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The Revival of Catholic Philosophy: Theory and PracticeHugh Williams, PhD Candidate Dominican College Abstract
What is Catholic philosophy and is it worth reviving? James Swindal has outlined much of what is at issue.[1] Catholic philosophy, in its essence he says, is concerned with the mystery of being and its import for the question of our relationship to our selves, the world and the Divine. Swindal suggests that it is this concern that unifies Catholic philosophy and that it is the enquiry itself and the ways of thinking and acting it fosters that are important and not the particular label “Catholic”. The recent debate between John Caputo and Kenneth Schmitz provides a much closer look at the substantive philosophical issues involved.[2] Because such exchanges are as instructive as they are rare, this recent exchange will provide an initial frame and focus for my own reflections on this question of Catholic philosophy and its future. It is a helpful perspective on the recent history of Catholic philosophy, the intellectual resources it may offer us, the pluralism within this history and, most importantly, the lineaments of the debate surrounding its present status and prospects. This particular debate can assist those of us who need to know something about what is at stake before we can commit ourselves to any substantive course of enquiry. Lineaments of A DebateAs there is modern philosophy’s obsession with certainty in knowledge, Caputo charges there is the anxious neo-scholastic obsession with realism. There is a similarity in temper between Descartes’ famous methodological doubts in his pursuit of certain knowledge and Catholic philosophy’s ontological questioning that traditionally is seen as leading to a knowledge of God. Caputo’s critique claims that the scholastic tradition has secretly tried to measure God within the limits of an essentially Greek conceptual scheme and thus has committed idolatry. Schmitz counters that this is both a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the tradition. In Caputo’s view there is the risk of retreating into pretend questioning and into the contrived dialectic of a strain of Catholic academic philosophy that has dominated the field. If this strain should continue to dominate he claims, we would miss the prophetic and iconoclastic dimension in recent post-modern thought. It is this post-modern turn in philosophy which, according to Caputo, provides Catholic thinkers with a crucial opportunity to restore to its proper status the true origins of Catholic philosophy before the scholastic period. Caputo believes this can begin with a proper reading of Augustine. Augustine’s philosophical thinking, he argues, was infused by a profound religious passion based upon a real confrontation with the ontological question of being as experienced through his own human contingency and finitude. Some would argue that this opportunity begins much further back with a proper reading of Plato whom, it is claimed, has been sorely misread and even dismissed by the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition.[3] Derrida, Caputo suggests, is the one world class contemporary philosopher who most clearly revives this prophetic and iconoclastic dimension of the general philosophical tradition.[4] He raises the themes of gift, friendship, and justice in an Augustinian temper. These, Caputo says, are situations both hidden and revealed and so are taken to have the character of religious phenomena. Blurring the boundaries between religion and philosophy is healthy for human reason; we now need to think in the tension between the philosopher and the prophet where neither dominates or silences the other. Caputo’s phenomenology of religion is concerned with the impossible.[5] This is a conscious counterpoint to the metaphysics of being with its concern for the fundamental conditions of the possible. The more successful or satisfied such a metaphysics becomes the less faith is needed. Schmitz acknowledges Catholic philosophy’s marginalization.[6] This he sees as primarily due to its commitment to ontology and the question of being as a mode of fundamental enquiry which has been understood, in the Catholic tradition, as integral to human thinking and to the humanizing conversation of philosophy. Schmitz also argues that Catholic philosophy has developed and continues to develop by way of encounter with viewpoints of significant difference. Yet there has been a tendency of its critics and detractors to contain the tradition and its commitments as having little possibility for development, while counterpositions such as Neitzsche’s and Heidegger’s and now Derrida’s are regarded as full of promise. He suggests there is an unspoken agenda here that goes to the heart of modernity’s struggle with what it sees as the heteronomic tendency in religion and in Catholic thought in particular. Caputo and Schmitz, it would seem, agree that a major point of engagement for their very different philosophical commitments is in the experience and understanding of human contingency. According to Schmitz’s phenomenological and anthropological recovery of the experience of gift, the human creature is viewed as constituted by his dependence upon the Divine act of creation.[7] This remains a central tenet of the mainstream Catholic philosophical tradition. The receptivity of the creature is not accidental but has to do with the very constitution of being human. Its being in its very origins is receptivity. It happens at the level of creation itself as a reception constitutive of one’s very existence. It is a notion different in kind from most explanatory first principles that set the conditions of the possible for all beings inclusive of the deity, and so it is easily misunderstood. It reaches and leads beyond ordinary metaphysics into the dangerous and philosophically illicit realm of mystery, prayer, and worship; yet it is, in Schmitz’s view, the only explanation appropriate for the phenomenon of creation as a whole…. for the whole of contingent being. Thus the contingency of human existence and the world is recognized and deeply appreciated in Catholic thought. This very structure is seen as gift understood as religious phenomenon and as a fundamental matter of faith that has an ontological significance. It has been Catholic philosophy’s primary concern and mission to give some rational, and ultimately metaphysical, explication for this phenomenon. Caputo’s emphasis remains thoroughly phenomenological. He holds firmly that any effort to think through conceptually and thus explain away this utter contingency by grounding it in a divine absolute is at risk of idolatry.[8] Negative philosophical theology is still at risk of the naïve intellectualization of our situation. This is, in his view, a dishonest metaphysical hedge against the profound revelation of mystery lying behind our persistent existential anxiety that continues to elude any satisfactory philosophical and propositional explication. The phenomenological counter tendency, according to Caputo, begins with Augustine and continues in Derrida’s recent work. It involves a breaking away from the Scholastic horizon of meaning and its dependency upon the Aristotelian causal scheme, and moves towards a healthier Jew-Greek mode of reasoning. Caputo’s critique asserts that the neo-scholastic “God” is an invention of our own secret measure, which is then falsely posited as the intellectual solution for our metaphysical greed and anxiety.[9] This is the onto-theologic circle. Yet Schmitz is not convinced, and argues that Catholic neo-scholasticism, if read correctly, avoids this and instead understands God as the “being than which none greater can be conceived”. This uncreated being that extends beyond the grasp of the possible, beyond which there is no other thinkable, is beyond the bounds of the created order of beings and thus is incomparable – a perfect being beyond greater and lesser, and even, objective and subjective measures and distinctions. Schmitz sees a revisionist Heideggerian ontology as the underlying philosophical source of Caputo’s critique and which, ultimately, is the intellectual hinge for the postmodern turn.[10] It is an ontology where ultimately “no one” gives. The source of this gift of existence is ultimately indeterminate. If it is not regarded as indeterminate and is instead conceived as the gift of the creator, we are taken to be at risk of the external controls of an authority and power of divine stature. Modernity in its atheistic form has been pitted against any such relationship from its very beginning. Heidegger and Derrida, in Schmitz’s view, remain in essence committed to this same, if not atheistic, non-theistic position. Thus in Derrida, says Schmitz, there can be no true gift for it would degrade into a commercial power exchange and thus become corrupted. But the doctrine of Creatio ex Nihilo, Schmitz argues, establishes our relation to a Creator as constitutive of our very freedom and autonomy itself and so this structure cannot violate, in the same act in which it establishes, the creatures’ very act of existence. To take and not ask who gives, is not to avoid naively entering into a devaluing power exchange, it is to fundamentally misunderstand our very existence. By doing so we are at risk of becoming thieves.[11] In Schmitz’s interpretation of the Catholic tradition, our very humanness depends upon and is constituted by receptivity of the gift of existence. When we are truly awakened to this gift in thankfulness we enter into life as revelation and communication. Ultimately human desire and knowledge, writes Schmitz, is oriented in its essence to such transcendence and thus is free from any regrettable and limited measure.[12] God is beyond our metaphysical measures and yet is not totally inaccessible for our knowing and desire. Thomistic philosophy at its boldest holds that analogical knowledge of God is possible. It is a knowledge that always transcends our understanding in that our measured thinking is always discovering a meaning and signification that surpasses every attempted conceptual representation of that meaning.[13] Confronting Heidegger: Essence and ExistenceThus there is a dimension in Catholic philosophy’s fundamental concern that continues to elude precise definition and analysis. If we are able to say that Catholic philosophy’s fundamental concern is the mystery of being and leave it at that all would be well. But doubts and questions arise not only among our opponents, but also among our friends, and even within our own souls. Philosophy has been inspired and advanced by enquiry into these doubts and questions between and among various thinkers and within the souls of individual thinkers themselves. Catholic philosophy’s commitment to the notion of being, as much as it seems to have provided a way of thinking that is determinate and affirmative in its consideration of the fullness of reality in its diversity and unity, can be seen to raise as many questions as it has answered.[14] Heidegger charges implicitly that Catholic and Christian philosophy’s religious origins and commitments have rendered it naïve in its consideration of the fact of being. This has been considered by many to be one of the most serious and profound critiques of not only Catholic philosophy but of the entire tradition of Western philosophy.[15] A.D. Traylor retraces this important interpretation of Heidegger, which he sees as shared by Caputo. The problem it would seem lies primarily in the treatment of the relationship between essence and existence in the tradition where existence is subordinated to essence as idea and then ultimately as thought. It is the unrelenting rationalism of the tradition that shows itself in the onto-theologic God of Catholic metaphysics. Thus being becomes subordinated to the thinking, if not of man then of God, within an ultimate horizon of production and technique. Clearly this strikes at the heart of the tradition, or at least at its dominant interpretation. And as I will argue below it has implications for the relationship between philosophical theory and practice and the struggle to give definition to Catholic philosophy and philosophy itself. For then we may see in the subordination of existence to essence something very similar in the subordination of practice to theory in Catholic philosophy and philosophy in general. Raimondo Panikar has given a cogent summary of how this assumption and bias plays itself out in the Western tradition.[16] Our self-understanding, says Panikar, is based upon the ancient dogma of a two-legged tradition for the human being’s orientation to reality as a whole – thinking and being. Mind is taken to be the shepherd of being and being is expressed only as the mind tells it. The history of philosophy can be reduced to the variations on the relationship between mind and being – they are two, they are one, they are related, they are unrelated, and so on. Science arises to show us that thinking seen as mathematical measurement and calculation tells us how being will behave. Our thinking constructs concepts and conceptual systems that are ruled by the principle of non-contradiction. What I think must retain some stable definition over my time of thinking or I can not know what it is I am thinking about. Thinking then can reify being for it must assume being is what I’ve conceived it to be. Panikar adds that all our “oughts” follow because thinking tells us what being is and thus what truth and goodness are. Being is produced and fixed by thinking, ultimately. If being is not fixed by thinking because being is “thought” to be prior to thinking, it still must abide by thinking’s rules and measures which in turn become the rules of being. This is exactly what Caputo earlier referred to as traditional metaphysics’ preoccupation with the conditions of what ever is possible. In the end existence is subordinated to essence as the mind’s language of the possible. This is Western philosophy’s foremost presupposition; Heidegger is, perhaps, the one exception in Panikar’s summarized reading of the tradition. Of course it may be countered that Panikar is reading the tradition through the eyes of Heidegger in the first place and so, like Caputo, seriously misrepresents it. What we can agree on is that Heidegger’s critique does play a key role as an intellectual hinge between the modern and post-modern period in philosophy. This is perhaps why so many Catholic philosophers have felt compelled to engage him and yet have been unable to forge any clear consensus regarding the nature of his role in the revitalization of Catholic philosophy. The Mission of Hermeneutics(One Can Awaken Him Who Sleeps; One Cannot Awaken Him Who Pretends To Sleep)The misrepresentation of a tradition or of a thinker based upon misunderstanding is both the liability and stock of the philosophical trade. Aristotle misunderstood Plato; Thomas is said to have misunderstood Aristotle; Heidegger misunderstood Thomas and Aristotle; and so, post modern thought, perhaps, has set off in a misguided and dangerous direction. It is, nevertheless, the work of academic philosophy to work over these misunderstandings in sometimes painful detail again and again. Given this dissonance in philosophical discourse, it has been the fundamental mission of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to aid in this work. It does so in a manner where one is conscious of how one’s interpretative relationship with the author and the meaning of a text is fundamentally creative as well as clarifying. There is then necessarily some degree of interpretive freedom based upon the ambiguity and play in the text itself. We are not trying to establish precisely the intentions of the author. Because as, Gadamer has argued persuasively, the author’s self-understanding does not in itself offer the only reliable reference for one’s understanding of a rich and complex text and argument.[17] The author’s intention may provide key clues and guides, but it does not provide canonical status as to the meaning of a text. Such a position, if maintained, would be akin to a naïve correspondence theory of truth applied to hermeneutics. In this interplay between authors, text, and interpretive work we have a powerful illustration of the ancient problem of the One and the Many. We can ask why we should think it would be otherwise among fallible thinking creatures? A hermeneutic more aware of the creative play in interpretive work, then, might help us in our efforts to appreciate the creative promises and risks in the mounting litany of understandings and misunderstandings that make up the history of philosophical theorizing. Mitscherling’s recent provocative paper goes much further in its concerns. It breaches academic politeness in charging that Heidegger not only misunderstood but deliberately misrepresented key thinkers in the Western tradition for the sake of promoting his own theoretical agenda.[18] Mitscherling argues that Heidegger’s influence not only can lead to serious errors in theory but also to dangerous errors in practice, and so his authority needs to be overthrown. Theoretically, Heidegger misrepresents the essence – existence distinction and creates an exaggerated dichotomy where none is warranted. The theoretical problem may be the result of poor scholarship, but it has led to the disempowerment of human intelligence and practice, and to a profound despair of the human condition and prospect. It is as if we have been lulled to sleep by an intellectual giant who, at times at least, has pretended to sleep. Mitscherling briefly alludes to the practical implications of Heidegger’s theoretical work in view of his actions as a leading intellectual during the rise and establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany.[19] The issue as raised by Mitscherling, it seems to me, is this – does Heidegger’s philosophy contribute to indecision and cowardliness? Is there some relationship between Heidegger’s theoretical commitments and his seeming inability to resist directly the Nazi regime? Or is his philosophy the only possible response in the face of such a powerful political evil - to wait - to think deeply - and wait for change to come because anything one does or makes under the existing circumstances can only worsen that situation? As Dennis Schmidt has suggested, the apparent absence of overt concern over the injustice of the existing regime may have come from a radical conviction that a fundamental reconstruction of philosophical and political discourse was necessary before any authentic improvement could even become thinkable. Heidegger’s concern, it would seem according to this much more generous interpretation, extended far beyond that of Nazi Germany to that of the fate of occidental civilization. Mitscherling, it would seem, believes that this is to exonerate inaction which is truly a “cop out”. [20] Essence and Existence: Theory and PracticeA closer examination, then, of the relationship of the “essence” and “existence” distinction to that of the “theory” and “practice” distinction may provide key insights relevant to the future prospects for Catholic philosophy both within the university and the polis generally. There is an almost unquestioned belief among academics that academic philosophy is much more profound in its concern for theoretical dialectic than any concern for its application and relevance to practice.[21] The ironically complementary belief that philosophy then has little or no practical value is also prevalent. These biases combined, in my view, present serious problems for the future of philosophy generally and of Catholic philosophy in particular. Because philosophy has been viewed as largely irrelevant for jobs outside the academy or, as concerned with problems of much more theoretical importance than practical, there has been a retreat of philosophy from the agora to the ivory tower. This has been accompanied by the development of an arcane and overspecialized jargon. This, it has been persuasively argued, is bad for both philosophy and the polis. [22] As philosophers are viewed as not being well trained for jobs outside the academy, and as academic jobs shrink, fewer students can be attracted to major and graduate programs. This makes academic philosophy programs increasingly vulnerable to dwindling support and even attacks from university administrations. This ultimately means the diminishment of philosophy as an academic discipline. There is a bolder argument implicit in Mitzscherling’s criticism of Heidegger that this diminishment of philosophy means the diminishment of human reason and knowledge and thus the diminishment of the human person. Philosophical PracticeThe philosophical practice movement is playing a new and vital role in attempting to correct these biases that are working against the health of philosophy as a discipline and is trying to restore philosophy to its proper role in the life and practice of individuals, groups, and organizations. [23] I believe that this plight of academic philosophy in general parallels and overlaps the struggle and plight of Catholic philosophy and is relevant to any discussion of its renewal and revitalization. The suprising force of this issue of theory and practice, in my view, can be encountered in several ways as long as one remains awake or, more importantly, one does not pretend to sleep. Questioning: Encountering The Student ExistentiallyEvery year as I’ve had the privilege of encountering students, usually young adults though not always, some vital question thrusts itself upon me. The question always is both straightforward and profound in its authenticity. It is striking in that though it is usually related to some aspect of theoretical dialectic, it does not have the flavor of pretend questioning that most questions of academic dialectic often have for both instructors and students, if the truth be known. The examples are numerous and yet always remain instructive. In beginning any discussion in a philosophy course with students who have little or no familiarity with philosophy I’ve often tried to start by awakening them to the question of education. I say awaken because this seems very much to be what is at stake. Besides all the important things young people learn in schools, schooling also can lull human beings to sleep intellectually. A question as to what education is, is not very exciting, but it does attempt to draw attention to the students’ actual situation while at university. To ask how higher education might differ from high school education helps to give an edge to the question, and then to add soon after “what is philosophical education?” usually befuddles most students. The exciting and even disconcerting truth is that this question of what philosophical education is, is never finally settled even among teachers of philosophy. It was just such a discussion with students, and then with colleagues, that brought home to me how fundamental the “theory” and “practice” distinction is for not only understanding the history of, but also for resolving that there be a meaningful future for, philosophy, and Catholic philosophy in particular. The Phenomenology of Definition and The Socratic MethodThe appropriation and adaptation of the Socratic method by the philosophical practice movement gives clear evidence of the genuine philosophical roots of this movement and its growing relevance for any civilized and hopefully civilizing discourse both within and without the university. [24] In any discussion with students as to what education is, we seem naturally to come upon certain basic distinctions after getting by the automatic and unreflective reactions of the sort …. “it’s what will help me get and keep a job”. Why is this question and the associated debate important? In part, simply because it arises over and over again among thoughtful people concerned with the “care of their souls”. Recently someone offered here at my university, albeit casually, that “there are no certainties, all is relative”. It seems to me, that this comes very close to Socrates’ point of debate with the Sophists. In short, Socrates’ challenge is this - to seriously argue that there is no truth, and that truth is relative is a self-defeating way of thinking that undermines the effort of human knowing and perhaps even leads to despair, the very charge that Mitzscherling has recently brought against Heidegger’s philosophy. Perhaps one might grant this ….but what then is true and certain? Well… such an enquiry, if taken seriously among friends, must begin with the NKWTK attitude and the pursuit of the Socratic method. The Socratic Method
The question of knowledge soon arises naturally as we attempt to distinguish it from mere opinion. Is there really anything other than opinions, we ask ourselves? At this point I’m usually feeling hopeful - as I can see the groundwork being laid for a more in depth discussion of Plato. One of the surprising things that occurs in my experience, however, is the insight that education is not the sole possession of schools. This is, it seems, a genuine insight for many students as they try to define education. It brings before them the “contingency” of their present situation as a student at a particular university, and the further question of what advantage or “good” they are seeking from participation in this school of higher learning. It also throws up before me my responsibility as an instructor in higher learning. What exactly am I doing; and what is it we are trying to do during our relatively brief time together? What good do we seek? When I consider what philosophical education is with students I’m clearly in need of the authority of some text. Some introductory section from Plato’s Apology is read. This text usually helps illuminate what we mean by theoretical dialectic or, with less jargon, rational criticism. In a philosophical conversation some statement of belief is expressed and examined. It is criticized through an examination of its assumptions as we look for inconsistencies. The constructive dimension of the process is in trying to advance our beliefs or viewpoints by developing a new theory, a synthesis of something old and new perhaps. All this seems relatively benign, so why was Socrates prosecuted and then executed? This turn of events usually catches most students’ attention for a brief while. It is a learning opportunity regarding the dangerous side of philosophy, especially for the practitioner, and for his dialogue partner as well. Philosophy in its negative and critical aspect appeals to many independent- minded students. It has the capacity to expose the ignorance of authoritative experts, to show up what the expert does not know. I point out that this does not mean, in the Socratic tradition, that the philosopher has more knowledge; rather, he may discover a hole in the expert’s knowledge without necessarily knowing what might fill that hole. This, as in the story of Socrates, fatefully leads to trouble with the powers that be. (Whether a philosopher such as Socrates deserved his fate is another question worth discussing with young students, but it is beyond the scope of our present discussion.) All this is familiar, I’m sure, to any philosophy instructor. What, perhaps, is not so obvious is that this exploration remains solidly ensconced within the rational criticism of theory, the consideration and preoccupation with what we will come to characterize below as essences. What is missing is how philosophy, despite the difficulties, was concerned with practice from its very origins. I find it intriguing, now in hindsight, to consider why we would repeatedly overlook and even avoid this in the academy. It truly is an instance of being asleep and even at times pretending to sleep, in the face of something of fundamental importance. In this discussion with students our dialectic proceeded like clockwork, almost. What is education? Then we moved on to philosophical education, knowledge and opinion, the challenge through rational criticism to pretentious know-it-alls and so on. The unexpected insight into philosophy’s inexorable link with practice came with the simple definition of philosophy as the “love of wisdom”. What is the relationship between knowledge and wisdom? In our little discussion that day, I was more than willing to rest with the standard Socratic advantage of “knowing that one does not know”, knowing one’s own ignorance among those who think they know and are satisfied in their pretense of “knowing”. This was sufficient for our dialogue of the day. It was this advantage that was philosophical wisdom, so I thought. Then, in the last moments of the class, the student sitting against the wall near the back proposed hesitantly that perhaps wisdom also had to do with being able to put knowledge into practice. I remember being brought up short by this proposal. For I had been preparing the groundwork for the study of the Platonic theory of knowledge, which I thought was nicely illustrated through the problem of definition. This question of “putting into practice” revealed something of the profound limitations in the conventional interpretation of Plato. I say interpretation of Plato, because of the many risks of misunderstanding when it comes to this great and multi-faceted ancient thinker. In my reading of Plato it seems to me that he himself is not as enamored with his theory of the forms and of the Good as many of his critics, including Aristotle, would have us believe. [25] In the Philosopher King section of the Republic, for instance, the issue of philosophical theory and practice at times takes on a certain tragic poignancy and drama. A Brief History of Catholic Philosophy: An Existentialist ConjectureIn what follows, I will attempt to argue that the Platonic “error”, which traditional Catholic philosophy reacted to and sought to overcome in its forging of what Caputo has called the Aristotelian-Thomistic or neo-scholastic synthesis, was reduced to one primary error. [26] It was what I will now call “the forgetfulness of practice”. It was this that I believe Plato was attempting to correct in the Philosopher King with his exposition of the practical principle that “philosophers must become rulers, or rulers must become philosophers” if our suffering is to be overcome or at least eased. [27] It is this special relationship between truth and power, theory and practice, that is most at stake and that has intrigued the best philosophical minds from the beginning. However there is a tendency in Platonism, as there remains a tendency in Western thought in general, that is unable to adequately account for the being of practice and its relationship with theory. Catholic thinking is as susceptible to this problem as any other intellectual tradition, and I would suggest addressing this issue will be crucial for any revitalization. Catholic philosophical thinking, like philosophical thinking in general, has been troubled and impaired in its tendency to close theory off from practice in an effort to save it from the untidy, the obscure and the “impure” domain of human existence. Clearly this is damaging for any way of thinking that claims in its origins and purposes to be concerned with the fullness of being. There is a deep set tendency to model the properties of existing beings upon the abstractions of the intellect. It is a habit of theoretical thinking that stems, according to the existentialists, from the subordination of existence to essence. Being is characterized by what it reveals of itself in being thought, as Panikar has suggested above. [28] This is a point of irritation and tension for serious philosophical practitioners who have discovered that formally coherent theories and definitions are often existentially inadequate for the real situations of real individuals, groups, and organizations and require substantial efforts at adaptation to be effective and helpful for practice. [29] Anton Pegis, in his existentialist reading of St. Thomas, locates the responsibility for this turn of events in academic philosophy largely at the feet of Platonism.[30] It is not that Plato examines thought to discover the attributes of being, but rather it is his tendency, or the tendency in his disciples, to examine being theoretically by using intellect alone. Theory alone, however, cannot know practice in its fullness. The Platonic commitment to theory as the desired model for the thing in the world and for our practice in the world leads to a notion of deity as the arch modeler-designer who possesses the perfect ideas of things. God then is the arch theoretician. [31] It is here in resisting this forgetfulness of practice, and in stricter technical terms, this forgetfulness of the fullness of being, where Catholic philosophy in its existential reading of Thomas recognizes itself as making such an important advance. It is an advance that at best is recognized only fleetingly by the general philosophical canon.[32] Thomas is interpreted as seeing something that he believed was missing or at best undeveloped in Greek philosophy and that he felt was of fundamental importance. Being as “the act of existence”, seemed to be taken for granted even in Aristotle who was at pains to advance his own philosophy over what he saw as the Platonic formalization of reality through a mathematical rendering. Though Aristotle sees end-induced change as of fundamental importance for the understanding of the real, this end for change was the actualization of form. Olivia Blanchette writes in his introduction to Maurice Blondel, Action: Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press) xv - “For Blondel who insisted on being a systematic philosopher, systematic thought can never close in upon itself. Even the idea of action is never equal to action itself, as Blondel repeatedly maintained. In all his systematic work he argued to keep philosophy systematically open and integral so that it would always have to return to action for its necessary complement. Theory cannot do without practice any more than human practice can do without theory. This is why at the end of his trilogy he had to return to his initial philosophy of action. It is a conclusion as well as an introduction, but a conclusion that opens the way to a completely new set of questions. Each one of his volumes on thought, being, and act called for this return to action. Thought and action must mutually enrich one another by taking turns in being principle and consequence in a sort of cycloidal motion.” Blanchette again quotes Blondel, pxiv – “In many respects the aim (of this philosophy) can more readily be understood by minds free of any preconceived system than by those accustomed to a particular terminology and doctrinaire attitude.” It is form, in Aristotle, that ultimately gives substance its intelligibility and therefore its reality. Upon this reading there isn’t much difference between Plato and Aristotle. Form is the cause of matter becoming a substance. Yet as Aristotle sees the contingency of beings in the world, he misses the profound contingency of the world of beings. In Aristotle the form and existence of individual entities constitute a necessary interdependent package. Form is the essence of the existent thing. According to this conceptual scheme, there is reason to question the existence of individuals but not that of the totality of individuals, for such a world of individuals was believed to be necessary. For Thomas, neither form nor matter separately can be a thing’s essence. Though a thing’s essence may be expressed by its definition, this definition must include both form and matter if it is to be a definition of a physical substance which, in Thomas’ view, we as human beings, for instance, are naturally. Essence then is the defining combination of form and matter. Thus essence in Thomas’ view is a composite of form and matter for the material things that exist in the world such as man. Thomas’ somewhat novel insight, it seems, was his proposal that we could still consider essences in theory without knowing anything of their existence in practice.[33] We can consider the dinosaur in theory and in book learning, that is - consider its combination of form and matter without considering its existence or non-existence in practice. Thus for Thomas there is a type of philosophical knowing that is entirely theoretical because it fails to consider the fact of existence as a fundamentally distinct issue in the full knowledge of being. This forgetfulness of the philosophical significance of existence I have transposed into the forgetfulness of practice that still plagues philosophy. According to the existential interpretation of Thomas I am advancing here, it can be attributed to a fundamental oversight in Greek ontology. It is an error or oversight that, according to Pegis, has spread throughout the history of philosophy and remains, I am suggesting, at the root of the tension between philosophical theory and philosophical practice today. In Thomas’ philosophy, essences have no more power than human abstractions. They do not cause their own exemplification in practice. Theory and practice, essence and existence – these relationships are the basis for the climatic conflict in the Philosopher King section of the Republic.[34] Why…because theory and practice relate to the fact of existence in radically different ways. Pegis explains it in terms of the tendency in the Platonic legacy to subordinate existence to essence. The fact of existence is eclipsed by the apparent luminosity of abstract essences considered theoretically. Thus we might transpose the relationship – practice is subordinated to theory and it too is eclipsed by theoretical abstraction. But Thomas’s strategic point, according to Pegis, is that the true and complete being of man, for instance, cannot ever be included in the theoretical consideration of essences alone. There must be, if we are to know and realize the fullness of being, an awakening to the practice of incarnate existence. Theory and its ideas may serve as definitions of essences but they are not the cause of practice because, as thought, they are not inclusive of the reality of existent things. Perhaps, then, Aristotle’s substances are only a slightly more beguiling abstraction than Plato’s forms as long as they remain in the same camp of essentialistic thinking and separated from existence as this existentialist interpretation of Thomas tries to show. In this understanding they remain obstacles or, at a minimum, inadequate ways of knowing for the full existential appropriation of being for which, like St. Thomas, Heidegger at his best seems to have hoped. As Anthony Traylor’s excellent article has tried recently to show, the truth of being is not reducible to correspondence or the correct production of an effect brought about by means of the realization of a pre-existent idea; there is also an opening up of creativity itself. Traylor suggests that in Heidegger’s later work on the phenomenology of art, we are encountering a distinct category of actualization irreducible to production. All beings “come to be”, but in art this “coming to be” itself is part of the intrinsic constitution of its being. This, then, is nothing less than concern for the question of existential contingency as the “that” which must not be taken for granted lest we lose sight of the truth of being and, perhaps more importantly, its surprising wonder and even beauty.[35] IllustrationA more concrete illustration may help us, at this point, to grasp the actual phenomenon of this tension between existence and essence and its relevance for the tension between practice and theory. It may help us to recognize the problem in the concrete apart from its conjectured emergence in our existential interpretation of the history of philosophy. Let us return for a moment to our earlier remarks about understanding and misunderstanding in philosophy and the problem of interpretation. My earlier suggestion that a more knowing hermeneutic is required to overcome and break away from the growing intellectual surd of compounding positions and counter positions in academic philosophy has a direct bearing on our problem. But this can only occur through a renewed appreciation of the equi-primacy of practice with theory. This challenge is inherent in the problem of definition, which is, in my view, the problem of theory and practice in germ. It also is closely related to the problem of the hermeneutic circle as we will see in our example. Every academic department tries at some point to define philosophy in terms of the various projected understandings of their members. It usually is part of an effort to introduce some integrity and coordination into what they are presenting to students as philosophy. Without a working definition, how is it possible to recognize our practice as philosophy? Socrates might ask. When one member or group offers a definition, eventually other examples are suggested that should be but are not yet covered by the tentative offering or, alternatively, examples are covered in the offering that shouldn’t be. The definition is shown to be too narrow… or it is shown to be too broad. The discussion is encountering mounting difficulties and it breaks down because of both an inability and, more seriously, a lack of resolve to forge a common dialogic practice. An honest and at times painful consideration of practice is necessary, but this is often too threatening to cherished theories and the false luminosity of perhaps formally coherent yet exceedingly specialized abstractions and language. The venture is aborted, not because of any serious malice on the part of member participants. In my experience, it is aborted because of a systematic conditioning, through prolonged academic schooling, into the forgetfulness of practice. There seems to be something in the academic context that works against such commitments. It is a painful instance of the ill health referred to above by philosophical practitioners and many self-critical academic philosophers. The entire exercise raises to light the necessary relationship between theory and practice. If together we persist in our fallible efforts, we must consider, as a means of testing either the excessive narrowness or the excessive breadth of any offered definition, concrete examples of philosophical practice prior to any clearly formulated definition. Thus we must have some intimate knowledge as practitioners in order to approach a formulation of a satisfactory definition or theory and, in this instance, such knowledge must be prior, at least in a tacit way, to any clear or precise theoretical formulation. Philosophy’s flight from practice then clearly is a flight from being in its fullness… the whole of actual existence in its unity and diversity. This flight affects human existence. As our understanding of being is partial, it becomes distorted and we become self-deceived. This unhealthy situation becomes entrenched with the continuing subordination of practice to theory. This phenomenon is connected to, and overlaps with, the misunderstanding of the human person and his or her creative relationship to the world in the more philosophically technical and specialized, yet pervasive, subordination of existence to essence. ConclusionIn my reading of Pegis’ existential presentation of Thomism, practice must at least have equi-primacy with theory, as existence ought to have with essence. [36] This proposed phenomenological recovery of practice seeks to reestablish the concern regarding existential contingency and the mystery of being to its proper status in any effort to revitalize Catholic philosophy. It becomes a crucial guideline for any real enquiry. It would seem to be the one question and concern, as Schmitz has argued, that is shared by the various contemporary philosophers, despite their varied and divergent formations and commitments. But then in Plato’s wake it is only a rich, engaging, and challenging conversation among friends that we can hope for it would seem, and this, for the health of human reason and practice in both the polis and the academy, should never be taken for granted. In a sense, for the philosopher such conversation is a prime instance of existential contingency - this gift and grace of good and creative conversation among friends in search of truth and justice. Still, Aristotle becomes impatient with this Platonic emphasis upon enlightening conversation by itself, and he strongly argues for the linkage of philosophical theory with practice. Aristotle and St. Thomas did not see friendship or conversation as an end in itself but as a relationship meant to transcend itself in the pursuit of a still greater good. This, Aristotle expressed as the pursuit of virtue. He cautioned that theory and thinking are too often a refuge from the action required. The good cannot be only thought; it must be acted upon to be known. [37] End Notes
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