This comprehensive and detailed study of individuation reveals the theological nature of metaphysics. Adrian Pabst argues that ancient and modern conceptions of "being" - or individual substance - fail to account for the ontological relations that bind beings to each other and to God, their source. On the basis of a genealogical account of rival theories of creation and individuation from Plato to `postmodernism,' Pabst proposes that the Christian Neo-Platonic fusion of biblical revelation with Greco-Roman philosophy fulfills and surpasses all other ontologies and conceptions of individuality.
METAPHYSICS
The Creation of HierarchyBy Adrian PabstWilliam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Copyright © 2012 Adrian Pabst
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8028-6451-2Contents
Foreword by John Milbank.................................................xviiAcknowledgments..........................................................xxivPreface: From Individuality to Relationality.............................xxviiPart I. Substance and Relation...........................................1Chapter 1. The Primacy of Relation over Substance........................5Chapter 2. Trinitarian God and Triadic Cosmos............................54Chapter 3. Relational Substance and Cosmic Hierarchy.....................113Part II. Matter and Form.................................................153Chapter 4. The Priority of Essence over Existence........................155Chapter 5. Participation in the Act of Being.............................201Chapter 6. The Invention of the Individual...............................272Part III. Transcendence and Immanence....................................305Chapter 7. Transcendental Individuation..................................308Chapter 8. The Creation of Immanence.....................................341Chapter 9. Ontology or Metaphysics?......................................383Conclusion: The New Imperative of Relationality..........................445Sources..................................................................456Bibliography.............................................................465Index....................................................................503
Chapter One
The Primacy of Relation over Substance
1. Introduction: The Legacy of Pre-Socratic Poetry and Philosophy
The opposition of the one and the many is the hallmark of pre-Socratic poetry and philosophy. None of the dominant schools or thinkers could reconcile the apparent contradiction of unity and diversity in the world of material things and immaterial ideas. For instance, Hesiod's poem Theogony describes how out of the infinite nothingness of chaos emerges a single divine cosmos, generated and maintained by the omnipotent Zeus. Even though it acts as the first cause and final end of the natural order, the power of the gods is wholly unintelligible to the human mind and a matter of blind belief. (This myth is invoked by Plotinus to describe the eternal procession of the many from the One, as we shall see in chapter 2.) In Hesiod, as in Homer's Odyssey, the presence of gods is absolute and divine intervention in the world is arbitrary.
Early pre-Socratic philosophers, by contrast, contended that the perceptible world of nature can be cognized and explained in terms of its own inherent principles. This argument eschews cosmic fatalism in favor of rational knowledge and human agency. However, it leaves the problem of the opposition between the one and the many unresolved. Faced with the simultaneous occurrence of being and nonbeing, the physicists, for example, searched for some fundamental principle ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) that could explain the multiplicity of things within the overarching cosmos —water in Thales, air in Anaximenes, or the indefinite/borderless (to apeiron) in Anaximander. But they could not solve the paradox of stability and change over time and across space that characterizes the single enduring material stuff which was thought to be both the origin of all things and the cause of their continuing existence. By positing some basic constituent of materiality that is itself eternal and underlies all change (one or several of the four elements), they reduced the whole of reality to a single substratum and advocated a form of material monism. The problem with this sort of monism is that it fails to explain how a multiplicity of things can emerge out of the oneness of the underlying principle and how the immaterial mind can know the material world in both its diversity and unity. As such, material monism is unable to account for the unity of matter itself.
Later pre-Socratic philosophers like Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides defended an immaterial monism, arguing that there is something like a first principle which is unitary and permanent and which contrasts with the multiple and transitory nature of the living cosmos. Xenophanes writes that "[o]ne god is greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or in thought." Likewise, Heraclitus refers in the opening lines of his book to the "logos which holds forever," a law-like principle that embodies the divine order and rules all things within the universe and therefore can be known by the human mind. And since nothing comes from nothing, as Parmenides held, that which is either is necessary or is contingent. Necessary being is necessarily "ungenerated and imperishable; Whole, single-limbed, steadfast and complete; nor was [it] once, nor will [it] be, since it is, now, all together, One, continuous." For Parmenides, as for Xenophanes and Heraclitus, the unity of the primary principle subsumes the diversity of the secondary reality that comes into being and passes away. The problem with this kind of immaterial monism is that it cannot demonstrate how the mind alone can have access to being without the import of the senses. Nor can it give a reason why the oneness of true reality (that which is) would be allied to the void (that which is not) in order to produce the multiplicity of the universe ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) that hovers between being and nonbeing.
Neither pluralism nor atomism resolved the opposition between the one and the many bequeathed by the physicists and left unresolved by Parmenides' Eleatic monism. Anaxagoras and Empedocles replaced a single immaterial substratum as the source of being with a plurality of material elements, but both had to appeal to the operation of the mind or intellect ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])—a unitary, separate, cosmic, intelligent force that brings the mixture of elements into rotation and holds the universe together. As a result, the pluralismof Anaxagoras and Empedocles complements Parmenides' emphasis on the absolute unity of being with an irreducible multiplicity of material stuffs. The (pre-)Socratic atomists Leucippus and Democritus went further than the pluralists by arguing that all forms of union are illusory and that every whole is reducible to its parts. Yet at the same time, all atoms are made of the same foundational matter and (unlike in Parmenides) true reality is not limited to being but extends to the void, defined as that which individuates atoms and distinguishes them from one another. Thus, both the pluralist and the atomist schools maintained a strict division of unity and diversity by positing a cause or principle of individuation that is separate from plural material elements or bare atoms.
In short, material and immaterial monism is unable to account for the unity of matter and the plurality of finite things, whereas pluralism and atomism need to appeal to a unitary force that secures the oneness of the cosmos. As such, they all mask an ontological and epistemological dualism between the one and the many. The reason is metaphysical and theological: the link between the universe and its source remains hidden, since pre-Socratic poetry and philosophy view the gods as external to the world and divinity as unintelligible to the human mind. Fundamentally, the infinite incomprehensible origin of being and the finite perceptible world of beings are coterminous not consubstantial: being and beings do not belong to separate realms, nor do they share in the same substance. Rather, they are like two parallel galaxies linked by the arbitrary and absolute power of the divine. This is equally true for the material substratum in the physicists, the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Anaxagoras and Empedocles, the greatest god in Xenophanes, reason ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) in Heraclitus, and true reality (or the "What Is") in Parmenides. In consequence, the relation between form and materiality is unresolved, since matter is finite but eternal, whereas form is infinite but immanent. Moreover, there is no real, discernible relation between the sensible and the intelligible realm. The implication is that infinite being and finite beings are divorced from each other, leaving the unique individuality of each material thing unexplained. Are different particular beings merely copies of one and the same universal form, differentiated by accidental properties rather than substantial essences? If each individual being has its own unique form, is form particular or universal? If form is universal, is it individuated by eternal general matter? Or is eternal general matter particularized by substantial form?
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle agreed with their forebears that pure materiality approximates nonbeing and lacks order. Beyond pre-Socratic poetry and philosophy, they sought to show that transcendent universal form gives being to matter (rather than some immanent material principle), that the divine is unitary (rather than multiple), and that the oneness of immaterial form is paradoxically embodied in the plurality of material things (rather than corrupted and destroyed). For Plato, material things are imperfect copies of immaterial forms and only exist by participation. Similarly, for Aristotle the being or actuality of form—essence—brings the nonbeing or potency of matter into existence. As a result of the relation between form and matter, concrete things constitute individual form-matter compounds and are intelligible to the mind via the senses. However, Aristotle rejected Plato's theory of forms because, according to the Stagirite, it is confused and fails to overcome the pre-Socratic dualism between the empirical and the ideal. Aristotle was the first to assert that Plato's separation of timeless forms from preexistent matter can neither solve the problem of motion and rest nor explain the unity of body and soul. Moreover, Plato was unable—so Aristotle's argument goes—to demonstrate how and why the human mind can cognize the presence of transcendent eternal structures in immanent ephemeral phenomena. Aristotle's critique of Plato's metaphysics led him to abandon the concept of participation and to theorize the relation between particulars and universals in terms of the union of singular essence with material substrate, in an attempt to tie matter more closely to form. The material component of composite substances stands in potency to the actuality of individual substantial form. Similarly, all composites stand in potency to the pure actuality of the Prime Mover. As such, the unity of the first cause constitutes the final end of the multiplicity of substances in the sublunary world. By arguing that forms do not stand above and beyond things but that instead being inheres in beings, it was apparently Aristotle—not Plato—who first resolved the metaphysical dualism between the one and the many, the universal and the particular, and the singular and the collective.
2. The Preeminence of Substance
A. Separating Theology from Ontology
In what follows, I contest this interpretation of Plato and Aristotle. My argument is that Aristotle's priority of substance ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) over being ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) privileges essentiality over existentiality and drives a wedge between the science of being qua being (ontology) and the science of the divine (theology). This in turn entails a metaphysical dualism between particular beings in the sublunary world and the universal Prime Mover (or God), in the sense that the latter produces the motion of the heavens and the world of nature but does not bring particular beings into being. As the pure unreserved actuality of thought and life, the Prime Mover imparts intelligibility to both simple and complex substances and is desired as the ultimate end or finality ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of all that exists, but equally it is "separate from sensible things" and does not bestow actuality upon them.
In consequence, the actualization of material things is severed from the actuality of the Prime Mover, and individuation is reduced to the generation of individuals by individuals. Contrary to Plato's metaphysics of the universal Good as the author of all things (The Republic VI 508 E, 511 B, VII 516 B) which positions all particulars relationally in virtue of its ecstatic overflow, the Prime Mover as the supreme primary substance whose actuality is thought thinking itself neither brings composite substances into being nor thinks their complex essence of form and matter (since the noetic activity of Aristotle's Prime Mover encompasses individual substantial form but does not extend to the idea of matter). As a result, Aristotle's Prime Mover is ultimately indifferent to material beings in the sublunary world. Unlike the Platonist Good, which endows all things with goodness and thereby acts as efficient and final cause that is perfective of form, the actuality of the Prime Mover does not inhere in individual substances that exist in the sublunary world but instead is a distant [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] that merely acts as final causality.
Moreover, it is not clear in Aristotle's ontology and theology whether the actuality of individual substantial form is at all related to the pure actuality of the Prime Mover. The latter is but a remote cause that imparts motion to composite substances exclusively by final causality and not by efficient causality. Once the first cause is limited to final causality, the actualization and perfection of composites are cut off from the Prime Mover. Joseph Owens rightly argues that "he [Aristotle] does not seem to have any means of explaining how the actual contact is made between separate substance and material substance." My critique of Aristotle's philosophy, and particularly his theory of individuation, must therefore begin with his account of substance.
Aristotle's distinction between being and substance is absolutely central to his conception of ontology and theology. First of all, the notion of being has multiple meanings and the reality of being is different in diverse things (just like the good and the one). In consequence, being is not synonymous and univocal, as advocates of analytical univocalism like Bertrand Russell, W. V. O. Quine, Morton White, and more recently Peter van Inwagen have wrongly claimed. Second, even though there is not a single type of 'being' that can be predicated of everything that is ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), it does not follow for Aristotle that being is homonymous and equivocal. For being is that which is "common to all things" (Met. Λ 3, 1005a 27), yet at the same time particular and distinct in each single substance (whether simple or composite). Third, the commonality of being in all that exists cannot be conceived exclusively in terms of unity in analogical difference or unity through foundation in an immutable essence. For Aristotle subordinates the analogy of being to the categories and views substance as the substrate for all beings, though the categorial term of substance implies substantial change and cannot be seen as static or foundationalist in a proto-modern transcendentalist manner (as Frege, Husserl, Heidegger, and others rightly argue).
Fourth, Aristotle restricts the link between the primary substance of the Unmoved Mover and being to final causality (whereas for Plato the Good also acts as efficient and formal cause). Just as the divine first mover is a special purely intelligible substance separate from the general category of substance, so theology is a special science of one kind of being (the divine) cut off from the universal science of being as such (or ontology). As such, Aristotle inaugurates not so much 'onto-theology' as 'theoontology' and divides the study of being qua being from the study of the Prime Mover. In this way, he lays down the main conceptual foundations for Porphyry's logicized Neo-Platonist ontology and the later scholastic distinction of metaphysica specialis and metaphysica generalis that mutated into the modern supremacy of ontology over theology.
B. Elevating Substance over Being
For now let us return to Aristotle's account of the preeminence of substance relative to being. Being qua being ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) is not generic and does not constitute an immutable substance that could serve as the universal essence to all things that are: "Being does not act as essence to any existing thing, for what it is is not a genus." Since "the genera of the beings are different," it follows for Aristotle that "none of the [principles] common [to all beings] is such that from them everything can be proved." In other words, there is no universal science of being qua being that includes both the Prime Mover and secondary substances. And since the Prime Mover is not prior in theoretical knowledge to all existing things, theology is not synonymous with 'first philosophy' or metaphysics. Thus there is no single science that encompasses each and every kind of being, including the divine first mover—just as the latter is not the real good in virtue of which all other goods exist by participation, a solution that Aristotle famously dismissed as a Platonicmyth. That is why Aristotle contrasts Platonic forms with his system of categories of beings—an alternative that Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason §10 no less famously dismissed as a rhapsody. From the outset of post-Socratic philosophy, there is a crucial point of contrast between Plato's theologicalmetaphysics of the Good and other forms, on the one hand, and Aristotle's meta-logical ontology of substance and the rest of the categories, on the other hand.
It is true that Aristotle ties the logical terms of species, genera, and differentia to the higher ontological unity of substance and the other categorial terms. The analogy of being is the ontological correlate of the unity of epistemological theorems in universal science, as all things are governed by analogical units such as the three elements (matter, form, privation) and the four analogically related causes (material, formal, final, and efficient). As such, different kinds of existing beings are united by analogy: "[T]hings that are not all in one genus are one by analogy" (Met. V 6, 1017a 2-3). In this way, analogy describes how things exist under the different categories and how the categorial terms relate to one another. However, to say that being is analogous cannot explain why anything exists in the first place and why there would be a definitive number of categorial terms. Nor does the analogy of being account for the paradoxical and ultimately aporetic grounding ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of a multiplicity of categories in the unity of groundless being, as Pierre Aubenque has extensively documented. Perhaps most importantly of all, the analogical ordering of being does not provide answers to the question of why things come into being and why they are directed towards the final cause in the divine first mover.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from METAPHYSICSby Adrian Pabst Copyright © 2012 by Adrian Pabst. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
