Psychology

Preface to the Metaphysical Works

(1) It is strange to see the words Philosophy and Metaphysics still used without a consistent meaning. A short time ago, we even heard some French philosophers maintain that these words could not be defined. If this were so, the words should be banned from human language. But because people do in fact use them, it is certain that they have some value, inconsistent though it is. It will be helpful if we examine the reason for this inconsistency.

(2) Philosophy is a word invented by the founder of the Italic school. Cicero describes how Leontius, king of Phliasi, asked Pythagoras to state the art which gave value to his life. The reply was simple: he knew no art; he was a philosopher.((1)) From that moment, people who engaged in the investigation of the most important truths were no longer called 'wise' (*), but 'philosophers' (*), that is, lovers and seekers of wisdom.

This remark of Pythagoras was an extremely noble, moral statement whose intimate truth is felt by all. No one, as we know, can call himself wise. The darkness besetting our intellect is profound; our ignorance as mortals is extreme even after a lifetime of meditation. Prolonged efforts and innumerable frustrations, often accompanied by error, bring forth as their fruit only a tiny particle of truth. God alone has the right to be called wise; it is a lie and pride to call human beings wise. In uncovering this lie and rebuking this pride, Pythagoras made philosophical humility the solid base for the investigation of what is true. However, the words 'philosophy' and 'philosopher', although providing a better direction for systematic knowledge and its lovers, did not determine the matter of their research. In this respect, the meaning of the words remained vague and uncertain.

(3) Andronicus of Rhodes, who put Aristotle's works in order, placed the books dealing with ens after those on physics. This seems to have been the origin of the word 'metaphysics' (from * and *) which means 'after physics'. 'Metaphysics', like 'philosophy', was pressed into use without its indicating any matter for the mind to work on. It did nothing more than show the place assigned to the ontological works in the Aristotelian corpus.

(4) The origin of the two words 'philosophy' and 'metaphysics' illustrates clearly enough that they were not employed in the first place to point to a determined subject of some academic discipline. When used, these scientific words could be freely applied to different branches of systematic knowledge. This accounts for their different meanings.

(5) Today, however, solemn words of this kind, used so frequently, cannot be ignored. At the same time, common sense will not be satisfied if the words circulate freely and lawlessly, like wandering vagabonds whose name and way of life is unknown to their fellows.

(6) It is the duty of philosophers alone to determine their meaning. The words have been put into use not by the masses but by philosophical schools. People will be happy enough to accept the law laid down by philosophers, provided the latter agree amongst themselves about the use of the words.

(7) Considerations of this kind have made me attempt to fix the meaning of the word 'philosophy' by defining it as 'knowledge of the ultimate reasons'.((2)) I felt the need to determine the value of this word as soon as I contemplated the UNITY of wisdom, which philosophy studies and loves. It is impossible for the spirit to admire wisdom in its sublime unity unless we understand that philosophy, precisely because of its unity, is susceptible of a single definition, without which it could never be written methodically and scientifically.

(8) But the value we give to the word 'metaphysics' must be such that people will not be too unfamiliar with the concepts already attached to it. In other words, we need to adopt some means of reconciling its opposite senses. We must remove its vague, uncertain use and establish a fixed, unchangeable meaning as a point of reference for those who employ it.

(9) Previously, 'metaphysics' was sometimes used synonymously with 'philosophy', sometimes as the equivalent of 'ontology'. Later, 'ideology', when it came into use to indicate teaching about ideas, appeared to have been separated from the body of metaphysics, together with logic which is as it were a corollary and appendix of ideology. As a result, many Scholastic treatises called Elements of Logic and Metaphysics were placed one in contradistinction to the other. This is my way also. 'Ideology' (to which I reduce 'logic') is the science of ideal being; 'metaphysics', unburdened from the part of knowledge which deals with ideas, is then left to us as an extremely suitable word to indicate that group of sciences which deal philosophically with teaching about real entia. We thus have two groups of clearly distinguished philosophical sciences, one composed of ideological, the other of metaphysical sciences.

(10) This definition has to be considered at greater length.

First, we have to note the difference between metaphysics and physics, both of which deal with real entia.

Physics has no rightful place amongst philosophical sciences. It remains there because of the vague meaning of the word 'philosophy'. But as soon as the meaning of this word has been restricted to 'teaching about the final reasons', both physics and mathematics are excluded from philosophy, together with all the natural sciences, as they are called, which take note of the phenomena and laws of real entia without investigating their final reasons.

Moreover, these sciences do not extend further than real, corporeal entia. Metaphysics on the other hand, as part of philosophy, cannot fulfil its responsibility in seeking the final reasons of real entia unless it considers them in all their universality and in their entire fulfilment. In other words, it must ascend to those supreme principles or first causes which embrace all real entia. The reasons for things are not final unless they are totally universal and absolute. The unity of philosophy must be accompanied by UNIVERSALITY, philosophy's other most noble characteristic.((3))

(11) Second, care must be taken to understand that in defining metaphysics as 'philosophical teaching about real, complete ens', or 'teaching about the final reasons of real ens', we do not intend to indicate reality alone as the object of metaphysics. In fact, reality alone, cut off from the idea, is the object neither of science nor of cognition, as we showed elsewhere.((4)) It is not yet ens, but on the way to being ens (*). It has no reason for itself in itself. The reason for things is always an idea((5)) so that real things become the object of knowledge only when they are apprehended or considered in relationship to the idea, through the idea and in the idea. Naked reality is perceived only by feeling; it cannot be perceived by intelligence and is not, therefore, per se an object of knowledge.((6))

(12) The definitions I have established for philosophy and metaphysics could appear to some people as contradictions. They may object: 'If philosophy is knowledge of the ultimate reasons, and reasons are always ideal beings, how can it be said that one part of philosophy, that is, metaphysics, embraces real things?' I reply: 'Metaphysics does not in any way embrace real things (which are the term of feeling), but philosophical teaching about real things (cf. (9), (11)).'

(13) Philosophy is knowledge of the final reasons and precisely under this aspect has to deal with what is real. It is necessary to speak about real things in the teaching concerned with final reasons.

First, because reason has meaning relative to that of which we seek the reason. Here, we are seeking the reason for real things which of themselves do not constitute the proper object of philosophy but only its occasion and condition. Philosophy deals with real things because it deals with their possibility and their sufficient final reasons.

Second, because the first reason demands a real being co-essential to it, as we have seen.((7)) It cannot be fully known, therefore, without the teaching about that first reality which constitutes it not as reason, but as complete, absolute ens which contains the reason of all things in its depths. Philosophy must deal with this absolute, subsistent reality as its first proper object, as the completion of this object.

(14) Having said this, we can examine critically the three principal definitions of philosophy given so far.

Some authors are incapable of moving away from what is real. Materialists are necessarily bound to this kind of philosophy. For them, only negative philosophy is possible, or rather the destruction of philosophy. Hobbes' definition of philosophy is an example of this. He makes philosophy consist in the knowledge of effects and of phenomena by means of causes and generation, and in the knowledge of causes and generation by means of effects and phenomena. But if the discussion starts from phenomena and effects alone, rather than from the ideal object, only proximate causes, or rather the laws according to which feelable things may change, can be known. This definition destroys philosophy. All that remains is physics and the natural sciences which usurp the title 'philosophy'.

(15) The second mistaken definition is given by subjectivists who reduce every ideal object simply to a modification of the human spirit. For them, philosophy is 'the science of human thought', as Galluppi says.((8)) But human thought is only the instrument used by philosophy to find and contemplate its objects which, with God as the greatest among them, cannot be reduced to thought. Clearly, it would be absurd to maintain that systematic knowledge of God, which certainly pertains to philosophy, deals only with human thought.

(16) The third mistaken definition is that of the Platonists whose error, contrary to the other two, sins by excess. For them, ideas alone are the object of philosophy; the only duty of the philosopher is to contemplate the idea of ens, * .((9)) But this is not correct. In fact, the idea of ens has to guide the human mind in finding the totally real and absolute ens. All intellectual speculation finishes here, not by way of the idea, but by way of affirmation and intuition.

Wolff's definition is reducible to that of the Platonists. For him, philosophy is 'systematic knowledge of possible things'. If, according to this definition, God is to be amongst the objects of philosophy, we are forced to maintain that philosophy deals only with the intrinsic possibility of God. This again is certainly not true: philosophy deals with the divine being, not with the mere possibility of this being. Moreover, possibilities do not constitute the reasons of things in their entirety, but are an element of these very reasons; contingent beings, we say, do not exist solely because they are possible but because, being possible, a first real cause has created them.

(17) Let us go back to metaphysics. Having fixed the meaning that we intend to give to this word, let us consider the special sciences into which it is divided.

Philosophical sciences can be ordered in various ways according to the aspects under which they are considered and from which they accept the norm governing their distribution. I have provided examples of the different ways in which philosophy can suitably be divided.((10))

One of these divisions distinguished three groups of philosophical sciences - the sciences of intuition, of perception and of reasoning, as I have called them.((11)) By this, I do not mean that there are some philosophical sciences bereft of reasoning. Rather the name is drawn from the act of the spirit through which these sciences receive their object. Some philosophical sciences receive their object from intuition alone, some from intellective perception, and others finally from reasoning. The first, which require only intuition as the act of the spirit in order to possess their object, are the ideological sciences. Metaphysics, therefore, belongs to the sciences of perception and of reasoning. But does it embrace them all?

(18) It does not. Metaphysics, as philosophical teaching about real ens, can extend only to the branch of ontological sciences which deal with real ens as it is. It does not embrace the branch called deontological sciences (* , what is suitable, what is necessary) which deal with real ens as it must be. It is not without good reason that some authors have taken the word 'metaphysics' as synonymous with ontology.((12))

(19) Nevertheless, there exists a very intimate relationship between metaphysics and the deontological sciences; the teaching which shows what ens is, is the foundation of the teaching which investigates what ens must be if it is to be perfect. The apex of deontology is ethics, or * or hosiology or whatever else we call it, because real ens is not complete unless it contains in its depths the moral form that completes and perfects ens.((13)) Ethics, the science which shows what moral ens is to be, is deontology's last word and, therefore, the most philosophical of all sciences.

(20) We are now in a position to express more explicitly the group of sciences covered by the word 'metaphysics' and standing in contradistinction to other groups.

From what has been said, the whole of philosophy can be distributed into three groups, that is, ideological, metaphysical and deontological sciences. According to this division, the ideological sciences have intuition alone as their object; the metaphysical sciences include the sciences of perception and the first branch of the sciences of reason, that is, the metaphysical sciences; finally, the group of deontological sciences includes the other branch of sciences of reasoning.

(21) At this point, we see clearly both the position occupied by metaphysics in the broad spread of philosophy and the appropriate distinction between its various members. As we said, the sciences of perception are psychology and cosmology, while the first branch of the sciences of reasoning extends to ontology in the strict sense and to natural theology. These four constitute the group of metaphysical sciences.

(22) Although this seems a natural, elegant division, I have thought it more in keeping with my aim to change it slightly and reduce the final three to a single science which I have called theosophy. This would seem more helpful to scholarly understanding, and render the argument more comprehensive and magnificent by lightening the process and assisting minds to grapple with abstractions. Experience shows me that abstraction is a very difficult task for many intellects. This great synthesis is not arbitrary, however, but proffered by the nature of the case.

(23) Cosmology, for example, which teaches us about the world, can be dealt with in two ways, that is, physically or metaphysically—two ways which have been confused so far by authors who have written about cosmology. In fact, the description of the world of phenomena and its laws pertains to the group of physical, not philosophical sciences. If teaching about the world is to belong to the philosophical sciences, it has to be considered in its final reasons, which can be sought either in the world or in its cause, that is, in Almighty God, the Creator. Considering the world in itself, we see that it is composed of matter, of sensitive souls and of intelligences. Matter, however, is only the term of the sensitive soul, from which it cannot be really divided without annihilation. In order to conceive of matter as it is, we have to consider it as joined to the soul which feels it. This we do in psychology. Moreover, as matter needs a sentient principle whose term it is if its concept is not to perish, so the sentient soul needs matter of which it is the principle if its concept, too, is not to perish. The sentient soul is not an ens, therefore, unless its act terminates in material or corporeal extension. And this is how psychology considers it. If we were to separate matter entirely from the feeling to which it refers, nothing would remain except a pure abstraction, an incipient ens which does not subsist — what the ancients rightly called a non-ens. This will be made clear in the treatise on psychology. Teaching about the world, in so far as it investigates the final reason of the world's existence in itself, that is, the reason which constitutes it as a conceivable ens, goes hand in hand inseparably with the science of the soul. In so far as it investigates the final reason of the world in its cause, which is different from the world, it obviously pertains to the science that has God, the sole cause of what is created, as its object.

(24) The part of cosmology which describes the phenomena offered to the senses by matter, and their laws, pertains, therefore, to the physicist; the other part, which seeks the reasons of the universe and which alone is truly philosophical, belongs partly to psychology and partly to natural theology.

(25) Ontology, properly speaking, deals with ens in its entirety and completion. The mind can, however, speculate in two ways when considering ens in this universality. It can either take the way of abstraction or that of ideal-negative reasoning. The latter leads the mind to supreme Being, absolute, totally real and complete Being. Abstract reasoning, on the other hand, brings the mind to an abstract theory of being, a theory applicable to every ens, contingent or necessary. This work of abstraction aims to know the conditions, qualities and common characteristics of every ens which otherwise cannot receive the name and concept of ens — a name and concept which diminish as these conditions, qualities and common characteristics diminish. This highly abstract teaching does not have a real ens as its object, and cannot therefore constitute any metaphysical science, according to the definition we have given. What then is the value and aim of this teaching? Its sole purpose is to provide a way which makes possible for the understanding to ascend finally to knowledge of the absolute ens, that is, the ens in which all conditions of ens are fully and completely verified and from which the understanding can distinguish relative entia that share in only some of those conditions, none of which the understanding possesses as its own. In a word, ontology considered from this point of view is simply an immense preface to the treatise on God to which we intend to join it, and from which alone it receives its fullness and attains its purpose.

(26) In this way two real entia, known by us according to their condition, remain as objects of metaphysics, the finite spirit and the infinite Spirit, which give rise to the philosophical sciences we have called pneumatology and natural theology.

(27) I will not treat pneumatology in all its extension. The word, which expresses the science about spirits in general, deals with every kind of spirit and embraces the human soul as well as separate intelligences. I shall limit myself to a treatise on the soul, and deal with psychology for the following reasons.

(28) Only the human spirit falls under our experience. The philosopher can therefore deal with angels only by way of mere reasoning, devoid of perception. With such reasoning he can propose three questions to himself: do separate intelligences exist? what is their origin? what is their nature? The existence, cause and knowable essence are the three parts of angelology. But the existence of separate intelligences can be proved only by arguing from their suitability to the attributes of the Creator, that is, of their cause. Their knowable essence can be induced only by analogy with what is known of the soul that falls under our experience. We cannot speak of the nature of separate intelligences unless we have first known what experience tells us about the human spirit, that is, until we have dealt with psychology. I do not think that teaching about angels can by itself constitute a complete philosophical science. I shall, therefore, expound it, together with the teaching about the world of which the angels are a part, when I speak of the supreme Being.

(29) In this way, teaching about the supreme Being is presented in three treatises or three distinct, but intimately connected parts. The first part is a kind of very broad introduction which reasons about being in general as the human mind conceives it by way of abstraction. This is the science commonly called ontology. The second party deals with absolute being by way of ideal-negative reasoning and corresponds to natural theology; the third is a kind of very broad appendix which deals with the things produced by the absolute Being, and corresponds to cosmology. The complex of all this teaching I call theosophy. But I do not wish to oblige myself to keep the three parts rigorously separate. I would prefer to follow the didactic method, and set out the information in a way better suited to every reader. In other words, I will not insist in any way on the ontological, theological or cosmological status of what comes first, provided that what precedes throws light on what follows. Science itself will draw greater unity from this way of doing things.

(30) Finally, I shall add, as the crown and apex of all metaphysics, a separate treatise about the best and wisest government of the world. This I shall call Theodicy, which I shall use as a link intimately joining the philosophical sciences with the science of revealed truth and in particular with Supernatural Anthropology.

Notes

((1)) Tuscul., bk. 5: 3.

((2)) Sistema filosofico, 1-9 [Turin, 1844].

((3)) Cf. the preface to the first and second volumes of the Opuscoli filosofici, Milan, 1827-1828, and to A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas, Durham.

((4)) NE, vol. 2, 410; Sistema filosofico, 1-8.

((5)) Principles of Ethics, fn. 2, and Storia comparativa e critica dei sistemi intorno al principio della morale.

((6)) Hence, contingent realities, which do not have the idea in their nature, are not per se knowable as God is, in whom there is contemporaneously real and ideal being.Note that it is easy to err by believing that certain sciences which deal with individual things, such as astronomy which concerns the sun, moon and other stars, consider purely real, subsistent being. To realise that the theory of these stars does not stop at their subsistence, it is sufficient to consider that even if the Almighty were to annihilate all the stars in heaven, the theory would be no less true. If the Almighty were to annihilate sun and moon, and create another sun and moon equal to those annihilated, astronomy would suffer no change whatsoever; it would be true applied to the newly created stars as it was of the preceding stars from the observation of which human beings had drawn astronomy. And this despite the fact that their reality was no longer the same as before. Here we have a clear proof that material individuality, which serves us as a means and an occasion of attaining knowledge of such sciences, is not their object. Indeed, it is only an example, on the basis of which the mind considers theory, which is valid for all similar cases. We have already considered more at length how the understanding always terminates its act in ideas, even when it considers what is real (Teodicea, 617-641, and elsewhere).

((7)) NE, vol. 3, 1456-1460.

((8)) Lezioni di Logica e di Metafisica, Lez. 2. Here Galluppi says: 'After Descartes, philosophers have normally called thought any act and modification of the human soul, that is, modification which consists in feeling, knowing, desiring and willing.' This affirmation is false. If it were true, all philosophers from Descartes onward would be sensists and subjectivists. What we should say, to the honour of modern philosophy, is that some philosophers have been able to distinguish thought from feeling, and the objects of thought from thought itself.

((9)) Plato, Soph., p. 254 (Bipont.).

((10)) Cf. Ab. Antonio Fontana, Manuale per l'Educazione umana, vol. 3, c. 8, Milan 1834 [This chapter was written by Rosmini and inserted in the book written by his friend, Fontana. Cf. Epistolario Completo, vol. 4, letter 1991].

((11)) Sistema filosofico, nn. 108, 128-129.

((12)) Cf. Baldinotti, Metaphysica Generalis Praef.

((13)) Teodicea, Milan, 1845, nn. 384-394.