Kliknij, aby edytować styl wzorca podtytułu Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology Alicja Pietras, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Philosophy.

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Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology

Alicja Pietras, PhDAssistant Professor

Department of PhilosophyPomeranian University in Slupsk

Mobile: (+48) 602-175-341E-Mail: [email protected]

Topics

1. Hartmann’s ontology – general characteristic

2. Moments of being (Dasein, Sosein)

3. Spheres of being (real, ideal)

4. Modes of being (modalities: possibility, actuality,

necessity)

5. Categories and their nature

1. Hartmann’s ontology

• With respect to its problems ontology is a philosophia prima

• “There is no epistemology without ontology because there is no question about cognition without question about being”.

• Ontology as the basis for sciences: “Science is ontological in all its ramifications”.

• We need a new ontology


• ‘New ontology’ means critical, analytic, systematic and – last but not least – post-Kantian ontology.

• ‘New ontology’ is opposite to any old non-critical, synthetic, systemic, pre-Kantian form of ontology.


• With respect to its problems ontology is a philosophia prima, but with respect to its methods ontology can only be philosophia ultima.


• Ontology is the science of being qua being.

• Being is something in itself (Ansichsein).Entities are indifferent to their being know:

(a) They exist regardless of our knowing them; (b) They do not lose their essence if we do not know them.


Hartmann regards ontology as concerned with: the two moments of being: Dasein and Sosein, or that

and what; the two spheres of being: real and ideal; the modalities of being: actuality, possibility, and

necessity.

2. Moments of being

A problem of translation:• Sosein ≠ essence (essentia) Sosein = contents of being (not all contents are essential,

there are also accidental contents) Essence (essentia) = Wesen or Wesenheit

• Dasein ≠ existence (existentia) In traditional ontology, only real beings have existentia,

never ideal beings

2. Moments of being

Errors of the old ontology: Sosein = ideal being = possibility Dasein = real being = actuality

As a matter of fact there are three pairs of opposition:• moments of being: Dasein and Sosein• spheres of being: real being and ideal being• modes of being: actuality and possibility

2. Moments of being

Sosein ≠ ideal beingDasein ≠ real being

Being qua being is characterized by two heterogeneous relation:

A conjunctive relation between moments of being (Dasein and Sosein)

A disjunctive relation between spheres of being (real and ideal) (GO, p. 123)

coniunctive relation between moments of being

dis

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Sosein Dasein

idea

l ideal Sosein

ideal Dasein

real

real Sosein

real Dasein

2. Moments of being

Sosein ≠ possibilityDasein ≠ actuality

We should distinguish:• The actuality of a Dasein • The actuality of a Sosein• The possibility of a Dasein• The possibility of a Sosein

2. Moments of being

Also:ideal being ≠ possibilityreal being ≠ actuality

• Apart from ideal possibility (non-contradiction is enough for it) there is also real possibility (which is something more than simple non-contradiction, real possibility requires the fulfillment of a number of real conditions).

• Apart from real actuality there is also ideal actuality.

3. Spheres of being

• There are two primary spheres of being: the real and the ideal.

• There are also two secondary spheres of being: the logical and the cognitive.

3. Spheres of being

A new notion of reality:• In the old ontology, both time and space were attributes

of real being.• As a matter of fact, however, only time is an attribute of

all real entities. Space is an attribute of only the two lower levels of reality (inorganic and organic); the two higher levels (psychic and spiritual) are non-spatial.

• The true attributes of real beings are not time and space but time, individuality and process.

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3. Spheres of being

real being• time• individuality • process

ideal being• atemporality• generality

3. Spheres of being

Real being:

• All the real is temporal and all the temporal is real. • Hartmann calls ‘time’ a categorial “border ” (kategoriale

Grenzscheide). Space is not a categorial “border”, because:

(1) not all the real is spatial (psychic and spiritual beings are not spatial)

(2) not all the spatial is real (ideal geometrical entities are spatial)

3. Spheres of being

Real being:• All real entities are individual (unique and

unrepeatable). There are not two identical real entities.• All real entities are processual. Matter, life,

consciousness, spirit – all of them are processual.• The condition of processuality is temporality. All what is

process is temporal but not all what is temporal is a process (objectivated spirit is temporal but it is not a process).

Four strata (levels) of real being:

Spiritual stratum (spirit)Psychic stratum (mind, consciousness)Organic stratum (life)Inorganic stratum (matter)

3. Spheres of being

• Every stratum is as real as any other stratum. There are not degrees of reality. Hartmann formulates a new notion of reality because he wants to stress that spiritual processes are in no way less real than natural processes.

• We should distinguish between levels of reality and real complex formations like things, living beings, human beings and collectivity. Real complex formation cross various levels of reality (e.g., human beings are characterized by all four strata).

3. Spheres of being

Ideal being:• Hartmann is famous because of his theory of ideal being. He

claims that in being we can find autonomous ideal being. • The attributes of ideal being are atemporality and generality.• The ideal sphere of being includes: mathematical objects,

logical objects, essences and values. • We can distinguish free (frei) idealities (mathematical and

logical objects, values) and inherent (anhangende) idealities (essences of real entities). Inherent idealities are non-self-sufficient; they exist only by being contained in real entities.

• Values are another type of ideality than matemathical and logical objects. Matematical and logical entities determinate real being necessarily. Sphere of values and sphere of real being are mutually indifferent one another.

4. Modes of being

• There are three basic modalities of being: actuality, possibility, necessity and their opposites.

• We can distinguish: absolute modalities (actuality and unactuality) and relational modalities (necessity, possibility, impossibility) . Absolute modalities are fundament of all modal relation. Relational modalities are some kind of relations.

• Reality ≠ actuality• Hartmann starts from a distinction between the modes

of the various spheres of being.

4. Modes of being

being

primary sphere of being secondary sphere of being

real being ideal being logical sphere epistemological

sphere

modes (modalities)

of being

actuality real actuality ideal actuality l. a. e. a.

possibility real possibility ideal possibility l. p. e. p.

necessity real necessity ideal necessity l. n. e. n.

4. Modes of being

Laws of modalities: Basic modal law: All relational modes are related to

absolute modes. Something is necessary or possible with regard to something else which is actual. Otherwise there will be a regressus ad infinitum.

Modal laws of the real sphere of being:

F.i., law of real actuality: real necessity and real possibility are related to real actuality.

Modal laws of the unreal spheres of being (of ideal, logical and epistemological sphere)

Intermodal laws – laws determinates the relations between real, ideal, logical and epistemological modalities.

4. Modes of being

Difference between real and ideal modalities:• Ideal possibility is another possibility than real posibility. For

the ideal possibility non-contradiction is enought. Real possibility is something more than simple non-contradiction, it requires the fulfillment of a number of real conditions.

• Ideal necessity is another necessity than real necesity. Ideal necessity rise in subordination the particular entities under the general entities. The particularity of the cases is independent of it. Real necessity determinate particular entity in its particularity in accordence with all real current cuircumstances.

• Ideal actuality goes when there is ideal possibility. Real actuality is based on combination real possibility and real necessity. But we cannot distinquish one from another.

4. Modes of being

Hartmann’s Theory of real actuality:• Hartmann criticizes Aristotle’s theory according to which real

possibility and real actuality (dynamis and energeia) are two separate states of being: real being exists first as “possible” and then becomes “actual”. This conception splits the world into two spheres: (a) the sphere of actual being which has full ontological value and (b) the sphere of potential being which does not have full ontological value. Potential being has a sort of ‘ghostly’ existence - a position in between being and non-being .

• A consequence of this Aristotle’s dualism of actus and potentia is the static conception of real being. In this world only the initial and the final stage of being have modal values. Hartmann does not agree with this conception because the real word is a process.

• According to Hartmann the real world is not an actualization of ideal possibilities but a sphere with its own mode of possibility.

4. Modes of being

Modal laws of reality In sphere of real being Hartmann distinguish three pairs of modalities:

positive modalities negative modalities 1. necessity impossibility 2. actuality unreality (unactuality) 3. positive possibility negative possibility

4. Modes of being

Modal laws of reality

Between any two modalities there can be one of three relations:

1. implication,

2. exclusion,

3. indifference.

4. Modes of being

Modal laws of realityThree principles of real modalities:1. Modalities of real being are not indifferent one

another.2. All the positive modalities of real being exclude all the

negative modalities of real being and all the negative modalities of real being exclude all the positive modalities of real being.

3. The positive modalities of real being imply each other. The negative modalities of real being imply each other.

4. Modes of being

Modal laws of reality

Particular laws:

For instance, from the 3th principle:

What is necessary is also actual;what is actual is also possible;what is necessary is also possible.

4. Modes of being

Modal laws of realityLaw of real possibility: What is really possible is also really actual.Law of real necessity: What is really actual is also really necessary.From the above: What is really possible is also really necessary. To explain this law, Hartmann uses an example: Imagine a stone on the top of the hill. The stone can not fall down from the hill as long as the required forces are lacking, but if the required forces are active, the stone not only can but also must fall.


• Ontology is a doctrine of categories.• Categories are principles of being, they are fundamental

determinations of being.• The question about the categories is a question about (1)

the constitutive principles of being, (2) the principles of cognition (principles of cognition are indeed principles of being, precisely principles of the highest level of real being – spirit), (3) the basic predicates (but we should remember that predicates and principles are not the same.)

5. Categories and his nature

Basic attributes of categories:

generality – categories are general; character of determination – categories determine

concreta. Concreta depends on categories.


• We cannot define categories. We can try to explain what

they are. • To do this Hartmann specifies many errors committed by

earlier doctrines of categories. To show what categories are he shows what they are not.


• Categories are not ideal entities Because of their timelessness and generality categories were

identify with ideal being. In Plato’s philosophy, the realm of ideas was a sphere of

principles which rules over the world and determinates it, but it was also a realm of ideal essences in themselves.

Principle (Prinzip)

Idea

Essence (Wesenheit)


• Categories are not essences

In the old ontology, categories were occasionally identified with essences. The reason for this is that there are a number of similarity between them.


• Categories are not essences

Similarities between categories and essences: both are general both are identical in the multiplicity of cases both are timeless both are apprehensible only in real entities both are independent from their real instances


• Categories are not essencesDifferences between categories and essences: They have different contents. Ideal beings exhaust their

contents in forms, laws and relations. Furthermore, categories have another moment of content, the moment of substratum.

Ideal being has its own categories. In the realm of ideal being there is room for both categories and concreta. (Concretum is not to be identified with particular things).

The categories of ideal being are not identical with the categories of real being; the categories of cognition of ideal being are not identical with the categories of cognition of real being (A, s.45)


• Categories are not something in themselves They are something only with respect to the concretum they

determine. Categories are nothing without their concreta; concreta are nothing without their categories.

The complete system of categories (we never grasp it) completely determinates its concreta.

The principle-concretum determination is one among a variety of types of determination. The pair principle-concretum does not coincide with the general – individual (particular) pair.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Homonymy : Principle and concretum are similar (Plato’s

error). According to Hartmann principle and concretum are different

not only in their existence but also in their structural contents. Otherwise there will be unjustified dualism of two worlds.

Chorismos : Principles are separated (transcendent) from being.

According to Hartmann principles are immanent to all reach of their validity. In other words: concreta are immanent to their principles.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Generalization of specific categories: to transfer the

categories of one province to another that differs from it in kind (error of all -ism’s). For instance: application of mechanistic principles to the sphere of the organic, of organic relationships to social and political life, and, conversely, of mental and spiritual structures to the inanimate world.

According to Hartmann this is infringement of categorial boundaries and must be eliminated by rigorous critical analysis. The totality of beings is far more complicated structure than finds expression in the traditional metaphysical formulas of unity.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Teleologism and normativism: Categories are norms and

values or the highest principles are norms and values (Fichtean error).

According to Hartmann categories in general are not norms, values or purposes. Moreover we do not know how is the relation between principles of values and principles of another entities. This have to be first examined.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Formalism and conceptualism: the essence of principles is

form and pure form is identical with concept (principle = form = concept). This error comes from Aristotle’s philosophy.

According to Hartmann categories have their material moments (the problem of material a priori – fenomenology contra Kant). Categories are not the same that concepts of categories. We use concepts to refer to categories. Categories are named by concepts. But concepts are never identical with categories they name. Moreover concepts are never able to capture categories entirely.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Subjectivism: Categories comes from subject (error of

modern philosophy). The basis for this error is to confuse two pair of oppositions: subject-object and principum-concretum. Not only categories of our cognition of objects but also categories of objects comes from subject.

According to Hartmann we have to distinguish categories of object (categories of being) and categories of subject (categories of cognition). They coincidence only partially.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Apriorism and rationalism: Rationalism: principles are

logical and epistemological rational. Principles are knowable. Apriorism: principles are knowable a priori. Error of modern philosophy (Descartes, Kant).

According to Hartmann principles are only partially knowable. Principles of cognition are not cognition of principles. Principles are not knowable a priori. Our knowledge of principles goes bachward from the totality of experience to its conditions.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Thesis about identity being and thinking: Parmenides

thesis: “Thought and being are the same”. In modern philosophy this error makes Schelling, Hegel (German Idealism).

According to Hartmann cognition is relation between subject and object (consciousness and being), so they can not be the same.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Thesis about categorical identity: Principles of thought

and principles of being are the same. In other words: categories of cognition and categories of being are the same. Hartmann claims that this is also Kant’s error.

Problem: Is Kant’s Principle of All Synthetic Judgments the thesis about categorical identity?

According to Hartmann categories of cognition and categories of being coincidence only partially. There is also important problem of coincidence between logical categories and categories of cognition.

Is Kant’s Principle of All Synthetic Judgments the thesis about categorical

identity?• The Principle of All Synthetic Judgments: “the conditions for

the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions for the possibility of the objects of experience” (Kant, Critique of pure reason, A158, B197)

• What Kant here means for objects of experience? In the Preface to the second edition of Critique of pure reason

Kant distinguish two meanings of ‘object’. He writes: “an object may be taken in two senses, first, as a phenomenon, secoundly, as a thing in itself.”

• If in his Principle of All Synthetic Judgments he means object not as a thing in itself but as a phenomenon, this principle is not the thesis about categorial identity.


Errors of the old doctrines of categories: Monism: There is one the highest principle of all principles

(Plotyn’s error). According to Hartmann this is an unjustified presupposition.

Dualism: There are two the highest principles. Another unjustified presupposition

Harmony: There is harmony between multiplicty of principles (Heraclitus, Leibniz, Hegel).

According to Hartmann in the being we can find some antinomies. We do not know if they are ontological or only epistemological antinomies.


• To avoid these errors we should distinguish three groups of categories:

a) categories of real being b) categories of ideal beingc) categories of cognition

• We need the rigorous critical analysis to find what are the true relations between this three groups of principles.


• Categories of cognition are also categories of being. They are categories of the highest level of real being – the spiritual level.

• Categories of cognition and categories of being coincide only partially.

• This partial coincidence is possible because of the law of recurrence which claims that lower categories recur in the higher levels as sub-aspects of higher categories. But because of another categorical laws (the law of modification and the law of the novum) this coincidence is never total.


Knowledge of categories• Categories of cognition ≠ cognition of categories

Hartmann criticizes Kant. In Kant’s philosophy, categories of cognition are cognizable a priori. Hartmann rejects this moment of Kant’s philosophy. Categories are an ontological prius. An ontological prius is not the same as an epistemological prius.

• Categories are not cognizable a priori. Only objects (some moments of objects) are cognizable a priori. Knowledge of categories goes backward from the totality of experience to its conditions. First we know concreta and just because we know concreta we can sometimes know the categories which determinate this concreta.


Knowledge of categories• Categories are always in relation with other categories and

we can describe them only within this relation (Hartmann relationism – relationism of the Marburgian Neo-Kantians).

• Our concepts are never able to capture categories. Concepts are partial, static, separate. Categories are essentially dynamic and inseparable from other categories.

• Our understanding cannot grasp the totality of relations. The process of concepts formation is never finished.

• The knowledge of categories changes. When ontology develops our understanding of categories develops too.

Thank you

Kliknij, aby edytować styl wzorca podtytułu Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology Alicja Pietras, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Philosophy.

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