For Socrates and Plato such freedom is the arch-achievement of human life--as also in the philosophy of Spinoza. As Socrates loved to argue, getting what seems good to us is one thing, knowing what we really want is another. It is another thing to act over a considerable period with this knowledge clearly in mind and effectively directing our conduct. In so far as we may succeed in doing so, we are internally free. It is freedom, so conceived, that we (...) wish to relate to the idea of human existence. (shrink)

To avoid this blunt and embarrassing alternative seems to be the goal of much recent philosophy--and especially of continental European thought. It becomes apparent at once that these problems cannot be separated from our experience and interpretation of process and duration, of time and change, and of our place within them. It is this consideration, recognized as the very heart of the matter, to which Professor Chaix-Ruy has turned his attention. He finds his central problem to be an ancient and (...) recurring one, and he pays as much attention to Augustine and Pascal as to Bergson and Einstein. There results a panorama of Western thought apprehended from an unusual point of view. The detailed studies included are often fresh and penetrating and the whole argument is of absorbing interest. We may introduce this argument by indicating that at one point, although at one point only, Chaix-Ruy agrees completely with Sartre: the relation of essence to existence in human life is a unique one, quite different from that to be found elsewhere among non-human or sub-human beings. This contrast involves a description of man's relation to time and to change. Human nature is subject to change, or better, man subjects himself to change. "Chez nous l'essence est in fieri". We are reminded of Sartre's "Faire et en faisant se faire," although, as we shall soon see, we need not think of the initiative as lying wholly with our existence, as opposed to our essence. After all, an existence capable of transforming essence must have a structure of its own and a modus operandi. Even the freest choice is "structured." This would seem to be true even if our creative self-realization in some way embraces or contains nonbeing. (shrink)

To avoid this blunt and embarrassing alternative seems to be the goal of much recent philosophy--and especially of continental European thought. It becomes apparent at once that these problems cannot be separated from our experience and interpretation of process and duration, of time and change, and of our place within them. It is this consideration, recognized as the very heart of the matter, to which Professor Chaix-Ruy has turned his attention. He finds his central problem to be an ancient and (...) recurring one, and he pays as much attention to Augustine and Pascal as to Bergson and Einstein. There results a panorama of Western thought apprehended from an unusual point of view. The detailed studies included are often fresh and penetrating and the whole argument is of absorbing interest. We may introduce this argument by indicating that at one point, although at one point only, Chaix-Ruy agrees completely with Sartre: the relation of essence to existence in human life is a unique one, quite different from that to be found elsewhere among non-human or sub-human beings. This contrast involves a description of man's relation to time and to change. Human nature is subject to change, or better, man subjects himself to change. "Chez nous l'essence est in fieri". We are reminded of Sartre's "Faire et en faisant se faire," although, as we shall soon see, we need not think of the initiative as lying wholly with our existence, as opposed to our essence. After all, an existence capable of transforming essence must have a structure of its own and a modus operandi. Even the freest choice is "structured." This would seem to be true even if our creative self-realization in some way embraces or contains nonbeing. (shrink)

For Professor Wahl, the va-et-vient of speculative concepts reveals a restless dialectic whereby the emphasis of the theorist passes periodically from one contrary to another. Thus such notions as subject, object, the one, the many, have each in turn a recurring moment of dominion. But this movement, although it animates the development of ideas, cannot reach a stable equilibrium; and the notion, that may perhaps be attributed to Hegel, of a rational dialectic that has achieved a final resolution, is for (...) Wahl, as for Kierkegaard, a false ideal. This does not mean, however, that we are thereby finally condemned to a relativism or historicism. We can escape the vacillating one-sidedness of a "rational" dialectic. Indeed, the dialectic process seems to invite us to transcend it, or we might say, the very purpose of argument is to transcend itself since vision and not a discursive strategy is the goal of the philosopher. (shrink)

2. Thesis 2 I accept insofar as it asserts the relation of possibility to actuality to be a fundamental aspect of things. This relation is sui generis.

It may be helpful to recall that here as elsewhere Leibniz' pluralism finds a complementary counterpart in Spinoza's monism. Spinoza never deserted the notion of a single world-system wherein existence exhausts all possibility, so that, sub specie aeternaitatis, the two are the same.

Marcel is concerned with human existence or, better, with the quality of human life which we usually recognize more or less clearly under the concepts of freedom and responsibility. Such humanity is a de jure rather than a strictly de facto notion. We are always in danger of losing, caricaturing, or forfeiting our humanity and thus the adjective subhuman assumes a genuine significance, at least as indicating a limiting concept that stands as a warning before those "techniques of degradation," the (...) modern systems of mass propaganda and thought control. (shrink)

McKeon is, however, not eager to aid history in repeating itself. He strives to set philosophical discussion upon a new plane altogether. His attitude to the contemporary situation is set forth in the following quotation.

It would seem that "possibility," "concrete actuality," and "decision" are terms indispensable in describing my existence. It may also be that the meaning of no one of these three terms may be adequately conceived without reference to the other two. By preferring to follow Santayana, Mr. Eddins emphasizes concrete actuality. Now, as I read Santayana, existence like essence is a category, not strictly a "realm" of being, a category that we come to respect as we act and make decisions. It (...) should not, even in Santayana's materialism, be considered in abstraction from critical situations. Santayana's animal faith accepts the presence of a concrete actuality, the "realm" of matter conceived as a field of action. I might add that a human faith will accept our act of decision that makes its terms with the changing conditions constituting this realm. Thus I have asserted that "to exist is to have an unfinished history and a problematic future, the two being united in decision." When I think of my own existence or that of my friends, I bear this meaning more or less clearly in mind. My own existence is apparent to me every time I consider my past and my open future as the margins of a decision that is being formulated in my mind. Suppose now that someone convinces me that my decisions do not face an open future but stand to their future in a strictly chronological relation comparable, let us say, to the relation of earlier and later events as portrayed in an elementary text-book of history. Then I must face the difficulties latent in Leibniz' theology. (shrink)

It would seem that "possibility," "concrete actuality," and "decision" are terms indispensable in describing my existence. It may also be that the meaning of no one of these three terms may be adequately conceived without reference to the other two. By preferring to follow Santayana, Mr. Eddins emphasizes concrete actuality. Now, as I read Santayana, existence like essence is a category, not strictly a "realm" of being, a category that we come to respect as we act and make decisions. It (...) should not, even in Santayana's materialism, be considered in abstraction from critical situations. Santayana's animal faith accepts the presence of a concrete actuality, the "realm" of matter conceived as a field of action. I might add that a human faith will accept our act of decision that makes its terms with the changing conditions constituting this realm. Thus I have asserted that "to exist is to have an unfinished history and a problematic future, the two being united in decision." When I think of my own existence or that of my friends, I bear this meaning more or less clearly in mind. My own existence is apparent to me every time I consider my past and my open future as the margins of a decision that is being formulated in my mind. Suppose now that someone convinces me that my decisions do not face an open future but stand to their future in a strictly chronological relation comparable, let us say, to the relation of earlier and later events as portrayed in an elementary text-book of history. Then I must face the difficulties latent in Leibniz' theology. (shrink)

2. Without creation, becoming would be either a repetitive routine or a random movement, and no possibility would appear as an objective. But creative becoming embraces a determinable future containing unrealized objectives in the form of possibilities. It also maintains itself as a consistent continuation of the past. Thus I can accept Mr. Hartshorne's comment on Thesis 2. As I see it, the idea of creation involves a theory of endless becoming, a world without end. Creation is an adjustment of (...) pattern and context, a determinate embodiment of pattern in a context consistent with a relevant past and contributing toward a relevant future. Hence no first act of creation and no last act are called for, nor can creation be reconciled with a world history present as a totum simul. (shrink)

2. Being and becoming are of equal status, mutually dependent upon one another for their reality. Being is the possibility of some sort of becoming; becoming the embodiment of some sort of being.

Now, it seems to me that there is much philosophy written today that does not justify our recognizing such relativism as characteristic of recent thought. In fact, however dominant this way of thinking may appear in other fields, a freshly oriented concern for an absolute may be detected in twentieth-century philosophy. Such concern is for an absolute within rather than behind or above our experience--if you will, for a finite absolute. For such a philosophy, the absolute has not so much (...) "fallen" as settled down, "down to earth" so to speak, where it enters our daily experience. Thus the one of Parmenides whose presence pulverized our common sense is no longer with us, nor are we likely to revive it, but we do hear of an absolute reality present in our conscious lives. Witness Sartre's insistence upon the "absolute character of free involvement" or choice, in contrast with his dismissal of the l'être en soi et pour soi as an impossible ideal. The cogito of Descartes, rather than his perfect being, appears as the historical archetype of our absolute. Thus today the metaphysician is often more concerned with what we way call the quality of man than with the more traditional efforts to discuss cosmic horizons, even though a traditional concern for an authentic reality continues to inspire his work. (shrink)