Racionalidad y Democracia.
José Porfirio Miranda.
Ed. Sígueme, Salamanca, España.
1996.
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Racionalidad y Democracia.
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The most penetrating way to bring moral rationality and the rationality that demands proof together, is to show that moral judgements are true, that is to say, to justify morals, to show that morality is in fact an obligation. This is the crux of the philosophy of our century ever since the skeptics have revived the famous denunciation of the naturalist fallacy with extraordinary vigor; they hold that any attempt to prove a moral judgement is inevitably a sophism. They conclude that moral judgments are essentially irrational and anti-scientific, since these cannot be proven.
The transcendence of this problem is obvious in all senses, since it concerns the rationality of civilization as such. This is the main point, but the problem is of especially vital importance to the social sciences. As we have seen, man cannot be physically shown, and a social scientist cannot include any fact in the subject matter of his study unless this fact is proven to be rational, and not with some "rationality" that is also possessed by animals, but with a precisely moral rationality; which entails showing that the criterion for that rationality is true. But if the denunciators of the naturalist fallacy are correct, such proof is impossible. Radical doubt is then cast upon the scientific nature of the social sciences.
Now, at first sight those denunciators are right. We know that every moral judgement, although grammatically it may be formed with an is (for example: "it is just" or "it is unjust"), is always substantively equal to an ought ("it ought to be done" or "it ought not be done"). But, since supposedly every proof is based on premises phrased is, to draw a conclusion phrased ought will always be logically illegitimate, since a term appears in the conclusion that was not present in the premises. This is a strictly logical matter. They call this the naturalist fallacy or sophism because sentences with is are considered natural and those with ought are considered supernatural; to go from the natural to the supernatural is called the naturalist fallacy.
All authors of all tendencies seem finally and hopelessly impressed by the famous denunciation. For example, take Popper’s follower Hans Albert: "The Humean objection refers to the transit from cognitive statements to normative statements in general. It is not limited to the empirical nature of the cognitive statements in question." (1975; 87).
In Habermas, the definitive irrefutability of the above mentioned denunciation is so decisive, that all of Habermas’ system , including his consensual theory of truth, seems to be based on it. This author says: "Clarified since Hume, as a matter of principle, the dualism between is and ought, between facts and values, means that it is not possible to deduce from declarative statements prescriptive sentences or value judgements" (1977; 140).
On the other hand, Vittorio Hösle, who rejects the camouflaged positivism of Popper’s followers and all of Habermas’ system, nonetheless declares: "… Even those who do not share Hume’s skepticism… should in any case recognize that his two intuitions, that of the impossibility of basing categories on the empirical, and the impossibility of deducing statements with ought from statements with is, are two lasting intellectual achievements which ensure him a place among the great philosophers" (1990; 29).
There is no need to cite others. All authors seem to find an insurmountable barrier in this denunciation made by Hume. The time has come, before the end of this century, which has been the philosophical century of Hume’s denunciation, the time has come to take the bull by the horns and answer this famous denunciation in strictly logical fashion. But it so happens that in order to do so, we must find out what is means and how this concept originated, and there we shall find, in the company of all the great philosophers that have ever existed (including Hume), something that not only answers the famous denunciation, but also strikes at the very jugular vein of materialism, materialism being one of the absolutely central problems of philosophy and of human civilization itself. This chapter will, therefore, have a second part devoted to materialism. It turns out to be a very ambitious chapter, but I cannot think of any way to dissipate that impression.
Well now, before delving into the concept of being in order to answer the famous denunciation head on, it is important to observe that those who declare it impossible to demonstrate and found moral judgements forget to ask what the real meaning of demonstrating, of founding, is. Perhaps they are thinking of the logical operation called deduction. But this operation is a mere tautology. To deduce a particular proposition from a universal one which, because it is universal, already included it, does not increase knowledge one bit; it only makes explicit what was already stated. I see no detraction from moral judgements in the fact that it is impossible to perform a perfectly laughable logical operation regarding them.
Essentially, the fact that a proposition has been founded means that I am obliged to accept it. The morality lies in the very idea of distinguishing between the founded and the unfounded. And the denouncers are trying with all their might to not let in something that is already inside.
On the other hand, probably the reason why they reject the possibility of proving moral judgements is because they reject the possibility of proving anything at all. If any proof seems impossible to them, it is not surprising that they find the proof of moral judgements impossible.
Munchhausen’s trilemma, which Popper’s followers weld with such aplomb, says that there are only three possibilities: either processus in indefinitum or circularity or dogmatism. The first consists of deducing a proposition from another one, but this one in turn needs to be proven, for which, is deduced from a third one, but this one also requires proof, and so on and so forth; and the result is that nothing is ever demonstrated, because the truth of each proposition always depends on another which has not been proven. The second possibility, that of circularity, consists of proposition A being proven by proposition B, but proposition B is demonstrated by means of proposition C, which has been proven by means of proposition A. It is obvious that this too does not definitively prove anything at all. And the third possibility, dogmatism, consists of deciding by decree, in order to avoid the indefinite process, that a certain proposition is true and making an end of it; from this, I deduce whatever else suits me. Obviously, this does not constitute proof. The bottom line is that, according to the advocates of the trilemma, nothing is ever proven. It comes as no surprise, then, that moral judgements cannot be proven.
I take this information from Habermas; "But J. Mittelstrauss … rightly observes that the Popper-Albert trilemma only comes about due to an unfounded equalization between deductive proof and demonstration without more ado" (1997; 145 n 151). In other words: the trilemma only arises if deduction is the only means of proof. But Popper and Albert don’t know, or don’t want to know, that Kant, for example, uses transcendental proof, which consists of showing that a certain reality is a necessary condition for the existence of a fact which is unquestionable and which is already accepted; thus it is proven that said reality exists.
But in addition, proof can perfectly well consist of an interlocutor making me aware of the existence of a reality which I denied or supposed to be nonexistent. Only those who are not willing to ever learn anything can deny the possibility of such proof. In passing, note how Habermas, despite having accepted Mittelstrass’ position in the previous text, in most of his works identifies demonstration with deduction: "Demonstration has nothing to do with the relationship between this and that phrase and reality, but rather in the first place, with the coherence between sentences within a language system" (1989a; 144). This text contradicts the previous one and expresses Habermas’ habitual fear that someone, through argument, may induce him to notice a reality whose existence he is by no means prepared to accept.
And so, after this indispensable warning about what should or should not be understood as demonstration, in order to approach this much-discussed fallacy head on, we must get to the bottom of all philosophical problems: the problem of being, that is to say, of what exists, of what is real. Those who denounce the naturalist fallacy say that one cannot deduce an ought from a real fact. But they have not asked themselves what real means nor where the concept came from.
Of course, the vulgar pseudo-definitions which are sometimes given, and which never provide a positive content of the concept, will do them no good. For example, the one that says: real is what is outside of the mind. Since the mind is not something spatial, since it is not a drawer or a barrel, the expression "out of mind" or "inside mind" is total nonsense; it is like saying "yellow syllogism". And then, those who define real as what is outside of the head, are simply distracted; since the brain is inside the head, and they know perfectly well that the brain is real.
Other coffee house philosophers say that real is what is different from the self. But, in saying this, do they suppose that the self is real or unreal? If the first, the definition is no good, because the self is not distinguished from the self. And if they suppose that the self is unreal, it turns out that they are trying to define what is real in terms of what is unreal; which is absurd because the procedure must be just the opposite; the unreal must be defined by the negation of the real; in any case, the intended definition is circular, since it defines the real by the unreal and the unreal by the real. If does not provide any positive content at all.
The three vulgar pseudo-definitions we have mentioned are simply word games. On the other hand, our question is serious: what does real mean and what is the origin of that concept? We shall base ourselves on an epistemological discovery made by all of the major philosophers, each one on his own reflecting on knowledge; but the reader may make this prior observation which is obvious to everyone; there is nothing as real to the self as the self.
The epistemological discovery on which all the great philosophers coincide (including Hume) is that the senses, that is to say, our sense organs, do not capture reality as such, do not perceive being. If we only had sensations to rely on, it would never have occurred to us to distinguish between the real and the unreal. The content of the idea real is provided by the understanding, the senses do not make metaphysics. There are some sensory objects that are real, but it is the understanding that says that they are real, it is the understanding that perceives them as real.
Saint Thomas put it very aptly; "Although there is being in sensible things, however, being as such, the formality of being, the sense cannot grasp… but only grasps the sensible accidents" (1 Sent 19, 5,1 ad 6um).
Plato had observed the same thing: "To perceive being… is possible, it would seem, in reasoning, impossible in sensation" (Theaetetus 186D) (see also Phaedon 65C and Phaedrus 147C).
Similarly Aristotle, in distinguishing between sensible and intelligible things says: "The intelligible ones such as the one and being" (Metaphysics XII, 1070b7).
And in modern times, Kant makes exactly the same epistemological observation: "The being of a real object outside of myself… is never given by perception, but can only be added by thought to perception" (Kritik de reinen Vernunft A367).
And Hegel is cutting in this respect: "Being cannot be seen, heard, etc." (1975; I 517).
What these great thinkers describe is very obvious, we repeat. We see colors and figures; but color does not mean existence; figure does not signify reality. Neither does smell denote reality, Organically, the statute of a taste or a color is like that of an itch or the feeling of well-being; it does not distinguish between the object and the organ. To distinguish is already an intellectual contribution. The fact, well-known to experimental psychologists, that hallucinations are sometimes accompanied by doubts, patently shows that the visual or tactile or olfactory etc. content of the hallucination does not contain the data saying "this is real". If sensory content meant "this is real", there would be no doubts in hallucinations. "Reality" is an idea, not a color.
Hume’s analysis says the same thing as the philosophers we have already quoted, but is especially valuable for two reasons. Because his insight in distinguishing between what the senses perceive and what they do not perceive is universally recognized, so much so that it is the basis for modern empiricism. And because the consequences of his analysis are, as we shall see, logically ruinous for his general position of skepticism, and, despite this, Hume makes the same analysis as Plato and Saint Thomas and Hegel. Hume says: "Although any impression or idea that we recollect is considered to exist, the idea of existence is not derived from any particular impression" (Treatise III, iii, 1).
Not to draw out the list unduly, among the followers of Hume it will suffice to mention Carnap, the main exponent of empiricism in our century. Carnap not only coincides on the epistemological analysis of the great philosophers we have been considering, but has also presented a definitive argument regarding this issue. Let us suppose, says Carnap, that two competent geographers, each one separately, carry out an in-depth study of a mountain in Africa; and let us suppose that, aside from their abilities as geographers, one professes a realistic philosophy and the other an idealistic philosophy. The final reports they hand in will coincide in all the empirically demonstrable details, but at the same time, one of the geographers will be convinced that the mountain really exists and the other that it is mere sensorial appearance; on this point they cannot possibly reach an agreement based on empirical data, since it is precisely in the empirical data that they are in agreement. If what is real were a sensorial datum, the realistic geographer would simply point to it with his finger and thus, settle the dispute in his favor. But the fact is that the controversy cannot be resolved by pointing to sensorial data.
The epistemological thesis that what is real, as such, is not an empirical datum constitutes a solid and undeniable discovery of human thought. Now then, and this is the second step of our argument, if the content of the concept real cannot have originated in sensation, it must have originated in introspection. Of course, introspection is a metaphorical term; what we mean is self-awareness, reflection of the subject on itself. Therefore, the foremost meaning of real is identified with what we perceive through self-awareness, and that is the self, or the spirit, self-awareness itself. We repeat, it is perfectly obvious that for the self there is nothing as real as the self itself.
Even with the most cursory reflection, it is possible to understand that the self belongs to the sphere of ideas, it is "merely" an idea, and that this idea only exists at the moment we have it, at the moment we think it. The spirit consists of the realization, in the very fact of being aware of it. It is not something that exists first and then notices its existence, but rather its existence consists precisely in that noticing of itself, in its self-perception, in its thinking.
As Aristotle put it, "being is perceiving or thinking" (Ethica Nic. IX, ix, 9; 1170a35), "the mind is, in fact, nothing before it thinks" (De anima III, iv; 429b32). Or, as Hegel said, "if we take away thought, there is no soul" (1975; II 48). "What we call soul, what we call self, is the very concept in its free existence" (1971; I 175).
Now then, if the original meaning of real is self-awareness itself, that is to say, spirit, only someone who doesn’t know what he is saying can deny the reality of the spirit.
The mistake materialism makes has been to scornfully call all of this mere ideas. But in saying this, it shows that it has glimpsed what it is all about; the spirit is the ideas themselves, thinking as such, the very inner life of all that happens in thought and awareness (including moral obligation). The mistake lies in believing that these things are less real than stones. A couple whose being in love cannot be reduced to sex (and in most couples it cannot be so reduced) knows perfectly well that their marvelous understanding, that their reciprocal enrichment and exchange of experiences are "just" ideas; but for that couple, those ideas are life itself, and they are more real than the floor and the walls. The real nature of that life could only be denied by one whose concept of the real comes from sensory perceptions; but we have already seen that they do not contain that datum. The very meaning of "real" is the spirit perceived in self-consciousness, which consists in its acts, in its experiences. When we call other things real, we do so in a secondary, derivative and diminished sense.
Then the third step of our argument is this: when they say that you cannot derive an ought from a real fact, they are obviously supposing that the ought is not real ¾ which is a monumentally false statement.
Let us answer the denouncers of the fallacy by the rules. The attack says: you cannot infer an ought from a real existence. I respond; except when dealing with the real existence of the ought. In this case we are inferring from the ought, and therefore there is no illegitimate logical step; but from an ought that is a reality.
It all centers, then, on whether or not the ought is real. For most mortals, the imperative not to kill is one of the most real things that exist. Those who deny it, have perhaps not realized that their negation is the equivalent of saying; I am never really obliged. Those who say this can only be thinking of a false concept of real, presumably taken from the senses.
It is very important to note that this is neither a matter of behavior nor of compulsion or constriction, which latter includes the perspective of reward or punishment. If anyone says "I am not really obliged" because his behavior strays from the imperative, he is completely mixing up categories. Of course, it is possible for conduct to disobey the Imperative, but here we are not talking about the conduct, we are talking about the Imperative, that is to say, duty as such.
Similarly, if someone says he is really not obliged because no one is twisting his arm or putting him in jail, the confusion of categories is equally obvious. We are talking of duty, not of compulsion.
We have said enough about the question of reward or punishment in the first chapter: whosoever confuses the categorical imperatives with the conditioned ones is outside the question; here we are dealing with the moral imperative, which is always categorical. When I perceive "thou shalt not kill", it is not true that I am thinking of reward or punishment, it is not true that the applicability of the obligation depends on my needs or desires or instincts. Perhaps some can only perceive God as a remunerator; but this is confusing the absolute with the conditioned. We repeat: it is not a matter of behavior or compulsion; it is a matter of knowing if the duty, simply as duty, is real or not. For most mortals, the duty not to kill exists, that is to say it is real.
Of course, nothing is easier than declaring the things that you don’t want to exist nonexistent: all you have to do is establish by decree a conveniently narrow definition of "existing", and soon you will find that all things disagreeable to you are nonexistent.
For example, someone could prescribe that only the quantitative exists; it would be no surprise if later we were told that qualities don’t exist. That was what Descartes did in physics.
Another could prescribe that "real" means "visible"; soon we would be told that sounds and smells are not real. It all depends on how narrowly you forge your pseudo-concept.
For that matter, someone else could prescribe that only what is touched caressingly with the cheek is real; then, of course, neither duty nor sound nor what is touched with the hands is real. It is a little game of intellectual self-satisfaction which is completely unimportant.
The authors that use this type of trick believe that from sensory data can be extracted the content of the concept of existent and real to be manipulated at will. But the epistemological analysis offered above shows that this content does not lie in the sensible data. Therefore, these tricksters are using a pseudo-concept with no content. No wonder they can broaden or narrow it at will, you can give it any meaning you feel like. When it is understood that the meaning of real can only come from self-awareness, it is also understood that this concept has a perfectly fixed and unmanipulable content.
There is a very clear symptom showing that the mind of these subjects harbor a false concept of the real: they hold that when we say that a certain action is cruel or unjust, there is no reality in that action corresponding to those adjectives. For example, Toulmin says: "When I asked two people which of two actions was good, I was not asking them about a property, what I wanted to know was if there was any reason to choose one action over the other" (1970; 28).
This is a fundamental issue in the philosophy of science. We already know that it is impossible to force a scientist to use certain words, and not others, to describe a fact or the result of an experiment. These descriptions are called basic or observational propositions; but they are made up of words, while the fact or the result of the experiment is not made of words; the sensory experience itself that the scientist is experiencing is not made of words either, but of shiverings or vibrations of his or her sensory organs. Therefore, the transition from non verbal occurrences to specific verbal expressions cannot be forced in any way, but will always be debatable and is generally achieved by means of a group decision by the interested scientists, who one day resolve to accept a certain phrase as a tolerable description of the fact or experimental result in question. Now then, if all basic propositions are decisions, what right have they to exclude words such as "cruel" or "unjust" as if these terms were unfit to describe the fact? What right have they to decide that "cruel" does not objectively describe what happened in Auschwitz?
Obviously, there is an underlying pseudo-concept of real, conveniently narrow so as to be able to maintain that cruelty and kindness do not exist. The pseudo-concept involves believing that real means visible or touchable or sensible or something like that. But we have already shown that none of our senses includes real as content.
A description which says "cruel" (= ought not to be done) has as much right to the title of basic and observational proposition as one which deals with the size of the scalpel used by the torturer. Who are scientists to determine what things can be real and which can’t? How do they know? Sensory impressions do not provide this datum, therefore they cannot base themselves on them.
For all ordinary people, the obligation not to kill is something very real, independently of whether or not they decide to obey it. The skeptic does not deny, it seems to me, that there are ethical exigencies; any sociologist knows they exist; what the skeptic denies is that they obligate. This is the key point. All a demonstration of morality has to show is that these exigencies do obligate, that is to say, that they are real obligations. Now, the very fact that the skeptic distinguishes between the existence of moral obligations and that they obligate shows that the idea of obligation is perfectly clear in his mind. What is the origin of this content? It can be no other than the fact that he perceives or at one time perceived himself to be obligated. Therefore, the obligation or duty exists, since he perceived it.
The real existence of the Categorical Imperative can no longer be questioned, since it has been proven with a logical rigor that the sciences themselves, as we shall see in chapter six, are far from possessing. It is a clear sign of civilized maturity that the socialist Helmut Schmidt, precisely when he was head of the German government, spoke of the Categorical Imperative openly and in public (see: Apel 1990a; 251s), and that Max Planck, the discoverer of quanta, did the same (see: Wilmer 1986; 209).
It is true that scrupulous people see duty where there is none, that is to say, in actions that do not have to do with treating others as ends not means. But this is simply a mistaken projection of a concept the content of which must have originated in an authentic duty anyway. Otherwise, these people would not have that content they mistakenly project onto actions which are morally neutral.
Similarly, those who attempt to explain the origin of the categorical duty through the influence of society on the individual, would only be pushing the problem backwards, since they would have to explain how this unmistakable duty arose in the society which presumably teaches it to the individual. The only possible explanation is the very existence of the Imperative.
Dealing, as we are, with the categorical obligation, there is also an overwhelming difficulty in explaining its origin through social inculcation: when other people trying to instill morality in me use the word obligation (or other equivalents), I would not understand a thing unless I had that conceptual content on my own. It was none other than Hume who pointed out this definitive difficulty. Just read "on their own" where he says "natural". Hume says:
"…If men did not have a natural sense of approval and reproach, it could never have been brought into being by politicians; neither would the words praiseworthy and commendable, censurable and abominable be more intelligible than if they belonged to a completely unknown language." (Treatise III, iii, 1).
Therefore, the interpellation of the individuals by the Imperative is a previous requisite in order for the societal instillation of morality to be understandable and, hence, possible.
What happens is that the advocates of Freudian "internalization" do not speak of absolute imperatives, but of conditioned imperatives and, therefore they are completely outside of the state of the issue. Indeed, those authors, Rawls and Habermas for example, conceive social sanctions (at least praise and reprobation) as mechanisms by means of which society internalizes or introjects obligations into individuals. We speak of morals, and these authors set out to talk about something else altogether (conditioned imperatives). They explain something that is not what needs to be explained.
Field research by Kohlberg and Piaget, which does relate to morals and not to conditioned imperatives, shows results which are diametrically opposed to the a priori speculations of the "internalizers". This research is universally recognized because of its solidity, so we are not going to summarize them or reproduce them here. We are satisfied with the result that Kohlberg and Piaget have formulated. Kohlberg says:
"In fact, as soon as we speak to children about morality we find that they have many ways of making moral judgements that are not "internalized" from outside nor do they come in any obvious or direct way from the parents, teachers or even peers" (1981; 16).
"Although the sense of justice would not develop without the experience of social interaction, it is not simply the inner mirror of sociologically prescribed forms of these relations, just as logic is not an internalization of the lingual forms of culture" (1981; 145).
In turn, Piaget summarizes his research thus: "The sense of justice, although it can naturally be reinforced by the precepts and the practical example of adults, is by and large independent of such influences and, in order to develop, only requires mutual respect and solidarity among children. Frequently it is in spite of and not because of adults that the notions of just and unjust are imposed on the child’s conscience" (1992; 157s).
This diametric discrepancy between serious research and a priori Freudian theorizing regarding internalization is no surprise: the first is dealing with morality and the second with conditioned imperatives, which have nothing to do with morality. The Freudians, it is true, pass the sanctioning perspective through some exemplary person or "model" (Vorbild) that awakens the desire to imitate or emulate it, but deep down, the motive this speculation always supposes is some advantage or personal gain. Rawls states this explicitly: "In part this desire to emulate springs from seeing their attributes (of the exemplary people) as prerequisites for their more privileged positions…" (1971; 471).
And Habermas specifically makes the obligatoriness of the norms instilled through the exemplary figure dependent on the needs and desires of the subject being socialized; they are, then, conditioned imperatives. Habermas says:
"Needs are interpreted by passing them through identification and the internalization of the model (internalization of the expectations of the exemplary person). The desire to have, that is to say, to possess and enjoy in each case the object of the instinct is thus mediated to such a degree by the cultural desire to be like the model, that the satisfaction of needs can be linked to the cultural condition of complying with recognized norms. Thus, initially preverbal needs are transformed into intersubjectively valid expectations of behavior. Parsons calls these "cultural values". We can say that what lies at the bottom of the incarnate "values" which have become obligatory as social norms are needs, and that these needs are ‘interpreted’ through cultural values" (1976e; 251).
In other words: we speak of morality, and the advocates of internalization start talking about something else. And this was inevitable, since if they spoke of the categorical obligation that explanation of social influence would do nothing more than push back the problem, as we have seen, and it would crash into the fact that the individual would not understand anything at all when society tried to instill obligations.
It is amazing that the Freudians cannot see that against their explanation by example there is a devastating difficulty: How can they explain that one person becomes a model and others don’t? Why do we admire the conduct of that person in particular? If it is due to riches or strength or power or military ability, these things would be internalized in individuals and not morality. They would internalize the desire for power or riches, but no moral obligation. The only explanation for someone becoming a true model to others, is that others see realized in this person and their decisions what they perceive as the command of the Moral Imperative. Now then, this is what the Freudians were trying to avoid. All this beating around the bush through the model turned out to be pointless.
And so, before devoting the rest of the chapter to materialism, just out of curiosity, it is perhaps worth mentioning Max Weber’s witty attempt to explain the origin of morality. It goes like this:
"Primitive man’s behavior toward the outside, especially toward his peers, does not show an effective ‘regularity’ because a ‘rule’ or order is viewed as obligation, but on the contrary; to the organically conditioned regularity, which we have to grasp in its psycho-physical reality, is added the conception of ‘natural order’. We must suppose the fact that the inner psychic ‘attitude’ toward that regularity carries within itself noticeable ‘inhibitions’ against innovation ¾ as we can see today in our daily life¾ , and constitutes a very strong support for the belief in their "obligatoriness". (1944; II 313).
In other words, what Weber is saying is this: habitual behavior becomes obligatory, and this is the origin of the idea of obligation.
But this explanation is false on both sides. On the one hand, obligatoriness is far from being essentially linked to habitual behavior, so much so that it can refer with special intensity to something that has never occurred before in one’s life: for example, the duty of saving a child or a handicapped elderly person from a fire. If suddenly "innovation" (an act that the individual has neither seen nor performed before) is presented as obligatory, it means that obligatoriness is not identified with the usual. And, on the other hand, not all behavioral regularity is obligatory. For example, the length of the stride for a given tribe (and even for a given race in Central and Eastern Europe) seems to be so regular on average, that even from a distance a native can tell if a group of walkers is foreign; however, no one thinks that it is obligatory to walk with that length of stride. Neither is it morally an obligation to eat with a fork in our Western civilization; however, this is a regular and habitual behavior. Neither is it morally an obligation to wear underwear, however, that is what we always do. Etcetera. Weber’s explanation was a curious witticism which occurred to him at the wrong time. We have only mentioned it as an oddity.
So then, in order to frontally face materialism, it seems good to remember first of all something that the main argument of this chapter has made very clear: we know perfectly well what the spirit is. On the other hand, we now add, the materialists don’t know what matter is.
This double fact is definitive, but the reader no doubt expects us to inform him or her regarding the status of this philosophical controversy at the end of our century. The two most important authors who have recently attacked the existence of the spirit are Luhmann and Habermas. The first bases his theory on the concept of substance, and the second on the concept of intersubjectivity. It is convenient to consider them in that order, and then to refute materialism in general.
As we are going to translate some texts, be advised that in this whole book the German word Bewusstsein is translated as consciousness or awareness; and the word Gewissen as conscience. The first term refers to realizing something, noticing, becoming aware of something. The second refers to the faculty with which we perceive duty. Spanish, unfortunately does not have two clearly differentiated words to denote these two separate faculties, though English and German do.
Luhmann says: "We no longer classify consciousness as the subject (of sense) substantialized by reflection, that is to say, as hypokéimenon, subjectum…" (1976; 37). And, commenting on Luhmann, Markowitz says: "The psychic system is not a substantial entity that rests on itself" (1987; 484).
These two texts express the attack well: they deny consciousness, that is to say, the spirit, the status of substance. In another context, Luhmann recognizes: "The states of one’s own consciousness cannot be denied" (1991c; 39). That is to say; since as self-consciousness the spirit makes its reality undeniable, Luhmann gets back at it and thinks he does enough damage by denying the spirit the status of substance. And he calmly draws the skeptical conclusion: "In the systemic theory… there is no application whatsoever for the concept of subject" (1991d; 51). "Thus, can sociology, after quelling the Enlightenment’s optimism, assert itself as a skeptical science" (1991s; 66).
Deceived by the etymology of substance, some fall into the crude belief that substance is something which is below, and that accidents are something which is above.
Aristotelians usually suppose that, for example, the color of this table is an accident, while the table itself is substance, that the movement of a propeller is an accident, while the propeller itself is substance, that a soul’s joy is an accident, while the soul itself is substance, etc. This latter is what Luhmann denies, but if his denial means that he is against the soul being something "beneath" its acts (volitions, understandings, etc.), Luhmann would be falling into the crude belief we already mentioned and attacking a mere scarecrow. Even in material things, it would be grotesque to imagine that, for example, the movement of a propeller is above and the propeller below, or that in a projectile in flight the movement goes above and the projectile itself below. Even more so when we are dealing with the spirit, since this is not something spatial and therefore the expressions above and below, inside and out, which are expressions of place, have no reason to be there. It is as if I asked what color a syllogism was.
It is no detraction from the spirit that such an absurd conception is not verified in it. But that does not prove that the spirit is not substance. All sides recognize that the content of the idea substance is not an empirical datum. What we perceive empirically are colors, sounds, shapes, etc., but the colors and the sounds and the shapes are accidents; what we perceive with our senses of a propeller is the color and the shape. That the propeller or the table are substances, we know, we do not see it. Therefore, the origin of the idea of substance is not in sensory data. What is the origin of this concept? Obviously introspection, self-consciousness; there is no other possibility. But what we know through introspection is the spirit itself. Consequently, the spirit is the content of the concept of substance. To deny that the spirit is substance is automatically contradictory. It is extremely doubtful that the distinction between substance and accident has any validity in physical things.
There is another conception, a little less absurd than the one we mentioned about above and below but much more frequent, and Luhmann certainly incurs in this one. It is the belief that there is a real distinction between substance and accident, that is to say, that substance and accident are two different beings and not one.
We noticed that the self (=the spirit) belongs to the genre of ideas, and that the idea only exists in the moment and in the act in which we have it, in which we think it. In fact, it is the evidence par excellence that without the act of self-perception and self-awareness, the I does not exist. Now then, the act is accident. No one can wield a concept of substance without an act, for the simple reason that the perception of it is an act that the substance performs.
The only possible definition of substance is: what exists in itself. Unlike accident, which, since it is a trait or property of substance, can only exist in substance. But it is difficult to understand how something can exist in itself if it does not give itself the determinations of its existence, which are precisely those acts of wanting, understanding, imagining, deciding, realizing, etc. We were saying that the spirit is not a being which exists first and then realizes that it exists; but rather that its existence consists precisely in the realization, in its own acts and accidents themselves. Hegel puts it very well: "Substance is the totality of its accidents" (1969; num. 151). The spirit is, simply, the sum of its acts. Luhmann did not read his Hegel well.
When Luhmann recognizes that the "states of consciousness itself are undeniable" (1991c; 39), or when he asserts: "The perceiver knows he perceives" (1992a; 23), he is recognizing the reality of self-consciousness and, therefore, is conceding everything. To ask for anything more would be to suppose that between substance and accident there is a real distinction, to suppose that they are two entities and not a single one. And, to top it all, that "something more" would be an entity which is not only superfluous, but absurd, since it would be neither matter (since we are analyzing the spirit) nor spirit (since it would not have the act of becoming aware of its existence).
Against Hegel’s conception of substance, which happens to be the only possible one, perhaps it could be objected that, according to it, the soul would cease to exist during the times in which it experiences nothing. The answer point blank is that there are no such times. The objection presupposes the absolute Newtonian time that both Einstein and Aristotle have refuted. In other words: the objection supposes that time is a substance, it being the case, on the contrary, that time is a trait of the accident called change, alteration. Scholastically, we would say that it is an accident of an accident. If there are no acts of the soul, the soul has no time. Aristotle put it very well: "Obvious that without movement and change there is no time" (Physics IV 218b34), "since time is a trait of movement" (Physics VIII 251b27).
To attribute the time of the stars to the soul is both unfounded and mythological. Unfounded, because we have no right to attribute to the soul a time that she is not having, and what happens in the heavens is neither here nor there to the soul. Mythological, because it is to suppose that absolute Newtonian time according to which the "now" which I pronounce encompasses and penetrates the whole universe by the simple fact of my speaking it. It is superfluous to add that such an omni-encompassing and interpenetration is, on principle, unprovable, since the speed of light is finite, and not infinite as Newton believed.
By the way, those who assert the mortality of the soul impinge on the same ignorance of what time is: they imagine absolute times in which the soul has no acts and conclude that there will be a time when the soul does not exist. The mortality of the soul is, on its own, an expression with no meaning because it is based entirely on imagining a time that is not a time and that no one can define.
As for Luhmann, everything suggests that he also professes Newtonian time, substantial and mathematical (that is to say, infinitely divisible). See: "An act can only intentionally be directed toward another thing, never toward itself, because it suppresses itself in its performance" (1991a; 99).
It would seem as if time had an entity of its own and dragged the act forward preventing it from reflecting on itself. The Newtonian conception supposes that there are unextended instants, as mathematical points, that when we want to think of them, have already passed. Luhmann does not understand what the self really is: being an idea, the self is only perceptible by the very act which makes it exist, so that the act is directed intentionally toward itself and its own content. Many authors have already noted that the present that we effectively experience in introspection is not without extent, and that if experimental psychologists have taken to calling it "apparent present", this is purely the result of their inferiority complex in front of the mathematicians. This extensive present is the only one we really know and the only one that really exists. As we shall see in chapter six, the point without extension of the mathematicians is just a word, not even a fantasy image. Newton falls into the illusion of all mathematicians: believing that what is extensive is a sum of non-extensions.
But finally, Luhmann’s mistake regarding time is limited to the negation of the self-reflection proper to self-awareness, in order to maintain that only human systems of interaction possess self-reflection. This latter is manifestly unsustainable, since they do not have a "self" (Selbst); but the basic rebuttal of Luhmann’s thesis we have already made on the issue of substance: when Luhmann recognizes that "the one who perceives knows he perceives", he has conceded all.
On the other hand, Luhmann himself makes things easier for us by frequently expressing himself in such a way as to make it very clear that his attack against the existence of the spirit as self-consciousness has come to naught. For example: "Autopoiesis as life and as consciousness is a presupposition for the constitution of social systems…" (1991d; 297). "In view of the surrounding situation, there can be no doubt that psychic systems are autopoietic and, indeed, not based on life but on consciousness" (1991d; 155). "Naturally. We don’t state that there can be social systems without consciousness" (1991d; 234).
That these expressions and others which we will produce farther on contradict those we quoted before is patent, but it should come as no surprise to us because no materialism can be sustained without contradiction, and in fact, the most valuable part of all of Luhmann’s work is the part which not only goes outside his system but contradicts it: statements that reality forces upon him despite his systematic a priori assumptions. Habermas noted this: in Luhmann "the arguments which are full of content and rich in insight are produced not as a result of, but in spite of the methodological focus" (1976b; 141).
Let us move on to Habermas’ attack on the self-consciousness which is the spirit. He bases his theory on intersubjectivity, following a strategy that Heidegger began, although, to tell the truth, neither Heidegger nor Habermas understand intersubjectivity, but rather they confuse it with Mit-sein which is "also being there", a mere plurality of individuals. See how Habermas wields intersubjectivity against self-awareness:
"The focus of the theory of communication takes, with Humboldt, the model of reciprocal lingual understanding as the starting point, and knocks down the philosophy of the subject by discovering in the "self" (Selbst) of self-consciousness and self-determination and self-realization the intersubjective structure of perspectives that intertwine with one another by mutual recognition" (1992; 245).
Nothing summarizes the entire body of Habermas’ work as programmatically as the simple title of chapter 11 of his book on modernity: "Another way to get out of the Philosophy of the Subject: Communicative Reason vs. Subject-Centered Reason" (1989b; 351). The last page of that chapter cries victory: "The place of unity-founding transcendental consciousness is occupied by concrete life forms" (1989b; 386).
And we find even better boasting in a later book: "In the replacement of the paradigm of consciousness we will probably one day see the truly philosophical feat of our time, a feat comparable to the break made by Kant in inaugurating that paradigm with transcendental philosophy" (1985b; 134).
In synthesis: "The focus of the theory of intersubjectivity, which pertains to discourse ethics, breaks with the premises of the philosophy of consciousness" (1988; 336).
Although it may seem incredible, the idea is to suppress subjectivity (= the spirit) by replacing it with intersubjectivity and, at the same time, as a result, of rendering unnecessary the Moral Imperative, which is, as we have seen, what makes man acquire subjectivity and thus become human.
We need not emphasize that the issue is immensely deep, greater even than Habermas suspects, since at the same time the origin of society and the origin of man are at stake here. It is obvious that human reflection cannot be satisfied leaving unsolved the question of what came first, man or society; it is not such a trivial matter as the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.
The school of thought headed by Habermas starts by denouncing, with good reason, a very serious omission by Descartes and Kant, who were the great theorists of self-consciousness. In fact, they neglected to ask themselves about the origin of the self. They just discovered that it existed. They didn't realize that it is intersubjectivity that gives rise to it. And, truly, the Moral Imperative, which makes us self-conscious, refers to our neighbors, it calls on us in terms of others. It says: Hold them always as an end and not a means. The Bible never tires of emphasizing that God speaks to us through our neighbor (see my Marx and the Bible, chap. 2).
With good reason, Habermas says: "…The identity of subjects capable of talking and acting can only be formed on the plane of intersubjectivity, in the relationship with other subjects" (1976e; 216). And G.H. Mead, to whose anthropology Habermas constantly resorts, had already stated: "… The individual achieves a self only through communication with others…" (1962; 233).
Thus far, all is well and, in fact, Hegel had already said so: "Without a you the self is impossible" (1974; 378). "Self-consciousness exists in itself and on its own, only by virtue of existing for another self-consciousness in itself and on its own; in other words, it only exists as recognized" (1976a; 141).
Thus far, we repeat, everything is very proper and very important. What is inadmissible is the conclusion that Habermas draws: "Between the lifeworld as a resource which nourishes the communicative action, and the lifeworld as a product of that action, a circular process is established in which the late transcendental subject is not missed" (1990; 54).
Let us look closely at Habermas’ argument in this whole matter: since subjectivity is caused by intersubjectivity, subjectivity does not exist.
In order to draw such a conclusion, he is not intimidated by the perfectly obvious fact that, if not pronounced from within the subject, the word intersubjectivity loses all meaning. The word intersubjectivity can have no meaning if the word subject has none, since intersubjectivity is something that happens between two or more subjects; but the word subject can only have meaning introspectively, self-consciously, since, on an empirical level, the word subject lacks any meaning, there is no empirical datum that corresponds to it. Now then, if the meaning springs from introspection, that supposes that we know the self, each one on our own, and that, therefore, the self exists.
The other is "another self", and only because it is "another self" can there be intersubjectivity. But in order for "another self" to have meaning, the expression "self" must have meaning.
Without a doubt, the subjectivity of man is caused by the appeal that the Imperative directs to us through our neighbors, but once it is caused, it really exists. No less than Mead, Habermas’ anthropological guarantor, was the first to state this: "It is impossible to conceive of a self arising outside of social experience. Once it has arisen, one can conceive a person in solitary confinement for the rest of his life, but who always has himself as company and is capable of thinking and conversing with himself as he had communicated with others" (1962; 140).
And it is none other than Luhmann, the skeptical Luhmann, who has formulated the truthful observation: "No consciousness is dissolved in communication, and no communication is dissolved in consciousness" (1991d; 367).
Braun and Hahn, in commenting on Mead, aptly observe: "We are, as Mead puts it, this man to so and so and someone completely different for somebody else. There are parts of the self (Selbst) that only really exist for ourselves and are hidden to others" (1973; 108).
Habermas’ attempt to dissolve subjectivity (the spirit) into structures of language and communication dashes irreparably to pieces against the following of Luhmann’s analyses, of an undeniable objectivity:
"Suffice it to observe oneself when searching around in thought, seeking a clarifying word, when one experiences a lack of precise verbal expressions, when hesitating in settling on them, when one hears collateral noises, feeling tempted to let oneself be distracted or resigning oneself if nothing occurs to one, and one sees at once that there are many more things going on than the simple lingual sequence of the meaning of the words which can be isolated for communication (1991d; 368s).
It simply isn’t true that in subjectivity only what exists in language exists. In Appeal to Reason, I let slip some careless expressions in this regard, which I hereby retract.
Moreover, practically driven by the publications of P. Lorenzen (1969) and K. Lorenz and J. Mittelstrass (1967), Habermas himself has had to deny the pretension of the universality of language and, therefore, of hermeneutics: "But enough indications suggest that language is only "superimposed" on categories like space, time, causality and substance and on rules of the logical-formal linkage of symbols, all of which has a prelingual basis…! (1970; I 81).
Let us note that the existence of one meaning whose origin is not explainable through the influence of language would suffice for us to have to recognize that there are realities in subjectivity that cannot be replaced, as Habermas would have it, by the structures of language and communication. The text cited recognizes the existence of four meanings the existence of which is not due to language, but Habermas cannot ignore that Hume proved that none of the categories corresponds to empirical data. Thus, it follows that they only acquire meaning through introspection; consequently, the spirit contains many things the existence of which is not dependent on language; rather they exist first and then seek expression through language. Only thus can we explain the fact that we humans understand each other when we speak: we are all spirit and in the spirit lie the meanings. The Habermasian attempt to replace subjectivity with intersubjectivity is completely frustrated.
The inadmissibility of this substitution is so clear that Habermas himself, when speaking of other things, rejects it: "An uninterrupted intersubjectivity of current grammars would certainly make possible the identity of meanings and thus, constant relations of understanding, but at the same time it would annihilate the identity of the self in communication with others" (1973b; 260).
To annihilate the identity of the self in communication with others is what Habermas had attempted throughout his entire work. This text, on the contrary, opposes such annihilation.
But it is not the only one. In the next one, in arguing with Luhmann, Habermas seems to have forgotten the main task that he had set himself: "The relationship of reciprocity of recognition demands at the same time the non identity of one and the other; both must affirm their absolute differentiation since being a subject includes the claim of full individuation" (1976e: 193).
The same total forgetfulness can be noted in this other text: "The child develops an identity to the degree to which a social world takes form to which he belongs and, complementary to that social world, a subjective world takes form, delimited from the external world of facts and norms, to which he has privileged access" (1987; II 143).
Thus, Habermas’ efforts to brush aside subjectivity by using intersubjectivity as a distraction in order to brush aside the spirit, have been in vain. It is true, intersubjectivity is primarily bipolar or multipolar, but, on the one hand, precisely in order for there to be bipolarity (=intersubjectivity) individual self-consciousness must be full. And, on the other hand, the strictly spiritual nature both of intersubjectivity and of subjectivity is undeniable, because both consist of realizing, of being aware (Bewusstsein). The "inter" in intersubjectivity is not a sensible datum. What is empirically visible are two individuals, maybe close together, if you wish. That would be "being there also", but not intersubjectivity; the relationship is not an empirical datum. The "inter" is perceptible only in the consciousness of both subjects, in their awareness. And also, note that it has a moral character because it is a mutual demand for respect. So that the conscience also intervenes.
Now let us move on to materialism in general. We repeat: we know perfectly well what the spirit is. Acts of consciousness, experiences, acts of intellect or volition or decision, are undeniable. Faced with this, materialists only have two choices: they declare that these facts are merely epiphenomena, that is to say, that they are not real because the only thing that is real is matter; or they concede that the spirit is real, but add that it is caused by matter.
In fact, all of the materialists take both choices and jump back and forth between them depending on where the interlocutor’s argument pinches them.
Now then, each of these two choices is a thesis which unavoidably mentions matter, but since they do not and cannot define matter, the thesis becomes nihil dicens, it says nothing; materialism does not state anything at all. We shall come back to this.
Obviously, the first thesis also supposes that the sense organs perceive reality; a supposition which has been amply refuted in previous pages.
And the second one not only clings to matter without being able to define it, but also uses the concept of cause. Now then, as Hume and Kant have already proven once and for all, the word cause has no empirical meaning whatsoever, since what we effectively see is that one event occurs after another or close to another; we in no way see that it is caused by that other. Empirically speaking, what the heck is this "cause" anyway?
Hume even made an immortal jest regarding those who see a post (after) and exclaim a propter (due to). They commit the celebrated sophism post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which translates: after such a thing, therefore due to (because of) such a thing. The truly superstitious, and perhaps pathological, meaning of this frequent sophism becomes obvious when we consider that if someone committed a murder after a downpour, we would have to conclude that he did so because of the downpour.
Hume’s epistemological thesis is incontrovertible: we do not see causality. Add to this the fact that, according to the physicists, nothing is really ever caused, nothing is produced, since the amount of matter or energy existing in the universe neither increases nor decreases; it follows that in the physical world there is no causation. I am not surprised that physics maintains this, since it boasts of being an empirical science and, indeed, no empirical datum corresponds to the concept of cause.
Now then, if the concept of cause does not originate in sensation, it necessarily originates in introspection. And, indeed, in the spirit there is a continuous and true production of new experiences, authentic causation of thoughts, volitions, decisions, etc. Thus, only in the spirit does the concept of causality acquire meaning. In all of the causation that can exist in the universe, the causing factor is the spirit. Therefore, to hold that in the beginning there was matter, and that matter caused spirit, is a radically impossible thesis, since in purely material things the word cause has no meaning. In the beginning, indubitably, was the spirit. Otherwise, there would be nothing today, since it cannot be sustained that in the beginning there was nothing, because nothing comes from nothing. A good designation of God is: the spirit that existed from the beginning.
Note that in the microcosm the materialistic theory of causation is also impossible, such as when some doctors sustain that self-consciousness (the self) is caused by physiological facts or by the nervous system or some such nonsense. They can’t even empirically show the succession in time or simultaneity of both processes, that is to say, they can’t empirically show that when some physiological process is going on there is also self-consciousness, because self-consciousness is not empirically showable. And if, violating the cannons of empirical science, they trust in introspection, what they experience is that the spirit itself is the cause of its own self-awareness, just because it feels like becoming aware of its existence.
But worst of all, based on empirical data, as we just saw with Hume, they cannot attribute any meaning to the verb "to cause". It is equally a sophistm to say Simul ac hoc, ergo propter hoc (= When such and such a thing, then such a thing) as to say Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. The fact that a physiological process occurs at the same time as a spiritual event does not in any way signify that one causes the other. They would be seeing a simul and exclaiming a propter.
And don’t tell me it would be too much of a coincidence if there were no causal relationship, since my watch shows three o’clock at the same time as the cathedral clock shows three o’clock, and there is no causal relation between the two occurrences. There is always sophistry in this kind of reasoning, because its advocates don’t want to see that only through introspection and self-consciousness is it possible to give meaning to the word cause, but that path proves that it is only the spirit that really causes something that did not exist: a thought, a decision, etc.
Let us recapitulate, then, the dilemma of all materialists: either they say the spirit is unreal because only matter is real, or they accept that the spirit is real but add that it is caused by matter. In the first case they rely on a pseudo-concept of real which lacks all content and on a huge epistemological error which has already been refuted: the mistake of believing that our sensory organs perceive reality as such. And, in the second case, the very concept of cause brings them back to the spirit because it is not possible to give it meaning in terms of matter.
This suffices to refute materialism, but to top it all, its advocates cannot define matter, and this reduces the constitutive thesis of materialism ("All things are made of matter") literally to nothing.
There is a purely functional and relative use of the word matter: it refers to the element of which a thing is made, without indicating what this element is, without defining it. Thus we speak of construction materials, for example, or the subject matter studied in elementary school, or the matter of a paragraph as opposed to the literary form, etc. Obviously, the thesis of materialism is not about this purely functional usage, since the result would be comical: when they say "All things are made of matter", we would naturally ask: "And what is this matter?", and then they would answer; "That which all things are made of". Ah, that enlightens us! If we replace within the thesis the word matter with what the definition says that matter is, we finally come up with this grandiose thesis: All things are made of that of which all things are made. It would be a pure tautology, and we know that tautologies say nothing.
Leaving the purely functional and relative aside, the only possible definition of matter, the one that is always there in the background, is this one: Matter is what is not spirit. But there are two problems with this: First, this definition presupposes that they do not know what matter is, but that they do know what spirit is, that is to say, they know the spirit and this, therefore, exists. The materialist thesis comes tumbling down. And second: this definition "what is not spirit", also applies to nothingness; therefore, those who use this definition cannot distinguish between matter and nothingness.
And it is funny, because what current physics says on this point is this: "The best current thought does not maintain that particles are not constituted by space and time" (Taylor and Wheeler 1996; 193). That is to say, matter is space. But space is the void, nothing.
And the most widespread definition in school text books says: Matter is that which occupies a place in space. First, let us note that this definition as definition is inoperative, because the question was not where, but what it is. The relationship between a given entity and other things, for example space, cannot replace the indication of what that entity is in itself which has such relationships with what it not itself. But the most striking thing is that also a certain region of space (for example, the size of a basketball) occupies a place in space; therefore, this definition does not distinguish between matter and space itself. But space is nothing.
And the traditional definition of matter (see Aristotle: Metaphysics VII 1029a20s) also coincides in nothingness, since it goes something like this: not something not such nor so much nor any determination of being. As we can see, sheer negations. But, by dint of sheer negations, what we arrive at is nothing. Where there is no positive content, what there is, is nothing.
This multiple coincidence in nothingness is remarkable. It is like telling you that it is useless to go on trying to define matter, because, since the primary meaning of real is spirit (see above), any definition you give will have to identify matter with nothing.
There is another definition similar to the one about occupying a place in space. This one refers to time. It says this: Matter is that which existed from the beginning. I answer: We did not ask when it existed, but what it is. The relationship it bears to time cannot substitute for the indication of what the entity having such a relationship is in itself. That something must have existed from the beginning is a safe thesis, since nothing comes from nothing; but that this something is matter is a thesis that could only have meaning and be taken into consideration if it defined matter, which it doesn’t. Instead of a definition, we have been stuck with a thesis, which, in addition, has no meaning.
There is another similar definition, although this one tends to be haughtily proclaimed: Matter is what we have before us. This runs into two problems: First: we asked what it is, not where it is; the local relationship of an entity with us or any other thing is no substitute for the indication of what that entity is in itself. Secondly: if matter, in order to exist, requires some subject to have it before it, what these definers of matter are saying is that matter does not exist in itself, it is not real.
The following definition is not much different in saying: Matter is what can be sensed. But here we need to take note of four things. In the first place, there are sensorial data which do not correspond to any matter at all in hallucinations; therefore, the presence of some sensory datum does not suffice to identify matter because it would be possible that, instead of identifying matter, we were identifying nothing.
In the second place, if there is something that can be sensed in this world, it is surfaces; yet surfaces are not something real but a mere appearance due to the way our visual and tactile organs are conformed. To define matter as what can be sensed would imply running the risk of confusing matter with mere appearance; but surely those definers do not want to do that.
In the third place, the definition "Matter is what can be sensed" is no good because quanta and electrons cannot be sensed, but the proponents of this definition would no doubt classify quantum and electrons as matter. And note that the invisibility of these two beings is not
due to the imperfection still present in our instruments: it is due to the fact that the smallest waves of the visible spectrum are bigger than an electron, therefore this is essentially invisible. If then, the definition were reformulated to say "Matter is what can be sensed in itself or in its effects", we would not advance one whit, since the soul also has effects which can be sensed, for example, the raising of an arm. That something is the cause of the sensory effects is an acceptable thesis; but that that something is matter is a thesis that we could only discuss if it defined matter; if it doesn’t define matter, the thesis has no meaning. Things must be defined in themselves, not in their effects. We asked what matter is, not what its effects are.
And, in the fourth place, "what is sensible" as a definition of matter uses a totally indeterminate word, and therefore doesn’t define it at all. Everyone knows that the tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory and gustatory are five completely heterogeneous things, a classical example of things that are not comparable amongst themselves, out of which, therefore, one cannot draw a positive common denominator. Therefore, there is no proper content belonging to the expression "sensible".
The resource that apparently could be used would be to rigorously decree that "sensible" means the sum of those five things. But that would imply, for example, that a tooth ache is not sensible. Which our definers do not want to say, obviously. We ask, then, what is it that they want to say? They give indeterminate elements as a definition, and thus they define nothing.
Let us suppose then that they decree a limited "sensible" as meaning the five things we spoke of, plus the tooth ache to broaden the meaning. Still, this would imply that a cramp is not sensible, for example. They would have to go back and broaden again, and then there would be a limit of seven things. But that would imply that a shiver is not sensible. They would need to broaden again, and there would be a limit of eight things. But this would imply that hunger is not sensible. Again they would broaden. And so on: kinesthesia, fright, astonishment, balance, unbalance, a faint, etc., we cannot know how many nor which enlargements of the meaning will be necessary. Our definers would have to give up any limiting decree and leave the notion of "sensible" completely open. But, that is precisely it, that is not defining.
Deep down, although they don’t confess it, they have been guided by a purely negative notion; sensible is what we perceive in a non-intellectual operation. Now then, the intellect is the spirit. If they define matter as what is sensible, and sensible as non-intellectual, the only thing they are doing is defining matter as "what is not spirit". But we have already spoken of this definition in the beginning.
Let us continue our tour of attempted definitions. Of course, we must discard the picturesque maneuver of those who, instead of defining matter, defer the question to ever smaller bits of matter, slipping away. This is an evasion, not a definition. We ask what, then, is matter independently of size. First they said molecules, then atoms, then nuclei, then subatomic particles, and they will continue thus, but that is not the issue! A materialist would have to tell us what matter is, regardless of its size.
But it looks very much like the previous one, the definition which says: Matter is what has parts. In the first place, we ask what are those parts themselves, we are not silly enough to be happy with being referred to ever smaller parts. In the second place, the quanta discovered by Planck are characterized precisely by the fact that they have no parts, and yet, the advocates of this definition are no doubt convinced that quanta are material; so proposing such a definition was just a distraction.
And, in the third place, if matter consists of having parts, we ask if the ultimate parts have parts or not. If not, by definition they are not matter, and it turns out that matter is made of spirit. If they do have parts, it turns out they are not the ultimate ones and materialism is contradictory because it is forced to maintain, at the same time, that matter has ultimate parts and that matter doesn’t have ultimate parts. They must both affirm and negate that matter has ultimate parts.
If they wanted to abstain from affirming that there are ultimate parts, they would fall into the sneaky little chicanery which sends us indefinitely to smaller and smaller bits of matter, which is neither a thesis nor a definition, but simply an evasion, simply leaving the question unanswered. And if they wanted to abstain from negating that there are ultimate parts, it would cease to be materialism, for if there are ultimate parts, they have no parts and therefore are spirit. Materialism cannot abstain from affirming nor abstain from negating that there are ultimate parts. Therefore, it is necessarily contradictory.
It is no whim of the great physicist of our century, Sir Arthur Eddington, when he draws this conclusion: "… I affirm that all reality is by nature spiritual and not material, nor part material and part spiritual" (1986; 253).
As it presupposes the previous one ("Matter is that which has parts"), it would no longer be necessary to discuss the definition that says that matter has extension and that extension is the position of parts outside of parts. But, of course, it is obvious that this tells us where the parts are, but doesn’t tell us what the parts are or what they are parts of. It indicates a relationship (spatial) of some parts of matter to others, but doesn’t indicate what matter is. And, in addition, extension presupposes continuity; otherwise the alleged parts would not constitute a whole and therefore are not parts; but the continuity that our senses of touch and vision bear witness to is a mere appearance; it is due to the fact that those senses do not perceive the gaps, they do not perceive the immense (incomparably larger) voids in between. Extension is mere appearance; to define matter by extent would be to convert matter into mere appearance. However, we repeat, the main thing is that this definition presupposes the previous one, which has already been discarded.
The theorists who affirm that, in addition to the spirit, matter exists, perhaps would ask me: But do you deny that matter exists? I answer: It is as if you were to ask me: But do you deny that Blictiri exists? I don’t see the point of answering, in positive or negative fashion, a question that lacks meaning.
On a theological note, perhaps they could brandish "And the word became flesh" (Jn 1, 14). But we know that the prologue of Saint John is a translation of a document originally written in Hebrew, and we also know that in the Bible the Hebrew word basar (flesh) is frequently used to designate humans without indicating gender, either masculine or feminine. It is like body in English, when you say somebody or anybody or nobody; in English there is no universal term without gender, as there is in German and in Greek. In fact, the German Christians say Menschwerdung (humanization) where the Spanish speaking Christians call it encarnación (incarnation).
Ever since the word matter was introduced into philosophy 25 centuries ago, no one has been able to define it. And they certainly have had enough time. Originally both the Latin materies and the Greek hýle meant wood, stick, log. To say that certain other things are made of matter turns out to be a carpenter’s metaphor. But it is time to leave metaphors and flowery literary allusions behind. The issue is too serious for that. In order for the word in question to mean anything other than wood and stick, they would have to give it another meaning. But they definitely have not and cannot. Therefore, the constitutive thesis of materialism: "All things are made of matter", is a meaningless thesis. It does not assert anything, it only negates. It is just the great negation. Since at root what is understood as matter is "what is not spirit", to say that everything is matter is just to negate that there is spirit. We have already noted that with this definition materialism collapses, because it implies that they don’t know what matter is, but they do know what spirit is, that they know spirit; therefore, it exists.
Eddington, the physicist put it well when he said: "In comparing the degree of certainty we can have regarding spiritual things and material things, let us not forget this: the mind is the first and most direct datum we have within our experience: everything else is remote inferences". (1986; 257).
Thus, faced with the great negation which prefers nothing to the spirit, the true commentary is the one made by Merleau-Ponty: "The scientific points of view according to which my existence is an element of the world are always both naïve and dishonest, since they take for granted, without mentioning explicitly, the other point of view, to wit, that of the consciousness by means of which from the beginning a world is formed around me and starts to exist for me" (1945; viii s).
True science cannot proceed in the fashion which Merleau denounces. In speaking of the cause, the conclusion that in the beginning the spirit existed imposed itself on us; but on the other hand, we also saw that without intersubjectivity, subjectivity is impossible, or, as Hegel puts it, without a you, a self is impossible. True science is, therefore, obliged to maintain that in the beginning there was intersubjectivity.
Not just Hegel, Mead and Habermas stress that without intersubjectivity there can be no subjectivity. Aristotle has already seen that "essentially the state (polis) is prior to the home (oikía) and to each one of us" (Politics 1 1253a19). And a witness as impartial as Theodore Adorno in our century sustains: "Society comes before the subject! (1975; 130). "It is not only that the self is interconnected with society, but that in a literal sense it owes its existence to it" (1976; num. 99).
Popper also certifies this: "We have every reason to believe that man… was social prior to being human (considering, for example, that language presupposes society)" (1966; II 93).
Likewise, Heidegger, whose thought on this issue is summarized thus by Charles Taylor: "He shows the priority of society as the locus of the individual’s identity" (1987; 478).
The medieval theorists are summarized by Taylor in another publication: "The existence of a community was something taken for granted" (1989; 193), "… that people were members of a community went without saying" (ibid.).
Let us also quote Luhmann: "Therefore, without socialization, a psychic system that realizes itself cannot exist" (1989a; 163).
We could prolong the collection of quotes. Only the contractualists contradict this, because they maintain that society originated in a contract; but this is a completely absurd theory, since in order to make a contract language is required and language obviously presupposes society.
Definitely, a science that does not succumb to the intellectual dishonesty denounced by Merleau must state that in the beginning there was intersubjectivity. But that means the Trinity of the Christian God. No wonder Hegel said: "In fact, philosophy does nothing other than understand this idea of Christianity" (1975; II 409). "This content is present, as the Christian Church teaches, in the Trinity. God is known as spirit only if he is known as the Trinity. This new principle is the pivot around which universal history revolves. History moves to there and from there" (1976b; 722).
