On Rabbits and Christology

The philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine schooled us on the indeterminacy of translation using the example of a tribesman speaking the unknown language Arunka employing the locution 'gavagai' whenever he saw what we might think is a rabbit.  But while we might think that 'gavagai' refers to the object rabbit, we can never know for sure what the tribesman is actually referring to when employing 'gavagai'.  There is, after all, an inscrutability of reference.  

I can imagine a culture, that does not individuate the world like my own does.  Perhaps the tribesman's culture actually has no rabbits, but does work the world up by thinking in terms of temporal rabbit stages.  Let S be a linguist from culture X and P be a tribesman from culture Y.  X sees the world as a place where there are unified rabbits while Y understands that the world is a place where there are rabbit parts, some detached and some undetached.  When P utters 'gavagai', P is referring to a set of undetached rabbit parts, but when S hears P utter 'gavagai', S thinks in terms of rabbits.  So what is there really?  Does the world come with rabbits as a basic ontological category, or is it a place where rabbit parts proliferate and where 'gavagai' refers to a collection or set of rabbit parts suitably ordered? 

Suppose Q from culture Z uses 'gavagai' only to talk about a set of temporal rabbit stages.  Culture Z is extremely time sensitive, and they "see" the world as a place where the temporal slices of things are ontologically primary. The linguist S hearing 'gavagai' could scarcely imagine that Q associates the term with a set of temporal slices of a particular kind. Again Q's culture finds temporal slices of things ontologically primary to the collections in which they are ingredient. So what is there really?  Does 'gavagai' properly refer to rabbits or to temporal rabbit stages?  Or does it rightfully refer to spatially extended, undetached rabbit parts?  

Mereology is concerned, of course, with the unities that parts comprise.  Culture X finds a unity in the rabbit which is made up of parts. But cultures Y and Z seem to find unities in the parts that comprise collections.  Our question really boils down to a question of what the proper unities there are of things, and if there are no such unities in themselves, what unities we seemingly commit ourselves to when experiencing and articulating the world. 

But there are other possibilities than those of P and Q and their cultures. What if R and his friends read so much Plato that they actually see the world as the "shadowy place" where the primary forms are dimly instantiated?  R and his culture U work the world up such that rabbithood has ontological priority over rabbits, over any concrete instantiation of that  rabbithood. But while we might say that rabbithood is instantiated in rabbits, culture U might simply say, "there is rabbitthood here."  Each and every time R uses 'gavagai', S uses 'gavagai', but they are not meaning the same thing in their using of the term.  S means rabbits, after all, while R means that rabbithood is present.  So what is there really?  Does the world come with rabbits pre-made, as it were, or is their existence ontological dependent upon something more basic: the form of rabbithood? Is the particular ontologically dependent upon the universal, or does the universal ultimately depend upon the particular?

Finally enter T of culture V who sees the world quite differently than the rest. Everything is made up of processes for the denizens of V.  Perhaps it is not the raindrops that a culture knows, but the entire process of raining.  Perhaps rain drops are ontologically dependent upon the event of rain. A fortiori, perhaps rabbits are mere distillations of rabbiting.  When T utters 'gavagai' she means that it is rabbiting.  What is there really?  Does 'gavagai' refer to rabbits, undetached rabbit parts, temporal rabbit stages, the form of rabbithood, or the event of rabbiting itself?  If people in cultures X, Y, Z, U and V use 'gavagai' in similar ways and on similar occasions, then how could we ever tell what S, P, Q, R and T really mean when employing the term?  Is there not an inscrutability of reference here? How can S ever really know what P, Q, R and T are referring to when they use 'gavagai' each and every time they are in the presence of what S assumes is a rabbit? 

Quine's indeterminacy thesis has been around for many decades. The statement of the thesis is consistent with reflection within the last seventy years on language and its relationship with the world. How does language anchor to the world?  What is the world?  Does it come as a set of self-identifying objects, properties or events?  Are there natural kinds, or do human beings gerrymander the world, imposing through their individuation their own ontological prejudices upon it?  Whose power is served by understanding the world to have rabbits at its deepest level rather than rabbithood?  Who is marginalized by seeing rabbiting instead of undetached rabbit parts?  If the world has no objective ontology, but rather receives the ontology of our prejudice, then does not ontology become a projection of our interest and power, specifically as pertains our race, sex, class, sexual orientation, etc.?  

Indeed. One might say that if the world has no ready made ontological structure, then the world is really worldless, for it becomes merely the field that the self projects.  Accordingly, the world cannot sustain an over and againstness with respect to the self to which it relates. Here, the self devours the world.  

But as the last hundred years of reflection has taught us: there is no privileged access to an objective self that can be full of itself. The self that is not full of itself, is itself a battle ground of different cultural, linguistic and conceptual ideologies.  The self is dispossessed, and the worldless world now finds itself in relation to a dispossessed self. The world and self each have lost their inseity, and must now be understood ecstatically. We now suspect that while the putative determinacy of the world rests upon the putative determinacy of the self, the putative determinacy of the self rests upon that which is not itself and can never be itself.  So in these late postmodern days there is ripening the realization that world and self, the original Dyad, has breathed illusion since the Beginning.  But I digress.  

It is important for theology to know the ontological contour of the land it must work. Theology must relate the kerygma to the concrete historical-cultural situation in which it finds itself.  Theology must concern itself with proclaiming and understanding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in a time of a worldless world and a dispossessed (self-less) self. Accordingly, it must understand how to do christology in this time of rabbits. 

Looking at christology in this time of the absence of presence of world and self -- this time of the indeterminacy of reference and translation -- it is clear that we are going to have to specify what we mean in ways we have never had to do before in the history of theology.  Because meaning is no longer "in the head" -- we have no immediate access to a cartesian self with pure intent -- we are only going to gain clarity as to what we mean by employing the tools of semantic modeling.  

Language is syntax and theory, and theory refers semantically to that which is not language.  There must be something that language is about if there is ever going to be the possibility of truth and objectivity.  If language is not to collapse into itself -- or into the black hole of the self -- it must specify something in the world that it means, something on the basis of which it is true or false.  As we have seen, that to which language refers can be expressed set-theoretically.  What is necessary is that we start with a domain of objects, and then define relation and function operators on this domain. In this way we, we provide the possibility of an extra-linguistic reference to language.  (At least this is the hope.  Clearly, if one holds that sets and operations are affairs of language, then we are thrust back into Derrida's position of language being an "infinite play of signifiers.). 

So what do we do with christology in a time of the relativity of rabbits?  Clearly, just as we are able to specify the salient differences between undeatached rabbit parts, temporal stages of rabbits, and the instantiation of rabbithood, we must be able to specify the differences in meanings of 'person', 'nature', 'happy exchange', 'justification' or 'theosis' when it comes to Christ.  But what are the conditions for the possibility of difference?  What makes if possible that "gavagai" could apply to such different things?  More to the point, what are the conditions for the possibility that differences of meaning of 'person' and 'nature' could obtain?  

Some theology proceeds, I think, on the assumption that if one can use language in the same way and in the same situations, then there is substantial agreement about meaning in that language.  If one can say, "it is true that Christ is one person in two natures," then do we have to say anything more about persons and natures?  Why provide some set-theoretic interpretation to theology theory, if "this game is played," that is, that the language of theology is used appropriately and consistently whether used by person S or P above?  

But this objection misses the point. That a game is consistently played does not entail that meaning is consistently had. In a time when an unbridgeable chasm has opened between what is intended and what is said, we have no choice but to provide the relevant models for christological language, pointing out that language's possible interpretations and evaluating those interpretations in terms of their overarching theological plausibility.  In this time of the worldless world and the self-less self, language itself must police itself such that the proclamation of the wording Word is pronounced with clarity.  

Doing christology in a time of rabbits demands we understand profoundly the challenges to christological reflection in the twenty first century. Our naivety is gone.  Even the stability of what Quine called "stimulus meaning" is seemingly absent for theology. While linguist S sees and understands the stability of P, Q, R, and T's occasions of uttering "gavagai' in the face of some experience which can be understood differently, what constitutes the stability in uttering 'person' christologically, an uttering that seemingly is not linked deeply to experience at all?  

There is ultimately no other choice here for finding stability in the occasions of use of 'person', than to locate that stability within the Bibical-historical tradition of the Christian community.  In this time of the worldless world, and self-less self, there can be only the linguistic event of the utterance of 'person' consistently and stably throughout the Christian tradition.  While Quine could speak of the stimulus meaning of 'gavagai' in a field of perception, christological reflection must locate a meaning of 'person' within the revelatory event of the Biblical-historical tradition itself.  Only when we can make sense of the stability of occasions of using 'person' can we begin the task of providing models for the interpretation of 'person' christologically.  

Clearly, there is a great deal of work that must be done.  However, the first step in moving forward is to no what direction is presupposed in the semantics of 'forward'.  Beginning with rabbits can help us in christology, but the path forward is not at all easy.  In fact, some of the way forward will not look like a path at all.  But this is how it must be if we are going to do christology in this time of rabbits.  

Worlds and Difference: Theology in an Ecstatic Age?

I. When the World Was What it Was

Once upon a time in the west we believed that there was a world that existed apart from us.  There were many versions of how this was so, but the paradigm was clear: Entities and the properties that they instance are what they are apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.  

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) spoke of primary substances as the basic building blocks of the world. These substances have properties that are either present in them or can be said of them.  Those properties that are present in the primary substances are called accidents.  They inhere in primary substances, and constitute the way that the substances can be modified.  Accidents are always parasitic on substances; they cannot obtain other than being in a primary substance.  Aristotle identified nine accidents that primary substances could have: quantity, quality, relation, habit (state), time, location, position, action and passion.  

Primary substances and their nine accidents constitute the ten categories Aristotle discusses in his book, The Categories.  The important point is that the accidents do not individuate one substance from another.  Rather, individuation of substances happens at an ontological level prior to accidents.  Substances come already individuated, and these already individuated substances sustain accidents that that modify it; they constitute at any time how the substance is being the substance that it is. 

For Aristotle, however, substances are more than their mere accidental properties.  Certain things can be said of these primary substances, and that which can be said of primary substances are not accidental to these substances.  For instance, 'man' can be said of Socrates, and the predication of 'man' to 'Socrates' is not an accident of Socrates, because while Socrates could presumably be Socrates and not have his snub nose, Socrates cannot be Socrates without being a man.  In The Categories, Aristotle asserts that the secondary substance man is said of the primary substance Socrates.  This said of relation concerns what is essential to Socrates, that without which Socrates could not be Socrates.  

Secondary substances in Aristotle are clearly a reworking of Plato's notion of the forms.  For Plato, the form man is instantiated at the location of Socrates and is accordingly that which is known when one knows Socrates as a man.  Plato famously gives ontological priority to the forms (universals) over the concrete particulars that instantiate them. Aristotle's secondary substances, however, do not have the ontological priority Plato had given to the forms. For Aristotle, concrete primary substances are more real than the abstract secondary substances that can be said of them.  Accordingly, the world for Aristotle is comprised of concrete primary substances having essential properties by virtue of the said of relation and accidental properties by virtue of the present in relation. 

This basic way of seeing the world in terms of substances and properties was firmly in place by the thirteenth century with its so-called "rediscovery of Aristotle", and it survived throughout the Reformation and the trajectories of theological development arising immediately from it. The idea of substances possessing properties formed the basic metaphysical background on which both the physical world and the world of the divine rested.  While it was always problematic in the theological tradition simply to think of God as a substance having properties, the idea that God is some thing existing on its own apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language seemed clear enough.  While it might stretch language to call God a 'substance', God nevertheless does, like any substance, exist on its own and is individuated in itself. Accordingly, the world comes ready-made, both with respect to primary physical substances and the most important entity of all: God. Things are what they are apart from human beings.  The ontological order is thus independent from the human epistemological activity of knowing it.  

Aristotle and the tradition prior to the Enlightenment was thus realist with respect to its understanding of substances and the properties they might have.  This realism extended to the notion of causality as well.  Aristotle famously gave a four-fold analysis of causality, citing a material, formal, efficient and final cause for why a substance can give up some of its properties while assuming new ones.  The idea is that any substance is what it is by virtue of it being "formed matter," or "actualized potentiality."  Any object that is, is what it is by virtue of its individuating form which makes it a particular substance.  Aristotle's hylomorphism claims that all substances are constituted by particular actualizations of that which could have been actualized in a different ways.  A substance's nature constitutes the whatness by virtue of which an object is that which it is.  

Change happens in two basic ways. If one substance is to cease and another substance begin, there must be a change in that substance's form.  If a substance is to be modified some of its accidental properties must cease and others must rise.  In both instances, the substances already posses the possibility of these transformations.  What is needed is an efficient cause to collapse the possibility of this transformation into a determinate actualization.  The substance water is potentially ice, but this potentiality is actualized when. temperatures reach a particular level.  

Aristotle, however, saw the universe teleologically, and thus added a fourth cause to the material, formal and efficient causes.  Trajectories of transformation must ultimately be explained in terms of purpose or final cause. The final cause of the acorn is an oak tree, and this cause operates in selecting among efficient causes to actualize substances in particular ways over time. The point of all of this is that Aristotle saw causality as built into the nature of things.  For him, both substances and the causal connections in which they are ingredient have a determinate trajectory apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.  

While the language of substances, properties and causality seemed suited for conceiving the natural world, medieval thinkers knew that problems arose in using the Aristotelian categories to understand the divine.  God clearly exists apart from us, but His having of properties is not like our having of properties, and any changes that might be attributed to Him cannot be the result of external efficient causality.  

Of course, the tradition held that the perfection of God entailed his immutability.  Were God to change, God would need to move from one state to another. But if God is perfect, God cannot move from one state to another because either God would have to move from a state of lesser perfection to a state of perfection -- and thus not be perfect -- or move from a state of perfection to a state of lesser perfection -- and thus not be perfect. 

 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) following much of the tradition famously argued for the divine simplicity of God by claiming property-talk of God does not pick out in God some properties that God may or may not have, but such talk merely is a way of characterizing, picking out, or referring to the divinely simple substance that is God.  Accordingly, 'God is good' cannot mean that the substance God has the property of goodness, but is a picking out of some being without parts, a being of which one might attribute goodness merely analogically.  Whatever God is in se, God is more like a being to which we might customarily attribute goodness than to a being to which we might customarily attribute evil.  

When it came to Christology in the age of when the world was what it was, Christ had to be understood to be some kind of substance or person who had its own principle of individuality and who is what He is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.  Such a person has natures or batches of properties, some of which are essential and some accidental for Christ being the person He is.  The Trinity and incarnation must be understood realistically.  Just as the world is what it is apart from us, so is Christ and his Trinitarian and incarnational relationships what they are apart from us.  Human salvation too must be understood realistically.  The believer is a person who is who she is, and Christ who is who He is apart from her (and us) effects a transformation of the believer (either intrinsically or extrinsically) such that the properties that the person has are themselves changed.  All of this could be talked about through Aristotelian notions of causality.  On the basis of a final cause, there is an efficient cause that collapses potentiality into actuality; indeterminate matter is formed.  Accordingly, the real ontic unity of theosis must be understood metaphysically.  There are properties of believer and properties of Christ such that parts of the believer change and the believer is not that which the believer once was.  

Since what I am attempting here is merely a sketch of that time when the world was what it was, I will not develop further here a fully metaphysical Christology except to say that Christology had to be understood metaphysically at this time.  This is not to say that this metaphysical understanding was all that there was to Christology.  The relation of sin, justification, faith, and regeneration is complex, and, as Luther taught us, metaphysical categories strain to express the reality of God and his relationship to us.  

II. When the World was What it was For Us 

Kant (1724-1804) famously argued that we have no immediate experience to thing-in-themselves, but only things in so far as they already are for us.  Kant argued that the realm of the thing-in-itself was supersensible because no human senses could put us into touch with this realm.  Knowledge of the world we experience proceeds, for Kant, through our encounter with objects already constituted by us. Conception without perception if void and perception without conception is blind.  

Kant's solution to the problem that had beset Descartes (1596-1650) and had become acute in the British empiricists -- the problem of the external world -- was that while we do not have immediate access to the external world apart from us, we do encounter the external world as already organized by us.  This means inter alia the the "externality of the world," the contour of the world as it is presumably apart from us is already a product of us.  We have mediated access to the external world. Accordingly, when we know the external world, we know our representation (organization) of it. While the realm of experience may be a "joint product" of mind and external world, we only have access to that which is already organized by the mind.  Accordingly, knowing the other -- the otherness of the world -- is to know ourselves profoundly, for we are the ones organizing the world of experience.   

Kant inaugurated the tradition of transcendental reflection: What are the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience itself? Kant argued plausibly that the contingency of the world is grounded both in the necessary structures by which we organize percepts in space and time and those necessary concepts that function as rules by which the manifold of perception is united. 

After Kant the world was not the same. The world does not come as it is in itself, a world so metaphysically regular that we can find general categories by which to comprehend it, rather the world comes bearing the marks of the determining judgments of the human understanding by which objects take on the general features they do.  Famously, the world is not in itself an arena in which self-determining substances are what they are while being causally connected one to the other.  Rather the world reflects the very order we put upon it.  Just as we are autonomous with respect to morality, so are we with respect to the external world. We are the law-makers of each realm!  Since we are law-makers of the moral and worldly, we gain insight into ourselves when we know the world.  Knowing the other happens only in and through knowing ourselves, our capacities and proclivities of organization.  While the world apart from us -- the supersensible realm -- remains hidden in itself, we know something about it by examining the capacities we have to reflect it. 

Kant, and not Fichte, was in many ways the author of German idealism.  Kant knew that the world was reflected in our activity of reflecting upon our own reflecting.  The transcendental world is not like the old world-in-itself.  In the transcendental world, we find not things in the world, but rather things as they show themselves in their aboutness of the world in us.  While the older Aristotelian way of thinking posits primary substances existing on their own, Kant's objects are those by concepts of which the manifold of experience is united.  Transcendental questions don't deal with the world, but the conditions by which the world is the world.  To explore the transcendental horizon is to dig deeper than the world in order to find those structures which make the world possible.  The world as world is made possible by that transcendental unity of apperception by and through which the world in its particularity is birthed.  

The story after Kant is so well known that it scarcely needs repeating.  Fichte denied the cut between the world in itself and the world for us, and thus ridded philosophy of that which cannot be accessed and is not needed to explain the particularity of the world.  Accordingly, when it comes to the world, the spade does not need to stop somewhere in some dull non-conscious things existing somewhere outside us waiting to be known.  For Fichte, all that is necessary is that one thinks, and in one's thinking the world in its particularity is born.  

Fichte's take on Kant motivated subsequent thinkers like Shelling and Hegel to reflect upon their acts of reflection,  an act they called "speculation" from the Latin word for mirror, speculum.  To reflect on reflecting is no longer to access things, but to reflect on those conditions by and through which things are organized before us.   

Kant, Fichte, Shelling and Hegel together constitute a trajectory of thinking that denies the immediacy of the world.  The world is not what it is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, and there can be no immediate apprehension of it.  Instead our apprehension of the world is mediated by the particularity of our perceptual and conceptual organizing activity.  But while all of these thinkers knew that knowing the world is mediated by the particularity of that by which the world is known -- the human epistemic apparatus --- they nonetheless followed Descartes in assuming that they can directly know themselves.  We have access to our own ideas, after all!  While our ideas or "representations" constitute a screen through which the world is known, there is no screen at all between us and our ideas.   

Descartes had argued that while I can conceive of a scenario in which my seeming knowledge of the world is not genuine knowledge, I cannot conceive of a scenario in which my seeming knowledge of myself is not genuine knowledge. Since the condition of doubt is that there exists one who doubts, the condition for doubting the immediacy of the world is the immediacy of the self doubting.  While critical thought can dislodge the immediacy of the world in its doubting the world, it cannot dislodge the immediacy of the self as the transcendental condition for the possibility of doubting the world. 

Accordingly, while Kant is wary of trusting that the world really is in se what it appears to be pro nobis, he seemingly gives transcendental reflection a complete pass.  There is a transcendental unity of apperception that makes possible the unity of our experience, and while we can legitimately question whether the unity of our experience rests upon how the world might be apart from us, we cannot question what the transcendental unity of apperception might be apart from our apprehension of it.  Clearly, the game has changed. There is no longer a world that is what it is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.  Human beings give natural laws to the order of nature.  However, the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience as such are what they are apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.  In transcendental reflection we reach an arena of objectivity. While the world is mediately known, we have an immediate apprehension in transcendental reflection of that by which the world is mediately known. 

By the time of Hegel (1770-1831), however, problems with this picture are emerging.  Hegel knew that the categories by which the world is known are not simply objectively present and ready for the fateful gaze of transcendental reflection. They are not simply "shot from the pistol," but are themselves dynamic and in play historically.  Hegel recognized that the subject's grasp of its own self through its categories were at issue if one could not explain how the dynamism of the categories is itself objective.  Accordingly, Hegel's move to absolute knowledge is a move by which the immediacy of the categories could be restored.  

If knowledge is at all to be possible, there must be a perspective that gets to the thing itself.  If this is not the world, then it must be those transcendental conditions by which the world becomes world.  Since the immediacy of those transcendental conditions cannot be vouchsafed any longer by the subject, these conditions must be guaranteed by the Absolute that "takes up" all conditioned finite perspectives, whose taking up itself is necessary for the writing of books about the "taking up."  The Absolute Idea unfolds through concepts allowing the grasping of transcendental content, a historically mediated grasping that grants an immediacy to that which would otherwise remain wholly mediated. 

Notice that as the world became what it is for us, the world of as it is for us was true both of the manifest image of the world as well as its scientific image (Sellars). The manifest image of the world is clearly not the world as it is in itself. The scientific image which tries to explain those mechanisms by virtue of which the world is manifest, however, is often assumed to be what ultimately is the case.  However, it is clear that if there is no immediate access to the world in itself as the manifest world, there can be no such access to the world in itself as the scientific world of mechanisms by virtue of which the world is manifest.  The scientific world with all of its objective structures is a world that cannot be more immediate than the manifest world.  Accordingly, it is a world for us.  The manifest image of the world and the scientific image of it do not deal with the world as it is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language. Simply put, the world bears the marks of that for whom it is a world.  

Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel had theological aspirations, of course.  While much has been written about the the changed metaphysical climate after Kant, not as much has been written about the relevance of this changed climate for theology.  If we cannot know the supersensible world -- if the very notion of the supersensuous drives us beyond the bounds of all possible experience -- we cannot also know any regions of that supersensuous realm, e.g., theology.  Kant, of course, recognized this and claimed that he "had done away with knowledge of God to make room for faith." 

Kant had argued that the categories of substance and causality cannot apply to objects outside the realm of the phenomena.  This means, inter alia, that one cannot apply 'substance' or 'causality' to God.  God cannot be a substance bearing causal relations to other substances because there are no precepts being united to organize experience into one in which there are gods.  Gods do not exist in the phenomenal, and there are no metaphysical arguments showing conclusively that God must exist.  One might believe in the realm of the supersensible, but one cannot ever know those supersensible substances putatively causally connected to other supersensible entities or entities in the world.  

While knowing the external world occurs when we know the ways we have organized that external world -- when we know ourselves properly! -- knowing the supersensible world is not possible even though we are again thinking about our thinking.  Thinking about our thinking with regard to the phenomenal gives discrete knowable experience.  Thinking about our thinking with regard to the noumenal does not issue in any knowable experience, but rather can only put us in touch with our way of thinking.  Theology does not give experience, but it does constitute a way of thinking.  

So how must Christology proceed on the other side of Kant?  Given that we have no epistemic right to claim that we know the divine/human constitution -- nor the causality through which the divine person in Jesus of Nazereth effects salavation -- what do we do when doing theology and thinking our philosophy rightly?  What ought be the ways forward in Christology on the other side of Kant? What does theology become when its world is a world that is only for us?  

Since concepts are rules of possible syntheses, relating concepts in Christology must be a relating of ways in which such syntheses might relate to each other.  What can "two natures in one person" mean in the non-metaphysics of post-Kantian reflection?  After all, to speak of divine and human nature is to speak of that which lies beyond human experience.  Add the notion of 'person' to the mix and we are talking about the ordering of our ideas and not about the synthesis of experience.  Our ideas do not constitute experience, but they are important in how we must think aspects of our experience.  

Kant famously saw Christology as flowing from morality, and understood that human beings are unavoidably in the middle of moral life, even though moral life is not one of experience. There will be much more exploration of this in later posts, but for now we must continue our story beyond when the world was what is was for us to when the world turned ceased to be for us at all.  We must examine what happens when the world becomes worldless.  

III. Beyond the World as it was For Us

When the world was what it was, the world was in itself what it was.  The trajectory of thinking inaugurated by Kant gave a world no longer in itself, but a world now merely for us.  When the world was in itself, the world was known in its immediacy.  When the world became what it is for us, the world was known in its mediacy.  Both the in itself and the for itself of the world nonetheless presupposes that there was an immediacy to that by which the world is known in itself and for itself.  

Transcendental reflection that had dislodged the immediacy of the world nonetheless presupposed its immediate graspability. While Hegel increasingly realized that no Archimedean standpoint for transcendental reflection existed, his creative attempt to understand the various limited standpoints of transcendental reflection as manifestations of an unconditioned Absolute transcendental perspective that yet united the limited, conditioned, historically-mediated acts of transcendental reflection, kept at bay for a time the dawning realization that our acts of reflection are mediated as well, that is to say, there is no immediate access to ourselves.  Our putative privileged access to the contents of our own mind is a chimera.  While Descartes was often deluded about his access to the external world, we thinkers after Kant have been deluded about our access to our own thinking.  

The age that dawned after the age of the world as it is for us, is an age that increasingly took seriously that by virtue of which we thought we knew ourselves: it took seriously the language by and through which we thought we had found ourselves. This attention to language occurred both in the Anglo-American and the Continental expressions of philosophy, though in different ways.  The story here is complex and filled with surprising turns in trajectory.  Simply put, the twentieth century was an age that increasingly came to recognize that our capacities of self-representation are dependent upon others in surprising ways: our concepts, language and values are not our possessions by which we can objectively explore both the world and our own exploration of the world, but are themselves historically-conditioned social products.  

The words we use we did not create, and the concepts by which we think, we have learned from others -- mostly through the words that we did not create.  Every act of thinking employs concepts that have been bequeathed to us by tradition.  The days of thinking of language as a "tool kit" to grasp the objectivity of meaning are long gone.  We know too much.  Our so-called transcendental horizon is not the "unvarnished good news" that Quine once called the "myth of the given."  Just as there is no givenness to experience apart from our historically-conditioned conceptuality by and through which such experience arises, there is no givenness either to transcendental structures of reflection.  Transcendental reflection cannot escape the historicity of experience itself, a historicity that grasps the impossibility of reflecting objectively upon the conditions of reflection itself.  Just as "looks red" presupposes "is red" (Sellars), so does the apprehension of transcendental structures presuppose the conceptuality of such structures, a conceptuality given through language socially.  

Heidegger (1889-1976) famously uncovered the living and breathing ontology through and by which human beings make and live meaning.  We are creatures of meaning embedded within worlds of meaning that we did not construct. We who in our being ask the question of the meaning of being, necessarily ask the question within the historically messy process of the history of being.  Ultimately, Heidegger claimed, our takes on being are themselves a working out of be-ing as it is in and through our thinking.  But, for Heidegger, this Be-ing in its history is no Absolute that can in Hegelian fashion "take up" various understandings of be-ing and somehow come to itself deeply in its own thinking.  The history of Be-ing cannot be the God of the tradition of the Absolute of Hegel, this Be-ing in its history is nowhere and no place, and it cannot be accessed by itself.  It is deeply and necessarily so hidden that Heidegger in speaking it must use the language of "the last God."  

We live in the world beyond the world as it was for us.  This world is not in itself, not for itself, and definitely not in and for itself.  This world is, in fact, worldless.  It is a world suspicious of meta-narratives (Lyotard), of comprehensive attempts to find in the world discrete trajectories of rationality or progress.  

Once there was the a world that really was in itself.  After the death of this world, there was a self that really was in itself.  Post-modernity is the celebration of both the death of the world and the self, a celebration that must be in a certain sense ecstatic because there is no longer a self-possessed self through and by which the self can clearly conceive and pronounce its own death.   Our current time is an age where the screens have overwhelmed the capacity of either the world or the self to manifest themselves clearly upon them. We are without foundations; it is turtles all the way down.  

Living beyond the world in itself is difficult for theology.  God understood along the lines of world or self, could be a God that is still somehow understood.  But when the self lives ecstatically on the basis of concepts and language that are not its own, then there are no places any longer for God to lay His head.  After all, God is by definition incapable of ecstatic existence.  God cannot be carried along or constituted upon differential fields that somehow account for intermittent manifestations of identity.  If anything is, it would seem, God is.  There are no parts to God.  God is that identity by and through which all difference is ultimately understood.  

So what does one do with Christology in an age beyond the age of the world for us?  In our age where all immediacy is blocked, everything that seemingly is, is dependent upon something that it is not.  Just as the identity of the world turned out to be dependent upon that which is different from the world -- its putative transcendental structures -- and the identity of the self turned out to be dependent upon that which is different from the self -- the concepts and language of historically-conditioned social communities -- so too do our fleeting perspectives arising out of particular historically-conditioned social communities find a deeper difference out of which language and thought emerges, a difference that is Other than the historically-conditioned linguistically bequeathed by culture and tradition, a difference that must ultimately be Other than the world and all its putative foundations.  We are very close now to the beginnings of our tradition, a tradition claiming that out of nothing comes something.  

What is needed is to think Christology radically after not only the deconstruction of onto-theology (Heidegger), but the de-structuring itself of that deconstruction.  Thinking Christology beyond the phenomenological presencing that putatively once gave rise to onto-theology, is to bring into focus clearly the Abyss that is either unsupported and provides no support, or unsupported that provides support, or somehow itself supported.  What is Christ in such a situation, and what could a real ontic unity between Christ and the Christian be? But the development of these ideas must await another time.  What is needed is a Christology in a time when the world is not.  

On the "That" and "What" of Abortion

I

In the High Middle Ages, esse was routinely distinguished from ens. While the latter refers to a being, the former concerns the "to-be-ness" of that being. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) famously argued that God is wholly esse, and that all things that are share esse with God. An ens is a determinate limitation of pure esse.  Accordingly, to be at all is to have some of what God wholly is.  Aquinas further claimed that God's essence is God's esse. 

Duns Scotus (1265-1308) did away with Thomas' Neo-Platonic-inspired understanding that individual things participate in esse which God wholly is.  Accordingly. being became for Scotus simply the most general and abstract of concepts applicable to both the finite and the infinite.  Any possible thing either is or is not.  

While this spelled an end to the "degrees of being" model of the earlier tradition, Scotus was, like his predecessors, very interested in being, particularly the "thisness" of things in comparison to their "whatness."  For Scotus, haeccitas is the primoridal thisness of a thing that is not deducible from a thing's quidditas or whatness. While every ens participates in esse for Thomas, Scotus' haeccitas is logically irreducible to quidditas. God grants and values the particularity of being. Particular things have particular essences. Over and against Thomas, the divine essence does not entail existence.  

The separation between thatness and whatness was enshrined by Kant (1724-1804) in his critique of the ontological argument. The ontological argument, classically stated by Anselm (1089-1152), had argued that since God is that which none greater can be thought, God must exist because it is greater to exist than not to exist.  Accordingly, the conceivability of God entails the existence of God. Famously, Anselm had offered a second argument claiming that since God is that which none greater can be thought, God must necessarily exist because it is greater to exist necessarily than merely to exist contingently.   

Kant, though likely not reading Anselm, would have none of this reasoning, for while one can derive three-sidedness from the concept of a triangle, one cannot derive existence from the concept of God. Why? The reason is that although the concept of God's perfection might include the concept of God's existence, God's actual existence is a different matter entirely. The concept of an existing God does not an actual existing God make. One must distinguish the instantiation of any concept from the concept itself.  If one allows existence to be a predicate, then one is stuck with saying, "there is an x, such that x does not exist." But this is nonsense.  Accordingly, no amount of determining what, can issue in an actually existing that.  

Once upon a time the western tradition widely accepted Augustine's (354-430) notion of creatio ex nihilo, the claim that creation itself emerges from nothing. It knew that no amount of moving the deck furniture around upon the ship of existence could produce through that moving a newly existing ship.  A causally efficacious God was needed to create and sustain the universe.  A divine being with efficient causality was necessary in order for there to be created things. Being is not merely an inversion or unexplored side of nonbeing, but rather stands out from being on the basis of divine fiat. Existence is not a move in the unfolding of the Absolute Idea. 

Lamentably, the West has been busy forgetting this insight. Human beings, we are told, are co-creators with God.  We envision, construct, paint, compose, and otherwise bring new things out of old, believing that God also engaged in ordering the chaos. We forget the old ways because we have forgotten what Heidegger (1889-1976) called the fundamental question of being: "Why is there something and not nothing at all?"  We dream of quantum cosmology where a multiverse contains all possible ways that the universe might go, including the actual way it went, and thus we attempt to make less jarring the fact of the existence of the universe by pointing to the essential structure of that from which existence flows. But we lose the point of Heidegger's question, for why does the multiverse, which grounds every trajectory of existence, itself exist? Why is this something there and not merely nothing? 

Our modern logic presupposes the distinction between that and what. We express the what of anything through monadic and polyadic predicates which take as their values names for existing entities. We might say, for instance, that the whatness of the subatomic world is found in the spins, charges, and mass that particular entities possess. But theories of particle physics are accordingly committed to the existence of those entities that the fundamental theories of particle physics quantify over.  Quine's (1908-2000) famous quip applies clearly here: "To be is to be a value of a bound variable." The value of the bound variable is the that which exists, and the properties and relations that the that which exists sustains constitutes the what of the properties and relations exhibited. The early Wittgenstein (1889-1951) taught us that we cannot reason from the fact that something exists with determinate properties, to the existence of some other existing thing. After all, following Kant, existence is not a predicate.  

The rejection of the ontological argument and the acceptance of the gap between essence and existence is standard fare in philosophy. So how then are these insights forgotten in a small region of a subdomain within philosophy, the ethics of abortion?  Why is it the case here that certain arguments seem to forget the incommensurability of existence and essence, and accordingly assert that the existence or nonexistence of something can justifiably be derived from the particular way other things are?  

II

Arguments about the permissibility or nonpermissability of abortion sometimes suffer from a loss of precision between the what and the that of a thing. In what follows I want to be precise in exploring the structure of  common consequentialist arguments allowing abortion. I shall here not try to prove abortion is always wrong, or even determine under what conditions abortion might be permissible.  I am only concerned with arguments that regard the existence or nonexistence of the fetus/baby as derivable from a description of the happiness of agents within the wider context in which that fetus/baby is ingredient. In simple language, I am interested in exploring arguments that claim that "the baby would be better off not existing than be likely existing in a situation like this."

Imagine female f and partner p who decide that it is morally justified to terminate f's fetus/baby b because of the likely liabilities that f, p and b would suffer were b to exist.  Let us assume, for instance, that f is living in poverty, that f's relationship with p is unstable, that f already has three young children, and that f will like descend into substance abuse to mitigate the tensions in her life. One might, given this scenario, simply do the calculation about what the likely collective utility or disutility be to f, p, and b would be were b to exist or, alternatively, were b not to exist.  Included in this utilitarian calculation might be the putative rights f has for self-determination, and how carrying and delivering b might intrude on the exercise of these rights. Arguments like this, while structured as purely consequentialist in nature, might thus include an element of deontology, as suggested by f having rights. In what follows, however, I am interested only in the consequentialist argument.  

The question before us is this: Can a description of the what of f, p, and b's pleasure or happiness entail either that b should exist or should not exist? More to the point, should the calculation of f, p, and b's total possible happiness on b existing or b not existing justifiably affect the existence of b at all?  

There are perhaps reasons to say it should. After all, don't we often argue from the whatness of an organism's physical condition to a determination to end the thatness of an invading virus, bacteria, or parasite? The bacteria s exists and this eventuates in the suffering of the agent a in whom the bacteria is operating, and the family of friends of that agent. Is not the existence of fetus/baby b analogous to the existence of parasite s?  

Perhaps we are in need of a functionality argument here. While having baby b is within the proper function of agent f, the having of lethal parasite s is not within the proper function of agent a.  While the natural organism a has its function optimized in not having s, it is arguable that f's function is optimized by not terminating b.  To see what is the proper function of a thing it is necessary to know the nature of that thing.  

It is clearly the case that some no longer would regard birthing b as part of the nature of f. They might say that b is no more determined to come about given f as s is determined to come about given a. Accordingly, there is no natural tie between f and b.  

But it is difficult to claim that there is no natural tie between f and b when f is clearly the sine qua non of b occurring. Clearly, if b, there must be f, and without f there can be no b.  (I am going to avoid for now the question of b being produced in a laboratory.) Functionality arguments will likely generate controversy, and I will not attempt to develop a fully defensible one here. I avert to them only because I am cognizant that some way must be found to argue for the preciousness of b existing and not s or myriad other things not existing 

So let us assume for purposes of this paper that we can disarm arguments that make s like b with respect to a and f, and simply look at calculating the goodness of b's existence given the possible scenarios for f and p on both b and ~b.  How would such a calculation work?  How could one assign a value to the existence of b or nonexistence of b given that the happiness or pleasure of f, p and b is incommensurate with the existence of b?  What I am suggesting is that since there is no rule or recipe tracking from whatness to thatness, there can be no rule or recipe from a description of likely or unlikely consequences of having b to the actual existence of b. While it might be possible at the conceptual level to think that b should or should not exist given the pleasure or happiness of f, p, and b, the actual instantiation of b is as logically disconnected from f, p, and b, as the actual instantiation of God is from a consideration of God's putatively perfect attributes.  When it comes to denying the ontological argument, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.  

Many more considerations can be added to this argument suggesting that b has a fundamental right to exist, but I am not adding them here. I am merely claiming that one cannot derive that it is morally permissible to terminate b's existence on the basis of the happiness of f, p, and b. In fact, the ease by which some would reason to the morally permissible of terminating b given the likely happiness of f, p, and b, might remind one of the Dasein ohne Leben reasoning of certain German doctors in the 1930s. They reasoned that the life of a person might be at such a low level of development and thus happiness, that it is morally permissible to end the fact of that person's existence to save him/her (and their families) from what that existence might likely be. Dasein ohne Leben thus assumes that existence (or non-existence) can somehow be derived from essence. If existence is not a predicate, that is, if existence is not a property of a being, then there is no way to argue to it (or away from it) by considering the relational and non-relational properties of that being. 

III

Mary is considering terminating her pregnancy because the total amount of happiness for her, her family, and her fetus/baby will likely increase were she to terminate. She reasons to this in facile ways widely accepted by our culture.  Clearly, the fetus/baby is at the stage where its immediate happiness or unhappiness is not a profoundly relevant consideration in comparison with Mary's own happiness, her partner's happiness and the happiness of her family.  She aborts the fetus/baby on strictly utilitarian grounds, seemingly including the happiness of the fetus/baby in the calculation.  How does what we have discussed concern Mary's concrete decision?  

I am saying that consequentialism must respect the distinction between the whatness and thatness of the beings which it is considering. The consequences of events concern the existence or non-existence of properties instanced by the beings impacted by the event.  Accordingly, the consequences of Mary's abortion concern which properties Mary, her partner, her family and the fetus/baby instantiate.  One reasons here from whatness to whatness.  The happiness, pleasure, and total human flourishing of all engaged may indeed increase on the termination of the pregnancy. What I am arguing, however, is that no amount of consideration of whatness can entail that any of the morally relevant beings not exist.  The fact of existence is of a different order entirely than the how or what of existence. One cannot derive a that from a what.  

This is not to say, however, that consequentialism should not be employed when comparing the that of the mother's life with the that of the life of the fetus/baby.  Here considerations of the what of both mother and fetus/baby are relevant.  What-talk can be helpful when comparing one that with another.  It may well be that the consequences of not-aborting are decidedly worse for the mother facing possible death in delivery than for the fetus/baby.  After all, the mother is conscious in a way that the fetus/baby is not. In addition, the mother has other children; she has a family who have known her for decades and love her. Given the choice between the existence of the mother or fetus/baby, one could likely construct consequentialist arguments showing that it better to abort than not abort.  I am not, however, claiming this here. I am only pointing out that while consequentialist arguments might be helpful in the adjudication between two or more thats, they nonetheless fail when comparing whats and thats.  

But what about rape or incest? Does not the distinction between that and what mean that a fetus/baby can never be justifiably aborted?  I am not claiming this here.  What I am arguing is that a consequentialist argument cannot legitimately be employed to derive the justifiable non-existence of the fetus/baby from considerations of the happiness of the mother and her family and friends. This does not mean the deontological considerations are not ethically relevant. Not everything in complicated issues of abortion can be decided on the basis of consequentialist thinking. What I have argued is only that for a certain class of moral judgments based upon the likely consequences of aborting the baby/fetus for the happiness of the mother and her family/friends, it is unjustified to move from the what of their happiness to the that of the fetus/baby's existence.  

Clearly, a full defense of this view demands that one can distinguish degrees of goodness with respect to the thatness of a person, fetus/baby, pet, cricket, tree or mountain.  While the that cannot be directly derived from the what, our moral reasoning oftentimes is concerned with questions about whether or not something justifiably should exist given the consequences of its likely existence. But considerations of degrees of goodness or rightness cannot be themselves based upon consequentialist reasoning. Here we have entered the province of deontology. My argument here is simply that consequentialist reasoning cannot justifiably conclude to the existence or non-existence of fetus/baby b based upon sum total of happiness of agents f, p, and b.  

Sorting Rules and Acts in Climate Policy

In 1959 Richard Brandt (1910-1997) clearly distinguished rule and act utilitarianism in his book Ethical Theory.  In the sixties he further developed the distinction and responded to his critics in a series of essays which were later collected and published in his 1992, Morality, Utilitarianism and Rights. What is the distinction between the two types of utilitarianism and why should it matter in thinking about contemporary climate policy? 

One might put the distinction as follows: 

• Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest happiness.
• Rule Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest happiness.

Sharp eyes see that much is still vague in the distinction.  For instance, what does "greatest happiness" mean?  We can for both act and rule utilitarianism distinguish hedonistic pleasure from total human flourishing conceived as the development of our intellectual and moral virtues.   

• Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure.
• Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure.
• Flourishing Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing.
• Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to human flourishing.

But too much ambiguity remains. One must specify the extension of the set of individuals to which the properties of pleasure of human flourishing might apply. Are we concerned with global or merely regional happiness?  We are left with these distinctions: 

• Global Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. 
• Global Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. 
• Global Flourishing Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing for the greatest number.
• Global Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed would conduce to human flourishing for  the greatest number. 
• Regional Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure for the set of people in which one has interest.
• Regional Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure for the set of people in which one has interest. 
• Regional Flourishing Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing for the set of people in which one has interest. 
• Regional Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to human flourishing for the set of people in which one has interest. 

Now let us consider contemporary climate policy and the current demand upon the developed countries to limit carbon emissions to slow the greenhouse effect even though developing countries, and India and China, likely will not limit such emissions for several decades and maybe not until the end of the century.  On what ethical basis is this made? 

While currently the heating of the earth seems to remain much slower the many climate change models have projected, I will not deal with this factual question in this short reflection. I will simply assume that there is some global warming, and that carbon emissions are the main culprit in this warming.  (Although I am not a climate scientist, I don't there is universal consensus that climate science has conclusively shown that high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere actually cause global warming. There is, in fact, data suggesting that there has not been a consistent correlation in earth history between elevated CO2 levels and high temperatures.)

So let us consider Germany's cultural and governmental penchant toward deeply reducing carbon emissions.  On what ethical ground might a judgment deeply to reduce CO2 levels stand?  

Since we know that draconian cuts in CO2 levels will have virtually no effect on global climate -- perhaps .02% of one degree -- over the next century, justification for such cuts cannot rest on an act utilitarianism of any kind.  The Germans can either deeply cut use of fossil fuel, or not deeply cut the use.  Since there will be little effect on global climate whether they cut or not cut, the decision to cut cannot be due to application of an act utilitarian yardstick.  

So if we are interested in consequences at all in climate policy, we must point to a rule utilitarian basis.  But what kind of basis is this?  

Since most advocates of draconian carbon cuts talk about saving the planet, appeal is being made to a global rule utilitarianism: We must move to cut emissions in such-and-such a way, because were all people to cut emissions in such-and-such a way, the greatest happiness for the greatest number would eventuate.  

But is the rule utilitarianism to which appeal is made of the hedonistic or flourishing variety?

While one could argue this either way, I think it most natural to think that the ability of human beings to flourish by cultivating their intellectual and moral virtues would be inescapably negatively impacted were temperatures to rise significantly.  After all, temperature increases will eventuate in the melting of polar ice and the rise of sea levels, a situation which will damage or destroy coastal cities. The concomitant cultural loss of these cities being destroyed would clearly impact total human flourishing even if governments were somehow successful in evacuating people from areas of flood.  While I can even imagine a scenario where governments might somehow make it pleasant for their populations to migrate away from the coast, I can't imagine a scenario where the destruction of these cities is a artistic-cultural good.   

So Germany ought to reduce CO2 levels because acting to reduce such levels is in accordance with a general rule so to act that, were this rule universally followed, would conduce to the greatest flourishing for the greatest number of people. Notice that since the reduction of CO2 levels by Germany will have virtually no effect on global warming, the decision to reduce such  levels is quite abstract.  One must have a philosophical bent, I think, to be convinced by this abstraction.  I suspect, however, that the fact that most Germans are so convinced does not mean that most Germans are philosophical, but simply that most Germans have only thought about the benefits of such reduction were all countries to reduce as the Germans are, and have not thought about the concrete downsides of their own reduction.  

What happens when act and rule utilitarianism come into conflict? Will the German population opt for the abstract benefits over concrete losses? 

Imagine, as seems quite likely, that the German desire to end fossil fuel consumption, and their continuing commitment to eschew atomic energy solutions, eventuates in much higher energy costs and an increased reliance on other countries in the importing of their energy needs. This seems actually quite likely because Germany does not get much sunlight and it is in general not very windy.  Clearly, it is likely that the renewable energy to fuel the German economy will likely have somehow to be imported. Under these conditions, it is quite probable that people in Germany will have radically to cut their consumption of energy. They can do this by not heating or cooling their buildings to previous levels, living in buildings that more efficiently heat and cool -- big apartment complexes rather than individual homes -- and not consuming processed food or manufactured goods to previous levels.  

If this happens, the German population will likely grasp that from a regional hedonist or regional flourishing act utilitarian perspective, one ought not to have acted to lessen CO2 emissions. Why would one do that which lessens their own pleasure or human flourishing? From an abstract global flourishing rule utilitarian perspective one must cut CO2 emissions but from a concrete regional hedonistic or flourishing act utilitarian perspective one must not cut CO2 emissions.  So what to do? 

Jeremy Bentham famously argued that the principle of utility was not finally an abstraction at all, but that it is simply part of our nature.  Since we do act so as to bring about our pleasure, we are allowed to claim that we ought to act to bring about that pleasure.  (I have never found this part of his argument convincing.)  However, I do believe that Bentham has his finger on something important.  When human beings are confronted with a choice between an abstraction potentially benefitting many and a concrete course of action that actually benefits themselves, they will likely take the latter.  What else would the sinner do, the sinner in which concupiscence runs deep?  

Speaking theologically -- I must do this sometimes because I am a theologian -- I would point out the spiritual pride and hubris of well-sated populations holding abstract positions that they believe will never be put to the test.  It is quite easy to dream about CO2 reductions when such reductions do not have concrete effects on the dreamer.  But the minute the dreamer is profoundly affected all bets are off. 

Spiritual pride comes when we think we can divorce our "higher part" (reason, sound judgment, empathy, altruism, etc.) from our "lower part" (body, feelings, needs, self-preservation, etc.).  I am not saying that thinking as a rule utilitarian is not a good way to think, but only that such thinking, when unbuckled from life itself, can tend to make one quite arrogant an unwieldy in one's judgments.  

Thinking philosophically is hard work; one must look at all sides of things.  Unfortunately, in the current politically charged arena of public opinion, looking at all sides appears to be a moral failing.  

Climate Policy and the Generalization Argument

In July of 1955, Marcus Singer discussed in Mind (Vol. 64, No. 255: 361-375) the so-called "generalization argument in ethics."  The argument's general form is this: "If everyone were to do that, the consequences would be disastrous (or undesirable); therefore no one ought to do that" (361).  An instance of the argument is this: "The consequences of no one doing x would be undesirable; therefore everyone ought to do x. The question for Singer is this: What are "the conditions under which the fact that the consequences of doing x would be undesirable provides a good reason for concluding that it is wrong for anyone to do x" (361)?

Singer believes that determining these conditions links to the basic principle underlying generalization arguments.  The generalization principle states that what is right or wrong for one person must be right or wrong for any similar person in similar circumstances" (362).  In the Mind article Singer defends the validity of the generalization argument, leaving open the question of its soundness, that is to say, there is nothing in the form of the generalization argument that determines whether or not the consequences of everyone acting in a certain way are, in fact, undesirable.  He is not concerned with the "desirability or undesirability of a certain set of consequences" (375),  but only with the hypothetical 'were the consequences of x undesirable were all to do x', then no one ought to do it.  

Because he is not concerned with the truth of the assertion, 'were everyone to do x, the consequences would be undesirable', he does not take seriously the popular objection to the generalization argument: "Not everyone will do x."  Singer claims that the objection "is irrelevant because the argument does not imply that everyone will" do x.  What it implies is that "if A has the right to do something, then everyone else (or everyone similar to A in certain respects) has the same right in a similar situation," or alternately, "if it is undesirable for everyone to have this right, it is undesirable for A to have it" (374-75).  Singer believes that while it might be undesirable for A to have a certain right, this does not entail that the consequences of A acting in a particular way are themselves undesirable (375).  

While Singer does not find the objection 'not everyone will do x' relevant to evaluating the validity of 'if the consequences of everyone doing x are undesirable, no one ought to do x,' in the actual application of generalization arguments it nonetheless seems quite important.  

Take a standard example, 'If everyone were to engage only in homoerotic activity then there would be no children and the human race would end, then no one ought engage only in homoerotic behavior'.  Is this valid?  

One might say that it is formally valid, but point out that the antecedent simply does not in fact obtain.  It is simply not the case that everyone will engage only in homoerotic behavior. Clearly, if it is false that the antecedent in fact holds, then the first conditional is vacuously true.  

But it must be admitted that if the disaster conceived on the supposition of exclusive homoerotic behavior will not in fact obtain, then the very motivation to cast the homoerotic behavior argument as a generalization argument resting on the generalization principle disappears.  If, as a matter of fact, only 5% or less of the population engages in exclusive homosexual activity, then correct application of the generalization principle must take this fact into consideration in determining what is to count as "similar circumstances."  

Imagine Molly is deciding how to apply the generalization principle when determining whether or not to initiate sexual activity with Myrna.  She thinks, "what is right or wrong for me must be right or wrong for similar people in similar circumstances."  Thus it is, thinks Molly, that my desire to engage with Mryna must be judged acceptable if people having the particular psychological orientation I have are deemed acceptable in pursuing homoerotic relationships with others who, like Myrna, are open to them.  

Clearly, Molly's thinking has drifted far away from an application such as this: Molly is similar to every other woman in being a woman, and since if all women were to have only homosexual relationships is disastrous for the human race, then Molly having only homosexual relationships is disastrous for the human race.  Obviously, everything depends on what one understands "similar" to mean. How does one rightfully apply similarity here?  

How does generalization in ethics affect contemporary thinking on climate policy?  Is such policy committed to a generalization principle that is, in fact, misapplied? 

The default position of many of the North Atlantic countries on climate policy seems to be this:  If the situation of no countries doing anything to limit greenhouse emissions is undesirable, then all countries should limit greenhouse emissions.  Or alternately, if every country ignoring greenhouse emissions has disastrous consequences, then no country ought to ignore such emissions.  Again, one might grasp that the generalization argument rests on this principle: what is right or wrong for one country with regard to greenhouse emissions must be right or wrong for any similar country in similar circumstances.  

Those convinced of the general validity of this principle are obviously convinced that the fact that not every country will limit greenhouse emissions is irrelevant to what ought to be done, for clearly, if every country were so to limit emissions then disaster might be averted.  

But does this situation not call for an investigation of what motivates the application of the argument in this context?  Clearly, the presupposition is that it is in the power of every country to limit greenhouse emissions.  

Compare this to the situation of Molly.  Can it be said that it is fully within the power of Molly simply not to be predisposed to homoerotic activity?  In one sense, of course, Molly might reasonably be said to have the power to do other than what she might otherwise want to do with Mryna, but does this mean that she has the power not to have the general psychological orientation she has?  Given her psychological orientation, and given the psychological orientation of others similar to her, and given the relative infrequency of her psychological orientation among the general population, could it be said that acting in accordance with her psychological proclivities actually lead to disastrous consequences?  

It might be similarly argued, that while every nation may have the abstract power to limit greenhouse emissions, many would not find it in their best immediate interest so to, and might even find it almost impossible to limit such emissions given the current socio-economic conditions obtaining in their country, and the happiness of the actual populations of that country! What I am suggesting is simply this: Just as it seems that 'not everybody will do so' is ethically relevant to the application of the generalization argument to homoerotic behavior, so is it relevant to that argument's application with respect to greenhouse emissions. 

Take, for example, the country of Germany having the fourth largest GDP in all the world. Many in Germany are convinced by the generalization argument.  Since every country ignoring greenhouse emissions would lead to disastrous consequences for the future of humanity, it is not morally permissible for Germany to ignore such emissions.  Presumably, German citizens hold this even knowing that were they completely to eliminate fossil fuel consumption, such elimination by itself has virtually no effect on global temperatures over the next 100 years.  The actual consequences of Germany eliminating fossil fuels is irrelevant, we are told, from their ethical mandate so to eliminate these fuels, for "if everybody continuing to burn fossil fuels has disastrous consequences for the earth, then it is not allowable that Germany should continue to burn such fuels."

But why exactly?  Why should Germany and the North Atlantic countries limit emissions over the next century when, as a matter of fact, most of the developing countries will increase emissions dramatically?  Why must Molly act like the rest of the women who are unlike her?  What makes Germany unlike countries like India and China that will likely raise carbon emission levels through the end of the century?  How should we apply the criterion of similarity here?  

I would argue that while Molly is unlike 19 out of 20 women, (but like 1 out of 20), Germany is more like China and India than it likely believes.  Undeveloped, developing and developed countries share overarching similarities.  They are all comprised of people who want to have enough food to eat, clean water to drink and air to breath, and energy to heat and cool their days and get them from one place to another.  

Right now there is general acceptance that undeveloped and developing countries do not have the requisite socio-economic structures that would allow them to eschew consumption of all fossil fuels.  Prohibiting such consumption would wreak havoc within their societies with concomitant suffering of their populations.  It would lead to the profound unhappiness of their populations.  Is Germany ultimately more similar or dissimilar to these countries? Does Germany find herself in similar or dissimilar circumstances with respect to these other countries?  How does the generalization principle rightfully get applied?

I believe that the fact that not all countries will limit emissions is ethically relevant to the generalization argument with regard to climate policy.  Given that Germany has a population that wants many of the same things that the folks of India and China want,  how does the requirement that Germany's population suffers by deeply limiting their carbon footprint find ethical justification when the other populations will not in fact limit fossil fuel emissions, and that Germany's reductions will likely have no discernible effect on temperature and sea-level measurements world-wide?  

The answer might be more surprising than we originally imagine.  Perhaps it is because the plausibility of using the generalization argument in climate policy is based on a presumed dissimilarity between Germany and the developing countries.  Just as Molly might get a pass from the ethical requirement of exclusive heterosexual behavior based upon her dissimilarity from the rest of the women, so does the requirement that Germany achieve all fossil fuels emissions ultimately rest on its dissimilarity from the populations of the undeveloped and developing countries. While China and India are exempt from the requirement to limit fossil fuel use based upon the sufferings of their populations were such fuels not used, so is Germany not exempt from this requirement.  After all, the German population has already developed and has no right to claim an exclusion from general requirements of the generalization argument.  Thus, the suffering that eschewing carbon emissions will bring to German life are simply not ethically relevant the German situation.  

This is a rather startling conclusion, I think, and I shall end this reflection purposefully in ambiguity because the ethical situation underlying it is not clear.  I have claimed that the generalization argument seems to support current climate policy. The argument is this: If the effect of all nations not dropping carbon emissions is disastrous, then it is not allowable that one nation not drop carbon emissions.  This is so because what is right or wrong with respect to this issue for one country, is right or wrong with respect to this issue for all similar countries in similar situations. Thus, Germany must drop their carbon emissions even though dropping such emissions will have little to no effect on world-wide temperatures and sea-levels.  

All of this is clear enough, bur remember that that not all countries will drop their carbon emissions.  So what is Germany's responsibility in lowering carbon emissions given that lowering such emissions themselves have little effect on the climate?  Here we must look to the generalization principle itself.  What makes a country similar to another?  I have suggested that through a strange inversion of its use, the chief perpetrators of high carbon emissions are protected from moral censure on the grounds that adopting strict carbon emission policies would lead to untoward suffering to their populations.  Germany, however, (and by extension other North Atlantic countries) are dissimilar from these populations in ways that do not allow escape from moral censure.  Because of this dissimilarity, Germany is  condemned.  The fact that many countries will not lower emissions is somehow not ethically relevant to the proscription and the guilt under which Germany labors.  

I do not believe that that such moral censor ought be the case, and I would argue that populations are comprised of concrete individuals whose sufferings are morally relevant to climate policy no matter what countries they inhabit. Further, I would argue that the Rule Utilitarian yardstick simply does not work in climate policy.  Here we must be Act Utilitarians.  But this argument awaits another post.  

Rethinking Philosophy and Theology with Deleuze: An Introduction

Every so often a book is published that demands serious and sustained engagement. Adkins and Hinlicky's 2013 Rehinking Philosopher and Theology with Deleuze raises a number of important issues that I shall address in a series of posts.  

A major question of the book concerns the relationship between the exploration of being as such versus the investigation of the highest being.  Philosophy has traditionally dealt with the first and theology with the second. But what is the relationship between these two explorations?  The tradition has assumed a discontinuity between philosophy's reasoned exploration of being as such, and theology's religious response to that which reveals itself as highest.  However, must this be the case?  What ought this relationship be, given the contemporary intellectual and cultural context in which we find ourselves?

Adkins and Hinlicky ask us to reconsider regnant discontinuity assumptions about theology and Philosophy. Instead of the disciplines being concerned with different types of things, might one better understand them as poles on a continuum?  Adkins and Hinlicky suggest that we might better regard them as assemblages, as constructions out of heterogeneous components.  Were we to regard them so, might we make progress on a set of vexing questions that appear to us now as insolvable?  

But what is an assemblage?  The authors write: "An assemblage is a singular and temporary coagulation of heterogeneous forces that achieves consistency"(2).  Importantly, 'consistency' here does mean either unity or identity. An assemblage is assembled out of disparate components, and that these disparate components are assembled out of disparate components. It was Deleuze and Guattari who introduced the metaphysics of assemblage in their books, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy?.   

The properties of assemblages are dependent on the properties of their component parts as they sustain relations with each other.  Assemblages generate limits -- one towards dissolution and the other towards constriction. The first limit functions as the boundary of the assemblage beyond which the assemblage transitions into another.  Deleuze and Guattari use terms like 'immanence', 'deterritorialization', 'molecular', 'smooth space', and 'chaos' in naming the dissolution limit.  Alternately, 'transcendence', 'territorialization', 'molar', 'striated space', and 'opinion' apply to the constriction limit.   

In the history of philosophy, say Delueze and Guittari, the notion of a thing gets confused with the assemblage reaching its limit of constriction. When one asks what something is, one is treating the assemblage as a thing. The very question lifts that which looks stable and eternal out of the context of its ever-changing existence.  

However, this question of the what is, for Deleuze and Guattari, clearly secondary to the question of "which one?"  This latter question concerns singular, concrete sets of capabilities within the process of being, the behavior of concrete assemblages (3).  

The book aims to explore theology as an assemblage, particularly in its relationship to the assemblages of both religion and philosophy. Unfortunately, according to Adkins and Hinlicky, "assemblages that have been created have impoverished rather than enriched our lives" (3). But why have the assemblages of philosophy, religion and theology impoverished our lives? 

Our authors tell us that the problem has been that we continually opt for discontinuity over continuity.  It is Kant who bequeathed to modernity the current form of the discontinuity thesis. It was he who sharply distinguished concepts from intuitions (percepts) and the supersensible from the sensible. It was he who pointed out and corrected Leibniz's confusion that "perception is just confused conception." 

Adkins and Hinlicky discuss the ontological dualisms to which Kant and much of western philosophy is committed. Such dualisms exist alongside the  basic grammatical distinction between subject and verb.  Accordingly, we traditionally have distinguished being and doing, cause and effect, and the conditioned and the conditions. These dualistic differences are difference in kinds, not degrees. Moreover, these kind differences presuppose hylomorphism's form/content schema and the analogy of being. 

Adkins and Hinlicky muse about what philosophy and theology might look like if we were to consider lightning as inseparable from its flash, being from inseparable from doing, and the doer inseparable from the deed (5).  Maybe hylomorphism could be replaced by hylozoism, by the notion of the self-organization of matter.  Accordingly, we might replace the analogy of being with the univocity of being. 

The authors are bold, for prima facie it seems that God/universe presents an ontological dualism if ever there were one. Traditionally, God has so far exceeded the perfection of His creation that one might speak of God only analogously. While the infinite God is literally not good in the way that finite being Mother Threasa is good, nonetheless God is more like Mother Threasa than He is like Joseph Stalin. God is that which none greater can be thought; God is the one activity of being in and throughout all activities of being. Clearly, the tradition has tended to blend the onto with the theo, in forming and committing itself to onto-the-logy.  But must Christian theology be committed to a rejection of ontological continuity between God and His creation?   

Thinking beyond discontinuities in theology means to think beyond immanence and transcendence. Every assemblage is a continuum from which we might abstract two poles. Philosophy tends toward the immanent and religion towards the transcendent. Now we reach the important point: transcendence need not entail a transcendent entity. All that is required for transcendence is "the organization of a field by something that is discontinuous with the field" (5).  Because Kant's transcendental categories are discontinuous with the manifold of sensation, they are discontinuous with that manifold.  But must this transcendence entail a difference in ontological kind? 

Christian theology, we are told, differs from both religion and philosophy because it attempts to think immanence and transcendence within a single assemblage. Accordingly, theology is a "fragile, paradoxical assemblage," and can easily become bad religion or bad philosophy (6).  Christian theology must eschew simile in favor of metaphor, apophatic theology in favor of kataphatic theology, and negative dialectic in favor of positive dialectic. Were we to assume a basic continuity between God and other beings, we might be able to conceive God as a "fully giving self-relation . . .  commonly referred to as the Trinity" (7). 

The continuity thesis shall require a rich cartography because maps must be continually drawn and redrawn since assemblages are always in the process of becoming. Rethinking Philosophy and Theology with Deleuze explores how theology, philosophy and religion might map on the assumption of the continuity thesis.  

Kant has been most influential in the drawing of boundaries over the last 250 years. These boundaries have had real staying power.  Much of the tradition has simply followed Kant's lead in establishing boundaries for what things (and their disciplines) are and what they are not. Thus it is that phenomenology, the new ontology, existentialism and even deconstruction remain wedded to the drawing of boundaries on the assumption of discontinuity. Adkins and Hinlicky ask what the rejection of discontinuity might mean to the refiguring of philosophy, theology and religion generally. 

Clearly, Adkins and Hinlicky are asking an interesting question, and this is why I shall spend some time unpacking their text.  Ultimately, the success of their argument rests not in the broad strokes in which it can be stated, but in the answers they can provide to the many related mostly philosophical questions that arise on the assumption of these broad strokes.  

In reading the Adkins and Hinlicky's text, I was reminded of the process metaphysics that process theology appropriated from Whitehead's Process and Reality.  Prima facie for Whitehead and followers, neither the antecedent and consequent natures of God nor God and the universe are ontologically discontinuous from each other.  Accordingly, in discussing later chapters of the book I shall be interested in whether dialogue with the promise and perils of process thought is at all fruitful in understanding the authors own move from hylomorphism to hylozoism. My questions throughout are explorations shall be these: Is is true that transcendence need not entail a transcendent entity, and is Christian theology conceptually possible without a transcendent entity?