THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR METAPHYSICS

STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS, VOLUME IV

THE NATURE OF

METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR METAPHYSICS

Introduction

PART I. APPROACHES AND METHODS

1. Metaphysics as a Discipline: Its Requirements

by Ivor Leclerc 3-22

2. Metaphysics and the Architectonic of Systems

by Reiner Wiehl 23-50

3. Truth, Justification and Method in Metaphysics

and Theology

by Richard Martin 51-68

4. Some Principles of Procedure in Metaphysics

by Charles Hartshorne 69-75

Comment: James W. Felt 77-81

5. Metaphysical Knowledge as Hypothesis

by Richard L. Barber 83-92

Comment: Errol E. Harris 93-96

PART II. IMPLICATIONS AND TASKS OF METAPHYSICS

FOR SCIENCE, ETHICS AND HISTORY

6. Metaphysics and Science

by Andre Mercier 99-103

7. Metaphysics and Science: Affinities and

Discrepancies

by Evandro Agazzi 105-121

8. Some Tasks for Metaphysicians

by Mario Bunge 123-128

9. The Problem of Metaphysical Presupposition

in and of Science

Kurt Hubner 129-134

10. Cosmology and the Philosopher

By Ernan McMullen 135-148

11. Metaphysics and the Foundations of

Ethical and Social Values

by Johannes Lotz 149-161

12. Metaphysics and History

by T.A. Roberts 163-176

INDEX 177-180

The preceding volumes in this series--devoted respectively to Person and Nature, Person and Society and Person and God¹--progressively delineated the basic issues of human and, indeed, of all existence. They took work on these issues beyond the horizon of the physical and social sciences, as well as beyond such philosophical methods as those of pragmatism and positivism.

In this process the questions raised regarding the method of metaphysics--not unknown to Aristotle and Kant--were seen to be in urgent need of attention: Is metaphysics a discipline; if so, what are its requirements; and how can these be met?

Answers to such questions are needed in order that metaphysics be able effectively to assimilate recent developments in human reflection, to evolve a rigor and insight in proportion to its task, and to plan its research agenda for the proximate future.

With this in view the present volume is divided into two parts. The first concerns approaches and methods for metaphysics: Is metaphysics a discipline; if so, what is its relation to truth, justification and the architectonic of systems? The second part concerns the implications of such a conception of the nature and work of metaphysics for its relation to science, to ethics and to human history.

Upon completion of its series of studies on the person, the International Society for Metaphysics (ISM) undertook a series of investigations regarding society in terms of its issues of unity, truth and justice, and the good. Further, having studied intensively both person and society it seemed appropriate to extend the investigation to the field of culture and cultural heritage understood as personal creativity in community and in history. In this manner the work of the ISM has constituted a cohesive and coordinated investigation of metaphysics as a living discipline in our day.

1. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. (Washington: Wniversity Press of America and The International Society for Metaphysics, l988).

METAPHYSICS AS A DISCIPLINE:

ITS REQUIREMENTS

IVOR LECLERC

The issue of the requirements for metaphysics as a discipline faces us today with particular urgency. It is not primarily or merely because metaphysics in our time is strongly under positivistic and other attack. This issue must be given primary attention for the sake of the enterprise of metaphysics itself if it is to achieve the efficacy which, in the context of present- day thought, is required of it and indeed necessitated by virtue of its fundamental position among fields of inquiry.

This issue has always had to be faced anew in times of great changes of thought, because metaphysical fundamentals are ineluctably involved in them. A change of this order occurred in the late Hellenistic age as a result of religious developments, which brought theology into primacy for the intelligibility of those developments, and theology indispensably required metaphysics in the accomplishment of this task. Another such change occurred in the seventeenth century with the momentous development of modern science on the basis of a radically new conception of the physical, for the proper intelligibility of which metaphysics was necessarily involved. In this century once again a change of thought of this magnitude is occurring consequent upon scientific developments which have eventuated in conceptions of the physical profoundly divergent from those of the preceding three centuries. The role of metaphysics in respect of the understanding of the nature of the physical is now again as indispensably requisite as it was in the seventeenth century.

In these times of great change of thought it is not only that metaphysical fundamentals are involved, but also that the very conception of metaphysics itself--of its nature as an inquiry, of its object and of its method--is basically affected. The recognition of this is important from the point of view of the problem of the requirements for metaphysics as a discipline, for it is not possible to deal with this problem in abstraction or in disconnection from the question of the nature of metaphysics, and this question in turn cannot be considered apart from the issue of the relation of metaphysics to the other disciplines of inquiry.

The significance of that relation is evidenced in the very name "metaphysics": the preposition with the accusative connotes sequence or succession, a going beyond, and in this name indicates an inquiry of peculiar width, its object extending beyond, and thus being general to, that of every special inquiry -- the term itself originated after Aristotle under the influence of the prominence in Aristotle's work of the inquiry into physis, but the term has been correctly understood in the tradition as fully general, i.e. as going beyond every special inquiry, to embrace all which is.

But the connection with the special inquiries is vital to metaphysics, and in different ages different special inquiries have received pre-eminent emphasis in respect of this connection. Thus in the middle ages it was theology which had this prominence, and since the seventeenth century it has been what is usually called modern science which has enjoyed this pre-

eminence. Accordingly in the medieval period the conception of metaphysics was fundamentally affected by theology, and since the seventeenth century the conception of metaphysics has been as deeply affected by modern science. We today continue in this respect under the influence of modern science, as we shall see in some detail later.

As an enterprise of inquiry metaphysics is an endeavour to seek and obtain knowledge. The same of course holds for every other inquiry: each aims at knowledge. Thus the concept of "knowledge" is implicated in every inquiry, and is accordingly basic and general to all inquiry. Because it is general, the question or issue of what is "knowledge" is one which goes beyond each of the special inquiries and cannot be the concern of any one of them. It has therefore to be the concern of that inquiry whose object goes beyond all special inquiries, namely metaphysics.

The issue of what is "knowledge", of what is meant by the term, is neither self-evident nor is it one which can be settled antecedently to all inquiry. On the contrary, it has necessarily itself to be an object of inquiry. Thus metaphysics has as a primary task the inquiry into the problem of what is "knowledge." However, this cannot be an inquiry prior to and in disconnection from all the other issues of metaphysical inquiry; these issues are necessarily all interrelated, and the solution to the issue of knowledge must emerge as part of a whole solution to the combined metaphysical issues. This means that the conception of "knowledge" which is the outcome of the inquiry into the issue of what is knowledge, must be consistent with that involved in all the rest of metaphysical inquiry, as well as with the conception of knowledge involved in the special inquiries. We cannot here enter into details of the long history of the metaphysics of knowledge; we shall concentrate on the outcome of historical developments specially relevant to our present situation.

Medieval thinkers inherited from Greek philosophy the conception that the term "knowledge" necessarily connotes and entails certainty and truth. This conception was taken over and maintained in the seventeenth century and on through the eighteenth--as is clear in Hume and Kant--and the nineteenth. This conception was by no means restricted to philosophers and with regard to philosophy. In the seventeenth century the inquiry into nature was referred to both as "natural philosophy" and "natural science--the term scientia, "science", meaning "knowledge". The latter designation came increasingly to prevail as the conviction grew that the new empirico-mathematical method was that which demonstrably led to certainty and truth in the inquiry into nature, i.e. that it was that which led to genuine or real "knowledge", scientia. This genuine science or knowledge stood in contrast to the putative knowledge of philosophy and metaphysics particularly. Philosophy consequently came to be extruded from concern with the realm of nature and relegated to that of mind and the moral alone. With this division effected, the inappropriateness of the phrase "natural science" came increasingly to be felt--since the science of nature was in fact the only genuine science, i.e. knowledge in the strict sense of true and certain--so the phrase gave place in usage, from the nineteenth century on, to the single word "science."¹ The important point in this is that the basic conception of "knowledge" as entailing certainty and truth had been taken over by "modern science", by scientists themselves as by theorists of science--the position of the latter being epitomized in the doctrine of "positivism", i.e. that what is "positive", "sure", "certain", and thus constituting genuine knowledge, is that which is attained by the empirical method of modern science.

In this century scientific developments have led to a change in the conception of "knowledge" which is indeed far- reaching. Since the seventeenth century it had been held that the "knowledge" sought by the new empirico-mathematical science was constituted by the discovery of the "laws of nature", epitomized by the laws of motion--it was in terms of these that nature was understood. These laws were what pertained with complete generality throughout nature, and as such were constant and unvarying. Accordingly when they were discovered one could be assured of certainty and truth, i.e. "knowledge" of nature. What has happened in this century is an increasing wavering in respect of the absoluteness of natural law. After the seventeenth century the earlier conception of natural law as divinely imposed was gradually replaced by the conception of natural law as empirical description. The crucial change came in this century when the previously supposed absoluteness of the Newtonian laws of motion was found to consist in statistical regularities pertaining to vast numbers of entities. After that the conception of scientific law in general as being statistical in character came to be increasingly accepted.

This abandonment of absoluteness pertaining to scientific laws entailed that these laws are merely probabilities. This implies that the "knowledge" which science seeks and attains is not "knowledge" in the earlier sense of certainty. This means that "scientific knowledge" today has come to have a new sense in which "probability" has replaced "certainty". Does it follow from this that present-day developments have landed thought in a contradiction in respect of the conception of "knowledge"-- the contradiction which Hume had sought to avoid by making a sharp distinction between "knowledge" and "probability"? It is evident that we have today run into a profound difficulty in respect of the conception of "knowledge", and this is one which affects not only so-called "science" but all inquiry, including philosophy. This means that philosophy today is faced with a task of the first order of importance, for all inquiry must be dependent upon philosophy in this respect. What is accordingly requisite is a renewed inquiry into the metaphysics of knowledge.

The problem of method or procedure in this inquiry immediately comes into prominence, and is indeed crucial in a respect in which this problem had not been so in the beginning of the modern period, nor indeed in the medieval epoch. In both of them fundamental presuppositions about the conception of "knowledge", of the essential meaning of the concept, had been taken over from the respective antecedent period. Whereas today it is precisely those fundamental presuppositions which have been revealed as somehow inadequate and which must now accordingly be subject to inquiry. Certainly in both those epochs the conception of "knowledge" had been rethought in terms of the general metaphysical schemes which had respectively been developed. This, for example, was what had been Descartes' concern in his Regulae (1628) and his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences (1637), which were written after the essentials of his metaphysics of nature had become clear to him. But in both of those epochs there had been the inheritance of the presupposition of "knowledge" as connoting and entailing certainty, a presupposition which was not brought into question. The conception of the method of metaphysical inquiry is closely bound up with the conception of knowledge. This is clearly exemplified in the two antecedent epochs which we have brought into consideration above. In the medieval one the earliest and, for most of the period, the most influential metaphysics adopted by theology had been the Neoplatonic. In this scheme it was held that knowledge could not have the characteristic of certainty and truth unless the conditions of knowledge, that in terms of which knowledge was possible at all, were constant and unchanging. These necessary conditions of knowledge, in this metaphysical scheme, were constituted by the exemplar forms, the requisite constancy of which was grounded in their derivation from God, the ultimate source of everything and thus also of that in terms of which there was knowledge. This was the metaphysics at the basis of Augustine's doctrine of "illumination". It was essentially this doctrine which was carried over in the seventeenth century by thinkers such as Descartes in their theory of "innate ideas" as that in terms of which there is knowledge.

It was entailed in this metaphysical scheme, as Descartes, Spinoza and others clearly saw, that the method of inquiry, more particularly the method of metaphysical inquiry, had to be a deductive procedure from ultimate certain premises. This determined the requirements of metaphysics as a discipline. The prime requirement was to find the ultimate premises, and this was possible only through an intuitive perception, their identity as ultimate and certain being recognizable by their clarity and distinctness. This metaphysics of knowledge seemed in the seventeenth century to be perfectly and admirably consistent with the new science which was fundamentally mathematical. Descartes indeed conceived thought per se, in so far as it proceeded soundly by deduction from ultimate premises, as essentially mathematical; this pertained particularly to philosophical, and especially metaphysical, thought in respect of which he developed the conception of a mathesis universalis, a conception which was taken over in its essentials by Spinoza and Leibniz-- and which inspired the development of mathematical or symbolic logic in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The credibility of this metaphysics of knowledge was undermined by the increasing recognition in the eighteenth century of the empirical component in scientific inquiry, and that in respect of this the procedure of scientific inquiry was inductive and not deductive at all. This situation generated a momentous crisis in philosophical thought, particularly keenly appreciated by Hume: proceeding deductively, as in logic and mathematics, evidently led to conclusions which were certain, thereby fulfilling the claim to knowledge. Such certainty, and thus knowledge in the strict sense was, on the other hand, not possible by the empirical procedure of science, which could at most give probability. Kant came to see that philosophy was faced with the urgent necessity of re-thinking the conception of "knowledge," that unless a more satisfactory conception were attainable the entire spectacular movement of modern science was doomed to be recognized as not "science," i.e., "knowledge" in the strict sense, at all.

Kant's diagnosis of this crisis was that it was the outcome of an erroneous fundamental presupposition with respect to knowledge. As he put in the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason²: "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects". What was necessary to resolve the crisis, Kant held, was a complete reorientation, in which the very opposite assumption had to be adopted, namely that "objects must conform to our knowledge", for only on this assumption would it "be possible to have knowledge of objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being given". His point is that knowledge, in the strict sense, of objects is not possible at all if it be a posteriori--that gives probability and not knowledge; hence knowledge must essentially be a priori. Only in this way could be secured, what Kant accepted from the tradition, that "knowledge" connoted and entailed certainty. Indeed he considerably enhanced this requirement by insisting on apodeictic certainty as the sine qua non of knowledge: "Only that whose certainty can be called apodeictic can be called science proper; cognition that can contain merely empirical certainty is only improperly called science.³ This held particularly for scientific knowledge of nature, since for it to be "science" or "knowledge" in the strict sense it had to consist in an understanding of nature in terms of "universal law", and there could not truly be such law if it were merely empirically derived, i.e. a posteriori.

The Kantian reorientation turned on a reassessment of the "object". Traditionally the object had typically been identified with what was taken to be the physical being. Kant himself had done so in the physical monadology of his pre-critical period. It is this identification which Kant abandoned. If there were to be knowledge in the strict sense, then that identification of object known with physical thing-in-itself would have to be rejected, for only by that rejection would it be possible to secure the requirement of knowledge as a priori.

What was necessary was that the object in knowledge be determined by the ultimate conditions of knowledge, by that in terms of which there is knowledge at all, and this must be grounded in the knowing mind. To know necessarily presupposed ultimate categories in terms of which there is understanding. Traditionally these had been regarded as derivative from God; Kant held them to be grounded in the very structure of the mind as capable of knowing. But that alone, as was clear from Descartes' philosophy, was not sufficient for knowledge of the physical. Knowledge of the physical demanded an empirical component, but that seemed necessarily to entail the a posteriori. Further, the physical seemed to be essentially spatio-temporal, i.e. involving in itself a spatial and temporal structure, also cognizable only a posteriori. Carrying through the seventeenth-century development which had removed from the physical the qualitative sensory features, locating these instead in the experiencing subject, Kant took the radical step of removing from the physical also the spatio-temporal, which had seemed absolutely intrinsic to it, assigning this too to the experiencing subject, as the a priori form of its perception--this was Kant's crucial innovation. Thus the physical thing-in-itself was left deprived of all features in terms of which it could be a known object. Instead in this new doctrine the known object was revealed to be a synthetic product of the mind's activity of knowing. This meant that the physical thing-in-itself was beyond knowledge, unknowable.

This revision of the conception of knowledge had profound consequences for the conception of the nature of metaphysics, of its object and of its method. Traditionally the ultimate object of metaphysics had been "what is", in the strict sense that "what is" per se was the object, and as such was known. That is, in this view metaphysical knowledge had to conform to and be determined by "what is" as object. It followed from the conception of knowledge consequent upon Kant's reorientation that "what is" per se could not be the object of metaphysical knowledge. What was thus requisite for him was a rethinking of the nature of metaphysics as a discipline productive of genuine knowledge. Since the inquiry into knowledge is an inquiry which necessarily transcends all special inquiries it must belong to metaphysics. For Kant the inquiry into knowledge became the primary and essential concern and aim of metaphysics. That is, for him the object of metaphysics became knowledge per se. This then determined the requirements for metaphysics as a discipline. For Kant the primary task of metaphysics had to be a "transcendental critique" of knowledge, in other words an inquiry into the ultimate conditions a priori in terms of which there is knowledge. This meant that it had to be an inquiry into thinking per se as productive of knowledge, into the structure of thinking, and thus into the ultimate unconditioned grounds and sources of knowledge. The determinations regarding knowledge thus arrived at accordingly have a necessary priority to all other branches of metaphysics, such as the metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals, and must be presupposed by these if these are to be accepted at all as constituting genuine knowledge. This means that upon the basis of these determinations respecting the ultimate conditions of knowledge it is then possible validly to proceed to the determination of the requisites of, e.g. scientific knowledge of nature--such as what is meant by "nature," by "natural law," etc.--and to the determination of the nature of mathematics--this, according to Kant, being crucial since mathematics is indispensable to the science, in the strict sense, of nature.

Kant's transcendental inquiry led him to the recognition, on the one hand, of certain pure or a priori concepts or categories as the ultimates in terms of which there is understanding, from which derive certain ideas as principles of reason; and on the other hand, since knowledge is of natural things, to certain pure or a priori forms of sensibility as necessary for there to be experience of natural things. It will not be requisite for our purposes to enter into further details of this doctrine.

The question has now to be raised respecting the method of this transcendental inquiry or metaphysics, and of its justification. Kant is quite explicit that he found his categories of the understanding by an examination of judgment; they were what he saw to be entailed in the logical forms of judgment. This means that his transcendental inquiry rested upon the presupposition of judgment as the fundamental act of the mind, comprising within it all other acts of the mind--again he is quite explicit about this.⁴ The point which is significant here is that this is a presupposition of his inquiry. What is more, his inquiry involves some further presuppositions, namely those of certain "faculties" of the mind--such as the "understanding," "reason," "imagination," "sensibility." In other words, Kant's transcendental inquiry into the ultimate conditions of knowledge involves as a basic presupposition a particular analysis of the structure of the mind; that is, this analysis of the structure of the mind is not itself the outcome of inquiry, but is involved in his transcendental inquiry as a presupposition.

We need accordingly to ask, what is the justification for this set of presuppositions? Can it validly be maintained that they are self-evident? Such a claim could hardly be plausible in view of the fact that other analyses of the structure of the mind are possible and have in fact been made. Alternatively it could be held that their justification is constituted by their coherently being required for the consistent explanation of the possibility of knowledge as entailing certainty--and this would indeed seem to be Kant's position. But what does this imply with regard to Kant's method in his transcendental inquiry?

Evidently his method is not to start from a priori certainties; rather it starts from presuppositions--which as such, are not certainties, but are subject to justification. On the basis of these presuppositions he arrives at the categories in terms of which apodeictic knowledge is possible. Can it be maintained that having determined the categories in terms of which there is knowledge, we could then know, have certain knowledge of, "judgment," the "understanding," "reason," etc.? This cannot be, since for Kant knowing entails judging, as it entails the act of the understanding, so that none of these can themselves be "known"--they constitute the presupposed conditions of knowing. Moreover, the categories, according to Kant, are "pure concepts of the understanding which apply a priori to objects of intuition in general,"⁵ and "understanding," "reason," etc. are not "object of intuition"--for Kant "intuition" belongs solely to sensibility.⁶

I would submit that what is brought out by this examination of Kant's doctrine is that what we have in it is a particular theory, a theory of knowledge, one among possible theories, and as such standing in need of justification. Further, what is highly relevant to our consideration is that this theory of Kant's is based upon the presupposition of "knowledge" as entailing apodeictic certainty. It was the intent to secure that condition, as we have seen, which constituted the basic reason for Kant's philosophical reorientation and for his consequent theory of knowledge and his new conception of metaphysics.

But it is precisely that presupposition respecting knowledge which has in our time come into question. Accordingly it is no longer tenable simply to assume it or accept it as a presupposition; it has itself to be subjected to inquiry. But if that conception of what knowledge is be brought into question, therewith also is Kant's basic reorientation brought into question; and this fundamentally affects all those subsequent philosophical schools of thought which have followed Kant, explicitly or implicitly, in that reorientation.

It has been developments in scientific thought in the last hundred years which have had the result of bringing into question the inherited presuppositions respecting knowledge. These developments, as we have seen earlier, had resulted in the abandonment of the conception of natural law as absolute. As long as that conception of natural 1aw persisted, it entailed that the discovery of natural law constituted knowledge in the sense of certainty. But if natural law be not absolute--perhaps being only statistical probability--then the discovery of natural law could not constitute knowledge in the sense of certainty. The consequence of this is that we are now being faced with the necessity of rethinking the entire issue of knowledge, and indeed in a more thoroughgoing way than has been done at any time since the classical period in Greece.

The issue of knowledge, as we have noted earlier, is not separable from the issue concerning method of inquiry. Since the issue of knowledge has become crucial in respect of science, the question of scientific method has to be brought into special consideration with respect to the issue of knowledge. In fact appreciable attention began being devoted, from the middle of the nineteenth century onward, to the understanding of scientific method and particularly of the logic of scientific method. The outcome has been the attainment of a vastly better comprehension than was had previously of the procedure and logical structure of induction. What especially became clear was the quite fundamental role of "hypothesis" in induction and in scientific thought as a whole.

It is now well recognized that scientific inquiry proceeds by the postulation of certain features as general to a field of relevant data, and by the testing of that hypothesis in respect of its applicability and adequacy. When an hypothesis receives a certain degree of acceptance as established it usually becomes characterized as a "theory." The terminological change signifies the loss of the earlier degree of tentativeness involved in the procedure, and which is signified in the word "hypothesis." Further, the word "theory," with its etymological sense of "a looking at, a view," has come to have the connotation of a system or scheme of ideas, so that what is termed a "theory" tends to be something more elaborate and coordinated than what is usually termed a "hypothesis." However, there is no essential difference between the two, particularly with respect to their role in scientific inquiry. The procedure of scientific inquiry is that hypotheses or theories are developed in terms of which the relevant data are interpreted. The data being "interpreted" in terms of the theory means that the data are revealed as exhibiting the general features postulated by the theory or hypothesis; in other words, the data are exhibited as conforming to "general laws." It is this exhibition which constitutes scientific "understanding": those general features are what "stand under" the data, characterizing their nature, what they are. The theories which are accepted at any stage of scientific development are the best attainable at that stage in respect of their comprehensiveness, applicability, and adequacy. Further research usually reveals limitations and inadequacies, necessitating amendment of the theories in question or their replacement.

With the recognition of theory as in this way fundamental in the method and nature of scientific inquiry, we can see that scientific theory, by virtue of its being "theory," is not something final, established, and beyond question; that is scientific theory, as "theory," does not connote certainty. This is to say that scientific theory does not constitute "knowledge" in the sense insisted upon by Kant; it is precisely that conception of knowledge as entailing and connoting certainty which is repudiated. Is the conclusion which is to be drawn from this that we have here a conception of knowledge which pertains peculiarly to science? This would seem improbably the case, for the following reason. There had earlier been a strong tendency to distinguish the method of natural science from all others--this is the tendency which had culminated in the doctrine of positivism. But that tendency has come in the last hundred years to be reversed. The recognition of the fundamental role of theory and hypothesis in scientific inquiry has gradually brought the realization that this role of theory is by no means confined to scientific inquiry. On the contrary it has become clear that theory is equally fundamental in a range of other inquiries, including for example, historical inquiry, theological inquiry, and philosophical inquiry in general and metaphysics in particular. It is now readily recognizable that earlier philosophers, such as for example those of the seventeenth century, despite their conviction and analysis of philosophy as a deductive procedure, in fact proceeded by the postulation of general theories--their deductive procedure being the elaboration of the implications of their general theories into consistent systems. Also, I have pointed out above that Kant's "transcendental critique" likewise was constituted by the postulation of a general theory of knowledge and a theory of the structure of the mind as requisite to his theory of knowledge. Since theory is fundamental in the method of all these inquiries, it follows that not only does scientific theory not constitute knowledge in the sense of certainty, but equally others, such as historical theory, theological theory, and philosophical theory, including metaphysical theory, do not constitute knowledge in the traditional sense of certainty. A conception of knowledge different from the traditional one is requisite in all these other fields as well.

The delineation in detail of this new conception of knowledge is the task of metaphysics, and it is one which is required to be undertaken with some urgency. In other words, metaphysics has to engage in a renewed inquiry into the issue of knowledge and of all that is involved in this issue. One most important factor in this, as we have been seeing, is that of method of inquiry. What is now especially pertinent in this respect is the question of method in metaphysics. Now we have seen that method in metaphysics is not essentially different from that in science: in both the procedure of inquiry is by the postulation of theory and the testing of that theory.

But while science and metaphysics are fundamentally alike in that both are "theories" or "theoretical structures," yet there are some most important differences between them qua "theories." First, it is evident that they must differ in respect of subject-matter. Both are general theories, but in science the theory is general to certain restricted data, while in metaphysics there is no such restriction in respect of data--metaphysical theory must pertain to all which is. But there is another difference between them which is of basic importance; it could indeed by seen as a corollary of the former. The complete generality of metaphysics entails that it must pertain to not only all the special fields of inquiry, but also equally to itself. That is to say, metaphysics as a completely general theory must cover and apply to all special theories, and it must apply also to itself. In other words metaphysical theory, in contrast to scientific and other theory, must be self-reflexive theory.

This requirement is one of the utmost importance, more particularly so in the light of metaphysics as "theory." This is specially pertinent to metaphysics in respect of its task of producing a theory of knowledge. That theory must cover, and be explicative of, knowledge in every domain of inquiry. That theory of knowledge, however, must hold equally for itself. That is, it must be able consistently to explain itself as a theory of knowledge, which means that it must exhibit itself in terms of its theory of knowledge as itself being an instance of knowledge.

This requirement of self-reflexivity can perhaps most readily be illustrated by considering instances of its failure. I will take the Kantian metaphysics of knowledge as such an instance. In Kant's transcendental doctrine knowledge is constituted by apodeictic judgment, the doctrine itself specifying the conditions of apodeictic judgment, such as that it has to be in terms of the pure concepts of the understanding. But this doctrine is not itself a judgment, i.e., it is not an instance of judgment, it giving only the conditions for apodeictic judgment. This doctrine, rather, stands above judgment; this is the very meaning of its being "transcendental." Thus in terms of that doctrine, the doctrine itself cannot be an instance of knowledge; that is the doctrine cannot exhibit itself as "knowledge."

Now we have seen that Kant's transcendental doctrine is in fact a "theory," and herein lies the fundamental difficulty in this doctrine. It is a "theory" of knowledge, and it includes a "theory" of judgment, but--and this is its basic deficiency--it has no "theory" of theory. The intention of this analysis of Kant's metaphysics of knowledge is both to make clear the requirement of self-reflexivity in metaphysical thought and theory, and to exhibit this requirement as a most important test of the coherence and applicability of a metaphysical theory. In this we have, I would submit, one most important requirement of metaphysics as a discipline.

The elaboration of this requirement that metaphysics be self-reflexive theory brings out a further task of metaphysics. It has not only to formulate a theory of knowledge, but also, as part of that enterprise, to formulate a theory of theory.⁷ It is clear from what has been shown above that this theory of theory must also be self-reflexive; that is, this theory must explain itself as a theory.

But what exactly is involved in this formulation of a theory of theory? First, it must be emphasized that this formulation of a theory of theory cannot be undertaken as preceding all metaphysical inquiry--to do so would be to court failure in respect of the requirement of self-reflexiveness; rather, it must be an intrinsic part of the entire enterprise of metaphysics, and indeed of metaphysics in its fundamental aspect, that of ontology. This is to say, metaphysics must raise, as a basic issue, that of the ontological status of "theory." What kind of being is to be accorded to "theory"?

Theory can be, and has been, accorded the status of essentially "ideal" being: that is, theory is regarded as an "idea" or "concept," a purely mental or thought entity. This would seem to be, implicitly or explicitly, predominantly the position of most modern metaphysics. This position, however, has the ineluctable consequence of severing theory from its object, unless, following Kant, the object itself be accorded the status of "ideal" being, i.e., of a thought entity. Thus on this view or theory a scientific theory, for example, would not have natural beings per se as its object. It is important to be clear that on this view scientific theory can give us no knowledge at all about the world of nature in itself.

The question faces us: what alternative to this is possible? That is to say, what alternative is possible with respect to the ontological status of "theory"? Such an alternative, I would submit, is possible by turning from the essentially Neoplatonic ontology and its concomitant theory of perception, which has dominated philosophical thought since the seventeenth century, to an essentially Aristotelian ontology and theory of perception. Let us concentrate for the moment on the theory of perception. On the Aristotelian position, in perception there is an initial reception by the perceiver of the physical thing as object. From this develops a process of mental or thought activity, one outcome of which is the formation of a "thought," "idea," or "concept" about the object. To be validly a "thought" about the physical entity as object, the physical thing itself must be the object of that "thought." In other words, that thought must be attributed to or proposed of that physical thing; that is, the physical thing itself must be the subject of that "proposition." This means that the "proposition" must be a synthesis of the physical thing, as received in perception, and the mental "thought," "idea," or "concept." In this theory, contrary to Kant, the fundamental synthetic entity in knowledge is not the "object," but a "proposition." A "proposition" is not a "thought" alone--to use Kant's famous statement, "thoughts without content are empty";⁸ the "content" must be constituted by the physical thing as the subject of the "proposition."⁹ It is only in this way, by having the physical things themselves included as the subjects of "propositions" that it is possible to have knowledge of physical things. This constitutes the fundamental strength and importance of the Aristotelian position.

Now "propositions" are the basis of hypothesis and theory. In fact, a "proposition" is the most elementary form of hypothesis or theory; for a "proposition" is a "proposal" of a certain predicative definiteness as characterizing a physical particular. "Judgment" concerns the correctness or incorrectness of that proposal; so that a judgment is exercised on a proposition, and thus on an hypothesis or theory. What we have here is a singular proposition, it having a single particular or set of particulars as its subject. A proposition will be "general" if its proposal extends to any set of a certain sort of sets of particulars; and it will be "universal" if the proposal covers all sorts of sets of particulars.¹⁰ In this last case we have a metaphysical proposition, or a metaphysical theory if the predicative proposal be sufficiently complex and comprehensive. It should be noted that conscious perception is an instance of a singular proposition. That is, conscious perception is not an "intuition," in the etymological sense of a direct "looking at";¹¹ conscious perception is a proposal--a hypothesis or theory--of a certain selection of definitive features as characterizing a set of physical particulars, the selection being the product of mental activity. This means that the empirical method, in scientific and other inquiry, is shot through and through, from beginning to end, by theory. This metaphysical theory of knowledge cannot be elaborated in further detail here. I will only point out that it conforms to the requirement of self-reflexiveness. For according to this theory the procedure of inquiry by which knowledge is attained is constituted by the postulation of theories, i.e. by the proposal of certain predicative features as characterizing particulars, and by testing those theories for applicability and adequacy. Integral and fundamental to this metaphysical theory is a theory of theory, a theory which must accordingly, as metaphysical, i.e., universal, apply to all instances of theory, including to itself as a theory. This latter applicability is achieved by the theory of theory including a universal theory, and by its being itself an instance of universal theory.

One further point needs to be brought out with regard to this metaphysical theory of knowledge: it is respecting the conception of "knowledge" entailed in this theory. This theory places a fundamental emphasis on procedure or method: this theory is a theory respecting the procedure by which knowledge is attained, this procedure fundamentally involving the postulation of theory. Thus knowledge is the outcome of the procedure of inquiry. Since that procedure necessarily involves theory, the outcome cannot be absolutely certain and final--i.e., knowledge in the sense insisted upon by Kant and his predecessors, medieval and modern. The outcome of the procedure of inquiry is rather a gradual approximation, an asymptotic approach, to truth. That is to say, in the new conception "knowledge" does not connote a final state, but rather a process of attainment.

With the foregoing clarification of the nature of metaphysics, its method, and of the conception of knowledge, we can deal relatively briefly with the most important requirements for metaphysics as a discipline. The word "discipline" here refers in one respect to metaphysics as a "system," in another to the method, the conduct of the inquiry, and in a third to the order and control appropriate to the inquiry. The last of these, it has been clear for centuries, needs most strongly to be insisted on, because much of what has been produced under this title has been rather "wild" and has tended to redound to the discredit of metaphysics. This has been the consequence not only of the failure to exercise the orderly control appropriate to the inquiry, but also of a failure to comprehend properly the nature of the enterprise--an example of the latter is the view of metaphysics which has gained some adherence in recent times, that of metaphysics as a species of poetry.

In respect of all these senses of "discipline" and not only the last, in metaphysics as in the other disciplines of inquiry, the first and indispensable requirement is the logically consistent and coherent elaboration of the implications of the basic theory to the fullest possible extent, and then the unflinching facing up to those implications in respect to their applicability and adequacy. Neither of these requirements is without considerable difficulty with regard to their appropriate fulfillment, it sometimes taking generations of thinkers to achieve those requirements, positively or negatively.

With regard to the first of these requirements, metaphysics is in a special situation vis-a-vis the other disciplines because of its nature as extending over all the others. This entails the necessity, as we have seen in the preceding section, that metaphysics be self-reflexive. This means that the test of self-reflexivity is in metaphysics a most important part of the testing of the theory for its internal consistency and coherence.

As in every other intellectual discipline, so also in metaphysics the appropriate orderly control of the inquiry must be grounded in its method. In metaphysics, as in the special sciences as we have seen, the method is fundamentally the postulation of theory and its testing. In the special sciences the testing is to a considerable extent easier, because of the comparative restrictedness of the relevant data. The wider the generality of the theory the greater is the difficulty in assessing the applicability and adequacy of the theory under consideration, and it is most difficult in the case of theories of the widest generality or universality, namely those of metaphysics.

But there is another, and very special difficulty with regard to the testing of theory which confronts all inquires, and metaphysics no less than the others, though in the case of metaphysics this difficulty is even greater than in the others. This difficulty is grounded in the fact of all inquiries necessarily involving theory. The point is that the theory in terms of which the data are interpreted necessarily determines the relevance of the evidence, so that what does not accord with the theory is either not noticed at all, or in the extreme case is dismissed as irrelevant, or at most is construed into a conformity with the theory which is in fact only partial. Instances of these are legion in the history of science and of philosophy. This point is especially evident in the empirical inquiries, for as we have seen perception is shot through and through with theory. But in the end the empirical component is significantly involved in almost all inquiry,¹³ and quite definitely so in philosophy and in metaphysics particularly.

Now that the basic role of theory in scientific and other inquiry has become ever clear, there is requisite the concomitant recognition of the necessity for special measures to overcome that difficulty involved in the very method of inquiry as such, the more so since, contrary to the widely-held supposition of the recent past, modern science and thought emulating science is no less susceptible to the formation of orthodoxies dominating the organization of inquiry (university departments, laboratories, professional associations, publication media, etc.) hindering or suppressing the airing of alternative viewpoints and theories, thereby seriously hampering inquiry and the search for knowledge and truth, and in particular obstructing the adequate testing of theories. For it is only by the sincere entertainment of theories alternative to our own, thereby enabling us to see evidence which our theory has missed or not properly taken account of, that there can be effective testing in respect of the applicability and adequacy of a theory.

There is one other profound difficulty facing all inquiry, in the special sciences and in metaphysics alike. This is constituted by the fact that the theories postulated in the procedure of inquiry in some degree will inevitably involve tacit assumptions and presuppositions. It is one of the particular tasks of philosophy to inquire into and discover the assumptions and presuppositions tacitly involved in the theories of the special sciences; this is a philosophical task because the presuppositions in question are almost always ones which transcend the special sciences under consideration, which is to say that the presuppositions are essentially philosophical ones.

But philosophy itself, and metaphysics in particular, has the task of discovering and critically examining its own presuppositions. This is a task of exceptional difficulty; since these presuppositions are tacit, they are detectable only by special methods. Fundamental in these must be comparison and contrast, for we can see and recognize only by contrast and difference. But it is not sufficient to compare and contrast only contemporary theories, for these could be exhibiting common presuppositions, and most probably do.

To overcome this difficulty historical inquiry is indispensable. This, however, itself faces special difficulties, for it is extremely easy to interpret past theories in terms of present ones, thereby failing to find precisely what is being looked for, namely the inherited presuppositions. The historical inquiry requisite in this respect is an exceedingly difficult and exacting undertaking, demanding of the inquirer a high degree of awareness of the possible intrusion of tacit presuppositions in his own inquiry. This historical inquiry, especially in metaphysics, needs to be pushed back to the beginnings of philosophical inquiry, and indeed with particular emphasis on and attention to the tacit metaphysical presuppositions involved in the very language of the originators of philosophical theory.¹⁴ This historical inquiry is of the first order of importance to the discipline of metaphysics, for without it we cannot be sure of what exactly is involved in metaphysical theory at any subsequent stage. In other words, without this historical inquiry it is impossible to make an adequate assessment of any metaphysical theory.

It is only such a historical inquiry that will enable us to disentangle the strands of inherited presuppositions which enter into the constitution of a later theory--Heidegger's theory of being, for example, or Whitehead's theory of prehension. Only thereby will we be able effectively and adequately to assess theories for their consistency and coherence. For example, thereby we will be able to see that Whitehead's theory of prehension involves a significant incoherence in its combination, on the one hand, of an Aristotelian conception of the physical entity included as object in the prehender, with, on the other, a Neoplatonic conception of the act as belonging exclusively to the prehender.

The importance of this historical inquiry is not, however, restricted to its value in respect of the assessment of theories for their consistency and coherence; it is equally valuable in enabling a more effective assessment of the applicability and adequacy of theories, since through that inquiry we are able to have so much greater a discernment of what exactly is involved in the theories under consideration.

But there is another equally considerable advantage accruing from the historical inquiry into presuppositions. This in respect to the formulation of new theory. Not only are we, as a consequence of the clarification of what exactly is involved in concepts, rescued from falling into inconsistency and incoherence, but correspondingly, viable alternatives become all the more readily visible and available to us.

In summary, I would urge that this historical inquiry should be seen as constituting a most important and highly valuable, indeed quite indispensable, requirement in the discipline of metaphysics. We need to build on and carry much further the great movement of historical inquiry begun in the nineteenth century, but which has tended recently to have rather diminished. I see the possibility, on the basis of this historical inquiry, of metaphysics in the future becoming a much more strictly disciplined inquiry than it has on the whole been in the past, with a consequent vast gain in respect of its rightful contribution to the entire world of inquiry and learning.

Emory University

Atlanta, Georgia

NOTES

1. This has not been true of German, in which the word "Wissenschaft" has until recently retained the wider denotation.

2. The following quotations are from the Norman Kemp Smith translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, B xvi.

3. I. Kant, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, tr. James Ellington (The Library of Liberal Arts, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970), Preface, p. 4.

4. Cf. Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. Lewis White Beck (The Library of Liberal Arts, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1950), Part II, par. 39, Appendix to the Pure Science of Nature, Of the System of Categories (p. 71).

5. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 105 (Kemp Smith, p. 113).

6. Cf. Prolegomena, Part II, par. 21a.

7. It was from conversations with Gottfried Martin shortly before his death that I first fully began to appreciate the importance of a theory of theory. He was then struggling with the problem, but I am not aware of his having arrived at a solution. 8. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 51, B 75.

9. It will perhaps be recognized that I have here adumbrated Whitehead's theory of "propositions". Cf. Process and Reality, Part II, Ch. IX.

10. Cf. Process and Reality, Part II, Ch. IX, Sect. I.

11. Plato has been correct in rejecting the earlier sense of noein as a direct perceptual looking at, seeing the true state of affairs [cf. Kurt von Fritz, "nous -and NOEIN in the Homeric Poems" (Classical Philology, XXXVIII, 1943, pp. 79-93) and "nous, NOEIN and their derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy" (Classical Philology, XL, 1945, pp. 223-242, and XLI, 1946, pp. 12-34; reprinted in The Pre-Socratics, ed. A.P.D. Mourelatos (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1974, pp. 23-85)], accepting from Parmenides that it is an intellectual insight or intuition.

12. The adequate demonstration of this is only possible by the elaboration of an entire metaphysical system, which is of course not possible here.

13. The most notable exception here is the kind of inquiry of which pure mathematics is the most prominent instance. The "theory" involved in pure mathematics is not a "proposition" as in scientific theory and philosophical theory, since it does not include physical entities as its subject--there has in the past been a great deal of confusion in thought as a result of a failure to make the requisite distinction. The clarification of the ontological status of mathematics is a most important part of the task of metaphysics.

14. A very good example of this kind of inquiry is that of Kurt von Fritz in the papers mentioned in note 11 above.

METAPHYSICS

and the

ARCHITECTONIC OF SYSTEMS

REINER WIEHL

I shall begin my observations with a very general and provisional definition of the concept of metaphysics: metaphysics is the theoretical preoccupation with the ultimately fundamental things. In saying this I speak intentionally of theory and not of science (scientia) and doctrine (doctrina). In this way I can, for the time being, exclude one of the most controversial questions, namely, whether metaphysics is a science and doctrine in any sense and on what conditions it could possibly become such. With this provisional definition I also avoid intentionally any talk of man as such. For this, too, would anticipate a major point of controversy in metaphysics, namely, whether as a particular being amongst others man is in any sense an object of metaphysical cognition, or whether such an object must be traced to something more fundamental whose concept forms the necessary condition for all human knowledge, and finally to man's knowledge of himself. According to the above formula for the concept of metaphysics, the definition of its nature requires finding a valid definition of what is fundamental and of the theory thereof. The following provisional description of what is fundamental may suffice here: it must be fourfold, namely, be most comprehensive, most general, most real, and finally most perfect. The manner of dealing theoretically with this fourfold fundamental may be characterized as thought. A more terminological version might say that metaphysics is the logic of substance, but it is more than the mental examination of this or that basic feature of things.

Unity and Eternity

It can be said with some justification that theoretical physics, as the science of the laws of nature, changes into a metaphysics of nature precisely when the established laws of nature can be seen to be the most general laws of this kind. Similarly, ethics, as the theory of human action and of successful human life, becomes a metaphysics of morals at the point at which it is concerned not only with the acceptance and rejection of certain currently operative norms of human conduct, but also with the absolutely perfect as the most comprehensive determining factor of human existence. Inherent in metaphysics' specific way of considering objects is a tendency towards unity, a drive towards examining the interconnection between the various single elements of things.

Metaphysics, as the logic of substance, is the theory of the unity of substance, the knowledge of the fundamental connection between the elements of things. The corresponding attribute "metaphysical," when understood in this very general sense, is not a specific characteristic of ancient philosophy in contrast to modern philosophy. It describes just as well the early modern philosophical rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, and the speculative systems of idealism of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Kant's famous proposition in the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason is most certainly right: "In all men, as soon as their reason has become ripe for speculation, there has always existed and will always continue to exist some kind of metaphysics." (B 21) Our present time too has a characteristic metaphysics which, however, hidden and repressed it might be, must somehow disclose its distinctiveness and permit its comparison with the familiar images of traditional metaphysics.

That metaphysics as a whole presents an appearance which is diversely entangled, if not even full of contradictions, is not generally disputed by its "friends and foes," but noted repeatedly. It is equally indisputable that this inconstant appearance has repeatedly, and in many different ways, given cause for reflection. The judgment and the evaluation of change in metaphysics is in turn subject to change, and facilitates different intellectual conclusions. Scepticism as regards the possibility of metaphysical knowledge is one such consequence; the design of a new architectonic for a metaphysical system is another. If it is at all permissible to speak of a modern metaphysics, this distinguishes itself from the traditional metaphysics of the antiquity and of early modern times by its concomitant historical consciousness, that is, by consciousness of the constitutive character of its own temporality.

That such a consciousness was lacking in the old metaphysics, or at least was not constitutive of it, both leaves its mark on that kind of metaphysics and makes possible via negationis a description of modern metaphysics. The old metaphysics conceived its object, substance, from the definitive viewpoint of timelessness, or being beyond time; to take Spinoza's famous formula: sub specie aeternitatis. This kind of observation seems on the one hand to be mapped out by the object, the absolute substance in its various essential features. The comprehensive whole, the general and the law-like, the actual and concrete, the perfect and best, when seen in its respective fundamental and substantial character, all seem to call inevitably for the idea of the everlasting, of the being able to be such and not other. This consideration of objects sub specie aeternitatis seems to be evoked just as necessarily by the types of investigation, i.e., the logic of substance. Thought in this type of investigation must be conceived as adequate to its object and related to it in a certain way. Accordingly, thought counts as substantial and even fundamental with regard to substance.

Ancient and Modern Truth.

Metaphysical knowledge, therefore,as the logic of substance and the theory of its unity, takes the form of an absolute foundation. However, this absolute foundation need not completely exclude the idea of change with regard to absolute substance. Rather, change belongs among the most evident essential features of things and must have a systematic place within the foundation. As a result the various essential features of substance as such and their unity reveal a correspondingly varying affinity to change. Thus, reality seems more probably to be compatible with change than with perfection, with the comprehensive whole than with the general and law-like. In considering objects sub specie aeternitatis in regard to the idea of absolute immutability the old metaphysics reaches only the boundary at which problems emerge; it does not move beyond this boundary to the concept of a metaphysics, which, in accordance with its essence, is changeable: this boundary is set by the truth in classical metaphysics. It is not merely that the object of metaphysical thought, namely, substance, was conceived sub specie aeternitatis, nor that the manner of metaphysical cognition as the foundation of substance arose in thought sub specie aeternitatis, but above all that the aim of the foundation, namely, truth as absolute and fundamental, was understood only in relation to the eternal. The main problem of the traditional logic of substance as founded sub specie aeternitatis was the basis of the obviously essential features of things, motion and rest. This foundation implied a quite analogous problem for the corresponding theory of the unity of substance, namely, the basis of truth and falsity. These problems were intensified by the distinctive character of an intellectual foundation in terms of eternity, in relation to which motion seemed especially problematic. Thus ancient philosophy attempted to solve these two basic problems by putting forward analogous paradoxes: that both motion and falsity are non-existent and their reality a mere illusion. Besides Scepticism, Eleatism and Sophism were the great challengers of ancient ontology and metaphysics, and one of the great intellectual endeavors of classical Greek philosophy was to "save" motion as well as falsity and deception.

Plato's Theaetetus is the impressive document of this rescue attempt. Classical ancient philosophy created paradigms for a foundation not only of motion and rest, but also of truth and untruth, the latter in conjunction with the development of a classical form of philosophical criticism. Truth is thereby absolutely distinguished from mere correctness of perception, opinion and certain conduct. This difference results on the one hand, from the direct relationship of truth to knowledge as the foundation of substance whence truth gains its specific characteristics of constancy and necessity. On the other hand, these criteria clarify why a distinction has to be made between truth and correctness. Human behaviour which is concerned with correctness must be possible even when the knowledge guiding this conduct is imperfect. Further, this knowledge must be applied to a certain situation and thereby be necessarily limited.

The human knowledge guiding action need be assured only as provisional, not as fundamental knowledge. Correctness and incorrectness change from case to case and allow for examination in each case. The relationship between truth and untruth is something quite different. The possibility of a philosophical critique demands that untruth find its systematic place within a foundation of substance. The result of this for the relationship between untruth and truth that is this: 1) untruth is given only under presupposition of truth and in relation to it--and is defined as such (veritas est index veri et falsi); 2) untruth is both well distinguished from truth, and not distinguished from it, since it is truth not as such, but only when regarded from a limited and particular standpoint and on the specific conditions of this limitation; 3) accordingly truth relates to untruth, not as if the latter were something quite different, but as truth in a specific imperfection: a provisional truth, which has not yet been recognized in regard to the conditions of its specific limitation, and which therefore is not yet absolutely comprehensive, general, actual and perfect truth; and 4) the relationship between untruth and truth is to be conceived of under these fundamental conditions as the specific movement of truth itself, as the way and method which has as its goal a comprehensive, general and complete knowledge of truth.

A movement is differentiated according to its various phases, a method is structured according to its single, constitutive steps. Each phase of the movement of truth, each of its methodical steps is determined by the following formal aspects or moments: a) positing a definite and limited standpoint, and the definition thereof; b) reflection on the essential conditions of this positing and the definition thereof in relation to the above definition of positing; c) the synthesis of both the given definitions and the definition of their correlation; d) positing this synthesis as of a limited standpoint and reflection on its relationship to the initially posited standpoint with a view to gaining a more general and comprehensive standpoint.

As has already been said: not only did classical ancient ontology and metaphysics avoid Scepticism, it tried also to overcome the paradoxes of Eleatism and Sophism. Its most important discovery in this endeavour was that of the constitutive correlation of truth and method in the most general sense. In spite of this discovery it did not succeed in bringing the concepts of motion and truth into complete harmony with the idea of substance and its grounding. Nor was the tension between truth and correctness, knowledge and opinion resolved; this continued as tension between an ontology of substance and a pragmatic ethics in modern times. Metaphysics in the modern age has placed itself deliberately traditional in the context of ancient metaphysics and has attempted at the same time to reconcile this tradition with the spirit of modern scientism. This is especially true of Hegel's superb attempt to solve all the problems of traditional metaphysics by changing the contradictions in its appearance into constitutive phases of the movement of truth, into dialectical steps of the metaphysical cognition of truth.

Hegel himself understood this systematic reconstruction as the completion of truth and the end of the history of metaphysics. For this systematic reconstruction he coined the formula of the subjectivization of substance, and determined subjectivity as the principle by means of which the ancient idea of truth could be completed in the changed conditions of the modern age. That formula of the subjectivization of substance, as well as the principle of subjectivity, is exposed to obvious misunderstandings. It is not wrong to speak of a revision of the traditional ontology of substance in favor of an ontology of subjectivity, but it would be wrong to see in this revision a fundamentally new ontology. It is not as if the traditional logic of substance were replaced by a logic of motion and the idea of a grounding of substance in pure thought were invalidated. It would be more appropriate to speak not of such a revision, but of a reversion of the traditional priorities in the relationship of the object, method and truth of knowledge.

Method and Knowledge.

For ancient ontology and metaphysics it was almost self-evident that the object had the first priority in this relationship. Especially at those times when it wished to proceed methodically, knowledge had to orientate itself by the essence of the thing and its inner structure. It was exactly against these pretended essence of the thing that the degree of the compulsoriness of knowledge and its method was to be measured. The philosophy of early modern times reversed this relationship. It raised knowledge to the first principle and made its inner structure the methodical order according to which every possible objective order was to find its orientation.

In his systematic construction of the perfectly completed metaphysics Hegel tried to combine the objective priority of ancient philosophy with the methodical priority of the modern. In this way, the thinking of the antiquity was to be reconciled with that of the modern age. This was to happen through holding the concept of truth to be the first principle just as the antiquity had in fore-knowledge understood it, but by viewing this concept at the same time as inseparable from the method of cognition. Reflexivity, processuality and subjectivity became the supreme principles, because of the idea of truth in antiquity and in order to penetrate that idea conceptually in the philosophy of modern times. Reflexivity meant primarily the absolute relationship of completed truth to itself in each of its limited and conditional modes of appearance. Processuality meant primarily the movement of truth in its various constitutive phases, such that in each step the previous and the subsequent were also considered. Subjectivity was awareness of one's own external conditions, thereby becoming aware of one's own specific limit, and thus expanding the scope of one's effectiveness.

Reflexivity, processuality and subjectivity belonged inseparably in the unity of the concept of truth and its methodical movement. In this context the essential features of truth itself were to provide the standard by which the essential features of things were to be measured, which were to be ordered according to their respective relationship to this standard. Thus, the methodical order of metaphysics looked in principle like this: the comprehensive whole becomes an absolute totality through the gradual expansion of its respective, limited entities; the conceptual-general becomes a concrete-general through a gradual concretization of the abstract; the real-actual becomes finally actual and actualized freedom through a phased actualization of more and more real possibilities; and the perfect is completed by the gradual, methodical completion of the unity of the comprehensive whole, the concrete general and the truly free in the absolute unity of thought. This construction of the system of completed metaphysics has, through its consciousness, brought the history of this metaphysics to a close. It is true that it has not produced the historical consciousness as such, but it has made a quite considerable contribution to the profound change which the function of this consciousness, in regard to the continuation of the metaphysical tradition, has gone through.

The general concept and nature of modern historical consciousness constitutes an exceptional paradox in connection with the idea of metaphysics. For, as the consciousness of a modern metaphysics, it is in no way simply the consciousness of the truth of a methodical movement, a history continually pressing for self-fulfillment. Nor can this consciousness be interpreted as equivalent to the consciousness of an advance of metaphysics toward its necessary conclusion. Finally, neither is this historical consciousness an absolute scepticism towards the whole tradition of metaphysics or an awareness of its definitive end. Modern historical consciousness, by which metaphysics is bound, is as divisive as it is conflicting. It divides every possible metaphysical standpoint into one inside and one outside of metaphysics, and thus into a halved metaphysical standpoint. Thereby the respective specific limitations of this standpoint becomes, together with its ontological conditions, conditioned in two ways. It is no longer only a limitation made by another limited standpoint of metaphysics and its metaphysical requirements, but beyond this it is also and mainly a limitation by a certain non-metaphysical standpoint and its definition.

The Reduced Concept of Metaphysics.

Metaphysics today seems to concern itself less directly with the general foundations of things and their grounding, than with this and that phenomenon as a mere phenomenon. For this metaphysical phenomenalism the understanding and interpretation of certain individual traits of metaphysics wins absolute priority, while what lies behind these metaphysical phenomena evades intellectual consideration. Historical consciousness is essentially related to relativity and scepticism. But this consciousness is not a certain scepticism, which would itself be based on a certain concept of truth, thus facilitating its constant connection back to an ontology and alethiology. Rather, the scepticism of the historical consciousness of modern metaphysics is based on withholding judgment in regard to the validity of this or that concept of truth, or even in regard to any conceivable concept of truth at all. Such scepticism is compatible with the idea of a system, but not with the implementation of a system as self-contained and final. It can only accept systems as provisional, and a temporal succession of such systems only as a manifold of alternatives of various intellectual-linguistic phenomena of expression of fundamental importance. The historical consciousness in metaphysics certainly contributes today to that extreme, intellectual reserve, which allows only a consideration of certain traits of a traditional metaphysical system with regard to particular qualities and their relations.

Amongst these qualities, that of inconsistency plays an outstanding role, in part because a construction of partial traits appropriate to it is relatively easy to contrive. Also from such a construction conclusions for re-ordering can be drawn relatively easily without the inconsistency having to be sounded out and the consequences of the specific purge having to be thought through to a conclusion. Hand-in-hand with this withholding of judgment by the historical consciousness goes the doubt regarding the traditional idea of a grounding of substance through thought. This doubt leads in turn to a gradual reduction in previously binding form of the definition of the intellectual-linguistic expression in metaphysical thought. With this, the fundamental way of looking at a problem of metaphysics begins to change. Just as important, if not more important than the grounding of substance through thought, becomes the question of the understanding and interpretation of the varying forms of such a grounding. With that, the problem of the grounding of interpretation, especially with regard to traditional metaphysics, gradually begins to be of consequence; alongside a hermeneutics of metaphysics there emerges a metaphysics of hermeneutics.

With his systematic construction of the completion of the history of metaphysics, Hegel not only constructed the undertaking of thinking through from scratch antiquity's concept of truth in terms of the conditions of modern philosophy, namely, the principles of reflexivity, processuality and subjectivity. At the same time he sharpened beyond recognition the characteristic of ancient philosophy: philosophical critique demanded that one "put oneself into the power of one's opponent." Ancient philosophy knew its external standpoints as partially opposite points of view. Such positions, running at least partially counter to philosophy, were: the standpoint of the natural attitude to life and of the common-sense knowledge of perception and experience, the standpoint of human ability and of the mastery of a particular technique, the standpoint of true knowledge as reached in science, and, finally, the standpoint of practical shrewdness and of moral insight.

The Integration of Perspectives in a Fundamental Ontology.

All these positions were so fundamental in ancient Greek philosophy that it did not wish to exclude them completely from the general grounding. It was more a case of bringing them into relation with the ontology of substance, of showing them their specific limit in the foundation and of letting them by degrees take their part in it. In this way, the above positions were by no means only opposite points of view or external standpoints; rather, they marked out points of transition into the philosophical grounding of substance. The ancient grounding of substance, its theory of the substantial unity of things, saw itself as the science ((episteme) of principles (archai), as a well-ordered, true knowledge of the foundations of the Being-that-truly-is (to ontos on, ousia). The first fundamental principles of this being are not regarded here as located exclusively in the philosophical grounding of ontology. Rather, the foundations of things are so conceived that as principles they pervade all areas of the world accessible to man; they establish the structure of the order thereof and thus also have their place in those positions which seem external to philosophical ontology.

Thusfar, we have seen the principles as facilitating the transition and gradual integration of these positions into ontology. At the same time, however, the specific imperfection of the related area is revealed in the particular manner of the conception of these principles from such an external standpoint. Principles form the basis of natural perception and experience, but they are comprehended only sensuously, if at all, in this area rather than in their truly fundamental function. That is why this area is also an area of contingency and demands that its knowledge be secured through technique and science. A particular technique gives man the security of a specific ability which connects skill both with experience and with a particular knowledge of rules, regularities and causes. But a technique is aimed at a knowledge of causes, not for its own sake, but rather only insofar as this knowledge guarantees the security of ability. That is why the technical knowledge of causes remains in the end without a base and open to being revised and falsified.

What first connects the individual science with the individual technique is the generality of the knowledge of causes. At the same time, it differentiates itself from technique by examining the causes of its own area for their own sake; in so doing it directs itself towards the most general and fundamental causes. That is why the philosophy of antiquity sees in the idea of science some constitutive reference to a science of principles, which, pursued for its own sake, seeks the first causes of the Being-that-truly-is. But above all principles determine the area

of human action and conduct; and practical knowledge and moral wisdom also refer, as a knowledge of principles, to the unified general view of a science of principles.

Accordingly, one can make this generalization: in relation to philosophical ontology there are as many external positions to be distinguished as there are basically varying principles, varying conditions, and kinds and modes of their conception. To the degree that philosophical ontology is able to integrate these external positions, the order of the external positions will be revealed through the order of principles. The ancient science of principles was able to regard itself as a fundamental science and so at the same time as the most universal science in relation to its external positions. At the same time, it also claimed thereby to be the most rational and well-founded science. The maximum of rationality claimed was understood as a maximum knowledge of principles inasmuch as it no longer conceived of this from a special mode of access, as they appear for men (pros humas) and under specific, respective conditions of access, but in their true condition, actually, as the first elements (ta prosa, ta stooicheia) of the Being-that-truly-is (to alethes).

Finally, that science of principles also saw itself as the highest and most perfect and most worthy science, not so much because it was able to demonstrate its maximum of universality and rationality in relation to its external positions, but as a science of the highest, most perfect and most worthy--as "Theology." This claimed maximum of good was given not exclusively as an activity for its own sake, but through the nature of the object as the Being-that-truly-is, namely, the divinity of this being and of its truth and beauty. The ancient science of principles was a theory of the fundamental, hierarchic order of things in relation to this fundamental science and its own inner order. But this hierarchic order is and remains a manifold one; it is diversely structured according to the many external standpoints and the corresponding manner of condition and mode of conception of its principles.

The natural world, that of ordinary life (Lebenswelt),is ordered according to the hierarchy of the importance of its goods. To a certain degree this order is followed in the ordering of its techniques, but only to a certain degree. For a guiding, architectonic technique is defined as such in comparison to other techniques as having a superior goal, not only according to the standards of the generally accepted material order of goods, but also according to internal, "technical" criteria. The order of the sciences also touches the hierarchy of the other orders without being congruent with the order of technique regarding the essentials and causes, or with that of ethics regarding the norm of the end in itself. Finally, the hierarchy of values and goods in ethics and politics concerns all these hierarchies of values from the viewpoints of their possible realization and of truth, and thereby assumes an all-important function as a standpoint external to philosophical ontology. In their relations all these hierarchies orientate themselves according to the manifoldness of the value maxims of the science of principles.

External and Internal Standpoints.

Through the systematic construction of its completed history, Hegel posited ontology and metaphysics absolutely; by so doing he negated the multiplicity of possible, external standpoints. This absolute positing occurred on the deliberate condition that modern thought and its philosophy allows itself to be reduced to one single, essential, pre-ontological standpoint, which requires integration into modern ontology; namely, to the standpoint of a finite human consciousness and the inseparably connected ideas of an absolute and methodically self-organizing science. This modern integration of a pre-ontological standpoint into ontology proceeded in its methodology in a dialectical and epagogical way. Like ancient philosophical critique it used analogy in regard to the condition and modes of conception of identical principles. But the reduction of multiple possible stand-points external to ontology to a single one was necessarily combined with a reduction of the manifoldness of analogy in the use of principles to one single, absolute analogy; namely, to the analogy of the principles of consciousness and subjectivity in regard to the identical principle of truth. By means of this single and absolute analogy a pre-ontological theory of the history of consciousness was related to an ontology of the occurrence of truth.

The necessary result of this was the singleness and absoluteness of one hierarchy, namely, that of the methodical steps of the explication of truth itself. Like all mediations of opposites, this unique attempt at a "reconciliation" of modern thought with that of the antiquity could not help, abstracting at least in some respect from the specific peculiarity of the opposing relata. This is as true of the peculiarity of ancient thought as for modern thought. However much Hegel's concept of truth is related to that of antiquity in regard to the essential features stated above, it is equally far from it in regard to the consequence of having one single and absolute valid hierarchy of values (if one disregards the manifestations of late Platonism).

Metaphysics and the Natural Sciences:

Causality and Universality

But the specific nature of modern thought is also insufficiently defined in this mediation. This peculiarity does not lie in making the principle of consciousness the unique principle, nor in binding this consciousness to the idea of an absolutely valid universal science, but in defining this as a mathematic, empirical natural science. One can say with a certain justification that in modern times it is precisely this science which forms the only relevant external position to ontology and metaphysics. But it can just as well be said that in terms of its conscious self-understanding this universal, modern natural science is nothing other than a modern metaphysics.

In this twofold manner of speaking the dilemma of modern metaphysics becomes clear as resulting from the singleness of an external position to it. Either modern metaphysics regards itself with respect to the new universal natural science as the absolute foundation and tries by means of this, its own grounding, to integrate the other science as a pre-ontological knowledge according to its own standards of truth; or the opposite case occurs, and the modern universal natural science which makes of itself the absolute foundation and, if need be, appropriates elements of metaphysics according to its own methodology.

The modern, universal natural science, when understood as metaphysics, distinguishes itself from the traditional science of principles first fundamentally in regard to its methodology. The method of the latter was based on a definition of the nature of pure thought, as for example that of the external on observation and experiment on the one hand, and the application of mathematics and geometry on the other. It is evident that this difference in the methodical basis was bound to imply a correspondingly fundamental difference in regard to the concept of rationality and to the standards of evaluation thereof. Above all however, the modern universal natural science, when regarded as modern metaphysics, is to be understood from the viewpoint of its reductive character. It reduces to a minimum not only Aristotle's theory of a diversity of modes of causality, but also the above-mentioned diversity of the essential features of things.

Amongst these, first and foremost, only the element of generality and of maximum universality seems able to maintain its uncontested validity; with it the norm of true knowledge as of a universally valid and necessary one is preserved. Less uncontested, but nevertheless still valid, is the element of the comprehensive whole also in regard to the idea of a maximum totality and in the form of a concept of the extensive continuum, which can be conceived of both as a comprehensive whole and as the form of the absolute totality of being. Difficulties arise here from linking this concept to the corresponding idea of a maximum. On the other hand, in the metaphysics of modern, universal natural science the fundamental concept of the real and of actuality becomes precarious, first of all as such, and then especially the corresponding ideas of a maximum and of a hierarchy of realities.

Finally, the element of perfection becomes quite dubious, which, in the form of the idea of the good and the causa finalis, played such an important role in the ontology of the ancients. There seems to be no autonomous place to be found for this element in the new metaphysics of natural science. Here the reductive character of this metaphysics emerges especially sharply, for perfection imagined in respect to the idea of a maximum here reduces itself to the function of a regulatively interpreted, relative maximum of generality, compulsoriness of validity and uniformity of theory of this universal science.

But most importantly the consequence of the described reduction for Hegel's foundation of speculative ontology is none other than that there can only be one single and absolutely valid hierarchy, namely, the hierarchy of generality and universal validity. Only the interpretation of this single and absolute hierarchy differs here and there: on the one hand, a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on the other, a hierarchy of degrees of probability.

The Idea of Reflection.

Modern metaphysics constitutes itself as the antithesis between a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics of freedom. But its modern character is at first only very superficially characterized by this antithesis. Hegel was not the last who tried to give metaphysics a new basis, and the manner of his new kind of grounding was not the only definitive one, despite its far-reaching effects. Amongst the previous attempts at providing a new foundation, undoubtedly those of Kant and Leibniz were especially important, above all because both were directly involved with the specific nature of this modern natural science. However, the manner of involvement was highly different.

The so-called rational metaphysics of early modern times in its specific expression in Leibniz had its special characteristics in the fact that, so to speak in a countermove to empirical science, it gives first priority to the element of perfection of all other, varying substantial elements of things and thereby to the idea of a maximum of such perfection and to a hierarchy of objects oriented to this standard. Accordingly, it is also secondary to this basic concept that the norm of rationality of theory and the norm of its order are oriented. In this groundwork of a theory of substance a maximum of perfection means moral perfection of a highest being, in which a maximum of freedom is combined with a maximum of conceivable good (ens perfectissimum). By this maximum are measured the degrees of freedom and the sequence of goods. But perfection also defines the element of the actual and the real, both absolutely as well as in regard to the maximum of reality. Just as the highest perfection coincides with the highest reality (ens realissimum), so in each individual finite thing the degree of its reality corresponds to the standard of its perfection, measured by the standard of perfection and reality.

Perfection also determines the comprehensive whole in its respective, unified totality: the highest monad, which takes into itself all other monads and which at the same time is the most real and perfect. And finally, the substantial element of universality also receives its determination by the element of perfection of an act of cognition: an act of knowledge is perfect as the adequate and complete act of cognition of a being with regard to the degree of its reality and perfection and in respect to the comprehensive whole as the maximum of the perfect unity. Consequently, the element of perfection (perfectio) carries above all in this modern foundation of ontology the burden of providing a basis for a rational science of principles in relation to the universal science of nature. Kant's critique of this foundation has many sides, but it can be especially understood as a critique of the fundamental function of the concept of perfection. According to that critique, this concept is not sufficient to fulfill all those functions, especially not to define the rationality of the fundamental science and to mark out the limit between it and empirical natural science.

It is well known that on the basis of this critical recognition and for the first time in the history of modern philosophy, Kant put the real, critical question in regard to metaphysics: how is this possible as a science. One can best paraphrase the most important starting point of his observations as follows: he saw that as a science of principles metaphysics was clearly and evidently distinguishable from the empirical natural science, but in that regard to the norm of rationality it could not be fundamentally different. That was the reason for his undertaking to find a new ground for metaphysics as a science by examining the methodical foundations of the modern natural science, mathematics and empiricism with regard to their principal foundations. It was the reason also for his attempt, by means of a methodical distinction between analytical and synthetic knowledge on the one hand and knowledge a priori and knowledge a posteriori on the other, to find the requirements for an appropriate definition both of the rationality of metaphysics and at the same time of the modern natural sciences. In the answer to the question--how are synthetic judgments a priori possible--he thought he could find the key to solving the whole cluster of problems. But was the last formulation of the question in itself sufficient to provide a new basis for metaphysics also and above all as a science? Had not this critique of the principle of perfection expressly put into question the possibility of an internal order of such a science?

The Art of Construction.

The second main part of the Critique of Pure Reason, "The Transcendental Doctrine of Method," in its third main chapter entitled "The Architectonic of Pure Reason," brings the importance of this formulation clearly to the fore:

To the above, Kant adds something like a provisional philosophical definition of the concept of system:

He explains this unity of form by means of an analogy with the animal organism:

But how is this system of pure reason to be realized, and thereby metaphysics to be a science? On what conditions does an art of systems stand at all?

The critique of reason is needed, and it "in the end, necessarily leads to scientific knowledge; while its dogmatic employment, on the other hand, lands us in dogmatic assertions to which other assertions, equally specious, can always be opposed--that is, in scepticism." (Introduction, B22/23). It is, accordingly, this critique of reason, from which is to be expected, not only the answer to the question how metaphysics is at all possible, namely as synthetic knowledge from a priori concepts, but above all, how it is possible as a science. Kant described the relationship between the critique of reason and the science of metaphysics which has to be grounded anew by means of the concept of transcendental philosophy: "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects insofar as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori. A system of such concept might be entitled transcendental philosophy" (Introduction, B25; italics mine).

But the critique of pure reason in no way coincides with transcendental philosophy. It only forms its beginning, because the latter "must contain, with completeness, both kinds of a priori knowledge, the analytic no less than the synthetic," while in The Critique of Pure Reason "we have to carry the analysis so far only as is indispensably necessary in order to comprehend, in their whole extent, the principles of a priori synthesis, with which alone we are called upon to deal." (Ibid). It is Kant's transcendental philosophy, that is philosophical ontology as the first part of the totality of metaphysics, which is to be given a new foundation by a critique of pure reason. This philosophy takes the form of a system and can thus claim scientific character. Accordingly, we will have to look for the key to the foundation of this character in The Critique of Pure Reason. Is it also the basis for something like an "art of systems" or might it presuppose this?

The critique of pure reason should answer our question why metaphysics is possible as a science. As we have shown in general, it must also answer the other two questions, how pure mathematics and pure natural science are possible because it is concerned to prove a unified concept of rationality (sensibility) in metaphysics and natural science. But, on the other hand, the critique of pure reason is concerned with the "idea of a special science" (Introduction, B24), which has in common with metaphysics as a whole and with transcendental philosophy as ontology (vgl. B873ff) the form of the scientific. But what is this metaphysics to be based upon: on a science, which is perhaps always provisional and preliminary, which we will call the critique of pure reason; or, on the other hand, on an art, namely an art of systems, which alone ensures for the critique of pure reason the to-be-ordered character of an initial, critical science? Is the new metaphysics based therefore upon science or upon art? A possible answer to this question should be sought by means of a more exact analysis of the relationship between the concepts of system and of schema.

The question whether metaphysics is possible as a science can be replaced, in accordance with the connection between the idea of system and of science, by another: how is metaphysics possible as a system and as the systematic unity of a general human fundamental knowledge? If it is true that metaphysics is the theoretical preoccupation with the "first principles of human knowledge," then the architectonic or the art of systems is for these principles, and it is exactly those principles which have to be connected in a scientific form.

System and Schema

In Kant's attempt, to answer the question he himself posed, one concept plays a key role at which the following observations are aimed, namely the concept of a schema: "The idea (i.e., the form of a systematic whole) requires for its realization a schema, that is, a constituent manifold with an order of its parts, both of which must be determined a priori from the principle defined by its end." (A833) In regard to the concept of a schema, is the nature of the unity of the whole of this manifold and of the order of its parts? How is it distinguished from the corresponding unity of system, the implementation of which it is supposed to help? Is its unity analogous to that of the system; does it already include in embryonic form all that is included in the other, and do schema and system represent only various phases of the "inner growth" of the idea, or of the system of knowledge? Is its methodological nature given along with it? Kant's concepts of schema and system are not inseparably bound up with the concept of metaphysics, but they are designed as a result of the question as to the possibility of metaphysics as a science. However, the connection of the above set of problems underlies certain theoretical conditions in his theory.

To these belong among others: 1) the distinction between acts of cognition from principles, on the one hand, and acts of cognition from empirical principles on the other; in short, between pure knowledge of reason and empirical knowledge of reason; 2) the distinction between the philosophical and mathematical knowledge of reason on the basis of a unified ideal of rationality; 3) analogy in the relationship of the knowledge of reason and sense to their specific objects as the condition of a systematic unity of all knowledge of reason. The question is, whether these specific conditions of a system of metaphysics are to be regarded as valid or whether they are rather suitable for concealing general conditions in the use of schemata for the constitution of systems.

The first of the above-mentioned requirements was, in Kant's eyes, so important that he linked it with a general methodical maxim, which one could really label the principle of his style of thought: "It is," he remarks in regard to the question of the system of metaphysics, "of the utmost importance to isolate the various modes of knowledge according as they differ in kind and in origin, and to secure that they be not confounded owing to the fact that usually, in our employment of them, they are combined." (A842) More definitely and directly in respect to metaphysics as a science he says "that the mere degree of subordination (of the particular under the general) cannot determine the limits of a science; in the case under consideration, only complete difference of kind and of origin will suffice."

It is well known that Kant claims to have connected for the very first time a standard principle and a methodical leitmotif for the fundamental distinction of these types of cognition and so to have created for the first time the conditions for a "scientific" metaphysics. Until then one "noticed not a special kind, but only a certain precedence in respect of generality, which was not sufficient to distinguish such knowledge from the empirical. For among empirical principles we can distinguish some that are more general, and so higher in rank than others." This distinction is not only absolute, but above all necessary to the condition for a system of reason:

Accordingly, only a schema which is designed with a view to the idea of reason itself, is capable of achieving systematic unity. Technical unities have, without Kant expressly noticing it, the scientifically insufficient form of a mere aggregate. It holds for the schema of reason, that it is the design of a whole and its division from one principle a priori. The second necessary condition for a possible system of metaphysics is the distinction between the philosophical and mathematical knowledge of reason. Both kinds of cognition have in common that they are a knowledge of reason a priori, which is organized in synthetic judgments a priori. Kant criticizes a certain distinction between both kinds of cognition with respect to the object which says that "the former, the philosophical, has as its object quality only, and the latterthe mathematical quantity only. In this kind of distinction "the effect is taken for the cause." This form of mathematical knowledge is regarded as the true cause for its being traceable to quanta. This difference of form is seen as that between a knowledge from concepts (philosophy) and "a knowledge gained by reasons from concepts" (mathematics). It is only from this difference of form that there results a difference in regard to the categorical determination of objects: "For it is the concept of quantities only that allows of being constructed, that is, exhibited a priori in intuition; whereas qualities cannot be presented in any intuition that is not empirical."

The above-mentioned difference of form means that a mathematical concept, as, for example, that of the triangle, can be so constructed in pure idea, that the constructed figure not only makes clear the corresponding concept in an exemplary way, but also at the same time guarantees it "universal validity for all possible intuitions which fall under the same concept." On the other hand, "I cannot represent in intuition the concept of a cause in general except in an example supplied by experience." That is the reason why this concept requires beyond its clarification by such an example a proof of its necessity and universal validity. Mathematical and philosophical knowledge are, according to Kant, based on the condition of a schematization of their concepts. But the schematization of mathematical concepts in the construction thereof gives their objects, while the corresponding schematization of the philosophical fundamental concepts gives only the necessary condition for the concepts to be able to be brought into relation with the objects of experience. This basic difference in the form of philosophical and mathematical knowledge has, however, important methodical consequences: definitions, axioms and proofs play here and there an outstanding role as methodical instruments. Kant did not demand that one completely do without these instruments in philosophical knowledge, but that one should become aware of their specific difference of performance in the respective knowledge of the object.

Form and Object of a Science.

So, he concludes, for instance, in regard to the definitions "that in philosophy one must not imitate mathematics by beginning with definitions, unless it be by way simply of experiment." For "neither empirical concepts nor concepts a priori allow of definition," the former do not "for since we find in it only a few characteristics of a certain species of sensible object, it is never certain that we are not using the word, in denoting one and the same object, sometimes so as to stand for more, and sometimes so as to stand for fewer characteristics." In the other case concepts do not a priori allow for definition "for I can never be certain that the clear representation of a given concept, which as given may still be confused, has been completely effected, unless I know that it is adequate to its object."

The third condition for a possible system of metaphysics is directly connected to the above two. It demands not simply a fundamental distinction between the pure knowledge of reason and the empirical knowledge of understanding, in the sense that the first is to be attributed with an unconditional and absolute universal validity. Beyond that it demands also analogy regarding the respective relationships between objects and regarding the necessary conditions for the possibility of such relationships:

The analogy says accordingly: The various categories in respect to the pure concept of the understanding a priori, allow themselves to be brought into relation to the unity of the extensive continuum (of pure intuition) under the condition of a principle of homogeneity and its application in the form of schemata, which respectively correspond to the categories. Analogously, the relation of reason to the unity of the understanding, or to the unity of a possible knowledge of the understanding, likewise demands principles after the analogy of those schemata in the form of principles or maxims:

Kant names these principles: "homogeneity, specification, and continuity of forms." They have the character of maxims, in respect to postulata, which apparently demand something contrary, but in fact they are only able to facilitate in mutual complementation the aim of reason, the completion of the systematic unity. So, the requirement that "rudiments (or principles) must not be unnecessarily multiplied (entia praeter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda)" must be combined with its complementary, namely, that the diversity of principles cannot be reduced without necessity (entium varietates non temere esse minuendas). But the third principle, according to Kant,

Just as Kant had distinguished between images and schemata as different conditions of the relationship of concepts to intuitions, and had accordingly distinguished these relationships themselves, so, too, in relation to an analogon of schema a corresponding distinction was indicated. The analogon of a schema is to be imagined as the plan of a universal division of a single and highest genus, which, for its part, can be made visually imaginable. Let us now inquire about the function of this analogon of schema in the construction of a systematic unity of all knowledge of reason.

The Architectonic Form of Knowledge.

In preparation for a possible answer, let us take a look at the theory of metaphysics which chronologically immediately precedes Kant's, but which in systematic terms represents an interesting and relevant opposing concept. This is the theory of J.H. Lambert in his main work, "Conception for Architectonic or the Theory of the First and the Simple in Philosophical and Mathematical Knowledge" (Anlage zur Architektonik oder Theorie des Ersten und des Einfachen in der philosophischen und mathematischen Erkenntnis, 1771). Lambert intentionally chose the word "architectonic" as the title of his work. In doing so, he referred to Baumgarten's Metaphysics, where architectonic is equated with ontology, or with the metaphysica generalis. He justifies his use of the words: "It is an abstract from architecture, and, with its design on the structure of human knowledge, it has a quite similar meaning, especially in reference to the materials and their preparation and arrangement at all, and when the reference is such that one charges oneself with the aim of making an effective whole thereof." (XXIX)

Let us at first ignore the question whether the procedure of building a house can be understood as a process of inner growth according to Kant's idea of the unity of system. Let us first ask about the position of Lambert's theory with respect to Kant's premisses regarding the possible unity of a system of reason. The first impression is that in Lambert's theory none of these conditions is fulfilled and that, measured by Kant's standards of science, the theory must be rejected as unscientific. There seems to be (1) no clear distinction between the knowledge of reason and of understanding, and even less a unifying principle and a methodical leitmotif to depict the unempirical concepts of human knowledge in their completeness. Thus, there seems to be (2) no definite distinction between philosophical and mathematical knowledge; the conditions for Kant's critique which opposes determining mathematical knowledge from its object, quantity, seem to be fulfilled here. So we see an apparently natural use made of those methodical aids, definitions, axioms and proofs, which in Kant's opinion are primary and really permissible only in mathematics. Finally, there is also (3) no theory of the analogy between the object relations between the pure knowledge of reason and the empirical knowledge of the understanding in regard to their conditions of a possible relationship to intuitions.

However, on closer viewing, Lambert's "Architectonic" contains parts of a theory which can very well be brought into relation to those conditions of a system of metaphysics in Kant and can be compared with these. Thus, for example, (1) the methodical demand is made that a distinction must be made in ontology between simple and complex fundamental concepts, and so a demand of Kant's is met, that the concepts under examination are a priori "elementary concepts and be clearly distinguished from those derived or combined thereof." Further, there is (2) clearly a consciousness of the differences between philosophical and mathematical knowledge, not only in respect to the task of clarifying the first and simple concepts, but also in the critical evaluation of rudimentary definitions and above all in regard to a methodically fundamental distinction between postulata and principles; and, finally, (3) in place of a schema there is a register and table, which make visually imaginable the possibility of the combination of the first and simple concepts to make a system of metaphysical "fundamental doctrines."

Yet, throughout the whole "Architectonic" there is a fundamentally different methodical sequence. Thus, against the methodically fundamental principle of the metaphysics of Wolff-Baumgarten, which demands above all the definition of those first principles held to be unclear, Lambert has given priority to the answer to the question, "where the (first and simple) principles are from, how one reaches them and of what use they finally are." However, in this formulation one can at first see a direct parallel to Kant's inquiry after the origin and the function of elementary concepts, but not in the manner of the reply. Lambert also demands method in the answer to the question, but this method is fundamentally different from Kant's transcendental method which proceeds from the meagerness of the proof of the universal validity and necessity of the elementary concepts. What then does Lambert's method consist of in regard to the definition of the origin and usefulness of the fundamental concepts? It consists, in a word, in a diversity of methods, for which the Aristotelian dictum holds that basically every object in its own singularity requires its own singular and adequate method.

Thus, Lambert requires, in accordance with his "provisional attempts, to at last find out, which of these methods would do," a provisional, exemplary idea of the methods themselves. The following procedures for the discovery of the origin of the fundamental concepts are named: (a) an abstraction from the manifoldness of examples, special cases, idioms, etc.; (b) a separation from the combination with other concepts, whether these are simple or complex, empirical or otherwise; (c)an examination of semantic fields and their histories in order to thus achieve grounds for the gaining of conceptually crucial parts; (d) the examination of the general imagery of language in regard to the distinction between the real meanings and their transposition, especially in the transference of the language of the physical world to the world of the intellect; and finally (e) the examination of the intentions and aims connected to the respective theory of concepts.

The latter standpoint concerns not only the manner of the clarification of origin, but also the usefulness of the concepts. As there, so here also, the different kinds of usefulness and the corresponding procedures for their definition are to be distinguished. Such kinds are:

It is precisely the last mentioned manner of usefulness, which we can elucidate by means of the key word heuristics, which plays an outstanding role in Lambert and "makes up a considerable part of the applied doctrine of reason." (XXVIII)

If one compares the doctrines of reason of Lambert and Kant as theories of the origin and use of pure elementary concepts in regard to the manifoldness of the sense of origin and usefulness, then the first of the two seems necessarily the one which takes the manifoldness of the standpoints more adequately into account and through its intentional distinction; it also takes into account the methodical standpoint of a critical preparation of metaphysics as a science. In contrast to this, the distinction of Kant's theory lies in the combination of a specific theory of origin of the elementary concepts with a special theory of their use in a unifying theory, which, as a transcendental philosophy, should form the scientific foundation for a system of metaphysics. Lambert makes as a basic methodical demand that there is required, above all in the treatment of abstract concepts, "the distinction between the different kinds of origin, causes, intentions, natures, etc." As a result the "architectonic" remains in regard to the origin and usefulness of its basic concepts directly and intentionally connected to experience. Further, in contrast to transcendental philosophy, which, as an unempirical science, wishes first of all to prove the reference of experience in the pure knowledge of reason, experience remains possible.

System as the Unity of Inner Qualities.

The comparison of both "architectonics" in regard to the area of possible experience leads, however, to a key problem which Lambert entitled that of a theory of qualities. If one "understands" by that "the true inner qualities," then according to Lambert these "are still far too unknown to be able to think of a real theory (of them)." In the most cases, in which the word is used, one thereby shows a mixture of qualities, relationships and combinations, but not true, individual qualities. This theory is further directed critically against the metaphysics of Wolff-Baumgarten. First of all it is against its general part, the ontology, insofar as this pursues a basic division of its object area into a theory of inner and outer predicates of the object as such (ens quatenus ens). It also touches the central area of metaphysics, the simple substances, on the theory of which is based the possibility of rational cosmology, psychology and theology.

This problem of the true, inner qualities, and with it that of the simple substances has now, however, found expression in Kant's philosophy, especially in its definition of the relationship of transcendental philosophy and metaphysics. One aspect of this expression is the basic distinction between nature in its formal and material meaning: