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Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy Volume 7: Modern Philosophy Introduction Mark Gedney It can be little disputed that modern philosophy, as it is generally understood, stands under the broader tradition of the Enlightenment-and, for the most part, consciously and vigorously so! Despite the nuances and important distinctions of style and substance found in the great thinkers of this tradition, one can see clearly a general commitment to the fostering of the natural capacity of human beings to know their world and to interact with it and with other rational creatures in increasingly productive ways. Even if such figures were also critical of some of the tradition's excesses, they were in an important sense united in their confidence in the successful use of those faculties that passed the critical test of reason. Certainly, Horaces' words, "Sapere aude!" rang true throughout the modern period, as Kant insists in his essay, What is Enlightenment? Though Kant's vigorously positive response might not have been fully affirmed in every detail by all Enlightenment philosophers, his central affirmation that humanity was moving from the age of its minority (Unmündigkeit) to that of its majority resonates throughout the thought of this era. It is not surprising that the model or analogy of reaching one's majority would lend itself to a strong commitment to education. And this is no commitment to education in a narrow or weak sense! Daring to know is not limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic, but rather ranges over the entirety of human endeavor. One finds in the polymaths of the modern period writings on metaphysics, art, politics, religion, science, mathematics, and logic. Though their relationship to the paideia of classical culture differed from the simple devotion characteristic of the Renaissance thinker, it represented the same breadth and confidence. Reforms in political structures, secondary education and universities went hand-in-hand with investigations in logic, metaphysics, and religion. Yet, as we look at the audacity of modern thinkers from our standpoint at the end of the twentieth century, we find little positive appreciation for this broad humanist vision. The great modern philosophers often appear as merely historical figures, or worse as merely the fodder for deconstructive play, where, if they are directly mentioned at all, it is only as examples of the hubris of thought. (1) It seems (though this is certainly an exaggeration, as the cogent and forceful essays that follow will demonstrate) that the thinkers of modernity are to be assessed only in their historical particularity or exorcized en masse due to their malicious influence. It is interesting to note that this philosophical exorcism has not come without disruption to our everyday life. If the sweeping educational changes that surged through (at least) Western culture right up to the middle of this century rode the undercurrents of Enlightenment dreams and ideals, then the erosion and fragmentation of our educational institutions should not be surprising insofar as these undercurrents have faded or reversed. One might argue that any focused discussion on the question of paideia in our time ought to turn to the great thinkers of modernity in order to do justice to the question. Even if we acknowledge that our institutions and canon have clear and unmistakable roots in the classical period and have been transformed by both renaissance and medieval thinkers, their current form and content is unintelligible apart from the forces of the great intellects of the Enlightenment. Clearly, one risks great misunderstanding if one reduces these modern founders of politics, science, and education to a simple formula that fits neatly with a "post-modern" narrative. We must come to a more effective consciousness of these past forces as they have shaped and continue to shape our current culture. Or, to borrow Gadamer's wonderful phrase, we must bring to light, bring to bear, or bring into play an effective historical consciousness of these thinkers who have set the foundations for our current age. If we blindly discount the force of these thinkers, we risk misinterpreting the situation in which we find ourselves. We would do well to avoid such naivete lest someone speak of us as Gadamer does of the naïve scientists of the nineteenth century.
We do not need to examine the details of Gadamer's claims about this particular issue, but we can hear a word of caution for those who would reject out of hand the value and depth of the Enlightenment views on education in the broad sense of paideia. (3) In fact, the essays that follow not only show that an investigation of the fundamental themes of modern philosophy can bring enlightenment to our post-modern predicament, but also remind us that once we begin to look at the details of these individual thinkers we may discover riches that exceed their mere commonalties. Most of these authors deal with their subject matter with a clear eye to problems of the twenty-first century rather than merely focusing on historical debates. Each historical figure is discussed with the intent of demonstrating the power and coherence of his thought-not only for the debates that shaped modern philosophy, but also for the debates that shape our own. Given the consistency of this approach, I have decided against a merely historical arrangement, but rather have grouped these papers according to the topics upon which they attempt to shed light. Thus, after an initial group that focuses on more general issues of education and the value of modern philosophy, we turn to essays dealing with religion, metaphysics and science, and ethics before concluding with a series of essays that take up the question of the value of Enlightenment themes for contemporary philosophy generally and for phenomenology in particular. A General Introduction: The Power of the Enlightenment Our volume begins with a sweeping essay by Simone Goyard-Fabre, Les lumières et leur héritage. Goyard-Fabre presents a subtle and nuanced reading of the fundamental tenets of enlightenment philosophy. She argues against the twentieth-century dogma that we must understand the philosophy of the Enlightenment through a narrow view of rationality understood as "totalitarian and thus voracious and suicidal," which "has brought about under the guise of a humanist spirit the very death of humanity." After drawing out some basic elements that form at least part of the backdrop to Enlightenment thought (the historical and geographical setting of its appearance as well as the general affirmation of critical reflection, humanism and reason in general), the author argues that the affirmation of critical thinking and individual reflection in Enlightenment thought remains a positive possibility for contemporary society and does not entail the political atomism or radical individualism with which it is so often charged. With this overview and defense in place, we turn to a series of essays examining the contribution of specific philosophers towards the question of Enlightenment and education. Despite Leibniz's reputation for an all-encompassing rationalism, Hans Poser argues that he developed a set of concepts in his language studies that enabled him to account for the growth and maturation of the human spirit through education. Poser bases his discussion on Leibniz's distinction between notions or ideas, which represent true knowledge, and signs, which represent the thoughts of such ideas. "As we never can grasp either complex ideas or the corresponding complex objects and their structure distinctly and at once, but only step by step by means of blind knowledge (i.e., the manipulation of signs-MDG), the improvement of signs and their connections, as expressions of thoughts, are the only means of reducing errors, as signs at least distinctly represent structural connections." Despite his closed system and strict rationalism, the distinction between signs and ideas allows Leibniz to account for the variability of language across cultures and for the development of systems of education that take advantage of this fact. Poser concludes his essay by noting that even if Kant could not accept the metaphysical trappings of Leibniz's (and Wolff's) systems, Leibniz's progressivism and belief in the power of reason to reform language and thought set the stage for Kant's call for us to "Dare to think!" Henry Allison and Manfred Gawlina in their essays demonstrate the breadth and vision of Kant and his idealist successors. Allison examines Kant's famous essay in response to the question, "What is Enlightenment?" Though many see Kant's claims for autonomy in the opening paragraphs of that essay as typical of the misjudgment of the power of reason by enlightenment philosophers, Allison finds more subtle and complex meanings in Kant's use of the concept, "Unmündigkeit." If we understand this notion of independence not in terms of the domination of reality by the all-powerful reason of the knower, but rather, as the progress in the education of an individual's power of reasoning to the point where he or she achieves his or her "majority" standing, then a different conception of autonomy emerges. Allison solidifies his argument by developing the overall position of this essay in Kant's larger corpus and by contrasting it with other, less sophisticated views (e.g., that of Mendelsohn). In his essay on this period, Manfred Gawlina argues that at the heart of transcendental philosophy as found in Descartes, Kant, and Fichte is the notion of radical self-reflection. Each philosopher (in increasingly successful ways according to Gawlina) sets out to disrupt the common every day sense of self and truth in order to reveal the universal foundations of reality or metaphysics (Descartes), epistemology (Kant), or the self (Fichte). It is this lesson of radical self-reflection, shared by all three thinkers, that provides a model for a general theory of a universal paideia-a theory very relevant for today. Religion There can be little doubt about the importance of modern philosophy for current discussions in the philosophy of religion (and in theology and religious practice generally). Whether the question is pluralism, the relation of church and state, tolerance or the more general question of the relation of faith to reason, the tone of each of these debates is shaped fundamentally by the Enlightenment. We begin with an examination by Robert Merrihew Adams of Leibniz's account of the role of philosophy and natural theology. Though Christian Wolff and others were more (in)famous for their critique of dogmatic religion, Adams points out in his essay that Leibniz developed a theory of natural theology that is more thoughtful and in some ways more far-reaching. Beginning with Leibniz's response to the controversy among Jesuit missionaries on the value and truth of Chinese religious concepts, Adams draws parallels between Leibniz's account and John Hick's recent work on religious pluralism. He argues that though the generality of Leibniz's basic conception of God and religion resembles that of Hick, it represents a more determinate and orthodox notion than that of Hick, one that allows him to affirm the priority and basic schema of Christian orthodoxy. Leibniz is thus able, the author argues, to set the stage for an account of other religions that systematically places them in relation to Christianity. R. C. Sleigh also takes up the question of the relationship between natural theology and faith in the work of Leibniz. His concern is to examine the difference between the position of Arnauld and that of Leibniz concerning church authority and faith. While Arnauld argues that reason might be in conflict with Church teaching and thus need to be restricted, Leibniz, Sleigh claims, develops a position that defends the full rationality of fundamental religious belief. Examining the case of miracles, Sleigh argues that truly miraculous events and the doctrines supported by them are true precisely insofar as they present the best possible explanation for the relevant phenomena. This does not rule out the importance of faith, for we are often not in a position to judge conclusively about the nature of any given event, and even for those events for which an adequate rational explanation does exist we have no guarantee that we will believe and/or act on that belief (in short, we may use our freedom to be irrational). Despite these possibilities, Sleigh's conclusion is that true faith is never irrational and thus that Leibniz is a thoroughgoing rationalist in matters of religion. Sidney Axinn examines the difficult notion of rational hope as it is developed and defended by Kant. Given the Kantian critique of metaphysics (and a fortiori of natural theology), the question of the meaningfulness of such hopes has always been an important one. Following up on work he has done elsewhere, Axinn argues that the fundamental criterion for a hope being rational is the possibility of constructing in imagination a possible spatial and temporal realization of that hope. He then goes on to list three forms that this general notion of hope may take: methodological, semantic and compound. Each of these contains the possibility of constructing such an image. It does not seem possible, however, to stay true to this requirement and still speak of religious hopes. Axinn accepts this but points to a fourth possibility or type of hope: namely, "transcendental hopes" which do not focus directly on a specific spatial and temporal state of affairs, but rather on a symbol. The symbol provides the material content for our hope even if it cannot be translated directly into spatial and temporal states of affairs. In the concluding essay in this section, Edwin Curley examines the rise in arguments for tolerance in the modern period. He argues that Spinoza's argument for tolerance represents a major step forward in the debate over religious freedom. Unlike religious arguments for tolerance, such as those put forward by Sebastian Castellio, Spinoza develops arguments that rely on general philosophical principles. Curley argues that such a shift set the stage for classical liberal arguments for freedom of thought and belief and makes Spinoza's work still relevant for current discussions. Metaphysics and Epistemology The discussion of religion leads to the broader questions of metaphysics and epistemology (and to some extent the philosophy of science). The essays in this section examine the figures of modern philosophy not only with an eye on historical or traditional problems, but equally with an eye to the future. Michael Ayer's essay represents these two foci admirably in his essay entitled, "Can There be a New Empiricism?" Ayer argues that the significant critique of "Neo-Humean Positivism" by Wittgenstein, Quine, and others misses out on the rich possibilities found in philosophers of the period-Hobbes and Locke in particular. His claim is that a more holistic and phenomenologically sound account of experience found in these thinkers provides us with the foundation on which to build a new empiricism that avoids the pitfalls typically associated with traditional forms of empiricism. In a more specific vein, George Dicker examines Hume's account of causality. In particular, he is concerned about the relation between Hume's regularity thesis as the basis of our notion of causality and his claim found in various places that the cause is a necessary and sufficient condition for the effect. Dicker argues that if this is a correct interpretation of Hume's notion of the necessity of causality, then we are faced with an account of causality that implies a symmetrical relation between cause and effect. As this seems plainly unsatisfactory, Dicker argues for a more nuanced account of necessity that includes reference to empirical conditions surrounding the specific causal connection in question. João Paulo Monteiro picks up on these themes in Hume and examines how one might develop a more sophisticated theory of causality and induction than that usually attributed to him. Arguing against what he takes to be the typical psychologistic accounts of Hume's theory of causation (as exemplified by Fred Wilson), Monteiro claims that Hume's theory of habit plays a vital role in his view of causality and the inductions that are grounded therein. This complex theory of habit allows the author to develop a theory of induction better able to withstand the typical attacks on Hume's theory of induction and causation. Morton White develops a critical account of Hume's pyschologism in light of W. V. O. Quine's use of psychologistic principles. White suggests that Humes' psychologistic approach, properly understood, has grave implications for two of his fundamental principles; namely, the distinction between empirical and analytic ideas and the distinction between normative and descriptive statements. Insofar as Quine has avoided these problems by apparently collapsing these distinctions (or at least significantly blurring them), should we read Hume's theory as following this same path? As White points out, such a blurring of Hume's famous distinctions would lead to a fundamental shift in current ethical investigations. Harold Brown's essay focuses on the role of ideas in general and abstract ideas in particular in Berkeley's philosophy. Berkeley's denial of abstract ideas is the basis for his critique of several important fields in science and philosophy, but Brown raises the possibility that Berkeley's notion of "selective attention" might provide a means for developing a theory of abstract ideas within Berkeley's own system. After developing a clear and persuasive account of the absolutely passive character of the meaning and content of ideas insofar as they are grounded solely in perception, Brown concludes that such selective attention cannot provide a means for speaking of a true cognition of abstract ideas such as qualities. Klaus Brinkmann and William Sweet take up the question of the relationship between history and logic in Hegel and Bosanquet, respectively. Brinkmann develops a position echoing Klaus Hartmann that rejects the conflation of historical necessity and systematic or logical necessity in Hegel. Taking comments by Hegel in the Encyclopedia and the Logic on the independence and priority of logic over historical manifestations as paradigmatic, Brinkmann argues that a historical determinism is unwarranted and unnecessary. Rather than simply leaving the two adrift, however, Brinkmann suggests the adoption of the Aristotelian distinction between hypothetical and absolute necessity as a way of understanding the similarities and differences between the necessity of history and the necessity of logic. William Sweet also examines the relationship of history, or, in this case more specifically, culture, to metaphysics in the idealist philosophy of Bernard Bosanquet (a translator and admirer of Hegel). Against the charge that Bosanquet's absolutist metaphysics of his later life caused him to change from a liberal to a more conservative and anti-humanist thinker, Sweet argues that both his metaphysics and his later writings on culture reflect the basic systematic intent outlined in his much earlier writings on logic. If we understand these later works in light of the logic, a simplistic reading of these as antihumanistic and narrowly absolutist, he argues, is impossible. Ethics Morton White's recognition of the importance of coming to an adequate understanding of Hume's thought for debates within contemporary ethics is echoed in Marcia Homiak's discussion of the role of virtues in Hume's moral philosophy. She begins by developing a brief but persuasive account of Aristotle's ethics that focuses on his answer to the vexing question of "incontinence" (akrasia). Homiak argues that the incontinent person is one whose character is not fixed on one desire but allows for contrary desires. These contrary desires are sufficiently strong to disrupt practical deliberation. She goes on to argue that the fundamental desire for the healthy person is a form of self-love (i.e., love of our true nature as determined by philosophical anthropology). Homiak takes this basic insight and applies it to Hume's supposed pyschologism. She argues that a mechanistic notion of sympathy is not sufficient for an ethical theory nor does it represent the final word in Hume's philosophy. For Hume the calm and deliberative ideal spectator is one who has come to value or desire the workings of the mind in itself. This form of self-love can then be seen as an analogue to Aristotle's. Douglas Moggach takes up the other great moral theorist of the modern period: Kant. He examines the connection between morality and rights, and argues that Kant uses the analogies of spatial relations to develop the specific character of rights versus moral imperatives. Though one might take Kant's notion of force and the development of particular spheres of influence (particularly understood as the possession of property) as grounded in the freedom of morality (as does Fichte), Moggach argues that this risks combining the purity and power of moral freedom with the more mechanical and minimal sphere of rights. Unlike Fichte, Kant uses the necessitarian character of spheres of force in spatial relations (discussed in the Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science) to establish the independent arena of rights in the social and political world. Modern Philosophy and the Twentieth Century Finally we turn to more direct assessment of the influence of modern thinkers in contemporary philosophy. Zeljko Loparic's essay sets out to uphold the relevance and importance of the critique of modernity by Heidegger and Giddens. Arguing that the basic principles of enlightenment thought do set the stage for a mechanization and systematization of human life, Loparic turns to Heidegger in particular for a conception of finitude that will disrupt the belief in the possibility and desirability of formalizing natural language and systematizing social and political structures. This essay stands in contrast to the more positive assessment of enlightenment conceptions of reason and politics found in previous essays, and thus serves as a useful reminder of the trenchant and powerful critiques exemplified by Heidegger and others. A positive and much more particular use of the work enlightenment thinkers is found in John Woods' essay. He discovers in the work of Aristotle, Hume, and others support for a very different view of rationality. He is particularly concerned with the so-called "Fallacy of Hasty Generalization." In his essay, he argues that the 'hasty' assessment that all judgements not based on conclusive or sufficient proof or observation should be classed as fallacies of hasty generalization is itself too hasty. By use of judicious examples, he shows that everyday life is full of justified judgements that on the surface appear to be too hasty. The final two essays in this volume were given in the same invited session of the World Congress entitled On the Varieties of Phenomenology; both focus on the relation of phenomenology to its historical roots. Of the two, Sokolowski's essay takes up this task most directly. He is especially concerned with the shaping of the transcendental character of Husserl's phenomenology by the work of Descartes, Kant, and the medieval philosophers. These are philosophers who clearly recognized and defended the unique sphere of the transcendental ego, which sets itself apart from its everydayness and becomes a "responsible speaker, who enters into the game of truth and can make truth claims . . . ." Even while acknowledging the roots of transcendental phenomenology in the modern period, Sokolowsky argues persuasively for phenomenology's deeper appreciation for the pre-reflective life. David Woodruff Smith explicitly takes up Sokolowsky's description of phenomenology and its inheritance from the modern period, but he expands the depth and breadth of phenomenology even further according to a three part typology of form, appearance and substrate (origin). He argues that this fundamental division of the structure of the world is reflected in biological systematics, geological formations, subatomic physics and computer science. As important as the Husserlian transcendental conception of phenomenology is, Wood argues that we need to adopt this further expansion of phenomenology in order to show how contemporary philosophy can shed light on difficult problems such as those found in current discussions in cognitive science. The scope of Smith's vision and his positive conclusions about the possibilities inherent in philosophical investigation serve as a worthy conclusion to this volume. It reflects the high hopes and breadth of critical reflection found throughout this collection, and demonstrates once again the power of modern thought to provoke and enlighten-even at the close of the twentieth century. Notes 1. I am not referring to the great works of deconstruction such as Derrida's studies of Husserl, which deal with their subject matter with great seriousness in order to discover the hidden resources of meaning that lie within every great work. It must be admitted, however, that the respect shown in such investigations is often lacking in lesser, more popular, works of so-called "deconstruction." 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "The Philosophical Foundations of the Twentieth Century," in Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 110. 3. Though technically one may classify thinkers such as Leibniz as "precursors" to the Enlightenment proper, it seems reasonable in an introduction such as this to bring them under the umbrella of this term, broadly used. In any event, this is the general practice of the authors in this volume.
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