1578. I want to hold that transcendental metaphysics . . .

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I want to hold that transcendental metaphysics is rightly understood as the core or central task of philosophy in its first, "analytic" phase. Far from being a matter of "speculation," metaphysics is properly a matter, precisely of "analysis." It is the matter of analyzing the structure, as distinct from the content, of our core or central experience of ourselves, others, and the whole.

I also want to hold that the transcendental ethics that is determined by the being that transcendental metaphysics analyzes is rightly understood as foundational for the core or central task of philosophy in its second, "existential" phase.

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Philosophy concretely, in its inclusive concrete aspect, is existential, in that it is oriented, proximately as well as remotely, by the existential question about the meaning of ultimate reality for us. In asking this as well as any other existential question, human beings seek wisdom (sapientia). But because they want only valid answers to their existential questions, including the existential question, they also seek knowledge (scientia) and therefore ask intellectual questions. So philosophy abstractly, in its included abstract aspect, is intellectual, and, specifically, metaphysical and ethical, in that it is constituted by the intellectual questions about the structure of ultimate reality in itself and about the structure of its meaning for us. 

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I have often thought and said that "existence," or "self-understanding! understanding of existence," is to "action," or "life-praxis," as "the transcendental" is to "the categorial." So, to distinguish, as I'm now inclined to do between "transcendental metaphysical" and "transcendental-ethical" propositions, understanding by the second, propositions having to do with the meaning of ultimate reality for us, and, specifically, with the structure of that meaning, has a definite precedent in my thinking and writings.

Indeed, I might fairly claim that my discussions of "the original call to be a human being" either simply are, or are a special, theological application of, my "transcendental ethics."

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If "witness" is what "theology" in the more critical sense is both distinct from and critically reflects on, what is it that plays this role for "philosophy" in the more critical sense?

The answer, presumably, is life-praxis and culture, including religious life-praxis and culture, generally—just as "witness," properly, refers to the life-praxis and culture, which includes but is not exhausted by, the religious life-praxis and culture, mediated by a specific religion. The parallel further implies that, just as witness, or some part thereof, may be thought and spoken of as "theology" in a less critical sense, so life-praxis and culture/religion, or some part thereof, may be thought and spoken of as "philosophy" in a similarly less critical sense.

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As for how best to critically appropriate Hartshorne's thought that philosophy properly "mediates" between metaphysics and ethics, on the one hand, and science and religion, on the other, I incline to say something like the following:

In its first, "analytic" phase, philosophy thus mediates precisely by analyzing the "depth" structure of science and religion, as well as, I should think, any other forms of understanding and transforming reality, nondiscursive as well as discursive, analogously to the way in which metaphysics analyzes the "depth" structure of human existence as such, relating the results of the two types of analysis each to the other. In its second, "existential" phase, philosophy thus mediates by relating the results of its metaphysical and ethical analyses, not to the results of philosophical analyses of science and religion and any other forms of understanding and transforming reality, but to the results of these various forms themselves as well as common sense, allowing each to inform the other. This is why metaphysical theology is one thing, philosophical theology, something else. And so, too, with metaphysical and philosophical cosmology, as well as metaphysical and philosophical anthropology. In all three cases, the philosophical discipline is not metaphysically "pure" but "mixed," and rightly so—just as, on Heinrich Scholz's view, a "real-philosophical" metaphysics of nature, or of the actual world, is as important to philosophy, in its way, as a "transcendental-philosophical" metaphysics of all possible worlds (or kinds of world) is, in its significantly different way. 

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One may say that "existentialist analysis," or "fundamental ontology," is metaphysical anthropology in something like the sense in which one may also speak of metaphysical theology and metaphysical cosmology. I say "something like the sense," because, although there can be no adequate distinction between ontology as metaphysica generalis, on the one hand, and either metaphysical theology or metaphysical cosmology as disciplines of metaphysica specialis, on the other, there can and should be an adequate distinction between ontology, on the one hand, and metaphysical anthropology, i.e., "fundamental ontology," on the other. But, then, if it is correct to distinguish metaphysics from philosophy, and therefore metaphysical theology and cosmology from philosophical theology and cosmology, it is presumably no less correct to distinguish metaphysical anthropology from philosophical anthropology.

That this is so is evident, first of all, from metaphysics as such being, in its way, scientia. even as philosophy as such, is, in its way, sapientia. Thus whereas metaphysical theology and cosmology are both intellectual and therefore ask, in their different but closely related ways, about the structure of strictly ultimate reality in itself, philosophical theology and cosmology are both existential and ask, in their respective ways, about the meaning of strictly ultimate reality for us. So, too, mutatis mutandis, with the difference between metaphysical and philosophical anthropology: the first is concerned with the structure of human existence in itself, the second, with the meaning of human existence for us.

But there is a second, closely related reason. Much as philosophical theology differs from metaphysical theology by mediating between it, on the one hand, and culture and religion as well as other forms of understanding and transforming reality, on the other, so philosophical anthropology differs from metaphysical anthropology by mediating between it, on the one hand, and culture and religion and these other forms of understanding and transforming reality, on the other. If this means, in the case of philosophical theology, its critically appropriating the concepts and terms of religions generally so as to think and speak of the meaning of ultimate reality for us not only literally but also symbolically, it means, in the case of philosophical anthropology, its integrating at least some of the results of the relevant sciences, natural as well as human, with those of metaphysical anthropology. Here the difference between philosophical and metaphysical anthropology is very similar, I believe, to that between philosophical and metaphysical cosmology.

2 July 2005; rev. 16 June 2008