The Power of Language: Philosophy and Society

The distinguished German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950) investigates the relation between being-there and being-so in the second part of his Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie (1935, Toward the Foundation of Ontology).

The Grundlegung (the Foundation) is the first of a four-volume series by Hartmann, dealing with ontology. The other volumes of the series are Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit (1938, Possibility and Actuality), Der Aufbau der realen Welt (1940, The Construction of the Real World), and Philosophie der Natur (1950, Philosophy of Nature). Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit is the only one of these volumes that has, as of 2013, been translated into, and published in, English.

The Grundlegung is divided into four parts: (1) Vom Seinenden als Seienden überhaupt (Of "That Which Is" as "That Which Is," in General), (2) Das Verhältnis von Dasein und Sosein (The Relation between Being-There and Being-so), (3) Die Gegebenheit des realen Seins (The Givenness of Real Being), and (4) Problem und Stellung des idealen Seins (The Problem and Position of Ideal Being).

Hartmann distinguishes between ways of being, modes of being, and aspects of being. Ways of being (Seinsweisen) include ideality and reality. Modes of being (Seinsmodi) include actuality, possibility, and necessity (and their negative counterparts, nonactuality, impossibility, and contingency). Aspects of being (Seinsmomenten) include being-so (Sosein) and being-there (Dasein).

Hartmann also distinguishes between being and “that which is,” and thus between the ontological and ontic dimensions of philosophical inquiry. The difference between being (Sein) and “that which is” (Seiende) corresponds to the difference between truth and the true, actuality and the actual, reality and the real. The being of “that which is” may have many different particularizations of its way of being.¹

The distinction between being and "that which is" also corresponds to the distinction between being-there and "that which is there" (Daseiende), and between being-so and "that which is so" (Soseiende).
The central question with which ontology is concerned, “What is being qua being?” cannot therefore be confronted without also confronting the question, “What is ‘that which is’ qua ‘that which is’?”

In all of “that which is,” there are aspects of being-there and being-so.² Being-there and being-so are interconnected and mutually complementary aspects of being. There is no being-there without being-so, and no being-so without being-there.³

The being-there of “that which is” is constituted by the fact “that it is,” while the being-so of “that which is” is constituted by “what it is,” i.e. by its quiddity. Thus, being-there is the “that,” and being-so is the “what” of “that which is.”

There is also being-there in being-so, and being-so in being-there. Being-there “in” something is the particular form of being-there of all being-so, while being-so is the being-there of something “in” something.However, being-there and being-so are not substances in which “that which is” inheres; rather, they are aspects or "moments" of being.⁴

Being-there and being-so are indifferent to each other, insofar as it makes no difference to being-there whether being-so turns out in one way or another, and insofar as it makes no difference to being-so whether being-there turns out in one way or another.⁵ However, being-there and being-so are also not indifferent to each other, insofar as they are aspects of the same particular being and therefore share the same (ideal or real) way of being. Real being-there is always that of a real being-so, and real being-so is always that of a real being-there.⁶ Being-there and being-so can be indifferent to each other only if they belong to different ontological spheres, i.e. if being-so belongs to the ideal sphere and being-there belongs to the real sphere, or vice versa.

Hartmann explains that the epistemological basis of the (misleading) appearance of separation between being-there and being-so is that real being-so may be a priori or a posteriori knowable, while real being-there is only a posteriori knowable. Thus, the boundary between aprioristic and aposterioristic knowledge does not correspond to the (apparent) boundary between being-there and being-so. From real being-so, aprioristic as well as aposterioristic knowledge is possible, while from real being-there, only aposterioristic knowledge is possible. Conversely, aposterioristic knowledge is possible from the being-so, as well as from the being-there, of “that which is,” while aprioristic knowledge is possible only from the being-so of “that which is.”⁷

Aprioristic and aposterioristic sources of knowledge are also ways of givenness of “that which is.”⁸ Thus, there is a threefold superimposition of, or boundary relation between, (1) ways of givenness (aprioristic or aposterioristic) (2) ways of being (ideal or real), and (3) moments of being (being-there or being-so). Aprioristic knowledge is possible from ideal being-so, from ideal being-there, and from real being-so. Aposterioristic knowledge is possible from real being-so, and from real being-there. Real being-there can only be an object of aposterioristic knowledge. Ideal being (ideal being-so and ideal being-there) can only be an object of aprioristic knowledge.⁹

FOOTNOTES

¹Nicolai Hartmann, Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie, Second Edition (Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1941), pp. 40-41.

²Ibid., p. 92.

³Ibid., p. 128.

⁴Ibid., p. 134.

⁵Ibid., p. 112.

⁶Ibid., p. 114.

⁷Ibid., pp. 144-145.

⁸Ibid., p. 145.

⁹Ibid., p. 148.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

E.J. Lowe's Four-Category Ontology

E.J. Lowe’s four-category ontology (2006) is an attempt to answer the question of what are the fundamental categories of being, as well as the question of what are the basic distinctions between them. Lowe explains that ontological categories are kinds of being.¹ The distinctions between ontological categories include the distinction between universals and particulars, and the distinction between substances and non-substances. Thus, there are four basic ontological categories: substantial universals (kinds), substantial particulars (objects), non-substantial universals (attributes), and non-substantial particulars (modes).

Substantial universals are instantiated by substantial particulars, and non-substantial universals are instantiated by non-substantial particulars. Kinds are instantiated by objects, and attributes are instantiated by modes (or “tropes”). For example, a particular tomato is an instance of the kind, “tomato,” and a particular redness (e.g. the redness of a particular tomato) is an instance of the attribute, “redness.”²

Lowe explains that objects (individual substances) are particular instances of kinds (substantial universals). Modes (property or relation instances) are particular instances of attributes (property or relational universals).

The relations between the four basic ontological categories can be schematized as an “ontological square,” in which the category of “kinds” is in the upper left corner, the category of “objects” is in the lower left corner, the category of “attributes” is in the upper right corner, and the category of “modes” is in the lower right corner. Kinds are characterized by attributes, and are instantiated by objects. Attributes are exemplified by objects, and are instantiated by modes. Objects are characterized by modes (ways of being, or particular instances of properties and relations). Thus, there are three basic kinds of relations between members of the four basic ontological categories: instantiation, characterization, and exemplification.³

Lowe admits that there are at least two basic assumptions made by the four-category ontology: that universals exist, and that there is a basic distinction to be made between substantial and non-substantial universals.⁴

A problem that must be addressed by the four-category ontology is that of whether there can be second- or higher-order kinds of being, as distinguished from first-order kinds of objects. Lowe recognizes this problem, and he explains that according to his definition of “kinds” as universals that are instantiated by substantial particulars, kinds are instantiated by objects and not by other kinds (substantial universals). An ontological category, such as “kinds,” is a kind of being, but it is not a kind in the sense that a kind of object is a kind. However, the counter-argument can also be made that “kinds” as an ontological category can be instantiated not only by kinds of objects, but also by kinds of modes, properties, and relations.

Another problem is that of whether kinds, attributes, and modes may also be made objects (of perception, thought, observation, and investigation). If kinds, attributes, and modes themselves may be made objects, then objects may not be able to be defined exclusively as instances of kinds.

Another problem is that of whether there may be second- or higher-order properties and relations (properties of properties, and relations of, or between, relations). According to Lowe’s definition of attributes as universals that are instantiated by non-substantial particulars, attributes are instantiated by modes (property or relation instances), and not by other attributes (property or relational universals).

Another problem is that of whether the instantiation of kinds or attributes is any different from their exemplification. Particular instances of kinds or attributes may be individual examples of those kinds or attributes. For example, if a particular tomato instantiates the kind, “tomato,” then it also exemplifies it. If a particular redness (e.g. the redness of a particular tomato) instantiates the attribute, “redness,” then it also exemplifies it. On the other hand, a particular tomato may exemplify the property of “redness” without actually instantiating it (because the property of “redness” may be instantiated by the redness of that particular tomato, rather than by the tomato itself). What then is the nature of the difference between instantiation and exemplification?

Lowe recognizes all these problems, and he attempts, with varying degrees of success, to resolve them. His four-category ontology is a very thought-provoking attempt to define the nature and kinds of being, and it is a brilliantly conceived and clearly formulated effort to advance our understanding of the categorical construction of reality.

FOOTNOTES

¹E.J. Lowe, The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 20.

²Ibid., p. 22.

³Ibid., p. 23.

⁴Ibid., p. 28.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Voice of Conscience as Internal Speech

In some cases, the voice of conscience may take the form of internal speech, and we may engage in dialogue with ourselves about our past and present actions. We may talk to ourselves about what we should or shouldn't do, and we may ask ourselves what we should or shouldn't have done.

Internal speech as the voice of conscience may precede external speech, which may take the form of publicly acknowledged responsibility for our past actions. The voice of conscience may in some cases bring to conscious awareness thoughts and feelings that wouldn't otherwise have been recognized and articulated. It may praise or condemn our past or present actions, and it may serve as a guide to possible future courses of action.

The voice of conscience may tell us how to atone and make amends for our past errors and moral failures. On the other hand, it may be silent if there is nothing to praise or condemn in our moral conduct. It may also be silent if we are lacking in conscience, and if we are motivated by purely selfish or narcissistic desires and concerns.

Conscience as a moral faculty may also reserve judgment about actions that are morally neutral or inconsequential.

For each of us, the voice of conscience may have distinctive characteristics. It may reveal a varying degree of urgency, intensity, persistence, resonance, and persuasiveness. It may be only one of many inner moral voices to which we may listen: other voices may include the voices of reason, wisdom, compassion, and understanding.

The voice of conscience may always be present within us (or at least may always be accessible to us) if we retain the capacity for self-criticism and humility. However, it may have varying degrees of immediacy or remoteness with regard to our conscious awareness of it.

To the extent that it may reflect the attitudes, opinions, and judgments of other individuals, we may engage in dialogue with a variety of voices when we listen to it, and we may reflect on our actions from a variety of viewpoints.

The voice of conscience may also be the voice of inner experience, the voice of the internal world of thoughts and feelings, the voice of the inner psychological world.

What then does the state of speechlessness connote? That we are unprepared to express our thoughts and feelings? That we are so surprised, amazed, or shocked by events that we find ourselves unable to put our own thoughts and feelings into words? If we can have experiences that truly render us speechless, then thinking and feeling may not necessarily require speech as a medium of representation. There may be “speechless thought,” or thinking that occurs without internal speech. Indeed, internal speech as the voice of conscience may require the capacity to articulate thoughts and feelings.¹ If we cannot articulate our own thoughts and feelings, then we may also not be able to coherently formulate our moral judgments, and we may not be able to speak intelligibly to, or engage in substantive moral dialogue with, ourselves.

However, we may in some cases hold ourselves morally responsible for our inability to articulate our own thoughts and feelings, and if we regard such an inability as a moral failure, then the voice of conscience may bring this failure to our attention and censure or reprimand us.

On the other hand, there are some things that we might very well say aloud but merely say silently to ourselves in order to avoid social disharmony or conflict.

Internal speech produced by the voice of conscience may be monologic or dialogic.² Insofar as it simply dictates principles of moral duty, it may be monologic, but insofar as it allows moral questioning or invites moral reflection, it may be dialogic.

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1934) describes inner speech as speech for oneself. Inner speech is directed inwardly rather than outwardly, in contrast to social speech, which is addressed to others, and which serves the purpose of communicating with others.³

The Canadian psychologists Alain Morin and James Everett (1990) describe inner speech as a mediator of self-awareness and self-knowledge. They suggest that the extent to which we use inner speech may partially account for the extent to which we have self-awareness and self-knowledge.⁴

The Spanish philosophers Agustín Vicente and Fernando Martinez Manrique (2011) explain that the concept of inner speech shouldn't be confused with the concept that there is a language of thought (or the concept that thought requires a representational system corresponding to a language).⁵ Thinking may occur with or without inner speech.

The habit that we may often develop of silently talking to ourselves while we are performing daily tasks may in some cases be a consequence of our experience of internal speech as readers and writers of verbal and non-verbal texts. Just as we may listen internally to the sounds of the words we are reading, so we may listen internally to the sounds of the words we are writing. Internal speech may occur when we imagine ourselves reading a text aloud or when we imagine ourselves hearing the voice of an author reading a text to us. The imagined voice of the author may in fact be quite different from the author’s actual voice. It may be tempered or conditioned by our own subjective attitudes and personal experiences.

The voice of conscience may be singular, insofar as each person may have their own individual voice that is in some way distinguishable from other voices.⁶ At the same time, it may be plural, insofar as individual voices may unite to express a shared or collective conscience.

FOOTNOTES

¹Caryl Emerson, “The Outer Word and Inner Speech: Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and the Internalization of Language” in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Dec 1983, 245-264), p. 255.

²Simon McCarthy-Jones and Charles Fernyhough, “The varieties of inner speech: Links between quality of inner speech and psychopathological variables in a sample of young adults,” in Consciousness and Cognition, 20 (2011), p. 1586.

³Lev Vygotsky, Thought and Language, edited by Alex Kozulin (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1986), p. 32.

⁴Alain Morin and James Everett, “Inner Speech as a Mediator of Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness, and Self-Knowledge: An Hypothesis,” in New ideas in Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 3, (1990) pp. 337-356

⁵Agustín Vicente and Fernando Martinez Manrique, “Inner Speech: Nature and Functions,” in Philosophy Compass 6/3 (2011), p. 209.

⁶Dmitri Nikulin, On Dialogue (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), p. 41.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Looking Beyond Morality

Are there some actions that transcend morality? Are there some actions about which it is useless to say they should have been performed in this way or that way, or that they should have come about in this way or that way?

Are there some things that we have to accept, and that have nothing to do with morality? Is there a realm of facts to which morality does not apply? Are there some things that have no moral meaning, unless we project it onto them?

Why must we feel compelled to project some moral meaning onto everything and to insist that there is a moral purpose to everything? Perhaps some things have a purpose that transcends morality.

Surely, there can be non-moral objects and properties, just as there can be moral objects and properties. Surely, actions can be motivated by non-moral purposes and intentions, just as they can be motivated by moral purposes and intentions.

Must every action have a moral meaning? Why can’t there be morally neutral actions? If actions may in some cases be morally neutral, then their moral neutrality may depend on the context in which they occur. Actions that are morally neutral in one context may be morally right or wrong in another context.

Does every object or property require a moral explanation or interpretation? Why can’t there be supra-moral objects or properties that are neither moral nor non-moral and that transcend moral explanation and interpretation?

Why should moral properties necessarily have to be associated with, or supervene on, non-moral properties? Perhaps we should examine the arguments for and against a soft or moderate projectivism, according to which some properties are actually moral, while others are merely projected as moral. This kind of projectivism would also amount to a soft or moderate realism, according to which some moral properties exist independently of our perceptions of them, while others do not.

Subjective morality may try to make moral properties of non-moral properties (and moral objects of non-moral objects), while objective morality may try to avoid making moral properties of non-moral properties (and moral objects of non-moral objects).

Moral objects may be objects of a moral world, while non-moral objects may be objects of a non-moral world. Could it be possible that there are parallel or coexisting worlds, a non-moral world and a moral world, which are independent of each other?

A compound object (an object that includes more than one object) may include moral and non-moral parts. The non-moral parts of a compound object may not contribute to its overall moral value or may enhance its moral value by enhancing the value of its moral parts.

What does it mean to say that a situation is beyond right and wrong? Perhaps it is, in some cases, to say that punishing an individual for having acted wrongly is not always the best way to persuade that individual to accept responsibility for his actions. Perhaps it is also, in some cases, to say that enacting retributive penalties against an individual for his having wronged others is not always the best way to help the victims of his wrongdoing to recover from the wrongs that he has done to them.

What should we do when we find conventional moral norms to be insufficient to guide our actions? What should we do when we find a particular code of ethics or system of morality to be mistaken, misplaced, or unfounded? What exactly should a reevaluation of ethical or moral values in such cases entail? Is there perhaps a post-moral mode of thinking and acting or a way of looking beyond morality that we should adopt?

The Power of Language: Philosophy and Society

Friday, June 28, 2013

Black Philosophers Online

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Nicolai Hartmann's Theory of the Relation between Being-There and Being-So

Sunday, June 2, 2013

E.J. Lowe's Four-Category Ontology

Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Voice of Conscience as Internal Speech

Friday, May 3, 2013

Looking Beyond Morality

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