal
metaphysics, and I also feel the real differences between life at the Keizersgracht, where
the Amsterdam elite was residing and the slums where the poor were housed should not
be underestimated. What is more, the regent class of merchants by the second half of the
seventeenth century was quickly turning into a pretty aristocratic social class itself, but when
all is said and done, the Dutch were living in a Republic and Spinoza surely was some sort of
republican.16 No doubt more could be said about the meaning of the Dutch Republic, and
more in particular of its relative youth to Spinozas life and work, if only on account of the
fact that the large majority of Spinozas first readers were of course abhorred by his views:
apparently, to most contemporaries he represented something decidedly foreign, strange, and
even very dangerous. And at least one major specialist of the Golden Age still insists that
Spinoza had little to say to his countrymen.17
2. Spinoza and the Netherlands

But lets now turn to the issue of what Spinoza may have meant to the Netherlands. Which
role did he play in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, what purpose can be ascribed
to Dutch Spinozism and the reactions it provoked? In view of the many studies which have
appeared from the 1980s onwards on the early reception of Spinoza - first, I should add, in
Germany it now seems quite clear that in spite of the general revulsion his work met with,
Spinozas philosophy had a larger impact on his contemporaries than scholars had been
prepared to admit for a long time.
Of course, Spinozas first admirers may well have had very different reasons for
becoming Spinozists themselves if only since they were very different people: devout
Mennonites from Amsterdam, such as Jelles, Balling and De Vries; Amsterdam freethinkers
such as Meyer and Johan and Adriaan Koerbagh; distinguished lawyers and ministers from
The Hague, such as Cuffeler and Van Balen, and outright libertines such as the pornographer
16 See,most recently, Raia Prokhovnik, Spinoza and Republicanism (Basingstoke, 2004).

17 A.Th. van Deursen, De last van veel geluk. De geschiedenis van Nederland, 1555-1702 (Amsterdam,
2004), p. 307.
Adriaan Beverland. And then there are Calvinists, such as Leenhoff and Van Hattem; and,
finally, the anonymous authors of such infamous texts as the Vervolg op het Leven van
Philopater (1697) and the LEsprit de Spinosa (1719), also known as the Trait des trois
imposteurs. Together, these authors were among the first exponents of what Jonathan Israel,
following Margaret Jacob, has termed the radical Enlightenment. According to Israel, this
was an essentially secular movement, out to destroy theological authority. Well before the
publication of Radical Enlightenment, I have argued that we are best advised to distinguish
between two separate strands or tendencies within this early, radical Enlightenment, and I
still feel that the differences between, say: Jelles and Baling on the one hand, and the authors
of the Vervolg op het Leven van Philopater and the LEsprit de Spinosa are more interesting
than their similarities.18
However, one element which seems to have united all early Dutch Spinozists, appears
to have been the desire to put an end to theological and confessional debates resulting in
political strife. They all seem to have shared a deep felt revulsion over the way in which
theological disputes had been spilling over to the political domain, and had more often than
not resulted into violence. In the Dutch Republic, Spinozas philosophy appears to have
been perceived by some contemporaries as a way out of the perpetual theological conflicts
wrecking the state. Its promise to deliver a philosophical vocabulary capable of answering the
Ultimate Questions, which was just as certain and indubitable as Euclidean geometry must
have had a huge appeal to some. Here at last, or so Spinozas friends seem to have thought,
was a view of the world, of God, man and his well-being which excluded the interpretative
uncertainties Scripture continued to yield. Here at last was a philosophy which could make
an end to the sectarianism, that was widely considered a continuing threat to the stability of
the republic.19
Lets not forget that the entire history of this young Dutch Republic which lacked any
strong central authority and which never had a State Church either had been marred by
discordia: from the Synod of Dordt in 1619 to Willem IIs attack on Amsterdam in 1650
to the chaos resulting from the French invasion of 1672 and the assassination of Johan and
Cornelis de Witt, the fear of civil discord never withered. The disastrous consequences of
civil war had been spelt out convincingly by Justus Lipsius in the 1580s already: the loose,
federal character of the United Provinces hardly guaranteed political stability, and in a very
real sense, the entire history of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic was a quest for
concordia, for as the motto of the States General had it and has it to this day: Concordia
res parvae crescunt. In Dutch: Eendracht maakt macht.
18 Wiep van Bunge, Spinozistische vrijdenkers in de Republiek, Rekenschap 45 (1998), pp. 103-116.
19 Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, Ch. 5.
Wiep van BUNGE
Meanwhile, the reputation of mathematics as a discipline uniquely capable of delivering

indubitable truths was also very strong in the Netherlands. At least from Simon Stevin
onwards, generations of civil and military engineers, architects, seafaring captains and
the accountants managing the leading trading houses of Holland and Zeeland had been
trained in (applied) mathematics at a considerable level.20 When Descartes first settled in
the Netherlands, he did so in order to study mathematics with Metius at Franeker, and one
of the reasons why Descartes own philosophy of nature quickly came to be regarded as the
most viable alternative to competing schools of thought was precisely the promise it held of
mathematical exactitude. Once Spinoza launched a philosophy, grounded in Cartesianism,
which refused to make a halt before the barriers Descartes had still acknowledged to exist
between natural philosophy and the domains of theology and politics, some Dutchmen must
have felt that now at last, the very source of so many theologico-political conflicts could be
neutralised.
Among Spinozas first critics, again, each and every one had his own axe to grind.
Arminians such as the Remonstrant minister Jacobus Batelier were of course particularly
concerned to point to the disastrous consequences of Spinozas determinism. Most of his
critics, meanwhile, were Cartesians, and it is easy to see why this should be so. Not only
were Van Mansvelt, Van Bleijenbergh, Wittichius and Bayle fervently trying to dissociate
Cartesianism from Spinozism, by demonstrating how Descartes philosophy had been
perverted by Spinoza, they must also have been glad to be finally able to prove their mettle
as apologists.21 At no stage since Descartes had presented his Meditations to the Sorbonne
as an antidote to atheism, his followers were presented with such an excellent opportunity to
play out Descartes arguments for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. For
now at last they were facing a philosopher whose conception of God and the human mind
hardly resembled the essentially supernatural, providential Creator and the immaterial soul
cultivated in the Christian tradition and confirmed by Descartes metaphysics.
As far as the Dutch preoccupation with Spinozism is concerned, however, it should be
stressed that it largely and quickly disappeared during the eighteenth century: Historians
of philosophy have traditionally pointed to the rise of Newtonianism, that was seized upon
at a very early stage by critics of Spinoza, and it is certainly true that even at Leiden and
Utrecht by the 1720s Cartesianism was dead and buried.22 Its success had been as swift as it
20 Ibid.,
Ch. 1.
21 Ibid.,
Ch. 4.
22 See, for instance, Gerhard Wiesenfeldt, Leerer Raum in Minervas Haus. Experimentelle
Naturlehre an der Universitt Leiden, 1675-1715 (Amsterdam, 2002), and on the early stages of
Dutch Newtonianism: Rienk Vermij, The Formation of the Newtonian Philosophy. The Case of the
Amsterdam Mathematical Amateurs, The British Journal for the History of Science 36 (2003), pp.
was short-lived. But no cultural historian could possibly be satisfied with this answer, which
basically describes an eighteenth-century state of affairs. For how are we to understand the
apparent failure of Dutch Spinozism to make a lasting impact? To a cultural historian the
fact that there are no indications of any substantial interest in Spinoza among eighteenth-
century Dutchmen should make us wonder about the purpose Spinozism had been serving
during the final decades of the seventeenth-century. As it happens, most Dutch Enlightenment
experts seem to agree that during the early decades of the eighteenth century, the need for
a radical, Spinozistic Enlightenment had evaporated, and the dialectics separating orthodox
Protestants from radical dissenters came to be replaced by a widely shared vision of a
confessional landscape allowing for diversity within reasonable limits. In addition, concerns
over the internal coherence of the Republic were superseded by different worries, as is also
evident from the remarkable history of Dutch, radical Republicanism, which after 1672, and
especially after the Glorious Revolution, turned broadly Orangist as Jonathan Israel has also
noted.23 After 1672, Dutch Republicans appear to have agreed that the foreign policies of
Louis XIV in particular simply necessitated the punching power of a Prince such as William
III.
After the death of William III, during the second stadholderless period, the overriding
concern of many educated Dutchmen became the rapid decline of the Republic.24 The
literature on its economic, military and cultural denouement is truly massive and opinions
vary for instance as to the crucial dates involved, for when exactly set the rot in and how
bad was it really? Meanwhile, there can be no doubt as to the fervour with which Dutch
eighteenth-century intellectuals set out to find adequate diagnoses and suitable remedies.
Apparently, the philosophy of Spinoza was not considered part of the equation. What is
more, Spinoza had no role to play either in the continuing eighteenth-century debate on
religious toleration. According to one expert, Joris van Eijnatten, it would not have made
any difference to the eighteenth-century debate on toleration such as it evolved in the Dutch
183-200 and E.G.E. van der Wall, Newtonianism and Religion in the Netherlands, Studies in the
History and Philosophy of Science 35 (2004), pp. 493-514.
23 Jonathan I. Israel, Monarchy, Orangism and Republicanism in the Later Dutch Golden Age
(Amsterdam, 2004) and Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of
Man, 1670-1752 (Oxford, 2006), Ch. 10.
24 See on the economic history of the early modern Netherlands: Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude,
The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815
(Cambridge, 1997). See also Margaret C. Jacob and Wijnand W. Mijnhardt (eds.), The Dutch Republic
in the Eighteenth Century. Decline, Enlightenment, and Revolution (Ithaca-London, 1992); Joost Kloek
and Wijnand Mijnhardt, 1800: Blueprints for a National Community (Assen-Basingstoke, 2004) and
Wijnand Mijnhardt, The Construction of Silence. Religious and Political Radicalism in the Dutch
Republic, Wiep van Bunge (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic (Leiden-Boston,
2003), pp. 231-262.d.
10 Wiep van BUNGE
Republic, had Spinoza never existed.25

In fact, it was only during the second half of the nineteenth century that Spinozas
philosophy again started to acquire any significance to Dutch culture. By this time, a
powerful movement of freethinkers had emerged, who seized upon his naturalism, his
critique of revealed religion, and during the 1860s its most vociferous proponent, Johannes
van Vloten, did not hesitate to proclaim Darwins The Origin of Species as the logical
outcome of Spinozas philosophy. 26 His aggressive, highly polemical stance, however,
added considerably to his growing isolation: if anything, his many attacks on Kant in
particular appear to have resulted mainly in bolstering the position of German idealism in the
Netherlands. In itself a remarkable achievement, in view of the lukewarm reception Kant and
his successors had received earlier at Dutch universities.27
While Spinozas philosophy failed to make any impact on Dutch academic curricula, by
the end of the nineteenth century Van Vlotens successors succeeded in creating a society
which to this day has been serving as a platform on which a wide variety of activities related
to Spinoza are being staged. Today, the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis has become by far the
largest philosophical society of the Netherlands. It counts some 1200 members, the huge
majority of which, of course, are no professional philosophers. Indeed, in the early twenty
first century there is only a handful of Dutch academics studying Spinoza professionally,
and I am afraid that at the moment I know of only a single colleague, Piet Steenbakkers,
to whom Spinoza represents his main area of interest. And Piet Steenbakkers, I hasten to
add, is a historian of philosophy, just as I am, and just as Henri Krop and Han van Ruler
are, to mention some of the names you may be familiar with. (In Belgium, I should add, the
situation is even worse: for decades, Herman de Dijn has been the sole authority on Spinoza,
and he retired in 2008.)28
I should like to emphasise this obvious lack of symmetry in the appreciation of
Spinoza among the wider reading public and the professional academics in order to
25 Jorisvan Eijnatten, What If Spinoza Never Happened?, De Achttiende Eeuw 41 (2009), 144-149.
See also his Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces. Religious Toleration and the Public in
the Eighteenth-Century Netherlands (Leiden-Boston, 2003). On the absence of Spinoza in Dutch
eighteenth-century political thought, see Wyger Velema, Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century
Dutch Political Thought (Leiden-Boston, 2007).
26 Siebe Thissen, De Spinozisten. Wijsgerige beweging in Nederland, 185-1907 (The Hague, 2000). See
also my Johannes van Vloten et le premier spinozisme nerlandais au XIXe sicle, Andr Tosel,
Pierre-Franois Moreau, and Jean Salem (eds.), Spinoza au XIXe sicle (Paris, 2007), pp. 427-440.
27 See most recently Viktoria E. Franke, Een gedeelde wereld? Duitse theologie en filosofie in het
verlichte debat in Nederlandse recensietijdschriften, 1774-1837 (Amsterdam-Utrecht, 2009), Ch. 3.

28 Cf. Wiep van Bunge, Geleerd spinozisme in Nederland en Vlaanderen, 1945-2000, Tijdschrift
voor Filosofie 71 (2009), pp. 13-38 and Spinoza en de Nederlandse canon, Theo van der Werf
(ed.), Herdenking van de 375ste geboortedag van Benedictus de Spinoza, Mededelingen vanwege Het
Spinozahuis 93 (2007), pp. 11-24.
Spinoza and the Netherlands 11
explain what Spinozas so-called recent popularity actually amounts to. It is true that
popular introductions to Spinozas philosophy and translations of his work sell well in the
Netherlands, and seminars and courses on Spinoza also draw considerable crowds. But Dutch
professors of philosophy could not care less. Today, the large majority of Dutch professional
philosophers and you would be surprised to find out how many professors of philosophy
there are in the Netherlands these days are doing more or less what their colleagues in
Britain, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States are doing: they publish papers in
English and American journals on technical details relating to Logic, Philosophy of Mind
and Moral Philosophy. They are hardly interested in the history of philosophy as such, and
I know not of a single Dutch philosopher of any repute to whom Spinoza holds any special
meaning. As far as I can see, there is only one country on the European Continent, in which
Spinoza continues to be present as a genuine force, inspiring current philosophy and that
is France, but the impact of French philosophy in the Netherlands has now become almost
negligible, which leaves us with the odd conclusion, that wile Spinoza is probably the most
popular philosopher in the Netherlands today, Dutch professional philosophers largely ignore
him.29
Conclusion
If Spinoza means anything to the Netherlands today, it would appear to me he does so for
two reasons: on the one hand, many Dutchmen studying Spinoza today, seem to be doing so
in the wake of the massive secularisation which hit the Netherlands from the 1960s to the
1980s: within one generation, the Netherlands turned into the European country in which
the largest percentage of the population belonged to one confession or another to the country
with the smallest percentage of believers registered with some denomination.30 This left
many Dutchmen, no longer satisfied with the answers churches had to offer, looking for
an alternative levensbeschouwing. To some, Spinozism appears to have filled the void.
(Only the other day one of the members of Het Spinozahuis actually told me so: I enjoy the
lectures and the summer courses of the Vereniging so much, he mused, since they allow me
to talk about God without having to believe in Him!)
More recently, Spinoza took centre stage in the remarkable debate that was raging mostly
29 For a recent survey, see Lorenzo Vinciguerra, The Renewal of Spinozism in France (1950-2000),
Historia Philosophica 7 (2009), pp. 133-150.
30 See in particular Peter van Rooden, Religieuze regimes. Over godsdienst en maatschappij in Neder
land 1570-1990 (Amsterdam, 1996) and Long-Term Religious Developments in the Netherlands,
1750-2000, Hugh McLeod and W. Ustorf (eds.), The Decline of Christendom in the Western World,
1750-2000 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 113-129.
12 Wiep van BUNGE
in news papers and quality weeklies on the relevance of the Enlightenment. Following
9-11 and the assassination of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, Jonathan Israels Radical
Enlightenment was referred to and discussed by journalists and other opinion makers
hardly known for their insight into Spinozas philosophy or into the history of eighteenth-
century thought.31 As a direct consequence of the sudden debate on the pros and cons of
multiculturalism, Spinozas life and work suddenly appeared to take on a topicality all of
its own, in particular when Ayaan Hirsi Ali let it be known that she was a great admirer of
Radical Enlightenment and of Spinoza.32 The outcome of both developments seems uncertain
to say the least. Much has been said recently about the return of religion, but nobody knows
what its future in Western Europe or anywhere else will actually amount to. Much the same
holds for the popular polemics relating to Radical Enlightenment, which have subdued by
now, but the issues involved have not. So I dont think it is possible to make any viable
prediction as to what Spinoza will mean to the Dutch for the coming decades. As far as I can
see, the future of Dutch Spinozism is open.33
2012 by Wiep van BUNGE. All rights reserved.
31 See for some of the backgrounds Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam. The Death of Theo van Gogh
and the Limits of Tolerance (New York, 2006).
32 Cf. Wiep van Bunge, De Nederlandse Republiek, Spinoza en de radicale Verlichting (Brussels, 2010)
and Radical Enlightenment. A Dutch Perspective, forthcoming.

33 Cf. Wiep van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, G.A.J. Rogers, Tom Sorrell and Jill Kraye (eds.),
Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (New York-London, 2009), pp. 223-237.
Philosophia OSAKA No.7, 2012 13
Wiep van BUNGE (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Spinoza and the Collegiants
Since the publication of Meinsmas Spinoza en zijn kring it is considered a fact that Spinoza
was friends with Collegiants such as Simon Joosten de Vries, Pieter Balling and Jarig Jelles.
Fokke Akkerman and Piet Steenbakkers have subsequently shown how important Balling
and Jelles were as editors and translators of Spinozas work, and that they helped him
where they could, especially after he had been expelled. But when we look at their works
our account may be brief: Pieter Ballings Een Ligt from 1662 is, first and foremost, a very
short text, which is, moreover, very vague; Jarig Jelles, whose 1684 confession shows some
traces of Spinozism, is no less ambiguous; and the only really outspoken Spinozist among
the Collegiants, Johannes Bredenburg from Rotterdam, did not want to become a Spinozist
at all, and his coming out was the cause of a long-lasting schism within the movement
of the Collegiants. The brothers and sisters who took Bredenburgs point of view mainly
seem to have done so because they believed in the sincerity of Bredenburgs struggle with
Spinozas work. Moreover, so far it has never been made likely that Spinoza for his part
was particularly open-minded towards the theology of the Collegiants not least because
the Collegiants did not have a clearly distinct theology. Collegiants were individualists, who
often felt strongly attracted to spiritualistic and chiliastic varieties of reformed Christianity
which were and remained essentially foreign to Spinoza.
Nevertheless, this does not explain everything, for if one is searching for a theological
impact one could overlook the fact that the Collegiants significance for Spinoza was not
so much theological as political. Their impact would be felt not in Spinozas theology or
metaphysics, but rather in his political theory. Before I try to explain this in further detail,
I must first expressly state how much I owe to Frank Mertenss and Siep Stuurmans
work as regards this insight. Briefly stated, I think Spinozas political theory and more in
particular his preference for democracy was to a major degree prepared by the debate among
Collegiants about what they called the equality of believers. That debate first had a political
connotation in the initiatives of the Collegiant Pieter Cornelis Plockhoy, who came from the
Akkerman, Studies in the Posthumous Works; Steenbakkers, Spinozas Ethica.

Van Bunge, Johannes Bredenburg (1643-1691).
This was first suggested by the Austrian professor of law Adolf Menzel in his debate with Willem
Meijer. See Meijer, Wie sich Spinoza zu den Collegianten verhielt and Menzel, Spinoza und die
Collegianten.
Mertens: Franciscus van den Endens Brief Account; Stuurman, De uitvinding van de mensheid.
14 Wiep van BUNGE
province of Zeeland. Subsequently it received a further secular turn in Franciscus van den
Endens work. But first let me discuss the Collegiant movement.
1. Rijnsburger Collegiants
The Collegiant movement came into existence at the beginning of the seventeenth century
as a direct result of the Synod of Dordt, when resolute Arminians in and around Rijnburg
decided they would no longer have their meetings conducted by a minister. For, they decided,
rather than still be led by an illicitly operating Remonstrant minister, let alone by a
Contra-Remonstrant, we will teach each other. The Van der Kodde brothers from then on
organized church meetings on their own. In this context they invoked the early history of the
Reformation and a number of texts from the New Testament. The fourteenth chapter of the
first letter to the Corinthians was quoted in particular, for apparently Paul had, in his time,
also told followers who had to do without a minister to go about it themselves. As soon as
the brothers Van der Kodde had furnished a house for their meetings it was referred to as a
College and the participants as Collegiants. Their aim was mutual instruction, not in the
way of preaching or education, but by way of mutual research and study of the meaning of
Holy Scripture.
Colleges would be established in many places in the provinces of Holland and Friesland
in the course of the seventeenth century, with Rijnsburg remaining the place where the
Collegiants kept meeting each other twice a year. It was, among other things, unique to this
movement that its adherents refused to draw up confessional writings or other Formularies
of Unity. Believers were rather admonished to experience their faith on an individual
basis. Thus, the colleges in Amsterdam and Rotterdam in particular turned into gathering
places where the most daring forms of seventeenth-century Protestantism could flourish.
Although they were, as a rule, mainly attended by Remonstrants and Mennonites, Socinians
attended happily as well and a number of Spinozas best friends were also supposed to
be Collegiants. Morover, many Rijnsburgers turned out to be especially interested in
chiliastic or millenarian speculation. During the 1680s Johannes Bredenburgs sympathy for
Spinozas philosophy resulted in a temporary schism within this national movement, which
was, however, solved in 1700. During the eighteenth century the movement lost some of its
[Van Nimwegen], Historie der Rijnsburgsche Vergadering, 31.

Van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten; Hylkema, Reformateurs; Lindeboom, Stiefkinderen van het
Christendom; Kolakowski, Chrtiens sans glise, Chapters 2-4; Fix, Prophecy and Reason.
Khler, Het socinianisme in Nederland; Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring. More recently: Knijff and
Visser, Bibliographia Sociniana; Nadler, Spinoza. A Life.

Van der Wall, De mystieke chiliast Petrus Serrarius.
Spinoza and the Collegiants 15
energy, although it would still fulfil a star part in the sixth part (1736) of Bernard Picarts
famous Crmonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde. Only around
1800 did the Rijnsburgers cease to exist as a movement.
Definitely egalitarian tendences arose within this movement as early as around the
middle of the seventeenth century. They were, first of all, the result of strong feelings of anti-
clericalism. The aversion to the lust for power of ministers was great and was continuously
fed by numerous collisions with local ecclesiastical authorities. De Van der Kodde brothers
had already told the ministers who had tried to keep the Rijnsburgers from their Alleingang
that they had better learn a good trade.10 The Collegiant Johan Hartigveld from Rotterdam
wrote in his Schriftuurlycke Waerdeering van het hedendaegsche Predicken (Scriptural
Critique of Modern-day Preaching): What else is the aim of the establishment of the Free
Colleges and the Rijnsburg Meeting but to destroy by this establishment that dominating
style of preaching?11 The Mennonite poet Joachim Oudaen, a friend of Hartigvelds, who
is characterized by his biographer as a herald of tolerance, also went on the offensive
soon as ministers with lust for power came into his view.12 There were just as many fierce
controversies among Collegiants in Amsterdam about the question what authority ministers
should have. The so-called Lammerenkrijg erupted in the 1650s: various colleges flourished
in Amsterdam as well and there, too, the meetings attracted Remonstrants, Mennonites,
but also Quakers, Socinians, chiliasts and others. The behaviour of the Mennonite minister
Galenus Abrahamsz in particular became the subject of lengthy controversies, but similar
conflicts arose in Utrecht, Leiden and Haarlem. After the placard against Socinianism was
made public in 1653 by the States of Holland, many local colleges fell into disrepute and
struggles about Mennonite orthodoxy flared up everywhere in the Republic.13
The Collegiants ideas about equality were, in addition, inspired by a pacifism which
seemed somewhat Mennonite. Hartigveld argued in De recht weerlooze Christen (The Truly
Defenceless Christian) that no Christian should ever dominate others, neither his fellow
citizens, nor his servants, wife or children. In his opinion there was only one sovereign,
Christ himself, whose kingdom, as is well known, is not part of this world.14 It was also fit
for a Christian to try and be humble and patient when faced with injustice, and Hartigveld,
Picart, Crmonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, VI, 327-333. See also
Hunt, Jacob, Mijnhardt, The Book that Changed Europe, 129-130; Sadler, The Collegiants.
10 (De Fijne), Kort, Waerachtig, en Getrouw Verhael, 15.
11 (Hartigveld), Schriftuurlycke Waerdeering, 32. See for the attribution to Hartigveld: Sandius,
Bibliotheca Anti-Trinitariorum, 161.

12 Melles, Joachim Oudaan. Cf. (Oudaen), Aanmerkingen over het Verhaal.
13 Meihuizen, Galenus Abrahamsz.
14 (Hartigveld), De recht weerlooze Christen, Chapter 1. Hartigveld died in 1678. This older text was
published posthumously by his Rotterdam friends. See Hartog, Een echte collegiant.
16 Wiep van BUNGE
the rich son of a mayor, put this into practice. He endowed the care for the poor with a large
sum of money and consistently refused to be appointed in any government office.
The Collegiant belief in equality was finally inspired by a strong feeling of human
fallibility. The Rijnsburgers often quoted the work by the Remonstrant theologian Simon
Episcopius, the author of the Remonstrant creed: God has nowhere made known that there
should always be a referee in the Church who speaks unerringly, neither did He point out
who should always be this referee.15 The roots of this Reformational realization of fallibility
are old Coornherts work in particular would remain popular among Collegiants for a long
time.16 Proponents of Galenus regarded human fallibility especially as something that had
become true in the context of the decline of the church. This was a popular subject among
the stepchildren of Christianity during all of the seventeenth century: the Reformation had
not succeeded in restoring the visible church of Christ and therefore the only point was the
continuation of the invisible church. Galenus argued that, as there is no express authority,
order or assignment of Christ the Lord himself to re-establish that visible church, free
prophesies should be allowed, while awaiting the approaching Kingdom of Peace and living
in the fear of the Lord.17
Pieter Balling, one of Galenus followers, who became known in particular as a confidant
of Spinozas, wrote two pamphlets in the Lammerenkrijg. Galenus chiliasm does not appear
in those pamphlets, whereas it can be found in Hartigvelds and Oudaens work. Also the
more rationalist-oriented Balling felt that the lack of certainty about the organization of the
true church established the necessity for tolerance: the weakness of man does not allow us to
silence others.18 According to Balling, the principle of equality had always prevailed among
Mennonites, too.19 The Collegiant Laurens Klinkhamer, from Leiden, in his turn, talked
of the same veil of ignorance which was supposed to encompass all believers to an equal
degree: it therefore follows that no-one can endow himself with any right to decide alone
about good or evil, or things being true or false.20
It was someone from Rotterdam, again, who pointed out the consequences of human
fallibility in the most confronting way. Johannes Bredenburg, a brother-in-law of Oudaens,
wrote two pamphlets about free prophecy: Een Praetje over Tafel (A Table Talk, 1671) and
Heylzamen Raad (Wholesome Advice, 1672). The latter title in particular is worthwhile in
15 (Episcopius), Belijdenisse ofte Verklaringhe, 41.

16 Voogt, Anyone who can read may be a preacher. See also Buys, De kunst van het weldenken.
17 Abrahamsz. and Spruyt, Nader verklaringe van de XIX artikelen, 19. The Bedenckingen of 1657 have
been added without pagination. The quote is to be found under the tenth article.
18 (Balling), Verdediging, 50-51; (Balling), Nader Verdediging, 28.
19 (Balling), Verdediging, 3.
20 Klinkhamer, Verdedigingh van de Vryheyt van Spreken, 147.
this context because of the radical conclusion he draws in this text on the basis of the absence
of a speaking judge:
The state in which we all presently are is no other than the state of collaterality or
equality, which can be clearly deduced from the absence of any ultimate authority, or
an acting judge, for if there were any ultimate authority, equality would be destroyed;
but since there is no such thing, which is fully granted by all these Christians [that is,
all Protestants, WvB], it follows that we are all on the same level, or equal.21
Bredenburg went so far as to put into perspective even the Collegiants own claims to truth
on the Biblical basis of their meetings: apart from God no one knows for sure what the
consequences should be of texts such as 1 Cor. 14.22
The remarkable part played by women within the Rotterdam colleges confirms that
it is true that the egalitarian tendencies within the circle of Rotterdam Collegiants such
as Hartigveld, Oudaen and Bredenburg had a certain emancipatory effect. Mayor Willem
van der Aas wife, a sister of Hartigvelds, was regularly seen there.23 From the middle of
the seventeenth century, women such as Maritge Soetemans organized meetings of their
own, where ideas were exchanged about theological issues.24 They invited guest speakers
and travelled to the major meetings at Rijnsburg together. It would definitely seem that the
Amsterdam college of Galenus was a stepping stone for the renowned prophet Antoinette
Bourignon when she was confirmed in her own spiritual motherhood.25 The etiquette among
the Collegiants is sometimes correctly referred to as democratic. They avoided the use of
titles, treasured humility, and addressed each other as brother or sister.26
2. Plockhoy, Van den Enden and the brothers Koerbagh

Pieter Cornelis Plockhoy, an activist from Zeeland, was the best known Collegiant who
turned out to be willing to see social-political consequences resulting from the thought that
all believers are really equal and that all lust for power is therefore evil.27 Much in his
21 Bredenburg, Heylzamen Raad tot Christelyke Vrede, 4.

22 Ibid.,14.
23 See, for instance, Vriende-Praetjen over het Eeuwig Edict, 5 and Een Sociniaensche Consultatie
tusschen Jan en Arent, 4.

24 Zijlmans, Vriendenkringen in de zeventiende eeuw, 99-126.
25 De Baar, Ik moet spreken, Chapters 3 and 15.
26 Hylkema, Reformateurs, II, 21.
27 Horst, Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy; Harder, Plockhoy from Zurik-Zee; Sguy, Utopie Cooprative et
cumnisme; Harder, Pieter Plockhoy Revisited. See also Frank Mertens website on Franciscus van
den Enden: http://users.telenet.be/fvde/index.htm?Works1.
18 Wiep van BUNGE
biography remains hidden, but it seems that he had his roots among Mennonites in Zeeland.
He possibly departed from Zeeland with Galenus to Amsterdam. It is a fact that he was seen
as a Galenist there, but he also tried to get in touch with Oliver Cromwell in England in the
course of the 1650s. Cromwell seems to have been seriously interested in Plockhoys utopian
project to establish co-operative communities for the poor in puritan England. The main
source for Plockhoys enterprise is the two pamphlets that he published in England. Although
there seem to be millenarian incentives in his work, his main worry is likely to have been
of another nature. He was concerned with the great inequality and disorder of men in the
World.28 To start with, complete freedom of conscience should be declared: the colleges
in Holland were a clear model of the theological practice that he envisioned for England.
Moreover, as he concluded: to deal equally in matters of Religion towards subjects, is not
only good and pious, but is also the foundation of a good Government.29 Equal Christians
should, in other words, be treated as equal subjects, that is: citizens of equal standing.
It may be useful to give this some further thought, because we, living in the twenty-first
century, are not surprised by the thought that people are essentially equal. The famous first
sentence of Thomas Jeffersons American Declaration of Independence says: We hold these
Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, but in the seventeenth century this
was still anything but self-evident.30 On the contrary, it was a completely revolutionary
insight, an insight that, I think, is still completely counter-intuitive even today: it is a fact that
people have always lived everywhere and in circumstances that make them unequal. There
are tremendous differences between people everywhere and at any time, and those differences
are of a physical, economic, social and political nature. Siep Stuurman has therefore called
his recent history of the ideas about equality De uitvinding van de mensheid (The invention
of mankind). Mankind as an association of equal individuals could not be discovered, it had
to be invented.31
To return to the Collegiants: Plockhoys plans came to nothing, as Cromwell died
suddenly in 1658 and the Restoration was approaching. Nevertheless, his efforts would earn
him a place in the historiography of socialism in England and the Netherlands.32 Back in
Amsterdam the local authorities of that city in 1662 allowed him to set up an establishment on
the banks of the Delaware.He had described his relevant plans in the Kort en klaer ontwerp
(Brief and Clear Design). His idea was to establish again a co-operative community with
28 Zurik-Zee [Plockhoy], A Way Propounded, 1.

29 Zurik-Zee [Plockhoy], The Way to the Peace, 8.
30 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence.
31 Stuurman, De uitvinding van de mensheid.
32 Beer, A History of Socialism in Britain, vol. I, 74-75. See also Quack, De socialisten, I, Chapter 8;
Davis, A Study of English Utopian Writing, Chapter 11; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 177-180.
sailors, fishermen, farmers and craftsmen in the New Netherlands. These people would build
up a new existence on an equal footing. Obviously there would be complete freedom of
religion. Just as he had proposed in England at an earlier stage, church meetings would have
to follow the example set by the Collegiants. Again, Plockhoys egalitarianism is remarkable.
The inhabitants of his community would share all common yields and have to treat each other
as equals. There could not be any social differences: The names of servant or maid are not in
use among us (where each expects their share of the profit on an individual basis).33
The new establishment fared badly; only one and a half year after forty-one emigrants
had set foot ashore the Hoerenkil in July 1663, the British army destroyed the establishment
completely. A few Dutchmen seem to have survived the English attack, but there have
been no traces of Plockhoy himself since. At home in Amsterdam, he had in the meantime
become renowned. There were not only rumours that in America he had pleaded in favour of
polygamy, but also Franciscus van den Enden, who was writing radical pamphlets, became
one of his followers. And this Van den Enden in his turn was part of the same circle of which
Pieter Balling too was a member, namely Spinozas circle.34 Even before Plockhoy and his
followers left for the New World, Van den Enden had described Plockhoys project in great
detail. Apparently he had become closely involved.
For as early as 1662 he published although anonymously a quite detailed Kort
Verhael (Brief Account) about the special opportunities that Plockhoys establishment
offered.35 The local authorities saw nothing in his ideas and there was also a rift between him
and Plockhoy, but Van den Endens plans were, it is true, far-reaching. It had been known
for a longer period of time that he played a main part in Spinozas circle in the early 1660s,
but thanks to Mark Bedja and Wim Klever we can attribute both the Kort Verhael and the
Vrye Politijke Stellingen (Free Political Theses, 1664) to him.36 The Collegiants focus on
the equality of believers certainly took a secular turn in Van den Endens work. His anti-
clericalism must have shocked his contemporaries. Plockhoy at least acknowledged Christs
authority, but Van den Enden went a few steps further: the Opdracht aen den vertrouwden
Lezer (Dedication to the Trusted Reader) started with the warning that what followed was
solely meant for readers who have no clerical interests nor any interest in vain and pedantic
33 Plockhoy van Zierikzee, Kort en klaer ontwerp, n.p.

34 Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, Chapter 5.
35 (Van den Enden), Kort Verhael. I use the edition made by Mertens: Franciscus van den Endens Brief
Account. In the introduction to Vrye Politijke Stellingen Van den Enden claims to have been asked to
write the Kort Verhael: Van den Enden, Vrije Politijke Stellingen, 125. He also claimed never to have
considered political philosophy before.
36 Bedja, Mtaphysique, thique et politique; Klever, Proto-Spinoza Franciscus van den Enden. See,
however, Mertens, Franciscus van den Enden: tijd voor een herziening van diens rol in het ontstaan
van het spinozisme?.
20 Wiep van BUNGE
pseudo-learning. He proposed not to allow any ministers at all in the colony that would be
established. Ministers would not serve the peace and unity within this Society; it was much
more in need of good schools and capable doctors.37
According to Van den Enden, too, equality served as a major foundation of the colony,
but just as Plockhoy did not doubt the right to private ownership, Van den Enden did not
deem it desirable to take away every distinction between persons. It is clear that people are
different and as long as the general interest does not suffer, everones individual and natural
equal freedom must be respected as well.38 According to Van den Enden people are therefore
by nature equal but not the same, and they are moreover free:
And this alone is what we wish people to understand by our principal foundation of
equality, namely, that in order to establish an orderly society, republic or common-
wealth of Christian citizens, such an even balance (between more and less sensible
people, more and less wealthy ones, male and female, the ruler and the ruled, etc.)
must be found, through reason and experience, in all matters () 39
In brief, the colony in America should become a republic, and more in particular, a popular
government or a free state of equals,40 a community governed by and for the people. In
the Preface Van den Enden had already expressed his appreciation for the Consideratien
van Staet (Political Considerations, 1660) by the De la Court brothers, one of the key texts
of Dutch republicanism.41 That is: for the first edition of that work, for that original version
still outlined the ideal of a democratic republic. In the second edition, which was published
after Johan de la Courts death, his brother Pieter expressed his preference for an aristocratic
government. Van den Enden would have none of this.42 Anyone wishing to be part of Van den
Endens republic would have to take a solemn oath never to aspire to dominance.43
Van den Endens opposition to slavery and the warm words he bestowed on the original
inhabitants of the New Netherlands, the so-called naturals, were absolutely revolutionary.
More than one century before Rousseau, Van den Enden defined the contours of the noble
wild. Slavery is truly un-Christian in so far as the Christian religion is a reasonable
37 (Van den Enden), Kort Verhael, 28-29.

38 Ibid., 29-30. See also 69: The worst thing in a state is that no decent liberty is allowed
39 Ibid., 30-31.
40 Ibid., 69. See on democratic republicanism: Israel, Enlightenment Contested, Chapter 10.
41 V.H. [Johan and Pieter de la Court], Consideratien en exempelen van Staet.
42 See Kossmann, Political Thought in the Dutch Republic, 60-74; Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice,
Chapter 4 and The Languages of Seventeenth-Century Republicanism in the United Provinces;

Velema, That a Republic is Better than a Monarchy.; Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes, Chapter 2.
43 (Van den Enden), Kort Verhael, 50.
religion.44 And the Dutch could use the minor social differences between Indians as a
model: they do acknowledge a sort of nobility but do not care much about this. Adultery
is not punished and even the mutual wars remain civilized they let women and children
be in peace and as far as there is any sort of government, it seems to be free and quite
democratic: tribal chiefs reach the most important decisions in mutual agreement.45
After Plockhoys project in the New World failed, Van den Enden did not leave it at that.
Van den Endens biography still shows, just like Plockhoys, major gaps. We know that he
possessed a Latin school in the fifties of the seventeenth century and that Spinoza was one
of his pupils, probably from 1657 until 1659. We also know that he played an important part
in Spinozas circle in the beginning of the sixties, when he got involved in Plockhoys plans.
Rumour had it that he was an atheist.46 Fact is that he moved to Paris in 1670 and would
be hanged in 1674 due to his involvement in a conspiracy against Louis XIV. Before he left
for France, he deemed it his duty to provide his native country with good advice. Again, he
published a work anonymously, but the title page left little to be guessed about the authors
intentions. The fact is that these Stellingen were said to be Gedaen na der ware Christenens
Even gelijke vryheids gronden (drawn up according to the true Christians equal claims to
freedom) and to have been written by Een liefhebber van alle der welbevoeghde Borgeren
Even gelyke Vryheit (a lover of the equal freedom of all competent citizens).47
Van den Enden argued that all people, both men and women, are born free and that they
are not obliged to do anything else than advance their own well-being.48 Societies are shaped
on the basis of the insight that harmonious co-operation benefits that state of well-being more
than anything else. Differences in talent will as a matter of course give rise to differences in
well-being. As long as they do not endanger the individual members of the community, they
are harmless. But to express social differences by means of academic titles, for example, is
harmful. The original equality of all citizens must consistently be held in esteem.49 Based on
this realization only can the commonwealth remain what it must be: a gathering of free and
equal people to the advantage of each individual member.50 The form of government which is
most suitable to keep that commonwealth intact is democracy.51 This goes, in principle, for all
44 Ibid., 26.
45 Ibid., 21. For a detailed commentary, see Mertens, Franciscus van den Endens Brief Account, I,
Chapters 5 and 6.
46 See Wim Klevers introduction to Van den Enden, Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 27-28.
47 Ibid., 137.
48 Ibid., 138.
49 Ibid., 152 ff.
50 Ibid., 146.
51 Ibid., 162.
22 Wiep van BUNGE
people, because all people are rational beings endowed with a natural sense of community.52
Moreover, the two dangers that threaten a free commonwealth, ambition and superstition,
can best be met by a popular assembly, for the people know what is in their interest and
what is not. It is, however, important, to keep the people well-informed, and, in particular,
not to make the mistake of regarding religion as a first foundation of the republic or
commonwealth.53 The atheist that Van den Enden was supposed to be clearly had a keen
eye for the abuse made of religion throughout the ages. Cunning and guile effected that
superstition, in particular, was fostered and Christian churches arrogated to themselves power
that was not rightly theirs. Collegiant echoes can be heard when Van den Enden argues that
the visible church has nothing to do anymore with true faith:
The Christian faith, being altogether reasonable, does not consist in adherence to any
external church ritual, nor absolutely in the incomprehensible, mere groundless assent
to any authoritative tenet, whether of great or small authority; but it uniquely consists
in a clear and distinct conviction of reason whereby something is accepted that doubt-
lessly enhances our knowledge and love of God and of our fellow men: for the whole
sum of the Law and the Prophets is to love God above everything and ones neighbour
like oneself.54
With the political turn given to the Collegiant emphasis on the equality of believers in
Plockhoys and Van den Endens work we find ourselves in the heart of the so-called radical
Enlightenment.
Van den Endens responsibility for the Kort Verhael and the Vrye Politijke Stellingen
long remained a secret. In view of the stinging criticism of the regents that Van den Enden
had expressed in the Afterword of his Kort Verhael, that was just as well. The Koerbagh
brothers would become much more famous, if not infamous. They were born in Amsterdam
and frequently seen at the Amsterdam colleges, and just like Balling and Van den Enden they
were supposed to have become members of Spinozas circle at an early stage. They were
also closely watched by the Amsterdam church council, even if only because Johannes had
studied theology and was a proponent, that is, was eligible for a position as minister of the
Dutch Reformed Church. Johannes was an ardent Collegiant and it was, probably rightly so,
suspected that he was propagating resolutely Socinian ideas.55 There is no knowledge of
any writings by this Johannes, but Adriaan would grow into a prolific author, who wanted
to achieve nothing less than the true enlightenment of the people.56 Just as Van den Enden
52 Ibid., 174-175.
53 Ibid., 194-195.
54 Ibid., 201.
55 See my introduction to Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places.
56 Wielema, The Two Faces of Adriaan Koerbagh and Adriaan Koerbagh: Biblical Criticism and
had argued, the first priority, according to Koerbagh, was to abolish Latin as the lingua
franca of scholars and more in particular of lawyers and theologians.57 With this in mind
he first published a legal manual in 1664 and the infamous Bloemhof (Flower Garden) four
years after that.58 Adriaan, as is well-known, would meet a dreadful end; when he wanted to
publish his Ligt, still in 1668, he was arrested, convicted by the Amsterdam magistrate and
put in jail. Some months later he would die there. Although Adriaan was mainly interested in
metaphysics and in the critique of religion, he left little doubt about his political sympathies,
in Bloemhof especially. Read his explanation of the word Ignoble:
A distinction is made among men, some being called noble, others ignoble. But I need
to explain briefly who in my opinion is noble or ignoble. Ignoble is he who is without
learning and understanding, even if he were born of the greatest king; noble is he who
is wise and learned, even if he were born of the poorest beggar.59
Also read his entry Democracy: a government by the people, in which every true citizen
can speak up. Unfortunately, as Koerbagh had to acknowledge, the peoples impact on the
governing of the Dutch Republic had increasingly diminished.60 In this way, the democratic
wing of Dutch republicanism became gradually more critical about the oligarchic rule of the
regents, which in the second half of the seventeenth century began to look more and more
like an aristocracy.
3. Conclusion
It would go too far to treat the preference for democracy as a form of government here in the
way Spinoza would subsequently describe it in his TTP (1670) and his TP (1677). Spinozas
political ideas also owe much to authors such as Machiavelli, Hobbes and the brothers De la
Court. Let us not forget that what Hobbes had written in Leviathan (1651), about the great
similarities between people, is generally seen as the most important source through Locke
of Jeffersons creed that all men are created equal.61 Even earlier, Descartes conviction that
Enlightenment. See also Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 273-287; Vandenbossche, Adriaan Koerbagh
en Spinoza; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 190-192; Den Boer, Le Dictionnaire libertin dAdriaen
Koerbagh.
57 Van den Enden, Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 155.
58 Koerbagh, t Nieuw Woordenboek der Regten; Koerbagh, Een Bloemhof.
59 Koerbagh, Een Bloemhof, 346.
60 Ibid., 230.
61 Hobbes, Leviathan, 183: Nature hath made men so equall, in the faculties of body, and mind: as
that, though there bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than
another: yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable,
as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as
24 Wiep van BUNGE
people have, in principle, the same rationality, had definitely had an emancipatory effect.62
Nevertheless, Spinozas political theory may of course also be seen as the pinnacle of
the egalitarian tendencies as they arose in the 1650s and 1660s in the Collegiant circles
which aided him after his expulsion, in 1656, from the Portuguese synagogue. It is a fact that
Hobbes was certainly no democrat. When Plockhoy and Van den Enden added a political
dimension to the Collegiant notion of equality in the early sixties of the seventeenth century,
Spinoza was working on the first parts of the E: he thought about God and the human mind.
Nothing suggests a great political interest at that time in Spinozas life. His earliest texts, the
TIE and the KV, do not indicate this either. Only from the middle of the 1660s, when he starts
writing the TTP, does he deal with political problems.
A hundred years before Rousseau, Spinoza arrived in the TTP at the revolutionary
conclusion that democracy results in the best form of government. Siep Stuurman has
rightly pointed out that, nevertheless, Spinoza and Van den Enden exclude women from
all political decision-making.63 But whether that means that Spinoza became unfaithful to
the idea that all people are by nature equal, is questionable. It is a fact that Spinoza does
not regard democracy as the ideal form of government from any normative perspective.
According to Spinoza, a government for and by the people is, as a fact, the most natural form
of government. The following passage from the sixteenth chapter of the TTP has become a
classic example:
For in a democratic state nobody transfers his natural right to another so completely
that thereafter he is not to be consulted; he transfers it to the majority of the entire
community of which he is part. In this way all men remain equal, as they were before
in a state of nature.64
Democracy, from Spinozas point of view, is a regime that is closest to human nature and
that offers the best safeguards to protect the interests of as many inhabitants as possible.
According to Spinoza, this makes democracy in principle also first and foremost a rational
and stable form of government a beautiful illustration of how an originally theological idea
well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either
by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himselfe.
And as to the faculties of the mind, (setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that
skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in
few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, as prudence, while we look after
somewhat els), I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. Cf. Zagorin, Hobbes
and the Law of Nature, Chapter 2.
62 Stuurman, Franois Poulain de Barre, Chapter 3.
63 Ibid., 296. See also Matheron, Femmes et serviteurs dans la dmocratie spinoziste; Kerkhoven,
Spinozas clausules; Van Reijen, Spinoza, 207-220.

64 Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, 243.
could get a completely new meaning. And please note that this happened in the context of the
Radical Enlightenment.
Spinozas preference for democracy therefore is not so much based on an ideal, but on
a fact, which he found confirmed empirically in the history of human communities. It also
is a fact that women in the seventeenth century could hardly act on their own authority, if
only because they were economically dependent on men be it that women could operate
relatively independently precisely in the Republic.65 Whether Spinozas political philosophy
is truly modern is questionable.66 But nothing in Spinozas philosophy justifies that women
must be dependent on men. On the contrary, his ultimately Cartesian recognition of the
existence of a single human nature which is then taken in an anti-Cartesian sense, because
people according to Spinoza are not autonomous substances but modifications of a single
substance, which all naturally strive to maintain their existence offers the opportunity to
accommodate the ambitions of all people.67
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2012 by Wiep van BUNGE. All rights reserved.

Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN (Chulalongkorn University)
Reasoning and its limits*
Abstract
The paper argues that logical reasoning is what constitutes critical thinking because
reasoning is normative, and logic provides a norm for reasoning. If a logical way of
thinking is simply the same thing as reasoning, then the only limit or constraint of
reasoning is the nature of the (logical) rule the kind of which is engaged with the
practice of reasoning; rather than with either a component of social context or a com-
ponent of a purely non-inferential or immediate perception of a situation which is
called sensitivity toward an object alone. However, such components are built into
my analysis of what reasoning is. An approach to critical thinking being employed
here is an agent-based approach. This paper also aims to pave the way for a further
discussion on the limit of reasoning in a way that is relevant to the question of how
critical thinking or reasoning should be taught in higher education.
Introduction
An issue in philosophy of education concerns the aim of education. One such aim that is
much discussed is to develop critical thinking. However, the notion of critical thinking is
also much disputed as if it is another independent area. This may be due to the fact that the
concept of critical thinking is a normative concept the nature of which is concerned with what
is a right way of thinking. (cf. Bailin&Siegel, 2003). Examples of normative concepts are
beauty, good and meaning. In case of education, the concept in question is what it is to
think critically. As normative concepts, they are all contentious. There are many ways to
assess such concepts, and one way is to find out its limits.
In this paper, I will argue that logical reasoning is sufficient for critical thinking. This
means that what constrains reasoning will also constrain critical thinking. Thereby, I will
look at the limits of reasoning. The word limit means a constraint or a boundary where
one cannot go beyond. This constraint can be accounted for in terms of a subjects nature
or the way a subject is characterized. The subject of reasoning is normative as reasoning is
* This paper was first presented at An International Forum on Critical Thinking, Reasoning and
Philosophical Practice, the Department of Philosophy, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, 21-22
December 2009. I would like to thank the audience of the conference, in particular, Professor Taro
Mochizuki for his helpful comment and his intellectual support. Moreover, I would like to express
my sincere gratitude to the Department of Philosophy, Osaka University, Japan, both for accepting to
publish this paper and for their active staffs whose philosophys engagement provides me a source of
inspiration.
32 Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN
a kind of rule-governed activity, namely, an activity the description of which is not possible
without appealing to an idea of how the activity should be performed. In reasoning, rules
are provided for how an inference should be made. So the ultimate limit of reasoning, which
is normative, can be bluntly put that it is dictated by a kind of rule the direction of which
is truth. The conception of truth that I suggest in this paper is not employed in a robust
sense, i.e. a correspondent conception of truth where truth may be beyond our access. Rather
it is used in a weaker sense: i.e. a perspectival kind of truth. However, it is not the papers
main aim to analyze such a concept of truth. What I will do is rather to explore arguments
leading to such a constraint.
My main argument is this. Because reasoning is normative, and logic provides such a
norm for reasoning, so logical reasoning is what constitutes critical thinking. That is to say,
in order to achieve critical thinking, logical reasoning is required. If logical way of thinking
is simply the same thing as reasoning, then the only constraint of reasoning is the nature
of the (logical) rule the kind of which is engaged with the practice of reasoning; rather
than with either a component of social context or a component of a purely non-inferential
or immediate perception of a situation which is called sensitivity toward an object alone.
However, my argument does not rule out all such components as they are built into my
analysis of what reasoning is. The way I show that such an analysis is possible is by
employing an approach to critical thinking which can be called an agent-based approach,
rather than a skill-based approach such as that of Ennis (Ennis, et al., 1996). This paper
also aims to pave the way for a further discussion on the limit of reasoning in a way that
is relevant to the question of how critical thinking or reasoning should be taught in higher
education.
The paper is divided into three main parts. The first parts main argument is that if
reasoning is normative and logic provides a norm for reasoning, then logic does play a
role in reasoning. The second part explores some conceptions of critical thinking and then
provides some comments on such conceptions. And the last part is to propose an agent-based
approach to critical thinking grounded on a revised definition of reasoning, and to show that
if truth is the constraint of reasoning, then it is also of critical thinking.
1. Reasoning and logic

In this section, I will show that logical reasoning is sufficient for critical thinking, and
if logical rules aim at truth, then truth is a constraint of reasoning. Before going to my
argument in detail, I will first make some clarifications of the three terms: critical thinking,
reasoning and logic. Although those terms seem to be closely related, they are different
Reasoning and its limits 33
in nature. Broadly speaking, critical thinking has been described as a kind of thinking
grounded on a process of giving and asking for reasons; reasoning as a kind of thinking
being regulated inferentially; and logic as the laws of reasoning. However, these are just
a general understanding. To see their precise meanings and how they are interwoven, I will
start from the less problematic terms: logic and reasoning.
As already mentioned, logic is broadly taken as the study of laws of reasoning, and
reasoning is a kind of thinking. In particular, logic is usually described as the methods
used in distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning. In other words, it is the study of
reasoning. But what is reasoning? Reasoning is a kind of thinking that thoughts are brought
into connection in a certain way, namely, an inferential way. An inference is the process of
drawing an information/statement from information/ statements given. In case of reasoning,
an inference is a process of drawing a conclusion from premises. So reasoning can be defined
as a process of inference. Logic can be viewed as the laws containing rules of inference. But
as reasoning is a kind of thinking, it seems that the process of inference is psychological or a
mental process. However, logic does not seem to be the study of something psychological.
One may think, as Mill (1898) thinks, that logic is the study of what people reason. If
that is the case, then logic is the study of something empirical or psychological. But, for
Fregean (Frege, 1897), logic is not empirical; rather it is a priori laws of truth. At this point,
I will look at the difference between logic and reasoning in order to show that reasoning is
normatively governed by logical rules.
The difference between reasoning and logic

Harman (1984) proposes that reasoning and logic are not the same. His account of the two
main views of logic is roughly this. First, logic is a body of the science of truth or axioms;
and second, logic is the study of the rules of inference or certain patterns of implication. The
first view is influenced by the view of Frege (1897): logic is a general knowledge of thinking.
According to Frege, logic has two characteristics: generality and normativeness. The
generality of logic means that logic does not involve thinking as a particular psychological
process; rather it is the knowledge of the general characteristics of thinking: logic is the
science of the most general laws of truth (p. 228). Frege takes truth as the object of study
of logic because the property or the predicate that logic studies is true, in the same way
Harman (1984, p. 110) just put the two views roughly, but the better clarification of Harmans is in
Goldstein (1988). I owe a lot from Goldsteins paper on this point although I do not agree with the final
solution of his paper. However, I will not discuss his arguments in this paper. Briefly, Goldstein argues
against Harman mainly on the point that Harmans view of logic is actually a kind of psychologism
(Mill and Ellis), and his attempt to pull apart logic from reasoning is not successful. Goldsteins
suggestion in the end is what he called a kind of Wittgensteinian neo-psychologism.
that ethics studies the property good and physics studies heavy and warm. A thought
that is true is not the same as thinking itself because judging that a thought is true is based on
an independent criterion. As a result, logic is normative -- it prescribes our thoughts: Like
ethics, logic can also be called a normative science it studies (p. 228). This kind of account
of logic is called logicism or anti-psychologism corresponds to the well-known view that
mathematics can be reduced to logic. To put it broadly, it is the view that logic is the study of
formal rules. Harman calls it an extreme view: the view that logic is a body of truth. That is
to say, logic is the study of the rules of our thinking, which is prescribed by the laws of truth.
Another view of what logic is is called psychologism. This is Mills view of logic (1898),
which takes logic as a study of the rules of inference. But, for Mill, logic is the study of the
mental process when people reason. As he states: it is necessary that the logician should
analyse the mental processes with which logic is concerned (p. 10). Mill is an empiricist
who holds the view that logic, especially inductive logic, which is based on empirical
evidences, provides a test for ascertaining whether or not the belief is well grounded (p.
6). So, for Mill, logic is empirical. To study the laws of thinking, it is necessary to study the
way people reason. This view of logic contrasts with that of Frege (1884) who thinks that the
general laws of truth or logic is not about what people believe or reason; even inductive logic
is based on deductive logic.
As Frege writes:
If general truths are recognized at all, then it must also be granted that there are such
primitive laws, since from purely individual facts nothing follows, except on the basis
of a law. Even induction rests on the general proposition that this procedure can es-
tablish the truth or at any rate the probability of a law. For those who deny this, induc-
tion is nothing more than a psychological phenomenon, a way in which people come
to believe in the truth of a proposition, without this belief thereby being at all justified
(p. 93).
These contrastive views show that there is a split between logic and reasoning.
Harmans point is actually to support such a split. He argues that logic is not the same thing
as reasoning because reasoning is a procedure for revising ones beliefs, for changing
ones view (Harman, 1984, p. 107). An example of the arguments he explored is this.
Suppose logic plays a role in reasoning, for instance, via the rule of consistency. It means
that if someone has inconsistent beliefs, she should modify her beliefs in order to avoid
inconsistency. But that is not true, for what people do is simply to accept the contradiction,
and keep the inconsistent beliefs as another set of beliefs. It may be because either people
find it is difficult to modify the beliefs or they have no time to examine them in detail. That
is possible because the rule of avoid inconsistency! has an exception: not to believe thing
one knows to be jointly inconsistent (1984, p. 108). It means that if one knows that the
beliefs are jointly inconsistent, then one tends to avoid the contradiction. But many times, it
is not the case that one knows. What Harman said is:
rational fallible person ought to believe that at least one of his or her beliefs is false.
But then not all of his or her beliefs can be true, since, if all of the other beliefs are
true, this last one will be false. So in this sense a rational person's beliefs are incon-
sistent. It can be proved they cannot all be true together (1984, p. 109).
An example of the inconsistency is the case of the preface paradox (Makinson, 1965). A
popular version is about a writer who wrote in the preface that she believes everything that is
written in her book is true, but she also realized that there may be some mistakes. It means
that her beliefs are self-contradictory: she believes the conjunction of all her beliefs is false.
Harman had explored but failed to support many hypotheses that may lead to a
possibility that logic plays the role in reasoning, the argument of which I will not go further
(see Goldstein, 1988; Field, 2009; Milne, 2009; Sainsbury, 2002). But if Harman is right, an
implication will be this: the account of logic that is connected to reasoning is probably the
one that simply describes what people do, rather than a prescriptive account. Goldstein (1988)
calls this a naturalistic account of logic. However, it is hard to see that the naturalistic
account is right. For one thing, in describing the way people practice or reason, one always
needs a frame of reference in giving the description. Inevitably, the intelligibility of such a
frame of reference requires some basic logical rules in a logical system. For example, one
may imagine people who hold a belief which seems to be against the law of excluded middle;
a possible description may be based on a system of fuzzy logic where truth-values are more
than two.
However, there is an interesting point in Harmans view which may be supported by
some works in psychology of thinking, for example, the well-known selection task of
Wason (1968). The task is an experiment for determining the difficulty in conditional
reasoning (Modus Ponens/ Modus Tollens). In Wasons words, he says:
The subjects were presented with the following sentence, if there is a vowel on one
side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side, together with four
cards each of which had a letter on one side and a number on the other side. On the
front of the first card appeared a vowel (P), on the front of the second a consonant
(P), on the front of the third an even number (Q), and on the front of the fourth an odd
number (Q). The task was to select all those cards, but only those cards, which would
have to be turned over in order to discover whether the experimenter was lying in
making the conditional sentence (1968, p. 273).
See a working detail on how this is possible in Sainsbury (2002)

The finding of Wasons experiment is that people tend to have no difficulty with the
Modus Ponens pattern, but this is not the case with the Modus Tollens. Actually, Wasons
paper is to argue against Piagets formal operational thought (Inhalder&Piaget, 1958).
Piagets idea is that at a certain age, people will develop their cognitive ability in accordance
with logical rules. However, the task has invited lots of debate ever since, both concerning
the ambiguities of the experiment itself and interpretations of the finding. But my concern
is that the experiment is a way of describing how people reason, but the way people reason
is not always correct. To take the way people reason as the correct reason is simply like
confusing a ruler with what it measures. Wittgenstein (1953) had used the analogy of the
scale and a lump of cheese to illustrate this point as follows:
the procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a balance and fixing the price by the turn
of the scale would lose its point if it frequently happened for such lumps to suddenly
grow or shrink for no obvious reason. (1953, nr. 142)
That is why we say that reasoning is normative and logic is a guiding rule which constrains
reasoning. But, of course, the normativity of the logical rules is not such that it is impossible
to be characterized in relating to the way people reason. Otherwise, that would face a
paradox of rule-following, i.e. the problem that if rules are independent from our grasp,
it will beg for a regress of interpretation; but if our practice is the rule itself, then it will
beg for a state of absurdity where talking about what is right is not intelligible at all (cf.
Wittgenstein, 1953, nr. 201, and, especially, McDowell, 1984).
Although I do not think Harmans view is right, I do accept his initial definition of
reasoning, i.e.
Df.= reasoning is a process which beliefs are revised.
But I suggest a revision of that definition into:
Df.r. = reasoning is a normative process in which beliefs are revised under the guid-
ance of logical rules the kind of which is engaged with the way the rules are followed.
As seen above, Harmans definition is actually a descriptive account of the way people
do when there are changes in their beliefs. This implies that without reasoning, people are
unskeptical with what they believe: they do not change their beliefs. Usually, we tend to
think that in non-reasoning activities, such as, in loving, in hating, in perceiving, people
do not doubt what they do. That is because such activities seem to be a direct process that
we and the attended object in the final end get connected. The doubt occurs when thoughts
are connected in an inferential way which is not an immediate way. In other words, doubts
occur when people reason. According to Harmans analysis, the doubt occurring in reasoning
is not under the guidance of logical rules. Harmans idea (1984) is that no logic, either
deductive rules or inference to the best explanation, can guide reasoning. However, if that is
right, it would be nonsense because his argument will lead to the point that reasoning is not
normative at all. Moreover, then there will be no content ascription to reasoning. And that
means it is absurd to talk about reasoning being defined as a process of belief revision.
Something grounded Harmans view may be called a dualist view of reasoning, namely,
the view that reasoning activity is purely conceptual contra to non-reasoning activity
which is non-conceptual. However, such view overlooks a possibility that the content of the
thoughts is conceptually inherent. One reason is that: if the non-reasoning process is a non-
inferential direct process, there will be no content of the thoughts, which means that they will
be just a brute fact or the fact that is empty and no meaning at all. If it is the brute fact,
to understand what it is about, then one needs interpretations of the fact. But then again the
problem of regress of interpretations is looming. An implication of Harmans view is that
non-reasoning activity is non-conceptual and that reasoning is a pure conceptual one. But,
surprisingly, Harman would say that the pure conceptual of reasoning is not an inferential or
logical one. But that overlooks the fact that reasoning is not purely conceptual for it is also
partly constituted by the way people reason. In my view, there is a way to take reasoning as
conceptual. However, what reasoning is about cannot be characterized freestandingly from
the practice of reasoning. In other words, if the implication of Harmans idea works out,
the kind of logic that suits the practice cannot be a sort of infinite rail of logic: it has to be
a rail that engages with the practice itself. So, that corresponds to my revised definition of
Harman stated above. And this means that if logical rules are what constitute reasoning, and
logical rules aim at truth as its object of study, then truth is the constraint of reasoning.
To show how such a constraint can accommodate some other elements, such as the social
context and our sensitivity to the object of reasoning; put it another way, it is to show how
the kind of rules that are engaged with the practice are possible, a good example is in how
critical thinking should be perceived. So I turn now to explore some conceptions of critical
thinking in the following before proposing my own approach later on.
The concept of truth using here is a neo-Fregean sort of concept. It is meant to be a perspectival
kind of truth. To illustrate this concept will require more space and not be in the scope of this paper.
But I intend to use my elaboration of critical thinking as a way to show how this kind of truth is
possible. (see G.Evans (1982) The Varieites of Reference for a classical neo-Fregean view on truth)
2. Conceptions of critical thinking

In psychology of reasoning, reasoning means a kind of cognitive process functioning as a part
of human thinking including decision making or problem solving (see Sternberg&Leighton,
2003). It is an empirical study of human behaviour including the functions of the brain.
This way of studying reasoning is simply a descriptive way of observing how reasoning is
processed in human behaviour. However, philosophy studies reasoning by analyzing the
laws underlying it, namely, logic. Similarly to critical thinking, it is described as a normative
activity (see Bailin&Siegel, 2003). A study of critical thinking is not a study of what people
think; rather it is a study of what people should think. The former study is the study in
psychology. This is consistent with my view discussed above that reasoning is normative, so
is critical thinking.
The term critical thinking is widely recognized under the influence of the works of
Ennis, a philosopher of education (1989, et al.). But originally, the concept of critical thinking
is based on Deweys conception of thought, in particular, reflective thinking (Dewey,
1933) (cf. Fisher, 2001, p. 2). In How We Think, Dewey made a distinction between three
kinds of thought: first, a thing that goes through our heads (1933, p. 1) or a kind of mental
phenomena; second, things that are not known by senses and third, an evidential based belief.
However, the last one is divided into two types: ungrounded belief and well-grounded belief.
The process of getting the latter belief is called reflective thought the value of which is for
education. Reflective thinking aims at knowledge, belief about facts or truth (1933, p. 3).
According to Dewey, what constitutes reflective thought is active, persistent, and careful
consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that
support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends, (1933, p. 6).
Basing on Deweys concept of reflective thought, Ennis (1993) has defined critical
thinking as reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do (1993,
p. 180). Deweys account of reflective thought may induce an understanding that critical
thinking means not merely a process of inference but also problem solving and decision
making. A work on the psychology of thinking has expressed a doubt whether reasoning
should be put under problem solving or decision making because it may be so broad that
reasoning has no meaning (see Sternberg& Leighton, 2003). But that may not be a proper
doubt, because an inferential process in reasoning includes both deductive and inductive
inference, which play the role in problem solving and decision making also. However, the
problem is that if reasoning is the same thing as problem solving and decision making, then
does it mean that critical thinking should be constituted of skill-training? I will now take
a brief look at Siegel (1988), since his view holds the sort of non-skill approach to critical
thinking which is quite close to my view. Nevertheless, there is one main weak point in his
view that my agent-based approach does not have.

Siegels idea is that the conception of critical thinking should be taken as the reasons
conception, because a critical thinker is one who is appropriately moved by reasons (1988,
p. 2). What critical thinking involves are dispositions, habits of mind, and character traits
as well as skills (1988, p. 8). Although skill possession is an element in critical thinking,
Siegel does not agree with Ennis. According to Ennis, the element of skill is not the only
element which is important but also the disposition to use the skill. These two elements
-- skills and disposition to use the skills -- are necessary elements for any approaches to
critical thinking. Ennis tends to emphasize more on the disposition element. His works
mainly contribute to create sort of proficiencies test. The main attack of Siegel on Ennis is
that Enniss approach is actually a skill plus tendencies conception of critical thinking. The
problem of this approach is that it does not address the more important question that why
should critical thinkers have such tendencies. For Siegel, the answer for that question is this:
critical thinkers should be disposed to think critically and tend to do so, because they
recognize the value of critical thinking. This recognition involves the recognition
of related values, such as truth, intellectual honesty, and justice to evidence. Moreo-
ver, to recognize the value of critical thinking it is necessary that critical thinking has
value; consequently, a fully worked out conception of critical thinking ought to dem-
onstrate that value (1988, p. 9)
This answer is a justification for critical thinking to be an educational goal. However,

Siegel thinks that he and Ennis may not be totally different. They both seem to agree that
critical thinking concerns the characterization not only of a set of cognitive skills but a
certain sort of person. But the difference is that while Enniss conception is concerned with
micro-dispositions, Siegles is more with the macro-dispositions, namely, a sort of character
trait; a person who has it is not simply a person with a certain disposition but a certain sort of
person (1988, p. 8).
In fact, the main point that worried Siegel most is the question of how the two
components skills and disposition to use the skills - are connected. He thinks that Enniss
micro-disposition cannot do the work of connecting both components. The main reason is
that there is no guarantee that the thinker will dispose to use the skills in some other unknown
areas. Siegel hence thinks that the macro-disposition can fill in the gap between the two
elements because it is a person who has a disposition to use the skill is a person who has a
critical spirit or a critical attitude (1988, p. 39). The better word that Siegel brought from
Binkly is a love of reason. To put it short, for Siegel, skills are just necessary, but what is
sufficient is the attitude. My bottom-line of the idea of critical thinking is actually quite close
to Siegel. But the difference is that I dont think that the gap between skills and disposition
can be bridged by the attitude. My main reason is : Siegels model is rather like an idealist
who fixes the problem of mind-body by stating that the body can be reduced to the mind. To
explain whether a person is going to dispose to use her skill or not is in terms of whether she
has a proper attitude. But then an epistemic doubt concerning the attitude is looming: how
can one know that the attitude is the right one, if not by observing her actions? So I conclude
that Siegels model does not appear to be convincing as it seems. I then turn now to the last
section in order to give a rough sketch of my own approach.
3. An agent-based approach
It seems that the meaning of critical thinking is broader than the meaning of reasoning.
Good reasoning may not be sufficient for being a critical thinker because being a critical
thinker seems to encompass some other properties more than simply the cognitive ability,
for example, not just somebody who can win a debate; rather somebody with goodwill, or
probably somebody whose reasoning aims at truth. However, usually, it seems that in
saying someone thinks critically is just like saying her reasoning is good. But saying that
someone thinks uncritically can mean two things: either bad reasoning or just a failure of
applying reasoning at all. In the latter case, we would also say she does not think at all. Bad
reasoning can still mean that reasoning is applied, but in the sense that: either the reasoning
does not reach some standards of good reasoning or that the reasoning may not be a proper
or a right one in some context. But the latter sense is suspicious: is there such a thing like
improper reasoning? This suggests a sense that there may be something else besides
merely good reasoning in order to be a good critical thinker.
Nevertheless, critical thinking has been often characterized as something that a rational
thinker should acquire because it is a cognitive ability, contra to non-cognitive one. However,
a rational thinker is surely a normative term. It suggests a preferable valuable sense. In
this broader sense, critical thinking is highly honored as a laudable way of life. Many take
it as an essential activity for living a meaningful life. So it seems that critical thinking is
broader than reasoning in this sense. It seems to incorporate more aspects of life. In general,
One obvious example is from Joe Lau A Mini Guide to Critical Thinking (Department of Philosophy,
The University of Hong Kong, August 2003, see http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/) ( critical thinking
is the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking, and being able to think clearly and
rationally. .critical thinking is also necessary for self-reflection. In order to live a meaningful
life and to structure our lives accordingly, we need to justify and reflect on our values and decisions.
Critical thinking provides the tools for this process of self-evaluation.)
Another example is from The Foundation of Critical Thinking which is a sort of institutionalized
critical thinking for the public on a web page http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/ourConceptCT.
cfm This organization seems to take critical thinking as a kind of moral/utility value.
there is something true there. However, as I have already argued earlier that the concept of
reasoning should not be taken as a cognitive ability contra to a non-cognitive one. If that is
right, then reasoning is sufficient for critical thinking because it can account for other aspects
of life which seems to be broader than reasoning per se. Therefore, it is legitimate for me
now to say that reasoning or critical thinking is not just a process describing human cognitive
activity. It is actually all it is about being an agency in the world, the reasons for which are
the following. First, it is the only way we can engage with the world, the world where there
are nuances of thoughts. To be more precise, reasoning is all and only method for living
together in a democratic society. Second, reasoning is an epistemic activity. It is a method
for acquiring knowledge in two senses: first, reasoning as a process of inference, and second,
reasoning as a process of belief revision.
As I have provided the revision of Harmans definition of reasoning in the above
section, both senses of reasoning are connected. Grounding on this understanding, I call
my approach to critical thinking an agent-based approach. The approach means that
what constitutes critical thinking cannot be simply skill training in logical rules; rather it
requires an account of how the practice of reasoning is engaged. The practice of reasoning
does not mean what people do in reasoning, rather it means the way people handle the
world in a meaningful way. That is to say, it requires an ability to perceive the world
directly or a sort of sensitivity to the object of reasoning. This may sound mysterious if
perception is taken to be non-inferential as contra to an inferential process like reasoning.
But if this assumption is not right, then the kind of direct perception to the world is not
dark at all. It means that reasoning or critical thinking is constituted of a direct sense to
the world but in a way which is not freestandingly characterizable from our inferential
process. I will try to clarify this idea by using an example of the Keegstra case from the
paper of Hare (1990).
The Keegstra Case (the case was in 1985) is the case of a school teacher, James
Keegstra, who was convicted of willfully promoting hatred against the Jews. Since 1968,
Keegstra had been a teacher at Eckville High School in Canada and had taught history and
social studies the class he was charged promoting hate speech. Although he, in general, was
praised as a good teacher, a "caring, generous, Christian man" (see Mertl,S.& John Ward,
l985), his teaching displayed and fostered anti-Semitic attitudes (Hare, 1990, p. 376). He
It is quite possible and, unfortunately, quite "natural" to live an unexamined life; to live in a more
or less automated, uncritical way. It is possible to live, in other words, without really taking charge of
the persons we are becoming; without developing or acting upon the skills and insights we are capable
of. However, if we allow ourselves to become unreflective persons or rather, to the extent that we do
we are likely to do injury to ourselves and others, and to miss many opportunities to make our own
lives, and the lives of others, fuller, happier, and more productive.
believes that the holocaust is the Jewish conspiracy to establish a world government and had
defended his belief in his teaching. However, the defense of his belief was not grounded
on weighing the reasonableness of different sides of arguments. When students responded
conforming to his belief, he gave supportive feedbacks. Once the allegation was made
against his style of teaching, he appealed to the principle of freedom of speech and the value
of open-mindedness.
The Keegstra case seems to be a controversial case for educationists including
philosophers of education and political philosophers. It is controversy simply because what
he taught is opposed to the political correctness in western societies. The controversial issues
concern mainly the problem of biased teaching, the problem of indoctrination in education
and the aim of education in promoting a democratic value of tolerance. Hare had discussed
these points and argued against the view that the Keegstra case is the case of an honest
heretic, namely, someone who is sincere in defending his own view. The view that Hare is
against is Mary Warnocks idea (Warnock, 1975, 1988 in Hare, 1990, p. 383).
Although Warnocks paper is not about the Keegstra case, her view on the neutrality in
education is stimulating. For Warnock, it is not the case that teachers should be neutral on
controversial issues, if there are principles or reasons supporting the issue, and if the teacher
is sincere enough even though her belief looks so perverse or so dotty. Hare argued against
applying Warnocks view to the Keegstra case. For the first thing, Keegstra did not have
principles and did not encourage his students to weigh evidences and to be independent in
having judgement; second, Keegstra did not also have sincerity: his belief is immune to
counter-evidence.
Following Warnocks view, principle of tolerance is not universally applied. But then the
problem is the dilemma that: if neutrality is applied, then the controversial idea will be so
offensive to the point that it is intolerable; but if neutrality is not applied, there will be more
suspicious of the credibility of the controversial idea (e.g. the Jewish conspiracy theory).
The way out that Hare discussed is not to ignore the theory unless a student raises it (1990,
p. 384). But what is presupposed here is that students feel free to raise issues. However,
I think that the choice of not applying neutrality actually creates a gray area where there
is no distinction of indoctrination and education. The issue is also about whether political
correctness is itself another moral taboo which obstructs critical thinking. However, Hare
thinks that it is obvious that the Keegstra case is not the case of the violation of freedom of
speech, but it is the case of indoctrination, not education.
Another way out which Hare argues against is the so-called argument from truth. The
argument is the view that truth should emerge in open discussion, the assumption of
which is that humans are rational. But Hare suspects that the assumption is rather the
search for truth is the supreme value (1990, p. 385). Moreover, for Hare, this argument
is not suitable for an idea of education the assumption of which is that students are not
always rational:
Tolerating open discussion of reprehensible views does not assume that students are
thoroughly rational; rather, it stems from a central aim of education to further stu-
dents development as rational agents (1990, p. 385)
But to curtail discussion in schools because people are not always rational would
deprive students of the very practice that might develop their rational abilities (p. 385). It
means that because students are not always rational, so we need to look for ways to develop
this ability. A question of my concern is whether the argument from truth threatens my
suggestion that the constraint of reasoning is truth. It seems to me that according to
Hare, the search for truth obstructs critical thinking rather than fosters it. But I think the
concept of truth that Hare has in mind is a kind of a robust conception of truth, namely, the
correspondent kind of truth where truth is independent from our access. It obstructs critical
thinking because in asserting it, people overlook the fact that what is out there may be
perspectival. But I dont think it is right to take this as a reason for avoiding truth-seeking.
This is just to explain away all the good things that may come with truth-seeking. If my
suggestion on the limit of reasoning is correct, that is, the purpose of reasoning is to search
for truth, then it is the only way to show that disagreement is possible and is also a valuable
thing for being in the world.
Conclusion
This paper aims to show that the limit of reasoning is a perspectival kind of truth by, firstly,
arguing against the view that there is no connection between logic and reasoning; secondly,
discussing some conceptions on critical thinking basing on the revised definition of reasoning
which is a normative process in which beliefs are revised under the guidance of logical rules
the kind of which is engaged with the way the rules are followed; and finally, proposing an
agent-based approach to critical thinking grounding on the revised definition. In a nutshell,
the approach means that critical thinking and reasoning is constrained by a perspectival kind
of truth, which is based on the idea that perception is not purely non-conceptual, and that
reasoning is not purely conceptual. So this approach focuses more on how an engagement
with the practice of reasoning is performed, rather than on how to train the skill of critical
thinking. However, there are still some points that need to be worked out more in detail, for
example, how this approach is applied in teaching a course on critical thinking.
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Cambridge University Press.
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Anscombe and R. Rhees (Eds.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Chulalongkorn University
Department of Philosophy,
Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok, Thailand
Email: Kanit.M@Chula.ac.th
This article is part of the achievement of the research supported by JSPS's Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research "Asian Adaptation of Critical Thinking Education" (Basic Research C(1),
2009-2011, Representative: Taro Mochizuki).
2012 by Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN. All rights reserved.

Hitoshi NAGAI (Nihon University)
Why Isnt Consciousness Real? (2)
Day 2: Why Are We Zombies?
The contrast between the phenomenal and the psychological is progressive.

This lecture will be based on the problem raised by David Chalmers in The Conscious
Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). I would like to develop the problem in what I
think is the right direction, the direction we outlined in the first lecture. In my view, Chalmers
should have developed his argument in this direction. In the course of this second lecture,
however, details left out in the first lecture will be filled in by the use of his problem setting.
The central theme will be the true meaning of the concept of a zombie. I would like to
begin by expounding Chalmers argument.
Chalmers argument starts from the distinction between the phenomenal and
psychological concepts of a mind. It corresponds to the distinction between consciousness
and a mind in the previous lecture. Put most simply, the distinction is that between the
private and public aspects of a mind in the broad sense of the word. Chalmers puts it as
follows:
When we wonder whether somebody is having a color experience, we are not wonder-
ing whether they are receiving environmental stimulation and processing it in a certain
way. We are wondering whether they are experiencing a color sensation, and this is a
distinct question. (The Conscious Mind, p. 15, original italics)
By experience Chalmers is referring to the phenomenal aspect. All functions of a mind

could have a role in causal relations even without being accompanied by an experience. Yet
they are accompanied by experiencing for some reason, and this, according to Chalmers, is
the problem.
Take a pain, for example. What if this had all the functions of a pain, and yet lacked
the phenomenal quality of pain? A person of whom this is true would be, as it were, a pain
zombie. He could have psychological pain but no phenomenal pain. (If we say that he
feels psychological pain but no phenomenal pain, it would be that the word feel, too, has
both the phenomenal and psychological meanings.) It is crucial to understand this contrast
properly. Perception, for example, can be understood as a purely psychological process. For
even a robot without consciousness could avoid obstacles to reach a destination, or perform
48 Hitoshi NAGAI
other actions by perceiving the environment. It could also obey the command Bring me a
red piece of chalk. Our perception, in contrast, is accompanied by phenomenal qualities. If a
certain phenomenal quality is missing, the perceiver would be a zombie with respect to that
quality. What Chalmers calls a zombie is a human (or a human-like creature) that lacks all
phenomenal qualities, thereby lacking consciousness itself. We will discuss the details later.
Concepts of mental phenomena can be divided into those for which the phenomenal
aspect is essential and those for which the psychological aspect is essential. Sensations are
among the former, and perception and thinking are among the latter. So, whereas sensations
can dispense with psychological causal relations, perception and thinking can dispense
with phenomenal qualities. But this only means that particular phenomenal qualities are not
essential for there to be particular instances of perception or thinking, but not that perception
or thinking can lack them altogether. There is no phenomenal quality peculiar to mentally
calculating the sum of two and five, or the feel of 2+5, (or even if there were, it would not
play an essential role). But it does not follow that the subject may lack consciousness.
I already have a small question at this stage. It leads to an immense problem. Chalmers
discusses the contrast between the phenomenal and the psychological. Although this contrast
might be actually vivid and valid for him, who is speaking of it, how does he already
know that the same is true for those to whom he is speaking? That is, how does he know
that there is the same contrast for others? Why is it presupposed that the contrast between
the phenomenal and the psychological survives beyond the contrast between himself and
others? I think that he fails to ask this most important question. It seems to me that the
communication by language has transformed the phenomenal into the psychological, or
into the phenomenal subsumed under psychological concepts. I suspect that the linguistic
communication has downgraded Chalmers contrast into a contrast between psychological
concepts.
This can be viewed in a converse manner, which is more precise. The contrast is actually
living and effective for me, who read and understood Chalmers, and precisely because of
this, I cannot share with anyone else the contrast I grasp by myself. If so, Chalmers own
contrast, from which I learned the contrast, would have already been downgraded into a
contrast between psychological concepts. This means that the contrast inevitably incorporates
a progression with the following structure.
Why Isnt Consciousness Real? (2) 49
Phenomenal Psychological
(This goes on endlessly.)
Only at the top row is the contrast actually living and operating. As it were, the rows below
it, which repeat it by language, are merely its shadows in a cave. So although the contrast
is living and effective for me, the content that I can communicate by talking like this now
naturally falls into the second or lower row. It must be downgraded into a contrast between
psychological concepts when communicated.
In my view, it is the essence of the contrast that it inevitably incorporates such a
progress. I have said, It is crucial to understand this contrast properly. But, in fact, it
cannot be understood properly. For it is indeterminable at which level the contrast is to be
understood, and this gives the contrast an unstable structure. My view is that this progression
of the contrast is precisely where the essence of the concept consciousness is hidden. What
is invented in order to lay all contrasts in the same plane is the general concept of a self,
which I discussed in the previous lecture.
Before I said, It is crucial to understand this contrast properly, I said the following: If
we say that he feels a psychological pain but no phenomenal pain, it would be that the word
feel, too, has both the phenomenal and psychological meanings. However, if the word
feel has both phenomenal and psychological meanings, is it not rather natural that the word
phenomenal itself has a double meaning? If so, is it not that the same is true of experience,
consciousness, qualia and so on?
What happens when reading Chalmers discussion of the contrast in question is in
fact the same as what happens when reading Descartes doubt and his conclusion I think,
therefore I am. Descartes says that even if everything is doubted, the existence of the I
who is doubting cannot be doubted. Is Descartes I think (or I doubt) phenomenal? Or
is it psychological? This question is of the same kind as the question I have just posed to
Chalmers.
We are now naturally led to the analogy with time that we developed in the last lecture.
50 Hitoshi NAGAI
Below is a simplified version of a diagram I used in The Opening: A Philosophy of Actuality

(Philosophia OSAKA, No. 3, 2008, p. 23).
Past Present Future
Past Present Future Past Present Future
Pa. Pr. Fu. Pa. Pr. Fu. Pa. Pr. Fu. Pa. Pr. Fu.
Let us briefly explain the diagram. The past, present and future of the top row are
actual. However, as we said in the previous lecture, there was a present time at any time in
the past, or will be a present time at any time in the future, with a past and future centred at
that present time. This is expressed by the rows below the top one, which are repeated ad
infinitum. We have discussed the problem about this understanding of time.
Here let us analogize the present with the phenomenal, and the past and future
with the psychological. Then the top row in the first diagram corresponds to the top row
in the above diagram. That the phenomenal spoken of by Chalmers transforms into a class
under psychological concepts corresponds to the present dropping below the top row such
that a present time in the past and a present time in the future also have to be present. In
both cases, what is actual and absolute degenerates and transforms into what is possible and
relative. To say that it degenerates and transforms does not mean that what happens here
should be criticized, but rather that it should be noted.
What separates logical supervenience and natural supervenience

We have presented the viewpoint from which we will critically reconstruct Chalmers
theory. Before we proceed, however, there are still points to be introduced. In what follows,
we will clarify what supervenience means.
If, in all possible situations, the property A cannot be absent so long as there is the
property B, the property A supervenes on the property B. To consider the world as a whole,
global supervenience can be defined as follows: If there is no world in which the property A
is absent and the property B exists, the property A supervenes on the property B. For example,
if a world physically identical to our world also has to be biologically identical to our world,
biological properties supervene on physical properties. Thus, if consciousness supervenes on

physical facts, two creatures in a strictly identical physical state will have a strictly identical
conscious experience.
At this point, Chalmers draws an important distinction between logical supervenience
and natural supervenience. If, in all logically possible situations, the property A exists so
long as there is the property B, the property A logically supervenes on the property B. If,
additionally, the property A exists so long as there is the property B in all naturally possible
situations, the property A naturally supervenes on the property B. While natural possibility
concerns what is possible within the restrictions of the laws of nature governing our world,
logical possibility simply concerns what is logically possible with no such restrictions.
Hence, there are plenty of things that are logically possible and naturally impossible, but
nothing can be naturally possible and logically impossible.
According to Chalmers, biological properties logically supervene on physical
properties. That is, no two worlds can be physically identical and biologically different. If
photosynthesis is occurring in a world, the same photosynthesis must be occurring in another
physically identical world. In addition, psychological properties also logically supervene on
physical properties. No two worlds can be physically identical and psychologically different.
If there is a world in which an organism is perceiving in a psychological sense, then in
another physically identical world with that same organism in it, it would be perceiving too.
However, according to Chalmers, the fact that there is a conscious experience in a world
does not necessarily mean that there is a conscious experience in another physically identical
world. Consciousness, unlike psychological properties, does not logically supervene on
physical properties. The supervenience relationship between consciousness and physical
facts is not a logical or conceptual relationship, but is a natural and contingent one. For if a
psychological functional model explains how pain arises, for example, one can always pose
the question why such a function accompanies that sensation of pain. (This will be important
later when it is used as the grounds for the claim that a zombie does not actually exist but is
logically possible.)
The difference between logical and natural supervenience may be clearer if we imagine
Gods creation of the world. If the property A logically supervenes on the property B, then
Gods creating a world in which there is the property B would thereby entail there being
the property A in the world. But where God created a world with the property B where the
property A only naturally supervenes on property B, God would have needed to additionally
create a law to make the property A supervene on the property B. According to Chalmers,
materialism is right if we take the property B as physical properties and the property A as
all other properties, and if God need not have performed additional creation as in the former
52 Hitoshi NAGAI
case above.
Two objections could be made to Chalmers view from two opposite directions. One
objection is that consciousness logically supervenes on the physical. The other is that
consciousness does not even naturally supervene on the physical. (The materialist could
reply that it would be enough for materialism if consciousness naturally supervenes on the
physical, but I do not see any significance in this objection.) I will simultaneously support
these two opposite objections later.
What is most remarkable at this stage is that one can ask why any function accompanies
that sensation of pain. Why is this question possible at all? What is that sensation of pain
like? How could one know that people feel that pain? I cannot help but suspect that there is
groundless conjecture here. I very much wonder why Chalmers and many other philosophers
do not probe into this most essential point. In fact, this point is critically effective in the
dispute over the possibility of zombies, covertly serving as the grounds of the arguments. In
those disputes, too, the groundless generalization of that plays an essential role. For unless
it does, the general phenomenal pain would not exist, and pain has to be assimilated to
psychological pain, which is explainable in terms of its causal function. Thus the point here
is crucial, and requires extremely careful handling.
Turning two-dimensional semantics into three-dimensional semantics

What does it mean to simultaneously support the two opposite objections? To clarify
this, we need to introduce another point put forward by Chalmers i.e. his two-dimensional
semantics.
Chalmers argument is founded on Kripkes. Kripke drew a sharp distinction between the
epistemological contrast between the a priori (i.e. knowable before empirical investigation)
and the a posteriori (i.e. knowable by empirical investigation), on the one hand, and the
metaphysical contrast between the necessary (i.e. that which cannot be otherwise) and the
contingent (i.e. that which can be otherwise), on the other hand. This distinction is very
important. On the face of it, the a priori coincides with the necessary whilst the a posteriori
coincides with the contingent, and that had been thought to be the case.
According to Kripke, there are necessary truths that cannot be known a priori, examples
of which are Water is H2O and Heat is molecular motion. They were known a posteriori,
that is, as a result of empirical investigation, but once known, a reversal occurs (as discussed
in the first lecture) such that water is H2O in all possible worlds; they become necessary
truths. Then, the fact that water is that sort of clear and drinkable liquid, which fills lakes and
rivers and falls from the sky, is demoted to a contingent fact, although it has been a priori.
That wateriness of water appearing to us becomes a property that the real essence of water, i.e.
H2O, only happens to have.
The following point should be noted: what is meant by that here, unlike in the case
of the phenomenal qualities of pain, sourness, etc., is not private. It is not that individual
persons describe their own private sensation using that, but that we, the inhabitants of this
world, describe the way water is in our own world using that. The privacy is not privacy
among persons, but, as it were, privacy among worlds. We must not confuse them. (This
concerns the contrast between primary and pre-primary intensions that we mentioned in the
first lecture. We will discuss it in detail later.) Nevertheless, the demonstrative that here is
indispensable. For, after all, water is that kind of thing.
In the semantics of Kripke and Chalmers, the way the reference is fixed depends on
whether we consider the actual world or counterfactual possible worlds. In other words, a
concept has two kinds of intension. The primary intension, which is epistemological, is a
relation that fixes the reference to the actual world, and is determined by the way the world
actually is. The secondary intension, which is metaphysical, is a relation that fixes the
reference to possible worlds. When the reference in the actual world is already determined,
the secondary intension, by presupposing it, determines the reference in counterfactual
worlds. In the case of water, its primary intension picks out that sort of clear and drinkable
liquid that fills lakes and rivers. If it is discovered to be XYZ in the actual world, then water
refers to XYZ. But if it is discovered to be H2O, then water refers to H2O. This is the
secondary intension. Then it is no longer possible for water not to be H2O. A world in which
there is no H2O is a world with no water, even if there is something that has that kind of
watery appearance. However, the opposite was the case at the stage of the primary intension;
water might not have been H2O. The liquid was clear and drinkable, and was grasped as such
a thing, so it might not have been H2O. But once there is the second intension, a reversal
occurs such that it becomes possible for water, which is H2O, not to be watery in that kind of
manner. This is Kripkes (and Putnams) account.
We briefly discussed the reason why this conversion occurs in the previous lecture. The
reason, to put it more generally here, is that we have the desire to locate in the world the
way the world appears to us, making it something that is not the world itself, or something
contingent about the world itself. More precisely, the reason is that the device we developed
and call language, in essence, is a mechanism that inevitably contains the tendency towards
the same direction as that desire.
Now, according to Chalmers, because the primary intension, though not necessary, is
a priori, it is determined independently of the way the world really is, which is known by
investigation. Then, it is possible to bring the necessary-contingent relation back to the
54 Hitoshi NAGAI
epistemological stage, superimposing it on the a priori-a posteriori relation. For example,

we can regard the fact that water is a clear and drinkable liquid as a fact about the actual
world, and can regard different ways in which that fact can be discovered to be as possible
worlds. This enables us to conceive of the possibility that the clear and drinkable water was
not H2O but XYZ. That water is that clear and drinkable liquid (or that heat is that hot
thing) becomes an a priori necessary truth. It is not relevant to consider here how the actual
world has really been discovered to be. Whatever way the actual world is discovered to be, it
is an a posteriori contingent truth, because it is merely the way the world happens to be.
The above line of thought allows us to think as follows: if that water was actually
discovered to be XYZ rather than H2O, water would be XYZ in that actual world, and so
would be XYZ in all possible worlds conceived of in that actual world (which is a possible
actual world). We become able to think of the relation between the actual world and possible
worlds as a possible relation. That is the respect in which the present way of thinking is
advantageous, but it is undeniable that, in another respect, it is a superficial grasp of the
world. What is a priori in our knowledge, e.g. that Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of
Genji, ipso facto becomes necessary, so we will not be able to deal with the possibility
that the person named Murasaki Shikibu had not written The Tale of Genji. This possibility
corresponds to the possibility that H2O did not appear that way (i.e. in such a way that we
could recognize it as water). Such things become simply impossible.
To sum up in Chalmers terms, it is logically possible but metaphysically impossible that
water is not H2O, whereas it is logically impossible but metaphysically possible that water
does not appear that way. (It seems to me that it would be precise and clear if we replace
logically with epistemologically.)
We can now link the two-dimensional semantics to supervenience. There is logical
supervenience based on the primary intension and that based on the secondary intension.
Chalmers denies the logical supervenience of consciousness on physical properties by
treating it as based on the primary intension. We will discuss this in more detail in relation to
the problem of zombies (p. 60).
Things that do not supervene on the physical except consciousness: indexical facts
According to Chalmers, nearly everything except consciousness (i.e. phenomenal
properties, experiences, or qualia) logically supervenes on the physical. If God creates
the world physically, everything else, through supervening on it, automatically comes into
existence. What Chalmers regards as candidates for things that do not logically supervene
on the physical are: (1) conscious experiences, (2) indexical elements and (3) causality.
Before we proceed, I would like to explain (2) and (3). We will then return to the problem of
consciousness, relating it to zombies.
Indexicals are such words as I, you, here and tomorrow, whose references vary
with the speaker and the context of the utterance. Here means the place at which I am,
and tomorrow means the day after the one which exists now, so, ultimately, I and
now are essential indexicals. But why do they not supervene on physical properties? If I
could be understood as the one who is making this utterance, namely as the reflectively
conscious utterer, I would supervene on physical properties. It would be that even a purely
mechanical robot could utter the word I and refer to the robot itself. The same would hold
for now. If now could be understood as the time at which this utterance is made, now
would supervene on physical properties. Even a purely mechanical robot would be able to
utter now and refer to the time of the utterance. Chalmers, however, does not think this way.
In fact, he has in mind the meaning of I and now which I explained by describing them
as sole and actual in the first lecture, distinguishing it from the other meaning. (See The
Conscious Mind, p. 85, ll. 6-8.) I in this sense is I as opposed to one reflectively conscious
of oneself. That is why he gives I as an example of something that does not supervene on
the physical.
Indeed, I and now in this meaning do not supervene on the physical. That is plainly
true in the case of now. A present fact ceases to be present and becomes past, remaining
physically (or even in all respects) identical. The property of being now does not supervene
on anything! The same would be true of I, if the analogy we introduced in the last
lecture holds. If there was a person who is physically identical with me (and is also even
psychologically and phenomenally identical with me), he would not thereby become me
just as events that are precisely identical with those occurring now would not ipso facto
create now. The property of being me also does not supervene on anything. (Nevertheless,
I or now, by the same process as that by which the primary intension converts to the
secondary intension, can convert to the meaning that supervenes on a particular person or
event. We will discuss this process in the next lecture.) Below is a diagram that is parallel to
the previous two diagrams.
56 Hitoshi NAGAI
I Another person
I Another person
I Another person
Of course, only at the top row is the relation between the sole actual I and another person.
The property of being me at the top row alone does not supervene on the physical properties
of the world. The Is below the top row do not concern an actual fact, but are reducible to a
formal property, i.e. self-relatedness. So those Is can be regarded as supervening on physical
properties. I can say, I do not supervene on physical properties. This means, The fact that
this person is me does not supervene on this persons physical properties. Nevertheless, this
statement uttered by me would be understood by others in the meaning of the second row or
below. Then they could say, It does supervene on physical properties. (The statement: The
fact that this event is happening now does not supervene on this events physical properties,
could be criticized in the same manner at other points in time.) On the other hand, the same
statement as uttered by me could be uttered by any other person. Then I could say, It does
supervene on physical properties. There is no objective fact as to which contrast is at the
top row. Rather, interpretations of the above diagram will get caught up in the conflict it
illustrates. That is, the property of being at the top row in the diagram is itself relativized
in the way that I or now illustrated by the diagram is. Since language begins with this
relativization (or, since language is this relativization), there remains no trace of what is
eliminated by the relativization inside the linguistic world. However, I, and consequently we,
always live both what is constantly eliminated by the process of linguistic relativization and
what is constantly generated by it. In fact, this is where the reason can be found as to why the
term phenomenal has to have a double meaning.
What is Chalmers view on the relationship between the indexical facts under
consideration and consciousness? He does not think that there is an essential relationship
between them. He only places the two on a par with each other. I, of course, think that there
is an essential relationship. There should be no room left for misunderstanding, but put
that way, my thought might seem to be this: whilst even a mechanical robot could refer to
itself or to the time of the reference, I or now describable as sole and actual cannot
be referred to without consciousness. This is not my view at all. It is rather the opposite:
unless there exist the indexical elements describable as sole and actual, there could be no
consciousness. If consciousness is not understood this way, how could it fail to supervene
on physical properties? One who grasps consciousness as an objective fact, as Chalmers
and most others do, should be able to sufficiently allow it to logically supervene on physical
properties.
Chalmers himself writes as follows:
Most obviously, there is an epistemological problem about consciousness the prob-

lem of other minds. This problem arises because it seems logically compatible with all
the external evidence that beings around us are conscious, and it is logically compat-
ible that they are not. We have no way to peek inside a dogs brain, for instance, and
observe the presence or absence of conscious experience. [T]he mere prima facie
existence of the problem is sufficient to defeat an epistemological argument for the
logical supervenience of consciousness. By contrast, there is not even a prima facie
problem of other biologies, or other economies. (The Conscious Mind, p. 74)
It is with regard to not just dogs brains, but peoples brains that there is no means
to peek inside them for the purpose of observing the presence or absence of conscious
experience. So it is question-begging to use the pronoun we in presenting the problem.
However, the problem could not be publicly presented in the first place without begging
the question. This structure carries within it the very peculiarity of the problem. Chalmers
says that there is at least one prima facie problem, but he is not right. It is the only problem.
The problem of other minds is not a problem that happened to arise from consciousness.
Rather, what generates that problem is consciousness. To use the notion of the privacy of
consciousness, consciousness is not something that happens to have the characteristic of
being private, but the characteristic of privacy hypostasized is consciousness. However, the
problem of privacy here cannot be presented as a problem of general privacy possessed by all
creatures, or as a problem lying in one plane at the same level. As I said earlier, this itself is a
truly baffling problem, and is also the reason why the character phenomenal, for example,
has to be progressive. Thus, if it is said, Observation of the brain belonging to oneself would
enable observation of the relationship between brain states and conscious states, there will
be the aforementioned double meaning of oneself. And that is the very problem.
Things that do not supervene on the physical except consciousness: causality

Let us briefly discuss the third candidate of what does not logically supervene on the
58 Hitoshi NAGAI
physical. How could a world differ from our world if it is identical with our world in every
detail of a microphysical fact? Thus far I have given two answers on Chalmers behalf i.e.
absence of consciousnesses (or their being in a different way) and absence of myself (or my
being a different conscious subject). I have contended that they are, in fact, not two separate
matters. Now, the third candidate is causality.
It is true also of causality that no more than the regularity of the connections between
events is observable externally. That is, there is a problem of causality corresponding to the
problem of other minds. If there are two worlds that are permanently identical in how all the
particles in space-time are distributed, they may differ only in whether there is causality. A
world without causation (which is, as it were, a causality-zombie world) is a world in which
everything is in fact contingent. One might think that the existence of physical laws entails
the reality of causation, but there being such patterns is compatible with everything being
contingent. Moreover, the same problem arises as to the very existence of laws; it is possible
for a world which is physically identical with our world throughout its spatiotemporal history
to have a different set of laws. In Chalmers comic example, that world has a physical law
which will change two hundred tons of pure gold, if assembled in a vacuum, into lead. But
since no such thing has happened in that world, it has followed the same history as our world.
This clearly implies that our world could be such a world. Thus, laws of nature also do not
logically supervene on a collection of individual physical facts. Of course, there is a big
problem of whether it is possible to separate individual physical facts from laws of nature, a
problem stemming from a conflict between Hume and Kant. I think as follows: to the extent
that that is impossible and only to that extent would the existence of causality and laws of
nature be presupposed.
Chalmers, however, says that although the existence of causality and laws defies
reductive explanation, the problem is not as important as that of consciousness. Whereas
consciousness is something elusive that demands an explanation, he says, causality and laws
are mere postulates to account for the existing physical phenomena, that is, for the regularity
existing in the nature. But if he can say this, he should also be able to say that consciousness,
too, is only postulated to account for the regularity existing in the nature. Why cant he say
this? I think that there is only one true reason. In the case of causality and laws, on the one
hand, although there is a problem corresponding to the problem of other minds, there isnt
the crucial asymmetry between self and other. In the case of consciousness, on the other
hand, I can say, No matter what anyone says, I have consciousness, because I have this. I
can be certain of at least one instance even if no one else agrees with me, and whether other
people also have the same kind of thing constitutes the problem of other minds. In the case
of causality and laws, however, there exists nothing that could correspond to the sole instance
whose certainty is guaranteed. As it were, everything corresponds to another mind from the
outset. To use the terms from the previous lecture, the second counterattack is directly made
without the first counterattack. That is why it can be safely said that causality and laws are
only postulated to account for the existing regularity. With respect to consciousness, there
is actually one instance given of which such a thing cannot be said. Moreover, objective
agreement can never be reached as to which that sole instance is. In that sense, there is a most
unusual phenomenon that is incomparable with anything else.
If so, however, it is in fact possible to see the same structure in causality and laws. As
regards causality, the sole instance for which I can say, No matter what anyone says, I know
that this exists, would be the causality of free will. For example, I can raise my hand, let
out my voice, and so on. As regards laws, it would be the private semantic rules of language
which I follow when I speak. Then causality, laws, rules and meaning would each generate a
contrast analogous to that between the phenomenal and the psychological, and so it would be
possible to insist that that which corresponds to the phenomenal fails to logically supervene
on physical properties.
Whether something supervenes on physical properties indeed has no significance outside
the range of problems associated with Chalmers and contemporary philosophy of mind.
A far bigger philosophical problem will be formed if we ask what the difference is between
the idea of a zombie pertaining to consciousness or phenomenal qualities and the idea of a
zombie pertaining to causality, laws, rules or meaning. Put another way, if I say, Whatever
anyone says, I am not a zombie, the meaning of the validity of my certainty should be
different between the case of consciousness and that of rules or meaning. But we will not go
into this problem here in order not to deviate from the subject and obscure the continuity of
the whole discussion. Hoping that my view on that problem will be clear from this series of
lectures as a whole, I would like to go straight to the problem of zombies in its commonly
understood sense.
Finally, here come the zombies!

Chalmers argues that it is possible for there to be a creature that is physically identical
with me but lacks conscious experience i.e. my zombie duplicate. Here I is presented
as an example of something that is certainly conscious, so anything that is conscious will
serve his official purpose. Therefore, a global expression of the same thought would be that
it is possible for there to be a world that is physically identical with our world but has no
consciousness in it at all. Naturally, all the creatures in that world are zombies.
Now I will exist in that world. Let us consider that person in the world in which there is
60 Hitoshi NAGAI
no consciousness, or my zombie duplicate in a world in which there are conscious creatures.

He is precisely identical with me down to the level of molecules. He processes information
about the external world in the same way as I do, and responds to stimuli in the same way
as I do. For example, he seems to enjoy the taste of beer, distinguishing it from the tastes
of other beverages, listens to language, and speaks. He is functionally identical with me.
However, there is something crucial lacking in him; he has no inside. Conscious experience
is completely absent. To employ the contrast between the phenomenal and the psychological,
although there is in fact nothing phenomenal for him, he and I are precisely identical
psychologically. Therefore, it is indiscernible from the outside which of us is a zombie. He
will also say, by the same mechanism as mine, that he is not a zombie. So, although he lacks
consciousness in the experiential, phenomenal sense, we can say that he has consciousness
in the functional, psychological sense.
There is the following objection: the conceivability of something does not entail the
possibility of it. Chalmers, in response to this objection, appeals to the point which I said I
would discuss in more detail in relation to the problem of zombies (p. 54). His argument
goes as follows. In the case of a necessary phenomenon discovered a posteriori, the
objection is right. For example, there is no longer a possibility that water is not H2O, because
water is H2O in all possible worlds. However, a posteriori necessity is irrelevant here. For
consciousness is the primary intension rather than the secondary intension. Just as it is
possible that water qua the primary intension is not H2O, so it is possible that consciousness
does not supervene on the physical states inside the body. A zombie world is impossible
in the way that it is impossible for water qua the secondary intension not to be H2O, but is
possible in the way that it is possible for water qua the primary intension not to be H2O.
Chalmers regards the problem of the logical supervenience of consciousness on physical
properties as pertaining to the primary intension, thereby denying that logical supervenience.
The above defence of zombies based on two-dimensional semantics is indeed quite
impressive and, as a form of argument, deservers emphasis. However, it does not stand. For
either in the case of water or in the case of heat, the primary intension is not a phenomenal
quality, or a quale. This should be obvious in the case of water. That clear and drinkable
liquid that fills lakes and rivers and that sometimes falls from the sky is already an objective
thing that has been discerned from other things. Even hotness in the case of heat, when
it is the source of public investigation, is never a phenomenal quality, but is that property
possessed by such things as fire, which is communally discernible by everyone. That in
this case does not mean that phenomenal quality, which is meant by each person referring
to their own private sensation, but is that by which we, the inhabitants of this world, refer
to the way water is in our own world. If that here is the primary intension, the phenomenal
quality itself is, as it were, the pre-primary intension. Of course, the pre-primary intension
inevitably accompanies the progressive structure. The primary intension must not be
confused with this pre-primary intension. Even in the case of pain, sourness or yellowness,
the primary intension, as the starting point of the investigation of the secondary intension,
is never the pre-primary intension. Indeed, if it was, the very public investigation would be
impossible.
In fact, the same is true of consciousness. Unless cases where consciousness exists and
cases where it does not exist are discernible from each other communally and objectively,
the investigation of the secondary intension of consciousness (i.e. that of its microphysical
essence) could not have begun. Put in terms of the distinction between the phenomenal and
the psychological, both the primary and secondary intensions cannot but be psychological
from the outset. That is, consciousness, from the outset, cannot but be something that even
a zombie can have.
If so, what should be said of the possibility of phenomenal zombies advocated by
Chalmers? To state my answer in advance, what he intends to say, in fact, bears on the pre-
primary intension, and therefore cannot be said (unless the progressive structure is taken into
consideration). In my view, this is essentially Wittgensteins insight. It is utterly puzzling that
this truly heart-warming insight seems to have been forgotten by everyone so quickly.
Objections from two opposite directions at the same time

Do you remember when we said, in response to Chalmers denial that consciousness
logically supervenes on physical properties, that two objections can be made at the same time
from two opposite directions? We can now easily carry out the task we have been postponing.
The two objections from opposite directions were, Consciousness does logically supervene
on the physical, and, Consciousness does not even naturally supervene on the physical.
Let us begin with the objection that consciousness does logically supervene on the
physical. The truth of this statement is clear from the point that even the primary intension
of consciousness can only be psychological. In this sense, zombies are literally utterly
impossible. The reason is simple: even before the formation of the microphysical secondary
intension that is, from the outset our concept of consciousness is and must be objectively
determined by, for example, whether or not it is possible to partake in the game of losing
consciousness and recovering consciousness. Even a zombie could lose consciousness, say,
by getting hit on the head, and recover consciousness afterwards. Therefore, a zombie has
to have consciousness. A game of this sort is the only home of our concept consciousness.
The investigation of the secondary intension has to be conducted on the basis of such a game.
62 Hitoshi NAGAI
Furthermore, there would not occur the first counterattack, which we dealt with in the first
lecture. For if there occurs a situation for consciousness corresponding to the situation
where even though I had not eaten anything sour, my mouth suddenly became full of a sour
taste (and my face looks as if I have just eaten something spicy), it would be a situation
where I am conscious but cannot behave as though I am conscious at all. So, it would
be completely impossible for me to report that that situation has occurred. If the opposite
situation occurs, it would be a situation where I suddenly become a zombie. Then I would
not be able to say that it has occurred. Even if a zombie utters that it has, there must be no
possibility that he has said so by referring to it.
Let us turn to the objection that consciousness does not even naturally supervene on the
physical. Chalmers, presenting the problem of other minds, says that the mere prima facie
existence of the problem is sufficient to defeat an epistemological argument for the logical
supervenience of consciousness. However, if this is his argument, it would clearly apply
to the case of the natural supervenience of consciousness. This argument should have the
consequence that zombies are possible even naturally, let alone logically. That is, there may
be a lot of zombies existing normally in this world, although it can never be known whether
there are. The problem of other minds is precisely this sort of problem, so it is simply
puzzling that Chalmers, using the argument in question, believes without a doubt that other
normal people in this world are conscious.
However, conversely, why could there be such an argument? If the home of the concept
consciousness resides in whether or not it is possible to partake in the game of losing
consciousness and recovering consciousness, it would be impossible a priori that others, in
so far as they partake in that game, lack consciousness. Moreover, in so far as the relevant
neurophysiological processes are occurring in others, it would be necessarily impossible
that they are not conscious. For both the primary and secondary intensions are functional
and psychological. Chalmers might say that there will nevertheless remain the problem of
whether others have phenomenal consciousness. But what is phenomenal consciousness
that is neither the primary nor secondary intension? What does it mean to ask whether others
have it? The intuition is presumably as follows. I certainly have this, which is consciousness.
But do other people also have anything of this sort? Yet it can never be known, by definition,
whether other people also have anything of this sort. (If this can be known, those people
would not be others.) The possibility of others being zombies is, in that sense, necessary.
However, if the problem assumes something that cannot be known by definition, is it
not a pseudo-problem? If we start saying that other people do or do not have something of
this sort, are we not giving a logical tautology or contradictory statement disguised as an
empirical factual statement? We are. Other people do not have anything of this sort. That
is why they are others. Then, are others zombies? In one sense, they precisely are. Isnt that
right? There are people whose external behaviour and internal states of the brain and nerves
are entirely normal, but they feel no pain, sourness, anxiety, or melancholy. Who are they?
The answer to this riddle can only be other people. This is a simple, indubitable fact. The
home of the concept of zombies can only reside in the eerie contrast between me and people
who are not me. However, who are other people? Why can I, expecting approval, speak
about this to you, other people?
The problem here, again, concerns the progressive multilayeredness of the self-
other relation. In a sense, everyone can ask, reflecting on themselves, I certainly have
consciousness, but do other people also have anything of this sort? It would be that I have
also just asked this question. Just as he is I and she is I, so I am I, and there are others
for each of he, she and I. In this case, too, it cannot be known, by definition, whether
others also have something of this sort, so the possibility of others being zombies is
necessary. However, in another sense, they are not actual others. I issuing in I am I is
different in meaning from I whom everyone is, therefore the meaning of others would
also be different. This vividly points to the relation between the progressive structure of the
phenomenal illustrated in the diagram on p. 49 and the progressive structure of I illustrated
in the diagram on p. 56. Thus, the home of the concept of a zombie, and therefore that of the
concept of consciousness, resides in the progressive self-other structure.
(translated by Shogo SHIMIZU)
2012 by Hitoshi NAGAI. All rights reserved.

Waka YOSHINAGA (Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University)
Le supplment et le vide pour lautre: la possibilit de lhtro-affection chez

Derrida
Il y a quelques apories propres dans les discussions au sujet de lautre. Dans Violence et
Mtaphysique de Lcriture et la diffrence, Jacques Derrida soulve trois problmes chez
Levinas qui a considr lthique comme la premire philosophie dans Totalit et infini.
Premirement, Derrida critique le fait que Levinas a vit que lautre soit un moi ou un
alter ego afin dempcher de rduire lautre au moi et afin dassurer laltrit de lautre.
Daprs Derrida, sans lego de lautre, nous naurions pas pu assurer laltrit et distinguer
lautre des objets (ED 184).
Deuximement, Derrida le contredit sur le fait quil, Levinas, na pas admis de plan
commun entre le moi et lautre pour dfaire limprialisme du Moi. Selon Derrida, quand
Levinas a dit au figur Autrui ressemble Dieu , il a suppos une dimension divine. Mais
pour cette divinit, il aurait t ncessaire douvrir un plan commun comme la pense de
ltre que prsuppose la dtermination de ltant-homme et de ltant-Dieu (ED 211).
Troisimement, Derrida met en question le fait que Levinas, qui refusait le concept
dextriorit, a employ lexpression vraie extriorit pour exprimer laltrit. La
raison de ce refus rside dans le fait que l extriorit fait lunit claire de lespace une
rfrence qui neutralise laltrit radicale (ED 165). Dans cette contradiction chez Levinas,
Derrida trouve les limites du logos philosophique qui ne se passent pas de la structure
Dedans-Dehors et des mtaphores spatiales dune part, et les significations spatiales des
langages dautre part.
Cependant, les problmes remarqus par Derrida sont des sujets communs aux
recherches sur Autrui plutt que des sujets propres Levinas. Et au premier abord, ces sujets
nous semblent explicables chez Henry qui a accord de limportance lego de lautre de
mme qu lego du moi, qui a tabli le plan commun de ces deux egos dans lauto-affection
et qui a fait une distinction entre lintriorit et lextriorit. Autrement dit, en faisant les
critiques mentionnes ci-dessus lencontre de Levinas, Derrida pourrait se rapprocher de la
communaut dHenry, du moins en apparence. Mais les penses dHenry sur la communaut
Jacque Derrida, Lcriture et la diffrence, dition du Seuil, 1967, indiqu par labrviation ED et avec
le numro de la page concerne, et ainsi de suite. L-dessus, cf. notre essai, Le chemin troit pour discuter
sur lautre: de Levinas Derrida: Bulletin de lUniversit Gifu shotoku Gakuen, 2011, pp.35-45.
L-dessus, cf. notre ouvrage, De laffectivit lautre: trait sur la communaut par la
phnomnologie de la vie, dition de Kizasu, 2004, chapitre 2.

66 Waka YOSHINAGA
nont propos que des apories constates chez Levinas dun autre ct. Chez Henry, ces
apories semblent se rsumer comment assurer lego de lautre, comment concilier la
communaut et laltrit et comment relier lintriorit de lauto-affection lautre dans
le Dehors. Chez Henry, ces apories semblent se rduire lauto-affection qui est lorigine
de la communaut et de lipsit. Mais comment Derrida pourra-t-il expliquer ces apories
provoques par lauto-affection en ralit ?
Cet essai a pour objet de dcouvrir un lment permettant lautre davoir rapport
lauto-affection du moi dans le concept de la diffrance et du supplment de De la
grammatologie. Derrida dit, il ny a pas dthique sans prsence de lautre mais aussi et par
consquent sans absence, dissimulation, dtour, diffrance, criture (G 202, soulign par
Derrida). Donc il sagit dclaircir lconception de Derrida au sujet de lautre, en examinant
ses arguments sur la diffrance, la chane de supplments comme critique de la mtaphysique,
lauto-affection et laltrit.
(1) La diffrance et la violence

Derrida tente de mettre en vidence le logocentrisme, la mtaphysique de la prsence
et la clture des sciences dans la tradition de la philosophie occidentale qui prsupposait la
supriorit de la parole sur lcriture. En analysant les discours dualistes autour du langage,
Derrida met la justice du dualisme en question et renverse les valeurs composant ce dualisme
de sorte quil met en lumire un certain mouvement universel sy accomplissant.
Dabord, pourquoi la parole tait-elle considre comme le prcdent de lcriture
depuis Platon? Derrida cite la phrase suivante dAristote comme un indice des ides de la
philosophie occidentale: les sons mis par la voix sont les symboles des tats de lme
et les mots crits les symboles des mots mis par la voix (G 21). Les affections de lme
expriment naturellement les choses. Donc la voix comme ses symboles est lesignifiant le plus
proche du signifi. Le signifi, en tant que vrit ou bont transcendantale, qui est impliqu
par tout signifiant mais qui ne se confond avec aucun deux, se laisse pr-comprendre
travers chacun deux. Et la voix, en tant que lauto-affection de sentendre-parler , est
lexprience unique du signifi se produisant dans le dedans de soi. La voix sentend - cest
sans doute ce quon appelle la conscience - au plus proche de soi comme leffacement absolu
du signifiant (G 33). Dans cette exprience, le mot est vcu comme lunit lmentaire et
indcomposable du signifi et de la voix (G 34).
Lvidence rassurante sur laquelle se fonde la tradition de la philosophie occidentale
Jacque Derrida, De la grammatologie, Les ditions de minuit, 1967, indiqu par labrviation G et
avec le numro de la page concerne, et ainsi de suite.
Le supplment et le vide pour lautre : la possibilit de lhtro-affection chez Derrida 67
est la prsence de ce signifi qui ne devient jamais en soi un signifiant ou une trace. Dautre
part, lcriture est plus servile que la parole, loubli de soi et lextriorisation comme ltre-
hors-de-soi. Elle supprime la vie. Ce que trahit lcriture elle-mme, dans son moment non
phontique, cest la vie. Elle menace du mme coup le souffle, lesprit, lhistoire comme
un rapport soi de lesprit. Elle en est la fin, la finitude, la paralysie (G 40). Elle strilise
ou immobilise la cration spirituelle et vivante dans la rptition de la lettre. Elle est le
principe de mort et de diffrence dans le devenir de ltre (G 41). Cest--dire, lcriture est
toujours drive, survenue, particulire et extrieure alors que la voix tient lunit articule
du son et du sens.
Selon Derrida, Saussure hrite de la tradition. Il pense que la raison pour laquelle
lcriture est drive est comme suit: lcriture est le signifiant du signifiant premier, la
reprsentation de la voix prsente soi, de la signification immdiate, naturelle et directe du
sens, en un mot, reprsentative extrieure (G 46). Extrieure parce que Saussure, en tenant
lalphabet grec pour prototype du systme phontique, pense que lcriture nest que la
figuration de la langue et que le signe nest quarbitraire. Il accepte le schma dualiste
d externe / interne, image / ralit, reprsentation / prsence (G 50). De plus, il reporte
lcriture lextriorit loppos du systme interne .
Ainsi,lcriture est un outil imparfait, une figuration extrieure, une source de
la contamination menaant et altrant le systme interne du dehors. En outre, elle est
considre comme intrusion de la technique artificieuse, effraction dune espce tout fait
originale et violence archtypique qui entament lintriorit de lme, la prsence vivante
de lme soi dans le logos vrai (G 52). Mais la raison de cette dnomination ngative
comme contamination rside non seulement dans la drivation de lcriture mais aussi
dans linfluence que la reprsentation de lcriture exerce sur la parole. La reprsentation
senlace ce quelle reprsente, au point que lon parle comme on crit, on pense comme
si le reprsent ntait que lombre ou le reflet du reprsentant (G 54). Enfin, cette
reprsentation provoque un renversement - crire prcde parler - de sorte que lcriture,
moyen mnmotechnique, signifie loubli de la voix vivante. Lcriture est la dissimulation
de la prsence naturelle et premire et immdiate du sens lme dans le logos (G 55).
Cependant, tant donn que la voix est contamine et oublie par la reprsentation du
signifiant, Derrida met en question la parole privilgie comme prsence soi. Tout dabord,
pourquoi la parole est-elle privilgie alors que lcriture est tenue pour une violence de
dformation? Ensuite, pourquoi peut-elle produire sa propre histoire de manire parfaitement
naturelle, autistique et domestique, sans jamais tre affecte daucun dehors(G 62) ? A ces
questions, Saussure rpond que lcriture est drive sur la base de larbitraire du signe. Mais
daprs Derrida, le rapport entre chaque signifiant dtermin et chaque signifi dtermin est
68 Waka YOSHINAGA
arbitraire dans lintrieur du rapport naturel entre les signifiants phontiques et leurs
signifis (G 65). Autrement dit, il veut dire que tous les signes, mme sils sont crits ou
phoniques , sont institus sans motif , cest--dire l immotivation du signe.
Cette considration sur l immotivation du signe cause un doute sur la trace. Puisque
la trace marque le rapport lautre, elle articule sa possibilit sur tout le champ de ltant,
que la mtaphysique a dtermin comme tant-prsent (G 69). A cause de cette possibilit,
il faut penser la trace et son occultation invitable avant ltant. La prsentation de lautre
comme tel, cest--dire la dissimulation de soncomme tel, a toujours dj commenc et
aucune structure de ltant n'y chappe (ibid.). Et comme Derrida dit que sans renvoyer
une nature, limmotivation de la trace est toujours devenue (ibid., soulign par Derrida),
limmovitation de la trace se retourne contre celle de tout signe de sorte quil ny a quun
renvoi incessant de signe signe. Le representamen ne fonctionne quen suscitant un
interprtant qui devient lui-mme signe et ainsi linfini (G 72, soulign par Derrida).
En un mot, lidentit soi du signifi se drobe et se dplace sans cesse (ibid.). Cest
pourquoi le propre du representamen nest pas propre ou proche de soi.
Limmotivation de la trace entrane labsence du signifi transcendantal. Derrida lappelle
une diffrance ou un jeu. La thse de larbitraire du signe chez Saussure est nie et sa place,
celle de la diffrence comme source de valeur linguistique est propose (G 77). Lexclusion
du lien naturel entre le son et le sens a pour rsultat de mettre en clair que tout signe
linguistique implique une criture originaire. Derrida dit: il y a une violence originaire de
lcriture parce que le langage est dabord,..., criture (G 55). Lorigine du signifi est ni.
Cependant, ce qui est ni nest pas seulement lorigine du signifi. Cest parce que le
concept du jeu propos par Derrida branle les deux valeurs que la philosophie occidentale
supposait.
Lune de ces deux valeurs est le concept linariste du temps insparable du
phonologisme-logocentrisme (G 106). Il veut dire que les lments auditifs du signifiants
se suivent au point de former une chane et de se drouler dans la continuit du temps. Ce
concept provient de lengagement dans la distinction entre la face signifiante et la face
signifie. Mais tant donn que le signifi est toujours la trace et dj en position de signifiant
dans le jeu, le concept linariste doit tre refus.
Lautre est lorigine situe lextrmit de ce concept linariste. Derrida suppose
quil ny ait pas dorigine, cest--dire dorigine simple; que les questions dorigine
transportent avec elles une mtaphysique de la prsence (G 109). Finalement il sagit de
racines mtaphysico-thologiques, retenant la diffrence entre le signifiant et le signifi et
Lcriture est tenue pour oblitration du propre class dans le jeu de la diffrence (G 162).
la rfrence un signifi. Car le signifiant, le sensible, peut tre considr faire rfrence au
signifi tenu pour lintelligible la base de cette mtaphysique, le signe et la langue peuvent
tre forms. Autrement dit, cest par la diffrence entre le sensible et lintelligible que peut
tre dtenue la diffrence entre le signifiant et le signifi. Le signe et la divinit ont le mme
lieu et le mme temps de naissance. Lpoque du signe est essentiellement thologique (G
25). Mais tant donn que lorigine du signifi privilgi est nie, cette mtaphysique expire.
Cest la clture que Derrida dcouvre dans le langage.
Ainsi, les ides sur la trace et le jeu invalident les recherches de lorigine et annulent la
mtaphysique. La ngation de la mtaphysique branle le concept de lhistoire et du livre
qui est toujours associ un schma linaire du droulement de la prsence (G 127). Par
consquent, sans lorigine de la prsence, ici-maintenant ou sans llment absolu, il faut
commencer en suspens.
Derrida voque trois conditions de la drivation de l'criturecomme suit: le langage
originel, naturel, etc. na jamais exist; il na jamais t intact, intouch par
lcriture; il a toujours t lui-mme une criture (G 82). Ensuite, en proposant le
concept dArchi-criture prsent avec le concept vulgaire de lcriture, il veut dessiner le
mouvement de la diffrance, archi-synthse irrductible, qui ne peut se laisser rduire la
forme de la prsence, comme ncessit. Larchi-criture est luvre dans la forme et la
substance de lexpression graphique et dans celles de lexpression non graphique, et en outre,
elle constitue le mouvement de la sign-function liant un contenu une expression (G 88). A
propos de la prsence et du temps, elle marque le temps mort dans la prsence du prsent
vivant, dans la forme gnrale de toute prsence (G99, soulign par Derrida). Donc,
larchi-criture ouvre la fois la temporalisation et le rapport lautre, comme condition de
tout systme linguistique.
(2) Le supplment comme lirruption de la vie

Or comment cette archi-criture ouvre-t-elle la temporalisation, le rapport lautre, et
est-elle la condition du systme linguistique?
Dabord, selon Derrida, la temporalisation ne peut pas tre ouverte sans la diffrence
ou lopposition qui lui donne forme. Sans la diffrence entre le sensible apparaissant et
son apparatre vcu, la synthse temporalisatrice, permettant aux diffrences dapparatre
dans une chane de significations, ne saurait faire son uvre (G 96-97). Lapparatre et
le fonctionnement de la diffrence supposent une synthse originaire quaucune simplicit
Cette marque du temps mort par larchi-criture est appele espacement (G 99).
70 Waka YOSHINAGA
absolue ne prcde, cest--dire, la trace originaire (G 92). Elle est la fois lunit extra-petite
et la diffrence finale. Le fait que la trace est larchi-criture comme premire possibilit
de la parole, lieu natal de lusurpation, implique que la mme trace pure est la diffrance.
Derrida dit, sans une rtention dans lunit minimale de lexprience temporelle, sans une
trace retenant lautre comme autre dans le mme, aucune diffrence ne ferait son uvre et
aucun sens napparatrait (G 92). Comme telle, la trace est tenue pour archi-phnomne de
la mmoire. Cest pourquoi la trace est louverture de la temporalisation.
Ensuite, comment larchi-criture, la diffrence originaire, est-elle la condition du
systme linguistique ? Comme lcriture, la diffrence est dj en uvre au cur de la
parole, le mouvement de sa diffrance veut dire un jeu entre la prsence et labsence. Ds
que ce mouvement inaugure la parole, il disloque le sujet quelle construit, lempche dtre
prsent ses signes, travaille son langage de toute une criture(G 204). Mais en mme
temps, lcriture est rhabilite puisquelle promet la rappropriation de ce dont la parole
stait laisse dpossder. Le passage lcriture implique la restauration, par une certaine
absence et par un type deffacement calcul, de la prsence due de soi dans la parole
(ibid.). En un mot, lopration qui substitue lcriture la parole remplace aussi la prsence
par la valeur (G 205). Dans le passage lcriture ou dans cette diffrance, lacte dcriture
est, la fois, le plus grand sacrifice visant la plus grande rappropriation symbolique de la
prsence et louverture dune autre vie par la mort. La mort par lcriture inaugure aussi la
vie (ibid.). Autrement dit, lcriture contient la mort et la vie. Donc, comme Derrida la lu
chez Rousseau, la mort nest pas le simple dehors de la vie.
Ds que la proximit soi vient tre interdite ou interrompue, ds que la parole choue
garder la prsence, lcriture devient invitable. Cest une violence faite la destine
naturelle de la langue (G 207). Ensuite, ce que la reprsentation de lcriture veut se donner
pour prsence et le signe pour la chose mme, cest une ncessit fatale inscrite dans le
fonctionnement du signe. Derrida appelle le concept abritant la fois le compltement et la
reprsentation, le supplment , alias la diffrance (G 208). cause du dfaut antrieur
dune prsence, le supplment sajoute en tant que surplus, une plnitude en enrichissant une
autre, le comble de la prsence. Donc, quelque part, quelque chose ne peut se remplir de
soi-mme, ne peut saccomplir quen se laissant combler par signe et procuration (ibid.,
soulign par Derrida). Le supplment est dangereux, tant donn quil remplace la prsence
par limage au point dtre vcu comme perte irrmdiable de substance vitale, comme
exposition la folie et la mort. Certainement il dtruit les forces que la nature a lentement
constitues et accumules, mais il joue un rle positif dans lconomie de la prsence de la
chose et de la dure de ltre.
Au sujet du supplment, Derrida dit quil na aucune nergie propre, aucun mouvement
spontan. Il est un organisme parasitaire, une imagination ou une reprsentation qui

dtermine et oriente la force du dsir (G 253). Derrida explique le mouvement du supplment
par le concept de limagination chez Rousseau. Daprs son interprtation, comme le pouvoir
danticipation qui excde la donne sensible et prsente vers linaperu, limagination est
la condition de la perfectibilit et de la piti (G 260). tant donn que la perfectibilit ne
saccomplit jamais sans langage, ce dernier nat de limagination. En outre, limagination
indique lhomme la crainte de la mort et le rapport la mort. Donc, limagination est le
pouvoir, pour la vie, de saffecter elle-mme de sa propre re-prsentation (G 261, soulign
par nous). Cest dans la mesure o la vie renvoie soi comme son propre manque, sa
propre demande de supplment (ibid.).
Ici, la nature est considre non pas comme un donn, mais comme une rserve. Et
parfois elle se manque elle-mme, ou sexcde elle-mme. Dautre part, limagination fait
sortir le pouvoir de sa rserve (G 263). Autrement dit, alors quelle anime la facult de la
jouissance, elle inscrit une diffrence entre le dsir et la puissance. Cest parce quelle veille
le dsir et le fait sortir de sa rserve de sorte quelle rompt lquilibre entre le dsir et la
puissance (ou la nature). Derrida cite Rousseau sur le dsquilibre entre ces deux lments,
le monde rel a ses bornes, le monde imaginaire est infini (G 264). Par consquent, il est
invitable quil y ait un dsquilibre do provienne la diffrence.
Ainsi, dans la mesure o limagination est la condition de la diffrence entre le dsir et
la puissance, elle est dtermine comme diffrance dans la prsence ou dans la jouissance. Et
tant donn quelle seule veille ou irrite le dsir, elle seule dborde ou divise la prsence (G
438). Donc limagination peut dsigner la fois lexcs et le manque de la nature dans la
nature (G 265, soulign par Derrida). Mais elle ne cre rien contre cet excs ou ce manque.
Elle est pure auto-affection. Elle est lautre nom de la diffrance comme auto-affection
(ibid., soulign par nous).
Chez Derrida, lgalit tient debout travers le concept de limagination de Rousseau:
limagination = lauto-affection = la diffrance. Cest limagination qui fait sortir de soi
et loriente lautre. Le rapport lautre et le rapport la mort sont une seule et mme
ouverture (ibid.). En mme temps, la premire extriorit en gnral est ouverte.
Toutefois, quant au supplment dont le mouvement est limagination, il na jamais
dorigine comme la trace ou larchi-criture. Le supplment nest possible qu la condition
que le systme de la supplmentarit en gnral ft dj ouvert dans sa possibilit et que le
jeu des substitutions ft depuis longtemps engag (G 225). La ncessit du supplment est
celle dun enchanement infini qui multiplie inluctablement les mdiations supplmentaires
(G 226), voici la chane des supplments (ibid.). Ainsi, le supplment se situe au milieu,
entre labsence et la prsence absolues. Tout commence par lintermdiaire, voil ce qui
72 Waka YOSHINAGA
est inconcevable la raison (ibid.). Le prsent absolu a dj t drob, donc na jamais

exist. Cest lcriture comme disparition de la prsence, qui ouvre le sens et le langage.
Ce jeu entre la prsence et labsence et ce supplment infini indiquent labme en abyme.
Labme, cest le creux qui peut rester ouvert entre la dfaillance de la nature et le retard
du supplment (G 421, soulign par Derrida). Le lien du signifi, nexistant jamais, avec le
signifiant littraire devient parfaitement extrinsque et contingent. Et, comme le supplment
entame toujours et dj la prsence, le dsir de la prsence nat au contraire de labme de la
reprsentation, de la reprsentation de la reprsentation, ainsi, la supplmentarit se droule
infiniment.
Cest le point de lextriorit par rapport la totalit du logocentrisme, partir duquel
Derrida croit entamer la dconstruction de cette totalit et la sortie hors de la clture dune
vidence. videmment, cest le dpart partir du milieu. Il faut commencer quelque part
o nous sommes (G 233, soulign par Derrida). Car il est impossible de justifier absolument
un point de dpart, avec la pense de la trace ou du supplment.
(3) Lauto-affection et lhtro-affection

Nous avons examin la critique de la mtaphysique de la prsence chez Derrida,
travers son concept de la diffrance et du supplment. Daprs Derrida, lindex du motif
de la prsence le plus voyant est le moment de la certitude dans le cogito cartsien (G
146). Lobjectivit est dsormais base sur la forme de la reprsentation de l'ide comme
modification dune substance prsente soi, et lidalit et la substantialit se rapportent
elles-mmes par un mouvement dauto-affection dans la res cogitans. La conscience est
exprience de pure auto-affection. Elle se dit infaillible (ibid., soulign par nous). Cest
lauto-affection sur laquelle se fonde la mtaphysique de la prsence. En revanche, Derrida a
dit que limagination est la diffrance et qu elle est pure auto-affection. Elle est lautre nom
de la diffrance comme auto-affection (G 265). Comment est cette auto-affection qui est
la fois lorigine de la mtaphysique de la prsence et la diffrance qui la dtruit? En termes
plus prcis, comment est lauto-affection interprte par Derrida?
Cette question concerne le mme sujet que celui propos au dbut de cet essai. La
critique de Levinas par Derrida dans Lcriture et la diffrence, au moins en apparence,
se rapproche du trait sur lautre chez Henry. Mais son trait, partant de la certitude de la
conscience cartsienne, converge vers lauto-affection en tant quessence de lipsit et de
la communaut. En outre, sa thorie sur le saisir de lautre, base sur laffectivit de lauto-
affection, ressemble celle de Rousseau accordant de limportance la piti. Quelle est
la position de Derrida dans les recherches sur lautre qui sentrecroisent autour de lauto-
affection?
Dune part, chez Henry, le fait que lauto-affection est lessence de lipsit et de la
communaut est justifi comme suit: chaque vivant accomplit lauto-affection comme une
preuve intrieure de la vie. Cet accomplissement invisible de lauto-affection est une
preuve de lidentit soi ne schappant jamais de lintrieur. En ce sens, lauto-affection
est lessence de lindividualisation, de lipsit. En mme temps, dans la mesure o chaque
vivant accomplit lauto-affection de la mme manire que laffectant et laffect concordent,
tout vivant a lauto-affection en commun. Donc lauto-affection est aussi lessence de
la communaut de tout vivant. Chaque vivant a en commun laffectivit comme lauto-
affection et la reoit dans la passivit absolue de son intriorit. Laffectant et laffect de
laffectivit saccomplissent dans chaque intriorit sans aucune distance ni aucune visibilit.
Henry appelle la relation entre le moi et lautre dans laffectivit, la non-diffrenciation.
Mais nous pouvons trouver une autre possibilit de ladite relation chez Henry, dans son
trait sur le corps, inspir par le continu rsistant de Maine de Biran. Nous percevons
la diffrence entre le moi et lautre travers le concept de la peau comme limite de
chaque chair rsistante. Malgr cela, cette peau, nexistant pas dans le monde, finit par
se rduire linvisibilit de lintriorit qui ne schappe jamais de soi-mme10. Henry tient
invariablement lauto-affection de lintriorit invisible pour la vrit de la vie, lobjet visible
de lextriorit pour la vrit du monde11. Dans lopposition dcisive entre lintriorit et
lextriorit, il sagit dassurer la diffrence entre le moi et lautre et dexpliquer linfluence
de lautre sur le moi.
Dautre part, Derrida, comme Henry, dit : lauto-affection est une structure universelle
de lexprience (G 236), lauto-affection est la condition dune exprience en gnral
(ibid.) de sorte quil convient que chaque vivant soit en puissance dauto-affection. Dans
un sens, il semble que Derrida comprend le concept henrien de la vie par lequel la vie se
prsente immdiatement elle-mme sans diffrance. De ce point de vue, la diffrance serait
dfinie comme linauthenticit de la vie, le mal. Au contraire, Derrida dit: cest justement
le propre du pouvoir de la diffrance que de modifier de moins en moins la vie mesure quil
stend (G 191). Cette phrase nous indique que la vie nest pas un sanctuaire o il ny a
pas de diffrance. Le mouvement de la diffrance dans la vie et la modification de la vie elle-
Michel Henry, Phnomnologie matrielle, Presses Universitaires de France, 1990, p.162.

Ibid., p.175.
Ibid., p.173.
Michel Henry, Incarnation, dition du Seuil, 2000, p.213.
10 Ibid., p.298.
11 Michel Henry, Cest moi la vrit, dition du Seuil, 1996, p.92, par exemple.
74 Waka YOSHINAGA
mme sont hors du concept henrien de la vie12.

Il en rsulte que lauto-affection est la ligne de partage des eaux, sparant Henry et
Derrida. Alors, comment lauto-affection et la diffrance sont-elles lies chez Derrida tandis
quelles ne se concilient jamais chez Henry?
La situation concerne par lauto-affection chez Derrida est dans lexprience de la voix:
du sentendre-parler. Lexprience de la voix appartient lordre du signifiant par lequel le
sujet nemprunte pas hors de lui le signifiant quil met et qui laffecte en mme temps (G
146). Autrement dit, lauto-affection de la voix, se passant de tout recours extrieur, rend
possible la plus grande prsence soi de la vie. Mais en mme temps, cette auto-affection,
se rendant universelle et transparente au signifi, se voit dj et se maintient dans sa propre
reprsentation. Car la voix a toujours dj t investie, sollicite, requise, marque dans son
essence par une certaine spatialit (G 409-410).
Pourquoi la spatialit est-elle mentionne dans lauto-affection phonique? Car
linscription de la parole produit la spatialit de lespace. La voix est ouverte lespace. Cest
parce que son auto-affection a une extriorit, la surface expose du corps en fait. Que le
langage doive traverser lespace, soit tenu de sespacer, ce nest pas l un trait accidentel
mais le sceau de son origine (G 331). Pareillement, lexprience du touchant-touch comme
lauto-affection, admet le monde du dehors. Lextriorit de lespace y est irrductible (G
235).
Ainsi, Derrida pose le problme de la voix comme signifiant non pas partir de
lintriorit mais partir de lextriorit spatiale. Le son du dehors nous touche, nous
intresse, nous pntre, car loue est toujours ouverte lattention, plus passive que le
regard. La voix pntre violemment en moi (G 342). Cela indique la fois lintriorit
et lextriorit de lauto-affection. Certainement, lexprience de sentendre-parler est un
lment de l'intriorit. Mais tant donn que ladite exprience implique une obligation de
rception, elle a donc la possibilit de recevoir laffection du dehors. Elle (= la voix) est
la voie privilgie pour leffraction et lintriorisation, dont la rciprocit se produit dans le
sentendre-parler, dans la structure de la voix et de linterlocution (G 342, complt par
nous).
Le dehors de la voix permet une communication entre deux auto-affections. Mais cela
ne signifie pas que les deuxorigines absolues sauto-affectent rciproquement, en rptant
en cho immdiat lauto-affection produite par lautre. Daprs Derrida, limmdiatet nest
que le mythe de la conscience. La voix et la conscience de voix - cest--dire la conscience
12 Ilest possible dindiquer la possibilit de lauto-affection de schapper de soi dans le concept de

la pulsion chez Henry. Mais dans ce cas, la pulsion na aucune diffrence dans son intriorit. cf.
Phnomnologie matrielle, p.174-175.
tout court comme prsence soi - sont le phnomne dune auto-affection vcue comme
suppression de la diffrance (G 236, soulign par nous). Cest cette suppression de la
diffrance qui est lorigine de ce quon appelle la prsence.
Voil le contraste entre Henry, dissertant sur lauto-affection comme lorigine absolue
sans diffrance, et Derrida, traitant de lauto-affection comme la suppression de la diffrance.
Derrida a dfini la possibilit de symboliser par lauto-affection, possibilit que Henry refuse
compltement en la distinguant de lauto-affection et en laffectant au systme de lobjet ou
de la mort. Seul un tre capable de symboliser, cest--dire de sauto-affecter, peut se laisser
affecter par lautre en gnral (G 236). Cest parce que lauto-affection de la vie est une
structure articule par lhistoire de la vie, qui suscite des oprations complexes et hirarchises.
Lauto-affection, le quant--soi ou le pour-soi, la subjectivit gagne en puissance et en
matrise de lautre mesure que son pouvoir de rptition sidalise (ibid.). Dans ce cas,
lidalisation veut dire le mouvement par lequel lextriorit sensible, qui sert de signifiant au
moi, se soumet son pouvoir de rptition. Pour Derrida, la prsence de lauto-affection de
sentendre-parler est la fois la suppression de la diffrance et de lautre. Donc la prsence que
lauto-affection donne nest que le symbole substitutif dune autre prsence (G 221). Et comme
lauto-affection phonique est supplment, reprsentant lobjet dj disparu et pntrant dans le
moi sa place, cest la seule manire dintrioriser le phnomne (G 342).
Cependant, Derrida dit quil y a une synergie et une synesthsie originelle comme
supposition. Pour Henry, un tel pathos-avec originel a pour origine lauto-affection. Mais
Derrida nie lauto-affection henrienne. Alors, pour lui, comment une synesthsie est-elle
possible?
Nous pouvons trouver un fil conducteur dans son interprtation sur la piti de Rousseau.
Comment est la piti dans le contexte de lauto-affection, de la diffrance et du supplment?
Daprs Derrida, la piti est un supplment du supplment, tant donn quelle tient lieu de
loi comme supplment de la loi naturelle lorsque celle-ci vient manquer (G 247). Elle est
luvre comme une force de rapprochement et de prsence de lautre, et par limagination,
comme un pouvoir de saffecter elle-mme de sa propre re-prsentation dans la vie. Elle a
pour rle de modrer lactivit de lamour de soi, moins en sy opposant quen lexprimant
de manire dtourne, en la diffrant (G 248-249). Derrida rsume la piti comme suit :
lorsque la piti sveille par limagination et la rflexion, la prsence sensible est excde
par son image, nous pouvons imaginer et juger que lautre sent et souffre (G 269).
Mais daprs Derrida, ce qui a lieu dans la piti, ce nest pas le mouvement
didentification de lautre et du moi. Il ny a didentification authentique que dans une
certaine non-identification (ibid.). Certainement, quand limmdiatet naturelle est tenue
pour principe de la relation entre lautre et le moi, toute valeur est dtermine selon sa
76 Waka YOSHINAGA
proximit par rapport elle. Mais puisque la proximit est un concept double sens, elle
est un loignement. Limmdiatet naturelle est la fois origine et fin mais au double sens
de chacun de ces mots: naissance et mort, esquisse inacheve et perfection finie (G 332).
Pour Derrida, limagination comme condition de la piti ouvre la mort, il en rsulte que le
principe de vie, une fois de plus, se confond avec le principe de mort (G 297).
Ainsi, chez Derrida, nous ne pouvons pas rencontrer lautre vivant rv par Henry,
car la vie inentame que Henry suppose nest quutopique. Lexprience o la prsence pure
reste inentame par le travail de la diffrence, inarticule afin que la jouissance de soi ne soit
pas altre par lintervalle, la discontinuit, laltrit, ce nest accord qu Dieu (G 353). A
propos de lhomme, alors que la prsence soi est la condition ncessaire du mouvement, de
la vie, de la jouissance du temps, en mme temps, elle ne peut pas schapper aux contraintes
de la supplmentarit. En effet, elle nest pas assez pure pour sen chapper. Dans lhumanit,
il ny a pas dessence de la prsence ni de prsence de lessence (G 439), donc la
reprsentation habite la prsence, comme condition mme de son exprience de la prsence.
vrai dire, nous pensons quil vaut mieux lappeler htro-affection plutt
quauto-affection13. La raison en est la suivante: lauto-affection chez Derrida est oblige
de reprsenter puisquune catastrophe y habite dj, et cette catastrophe vient du dehors.
Lirruption dun facteur extrieur, irrationnel, catastrophique provoque le passage dune
structure lautre, la raison pour cette extriorit est que le hasard ne fait pas partie du
systme. Les phrases suivantes sur le passage de la parole lcriture conviennent cette
auto-affection. Lirruption de cette contingence absolue a dtermin le dedans dune
histoire essentielle et affect lunit intrieure dune vie, la littralement infecte (G
442, soulign par Derrida), ou elle (= la circulation des signes arbitraires) ouvre ainsi une
agression contre la vie quelle fait circuler (G 425, complt par nous).
Chez Derrida, lintriorit de lauto-affection est toujours expose la contingence,
la possibilit de dformation. Ainsi, dans lauto-affection, le signifi fondamental ou la
chose mme ne sont jamais donns hors signe ou hors jeu. Ici, nous trouvons une diffrence
dcisive entre Henry et Derrida. Il y a un point dans le systme o le signifiant ne peut plus
tre remplac par son signifi, ce qui a pour consquence quaucun signifiant ne puisse ltre,
purement et simplement (G 376). Cest parce que le point de non-remplacement est la fois
le point dorientation de tout le systme de signification et celui de destruction du systme
des signes. Ce point nexiste pas, il est toujours drob (G 376)14. Ainsi, lorigine nexiste
13 cf.Paul Audi, Pour une approche phnomnologique du sentiment de la nature Rousseau avec
Henry, dans Michel Henry, Lpreuve de la vie, Les ditions de Cerf, 2001, pp.407-438.
14 Nous pourrions y trouver la mme concience que la vision tragique chez Pascal et Kant indique
par Lucien Goldmann, Le dieu cach, ditions Gallimard, 1959.

pas, lorientation non plus. Ce qui sinitie sest dj altr, fait retour en-de de lorigine. En
outre le supplment lui-mme na aucune essentialit. tant donn quil ne peut pas toujours
avoir lieu, il est moins que rien et pourtant, en juger par ses effets, beaucoup plus que
rien (G 442)15.
Lauto-affection dHenry et celle de Derrida, mme si elles nous ont sembles se

rapprocher travers Levinas, nont aucun point commun sauf le fait quelles sont la condition
de la vie et lexprience. Concernant la ncessit de lgo et du fondement commun entre
le moi et lautre, indique dans la critique de Derrida envers Levinas, nous trouvons que
Derrida lui-mme la dfinitivement rejete dans De la grammatologie. Mais nous pourrions
faire remarquer quelques possibilits de la relation entre le moi et lautre chez Derrida,
bien que la certitude de lego soit nie, bien que laltrit devienne ambigu et bien que le
fondement de la relation entre le moi et lautre ne soit pas bas. Cest que lintriorit de
lauto-affection, expose une catastrophe du dehors, a la possibilit de recevoir lirruption de
lautre et quelle est dformable par laffection de lautre: cest la possibilit de lhtro-
affection. Dans le mouvement du supplment, lintriorit et lextriorit, le moi et lautre
peuvent sentrecroiser. Et en mme temps, ces oppositions binaires elles-mmes peuvent
expirer.
2012 by Waka YOSHINAGA. All rights reserved.
15 Sur la trace, Derrida dit pareillement: La trace nest rien, elle nest pas un tant, elle excde la
question quest-ce que et la rend ventuellement possible (G 110, soulign par Derrida).
Yukio IRIE (Osaka University)
Identity Sentences as Answers to Questions
Introduction: Problem Establishment
I attempted to prove Collingwoods thesis previously.
Collingwoods thesis: Every statement except a question has meaning only in relation
to a question.
The proof I attempted previously may not have been a logically exact proof, in common with
most proofs about linguistic phenomena. However, I think it is sufficient as an empirical
proof. Here, I want to prove the following thesis:
Thesis 1: Every answer to a question can be paraphrased into an identity statement

or its negation.
If we can prove thesis 1, then we will be able to derive the following thesis from thesis 1 and
the Collingwood thesis:
Thesis 2: Every statement except a question can be paraphrased into an identity state-
ment or its negation.
If thesis 2 holds and we can reach an appropriate account of the meaning of identity
statements, then we can reach an appropriate account of the meaning of all statements.
With this aim, I sought to prove thesis 1 here. The proof of thesis 1 does not presuppose
Collingwoods thesis.
To prove thesis 1, I would like to divide interrogative sentences into wh-interrogative

sentences and yes/no interrogative sentences. Wh-interrogative sentences are interrogative
sentences with interrogative words like who, what, which, when, where, why, and
A Proof of Collingwoods Thesis in Philosophia Osaka, Nr. 4, Published by Philosophy and History
of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture Division of Studies on Cultural Forms,
Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, pp. 69-83, 2009/3.
80 Yukio IRIE
how. We will prove the following T1a and T2b using the two kinds of interrogative sen-
tences:
T1a: A nswers to wh-interrogative statements are, if expressed in the form of full

statements, always identity statements.
T1b: Answers to yes/no-interrogative statements are, if expressed in the form of full
statements, always identity statements or their negation.
1. Proof of T1a for Wh-Interrogative Statements

(1) All Wh-Interrogative Statements Require References
Wh-interrogative statements, of course, require answers. The answers are statements of
sentences that are constituted by substituting some expressions for interrogative words and
changing the order of words appropriately, if necessary. We do not answer in this way in
ordinary cases, but we answer by saying only the expression that is supposed to be substituted
for an interrogative word. These parts are the new information that questioners want to know
and the other parts are old information that interrogative sentences have already presented.
Wh-questions are used in posing questions to other persons or to the questioner him- or
herself. In both cases, to understand a wh-question is to understand what object is sought.
When a questioner asks another person a wh-interrogative statement, she is asking the other
person to specify an object. If the addressee specifies an object, she refers it to the questioner.
When a questioner asks herself a wh-interrogative statement, she is seeking to identify an
object by herself.
By the way, when we cut off an interrogative word from a wh-interrogative sentence,
the remainder has similar properties to those of predicates that Frege called unsaturated.
This remainder requires a reference to become saturated. The difference between them is
that a predicate is never a full sentence; however, the remainder of an interrogative sentence,
without the interrogative word, can be a full sentence in some cases. For example, when
we cut off the interrogative word what from What did you buy? and make a possibly
appropriate rearrangement, we get the remainder You bought, but it is not a full sentence. In
contrast, when we cut off the interrogative word when from When did you buy the book?
and make an appropriate rearrangement, the remainder You bought the book becomes a full
sentence by itself.
A wh-interrogative sentence is called Ergntungsfragesatz (a complement interrogative sentence)

in German. A yes/no-interrogative sentence is called Entscheidungsfragesatz (a decision interrogative
sentence) in German.
Identity Sentences as Answers to Questions 81
(2) A Denoting Phrase of the Object a Question is Seeking and an Answer to the
Question Are Different Expressions of the Same Object
For a person to answer a wh-question, the wh-question must denote which object the
answerer should refer to, because, if not, she cannot answer it. So, a questioner is asking to
refer to an object, but has already referred to the object in another way. A wh-question and an
answer to it refer to the same object in different ways. We will see this from some examples:
Who is the fastest runner in the world? Bolt.

Where are you from? I come from the country that is famous for yogurt.
When did the earthquake occur? Ten years ago tomorrow.
These wh-questions and answers give us different references to the same objects; this can be
expressed explicitly in the following identity sentences:
The fastest runner in the world = Bolt

My home country = the country that is famous for yogurt.
The date of the earthquake = ten years ago tomorrow
Of course, what a person intends consciously by asking a wh-question is not to seek

another expression of the object that she is seeking, but to reach the object itself. An answerer
provides a clue by which the questioner may attain the object, by chance, in words. Thus,
in some cases, an answerer could answer in nonlinguistic ways, such as by pointing. The
attention of questioners and answerers are directed not to linguistic expression, but to objects.
However, from the point of view of a third person, what is going on in questioning and
answering can be said to be a process of making an identity sentence jointly.
(3) A Full-Sentence Answer and an Identity Sentence

As described above, a wh-question seeks a reference and an answer to it provides the
reference. In many cases, an answer expresses a reference in the shortest form that avoids
repeating the information given in the question, as follows:
What did you eat last night? Curry
We can use abbreviated parts and express the answer in a complete form with respect to
grammar and information. We call it a full-sentence answer. In the case of the above
example it would be the following:
I ate curry last night

82 Yukio IRIE
By the way, this sentence can become an answer to other questions, as follows:
When did you eat curry? Last night
The full sentence of this answer is the same as the above.
The difference between the two statements of this same sentence is in the position of the
focus. To make it explicit, we underline the words in focus as follows:

The difference is made more explicit, if these full sentences are paraphrased into identity
sentences.
what I ate last evening = curry

when I ate curry last = last evening
and are the same, but different, answers to different questions. and are different
as statements. Their difference is in the position of the focus. If we express full-sentence
answers in the form of identity sentences, we can get different identity sentences. By the
way, these identity sentences are also full sentences of answers. A full-sentence answer to
a question could be expressed in many ways, including in the form of an identity sentence.
What I want to prove is that answers to all questions can be paraphrased into full sentences in
the form of identity sentences.
Next, we check the major sorts of wh-interrogative sentences and confirm that a full-
sentence answer can be written in the form of an identity sentence.
(4) Main Sorts of Wh-Interrogative Sentences

(a) Interrogative Sentences with Which and Who
Let us compare two questions What is your favorite flower? and Which is your
favorite flower? For example, if you are standing in front of a florist shop, you might ask the
question Which is your favorite flower? Then, the answerer is expected to select from the
flowers in the shop. One could also ask What is your favorite flower while standing in front
of a florist shop; that is asking an addressee to answer without being restricted to flowers in
the florist shop. So, it does not matter if the addressee names a flower that is not in the florist
shop. A what-question is asked when alternatives are not given. In contrast, we typically
ask the which-question in a case with alternatives. Answers to which-questions are selected
from the supposed alternatives and a full sentence of answer can be written in the form of an
identity sentence (we consider what-questions later).
Who-questions have alternatives for an answer in some cases, and not in others. For
example, the question Whom do you like in your class? has a set of alternatives, but
Whom do you respect? has no set of alternatives. However, even if we could select from
dead persons or fictional persons, we must select a person or some persons. So, in this sense,
we could say that the set of alternatives is determined by the category of persons. A who-
question requests the answerer to refer to one or some persons; thus, a full-sentence answer
can be written in the form of an identity sentence as follows:
Whom do you respect? Gandhi

The person I respect = Gandhi
(b) Interrogative Sentences with Where and When

Where do you want to go camping? If this question requests a particular place for an
answer, the answer will be a place, such as Mt. Fuji and the full-sentence answer can be
rewritten as an identity sentence: The place I want to go camping = Mt. Fuji.
If someone was asked the question and answered A cool place, then she may have
thought the question did not necessarily request a particular place. If we express more clearly
the question for that case, it will be something like, What kind of place do you want to go
camping? or What are the features of a place where you would like to go camping? Then,
an answer to it will be an identity sentence such as The feature of the place where I want
to go camping = being a cool place (we will discuss what kind of-questions and what-
questions later).
In the case of a when-question, a full-sentence answer can also be written as an identity
sentence, even if the answer is opaque. For example,
When do we move to a bigger place? When our child has grown up

The time when we move to a bigger place = the time when our child has grown up
84 Yukio IRIE
(c) Interrogative Sentences with How
How did you pass the examination? I worked more than ten hours every day.
A full sentence of the answer will be as follows:
I passed the examination by working more than ten hours every day
This can be paraphrased in the following identity sentence:
The way by which I passed the examination = working more than ten hours every
day
The noun phrases on the left and right sides are abstract general terms.
(d) Interrogatives Sentences with Why
Why did he do it? He was in trouble with money
The next sentence is not a full sentence of answer,
Because he was in trouble with money
This sentence does not make sense if it is isolated without the question. It does not present
explicitly the full information that the answer presents implicitly. The full-sentence answer
would be He did it because he was trouble in money and can be paraphrased into the
following:
The reason he did it = that he was in trouble with money
Generally, why-questions are questions about causes of events, reasons for actions, or
grounds of assertions. Thus, we can rewrite them as What is the cause of ?, What is
the reason for ? or What are the grounds for ? The answers will then have identity
Cf. Do Three Kinds of Why-Questions Have One Root? in Metaphysica Nr. 35, Published by
Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture Division of Studies on
Cultural Forms, Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, pp. 59-6, 2004.
sentences such as The cause of = and so on. Both noun phrases in these identity
sentences are abstract singular terms.
(e) Interrogatives Sentences with What

Suppose that a person is asked, What is your favorite flower? and answers, Its a
rose. A full-sentence answer is My favorite flower is a rose and this is an identity sentence,
because it can be rewritten as A rose is my favorite flower by conversion of the subject and
the predicate. On the other hand, when a person is asked, What is this? and answers, It
is an apple, this answer is not an identity sentence, because it cannot be rewritten into An
apple is it by conversion. How are we supposed to think about such cases?
(i) Ambiguity of What-Questions

The reason why answers to what-questions become subject-predicate sentences in many
cases is probably that many what-questions are ambiguous. Suppose that we can answer It
is an apple to the question What is this? in a situation. However, there are many ways to
answer the question in the same situation, such as It is a fruit, It is food, It is my lunch,
It is what I bought, It is a source of vitamins, and so on. To answer the what-question
in a specific way, we must qualify the meaning of the what-question. We may qualify it, for
example, as What kind of fruit is this? and answer is, It is an apple, or we may qualify
it as What do you do with this? and the answer is, It is my lunch, or we may qualify it
as Why is this here? and the answer is, It is what I bought. Unless we qualify a meaning
for What is this? we cannot answer it in any particular way. So, a full-sentence answer
becomes as follows:
What is this? (What kind of fruit is this?) It is an apple

The kind of fruit this is is an apple
This sentence can be rewritten as The apple is the kind of fruit this is. Thus, it is an identity
sentence. We can divide ways to qualify what-questions in two sorts.
(ii) A Way to Qualify What-Questions (1): By Adding a Point of View
We can qualify what-questions by adding a point of view, as follows.
What is this?
What is this with respect to the color?
86 Yukio IRIE
What was the speech of the Prime Minister about?

What was the speech of the Prime Minister with respect to his intention?
These what-questions with a point of view are synonymous with What is the color of this?
or What was the intention of the speech of the Prime Minister? These questions are still
ambiguous. What is the color of this? is still ambiguous as to how minute a qualification of
colors it requests. What was the intension of the speech of the Prime Minister? is also still
ambiguous as to how much in the way of detailed information it requests.
In the former case, if we qualify it further into What is the number of vibrations of the
light this reflects? then a full-sentence answer to it becomes an identity sentence. In the
latter case, if an answer to it is, The intention behind the speech of the Prime Minister was
that he wanted to announce his resignation after closing the Diet, then this is an identity
sentence, because we can convert the subjects and the predicates of these statements.
(iii) A Way to Qualify What-questions (2): By Changing Them to Other Types of

Questions
As we described above, full sentences of answers to other types of wh-interrogative
sentences can be rewritten in the form of identity sentences. So, if we can change a what
-question into a different type of wh-question, then a full-sentence answer to it becomes an
identity sentence. Alternatively, if we can change a what-question into a yes/no-question, a
full-sentence answer will be an identity sentence (yes/no-questions are considered later).
(iv) A Predictable Objection

A following objection is predictable. What-questions are questions seeking a reference in
some cases and questions seeking a predication in other cases. A what-question is seeking a
reference in the following case.
What is the cause of this accident?
An answer to it can be written as an identity sentence, such as, The cause of this
accident = On the contrary, what-questions are seeking predicates in the following cases.
What is the color of the flower?

What is his nationality?
We can make an interrogative sentence from a subject-predicate sentence by changing a

subject with what and an appropriate rearrangement or by changing a predicate with what
and an appropriate rearrangement. In the latter case, a what-question requests no reference
and thus an answer to it cannot be an identity sentence.
(v) Reply to the Objection

What I want to confirm first is that every question includes a reference and a predication.
For example, in the case of What color does this have? the point of view of the question, i.e.,
the color, is expressed explicitly. It constitutes a part of predication. This question has made
not only a reference but also a predication, partially. Strictly speaking, this question does not
request a predication, but the complement of a predication, such as This has a color of ... .
The complement of the predicate will be made by referring to a color. So this question can be
changed into What is the color of this? that requests a reference.
In the case of What is the color of this? the point of view of the question has become
a part of the subject, so this question seems to have no point of view. So, it might seem to
have no predication. However, the question is still ambiguous and needs to be qualified
furthermore to be answered, as I said above. The vocabulary of colors is finite, but
considerable and ambiguously sorted. So, to answer it, we need to qualify the point of view.
As to the case of What is this?, to answer it, we need to understand the point of view of
this question. If not, we cannot understand what we are supposed to answer. In many cases,
the point of view of the question would be implicitly indicated by the context. This question
is also requesting a reference.
In general, a subject-predicate sentence S is P always has a point of view. It is
ordinarily a broader concept of P. When we answer S is P to a question What is S? we
suppose a broader concept (B) as a point of view of the question. The question is understood
as What is S with respect to B? and can be answered. The answer S is P can be rewritten
as an identity sentence, The feature of S in respect to B = P.
2. Proof of T1b on Yes/No-Interrogative Statements

Second, we would like to prove T1b, Answers to yes/no-interrogative statements are,
if expressed in full statements, always identity statements or their negation. In a yes/no-
question we ask p? as to a sentence p and an answer to it is Yes, p or No, not p. If
p is an identity sentence, Yes, p is also an identity sentence and No, not p is a negation
of an identity sentence. However, if p is not an identity sentence, then an answer is neither
an identity sentence nor its negation. If we change an answer into an identity sentence, then
we can make explicit what has become clear through the question and answer. To show this,
88 Yukio IRIE
I want to confirm first that every statement has a focus. A focus of a statement means the
part on which a speakers attention is placed in the statement. For example, in the statement
She bought a book, the focus can be on she, bought, or a book. When we change it
into a yes/no question, there are also three possibilities. I show the position of the focus by
underlining.
Did she buy a book?

Did she buy a book?
Did she buy a book?
An affirmative answer to this question also has three possibilities for the focus position:
Yes, she bought a book

We can make explicit these positions of focus by changing them into identity sentences as
follows.
A person who bought a book = she.

What she did regarding a book = buying
Thing she bought = a book
These identity sentences also make explicit what has been confirmed through the question
Did she buy a book? and the answer Yes, she bought a book. In this sense, we can
paraphrase an answer to yes/no-question into an identity sentence.
Next, I would like to think about a negative answer to a yes/no-question. Suppose that
the next yes/no-question has a focus on she.
Did she buy a book?
A full sentence of a negative answer is the following:
No, she did not buy a book

The focus is on No and not. This could be paraphrased into the following negation of an
identity sentence:
She a person who bought a book
We would get similar results even if the question had focused on the other positions.
By the way, we might be able to paraphrase Is S P? into Is S is P true? and

an answer Yes, it is true into an identity sentence The truth value of S is P = true.
However, we do not accept this line of thought, because it cannot be applied to an answer
without a truth value, like an answer Yes, I want a coffee to a question Would you like a
coffee?
3. Remaining Problems
(1) Cases in which answers are negative sentences
(a) In cases where answers to wh-interrogative sentences are negative sentences, those wh-
interrogative sentences contain the negation from the start. For example,
Where dont you want to go?

I dont want to go to a battle field
A full sentence of answer is a negative sentence and can be rewritten as the following identity
sentence.
A kind of the place where I dont want to go to = a battle field
The negation does not make the negation of an identity sentence; it is involved in the left side
noun phrase. When answers to wh-interrogative sentences become negative sentences, the
wh-interrogative sentences include the negation in itself. Thus, the negation will be involved
in a noun phrase, whether on the left or right side of an identity sentence.
(b) Negative answers to yes/no-questions are divided into two kinds: a negative answer
to an affirmative yes/no-question and one to a negative yes/no-question. We have already
considered the former case above. Here, I consider the latter. The latter negative yes/no
questions are further divided into a negative question of an identity sentence and one of a
90 Yukio IRIE
subject-predicate question. A negative question of an identity sentence is as follows:
Isnt the fastest runner in the world Obama?

No, it is not Obama
This answer can be rewritten into a negation of identity sentence.
The fastest runner in the world Obama
A negative question of a subject-predicate sentence is as follows:
Didnt you buy a book yesterday?
The negative answer to it is:
No, I didnt buy a book yesterday
A negative sentence like this has its focus on the negation; in this case it is placed on the
part didnt, and, thus, we cannot rewrite it as an identity sentence by picking up a phrase
with a focus. However, its original subject-predicate sentence, before being negated, can be
rewritten into an identity sentence by picking up a phrase with a focus. For example, if a
statement of You bought a book yesterday has its focus on the phrase a book, then this
statement can be changed into a statement of the sentence A thing you bought yesterday =
a book. So, we can rewrite the original negative subject-predicate sentence You didnt buy
a book yesterday into a negation of the identity sentence a thing you bought yesterday a
book.
(2) Cases where Answers are Universal Sentences

(a) The cases in which universal sentences become answers to wh-questions may be divided
in two ways. For example, a case in which all crows are black becomes an answer to wh-
questions is divided in the following two ways:
Way 1
How big is the portion of crows that are black?
All crows are black
This answer can be rewritten into an identity sentence a portion of black crows = all
Way 2
Do all crows have the same color?
Yes
What color do all crows have?
All crows are black
This answer can be rewritten into an identity sentence, the color of all crows = black
(b) Cases where answers to yes/no questions are universal sentences
Are all crows black? Yes, all crows are black.
To make explicit what has become clear by this question and answer, we need to rewrite the
question and answer into identity sentences. As above, if the focus is put on all, all crows
are black means the portion of black crows = all, or, if the focus is put on black it means
the color of all crows = black. Thus, the question Are all crows black? means one of the
following two questions:
Is the portion of black crows all?

Is the color of all crows black?
Then, the answer All crows are black means, respectively, the following.
The portion of black crows = all

The color of all crows = black
(3) Cases where answers are complex sentences by conjunction or disjunction

Consider the following example:
What is the condition for the application? P and Q
This answer is an abridged sentence. A full-sentence answer is as follows:
The condition for the application is P and Q

92 Yukio IRIE
We can rewrite it into an identity sentence.
The condition for the application = P and Q
The cases of disjunction can be treated in the same way. That is to say, a full-sentence answer
never becomes a complete sentence in the form of a conjunction or disjunction.
(4) Cases where answers to questions are conditional sentences

Can answers that are conditional sentences be paraphrased into identity sentences? There
are two sorts of cases: cases where questions are conditional and cases where questions are
not.
(a) The Cases of Conditional Questions

(i) Cases where consequences of conditional questions are wh-questions.
If butter is heated to 150 degrees, what would happen to it?

Butter would melt
If we change it to a full-sentence answer, we will get the following:
If butter is heated to 150 degrees, then it would melt
The consequence of this full sentence can be changed to an identity sentence:
If butter is heated to 150 degrees, then what would happen to it = melting
The whole of this sentence is not an identity sentence, but a conditional sentence. However,
we can change it into an identity sentence:
What would happen to butter, if it is heated to 150 degrees = melting
(ii) Cases where consequences of conditional questions are yes/no-questions
If butter is heated to 150 degrees, then would it melt?
A full-sentence positive answer is as follows:

Yes, if butter is heated to 150 degrees, then it would melt.
This answer can be rewritten as an identity sentence:
What would happen to butter if it is heated to 150 degrees = melting
This said, how do we deal with a negative answer to it?
If butter is warmed to 50 degrees, then would it melt?
A negative answer would be as follows:
Even if butter is warmed to 50 degrees, then it would not melt.
This answer can be rewritten into the following negation of an identity sentence:
What would happen to butter if it is warmed to 50 degrees melting
(b) Cases of questions that are not conditional

Even if questions are not conditional, answers to them can be conditional, as follows:
Will this apple become red?

Yes, if it grows well, it will become red.
This full-sentence answer can be rewritten into the following identity sentence:
The color of this apple when it grows well = red
(5) Cases where answers to questions are existential sentences

Consider the following examples:
Do bears exist in Japan? Yes, they exist in Japan.

Does Pegasus exist? No, Pegasus doesnt exist.
We could paraphrase these answers into the following identity sentences:

94 Yukio IRIE
Japan = where bears exist

This world where Pegasus exists
This answer might be too simplistic, but we could take this line of thought.
4. Conclusions
With that, we come to the end of the proof of thesis T1, Every answer to a question can
be paraphrased into a statement of identity or its negation. I would like to close this article
by repeating what I said at the beginning. On the grounds of T1 and Collingwoods thesis,
Every statement except a question has meaning only in relation to a question, we can state
thesis 2, Every statement except a question can be paraphrased into a statement of identity
or its negation. The next task is to provide an appropriate theory of meaning for identity
sentences. If we achieve this, then we may arrive at a theory of the meaning of statements in
general.
2012 by Yukio IRIE. All rights reserved.

Yasuyuki FUNABA (Osaka University)
Zum Kongress als einer willkrlichen, zu aller Zeit auflslichen

Zusammentretung
Hat sich die Welt in den letzten zehn Jahren seit dem 11. September 2001 verndert oder
nicht? Wenn sie sich verndert hat, ist sie besser oder schlechter geworden? Oder verbleibt
die Welt wie damals in ihrem Zustand von Frieden bzw. Krieg, wenn sich nichts gendert
hat? Auf diese Fragen knnte man je nach Perspektive auf ganz verschiedene Weise
antworten. In meinem Aufsatz mchte ich nicht versuchen, diesen Fragen eine auf den
gltigen Argumenten beruhende Antwort zu geben. Ich mchte hier jedoch mit dem Ereignis
beginnen, das uns zu der Ansicht zwingt, dass die Welt wie damals in ihrem kriegerischen
Zustand verblieben ist.
In diesem Jahr, genau zehn Jahre nach dem 11. September 2001, wurde am 2. Mai
Osama bin Laden, den die amerikanische Regierung schon bald nach den Anschlgen
kategorisch zum Anstifter der Ereignisse erklrt hatte, von den sogenannten Special Forces
der USA in Pakistan gettet. Am selben Tag nahm der Vorsitzende des UN-Sicherheitsrats
die Nachricht von Bin Ladens Tod mit Beifall auf. Zudem erklrte auch UN-Generalsekretr
Ban Ki-moon, wir htten den entscheidenden Punkt im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus
erreicht. Im Vergleich zur Ansicht einer hohen Kommissarin der Vereinten Nationen fr
Menschenrechte (UNHCHR) ist seine Erklrung zu zurckhaltend und neutral; zwar
ist sie nicht so positiv und bejahend wie die des Vorsitzenden des Sicherheitsrats, aber
wenigstens auch nicht kritisch und verneinend. Vielleicht, oder sogar hchstwahrscheinlich,
wirken hinter den Erklrungen des Vorsitzenden und des Generalsekretrs pragmatische
berlegungen gegenber der einzigen Supermacht USA. Auch wenn es fr sehr bedeutsam
zu halten ist, diese berlegungen ans Licht zu bringen, so sollen sie hier, zumindest im
philosophischen Kontext, nicht thematisiert werden. Es soll der Gedanke untersucht werden,
der die Reihe von Verhaltensweisen der USA rechtfertigt. Das Verhalten der USA kann
mit einem Wort als Unilateralimus bezeichnet werden, aber was bedeutet der Begriff
eigentlich? Zuerst kommt es darauf an, auf der Grundlage der Betrachtungen von Lothar
Brock Unilateralismus und Multilateralismus zu charakterisieren (1). Anschlieend soll die
Unter diesem Titel habe ich beim 5. Deutsch-japanischen Ethik-Kolloquium (am 26. 8. 2011,
Europazentrum der Waseda Universitt in Bonn) einen Vortrag gehalten.
In den USA war es der 1. Mai.
Vgl. http://j.people.com.cn
Navanethem Pillay aus der Republik Sdafrika.
96 Yasuyuki FUNABA
Beziehung des Unilateralismus zur Moralisierung der Menschenrechte unter Hinweis auf die
anlsslich des Kosovo-Kriegs verffentlichte Diskussion von Jrgen Habermas verdeutlicht
und der weltbrgerliche Gesichtspunkt als Anhaltspunkt zur berwindung der Probleme
erwhnt werden (2). In den zum Kosovo-Krieg gefhrten Diskussionen gibt es unter anderem
die Auffassung, das Notrecht als Menschenrecht vom moralischen Gesichtspunkt aus zu
verstehen. Dieses Notrecht beruht nach Kant jedoch auf einem universal gltigen Recht (3).
Zum Schluss soll ein willkrlicher, zu aller Zeit auflslicher Kongress vorgeschlagen
werden, in dem das universal gltige Recht verwirklicht werden kann (4).
1. Unilateralismus und Multilateralismus

Brock beginnt seinen Aufsatz >Demokratischer Friede Republikanischer Krieg< mit der
Erwhnung der Beobachtung, dass Demokratien gegeneinander keine Kriege fhren, die
zu den wenigen Gewissheiten, auf die sich die Politikwissenschaft glaubt verlassen zu
knnen, gehrt. Abgesehen von Ausnahmen gilt diese Beobachtung ganz sicher, whrend
es jedoch nicht sicher ist, ob Demokratien und Nicht-Demokratien gegeneinander keine
Kriege fhren. Daher ist es in Ansehung der Realisierung des Weltfriedens wenigstens
aus der Perspektive der Demokratien wichtig, wie sich Demokratien gegenber Nicht-
Demokratien verhalten. Brock richtet seinen Blick auf die Geschichte und behauptet, dass
Menschen abhngig von den Kontingenten ihrer eigenen Situationen verschiedene politische
Einstellungen haben knnen, obwohl sie alle eine liberale Grundposition einnehmen.
Federalists wie Alexander Hamilton und John Jay, Kants nordamerikanische Zeitgenossen,
waren Brock zufolge von der Vorstellung, dass die Demokratie den Frieden bringe, offenbar
nicht berzeugt und betonten vielmehr die Gefahr von Kriegen zwischen den neuen
(demokratischen) Staaten Nordamerikas. Whrend diese neuen Gemeinwesen durch Kriege
entkolonialisiert wurden, hatten sie keine strkere Verbindung untereinander und frchteten
deswegen, in die Streitigkeiten der europischen Mchte verwickelt zu werden. Sie glaubten
jedoch, dass die Errichtung eines starken Zentralstaates wiederum die Errungenschaften
der Revolution nicht verteidigen, sondern vielmehr zunichtemachen wrde, und so wurde
eine fderale Lsung mit ihren spezifischen Mglichkeiten der Austarierung politischer
Kants Werke, VI, S. 351.

Lothar Brock, Demokratischer Friede Republikanischer Krieg. Das Verhalten von Demokratien
gegenber Nicht-Demokratien in Krisen- und Konfliktsituation, in: Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Andreas
Niederberger (Hg.), Krieg und Frieden im Prozess der Globalisierung, Velbrck Wissenschaft, 2009, S.
25-56.
Brock, a. a. O., S. 25.
Vgl. Brock, a. a. O., S. 46.
Ebd.
Zum Kongress als einer willkrlichen, zu aller Zeit auflslichen Zusammentretung 97
Macht gewhlt, um extern geschrten Rivalitten zu widerstehen10. Bei der Ausbildung

der Zusammenschlsse mit den einzelnen politischen Gemeinwesen wird dem Schutz
demokratischer Selbstbestimmung und dementsprechender Handlungsfreiheit grte
Bedeutung zugemessen; der Friede zwischen und in den politischen Gemeinwesen wird als
Schaffung von Handlungsfhigkeit nach auen und neu geforderte Kontrolle der dadurch
entstehenden politischen Macht mit Hilfe von >>check and balances<<11 verwirklicht.
Im Gegensatz dazu versucht Kant, seine demokratische Friedensidee, wie eine
Friedensordnung zwischen den europischen Staaten zu schaffen sei, die immer wieder
brutale Kriege gegeneinander gefhrt haben, in einem ganz anderen Kontext als dem
der Federalists entstehen zu lassen.12 Kant entwirft den Frieden durch ein gemeinsames
universal gltiges Recht zwischen den Staaten und diskutiert in Bezug auf die Idee des
Weltbrgerrechts, dass sie keine phantastische und berspannte Vorstellungsart des Rechts
sei, da die Rechtsverletzung an einem Platz der Erde an allen gefhlt wird13. Gleichzeitig
jedoch findet nach der Interpretation Brocks bei Kant die Pflicht, fr das Recht einzustehen,
ihre Grenzen im Interventionsverbot, das wiederum als Bedingung demokratischer
Selbstbestimmung fungiert 14. Auf die demokratische Selbstbestimmung wird groer
Wert gelegt, und gerade daraus wird das Gebot der Nichtintervention geschlossen,
da nur Betroffene sich selbst bestimmen knnen. Hier handelt es sich also nur um
Friedenssicherung innerhalb einer mglichst [...] demokratischen Rechtsgenossenschaft15.
Genau derselben Logik folgend bejahen die Federalists jedoch Interventionen; sie messen
nmlich auch der Selbstbestimmung, die nur von Betroffenen durchgesetzt werden kann, hohe
Bedeutung bei. Eigene Verhaltensweisen sind nur auf Grund des eigenen demokratischen
Systems zu rechtfertigen; werden sie also von auen zu einer Rechtfertigung gezwungen,
bedeutet das eine Beschrnkung der Selbstbestimmung. So knnen die Federalists nicht
umhin, gegen andere zu intervenieren, wenn diese ihre Errungenschaften in Gefahr bringen,
weil es nicht um die Errichtung der universellen Friedensordnung, sondern um den Schutz
und die Bewahrung dessen geht, was sie sich durch die Befreiung von England erkmpft
haben.
Diese Verschiedenheit, die aus der historischen Perspektive rekonstruiert werden
kann, weist auf die mgliche Verschiedenheit hin, wie sich gleichermaen als liberal und
demokratisch angesehenen Staaten mglicherweise gegenber Nicht-Demokratien verhalten.
10 Brock, a. a. O., S. 47.

11 Ebd.
12 Ebd.
13 Kants Werke, VIII, S. 360.
14 Brock, a. a. O., S. 47f.
15 Brock, a. a. O., S. 49.
98 Yasuyuki FUNABA
Brock unterscheidet die republikanische Friedensperspektive von der demokratischen,

wobei er ausfhrt, dass die erstere die nationale Demokratie als einzige Quelle politischer
Legitimitt verabsolutiert, whrend die letztere auch internationale Institutionen wie
die UNO als Quelle demokratischer Legitimitt16 anerkennt. Bei der ersten Perspektive
hat nichts anderes als die Selbstbestimmung jedes Staates hchste Prioritt, und daher
entscheidet auch jeder Staat nur aus der eigenen Sicht allein, ob er Souvernittsansprche
anderer anerkennt. Diese Perspektive ist unilateralistisch, weil sie die Verrechtlichung der
internationalen Beziehungen von der demokratischen Selbstbestimmung abhngig macht.
Die zweite Perspektive erlaubt gerade darum die notwendige Begrenzung einzelstaatlicher
Selbstbestimmung, wenn sie mit anderen rivalisiert, weil sie fr wichtig gehalten wird.
Diese Perspektive ist multilateralistisch, weil sie die Einschrnkung der demokratischen
Selbstbestimmung durch die Verrechtlichung der internationalen Beziehungen anerkennt.17
Beide weisen jedoch kurz gesagt folgendes Problem auf:
Kern des Problems bildet das Spannungsverhltnis zwischen der Maxime der Selbst-
bestimmung, die der Idee der Volksouvernitt eingeschrieben ist, aber in eine mili-
tante berhhung des eigenen Selbstbestimmungsanspruchs umschlagen kann, und
dem Gebot der Bindung an ein staatenbergreifendes Recht, das der Vernunft eines
friedlichen Miteinanders der Staaten entspricht, aber die demokratische Selbstbestim-
mung aushhlen kann.18
Auf der einen Seite werden auch Kriege gegen Nicht-Demokratien anerkannt, weil diese
Staaten die selbst mit Gewalt zu schtzende demokratische Selbstbestimmung gefhrden.
Auf der anderen Seite wird mit der Anerkennung des staatenbergreifenden Rechts die
Selbstbestimmung an sich begrenzt, und daher ist es nicht zulssig, gegen den ungerechte[n]
Feind19 wenigstens militrisch zu reagieren, auch wenn er den Wert der Selbstbestimmung
gefhrden kann. Mit der Charakterisierung der republikanisch-unilateralistischen Perspektive
und der demokratisch-multilateralistischen scheint die Ansicht von Jrgen Habermas auf den
ersten Blick eigenartig, da sie sowohl unilateralistisch als auch demokratisch genannt werden
kann.20 Diese Ansicht von Habermas war es auch, die bezglich des Kosovo-Kriegs Aufsehen
erregte.
16 Brock, a. a. O., S. 52.

17 Vgl. Brock, a. a. O., S. 28f.
18 Brock, a. a. O., S. 56.
19 Brock, a. a. O., S. 48.
20 Vgl. Brock, a. a. O., S. 52. Im Gegensatz zur Ansicht Brocks scheint mir Habermas eher den
multilateralistischen Standpunkt zu untersttzen, da er seinen Aufsatz mit folgenden, den Unilateralismus

kritisierenden Worten beendet: Die Selbstermchtigung der NATO darf nicht zum Regelfall werden.
Jrgen Habermas, Bestialitt und Humanitt, in: Reinhard Merkel (Hg.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das
Vlkerrecht, Suhrkamp, 2000, S. 51-65, hier S. 65.
2. Menschenrechte nicht aus moralischer Sicht

Habermas vertritt ein staatenbergreifendes Recht, das Weltbrgerrecht, ist jedoch entgegen
der oben genannten multilateralistisch-demokratischen Perspektive nicht immer gegen die
Intervention bei einem ungerechten Feind. Er glaubt eben gerade aus diesem Grund, nicht um
eine Intervention umhinzuknnen, weil er die Gltigkeit eines staatenbergreifenden Rechts
voraussetzt, ganz anders als die unilateralistisch-republikanische Perspektive, fr die nichts
anderes als die Selbstbestimmung hchste Prioritt hat. Seine Schlussfolgerung hinsichtlich
der Luftangriffe im Kosovo durch die NATO soll hier nicht nher behandelt werden.21 In
meinem Aufsatz mchte ich nur auf die Diskussionen eingehen, die sich auf dem Weg zu
seiner Schlussfolgerung entwickelt haben.
Fr die USA und die Mitgliedstaaten der EU lag das Ziel der militrischen Sanktionen
gegen Jugoslawien darin, liberale Regelungen fr die Autonomie des Kosovo innerhalb
Serbiens durchzusetzen22. Zu diesem Ziel uert sich Habermas wie folgt:
Im Rahmen des klassischen Vlkerrechts htte das als Einmischung in die inneren An-
gelegenheiten eines souvernen Staates, das heit als Verletzung des Interventionsver-
bots gegolten.23 Unter Prmissen der Menschenrechtspolitik soll dieser Eingriff nun
als eine bewaffnete, aber von der Vlkergemeinschaft (auch ohne UN-Mandat) still-
schweigend autorisierte Frieden schaffende Mission verstanden werden. Nach dieser
westlichen Interpretation knnte der Kosovo-Krieg einen Sprung auf dem Wege des
klassischen Vlkerrechts der Staaten zum kosmopolitischen Recht einer Weltbrger-
gesellschaft bedeuten.24
Hier wird deutlich, dass Habermas die Menschenrechtspolitik positiv bewertet und die
Intervention in einem souvernen Staat deswegen anerkennt, weil er die Tendenz der
Entwicklung vom traditionellen Vlkerrecht zum Weltbrgerrecht untersttzt. Whrend
er der Souvernitt des durch das Vlkerrecht anerkannten politischen Subjekts eine
gewisse Bedeutung zumisst, denkt er doch auch, dass ein weltbrgerlicher Zustand diese
Unabhngigkeit des Nationalstaats zur Disposition stellt25. Gleichzeitig ist an dieser Stelle
besonders erwhnenswert, dass die Menschenrechtspolitik nicht mit der Souvernitt der
21 Ausfhrlich und kritisch diskutiert Uchimura die Ansicht von Habermas ber den Kosovo-Krieg in
Bezug auf die sogenannte >Sloterdijk-Debatte<, die mit dem Vortrag von Peter Sloterdijk begann. Siehe
dazu Hironobu Uchimura, Diskurs und Menschenrechte ber die Legitimationsprobleme bei der
Diskurstheorie von Habermas (tougi to jinken habermas no tougiriron ni okeru seitousei no mondai),
miraisya, 2009, S. 7-31.
22 Habermas, a. a. O., S. 53.
23 Dieser Satz steht im Konjunktiv II Prteritum. Habermas ist nmlich der Ansicht, dass dies nicht den
vergangenen Tatsachen entspricht; seiner Meinung nach wurden die Luftangriffe nicht im Rahmen des
klassischen Vlkerrechts erfasst.
24 Ebd.
100 Yasuyuki FUNABA
einzelnen Staaten, sondern mit dem Weltbrgerrecht verknpft ist. Aus diesem Grund
sieht Habermas die Bedeutung der Verwirklichung des weltbrgerlichen Zustandes gerade
darin, dass Verste gegen die Menschenrechte nicht unmittelbar unter moralischen
Gesichtspunkten beurteilt und bekmpft, sondern wie kriminelle Handlungen innerhalb einer
staatlichen Rechtsordnung verfolgt werden26. Habermas ist der Ansicht, dass jeder souverne
Staat die Politik der Menschenrechte vom moralischen Gesichtspunkt aus versteht, wenn er
sie ohne Voraussetzung eines gemeinsamen Rechts unter seiner eigenen Selbstbestimmung
interpretiert. Wichtig ist es jedoch nach Auffassung von Habermas, den Menschenrechten
einen Platz in einer Rechtsordnung zuzuweisen. Habermas zufolge behauptet Carl Schmitt
im Gegensatz dazu, dass die Politik der Menschenrechte der Durchsetzung von moralischen
Normen dient und die negative moralische Bewertung eines Gegners die rechtliche
Begrenzung des Kampfes zerstrt, da moralische Urteile nach dem Code von >>Gut<< und
>>Bse<< gefllt werden.27 Die Menschheitsmoral macht den Gegner zum unmenschlichen
Scheusal28, weil politische Verhltnisse dadurch unter die Begriffe von >>Gut<< und
>>Bse<< subsumiert werden. Habermas und Schmitt unterscheiden sich natrlich in ihren
Auffassungen, ob sie die Menschenrechtspolitik bejahen oder verneinen; beide stimmen
jedoch in dem Gedanken berein, dass eine unvermittelte Moralisierung von Recht und
Politik tatschlich jene Schutzzonen durchbricht, die wir fr Rechtspersonen aus guten, und
zwar moralischen Grnden gewahrt wissen wollen29, und daher die unerwnschte Situation
eintreten kann, solange die Menschenrechtspolitik mit den moralischen Normen verknpft
ist. Gerade im Fall des Kosovo-Kriegs kann sich die NATO nur auf die moralische Geltung
des Vlkerrechts berufen auf Normen, fr die keine effektiven, von der Vlkergemeinschaft
anerkannten Instanzen der Rechtsanwendung und -durchsetzung bestehen 30, da die
Menschenrechte auf der globalen Ebene nicht ausreichend institutionalisiert und die Grenzen
zwischen Recht und Moral nicht eindeutig sind. Der Unilateralismus der USA und der NATO
im Kosovo-Krieg bedeutet also eine Moralisierung der Menschenrechtspolitik, und daher
gilt hier die Kritik von Schmitt an der Politik der Menschenrechte. Um sich von dieser Kritik
freizumachen und gleichzeitig nicht gegen die Menschenrechtspolitik zu sein, muss die
Verrechtlichung der Menschenrechte gefordert werden; dabei darf sich die Verrechtlichung
nicht auf die einzelnen Staaten beziehen, denn das wre wie schon gesagt die Moralisierung

27 Vgl. Habermas, Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren, in:
ders., Einbeziehungen des Anderen, Suhrkamp, 1996, S. 221; Habermas, Bestialitt und Humanitt, S.
58, Uchimura, a. a. O., S. 23f.
28 Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, Berlin, 1963, S. 37.
29 Habermas, Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren, S. 233.
30 Habermas, Bestialitt und Humanitt, S. 60.
der Menschenrechte, sondern muss auf der die einzelnen Staaten bergreifenden, globalen
Ebene31 verwirklicht werden.
Zwar erkennt Habermas, dass die Gltigkeit der Menschenrechte ber die nationalstaatliche
Rechtsordnung hinausweist, was den Menschenrechten den Anschein moralischer Rechte
verleiht32; aber er behauptet auch, dass sie nichts als eine spezifische Ausprgung des
modernen Begriffs subjektiver Rechte und von Haus aus juridischer Natur33 sind. Daher
muss den Menschenrechten wie schon erwhnt ein Platz in einer Rechtsordnung zugewiesen
werden, die nach der Auffassung von Habermas einklagbare subjektive Rechtsansprche
begrndet34. Die Rechtsordnung ist es, die im Falle einer Verletzung der Menschenrechte eine
rechtmige Anklage ermglicht, daher sind die Menschenrechte von dem Recht in diesem
Sinne, d. h. von dem die Anklage fr die Verletzung ermglichenden Recht untrennbar, so
Habermas. Aus diesem Grund darf der Naturzustand zwischen den Staaten nicht beibehalten
werden, sondern muss aus der weltbrgerlichen Sicht in einen Rechtszustand35 transformiert
werden, um die Menschenrechtspolitik zwischen den Staaten zu entwickeln.
3. Notrecht
Aus Anlass des Kosovo-Kriegs wurde von vielen Disputanten ber das Notrecht als eine
konkrete Art von Menschenrecht diskutiert. Selbstverstndlich hat Habermas das Notrecht
unter der Voraussetzung des noch nicht realisierten weltbrgerlichen Zustandes anerkannt.36
Anders als Habermas sind Reinhard Merkel und Dieter Senghaas hingegen der Ansicht, dass
man das Notrecht schon unter bestehendem Vlkerrecht37 anerkennen kann, weil sie es als
Rechtsprinzip38 verstehen und behaupten, eine Rechtsordnung, die es nicht anerkennen
wollte, wre [...] illegitim 39. In diesem Zusammenhang erwhnt Senghaas auch die
Mglichkeit, Artikel 51 der UN-Charta so zu interpretieren, dass individuelle oder kollektive
Selbstverteidigung als naturgegebenes Recht anerkannt wird, bis der Sicherheitsrat seinen
Obliegenheiten nachkommt40. Nach der Klassifikation von Brock erscheint dieser Gedanke
31 Ebd.
32 Habermas, Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren, S. 222.
33 Ebd.
36 Vgl. Habermas, Bestialitt und Humanitt, S. 63f.
37 Dieter Senghaas, Recht auf Nothilfe, in: Reinhard Merkel (Hg.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das
Vlkerrecht, Suhrkamp, 2000, S. 109.

38 Senghaas, a. a. O., S. 107.
39 Reinhard Merkel, Das Elend der Beschtzten, in: Reinhard Merkel (Hg.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das
Vlkerrecht, Suhrkamp, 2000, S. 69.

40 Senghaas, a. a. O., S. 108.
102 Yasuyuki FUNABA
auf den ersten Blick mehr multilateralistisch als unilateralistisch, da die Legitimation der
individuellen oder kollektiven Selbstverteidigung als der Ausfhrung des Notrechts in der
von vielen Staaten anerkannten UN-Charta festgeschrieben ist. Zwar ist mglicherweise
in Bezug auf diesen Punkt zu sagen, dass das Notrecht als multilateralistisch betrachtet
wird. Das Problem liegt jedoch darin, dass einzelnen Staaten oder einem fest verbundenen
militrischen Bund wie der NATO die Entscheidung bertragen ist, ob es sich um eine
Situation handelt, in der das Notrecht angewendet werden muss und ob die Anwendung
richtig ist. Laut Merkel ist der Einwand irrig. Er fhrt aus, schon das Fehlen einer
Ermchtigung der Intervention durch den Sicherheitsrat mache diese rechtswidrig, und auch
die Annahme [sei] verfehlt [], ein solcher Sicherheitsratsbeschluss allein knne eine an
sich rechtswidrige Intervention legalisieren41. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass keine an sich
rechtswidrige Intervention legalisiert werden kann, sondern dass die Notrechtsausfhrung
nicht von den Zuflligkeiten von Gremienbeschlssen abhngig gemacht werden kann42.
Gerade an dieser Stelle lsst sich betonen, dass das Notrecht ein sowohl rechtliches als auch
moralisches43 Prinzip ist.
Merkel kritisiert den Gedanken, nur der Sicherheitsrat knne etwas an sich
Gesetzwidriges legalisieren. Der wesentliche Punkt seiner Kritik liegt darin, dass es eben
nicht der Sicherheitsrat ist, der etwas legalisieren kann; gegen die Mglichkeit, etwas an sich
Gesetzwidriges zu legalisieren, erhebt er keinen Einwand. Frher hat einmal jemand gesagt,
dass es keine Not geben kann, welche, was unrecht ist, gesetzmig machte44. Dieser
jemand war natrlich niemand geringerer als Kant. In der Metaphysik der Sitten erklrt Kant
kurz das Notrecht als eine Art zweideutiges Recht. Das Notrecht wird konkret so dargestellt,
dass man nicht bestraft werden kann, wenn man im Schiffbruch in Lebensgefahr schwebt
und dabei jemand von dem Brett wegstt, um sich selbst zu retten.45 Hierzu sagt Kant
jedoch, dass diese Tat der gewaltttigen Selbsterhaltung nicht etwa als unstrflich, sondern
nur als unstrafbar zu beurteilen46 sei. Kant zufolge kommt die Zweideutigkeit dieses Rechts
aus der Verwechslung der objektiven mit den subjektiven Grnden der Rechtsausbung;
von den Rechtslehrern werde also die subjektive Straflosigkeit durch eine wunderliche
Verwechslung fr eine objektive Gesetzmigkeit gehalten.47 Es liegt damit offen auf der
Hand, welche Stellung Kant zum Notrecht einnimmt. Die Ausbung des Notrechts wird
41 Merkel, a. a. O., S. 68.

42 Senghaas, a. a. O., S.107f.
43 Merkel, ebd.
44 Kants Werke, VI, S. 236.
45 Vgl. Kant, a. a. O., S. 235.
46 Kant, a. a. O., S. 236.
47 Ebd.
nur von den Ausbenden allein subjektiv als rechtens gehalten, ist aber weder objektiv
rechtens noch gesetzmig, sogar vermutlich unrecht, weil es keine Not geben kann,
welche, was unrecht ist, gesetzmig machte. Somit ist laut Kant das Notrecht hchstens
nicht strafbar. Dieses Recht wird zudem als Fall eines bezweifelten Rechts betrachtet, zu
dessen Entscheidung kein Richter aufgestellt werden kann 48, und dessen Behauptung
deshalb vom Handelnden selbst blo subjektiv, wie vor Gericht die Sentenz gefllt
werden wrde, zu verstehen sei49. Trotzdem kritisiert Kant diese Verwechslung und hlt
die betroffene Handlung fr unrecht. Hat Kant hier fr das Notrecht ein universal gltiges
Recht vorausgesetzt, das nicht mit dem subjektiven Urteil verwechselt werden darf, das der
Handelnde selbst ber seine Handlungsrichtigkeit fllt?
4. Der willkrliche, zu aller Zeit auflsliche Kongress

Den vorliegenden Aufsatz habe ich mit dem Vergleich der unilateralistischen und der
multilateralistischen Perspektive begonnen. Aus der ersteren wird nichts anderem als der
Selbstbestimmung hchste Prioritt zugemessen, wodurch ein aus der zweiteren anerkanntes
gemeinsames Recht verneint wird, das eine Begrenzung der Selbstbestimmung bedeutete.
Der ersten, unilateralistischen Perspektiven folgend muss man sich moralisch verhalten,
wenn man Menschenrechtspolitik machen will. Nun kritisiert Kant bei der Thematisierung
des Notrechts die Verwechslung des subjektiven mit dem objektiven Urteil ber die
Handlungsrichtigkeit und diskutiert ein gemeinsames Recht auf einem anderen Niveau
als der >Strafbarkeit<. Wie aber she ein Ort aus, an dem sich dieses gemeinsame Recht
verwirklichen liee?
In der Metaphysik der Sitten erwhnt Kant den permanenten Staatenkongress und nennt
ihn einen Verein einiger Staaten, um den Frieden zu erhalten50. Es geht mir hier jedoch
nicht um die Frage, ob der Kongress und >der Vlkerbund< dasselbe bedeuten oder wie die
tatschliche Form des im frhen 18. Jahrhundert in Haag existierenden Staatenkongresses
aussah, den Kant vermutlich bei der Diskussion im Kopf hatte. Vielmehr mchte ich betonen,
dass der Kongress als nur eine willkrliche, zu aller Zeit auflsliche Zusammentretung
verschiedener Staaten51 bezeichnet wird. Wre der Kongress eine auf einer Staatsverfassung
gegrndete Verbindung, wrde eine unrechte Handlung auf Grund der Regelungen mit
negativen Sanktionen geahndet werden. Vor Ergreifung der >richtigen< negativen Sanktionen
48 Kant, a. a. O., S. 234.

49 Kant, a. a. O., S. 235.
50 Kants Werke, VI, S. 350.
51 Kant, a. a. O., S. 351.
104 Yasuyuki FUNABA
mssten immer die Handlungen berechnend in Betracht gezogen werden; die Empfnger
dieser negativen Sanktionen wrden so ber ihre Handlung diskutieren, um den Sanktionen
gegebenenfalls zu entgehen oder aber so leicht wie mglich sanktioniert zu werden, whrend
ihre Feinde die betreffende Handlung so negativ wie mglich betrachten oder behaupten
wrden, dass es in Wirklichkeit eine noch schlechtere Handlung gebe, die geprft werden
msse. Was wre hingegen, wenn es keine solchen negativen Sanktionen gbe und man
zu aller Zeit aufhren knnte, ber Handlungen prfend zu kommunizieren, weil doch der
Kongress eine zu aller Zeit auflsliche Zusammentretung ist? Knnte man in diesem Fall
nicht vielmehr sagen, dass bei der Kommunikation ber die Gltigkeit der Handlung ohne
berflssige Berechnungen nur die Macht der Wrter selbst, d. h. >der Zwang ohne Zwang<
wirksam wre? Beim Zusammenkommen der Kongressmitglieder msste nur darber
diskutiert werden, welche Handlung thematisiert werden solle und ob sie normativ richtig sei,
wenn die Beteiligten, deren Handlung als Konsens der Diskussion als nicht richtig beurteilt
wird, nicht bestraft wrden, und wenn die Beteiligten auerdem an der Zusammentretung
weiterhin teilnhmen, obwohl sie zu jeder Zeit ihre Teilnahme beenden knnten. Deshalb
hat der Kongress, der keine zwingende Autoritt besitzt und eine zu aller Zeit auflsliche
Zusammentretung ist, die Mglichkeit, wie Kant schreibt, Konflikte zwischen Staaten auf
eine andere als barbarische Weise52 aufzulsen. Somit ist also jener Kongress der Ort, an
dem ber die unilateralistische Perspektive hinausweisend und unter dem Gesichtspunk eines
universal gltigen Rechts die Menschenrechte erfasst werden knnten.
2012 by Yasuyuki FUNABA. All rights reserved.
52 Ebd. Allerdings behauptet Habermas kritisch, dass Kant nicht erklren kann, wie der ewige Friede
mit einem solchen Bund garantiert wird, der nicht mit gemeinsamen Organen eine staatliche Qualitt
und insoweit eine zwingende Autoritt gewinnt. Habermas, a. a. O., S.197.

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ISSN 1880-862X

Wiep van BUNGE

Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN

Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture

Division of Studies on Cultural Forms

1111-0319 Philosophia 7 1-4

Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture

The editors of Philosophia OSAKA are:

The editorial office is:

Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture

Wiep van B UNGE

Philosophy and History of Philosophy / Studies on Modern Thought and Culture

Wiep van BUNGE (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Spinoza and the Netherlands

1. The Netherlands and Spinoza

Clark (Oxford, 1972), p. 1.

Republic, many twentieth-century historians have concentrated on the modernity of the

Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, p. 279.

Boston, 2001), Ch. 2.

2. Spinoza and the Netherlands

16 See,most recently, Raia Prokhovnik, Spinoza and Republicanism (Basingstoke, 2004).

Meanwhile, the reputation of mathematics as a discipline uniquely capable of delivering

Republic, had Spinoza never existed.25

verlichte debat in Nederlandse recensietijdschriften, 1774-1837 (Amsterdam-Utrecht, 2009), Ch. 3.

2012 by Wiep van BUNGE. All rights reserved.

and Radical Enlightenment. A Dutch Perspective, forthcoming.

Wiep van BUNGE (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Spinoza and the Collegiants

Akkerman, Studies in the Posthumous Works; Steenbakkers, Spinozas Ethica.

[Van Nimwegen], Historie der Rijnsburgsche Vergadering, 31.

Visser, Bibliographia Sociniana; Nadler, Spinoza. A Life.

Bibliotheca Anti-Trinitariorum, 161.

15 (Episcopius), Belijdenisse ofte Verklaringhe, 41.

2. Plockhoy, Van den Enden and the brothers Koerbagh

21 Bredenburg, Heylzamen Raad tot Christelyke Vrede, 4.

tusschen Jan en Arent, 4.

28 Zurik-Zee [Plockhoy], A Way Propounded, 1.

33 Plockhoy van Zierikzee, Kort en klaer ontwerp, n.p.

37 (Van den Enden), Kort Verhael, 28-29.

Chapter 4 and The Languages of Seventeenth-Century Republicanism in the United Provinces;

Spinozas clausules; Van Reijen, Spinoza, 207-220.

65 See, for instance, Van den Heuvel, Women and Entrepreneurship.

Libertinage, athisme et spinozisme dans le tournant philosophique de lge classique

Nadler, Steven, Spinoza. A Life (Cambridge, 1999).

2012 by Wiep van BUNGE. All rights reserved.

Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN (Chulalongkorn University)

Reasoning and its limits*

1. Reasoning and logic

The difference between reasoning and logic

See a working detail on how this is possible in Sainsbury (2002)

But I suggest a revision of that definition into:

2. Conceptions of critical thinking

view that my agent-based approach does not have.

This answer is a justification for critical thinking to be an educational goal. However,

Bailin, S. (1998). Skills, generalizability and critical thinking. In Philosophy of Education

Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. G.E.M. Anscombe (Trans.), G.E.M.

2012 by Kanit (Mitinunwong) SIRICHAN. All rights reserved.

Hitoshi NAGAI (Nihon University)

Why Isnt Consciousness Real? (2)

Day 2: Why Are We Zombies?

The contrast between the phenomenal and the psychological is progressive.

By experience Chalmers is referring to the phenomenal aspect. All functions of a mind

(This goes on endlessly.)

Below is a simplified version of a diagram I used in The Opening: A Philosophy of Actuality

(translated by Shogo SHIMIZU)

Thesis 1: Every answer to a question can be paraphrased into an identity statement

T1a: A nswers to wh-interrogative statements are, if expressed in the form of full