By Schubert Ogden
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Of the many points made in this fascinating book, four seem the most memorable: It seems possible in principle to develop a metaphysics which is, in effect, indistinguishable from _logic,_ _as (in the Kantian sense) a system of formal truths (152). Such a metaphysics may also be said to be an_ _ontology_ _in the sense of "a theory that includes the totality of truths that can be formulated ... about things that can be meaningfully grasped as individuals, and thus are truths that are not restricted to any particular realms of individuals or worlds but are of unrestricted validity" (13 f.). _Such a metaphysics, however, is not the whole of philosophy, but, at most, its "transcendental-philosophical," as distinct from its "real-philosophical," dimension or aspect. The contrast between the two aspects lies in that,(1) whereas the truths established by the former apply to{_}every possible\_ _world, the truths established by the latter apply to_ _this actual world,_ _to which we ourselves inescapably belong; and (2) the former has the certainty of a "strict science" (in a sense even stricter than mathematics, since mathematical judgments are "synthetic," rather than lIanalytic" \[170\]), whereas the judgments of "realphilosophy" are necessarily "synthetic" or "contingent" (176 f.) and also belong to "the realm of proclamation," not "the realm of research" (158), having something of the nature of a "confession" about them (161). (Here it may not be irrelevant to remark that Scholz's "synthetic" or "contingent" seems rather like Hartshorne's in that it covers everything that is not "analytic," "necessary," and "formal," including therefore both physical science and matters of faith \[171\], despite the obvious and important differences between them. Also, what Scholz allows as a "real-philosophical metaphysics of nature," or "an ontology of the actual world" \[162 ff., 181\] is perhaps more properly called "a cosmology," while what he calls a "real-philosophical metaphysics of the human spirit" \[168 ff.\] is perhaps not too different from what Bultmann, say, means by "a theology," or even what Heidegger means by "a fundamental ontology," i.e. a \[philosophical or metaphysical\] anthropology.) _
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Essential to any "ontology of the actual world" is a theory of identity that can be applied to individuals that are bound to time, i.e., a theory of "genidentity" (181), according to which we can say that an individual is identical with itself at two different moments of time. (Scholz apparently thinks that there are or could be individuals that are not thus "genidentical." But the interesting question, surely, is whether such an individual could be anything other than an occasion of experience or an "actual entity" in Whitehead's sense of the words. I.e., could the general category of individuals having strict identity warrant the classical conception of God as neither a genidentical individual nor _an_ _actual an actual entity?) _There is no possibility that a statement attributing our knowledge of the _veritates aeternae_ _to the illumination of the soul by God can itself, as a "statement of faith," ever appear as one of the statements of metaphysics in the strict sense (171). Hartshorne is doubtless correct that Scholz does not seem to see how necessarily existent individual could very well be one of the individuals existing_ _in every possible world,_ _and therefore such as to be properly affirmed even by a strict metaphysics. Still, the question remains whether necessarily existing individual is simply the same as God, or whether (as Hartshorne himself seems to admit in allowing that talk about God is, in essential respects, "analogical") Scholz is partly correct after all in holding that assertions about God as such are not metaphysical in the strict sense but assertions of personal faith.
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_ _ _II. Selections, Paraphrases, and Special Comments{_}{_}13 f.-"The metaphysics we will defend will have nothing to say either about the world-whole or the human soul or the existence of a highest being. Thus it will be neither a cosmology in this Kantian sense nor a psychology nor a theology. But? But a kind of ontology, although not an ontology in the sense of a theory of being as such. Rather, it will be as distant therefrom as from a Kantian cosmology, psychology, or theology._{_}It_ _will be an ontology in the sense of a theory that comprises the totality of truths, which can be formulated in the language we will agree on, about things that can be meaningfully conceived as individuals, so that these truths are not restricted to any realms of individuals or worlds but are of unrestricted validity. They are valid in every non-empty realm of individuals and, in this well-defined sense, in every possible world." (A realm of individuals is said to be empty if, and only if, there is no thing that belongs to it.)-My questions about this are mainly two: (1) Is the reason Scholz's proposed metaphysics will not provide either a cosmology, psychology, or theology in the Kantian sense that these all have to do, perhaps in different ways, with "the actual world," whereas the metaphysics he's arguing for has to do with "the totality of possible worlds"? (2) Is the reason Scholz's proposed metaphysics is not an ontology in the sense of a theory of being as such that "being as such" would include more than individuals, whereas Scholz's metaphysics is a theory precisely and only about individuals? (The alternative reason, so far as I can tell, is that it is not an ontology in the traditional sense because the latter is \[tacitly\] understood as "an ontology of the actual world"_ _\[d._ _181\], and thus for the same reason that it is neither a cosmology, psychology, nor theology, either.) _ |
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157-Note Scholz's use of the phrase "the "the universe of possible worlds," presumably as synonymous with what he otherwise speaks of as "the totality of possible worlds" (italics added).
158 f.-The morphology that distinguishes between the two chief forms or types of philosophizing, viz., transcendental-and real-philosophical, contains a second morphology, Le., one that distinguishes betweena philosophy that today stands on the level of a strict science-in the case of traljnscendentalphilosophical philosophizing-and one that isuniverse of possible worlds," presumably as synonymous with what he otherwise speaks of as "the totality of possible worlds" (italics added). fundam~ntally different froma strict science-in the case of real-philosophical philosophizing. In fact, Scholz argues, the second can move completely out of "the realm of research" and go over into "the realm of proclamation," a magnificent sample of which is provided by the most beautiful and monumental parts of the Kantian ethic: "Thus art thou to be; thou may'st not flee from thyself 1" _No researcher in the world speaks in this way; so speaks an educator of the human race. Philosophizing in the Fichtean sense or in the way that has become so consequential through Nietzsche is more or less completely a matter of proclamation. But even where philosophical discussion with the actual world is utterly free of proclamation, it is far from being able to come up with results that can be agreed on as can the propositions of our theory of identity. No two _original thinkers completely agree with one another even about the most important opinions concerning doctrine.
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162-In addition to the new metaphysics that has attained the level of a strict science, there are two worthwhile real-philosophical forms of metaphysics: a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics of the human spirit.
164-What Scholz calls"Aristotle's objectifying way of speaking" calls to mind things as disparate as Bultmann's understanding of science (other than philosophy) and my understanding of the "mythical" remnant in Ucategorial metaphysics."
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178-181-It is certain that in the actual world one cannot do simply with the kind of identity that our identity theory clarifies. According to Aristotles's proposition, if two individuals are identical, every property belonging to one of them of them also belongs to the other, and vice versa. Our limited formalized language doesn't allow us to formulate this Aristotelian proposition, although it expresses precisely the sense in which our theory understands identity. But then no human individual at two different points in time can be identical with itself in this sense; for at least the length of its life at the later point is different from that at the earlier. And yet we've reckoned the assertion that every individual iSldentical with itself among the universally valid assertions of our theory. Have we then contradicted ourselves? No we haven't, because the assertion that every individual is identical with itself is unrestrictedly valid even for every human individual provided it's viewed at a specific point in time. Any human individual is indeed identical with itself at any point in time. Indeed, it is incontestable that any individual belonging to the actual world is such that, at point in time t, it is identical with itself at that point.
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