Metaphysics, Philosophy

More Than A Feeling: Metaphysical Intuition in Aristotle and Bergson, Part Three.

by Dave Seng

Part two can be found here.

Aristotle provides a framework for understanding reality based on foundationalism and the idea that the first principles of reality can be known, either through sense perception, empirically, or intellectually through reasonable demonstration. Intuition is the foundational aspect of sense data and non-discursive reasoning because it apprehends immediate self-evident truths. In Aristotle’s epistemology, human beings are hardwired with a latent ability or capacity to apprehend the world around them. Our rational abilities seem to be tuned to comprehending reality. When the mind is functioning correctly, it makes no sense for someone to assert that they are having a perception of an object and claim at the same time that it does not exist. In ordinary human sense experience, it is impossible to separate a perception from actual existence. The Aristotelian premise that the external world is knowable is based on the common sense judgment that perception is awareness of external objects. This human capacity of apprehending immediate self-evident truths is the rational intuition to which Aristotle points us.

Perhaps the Aristotelian position that describes human knowledge and the interaction between the self and the world can be understood as “embodied intuitive rationalism.” (Aristotle points us in this direction throughout his works but especially in his work On the Soul.) His argument suggests that humans have an inherent capacity through memory, imagination, the intellect, and use of sense perception (empiricism) to make meaning and intelligibility out of the world around them. If this is true, then in human cognition, the body and mind work together in a symbiotic relationship. If the nature of human beings is essentially rational, and dependent on and directed toward external reality, then a proper understanding of intuition is an essential element of embodied rationalism. To be embodied means to have an innate capacity of intuitive reasoning which allows one to grasp the fundamental first principles of reality.

If there is a kind of embodied intuitive rationalism that all humans possess, there might be a significant implication for Bergson’s approach to metaphysics. Some concluding thoughts are in order. While Bergson’s text An Introduction to Metaphysics can be read as an extended critique of Kant’s transcendental idealism, his description of metaphysics as the rejection of symbols and analysis is misplaced. If human beings are essentially rational, it is hard to figure out how analysis, reason, and symbols for communication are not helpful when struggling to think critically about the most important questions of life and reality. Language, analytical reasoning, and the examination of evidence are simply the ways human beings rationally make sense out of reality. Analysis and symbols are used in everyday life and it is impossible to imagine how anyone could live a significantly meaningful life without the use of symbols, analysis, and critical reasoning. It is why parents tell toddlers to “use your words.” Words provide meaning and structure to reality. If Aristotle is correct, all things tend towards their nature, including human nature. If the nature of human kind is to be rational then analysis, examination, evaluation, the use of symbols, and intellectual demonstration are essential and must be used to make sense and order out of the world. Reason is what human beings use to explore the ultimate questions and theories of reality. Discarding reason or throwing out the affirmation of rationalism is not the correct approach to metaphysics.

Bergson’s approach to philosophy is similar to Descartes. He starts with the immediate awareness of the self and distrust of sense data in providing a reliable understanding of reality. Bergson goes further than Descartes, however, and demonstrates an even stronger distrust of external reality than did Descartes. Even mental concepts, because they are products of analysis, render an artificial understanding of reality (74). Bergson explains that if metaphysics is to be a serious project, “it must transcend concepts in order to reach intuition” (75). What is clear from Bergson, is that reason, abstraction, concepts, and analytical thought will never allow one to correctly understand reality. Intuition, for Bergson is the rejection of critical discourse, observation, evaluation, and reason in general. Bergson’s understanding of intuition is irrational and he says quite clearly that the correct way to understand reality is not through analysis or reason. On the other hand, Aristotle holds that intuition is that which apprehends immediate self-evident truths which provide the basis for interpreting reality to a very high degree of accuracy. Reason, whether it is understood as the evaluation of empirical evidence or through the cognitive intellectual processes of the mind alone, is an integral part of what it means to be human and should not be thrown out when examining the great questions of existence.

In some ways, Bergson lays the groundwork for the later twentieth century existentialists such as Martin Heidegger. These thinkers believe that human passions and moods are superior to reason in interpreting reality. Heidegger, in his work, What is Metaphysics? claims that the mood of dread is what opens one up to a proper understanding of being and non-being. Some of these philosophers put moods, intuition, and mystical experience into the category of the nonrational—that which is apart from reason, but not necessarily against reason. Even if the nonrational is a valid category for knowledge development, Bergson goes further and ultimately embraces the irrational. For Aristotle, intuition is not in the realm of the nonrational, or irrational, but a pre-discursive starting point for reason and science itself—and really for any body of knowledge that can be discovered, collected, categorized, and developed.

Bergson might be right in the sense that there could be things in life that are not completely rationally analyzable, such as human love, true friendship, great works of art, indescribable aesthetic or religious experience, but he goes astray by rejecting reason and substituting intuition as the only valid way to interpret reality. Bergson’s concept of intuition must be evaluated, checked, or modified by sound reason and empiricism. Many philosophers, including Aristotle, believe that there is an element of intuition in human knowledge. Aristotle’s approach, as it turns out, is correct. Intuition, sense experience, and reason must work together—not against each other—in the quest for knowledge.

Works cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 2. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 8. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Bergson, Henri. An Introduction to Metaphysics. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 55. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999

Ethics, Happiness, Philosophy

Eudaemonia: An Existential Exploration

by Dave Seng

Call no man happy until you know the nature of his death. — Herodotus, Clio, I, 32.

But we must add ‘in a complete life’. For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy. – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.

This is a follow up to my post: Wisdom, Virtue, and Happiness.

In this post, we revisit the moral and ethical elements of the classical conception of eudaemonia and explore the implications of happiness as the final cause of our lives. An examination of the moral or ethical definitions of happiness is important because the psychological definitions of happiness as desire and fulfillment are often fleeting, vague, and temporal. Further, our desires are often misplaced and we become misguided in a false pursuit of happiness. Nonetheless, the issue of what constitutes happiness is valid. “Man wishes to be happy, and only wishes to be happy, and cannot wish not to be so,” writes Blaise Pascal. On the question of what moves human desire, John Locke tells us “happiness and that alone.” In fact, many philosophers—from a variety of perspectives—have made happiness the primary object of human action (which, by the way, implies an ethical element). Here I’m thinking of philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, or J.S. Mill. Happiness and its pursuit seems to be a universal quest for humanity and the human impulse for happiness seems to be intuitively correct. Therefore, seeking the correct definition of happiness is important for several reasons. As noted in my previous post, social scientists are able to talk about the need for human happiness without giving a definition of it. Statistics mean little if no definition or perhaps a wrong definition of happiness is given. However, if we can define happiness correctly, we will have a better understanding of how to attain it.

Wisdom is the discovery and understanding of first principles combined with the virtue of using our knowledge well. In the classical Western tradition, Eudaemonia is among the first principles in correctly understanding happiness. It is the idea that happiness as the highest good of the individual is achieved rationally without the extremes of excessive repression or inordinate indulgence. Happiness understood as the harmony and consonancy of a rationally well lived life will help in understanding why it is thought to be the final end or purpose in human activity.

In this sense, happiness is said to be the goal or final end of mankind. We begin at the end as T.S. Eliot reminds us. In this case, the end is the purpose or reason for the goal-directed activity that all of us partake in one way or another. What is the end of human existence? Happiness. This is why many philosophers have said that the happy life is one with a good ending. Think of someone who is suffering with chronic pain or experiencing genuine existential tragedy in his or her life but is also happy. A play or TV show is considered a comedy although the characters themselves display a painful existence and many tragic flaws. Think of the talented genius, gifted artist, or young entrepreneur whose life is suddenly cut short in a horrible way. We call this a catastrophe, not happiness. I think this is one reason Herodotus reminds us to “call no man happy until you know the nature of his death”. Happiness, therefore, is seen as the end, purpose, or goal-directed nature of human existence and what it means to be and become in this temporary life. It is that which mankind tends toward—as all things tend toward the fulfillment of their nature.

Understanding that there is nothing beyond happiness for which humans seek, Aristotle uses the term happiness as the ultimate good, last end, or summum bonum (highest good).

“The chief good,” he writes, “is evidently something final . . . Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing. Therefore, we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. Such a thing, happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else.” (Nicomachean Ethics)

Aristotle supports his argument that happiness is the final end of human activity with the notion of self-sufficiency or completeness. It would make no sense to pursue happiness as a final end if it were incomplete or something in addition is needed to make it complete. One would run into an endless regression of desire fulfillment. Ultimately, the happy life leaves nothing to be desired. As Aristotle explains:

“The self-sufficient we now define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness to be; and further we think it most desirable of all things, without being counted as one good thing among others—if it were so counted it would clearly be made more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods; for that which is added becomes an excess of goods, and of goods the greater is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action” (Nicomachean Ethics)

When you ask someone why they do what they do, you will find that happiness is the chief end of human activity. Perhaps you have questioned someone, “why do you work so hard?” They might say, so I can meet the needs of my family and buy things.” But when you drill down and ask why do you want to meet your family’s needs or buy things, you will discover that happiness is the ultimate pursuit. Whatever we do, it is with the end of some good in mind. Happiness understood as the harmony and consonancy of a rationally well-lived life will help guide one in making the right goal directed choices for their life. This is why Aristotle explains that “human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue.”

It is simply impossible to cover the entire range of human happiness in just two posts. I hope to come back to it again. There is much more to be discussed such as the function of wisdom and the happy life, the role of virtue in the pursuit of happiness, and perhaps the social aspects of happiness as the common good. Nonetheless, understanding happiness as the primary goal-directed nature of human existence is the primary first principle one must grasp.

Until I get to this topic again, I recommend the following for further reading:

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Aquinas’ section on happiness in his Summa Theologica

Josef Pieper’s book Happiness and Contemplation

Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness

Miguel de Unamuno’s book Tragic Sense of Life

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Descartes, Kant, and Why Metaphysics Matters

by Dave Seng

“Let us call to our aid those who have attacked the investigation of being and philosophized about reality before us.” – Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 3.

Being is the fundamental object of study for the metaphysician. In this essay, I will outline why the study of Being as Being is foundational, and perhaps the most basic to all other issues related to philosophy. This is not a purely academic question or one that is the sole concern of philosophers. As the Canadian philosopher George Grant reminds us, all civilizations have paradigms of knowledge and such paradigms dramatically shape every part of the society (36). The way we think about the ultimate issues and conditions of reality impacts the way we think and interact with each other in society. I have become convinced that the more I study the nature of Being, the more connections I find at the human level of technology, economics, law, and education.

To start, Being includes all reality including physical nature, conceptual abstractions, essences, and potentialities. In Aristotelian and Thomist terms, Being incorporates all that which is in act and potential, being and essence. The concepts of essence, act, and potency are the most helpful and importat for understanding reality. Philosophers from the time of Heraclitus to Martin Heidegger have tried to unlock the mystery of Being because it is believed that understanding Being leads one to what it means to be and become in this world. When one makes sense of Being, it is easier to make helpful judgments about reality, whether it is one or many, completely fluid or essentially static, ordered or chaotic, and good or bad, or perhaps both. If the world is essentially chaotic, as Heraclitus believed, how does one live meaningfully and “become” in such a world? Being includes both being and becoming, essences, values, and change and how one answers these questions have important implications for human life and activity. These questions are foundational to human flourishing. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) believed that these kinds of metaphysical questions are unavoidable. He tells us in the preface to the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason:

For it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to such inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity. Besides, these pretended indifferentists, however much they may try to disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes on the language of the schools, unavoidably fall into metaphysical declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much contempt. (1, italics in original)

It is true that in today’s intellectual climate, Being is thought to be unimportant or impossible to figure out. But have you ever heard someone—perhaps Kant would call an indifferentist—turn around and give her explanation for doing something based on her understanding of reality? If someone were to tell you that all reality is simple matter and mechanics, you would have a good idea of what she thinks on other important issues. Metaphysical questions are unavoidable and everyone seems to have something to say about these ultimate matters even when they claim they are indifferent or agnostic to them. Our understanding of reality shapes many other things in our lives. The question is, “are we going to have a well-developed notion of Being or not”?

One way to evaluate a philosophy or particular philosopher is to examine how the concept of Being is handled. Does the philosophy illuminate and help us to understand the nature of Being or is the issue sidestepped or simply untouched? Does the philosophy help us to understand the nature of existence a little more or does the philosophy or philosopher think the attempt is futile? These are the questions we are going to keep in mind as we explore the philosophical assumptions of Rene Descartes in regards to his conception of Being. This time, however, we will use Kant and Aristotle as helpful guides.

Descartes was an interesting and important philosopher who contributed much to the rational approach to philosophy. And he really did not have that much to say about Being as Being in the way Aristotle did. Descartes’ main project was to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul. Since he was very skeptical of the fundamental principles of Being—act, potency, essences, and most of causation—he ended up painting himself into a corner, and the only way he could describe physical reality was by way of mechanism. In this aspect of his thought, he really is close to Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes. When it comes to physical reality all we need to do is “render ourselves masters and possessors of nature” (285). (Along with Bacon and Hobbes, Descartes was very triumphant about the scientific “new method” and mankind’s newfound destiny to master nature. Today many philosophers of technology are exploring the question of whether or not something should be done simply because it can be done.) Descartes was very clear in his Meditations on First Philosophy that he was indifferent to matters of metaphysics or the claims of ultimate reality. If the issue was not immediately clear, certain, and indubitable, he would reject it. Of course, Descartes’ metaphysical skepticism was based on theological grounds because he did not want to assume the purposes or mind of God regarding nature. Nonetheless, his interpretive scheme has consequences. Metaphysics, according to Descartes is seen as doubtful. And those following Descartes believed that the project of laying out the first principles of reality was a worthless task.

This, however, brings us again to the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant’s entire project in his Critique of Pure Reason was to revive the corpse of metaphysics. He took upon the task of reviving metaphysics when in his day most scholars believed such a project was pointless. He reminds us,

Yet in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must unquestionably be looked upon as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind (metaphysica naturalis). For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of speculation. (19)

For Kant, metaphysics is an innate natural disposition of every human being. It is unavoidable. It would be impossible to go into all of Kant’s philosophy at this point. But in summary, much of Kant’s thought highlights the importance of basic laws and principles that must be in place to render anything intelligible, including metaphysical knowledge. Aristotle says much the same thing in his Posterior Analytics and Analytics (and, of course, was the first philosopher to elucidate the human need to understand the first principles of reality in his Metaphysics). The philosopher Daniel Sullivan reminds us that, “our most commonplace expressions of optimism or pessimism, selfishness or high-mindedness, idealism or cynicism, carry along with them unacknowledged assumptions about the nature of the universe as a whole and man’s place in it” (7). Why does metaphysics matter? Because in unpredictable ways, an understanding of reality is assumed in the conversations we have, the books we read, the movies we watch and the political associations we keep. All these, and more imply a philosophy or perspective on reality and life.

Works Cited

Descartes, Rene. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 28. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Grant, George. Technology & Justice. House of Anansi Press, 1986.

Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Ethical Treatises, The Critique of Judgement. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 39. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Sullivan, Daniel J. An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition. Tan Books, 1957.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Introduction to Metaphysics part One: The Primacy of Wisdom

by Dave Seng

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The study of philosophy is that we may know not what men have taught but what the truth of things are – St. Thomas Aquinas

Metaphysics is a particularly challenging field because it underlies all we understand to be regarding the ultimate questions of life and reality and, further because it has such a long history. It is said that the literature covering the field of philosophy is the largest of all academic fields. Metaphysics, as a sub-discipline of philosophy, is the rational and critical investigation of Being or reality. It is held by the classical philosophers and those throughout the middle ages that metaphysics is the pursuit of wisdom through the intellectual discovery of the first principles and causes of reality. Aristotle explains that the genuinely wise individual is one who knows the first principles of something—not just that something exists but why and provides the example that it is one thing to know that fire is hot, but it is more significant to know why fire is hot. True wisdom goes beyond the knowledge which sense perception provides (because everyone to some extent has common sense perception) but to the rational understanding and ultimate wisdom of why something is the case. This post is the first in a series which will serve as a basic introduction to the field of metaphysics. Using Aristotle as our guide, we will discover why the understanding of metaphysics, or the study of reality, is the first and primary sort of wisdom.

In the Western intellectual trajectory, from the time of Plato and Aristotle, and through the middle ages, metaphysics was the chief end of philosophy. From about the Enlightenment to the modern period, metaphysics has fallen on hard times (modern-day critics come from various schools of thought known as “deconstruction”, “poststructuralism”, “critical theory” or other forms of postmodernism). Nonetheless, if a philosopher can’t speak intelligently about metaphysics there is nothing of significance left for a philosopher to discuss. For example, if a philosopher is a strict materialist, then he or she is not doing philosophy but, rather, science—no matter how creative or ingenious their argument might be. Science is a good and worthwhile enterprise but it is not philosophy.

The first book ever entitled “Metaphysics” comes from Aristotle. Aristotle’s Metaphysics examines the principles, axioms, and properties that underlie all reality and which apply to all fields of study. That is why he calls metaphysics “first philosophy” or the study of the most universal principles. I will point out that the skeptic cannot doubt the existence of Being. When one asks the question, “does something exist”? The skeptic might say “no” but miss the point that the question itself is something that exists and needs rational inquiry. Plato follows this line of thought in his dialogue entitled “Gorgias” and concludes that the skeptic can never say anything positive regarding reality. Try as one might, the fact of Being, or reality, cannot be denied.

When Aristotle refers to the content of his Metaphysics as “first philosophy” or simply “sophia” he is speaking about wisdom. From an Aristotelian stance, all of philosophy is said to be the love of “first philosophy” and should be inspired by the love of wisdom, which is the love of metaphysics. So what is this wisdom which should inspire all of philosophy? Further, why should reality be the primary starting point for the search of wisdom? And why should anyone be interested in this approach to wisdom in the first place? The answer to these kinds of questions rests, like most things in human life, in the ends or purpose of the enterprise. The end or purpose of metaphysics is to explain the most universal principles of reality, to offer a comprehensive view of all that exists, and through this inquiry offer wisdom regarding reality and the highest good of human existence.

Metaphysics speaks to the ultimate questions which no one can really avoid. Questions such as “is all reality ultimately in flux and change as Bergson, the process philosophers, and some of the pre-Socratics suggest, or is there a basic order and natural rhythm to the universe as other classical and contemporary philosophers claim? If there is a determined order to the universe, where is the place for human freedom, intuition, and non-rational ways of knowing? What is the origin, destiny, and fabric of reality? Is it always wrong to torture babies for fun?” We all have notions and ideas about the nature of reality, human nature, and the role of ethics in our lives. Far from being purely semantic or academic concerns, questions of metaphysics are part of our everyday experience and are ultimately grounded in our understanding of reality. In these introductory discussions, we’ll discover why we start with metaphysics and why it is unwise to let epistemology drive metaphysics. The point of metaphysics, then, is to illuminate our understanding of reality and offer a course to wisdom. The purpose (or end) of metaphysics, is to offer wisdom regarding the ultimate nature of reality and through rational deliberation, we can then apply this wisdom with intention and purpose to our own lives. This is why many have thought that wisdom is the highest good of the human mind.

For a more complete treatment see: Kane, Robert. “The Ends of Metaphysics.” International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XXXI., No. 4, Issue No. 132, 1993, 413-428. Kane’s article served as an inspiration to this post.