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Wiki MarkupOn the Distinction between On the Distinction between "Critical" and "Speculative" Philosophy 
(W. A. Christian) 
On the Distinction between "Critical" and "Speculative" Philosophy (W. A. Christian) 

Wiki Markup
1. Philosophy My inclination is to say that CISC's distinction between "critical" and &nbsp;"speculative" philosophy does not correspond exactly to my distinction &nbsp;between the "critical-analytic" and the "constructive-synthetic" aspect &nbsp;or function of philosophy. &nbsp;(My distinction seems somewhat closer to the &nbsp;distinction he makes when he says, "we need to construct \[si£Jsic\] general &nbsp;theories of meaning and truth applying to all types of discourse, includinginclud­ing moral discourse, scientific discourse, esthetic discourse,and religiousreli­gious discourse" even while "at the same time Wewe need to explore more &nbsp;thoroughly e~cheach of the particular domains of human experience and discoursedis­course" (MIR, 8). CIS&nbsp;C's distinction seems, rather, to be not unrelated to &nbsp;the distinction I have sometimes made between "transcendental" and "categorialcate­gorial" metaphysics. I.e., trans~epde~~~l  transcendental&nbsp;metaphysics undertakes to determinede­termine the purely formal logical type distinctio~s that any and all our &nbsp;uses of "reality" and related terms such as "truth," etc. necessarily &nbsp;presuppose. This it does by way of an attempt to construct "regional ontologieson­tologies" on the basis of a critical analysis of the constitutive concepts &nbsp;and assertions of the several different "domains of truth," as well as the &nbsp;"fundamental ontology" of human existence as such. &nbsp;Withal, the sole concerncon­cern of a transcendental metaphysics is to abstract from everything materialmater­ial--from any and all values of the various variables--to identify the &nbsp;strictly formal necessary condition(s) of the possibility of all our experienceexper­ience and thought, and hence the strictly first principles of reality as &nbsp;such. &nbsp;A cat~<2..Lial metapl:lysicscategorial metaphysics, by contrast, undertakes an in~e:..~r...e:..~~i.<2..1l. interpretation&nbsp;of these strictly formal princlplesprinciples in some mat:erlalLeLUI\!'jmaterial terms, Itt It::J..lll\~ u\[some in terms of some&nbsp;of the concepts or categories of our thought and experience in the 2severalseveral domains of truth. &nbsp;For various good reasons, the most adequate &nbsp;categorial metaphysics will be the metaphysics whose interpretive scheme &nbsp;is derived from the "fundamental ontology" provided by an existentialist &nbsp;analysis of our ow-.:1own existence. &nbsp;But even that kind of an existentialist, &nbsp;or psychicalist, categorial metaphysics is still the attempt somehow to &nbsp;fill in the purely formal scheme of transcendental metaphysics with some &nbsp;material contents, which can be done, obviously, only by means of analogyanal­ogy.&nbsp;

2. Therefore, a categorial metaphysics is, in the nature of the case, "speculative" in a

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way in which a transcendental metaphysics is not.

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 The question is relevant, then, why there is, or has to be, speculative as well as

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critical philosophy, categorial as well as transcendental

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meta­physics.

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 On the face of it, it would appear that the answer of

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Nygren and others, that there is a religious interest behind

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speculative philos­ophy (or categorial metaphysics) ought not to be rejected out of hand. (The argument that must be carried against Nygren is that there not

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only can but must be such a thing as a critical, "scientific," because

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trans­cendental metaphysics.) 

3. A related insight is that there is an important difference

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between the assertions of transcendental metaphysics and even the

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metaphysical (as distinct from the existential) aspect of religious, theological,

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or categorial metaphysical assertions.

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 So, e.g., there is a difference

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be­tween the transcendental metaphysical assertion that God is the

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integral or universal individual and the categorial metaphysical (or

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religious.

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 or theological) assertion that God is the supreme person.

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 Even though the assertion that God is a person may appear to be the same kind of

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an assertion as the assertion that God is an individual, it is really

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very different, in that it is at one and the same time the assertion that

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we ourselves are given and demanded to be persons and to act as persons

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in all our relationships.

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(W. A. Christian)

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