Pár postřehů k druhé části knihy ("Metaphysics") - pro mě obzvláště zajímavé, proto ta délka dnešního příspěvku.
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Christopher Shields (Oxford):
Shadows of Beings: Francisco Suarez’s Entia Rationis
Úvod
Shields nejprve výmluvně představí Suárezův přístup, který na jednu stranu neexistující objekty bere
vážně (i když Shields ponechává stranou zda nutně či kontingentně neexistující), ovšem na druhou stranu
nikoli příliš vážně:
“Francisco Suárez devoted the last of his fifty-four Metaphysical Disputations to beings of reason (entia
rationis), those troublesome creatures which
flummox us by their equivocal existential demands: when we say that the
gryphon does not exist, we are met straightaway with the question of what we
are talking about when we so speak. It
is striking, and non-standard relative to some later discussions, that for
Suárez non-existents include not only such obvious candidates as phantasmagoric
beings like the gryphon, but also privations like blindness, negations like
not-human, and even such broadly taxonomic or logical notions as genus and
species or antecedent and consequent.
Beginning with the first of
Suárez’s concerns, the one perhaps most likely to pose a vivid problem in this
domain, we are tempted in various ways both to affirm and to deny the existence
of the gryphon. Heading in one
direction, we may be inclined to say that the gryphon surely must exist in some
way or other—else we could not even think about him. Still, if we suppose that
this is so, we confront a troubling puzzle when also we assent to the patently
true sentence, ‘The gryphon does not exist.’ If in response we both affirm and deny the gryphon’s existence, then we
find ourselves tilting in the direction of Meinong, who asserts that ‘There are
objects of which it is true to say that there are no such objects.’ We may move
to diminish any odour of inconsistency in this response by appealing to types
or grades of existence, perhaps adverting to a putative distinction between
existence proper and its poorer cousin, subsistence. We then encounter
Russell’s rebuke—one perhaps not so obviously withering as it was intended to
be—that in drawing any such distinction we have lost hold of our robust sense
of reality.
Suárez's way is both subtler and more comprehensive. Indeed, its comprehensiveness already suggests its subtlety: by treating them as a special case of a broader phenomenon, Suárez offers creatures of fiction an explanatory framework missing in later discussions of the problems to which they give rise. Although a fair bit of what he says seems at least initially to suggest a Meinongean solution to the problem of non-existents, Suárez's treatment of beings of reason in fact proves both more difficult to classify and also far more nuanced that so much would suggest. (p. 57-8)
Shields si správně uvědomuje nebezpečí mylného chápání Suárezova stanoviska jakožto stanoviska Meinongiánského. Ovšem uvidíme, že jeho důvody pro toto tuto obavu jsou právě opačné, než moje. Podle Shieldse zastával Suárez stanovisko, že pomyslná jsoucna nejsou a v žádném smyslu slova neexistují. My je pouze bereme jakoby byly či existovaly. Shields nazývá toto stanovisko "uvázaně-kontrafaktuální" (tethered contrafactual view), protože odkazuje na kontrafaktuální objekty "uvázané" na činnost našeho intelektu:
“Ultimately, Suárez will seek to treat a being of reason (an ens rationis) as a non-existent subject of an existing extrinsic denomination, or, more precisely, as that to which an extrinsic denomination would attach if there were something really existing as a subject for that extrinsic denomination. On this approach, which we may term the tethered counterfactual approach – tethered because entia rationis are perforce tied to acts of intellection and counterfactual because these acts treat them as if they existed though they do not— despite some indications to the contrary, the best overall interpretation of Suárez’s treatment of entia rationis is this: entia rationis do not exist, but are merely considered as if they existed. They exist objectively, in Suárez’s terms, but to exist objectively is not to exist in some manner distinct from the manner in which fully real beings exist, in some precinct adjacent to the neighbourhood of the real. Entia rationis do not exist in some dismal realm, some half-way house of subsistence populated by malformed or incomplete objects, beings existing objectively but in no other way, beings which prove to be natural impossibilities or metaphysical monstrosities. Rather, they do not exist. Even so, we may think and speak of them.” (p. 58)
Shieldovo "uvázaně-kontrafaktuální stanovisko", které připisuje Suarezovi, asi přímo není stanovisko Meinongovo, ovšem je mu velmi blízké: Meinong totiž tvrdil, že neexistující objekty nemají žádnou existenci či jsoucnost a přesto o nich lze pravdivě mluvit. Takto pojatý Meinong a Shields-Suarez jsou si tedy velmi blízcí. (Podle mě Suarez jednoduše tvrdil, že pomyslná jsoucna mají jistý zvláštní typ jsoucnosti či existence a to typ pomyslný, na myšlení "objektově-závislý". A proto nelze Suarezovo stanovisko ztotožňovat se stanoviskem Meinongovým).
Shields dále vyvozuje dva důsledky ze své interpretace (de re myšlení o neexistujících objektech a jejich začlenění do příčinných souvislostí):
"The tethered counterfactual
approach may seem refreshingly deflationary in this domain, where Meinongean
theories loom. Perhaps in some ways it
is. Yet if it is correct, two striking
consequences follow from Suárez’s approach to entia rationis, each instructive
and defensible in its own right. First,
Suárez adheres to an initially perplexing but ultimately defensible principle
regarding de re thought, namely that it is possible to have contentful de re
thought about entities which do not exist. This becomes especially clear, I
shall suggest, in his treatment of how entia rationis are implicated in the
causal nexus.
This first consequence
also points to a second: although they do not exist, we may nonetheless speak
of entia rationis as implicated in the causal nexus, despite the fact that
Suárez adheres, quite sensibly, to a thesis according to which only what exists
in actuality can enter into a causal relation with any at all. One interesting feature of his
approach turns upon the way he conceives creatures of reason as indirectly
implicated in the causal nexus. As a
shadow cast in the right direction might render a text difficult to read, so a
being of reason viewed from the right psychological angle might give fright or
fancy; but neither causes anything without the prior operation of something
capable of bringing about an effect in a non-derivative way." (p. 58)
Shields zde vidí hezkou analogii se stínem (Suárez totiž výslovně přirovnává pomyslná jsoucna ke stínovým jsoucnům) - parazitují na našem myšlení o reálných jsoucnech.
“Once properly explicated,
Suárez’s account of entia rationis makes clear the sense in which it is
appropriate that he should characterize them as ‘shadows of beings’ (umbrae).
They are shadowy not in the sense that entia rationis are beings which have
their existence in a penumbral or sort of way, since although they may be
putative objects of reference they in fact do not exist. Instead, a thought
about an ens rationis is parasitic on a thought about an existing entity, just
as a shadow is parasitic on something which is not a shadow, namely a solid
with a light-blocking surface and some light being blocked by that
surface. So too, argues Suárez, with
beings of reason: a being of reason is a being, an ens , only by courtesy,
since no ens rationis has genuine esse.
Further, since (again, according to Suárez) esse and essence are one and the same, no such ens has an essence." (p. 58-59)
Zde ovšem Shields vidí problém, protože každé jsoucno, včetně těch pomyslných, by mělo mít strukturu esse-esence a tu prý nemá:
"This last suggestion, that
beings of reason are beings (entia) even though they lack being and essence
(esse and essentia), sounds strained on its face. It also puts heavy pressure on the coherence
of Suárez’s theory. We might immediately
think Suárez caught in a contradiction of his own devising:
(1) necessarily, all beings (entia) have being (esse) and
essence (essentia);
(2) entia rationis are, well, entia; and
(3) entia rationis lack esse and essentia." (p. 59)
Podle Shieldse řeší Suárez problém popřením (1).
“Suárez avoids this contradiction by denying (1), though not by offering beings of reason a special category of existence. Instead, on his tethered counterfactual approach, a being of reason is something we think of as if it existed, which activity no more bequeaths it existence than my treating you as if you were the queen turns you into the queen. The difficult part to grasp at least initially is just the first striking consequence of Suárez’s view, that is possible to have a de re thought about what is not. Once that is accepted, however, his view becomes not only clear, but defensible. Basically, he maintains, rightly, that though a thought needs a content, it need not therefore be related to an existing entity as its object even if the thought is about that object.
If the reconstruction of his view offered here is correct, then Suárez’s treatment of non-existent objects as a special case of a broader category of entia rationis deserves a place at the table alongside modern-day treatments of the problems swirling around the non-existents. Minimally, I contend, his view merits renewed consideration." (p. 59)
Tolik k úvodní prezentaci Shieldsovy interpretace. Blahopřeji mu k brilantnímu a novátorskému pojetí pomyslných jsoucen. Ovšem, až na jednu či dvě pasáže, kde by snad něco ve smyslu "uvázaného kontrafaktuálního pojetí" mohl Suarez naznačovat, toto není Suarezovo stanovisko. (Snad se mi toto podařilo textově-exegeticky obhájit
v mé knize; Shieldse v ní zmiňuji pouze v poznámce pod čarou, dostal se ke mně až v závěrečné fázi přípravy).
Pro informaci nicméně připojuji ještě přehled o struktuře Shieldsova článku, spolu s pár pěknými citáty:
I. What the metaphysician must study creatures of reason
"We might be surprised to find Suárez discussing beings of reason at all in his Metaphysical Disputations. That work opens with a delineation of its topic according to which the metaphysician deals with real being only. …
So, why then, does he consider them in his Metaphysical Disputations at all? Suárez offers a two-part justification. First, although they are not knowable in themselves, entia rationis invariably make an appearance at the margins of discussions within the legitimate sciences and so a correct understanding of them contributes crucially to all human reason. Without adverting occasionally to beings of reason, Suárez contends, we can hardly speak in metaphysics or natural philosophy at all; still less could we speak in logic, nor even, indeed, in theology. To take but one example, only the natural philosopher is suited to take up a discussion of the void—though of course there is no void—when reflecting on the nature of place, a topic which surely falls within his remit.
Second, vigilance on this score is in any event apposite: if the metaphysician fails to take it up, the topic of entia rationis will likely fall into the hands of the dialectician, who lacks the ability to see that they are not really knowable in themselves, because they are ot in any sense true beings. Consequently, to the extent that it makes sense to speak of knowledge with respect to them at all, entia rationis are knowable only ‘through some analogy and in connection with true beings.’
Altogether, then, Suárez regards the topic of entia rationis as unavoidable, because questions concerning them hover at the boundaries of legitimate sciences. To develop the case of natural philosophy slightly, one can appreciate that the question of whether there is (a) void will inevitably and appropriately arise in connection with questions of the nature of motion, place, and quantity. Suppose, in the end, we decide that there is no void, or even, more stridently, that the very notion of a void is confused or incoherent. We will then be entitled, or rather, required, to say, ‘There is no void.’ Without offering any justification for this conclusion, we can see that it is intended to say something true about what does not exist, but that the truth-maker for this truth will obviously involve not the void itself, for there is no void, but inter alia various facts about the categories of place and quantity. These categories of being, however, fall squarely within the purview of the natural philosopher. The metaphysician, then, who alone remains alert to questions about possibility and necessity, about existence and actuality, and about thought and its objects, will be uniquely placed to say of entia rationis what needs to be said of them.
One thing that needs to be said is that they have neither esse nor essentia, because they are not true or real beings. Some are tempted to infer on that basis that they must then be some other kind of being, perhaps ersatz or irreal being, because entia rationis surely must, after all, be beings of some kind or other. So construed, being comprehends both true being and these other kinds as well. But does it? Who, if not the metaphysician, is to address this question? (59-60)
(Ano, hlásím se k tučnému textu)
II. Do creatures of reason exist? Non et sic
Shields zde diskutuje DM d54s1n4, kde říká Suarez jasně, že "beings of reason must be granted". Přesto Shields uzavírá:
"The view which has emerged so far is underdetermined. ... It is ... as yet difficult to appreciate precisely what his affirmation of the existence of entia rationis is meant to affirm or why. It is, moreover, so far difficult to understand what he thinks an ens rationis is." (p. 63)
III. An analysis of entia rationis: Being objectively
"... a proper ens rationis has only objective being, that is the being bestowed upon it by its being thought. It, the ens rationis, is not itself the extrinsic denomination, but is rather that to which the extrinsic denomination is conjoined. The quesstion then lingers: to what is this extrinsic denomination conjoined? Suarez's answer - the right one, I think - is in word: nothing. As a first approach this may be appreciated by an exercise of substraction. Just as we have been so far willing to think of a wall as instrinsically unchanged by the substraction the extrinsic denomination of being seen or being known, so it is possible, supposed Suarez, to think of the extrinsic denomination being thought as unaltered by the subtraction of the thing thought, that is, in the case of de re knowledge, the object known." (p.66)
Sugestivní analogie.
IV. Creatures of reason and extrinsic denominations
Pomyslné jsoucno nelze ztotožnit s vnější denominací (jak to navrhoval např. Durandus)
V. Entia rationis and the analogy of proportionality
Heroický pokus popřít Suarezovu nauku o dvou typech jsoucnosti. I když Suarez výslovně rozlišuje mezi reálnou a pomyslnou jsoucností, ve skutečnosti prý skrze analogii proporcionality chápe Suarez pomyslná jsoucna jako čirá nic a řeč a myšlení o nich jako kontrafaktuální.
"So far we may find something unsatisfactory in Suarez's account. He repeatedly said that although entia rationis have no true or real being, they do enjoy objective being, a view sometimes put forward adverbially as the claim that entia rationis exist only objectively. His speaking in these ways may leave the impression that he means to distinguish various kinds of being, so that his solution to the problem of non-existents is after all Meinongian: being comprises both real being and another kind, namely objective being, just as for Meinong the extension of object (Gegenstand) is wider than the extension of existence since there are both existing and non-existing objects. This impression may be further reinforced by the manner in which Suarez posed and answered the following question: what sort of being do beings of reason have? He answered this question by claiming that the being they have, the only being they have, is the being captured by an analogy of proportionality. So one may conclude that if they have this form of being, then they have some form of being, and the kind of being to which entia rationis belong is precisely the kind circumscribed by this form of analogical predication. Then the only question remaining would be: what sort of being is that?
In answering this question. I maintain, we come to a fuller understanding of why, all things considered, the kind of being in question is no kind, that is, that being of reason do not exist." (p. 68)
"This ... is how we should understand the suggestion that beings of reason and real beings enjoy only an analogy of proportionality with respect to being. Suarez was not committing himself to there being two forms of being, each a species of some broader genus of being, such as subsistence and existence or true being and objetive being. Rather he was maintaining more starkly that beings of reason have nothing in common with real beings. ... Because it is nothing in itself, an ens rationis cannot ground any form of analogy, proportional or otherwise. Still, insisted Suarez, it suffices that it be conceived after the manner of something grounding such an analogy. In this sense its being so though is directly akin to its being conceived as enduring. It is conceived as if enduring and thus inherits such a feature by an act of the mind alone.
This, again, reflects the counterfactual character of Suarez's approach. No being of reason exists. Still we find ourselves adverting to them when engaging in physics, metaphysics, logic, theology, and the creative arts. At each moment we entertain any such notion, we think of it as if it existed, though it does not; and such penumbral duration as a being of reason enjoys lasts exactly as long as our act of cognition and no longer." (p.71)
VI. Entia rationis and efficient causation
Suarez tvrdí (zhruba, jsou v tom interpretační nejasnosti), že pomyslná jsoucna nemají žádné příčiny, kromě účinné. Shileds má k objasnění Suarezova stanoviska tuto pěknou analogii:
"If entia rationis do not exist, it is difficult to appreaciate how they might be implicated to the causal nexus. Yet, they seem to be. We sometimes pursue possibilities that we fail to realize; we say that the fate of Antigone caused us to tremble; and we speak of an author as creating here latest work of fiction. Given his view it is therefore understandable that Suarez devoted considerable space to reflecting on this issue, focusing especiallz on efficient causation. While he simply denied that beings of reason have final, formal, or material causes, he allows that there is at least one datum that requires their having an efficient cause of some sort." (p. 72)
"The causation thus ends in the changes effected in the intellect: 'all that efficient [causation] is terminated - as to a terminus of real production - at the formal concept of the mind itself, and it stops there.' From that point forward, urged Suarez, no further causation is required or possible. To expect more is akin to inquiring, after allowed that an opaque object has interrupted a ray of light: yes, but after the light is interrupted, what actually causes the shadow?" (p. 73)
VII. Conclusion
"Metaphysicians deal with beings but not with entia rationis. This is because entia rationis are not knowable, which in turn derives from the fact that they lack real being, and thus any trace of essence. Even so entia rationis somehow force themselves upon the attention of the metaphysician. They show up unbidden as objects of thought and reference throughout a full range of intellectual and creative pursuits. It is tempting, in view of the inevitability of their arrival upon the scene, to regard them as beings in their own right - if not fully fledged beings, then subsistent beings, the sort of beings which simply happen not to exist completely. Suarez staunchly resisted this temptation by treating entia rationis as existing only objectively, as objects of thought whose appearance and endurance rests solely upon the activity of actually existing intellects.
In presenting this approach to the problem of entia rationis Suarez made free and repeated use of counterfactual language and did so in a way that enmeshed him in no ontological commitment beyond what he had already accepted in his role as metaphysician. Consequently, in treating them, he makes no commitment to any kind of being beyond the kinds of beings he regarded as categorically contenanced. Rather, he urged that a being of reason is someting indicated by an extrinsic denomination and is such that it would be the actual object of a thought should that thought have an actual object. An extrinsic denomination may point to an object, but nothing about its pointing guarantees that the object to which it points cooperates by being present and pointed out.
Consequenlty, on Suarez's tethered counterfactul account we may speak coherently of a being of reason that is not; and we may sensibly speak of de re thought about what is not. Concerning both of these initiallz counterintuitive theses, Suarez was on perfectly sound ground. ... " (p.73-4)
Disputace 54, kde Suarez rozebírá pomyslná jsoucna, je asi jediná, o níž jsem si myslel (a stále si myslím), že ji znám dokonale. Strávil jsem s každým řádkem této disputace mnoho času. Přesto Shields přišel s alternativní četbou této disputace a připisuje Suarezovi svou brilantní a sugestivní teorii. Anebo lze přeci jen Suareze takto číst? Je zřejmé, že je Suarezův text přes svou zdánlivou jasnost a přímočarost vposledku obtížně uchopitelný. Pokud je nevyčerpatelnost náhledů, které získáme opakovanou četbou, kriteriem "velkých knih" (jak si to myslí Mortimer Adler,
16.07.2012), pak je asi třeba zařadit Suarezovy
Metafyzické disputace do kánonu velkých knih západní filosofie.
Vposledku se jedná o téma závažných metafyzických důsledků: Je náš intelekt tvořivý a schopný dávat objektům jakési pomyslné bytí? Nebo není a vše, co se zdá jako pomyslné bytí je jen jakoby (kontrafaktuálně) uchopené reálné bytí? Zdá se, že k první alternativě, řekněme "umírněně idealistické" má sklon tomistická tradice, zatímco k druhé, řekněme "striktně realistické" tradice skotistická.
Pronikavým způsobem analyzuje problematiku eliminace pomyslného způsobu bytí Lukáš Novák ve své převratné knize
Scire Deum esse, kap. 7.1 (
24.11.2011). Novák se také (z důvodů strikntího receptivismu našeho intelektu) kloní k eliminaci pomyslných jsoucen. K vysvětlení jejich kontrafatuality by možná posloužily současné teorie fikce a předstírání (
30.04.2012etc)
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Jorge Secada (Virginia):
Suarez on Continuous Quantity
Shrnutí B.Hilla z úvodu:
“Suarez’s most important contribution to the discussion of continuity was his recognition and articulation of the possibility of a dense yet discontinuous quantity. Density is the property that between any two members of a series there is a always at least a third. And discontinuity is the denial that two quantities are joined by a common terminus. To be discontinuous, two quantities would have to be joined by no termini whatsoever. Suarey explicitly formulated the conceptual possibility of such a series and even formulated all of the elements needed for an argument on its behalf. When Suarez seemed to reject this possibility and equate density with continuity, Secada argues that Suarey really meant to dismiss this as a real possibility.” (p. 8)
“Thus the best way to understand modern discussion of continuous quantity is as a series of clarifications and developments of the traditional Aristotelian-Suarezian notion rather than one of ‘conceptual ruptures and revolutions’ in the concept. According to Hattab [sic! Hill zde přeskočil ze Secady na Hattab], Suarez was a ‘tragic hero’ in the Scientific revolution. He was heroic for his tireless and brillian efforts to save Scholastic physics, yet tragic for the fact that his solutions to the problem of education of forms in the end led to the rise of the mechanical metaphysics of the ‘ne philosophers’ of the seventeenth century.” (p.8)
Hlavní výsledek analýzy (čerpající především z DM 40):
“Recent work shows that the Cartesian and early modern mathematical conception of matter had its roots in Aristotelian discussion of mechanics. Of course, this is not to deny that there was also a profound conceptual change. In this context one should not underestimate the import of Descartes’ unification of arithmetic and geometry, which allowed him to conceive of corporeal shape as quatitative and not qualitative, nor of the truly original ontological doctrines that a substance can be constituted solely and essentially as a thinking thing and that thought is an ontologically significant boundary. It is also true, however, that even those revolutionary moves took place within massive structures of conceptual continuity. The notion of continuity presents us with a non-unique case of a central common concept spanning across radically different ontologies and contenxts of use. Generally put, the transit from Scholasticim to post-Cartesian early modern philosophy is the undoing of Aristotelianism, the ‘middle way’ bewteen Plato and the atomist empiricists. In the seventeenth century Descartes represented the Platonist alternative to Suarez and the Aristotelians, while the corpuscularians Gassendi and Locke represented the empiricist alternative. It is not clear that the Aristotelians could not have in principle assimilated the challenge of the new physics and that their downfall did not depend in part on non-philosophical, religious, social, and political factors.” p. 86
Podobně jako jsem již zmínil v souvislosti s úvodem B. Hilla (viz
20.08.2012), je podle mého názoru třeba klást větší důraz na "pohled zevnitř", tj. vlastní vývoj v rámci vlastní scholastické kultury - tj. nejde jen o to, že by Descartes a Locke (či Hobbes) zničili scholastickou kulturu zvnějšku. Často tento vnější novověký filosofický vývoj jen vyhrocoval stanoviska, která byla přítomná
v barokní filosofické kultuře samé. (To naznačují i Des Chene a především Hattab v násl. příspěvcích knihy).
