1 The Problem of Nihilism in Early German Idealism
The Contingency of Categorial Self-Consciousness
The Ancients, having perceived that anything that can be known must be in some way, construed the inquiry into the Absolute as an inquiry into Being, an inquiry thematized again by Heidegger in the early 20th century. The task of metaphysics is to provide a science of Being qua Being. Since metaphysics is the science of first principles, all other forms of knowing depend upon metaphysics for their being. Since metaphysics exists, or is actual at least as a practice, it is also possible. Given that metaphysics is possible as a practice, we can ask ‘what makes metaphysics possible?’ In addition, we can also ask whether metaphysics is possible as a science, or Wissenschaft. Without inquiring into the possibility of metaphysics, metaphysics runs the risk of falling victim to dogmatism. Since all other forms of knowing depend upon metaphysics, no other science or form of knowing can demonstrate how metaphysics is possible. Since it is metaphysics that constitutes the inquiry into first principles, it must fall to metaphysics to inquire into how metaphysics is possible. Hence, metaphysics is not only an inquiry into Being qua Being, but it is also an inquiry into its own knowing of Being qua Being. Insofar as this inquiry is characterized as knowledge, it can be construed as the knowledge of knowledge of Being. For this reason, the metaphysical inquiry into first principles can equally be construed as epistemology, since it is an inquiry into the very possibility of the knowledge of first principles.
Meta-metaphysics is the discipline that constitutes the knowledge of metaphysics itself and thereby takes metaphysics as its object. We should note at the outset that meta-metaphysics is not a discipline distinct from metaphysics, but belongs to the activity and content of metaphysics proper. By inquiring into whether metaphysics is possible as a science, as well as the inquiry into the condition for the possibility of metaphysics as a practice, metaphysical inquiry takes itself as its own object. Naturally, this makes metaphysics an inherently reflexive discipline. As a reflexive discipline inquiring into the possibility of metaphysics as a science, meta-metaphysical inquiry aims to uncover how the relationship between knowing and Being ought to be construed. For this reason, meta-metaphysical inquiry is not only interested in the discipline of metaphysics, namely the knowing of Being, but by virtue of its inquiry into the knowing of Being it aims to establish some truth about Being itself, namely whether Being, as the object of metaphysics, is itself structured in such a way as to be an object of philosophical knowing. Accordingly, meta-metaphysics also aims to establish whether Being as it is in itself is amenable to the structure of knowing. Therefore, within the meta-metaphysical aspects of metaphysics alone, one discovers an identity of subject and object, for meta-metaphysics itself contains the two sides of metaphysical inquiry: an inquiry into both the activity of the subject, or (i) the knowing of Being, as well as (ii) the object of that inquiry, Being itself. Most generally, we have established two theses: metaphysics is meta-metaphysics, and meta-metaphysics is metaphysics. For the Ancient Greeks, the inquiry into knowledge of Being are not two separate disciplines.
As an inquiry into wisdom, the classical injunction of philosophy, as the love of wisdom, is to inquire into what is universal: that in virtue of which any particular instance of wisdom counts as wise. For this very reason, it must inquire into its own wisdom. Following the famous injunction on the temple at the oracle of Delphi, philosophy aims at self-knowledge. Philosophy seeks to draw the limit between itself and its other, namely between philosophical and non-philosophical knowing. As an inquiry into the principles of all wisdom, philosophy means to inquire into not only what is universal but that which is not conditional upon anything: it wants to know that upon which all wisdom depends. Accordingly, since philosophy aims at knowledge that is unconditionally universal, and the Absolute is what is unconditionally universal, philosophy aims at knowledge of the Absolute, Absolute Knowing. Of course, Absolute Knowing must know the being of knowledge in itself—what it is to know as such. Thus, the inquiry into the knowledge of knowledge is also a metaphysical inquiry into the being of knowing.
Further, in order to know what it is to know, one must be able to distinguish kinds of Being—namely the being that consists in knowing from that which does not. What is more, if this Absolute Knowing, which is the aim of epistemology, were to exclude knowledge of any being, then its knowledge would only be relative to some beings and would not be absolute. Accordingly, Absolute Knowing cannot be a knowledge of some beings to the exclusion of others, but ought to entail knowledge of all beings. Absolute Knowing is not just epistemological (knowledge of knowing), but it is inherently metaphysical (knowledge of Being). Thus, the epistemic inquiry into the first principles of knowledge can equally be construed as metaphysics. In short, whether one takes Being as the object of first philosophy, or Absolute Knowledge, metaphysics is an epistemic inquiry just as much as epistemology is a metaphysical inquiry.
The fundamental question for ancient Greek philosophy is the question concerning the what it is to be of Being. Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy re-directed the focus of inquiry towards an assumption that ancient philosophy takes for granted. By immediately inquiring into the what it is to be of Being, ancient thought fails to ask whether the subject is capable of knowing what it is to be and under what subjective conditions that knowing is made possible. This is not to claim that the ancients were not critical in their metaphysics. For sure, any philosophy that makes a claim to be first philosophy must inquire into its own possibility, since there are no prior sciences that could establish that for it. But the ancients inquired into the possibility of first philosophy from the side of the object. Instead of asking under what conditions subjectivity must be construed in order to know its object, they inquired into how the object must be construed in order for it to conform to structures of knowledge. For example, Aristotle argues that in order for Being to be knowable, it must be governed by the PNC. The thing must conform to the principles of knowledge in order for it to be graspable.
Although Kant may have gained a new method and critical perspective on knowledge, his critique also initiated a fundamental break between the knowing of Being and Being itself, a break quite foreign to the spirit of Greek thinking. Nonetheless, it would be the fate of German Idealism to heal this divide and critically return the knowing of Being to Being itself. This critical return to the spirit of Greek thinking re-introduced the unity of Idealism and Realism enjoyed by Greek philosophical thought. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the contrast between the Kantian and Aristotelian approaches to knowledge than their accounts of the relation between mind and world. Despite their differences, we will discover that on either model of philosophical thinking, the categorial determinations posited by both Aristotle and Kant have trouble escaping the challenge of rhapsodic contingency.1
Aristotle, for example, assumes that the subject is a transparent vessel that takes on the Form of what it knows.2 In On the Soul Aristotle takes the position that the self can only have mediated self-knowledge. Aristotle argues that the thinking self only knows itself by way of knowledge of some Form. Since knowledge is of a Form, and the mind itself is not a Form, but that which takes on some Form, the mind cannot immediately know itself. As Aristotle states:
It is necessary, then, since it thinks of everything, for the mind to be un-mixed with anything, so that, as Anaxagoras says, it may have control, that is, so that it may recognize things. For any alien element that appears in it is a hindrance and impediment; it follows that it cannot have any nature other than that of being capable of doing what it does. That part of the soul that is called the mind (and by mind I mean that with which the soul thinks and believes) is not a thing that exists in actuality at all before it thinks.3
For Aristotle, the mind can only know itself in virtue of knowing a Form, something distinct from itself. By taking on Forms it comes to know itself as that which takes on Forms.4
As is evident, Aristotle argues that we come to see what the mind is by knowing a Form distinct from it. Aristotle has good motivation to deny Form to the mind. The basic idea is that the mind takes the Form of what it thinks. For this reason, the mind could not know anything other than itself if it had its own Form. The mind, for this reason, must be a pure potential that is able to take on the various Forms of the entities that it thinks.5 By contrast, the mind of God is pure Form, or Being at Work, and for this reason only ever thinks itself. Aristotle is clear that God, or pure self-thinking-thought, can only think itself. Otherwise, it would admit of some potency, and in God there is no potency whatever.
Unlike Plato’s account of learning, Aristotle provides an account of the origin of the universal in which it is not the failure of the object of perception that gives insight into Form, but a psychological process that brings the universal to the purview of thinking. As usual, Aristotle gives a military metaphor to illuminate this process: ‘It is like a rout in battle stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation has been restored.’6 Put in terms of universality and particularity, Aristotle elucidates the meaning of the metaphor:
What we have just said but not said clearly, let us say again: when one of the undifferentiated things makes a stand, there is a primitive universal in the mind (for though one perceives the particular, perception is of the universal—e.g. of man but not of Callias the man); again a stand is made in these, until what has no parts and is universal stands—e.g. such and such an animal stands, until animal does, and in this a stand is made in the same way.7
Universals arise by particulars ‘taking a stand.’ What does Aristotle mean by ‘take a stand?’ Sense-perception has the particular as its object, for example, the man ‘Callias,’ not ‘man.’ For this reason, sense-perception cannot differentiate universals. In this sense, it is logically indiscriminate. Particulars may be remembered, or they may not. The human being is able to remember particulars sensed in the past. This persistence of the particular in the mind long after sensation has ceased, or the recollection of the particular, is what it means for particulars to ‘take a stand.’ Instead of fleeing from the mind, as in a rout, they remain in memory. Without taking a stand, the particulars are forever lost to the mind, and there is no way to re-identify particulars. In virtue of the particulars taking a stand, one can recognize the common feature of one’s recollected perception and one’s occurrent perception. Since the universal is the common feature of the particulars, universals first become identified only on condition of the persistence of the particular in memory. The universals ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are established in just this way. From these more universal genera may be formed. Of course, this method is inductive, since we are inferring the universal case from the particular case. By running through a group of particulars, we infer that there is some common feature. Since the categories are the highest or most universal genera, the categories are the ultimate result of this process of induction. Thus, for Aristotle the categories are collected empirically. We should note that for Aristotle the categories can apply to all beings even though they are collected empirically. There is, as a result, the problem that the universality of the cate...
