heraclitus process

Philosophy Study

Volume 2, Number 1, January 2012 (Serial Number 6)

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Publication Information: Philosophy Study is published monthly in print (ISSN 2159-5313) and online (ISSN 2159-5321) by David Publishing Company located at 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, El Monte, CA 91731, USA. Aims and Scope: Philosophy Study, a professional academic journal, commits itself to promoting the academic communication about analyses of developments in philosophy, covers all sorts of research on Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind, Political Philosophy, and other relevant areas, and tries to provide a platform for experts and scholars worldwide to exchange their latest findings. Editorial Board Members (alphabetically): Carol Nicholson (Rider University, USA) Denisa Butnaru (CNRS/Universit de Strasbourg, France) John-Stewart Gordon (University of Cologne, Germany) Juan J. Colomina (The University of Texas at Austin, USA) Liu Yihong (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China) Mahmoud Masaeli (Saint Paul University, USA) Majid Mollayousefi (Imam Khomeini International University, Iran) Makoto Usami (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) Panos Eliopoulos (National Kapodistriakon University of Athens, Greece) Raquel Anna Sapunaru (Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM) - Campus JK, Brazil) Rocco J. Gennaro (University of Southern Indiana, USA) Salahaddin Khalilov (East-West Research Center, Azerbaijan) Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission, or E-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. Submission guidelines and Web Submission system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.org. Editorial Office: Tel: 1-323-9847526, 1-302-5977046 Fax: 1-323-9847374 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Copyright2011 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention, no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites) without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation, however, all the citations should be clearly indicated with the title of this journal, serial number and the name of the author. Abstracted / Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, American Federal Computer Library Center (OCLC), USA Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. Ulrichs Periodicals Directory Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, CSA Summon Serials Solutions Subscription Information: Print $450; Online $320; Print and Online $600 (per year) David Publishing Company 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, El Monte, CA 91731, USA Tel: 1-323-9847526, 1-302-5977046; Fax: 1-323-9847374 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Philosophy StudyVolume 2, Number 1, January 2012 (Serial Number 6)

ContentsAncient Philosophy

Heraclitus as a Process Philosopher 1

Daniel W. Graham

German Philosophy

Kant, Fichte, and the Act of the I 9

Charles E. DeBord

Kants Copernican Revolution 19

Milos Rastovic

Philosophy of Science

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy 27

Salahaddin Khalilov

Philosophy of Mathematics

The Virtue of Open-Mindedness 35

Aladdin M. Yaqub

Arithmetical Proof and Open Sentences 43

Neil Thompson

Ethics

Euthanasia in a Welfare State: Experiences from the Review Procedure in the Netherlands 51

Theo A. Boer

God Commanded What? ACritical Response to Robert Adams on the Abraham Dilemma 64

John A. Houston

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313 January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1-8

Heraclitus as a Process Philosopher

Daniel W. Graham Brigham Young University

At least since Hegel identified Heraclitus as a philosopher who dealt with becoming, it has seemed obvious to

perhaps most scholars that he was in some way a philosopher of process rather than a philosopher of being. (For the

views of Hegel and some early interpreters, see Graham 1997, 46-50.) Indeed, ancient sources say that for him all

things are in flux, and one cannot step twice into the same stream. Yet for all that, many interpreters of Heraclitus

perhaps unwittingly portray him in ways that are inconsistent with his being a process philosopher. And there are

those who wish to downplay the role of flux in his system as well. In any case, to call him a process philosopher

remains a vague claim until an interpreter specifies in what sense he is committed to process. Even more important,

perhaps, is the question whether Heraclitus can maintain a coherent theory of process, given interpretations both

ancient and modern that portray him as violating the principle of non-contradictionoften precisely because of his

theory of flux. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that Heraclitus is indeed a process philosopher, and more

importantly to spell out in what way he is, and to defend his theory as a consistent and indeed philosophically

sound starting point for understanding the world as a process; I will end by pointing out some ways in which his

theory accords with modern scientific explanations of the world.

Keywords: Heraclitus, process philosophy, Presocratic philosophy, Greek science

1. Material Flux I wish to begin by laying out what I think is at once a fairly traditional and a highly sophisticated view of

Heraclitus, that of Jonathan Barnes. He identifies three main principles in Heraclitus philosophy, the doctrines he calls Flux, the Unity of Opposites, and Monism (1982, 75-76). He sees flux as the principle that everything is always flowing in some respects (69, original emphasis). According to the Unity of Opposites, every pair of contraries is somewhere coinstantiated; and every object coinstantiates at least one pair of contraries (70). The Monism in question is the material monism Barnes thinks Heraclitus inherits from his predecessors. According to material monism, there is only one kind of material constituent of everything in the world: according to Aristotles interpretation of his predecessors, either water, or air, or fire. If, for instance, water is the basic reality, then everything else (e.g., earth, air, fire) is an appearance of water under certain conditions.1 Barnes sees the Unity of Opposites as being entailed by Flux as well as supported by additional evidence (75-76), while Monism is a logically independent thesis. Barnes three principles are similar to those enunciated earlier by W. K. C. Guthrie (though there is one significant difference in Guthries formulation of three principles).2 I refer to Barnes account in part because few other interpreters provide a precise enough analysis of Heraclitus to even allow such a summation. It may be, of course, that Heraclitus is a fuzzy thinker who does not admit of precise formulations; on the other hand, it behooves us to try to go beyond fuzzy thinking in trying

Daniel W. Graham, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Brigham Young University; main research fields: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Greek Science.

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

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to understand his theory, and Barnes has made a valiant effort to do so.3 When I say Barnes interpretation is traditional, I have in mind the fact that the roots of his interpretation

go back to Aristotle. Aristotle attributed something like Flux (probably a stronger version than that of Barnes in fact) and also Monism to Heraclitus.4 And indeed, the flux theory interpretation comes also from Plato, and probably goes back at least to Hippias of Elis.5 Because of its Aristotelian origins, Barnes interpretation is liable to gain uncritical acceptance. But there is one striking fact about this kind of interpretation that is too often overlooked: Flux and Monism are fundamentally conflicting principles that tend to give different answers to the question of Heraclitus ontology. On the one hand, Flux says (in Barnes carefully limited version) that all things are changing in some respect, or (in an unrestricted version) that all things are changing in all respects. On the other hand, Monism, that is, material monism, says that ultimately all things are one stuff, namely, for Heraclitus, fire. But if all things are one stuff, and there is one subject for every change, then all changes are basically non-substantial changes. Remember that for Aristotle, there are four types of change: coming-to-be or perishing in the category of substance; increase or decrease in the category of quantity; alteration in the category of quality; and locomotion or change of place in the category of place.6 The last three types of change are kinds of accidental change. Hence they are, according to Aristotles ontology and typology of changes, instances of relatively insignificant change. According to Aristotle material monists did not allow substantial change,7 and Aristotle finally had to rescue this type of change from oblivion by developing his own more sophisticated and comprehensive theory of change (Physics I). Hence, if we follow the logic of this exposition, it turns out that, despite all the fuss, Heraclitus admits only accidental change. What is really real is not process, but substantiality, that of the underlying reality that is the subject of all change. Heraclitus is not a process philosopher but a substantial monist, who tricks us into thinking he is a process philosopher. He allows accidental change and makes a lot of commotion about it, but he blocks the most important kind of change, and indeed rules out a priori fundamental or radical change.

One way out of this is to notice that fire is a queer kind of stuff that is perhaps more an ongoing process than a stable substantial reality. If we pursue that route, we have to take the apparent claim of Monism ironically. If we give Flux pride of place from the outset and say that this principle dictates the nature of reality for Heraclitus, then we end up at about the same place, overthrowing or somehow discounting Monism in the interests of Flux.

For all these reasons, it seems to me that it does not make a lot of sense for Heraclitus to embrace both Flux and Monism. To the degree we take material monism seriously, we trivialize flux as a mere local variation of an all-pervasive static reality. To the extent that we take Flux seriously, we find ourselves compelled to sweep Monism under the rug. Flux and Monism are fundamentally incompatible principles. They can coexist in a system only if at least one is limited in its application. Or they can coexist if Heraclitus rejects (at least tacitly) the law of non-contradiction. In fact, this is just what Barnes says he does, in part on the basis of the Flux principle itself (79-81).8 Nevertheless, to reject the law of non-contradiction is to accept logical chaos, and it must disqualify any system from serious consideration. In fact, there is no reason to think that Heraclitus rejects the law of non-contradiction for all his paradoxical utterances (any more than to think that Socrates rejects it for all his paradoxical claims). Paradoxical sayings are provocative heuristic devices; they need not be taken at face value, and usually should not be. If any interpretation that does not commit Heraclitus to the denial of the law of non-contradiction can be found, it will be ipso facto superior to any that does so commit him. So let us press on.


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I have not yet said what I mean by process philosophy. The real question at stake in an examination of Heraclitus principles is one of ontology: is the ultimate reality a substance (or a fact or a bundle of properties, etc.) or a process? If the former, Heraclitus is a substance theorist of the sort Aristotle considers the Milesians to be. If the latter, he is by definition a process philosopher who makes stable structures secondary to processes, and puts flux at the foundations of ontology. This will make him a philosopher of becoming rather than being, and to that extent, vindicate Plato and Hegel against Aristotle (or at least Aristotle when he is emphasizing material monism rather than flux). One indication that Heraclitus is a process philosopher would be his acceptance of some sort of change other than alteration. For according to Aristotle, material monists allow only alteration, or change of qualitynever generation or destruction, or change in the category of substance, since there is only one substance which is always present as a substratum to all changes.9 Let us then turn to Heraclitus account of change and see what he has to say about this.

Heraclitus does address the question of basic changes in his system. According to him, The turnings [tropai] of fire: first sea, and of sea half is earth, half fireburst [prstr] (B31[a]). For souls it is death to become [genesthai] water, for water death to become earth, but from earth water is born [ginetai], and from water soul (B36). The first passage deals ostensibly with cosmology, the second with chemistry. But the general pattern is the same, allowing that soul is equivalent to fireburst, or some kind of fiery meteorological phenomenon. The crucial point is that there is a determinate series of stuffs such that one changes into another: earth turns into water and water turns into fire; fire turns back into water, and water into earth. What is most telling for the question of changes is that in the process change is likened to birth and death: the birth of one stuff is the death of another. While we can safely say that Heraclitus lays out no typology of changes like that of Aristotle, the language of birth and death is the language fitting for substantial change, which in Aristotles terminology is genesis and phthora, coming-to-be and perishing, or, more literally, birth and death. What the terminology implies is a radical change from stuff to stuff such that there is no transmission of identity from one elemental body to another. When one stuff is born, another dies. Heraclitus envisages then a radical change with accompanying loss of identity, not a mere alteration of an ongoing reality. There is a set sequence and order of changes, but no continuing substratum.10

One further fragment is well known as a statement or portrayal of flux: On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow (B12). There are several alleged river fragments, but I follow Geoffrey S. Kirk and Miroslav Marcovich in accepting only B12 as a genuine fragment.11 All the other statements can be satisfactorily accounted for as paraphrases (more or often less apt) of B12. This fragment (and its offspring) is often taken as evidence for radical flux. As Plato reads it, Heraclitus says you cannot step twice into the same river.12 If we stick to B12, we see that this is a misreading: the major contrast is between the different waters and the same rivers. Thus, the changing contents of the rivers are not evidence that the rivers have changed (hence that you cannot step twice into them). Indeed, the deeper point seems to be that the changing waters are a necessary condition for the existence of the rivers. If that is so, the changing waters actually constitute the rivers, and maintain them as the same rivers. This study in the physics of rivers suggests an object lesson in Heraclitean metaphysics: changing matter is consistent with, and perhaps constitutive of, stable structures of a higher level. There is also a second reading hidden in the fragment: the words are syntactically ambiguous, as are the words in a relatively large number of the fragments, and if we take the less obvious reading, we find that those who step into the water remain the same as the waters flow on.13 That is:


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those who ford the different waters of the rivers remain the same in stark contrast to the claim that people as well as rivers change rapidly. The suggestion is that in a certain sense the travelers maintain their psychic and cognitive integrity precisely by confronting the changing waters, or more broadly, their changing surroundings. The general conclusion of both readings is that low-level changes somehow sustain high-level stability. Flux is a basic fact of nature, but it allows and perhaps sustains permanence.

2. Supervenient Stability If there is flux at the level of the basic constituents of the world, it would seem that the world is chaotic,

and so most commentators on Heraclitus from Plato on have thought. Yet this is not the picture we find in Heraclitusquite the opposite in fact. As we have already seen, in B31(a) and B36 Heraclitus identifies a set order of changes, from earth to water to fire. There is a determinate sequence of changes. Moreover, there is also a determinate order: A road up and down is one and the same (B60). Although the application of this observation is broad, commentators tend to agree that it should at least include elemental transformations.14 There is a road up, from earth to water to fire, and a road down, from fire to water to earth. In Heraclitus there is no cycle strictly speaking: no way of circling from fire to earth without going back through water (Kirk 1954, 114-15). Nevertheless, at each turning there is a two-way exchange, as B31(a) makes clear: half of water becomes earth while half becomes fire.

There is also a set ratio of exchange in the transformations of elements: is liquified as sea and measured into the same proportion [logos] it had before it became earth (B31[b]). That is, there is a fixed equivalence between earth and water such that n measures of earth equals m measures of water, and we get a chemical equivalence: a E b W. As Heraclitus puts it: All things are an exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods (B90). He does not say that fire is all things, but that it is a standard of value against which all things can be measured. So:

a E = b W = c F.15 His world is not chaotic; rather, it is orderly and precise in its turnings or reversals or transformations.

While there is no conservation of substance, there is a conservation of matter in general and presumably of energy. The result is a world in which stability is possible in spite of constant change. This fact can be seen most clearly in his description of the cosmos: This world-order [kosmos], the same of all, no god or man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures (B30). The world that we know is permanent, notwithstanding the fact that parts of it are turning into something else (fire) or reappearing from something else (fire). It is precisely the fact that measures are balanced against measures that maintain the world. There is an equilibrium state between transformations: water evaporates, condenses into cloud, rains down, and so water is lost and returned, ultimately in equal measures. Surprisingly, Heraclitus has the most permanent cosmos of any early philosopher: instead of a cosmogony, his world is everlasting, from past to present to future unchanged in its overall structure though constantly changing in its particular contents. If we use the river fragment as a guide, we may infer that what makes the cosmos the vibrant reality it is, is precisely the everliving alternation of elements that underlies it. Were there no exchanges, the world would be sterile and unproductivedead.

Incidentally, this is the fragment that could provide the best textual support for material monism.16 Stripped of modifiers, the statement says the world is fire. If this is a statement of essential predication, then the world must be fire and nothing else. Nevertheless, the statement also says that fire is kindling and being


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quenched. Taken together with the other passages that entail that fire perishes and is reborn, I think it is best to read the passage as a figurative connection between the world and fire. Fire is the most insubstantial of elements, and as such the claim that it is the fundamental element exposes the folly of making any element fundamental. One stuff turns into every other in turn, so none is prior, except insofar as one can reveal the impermanence of all. What emerges from this fragment is a claim that the world itself, despite the fact that its contents are continuously being transformed, or indeed because of this process, is stable, permanent, and everlasting. The ultimate outcome of elemental instability is cosmic stability.

Not only does flux somehow produce order, it presupposes order. Heraclitus claims that all things happen according to his logos (B1). The logos exists forever and can be heard, but most people do not understand it when they hear it (B1). According to the logos, wisdom is knowing that all things are one (B50). Again we seem to be led back to material monism, in which all things are one. Yet if we study the way in which all things are one, we get a different picture: As the same thing in us are living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these (B88). The second sentence explains the first: the way things are the same is that there is a process by which one condition changes to another. And this change is not radical: Cold things warm up, hot things cool off, wet things become dry, dry things become moist (B126). If opposites were really identical there would be no change. But the sameness is explained as change. Hence the sameness is not identity, but connection through a continuous process. All things are one by being connected.

The logos is both a message and a principle. The principle is the underlying order according to which all things happen. Presumably it is expressed in the sequence of changes among elements, in the fixed proportions of elements. Some sort of law of change is prior to the changes and processes manifest in natural events. So does that mean there is something prior to process in Heraclitus ontology? Not necessarily. For the law of change is manifest only in the processes themselves. It has no being apart from the processes that exemplify it. Heraclitus, for his part, does not present the logos as a transcendent principle, and indeed, there are those who, on both philosophical and philological grounds, deny that it means more than account or speech.17

If we return to the river fragment, we see that for Heraclitus stability may emerge from a process of constant exchange and replacement of material contents. To put it in a philosophical way, form supervenes on flux. As long as some sort of equilibrium state is achieved, we may find a long-lasting structure which is characterized by constant material changesuch as the river Cayster, which flowed through Ephesus in Heraclitus time two and a half millennia ago and still does, although Ephesus itself is long gone (there is an archaeological site at the place of the Roman-period city), the river has a new name in a different language, the river bed has shifted, and the harbor has silted up as the shoreline has receded.18 Similarly, human beings are stable entities constituted in part by their confrontation of the changing waters of rivers and their changing surroundings in general.

Beyond the superstructures that Heraclitus recognizes as supervening on material process, there is the implication that the tension between low-level flux and high-level stability is all-important. Were it not for the replacement of matter in the river, there would be no river, only a stagnant marsh or a dry wadi. Were it not for ever-changing stimuli from their environment, humans would have no knowledge of the world. Were it not for the transformations of everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures, our Earth would be dead and empty, as dead and empty as the moon that astronauts visited decades ago. The only stability that is valuable is that which arises from material interchanges, from the living and dying of the elements, and the


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related cycles of cosmic masses, such as the water cycle. Without these processes the world would be without form and void. Process is basic, but it does not preclude order; rather, it provides the foundation for a creative order that depends ultimately on the lawlike behavior of matter.

3. The Scientific Heraclitean Heraclitus advocacy of process is remarkable for both its boldness and its precociousness. But let us

consider it also against the empirical evidence available today. In that connection, I would ask us to examine ourselves for just a moment, as Heraclitus says he examined himself (B101). (Although the chemistry is new, Heraclitus had a kind of chemical theory of his own, as we have seen, that did similar work for him.) Every minute of every day we are drawing in breath from the surrounding air. With each breath we draw in at least 500 ml of air. In our lungs, oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide: oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. In our blood stream hemoglobin in red blood cells bonds with individual molecules of oxygen and carries it to each of our cells, approximately 10,000 trillion of them. At rest the heart beats 70 times per minute. Each blood cell completes a circuit of the vascular system in about 60 seconds, from the lungs to the heart to the arteries to the arterioles, to the capillaries, to the venules, to the veins, and back to the heart and then the lungs. In the capillaries blood cells come into contact with stationary cells of the body. At each cell membrane oxygen is absorbed from red blood cells and carbon dioxide passed out.

Meanwhile, our digestive system is breaking down food into glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, and glycerol, which pass into the blood stream. Each cell takes in the nutrients it needs. Glucose travels into the cytoplasm, where it is converted into pyruvic acid, which in turn is taken into the mitochondrion, where in the complex reaction known as the Krebs cycle and Oxydative Phosphorylation, one molecule of glucose is turned into 36 molecules of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), and water. ATP is the energy currency of the cell; whenever the cell needs energy, it pays in ATP: gold for goods and goods for gold. As ATP is expended carbon dioxide, water and other wastes are expelled. Each cell has about a billion molecules of ATP in it, all of which will be expended within two minutes time while another billion are generated. Inside us a river of blood flows down, then up, day in, day out, hour by hour, minute by minute. Our blood pumps about 300 liters of blood per hour. A massive network of vessels 100,000 km long carries blood to every individual cell in the body. As long as the river flows on, we live and flourish. If for a few seconds the constant chemical exchanges should stop, we would faint; if for a few minutes they should stop, we would die. Like a river that without circulation would perish, like a fire that without consuming fuel would flicker out, without the balanced processes of respiration and oxidation, we would die, become a corpse more fit to be cast out than dung. But even as we continue to live, our component cells are dying. Each minute 300 million cells die. But by the same token another 300 million cells come to birth. The death of some cells is the birth of othersand without that interchange we would cease to exist. The physiology I have shared is modern, but the insight is ancient. As the author of the Hippocratic treatise On Breaths put it: If the passages of the air into the body were cut off, in a small fraction of a day one would perish (4). The human body is a living manifestation of flux.

Now, this example at the level of the physiology of the individual body is just one of many examples we might choose. We might begin at the cosmic level, where the universe is expanding via cosmic inflation, having started from a microscopic beginning. Evolving conditions in the early universe eventually allowed for the possibility of atoms and the production of hydrogen atoms in particular. Gravity brought these atoms together into masses large and dense enough to generate nuclear fusion, which produced atoms of helium and then


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heavier elements, while supernova explosions produced still heavier elements, which were then dispersed to provide the seeds of rocky planets like Earth. One such planet condensed in the orbit of a yellow star at the edge of the Milky Way. It was large enough to hold on to an atmosphere and far enough from its star to allow for liquid water, but not so far that it would all freeze. Liquid water produced seas and a carbon-rich surface allowed for the beginnings of life.

Cyanobacteria began to undergo photosynthesis, producing oxygen molecules as a waste product. The free oxygen molecules poisoned most bacteria, but allowed for a new kind of organism to used oxidation to run its cells. The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere also produced an ozone layer that blocked much ultraviolet light, allowing the possibility of living things on land. Evolution produced more complex life forms. Meanwhile the molten center of the planet produced tectonic action on the surface, along with volcanism. This action produced greenhouse gases and an uneven surface that kept the planet from being permanently covered by ice and snow during ice ages.

The preceding is just a small sample of the conclusions of modern science. Their lesson is that, from the flux of subatomic particles to the motions of molecules to the physiology of complex organisms to the stability of species to climate change to the plate tectonics to the revolutions of galaxies to the life histories of stars and of the elements that make up the universe to the inflation of the universe itself, everything is in flux. And yet there is order. If the cosmos itself is more ephemeral than Heraclitus recognized, yet the order is more profound and pervasive. If we learn anything from modern science, it is that all things are in flux, while events and objects (which may be seen as stable or self-sustaining events) are orderly. After all the reconceptualizations of modern science, we find that Heraclitus theory captures the patterns of the world. Dynamic equilibrium is the manifestation of order, a kind of everliving process.

Heraclitus is, I hope we can see, a philosopher of process, arguably the first,19 and one who still has something to teach us. And in his process theory, he may have advanced one of the rarest kinds of philosophical theses: one that is true.20

Notes

1. Aristotle Metaphysics, 983b6-21, 984a2-8. 2. Guthrie identifies three principles: the unity of opposites, constant flux, and the fact that the world is a living and

everlasting fire (Guthrie 1962-81, Vol. I, 435, see 435-59). The last principle seems not to be consistent with material monism. 3. For further reflections on Barnes, see Graham, 1997; 2006, ch. 5. 4. Flux: Metaphysics, 1010a7-15; Topics, 104b21-22; On the Heavens, 298b29-33 (a commendably cautious statement);

Monism: Metaphysics, 984a7-8. 5. Plato Theaetetus, 152d-153a; cf. Cratylus, 402a-c; Aristotle Metaphysics, 983b27-33 with Mansfeld 1990, 22-96; Patzer

1986, 49-55. 6. Categories, 14; Physics, V.1-2. 7. Metaphysics, 983b6-13. 8. Cf. Guthrie: He ignores the law of contradiction, he insists that opposites are identical (1962-81, Vol. I., 463). 9. Metaphysics, 983b8-13; On Generation and Corruption, 314a8-11, b26-315a3. 10. Cf. Osborne: For Heraclitus the things we meet with are not manifestations of a universal stuff (energy) which we

encounter in its various guises and never gets destroyed but is always conserved. For Heraclitus the important point is that the elements do get destroyed (1997, 101).

11. Kirk 1951; Kirk 1954, 366-80; Marcovich 1967, 194-214. (Kirk accepts B91[b] as a fragment, but not the problematic B91[a].)

12. Cratylus, 402a8-10. 13. Kahn 1979, 167. I have tried to capture the ambiguity of the Greek in my translation above. The Greek of B12: Potamoisi

toisin autoisin embainousin, hetera kai hetera hudata epirrei. The words toisin autoisin (the same) are sandwiched between


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potamoisi rivers and embainousin those who enter, they agree morphologically with both the preceding and the succeeding terms, are adjacent to both, and can be construed with eithera rhetorical and semantic tour de force. This double entendre reiterates Heraclitus message in the river fragment: sameness and change are correlative and interdependent states. Plato, the spurious B49a, and the spurious B91 all get the point wrong. The rivers and the people fording them remain the same despite (because of) the changing contents of the rivers.

14. E.g., Diogenes Laertius 9.8-9; Kahn 1979, 240-41. Kirk identifies five ancient interpretations, of which the application to the elements is the commonest (1954, 105-12).

15. The point of providing equations is not to make Heraclitus look like a modern scientist, but to show that he admits a good deal of precision in his world of flux.

16. This seems to be Aristotles reading in Physics, 205a3-4; idem, On the Heavens, 279b12-17 and Simplicius On the Heavens, 294.4-7 seem to understand B30 as entailing a conflagration such as the Stoics envisage, in which the cosmos is periodically consumed by fire.

17. See now Gianvittorio 2010. 18. [S]hall we say that while the race of inhabitants remains the same, the city is also the same, although the citizens are

always dying and being born, as we call rivers and fountains the same, although the water is always flowing away and more coming? (Aristotle, Politics, 1276a34-39, revised Oxford trans.).

19. To establish his priority would take a longer argument than is justified on this occasion. Since I reject the common Aristotelian interpretation that makes the early Ionian philosophers material monists, I do not think the argument is a trivial one. Indeed, I see Heraclitus as arriving at his process philosophy by way of criticizing and clarifying the Generating Substance Theory of his predecessors (see Graham 1997; 2006).

20. I read a version of this paper at the Ancient Philosophy Society meetings in Sundance, Utah on April 15, 2011. Part of this paper is taken from a talk I gave at the Symposium Antiquae Philosophiae, Samos, Greece, and Ephesus, Turkey on July 25, 2005. I benefited from comments of my fellow symposiasts, and also from constructive criticism of an anonymous referee of this journal.

Works Cited Barnes, Jonathan. 1979. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2 vols. Rev. ed. (1 vol.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Gianvittorio, Laura. Il discorso di Heraclito: Un modello semantico e cosmologico nel passagio dell oralit alla scrittura.

Hildesheim: Olms, 2010. Graham, Daniel W. Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. ---. Heraclitus Criticism of Ionian Philosophy. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15 (1997): 1-50. Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. A History of Greek Philosophy. 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1962-81. Kahn, Charles H. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. Kirk, Geoffrey S. Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1954. ---. Natural Change in Heraclitus. Mind 60.237 (1951): 35-42. Mansfeld, Jaap. Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990. Marcovich, Miroslav. Heraclitus. Mrida, Venezuela: U of the Andes P, 1967. 2nd ed. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2001. Osborne, Catherine. Heraclitus. From the Beginning to Plato. Ed. Christopher C. W. Taylor. Routledge History of Philosophy.

Vol. 1. London: Routledge, 1997. 88-127. Patzer, Andreas. Der Sophist Hippias als Philosophiehistoriker. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1986.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313 January 2012, Vol.2, No. 1, 9-18

Kant, Fichte, and the Act of the I

Charles E. DeBord University of Kentucky

Fichtes various articulations of the Wissenschaftslehre (theory of scientific knowledge) are self-conscious

attempts to systematize Kants critical philosophy. Fichtes notion of the pure I (ich) serves as the theoretical

starting-point for his exposition of transcendental idealism, and in many ways this concept is analogous to Kants

notion of the transcendental unity of apperception explained in the Critique of Pure Reason. This paper argues that

although Fichte and Kant agree on (1) the active nature of the pure I, (2) the distinction between pure and empirical

apperception, and (3) skepticism concerning the possibility of theoretical knowledge of any positive (i.e., noumenal)

content of the pure I, their respective notions of pure apperception differ in that Kant affirms the conceptual priority

of the pure I to its objects while Fichte denies the same. Fichtes departure from Kant on this point foreshadows

many later recognition theories of consciousness, e.g., those of Hegel and Marx.

Keywords: Kant, Fichte, German idealism, critical philosophy, transcendental philosophy, philosophy of mind, self, ich

1. Introduction In his Second Introduction to An Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (published in

1797), Johann Gottleib Fichte remarks that his theory of scientific knowledge is in complete accord with Kants and is nothing other than the Kantian philosophy properly understood (Fichte 1994, 52). In this presentation, Fichte considers himself a systematizing disciple philosophizing in the Kantian spirit if not the letter of the same. Fichte attempts to justify his project to the reader by noting that although Kant did not present his critical philosophy as a system, the systematicity thereof is nonetheless implicit: I am very well aware, Fichte says, that Kant has by no means actually constructed a system nevertheless, I am equally certain that Kant has entertained the thought of such a system (1994, 62-63, original emphasis). Though one might question the truth of either or both of Fichtes assertions here, it is enough at present to note that Fichte himself seems to believe them. Setting out to establish just such a system, Fichte attempts to explicate the nature of the pure I (analogousif not identicalto what Kant termed the transcendental unity of apperception) by way of a transcendental analysis of the mutual determination of the I and the objects it cognizes.

However, in attempting to identify the significance of Fichtes self-alleged systematic exposition of Kant, one must take care to attempt to identify any novel elements introduced in the attempt: that is, one must sort out whether Fichtes employment of concepts is logically equivalent toor even consistent withKants, whether Fichtes conclusions differ substantively from Kants and whether Fichtes arguments in support of his conclusions amount to the ones articulated by Kant. Complicating this interpretive matter to some degree is the

Charles Eugene DeBord, professor of philosophy, philosophy instructor, University of Kentucky; main research fields: Kant, Hegel, and German idealist aesthetics.

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

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fact that Fichte was well aware that other Kantians (or pseudo-Kantians, as Fichte considered them) disagreed with his conclusions concerning the Kantian philosophy. In the Second Introduction, Fichte states that while it may seem arrogant to declare his own interpretation both original and true to the spirit of the Kantian philosophy, in fact, however, the presumption this seems to imply may only be apparent, for one may hope that others too will subsequently come to understand the book in question (1994, 66).1 In his various articulations of the Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte believes himself to be expressing in systematic form both what Kant did say in his critical philosophy as well as what Kant would have said had he presented the contents of that philosophy systematically.

This paper focuses on a question crucial to Kants transcendental philosophy and foundational to that of Fichte, i.e., what can theoretical philosophy tell us about the existence and identity of the self? The I (ich) as the act of self-positing is the ground of Fichtes entire Wissenschaftslehre (best translated as theory of scientific knowledge), and the notion of self-consciousness presented therein seems to be motivated at least somewhat by Kants remarks on the transcendental unity of apperception in the Critique of Pure Reason, though clearly Fichte has in view the whole scope of Kants treatment not only of human cognition of objects but also ones moral relation to the world. In what follows I argue that Fichtes conception of the pure I as expounded in his 1794 Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre and the 1797 Second Introduction is logically consistent with Kants on three points: first, concerning the active nature of pure apperception; second, concerning the distinction between pure and empirical apperception; and third, concerning their skepticism of any positive conclusions about the noumenal content of the pure I. As to the relation of the pure I to its object, however, I argue that Kant affirms the conceptual priority of the former to the latter while Fichte denies it.

2. Kants I In the transcendental deduction, Kant distinguishes two varieties of apperception dissociable from one

another in philosophical reflection, i.e., pure and empirical.2 Each amounts to a kind of self, but Kant argues that conclusions applicable to one of these must not be uncritically applied to the other. In both editions of the first Critique Kant takes great care to identify exactly what sorts of claims philosophy may soundly make about the self on the basis of the fact that objects are cognized at all. Indeed, Kants criticism of the third paralogism is entirely grounded on this paralogisms failure to attend to the distinction between these two kinds of selves; that is, the third paralogism is said to be guilty of conflating propositions true only in an empirical sense with those true in a transcendental sense.3 The third paralogism can thus be seen as an application of this conflation to the notion of personhood.

What, then, are supposed to be the characteristics distinguishing the pure I from the empirical I? To begin to answer this question, it will be useful to sketch briefly Kants argument for the necessary unity of transcendental apperception. Kant articulates the fundamental presupposition of his argument thus: If every individual representation were entirely foreign to the other, as it were isolated and separated from it, then there would never arise anything like cognition, which is a whole of compared and connected representations (Kant, A 97). Here Kant defines cognition as a whole the parts of which are representationsthe parts are not merely collected in the whole, they are ordered therein. Since, however, representations amount to distinguishable unities of the manifold given in intuition, they must not only be ordered but also unified via a synthesis of apprehension, without which no representation could be reproduced by the imaginationif there were no synthesis of apprehension, the mind would have no way of identifying any representation as self-identical,


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which it must do if it is to be able to distinguish different representations from one another. Kant observes that not only does the human mind make such differentiations, these distinctions also seem

to take place in a rule-governed fashion. In cognition, the imagination reproduces representations with regularity, and without such regularity concepts could never arise, because according to Kant concepts amount to unities of the syntheses of particular representationsif representations were reproduced only randomly, there would be no unity in their synthesis fit to be grasped as a concept. Cognition requires such unities, because without consciousness that that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain (Kant, A 103). This is to say that unless representations are ordered according to a rule, concepts cannot arise and the imagination would have no cognitive function. Since such a regularity is in fact present in human cognition, concepts do arise in thought. For Kant, it is just these concepts that make possible the cognition of objects as such: objects for consciousness must be thought as unities, and Kant argues that such unities are grounded on the recognitions of synthesized representations, i.e., on concepts. If the mind has no concepts, it can cognize no objects. If imagination does not reproduce representations according to rules, there can be no concepts. Without the synthesis of apprehension, representations are not distinguishable from one another and so could not possibly be reproduced at all. Thus the possibility of the existence of objects rests ultimately on the possibility of some enduring ground of this synthesis.

This enduring ground of the minds consciousness of objects, according to Kant, must be transcendental, i.e., a condition for the possibility of experience that is not itself a feature of experience. He argues that in cognizing objects as such, the mind does so according to certain a priori rules that condition the intuitions apprehended by sense (Kant, A 106). For Kant, any such a priori imputation of a rule to experience is the minds synthetic cognition of what must be the case, not simply of what is: for instance, no amount of mere appearances could impress upon the mind the notion that if something is embodied, then it must be extended in space; this rule must always already guide cognition universally and necessarily. Every necessity, Kant declares, has a transcendental condition as its ground (Kant, A 106). The enduring transcendental condition that grounds the possibility of the consciousness of rule-governed experience is transcendental apperception, i.e., the pure self.4

In the first edition of the first Critique, immediately after having demonstrated why the unity of human consciousness must be grounded in transcendental apperception, Kant moves to distinguish this pure self from the empirical self with which it might quite easily be confused (this strategy can be seen as foreshadowing his criticisms of the paralogisms). Transcendental apperception is not any particular self-concept or personality, and in fact the latter could not in principle accomplish the epistemological work of the former: any individual self-concept can only be constructed by abstracting from experiencethis is sense in which it is the empirical selfand while we may affirm that transcendental apperception grounds ones self-concept (inasmuch as it grounds the existence of any concepts whatsoever), it is not to be identified with that self-concept.5 Kant holds that the empirical self is one concept among a host whose existence is founded upon the pure self, and because the latter is transcendental, we are not warranted in ascribing it any properties the notions of which have their ground in experience.6

Perhaps less obvious than this distinction between the pure self and the empirical self is the precise sense in which transcendental apperception can be said to be a self or an I at all. Norman Kemp Smith maintains


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that Kants Critical philosophy does not profess to prove that it is self-consciousness, or apperception, or a transcendental ego, or anything describable in kindred terms, which ultimately renders experience possible (2003, 261). That the first Critique does not claim to demonstrate that apperception makes experience possible is less clear to me than it seems to be to Smith. It seems that in his explanation of the notion of transcendental apperception Kant means to elucidate the necessary conditions for the human minds cognition of objects. Thus perhaps Smith means that given the conditionality of such a claim, we cannot with total accuracy say that Kant is necessarily arguing for the existence of transcendental apperception. It does seem, though, that Kant would have every reason to accept the quite modest claim that the mind does in fact cognize objects, and insofar as he accepts this, it follows for him that transcendental apperception actually exists and makes objects possible. Smith may mean that transcendental apperception is not a sufficient condition for the existence of objects, and indeed, Kant admits that the spontaneous element of cognition is accompanied by a receptive one.7

However, another possible meaning of Smiths statement invites closer inspection: in concluding that transcendental apperception makes possible the experience of objects, Kant would have been unwarranted in positing the existence (even conditionally) of a transcendental self identical to the transcendental apperception he had just described. One might read Smiths statement as a precaution: take care not to ascribe the status of thinghood to transcendental apperception. Read in this sense, Smith seems to be pointing to a mistake easily made in attempting to understand the nature of transcendental apperception. Kant describes transcendental apperception as the I think that must be able to accompany all my representations (Kant, B 131). As Richard Aquila notes, while the I think expresses empirical knowledge for Kant, the term I itself remains a mere thought, as yet provided with no determinate reference (1992, 148). The transcendental I is provided with no determinate reference precisely because it is no determinate thing at all. The being of transcendental apperception is nothing other than its activity.8 To ascribe to the transcendental I any sort of substantial being apart from this action is to fall victim to the lure of the first paralogism. Aquila goes on to say that it would be perfectly appropriate for Kant to say that my use of the I can at most express the existence of some intelligent being (1992, 149), and here we must be cautious in our interpretation, for it might be clearer to say that the pure I should at most express the action of self-consciousness (i.e., its cognition of itself) and not any sort of substance of the same. As Theodor Adorno remarks, When [Kant] says that the I think accompanies all my representations, this contains something else, namely the idea of spontaneity or activity (2001, 89). Kant seems to hold that the notion of such activity amounts to the entirety of what can be predicated of the pure I in itselfsince it is pure, it has no phenomenal content, and the very form of the pure I is just its cognizing activity.

What, then, is the relation between the transcendental I and the objects of experience? Specifically, does Kant hold that transcendental apperception is in any sense prior to objects of experience? The following statements from the first edition of the first Critique might lead one to believe that the pure I must exist before objects of experience come into existence:

There must be a condition that precedes all experience and makes the latter itself possible, which should make such a transcendental presupposition valid. Now no cognitions can occur in us, no connection and unity among them, without that unity of consciousness that precedes all data of the intuitions, and in relation to which all representation of objects is alone possible. (Kant, A 107, my emphasis)

In what sense does the unity of consciousness precede experience? Smith argues that the priority is


13

merely logical (i.e., as it occurs in the context of the deduction presented by Kant) and that any existential priority apparent in Kants language is simply the residual product of his pre-critical, Wolffian notion of the soul.9 This interpretation (the first part of it, at least) seems well-founded: at no point in his deduction of the necessity of transcendental apperception for the cognition of objects would Kant have been warranted to assert that this pure apperception exists at any time before the objects it cognizes come into existence. Indeed, if the claim that the pure I is nothing other than its cognizing activity is accepted, Kant would have been inconsistent if he had held to any such doctrine of existential (i.e., temporal) priority: the pure I exists only insofar as it actually cognizes an object.

Transcendental apperception seems also to be prior to experience in another sense: insofar as the concept of the pure I is not mixed with experience, it is dissociable from the latter in philosophical reflection as a necessary condition for the latters possibility. As such, Kant holds that we are conscious a priori of this unity. Thus it seems that Kant holds the unity of consciousness to be conceptually prior to experience in just the same way that the pure productive imagination is conceptually prior to the understanding.10 The fact that transcendental apperception occupies a logically prior position in Kants deduction of the possibility of objective experience is no accident of his presentation; it is because of its status as a concept of which the mind can be conscious a priori that it must also be logically prior in any transcendental deduction of the possibility of experience. I suspect that Smith has this conceptual priority in mind when he notes apperceptions priority in the development of the deduction, but the distinction between its conceptual priority and the consequent logical priority seems to be one worth explicating.

It should be made clear, however, that no existential priority follows from the fact that the pure I is conceptually and logically prior to objective experience. Kant argues that since humans have no ability to intuit the manifold without sensation, the synthesis of representations is a necessary condition for the unity of apperception. Because he holds that humans are capable only of sensible intuition (as opposed to what he calls intellectual intuition), the conceptual priority of the pure I cannot be any indication of its existential prioritythe unity of consciousness and the existence of objects are in actuality mutually conditioning.

3. Fichtes I Turning now to an investigation of Fichtes treatment of these issues, it must be shown that his notion of

the pure I is consistent with Kants relative to the epistemological role each plays in cognizing objects. Thus far it has been shown that (1) Kant holds that we are justified in declaring the transcendental unity of apperception to be an act that unifies rule-governed representations as objects by way of concepts. As such it is the ground of both objects of experience that are external to the cognizing subject as well as empirical self-consciousness, though (2) as Kant emphasizes, the former is by no means identical to the latter. Furthermore, (3) Kant argues that we are not justified in ascribing any substantiality to transcendental apperception if by substantiality is meant particularity (i.e., thinghood), either phenomenal or noumenal. Transcendental apperception is not itself a possible object of experience, though Kant seems to affirm that we have a concept thereof. It must now be shown that on each of these three points, Fichtes account is consistent with (if not identical to) Kants. It must further be shown that, in contrast to Kant, who holds that act of the unity of consciousness is logically and conceptuallybut not existentiallyprior to objects of experience, Fichte denies the conceptual priority of the former to the latter.

Even in introducing his philosophy, Fichtes pronouncements on the Wissenschaftslehre seem at odds with


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Kants conclusions as we have just stated them. In the 1797 Second Introduction, Fichte remarks that the Wissenschaftslehre sets out from an intellectual intuition, namely, an intellectual intuition of the absolute self-activity of the I (1994, 54-55). Above it was shown why Kant did not accept the possibility of intellectual intuition as a function of human cognition: all our intuitions are apprehended by means of the senses; there is no receptivity without sensibility.11 Fichte agrees and claims to be using the term intellectual intuition in a different sense than the one given in Kants articulation of transcendental idealism. Fichte affirms that the immediate consciousness of the thing in itself is a complete perversion of reason, an utterly unreasonable concept. Rather, the intellectual intuition of which the Wissenschaftslehre speaks is not directed toward any sort of being whatsoever; instead, it is directed at an actingand this is something that Kant does not even mention (except, perhaps, under the name pure apperception) (1994, 56). The Fichtean notion of intellectual intuition is absolutely fundamental to his transcendental philosophy. As Vladimir Zeman remarks, for Fichte, intellectual intuition becomes the Archimedean point which founds his whole philosophy as well as the means of overcoming that dualism which Kant either did not want to or could not shake off (1996, 217).12 Though a terminological departure from the vocabulary of the first Critique, Fichtes concept of intellectual intuition is firmly rooted in Kants philosophy of transcendental apperception.13

If one may say that the identification of pure apperception with an act of the mind is evident in Kants first Critique, one should note that it leaps off of the pages of Fichtes 1794 Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte holds that the first principle of human knowledge is a Tathandlung which is not and cannot be found among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the ground of all consciousness and alone makes it possible (1997, 11, my translation). For Fichte, I am expresses both the Is act of positing itself and the fact that the I has been thus self-posited. On the one hand, what is being posited in this act is nothing other than the existence of the pure I: Fichte claims that the I exists only insofar as the I posits itself as existing.14 Fichtes account of the manner in which this act makes objective consciousness possible reflects the logical progression of Kants deduction of the categories: Fichte begins with intuition, moves to the productive power of imagination, and then articulates the relation these two faculties bear to the understanding and the cognition of objective reality. The imagination, he states, produces reality; but there is in it no reality; only through interpretation and conception in the understanding does its product becomes something real (1997, 152-53, my translation). Such an analysis reflects Kants contention that the principle of the necessary unity of the pure (productive) synthesis of the imagination prior to apperception is thus the ground of the possibility of all cognition, especially that of experience the unity of apperception in relation to the synthesis of the imagination is the understanding (Kant A 118-19). Both Fichte and Kant conceive of the imagination as producing material to be cognized by the understanding and in this way grounding the work of the understanding. It is in turn the understandings cognition of the products of imagination that makes possible the experience of objective reality.

On the other hand, it seems that the difference between Kants assessment of the unity of consciousness as expressible by the propositional attitude I think and Fichtes definition of the I as its own act of positing itself is primarily a difference not of content but of emphasis and approach: whereas Kant is concerned to stress the limits on what could justifiably be predicated of the unity amounting to/resulting from the act expressed by I think, Fichte lays stress on the nature and existence of this unity as an act. A number of plausible reasons could be given for this difference. For one, Fichte might have taken Kants remarks on limiting predication to have been sufficiently emphatic while viewing his treatment of pure apperception qua act of consciousness as


15

somewhat inchoate and thus ripe for further exposition. Another reason for the difference can be located in the distinction between Kants area of concern in writing the first Critique and Fichtes in articulating the Wissenschaftslehre. Taber expresses this contrast thus:

No longer are we seeking especially the ground of the possibility of physical science, that which assures us of the necessary and universal truth of discoverable natural laws; but it would seem that we are now looking for a primordial truth, a principle from which all certainty, even that which accrues to the principles which account for science, is derived. (1984, 449)

In any case, while there seems to be no evident inconsistency between Fichtes definition of the pure I as the act of self-position and Kants account of the activity of thought as contained in the concept of pure apperception, Fichtes emphasis on the primacy of the practical in his account of the pure I is perhaps more evident than Kants in the latters explanation of transcendental apperception. Kant and Fichte seem to give the same blueprint for the possibility of experience as the result of the activity of the pure I, but it must be noted that because of Fichtes conscious attempt to assimilate theoretical and practical philosophy according to an a priori Tathandlung, his concept of the pure I involves a moral significance absent from Kants account in the first Critique.15 Nevertheless, when restricted to the standpoint of transcendental epistemology, Fichtes account of the pure I is not inconsistent with Kants.

As to the second point of our comparison, Kant takes great pains to distinguish transcendental apperception from empirical apperception. Above it was remarked that in deducing the necessity of the unity of consciousness, the existence of a particular subsistent unity (Kants standing self, i.e., a personality or individual self-concept) is not at all secured. Fichte could hardly be clearer in his agreement with Kant on this point, noting in the Second Introduction that all that could be produced by the act of combining these many different representations would be a manifold act of thinking, which appears as a single act of thinking as such, but by no means a thinking subject who engages in this manifold act of thinking (1994, 61n, original emphasis). It is evident in this and other passages (cf. the above-cited lines from the beginning of Part I of the 1794 Grundlage) that Fichte is at least as careful as Kant to deny that we are warranted in asserting the existence of any particular abiding subject on the basis of the existence of the unifying transcendental act of consciousness.

Furthermore, just as Fichte mirrors Kants distinction between transcendental and empirical consciousness, Fichte is also careful to avoid drawing metaphysical conclusions about any transcendent (in the Kantian sense), substantial soul. Concerning this third point of comparison, Fichte displays characteristic scorn for dogmatic interpretations of Kant (among others, Fichte mentions K. L. Reinhold by name in the 1797 Second Introduction) that would in Fichtes opinion ignore the foundations of transcendental idealism by reintroducing metaphysics concerned with the noumenal realm. Fichte scoffs at what he deems to be attempts to ground the self in a substance existing outside of consciousness after having admitted (as Kantians) that any cognizable external objects are always already grounded on the transcendental unity of apperception: their earth rests upon the back of the great elephant; and the great elephant itself?it stands upon their earth! (Fichte 1994, 68-69). As is well-known, one could convincingly argue that there is even less of a place for the noumenal in Fichtes philosophy than there is in Kants, but for the present concern it is enough to note that Fichte is in agreement with Kant that pure apperception is not to be confused either with the (phenomenal) empirical self or with some particular (noumenal) thing-in-itself.


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Finally, as to the priority of pure apperception to object-consciousness, I have thus far argued that Kant seems to hold to the conceptual and logical but not existential priority of the transcendental unity of apperception relative to objects of experience. Fichtes treatment of this issue in the 1794 Foundations differs from that in the first Critique in its approach as well as its conclusion. Fichte agrees with Kants denial of the existential priority of the pure I to the existence of objects, and Fichte treats the real relation of each to the other as one of mutual limitation.16 Fichte of course denies the claim that objects preexist the pure I; he argues that such a thesis is unable to accomplish the goal of a philosophical exposition of consciousness. He is no less clear, however, in his denial of the existential priority of the I to objects; he argues that in order to identify the pure I as self-identical, consciousness must always already cognize the pure I as opposed to that which it is notthat is, consciousness must, in positing itself, posit that which is non-identical to the I, i.e., the world of objects. Every opposite, he declares, insofar as it is such, is thus just by the power of an act (Handlung) of the I, and from no other ground. Opposition in general is simply posited by the I (1997, 23, my translation). In the act of self-positing, the pure I posits opposition a priori: But that everything, wherein this X lies, is not that which represents, but rather that which is represented, I can learn through no object; for just in order to be able to set up something as an object, I must know this already; hence it must, for any possible experience, originally lie in my self (mir selbst), that which represents (Fichte 1997, 25, my translation).

This statement seems to differ substantively from Kants treatment of the concept of the object: as we have noted, Kant claims that since human cognition has no faculty of intellectual intuition (in the sense of an immediate intuition of non-sensible content), the synthesis of representations is necessary for the unity of consciousness. Consider, however, that insofar as the manifold of representations is only cognizable empirically, this necessity can only be cognized by abstracting from experienceour understanding, according to Kant, can only think and must seek the intuition in the senses (Kant, B 135). We may say that the unity of apperception is for Kant conceptually prior to the minds experience of objects just because the necessity of the synthesis of representations can only come about via abstraction from experience, while the unity of consciousness can be cognized a priori.

For Fichte, however, since the concept of the object necessarily inheres in the concept of the I, the concept of the not-I can never be abstracted from experience; it must be cognized a priori along with the concept of the pure I. Fichte comes to this conclusion, it seems, because his deductive strategy differs from Kants: Fichte does not introduce the impossibility of intellectual intuition (in the Kantian sense) as a consideration for why a synthesis of representations is necessary for the unity of consciousness. Instead, he starts from the premise that any real identity is as such always already distinguished from that to which it is non-identical, and insofar as this is the case, although the pure I is logically prior to the not-I in Fichtes presentation, he does not hold it to be conceptually prior.

Tom Rockmore explains the difference between Kants concept of transcendental apperception and Fichtes notion of the opposition of the not-I to the I in terms of the function(s) of the cognizing subject:

Although Fichtes view of subjectivity is inspired by Kant, it is not the same as or simply reducible to the Kantian view. Kants transcendental unity of apperception combines two functions in a single concept: the permanence of the subject that is threatened by a Humean bundle approach; and the synthetic combination of the unsynthesized contents of sensory intuition that Kant, illegitimately applying the category of plurality beyond experience, regards as forming a diverse collection.

Fichte immediately separates the functions of permanence and synthesis in order to substitute the finite human being as


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the experiential subject. What for Kant, following Descartes, is still an abstract subject, or epistemological placeholder, is for Fichte a real human being. In this way, Fichte resituates the abstract, transcendental Kantian analysis at the level of the interaction between a human being and objects or other human beings. The resultant theory is obviously transcendental only in a weaker than Kantian sense since it considers the conditions of real rather than possible interactions between the subject and objects that impact on it. (1996, 85)

Although the full set of systematic ramifications of this difference between the philosophies of Kant and Fichte may remain unclear, I submit that it may serve to focus attention on the practical significance Fichte attaches to the self-positing of the pure I. Kant did not present his philosophy of the interaction of the unity of consciousness and objects of experience in the systematized fashion of Fichtes 1794 Grundlage; the first Critique is less a deduction of theses about the nature of the interaction of I and not-I than it is a propaedeutic to metaphysics and the warranted assertion of synthetic a priori propositions. Fichte operates on the supposition that Kant accomplished the idealist turn but did not organize his principles systematically. In his attempt to articulate a transcendental system along Kantian lines, Fichte employs the notion of the pure Is Tathandlung to ground both theoretical and practical philosophy: the pure I is not just the fact of transcendental apperception, it is also the primordial act that initiates moral striving in the world. The apparent difference in their conclusions concerning the conceptual priority of the pure I seems relevant to Fichtes work at least: had Fichte admitted the conceptual priority of the I relative to the not-I, the course of the 1794 presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre might have been plotted radically differently, since Fichtes philosophy of interdetermination would not have featured so prominently if indeed it would have appeared at all. Considered in this respect, Rockmores remark that Fichte resituates the Kantian analysis at the level of the interaction between a human being and objects or other human beings foreshadows a critical turn in modern theories of consciousness. Fichtes denial of the conceptual priority of the pure I to the world against which it strives announces German idealisms departure from the Kantian/Cartesian understanding of consciousness as a matter of the abstract epistemic orientation of an isolated individual. Many subsequent recognition theories of personhood, including those of Hegel and Marx, are as such basically indebted to Fichtes resituation of transcendental apperception along emphatically practical lines.

Notes

1. The book Fichte mentions here is Kants Critique of Pure Reason. 2. Cf. Kant, A 107. All citations of Kant in this paper refer to Critique of Pure Reason (1998). 3. Cf. Kant, A 362-63/B 421-22, 428-30. 4. On this point, cf. Karl Ameriks, who argues in some detail that Kants argument in the transcendental deduction does not

entail that the possibility of representationor even thoughtis restricted only to beings capable of transcendental apperception (1997). However, even if Amerikss argument is sound, transcendental apperception would nonetheless seem to be a necessary condition for the possibility of any beings conscious comprehension of experience qua rule-governed: the special collective function of transcendental apperception that Ameriks describes is precisely what is required for the comprehension of synthetic a priori judgments, e.g., the very scientific laws the legitimacy of which Kants first Critique sets out to salvage contra Hume.

5. Cf. John Taber, who remarks that it is to be kept in mind that, by suggesting that the I think is an empirical proposition, Kant really does mean to put it in a class separate from both experiential claims involving sensibility and (illegitimate) metaphysical claims about the thing in itself the I expressed in the empirical proposition I think is not an empirical representation (1984, 447).

6. It has been pointed out that Kants account may not be internally consistent on this point. For instance, Tom Rockmore argues that Kants account of the logical conditions of knowledge rests on an account of psychological conditions, thus erroneously involving empirical concepts in a purportedly transcendental explanation. The irony, Rockmore notes, lies in the fact that Kants theory in effect is guilty of the very psychologism that Husserl, following Kant, rails against (1996, 84). Presently, however, this criticism of Kants method need not detain us, since it does not seem to be a focal point of Fichtes systematic


18

reinterpretation of the pure I.

7. Cf. Kant, A 97. 8. Cf. Kant, A 108. 9. Cf. Smith 2003, 260-61. 10. Cf. Kant, A 116. 11. Cf. Kant, B 135. 12. Concerning the dualism Zeman mentions here, see below. 13. Cf. John Lachs: Fichtes novel contribution here appears to be the insistence that conceptualized sensory intuitions do

not constitute consciousness either: each requires an intellectual intuition to accompany it. But the novelty is apparent only. The idea was thoroughly developed by Kant and led to his famous pronouncement that I think must accompany all our representations. Viewed in this light, intellectual intuition reveals simply what Kant called the transcendental unity of apperception (1988, 174).

14. Cf. Fichte 1997, 17. 15. Although I will not here attempt an explication of the relation of the pure I to the Fichtean concept of the ideal self, it

must be noted that the two are (importantly) non-identical. As George Seidel explains in his commentary on the Grundlage, the absolute or ideal self is posited by the finite self, which alone is actively conscious and consciously active. This absolute or ideal self is the ultimate source of the ought (1993, 29). Lachs expresses this relation as two ideal poles: The Absolute Self is the theoretical groundwork of all reality, the self as Idea is the infinitely distant outcome of practical striving. Between the two stretches the world of individuated selves, finite persons seeking to understand the one and achieve the other (1988, 172).

16. Cf. Fichte 1997, 28.

Works Cited Adorno, Theodor. Kants Critique of Pure Reason (1959). Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001. Ameriks, Karl. Kant and the Self: A Retrospective. Figuring the Self: Subject, Absolute, and Others in Classical German

Philosophy. Ed. David E. Klemm. Albany: SUNY, 1997. 55-72. Aquila, Richard. Personal Identity and Kants Refutation of Idealism. Kant-Studien 70 (1979): 259-78. Rpt. in Immanuel

Kant: Critical Assessments. Vol. II. London: Routledge, 1992. 143-67. Fichte, Johann Gottleib. Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1997. ---. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998. Lachs, John. Is There an Absolute Self? The Philosophical Forum 19 (1988): 169-81. Rockmore, Tom. Fichtes Antifoundationalism, Intellectual Intuition, and Who One Is. New Perspectives on Fichte. Ed. Daniel

Breazeale and Tom Rockmore. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1996. Seidel, George. Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre of 1794: A Commentary on Part 1. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1993. Smith, Norman Kemp. Commentary to Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Taber, John. Fichtes Emendation of Kant. Kant-Studien 75 (1984): 442-59. Zeman, Vladimir. Appropriation of Kants Critique of Pure Reason: Fichtes Second Introduction to Wissenschaftslehre. New

Perspectives on Fichte. Ed. Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1996. 213-25.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313 January 2011, Vol. 2, No. 1, 19-26

Kants Copernican Revolution

Milos Rastovic Duquesne University

In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explains his critical method as an experiment in metaphysics. The aim of that experiment is to establish an entire revolution in philosophical thinking, which was initiated by the Copernican revolution in cosmology in order to find the secure path, and its possibility application to metaphysics. Kants aim in Critique of Pure Reason is to rescue metaphysics from a blind groping by undertaking a revolution in metaphysics as Copernicus has brought to cosmology. Kants Copernican turn consists in the assertion that the possibility of knowledge requires that the objects must conform to our cognition. From Kants view, we can know only what we construct, make, or produce as a necessary condition of knowledge, but we cannot know the mindindependent external world, i.e., the world which is independent of us. Kants epistemological constructivism is the central point to his Copernican revolution.

Keywordsepistemology, constructivism, representationalism, Copernican Revolution, science, nature, metaphysics

1. Introduction

Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. (Kant 1998, B xvi)

Kant famously began his Critique of Pure Reason by explaining his critical method as an experiment in metaphysics (B xvi). The aim of that experiment is to establish an entire revolution in philosophical thinking, which was initiated by the Copernican revolution in cosmology (B xvii).1 Copernicus denied the Ptolemaic geocentric system, because it did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions by assuming that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer. Contrary to the geocentric system, Copernicus was a proponent of the heliocentric cosmological system by suggesting that the motions of the heavenly bodies are a result of the motion of the observer on the Earth. With this change in perspective, Copernicus believed that he would have a more successful approach to cosmology as a science.2

In comparison with Copernicus, Kant considers the foundation of science in order to find the secure path, and its possibility application to metaphysics. In the Preface of the B edition of Kants Critique of Pure Reason (1787), he explains the foundation of science (logic, mathematics, and physics) in order to find a secure path. In logic, mathematics, and physics, reason finds the secure course of a science through two criteria (B vii):

(1) If science makes persistent progress, it means that science finds the secure course of success. (2) Scientists must achieve an agreement about their common aim, and use a correct method in achieving

the royal road of science.

Milos Rastovic, MA, Department of Philosophy, Duquesne University; main research fields: German Idealism (Kant, Hegel), Nietzsche, Marx & Critical Theory, Ancient Philosophy, Heidegger, Existentialism, Modern Philosophy, Epistemology, Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Law.

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

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Though at one time the queen of all the sciences, the procedure of metaphysics is now merely a blind groping without unanimity among many concepts. Through the history of metaphysics there was a battlefield in which nobody ever gained any lasting possession on his victory (B xv). For this reason, it is necessary for metaphysics to enter a new royal path of knowledge as a science. In other words, Kant argues that logic, mathematics, and physics have established the secure path of science, but metaphysics has not. Consequently, for Kant, the key question is: how are logic, mathematics, and physics possible? Or rather, what is the respective status of logic, mathematics, and physics as knowledge?

Kants aim in Critique of Pure Reason is to rescue metaphysics from a blind groping by undertaking a revolution in metaphysics as Copernicus has brought to cosmology. In Kants interpretation, Copernicus observed movements not in the objects of the heavens but in their observer (B xxii). Analogically to this view, in Kants epistemological context, he rejects the traditional thesis that the subject must conform to the objects. By contrast, Kants Copernican turn consists in the assertion that the possibility of knowledge requires that the objects must conform to our cognition (B xvi). In other words, we can cognize the objects a priori only what we ourselves have put into them (B xviii). From Kants view, we can know only what we construct, make, or produce as a necessary condition of knowledge, but we cannot know the mindindependent external world, i.e., the world which is independent of us. Kants epistemological constructivism is the central point to his Copernican revolution.3 Kant builds his main epistemological position according to the Copernican assumption that knowledge depends on the observer.

Based upon this consideration, in this paper, I will clarify two things: (1) The ground of Kants Copernican revolution is demonstrated in the B Preface of Critique of Pure

Reason in which he examines the difference between a science (logic, mathematics, and physics) and metaphysics, i.e., the secure path and blind groping.

(2) The consequence of Kants Copernican revolution is his constructivist approach to knowledge. Constructivism militates against direct realism and a representational approach to knowledge.

2. The Secure Path of a Science Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy is a consequence of his reading of Copernican astronomy in

the rise of modern science, and his theory of science is based on that reading. As we adduced, Kants aim is to compare the status of logic, mathematics, and physics with metaphysics as knowledge in order to find a secure path for metaphysics. Kant asks himself: Now why is it that here the secure path of science still could not be found? Is it perhaps impossible? (B xv).

According to Kant, logic is an example of the secure course of science, which was finished and completed by Aristotle. Kant says, That from the earliest times logic has traveled this secure course can be seen from the fact that science the time of Aristotle it has not had to go a single step backwards and until now it has also been unable to take a single step forward (B viii). In logic, from Aristotle to now there is not a single step backwards or forwards. Every single step in logic, which occurs by interpolating psychological, metaphysical, or anthropological chapters, belongs more to elegance of logic, i.e., it is not improvement but a deformation of the sciences when their boundaries are allowed to run over into one another (B viii). For Kant, the boundaries of logic are determined quite precisely, and their aim is to prove the formal conditions of valid thinking without any correlation to the objects of cognition. In fact, logic can find the secure path of science only if reason does with itself and its own form, but not with the external objects of cognition. In this sense,

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

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reason determines itself a priori as a pure cognition without any reference to other sources of knowledge such as experience.

Kant distinguishes two kinds of cognition: (1) A posterioriall our cognition begins with experience (B 1), but it does not mean that all cognition is

empirical. (2) A prioriit is independent of experience. We are in possession of a certain a priori cognition if it is thought along with its necessity and strict

universality: Necessity and strict universality are therefore secure indications of an a priori cognition, and also belong together inseparably (B 4). A priori cognition is a product of our mind, e.g., mathematics (B 15). For this reason, we cannot find Pythagorean numbers in reality and nature. According to Kant, mathematical judgments are always a priori because they carry necessity and universality with them. For instance, 7 + 5 = 12. The concept of the sum of 7 and 5 is the unification of both numbers in a single one. I can get the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 only if I go beyond the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 seeking assistance in intuition, which corresponds with these numbers.4

Unlike logic whose aim is to prove formal rules of all thinking without any reference to the objects, mathematics and physics are the two theoretical forms of cognition which aim to get knowledge about the objects, i.e., to determine their objects a priori (B x). The cognitive success of mathematics depends on its ability to construct the objects according to a priori concepts (B xii). In this sense, mathematics and physics have required a revolution before they found the secure path of a science. This revolution has required the transition from gathering mathematical and physical examples to the development of their theories. However, the record of their achievements has not been saved for us. For mathematicians, only the new royal path remained unforgettable. The revolution in mathematics consists in the recognition that the method of mathematics is not grounded on the inspection of the figure or on the properties and the concept of the figure, but rather on the act in which the figure has been constructed according to a priori concepts. In fact, mathematical knowledge in order to ensure the secure path of science has to prescribe to the figure necessarily from what we ourselves put into it.5 For Kant, we construct or produce the figure a priori in the imagination:

For he [Thales] found that what he had to do was not to trace what he saw in this figure, or even trace its mere concept, and read off, as it were, from the properties of the figure; but rather he had to produce the latter form what he himself thought into the object and presented (through construction) according to a priori concepts, and that in order to know something securely a priori he had to ascribe to the thing nothing except what followed necessarily from what he himself had put into it in accordance with its concept. (B xii)

Also, in the history of physics the revolution was brought neither by observation nor by analysis, but by the experimental methods, which discover the law of nature. The common aim of mathematics and physics is to find the secure path of science. However, the difference between them is that mathemati

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