Annoscia C - IN LOVE WITH SOPHIE.pdf

7/29/2019 Annoscia C - IN LOVE WITH SOPHIE.pdf

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IN LOVE WITH SOPHIE

A very brief introduction to the love affair of the mind with reality

By Carlomax47

1. It seems appropriate to start this essay by distinguishing the difference

between thinking and imagining.

2. Thinking and imagining are not the same thing, though they mutually

cooperate in the process of reasoning.

3. Imagining is an aspect that man has in common with animals; butthinking is an essential aspect of man.

4. Imagining is a process that recalls images of the reality a man has

experienced in his life.

5. Images are representations of objects which contain all the elements of

those objects, a pear with its green color, with its particular shape and

weight, with that characteristic taste, etc. We may say that an image is

a photographic picture of an object which is stored in that part of mancalled imagination.

6. Thinking is a process in which ideas are involved.

7. An idea is a product of abstraction that contains only one aspect of the

reality, i.e. its essence. In other words the idea of a pear does not

contain its color, weight, shape, etc. but only what makes a pear be a

pear and not something else, i.e. its pearity. Ideas and thinking belong

to the intellect. You may easily conclude that the object of the intellect isnot things in their individuality and specificity but theiressences.

8. Abstraction means exactly this: the removal, carried out by the intellect,

of the individual properties of a material reality with the exclusion of

one: that by which something is what it is, and which makes that thing

intelligible.


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9. A typical abstraction is mathematics. Mathematics originates from

abstracting the accident quantity from the material reality.

10. Metaphysics is highest level of abstraction in which the actualesse is

abstracted, that which makes things exist in reality leaving aside

anything else.

11. Both images and ideas do not have esse i.e. that which makes them be

in reality and not in the imagination or in the intellect of man.

12. An idea has a very interesting property: it can be applied not only to

this, or that pear, but to any pear. In other words it has universality

precisely because it lacks individual determinations.

13. An image has also an interesting characteristic: since it does not haveesse, it can be reshuffled, dismembered, recombined, such as the cut

and paste of computer images. In this way we can produce images

such as flying elephants and walking whales and blood-sucking

monsters: these do not exist in reality but they can exist in our

imagination.

14. While images and imagination do have an organic support - i.e. they

depend on specific parts of the brain - ideas are not supported by

specific parts of the brain, but by the intellect which is spiritual. That iswhy a mad man can still think in a logical way but his imagination and

his perception of the reality are terribly altered owing to organic

alterations of parts of his brain.

15. Most people make a very little use of thinking and a large use of their

imagination. Many times the process of thinking is hampered by

excessive TV watching, advertisements, billboards, icons, etc.

16. A balance needs to be struck since imagination can take over at theexpense of thinking. This is very important in Religion when one tries to

imagine spiritual realities that cannot be imagined since we do not have

physical experience of them: God as an old man with a long beard, an

angel with wings, a devil with goat hooves, etc. An extreme use of the

imagination in Religion can be very harmful to faith. Faith that needs the

support of the intellect in the science of Theology, and thinking about


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God in general, has to be purified from all those images that may

hamper our progress in the knowledge of God.

17. The distinction between thinking and imagining is carried out by

philosophy.

18. The considerations made so far come from that branch of philosophy

which we may call rational Psychology

19. One of the tasks of philosophy consists in distinguishing the various

levels of reality so that they can be approached and studied with their

proper tools and methods.

20. Are there various levels in the reality that surrounds us? What do we

mean by levels of reality?21. There is certainly a physical level, and a chemical one and a biological

one. Anything else? Physics, Chemistry and Biology need to be studied

with their proper tools. These three levels can be reduced to a superior

one: the material. There is then a material level of reality. What is

matter? This is another pretty philosophical question. We assume all

the time that we are surrounded by material entities, but we seldom ask

ourselves what matter is or what it means to be material. Yet, this is a

very legitimate philosophical question.

22. Another important task of philosophy is to enquire about the natures of

things: what is this? What is that? Mind you, these questions are quite

different from how does this work? or what is this made of? These

questions are better answered by the so called experimental sciences.

23. Is there any other level of reality besides the material one? To answer

this question we should first ask ourselves: what are the immediate

properties of material things? They can be touched, seen, smelled,heard, and tasted. So, to be material is to be able to be perceived by

senses. Therefore, can there be a level of the reality, which is not

perceivable by the senses? Obviously this would imply the presence in

man of some faculty that is able to perceive this other type of reality. Let

us assume, for the time being, that it may be possible for some type of

reality other than the material one to exist, and let us call it non-

material (or immaterial). Obviously the power in man that would be able


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to perceive this type of reality should also be immaterial. If we can show

that non-material realities exist, and that man can perceive them, then it

should not be difficult to accept the fact that God and Angels may exist

as a possibility, and also to accept the fact that their non-materiality is of

a superior level called spirit, i.e. although spiritual realities are

immaterial, not all immaterial realities are spiritual.

24. Is there any immaterial reality in the material one? What we ask here is

for the possibility of the existence of some immaterial reality closely

linked with the material one.

25. Let us go back to some aspects of the material reality: we have said

that they can be perceived by the senses. However, material realities,

observed closely, present another very interesting aspect: they

change; they are not always the same. Trees and animals grow, they

become older; they die. Chemicals decay and recombine, etc. In some

of these changes though there is a nucleus that does not change: John

at 2 is different from John at 20 and from John at 60, and it would be

nonsensical to maintain the opposite. However it is also true to say that

John has changed, yet John is the same. So he is and he is not at the

same time, but (please note this) not in the same way. A leaf changes

color but it is the same leaf. The principle of non-contraction is a very

demanding one not only in logic but also in reality: something cannot

not be and be at the same time and in the same way. If it is not in

the same way, so what is the other way?

26. In the types of changes we have just considered we need to distinguish

two aspects in the same reality: elements that change (which we call

accidents) and an element that does not change (which we call

substance). The elements that change are the ones perceived by the

senses, while the substance is not perceived by the senses but by theintellect. If the substance is not perceived by the senses is non material,

and the intellect that perceives it is also non material.

27. Is the distinction between substance and accidents real? It is, since we

extract it from what happens in reality.


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28. We are therefore in the presence of two realities material and

immaterial (accidental and substantial) closely linked in the

constitution of the material entities.

29. What actually exists is the corporeal entity in its accidental and

substantial aspects. It is the corporeal entity that changes accidentallyremaining what it is substantially.

30. Please note that in this analysis we have assumed the entities

undergoing change to be material; we have not touched on the nature

of matter!

31. There are other types of transformation in which some entities

disappear to give place to different entities: we call these changes

substantial.

32. Take water for example: in certain conditions water disappears to

become hydrogen and oxygen two gases which no one would suspect

to be forming water, a liquid. Clearly, in this case a substance (water)

has disappeared and two new substances have appeared (hydrogen

and oxygen). This change would not have been possible unless

something common to water, hydrogen and oxygen remained during

the change. This point is a little bit difficult to grasp: if there was no

common element remaining during this change, then the sudden

disappearance of water and appearance of hydrogen and oxygen would

be cases of annihilation and creation.

33. We call that which is in common and remains during a substantial

transformation matter, while we call forms the realities that appear and

disappear at the same time during the transformation.

34. We can therefore give an approximate definition of matter as thesubject of substantial transformation. Mind you, it is not a real

definition but rather a description.

35. Neither form nor matter are real entities, but the combination of the two

gives rise to entities that really exist. Do we perceive forms with our

senses? No. We perceive them intellectually. Do we perceive matter

with our senses? Yes and no: yes because matter creates the condition

for material things to be perceived by the senses; no because matter as


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matter is perceived by the intellect, though with a very low degree of

intelligibility since, as such, is pure receptive capacity, i.e., it cannot be

known unless in-formed as a specific way of being.

36. Matter described in this way is referred to as first matterorproto-

matter. Once this matter is in-formed, i.e. it has a specific form andtherefore a specific way of being, it is then referred to as second

matter.

37. It is only as second matterthat matter becomes fully intelligible.

38. Leaving aside the issue of matter, we can say that also forms are

immaterial, and the intellect which perceives them is also immaterial.

39. If there are levels of immateriality in the constitution of material entities,we should not exclude a priori the possibility of the existence of

immaterial entities capable of existing independently from matter.If

there be such entities, what could their characteristics be?

40. They should be able to perform activities that do not depend strictly on

matter such as thinking and loving, in other words they should be

intellectual since we have previously seen how intellectual knowledge

in man perceives immaterial realities. Because of the absence of

matter, - source of corruption and generation they should have a moreintense cohesion in being, i.e. incorruptible and immortal. We call

immaterial realities of this type spiritual.

41. Do they exist? We know by reason that the human soul is spiritual; we

can also know, with Aquinas doctrine ofact of being, that the human

soul is incorruptible and immortal and capable of existence separated

from the body. By Faith we know of other spiritual realities such as

Angels and Demons and, of course, by Faith and reason we know ofthe existence of a God who is pure being, i.e. he whose essence is to

be.

42. The human soul deserves a particular consideration.

43. The human soul is the form of a composite we call human being. Soul

and body constitute a human substance.


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44. It seems that forms in general and the human soul in particular (as theform of the human body) do not have in themselves anything that pointsto corruption and therefore they are immortal.

45. Immortality though is not the same as capacity of subsisting (or existing

by itself). Here is the difference between the soul of man and the forms

of animals, and in general of living beings).

46. The forms of animals are totally dependent on matterand therefore

incapable of subsisting. It is true that the act of being is proper to the

form; however, in corporeal realities, except man, the act of being

pertains properly to the composite (matter+form), so that its corruption

leads to the reversal of the form to the potentiality of matter.

47. In man, owing to the spiritual operation of knowledge, the act of being

pertains properly to the soul as the subject of those spiritual operationswhich, by their nature are free from the limitations of matter. Hence at

death, the soul is capable of subsisting independently from the body.

48. Therefore we may conclude that the human soul, being the form of the

body, is immortal, and having the act of being as its own is capable of

subsisting independently from the body.

49. The considerations made so far belong to that branch of philosophy

which we may call Philosophy of Nature.

50. The science ofMetaphysics studies the particular characteristics of the

immaterial realities at various levels the highest of which is the study of

being as being. It is because of this that we may call philosophy of

nature the Metaphysics of the corporeal being.

51. Of anything that exists in reality it can be said that it is and that it is

something specific, which makes it different from other things. We say

that something is, as opposed to its possibility of not being.

52. Things do not exist necessarily. Nature is contingent in its being. This

means that natural things do not have in themselves the capacity of

putting themselves in existence: a cat exists not because it is a cat.

53. For anything to come into being, a cause different from the thing itself is

required: we call it efficient cause. A ball will start moving if kicked by

someone, a living organism will come about from its parents, etc.


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54. An efficient cause can only produce effects that do not exceed its

powers. Conversely, effects require adequate causes in order to be

produced (not any cause can produce any effect).

55. In the order of created realities (predicamental) an efficient cause can

only change the way of being of another entity which already is (eitheraccidentally or substantially); it cannot produce the being of other

entities because this would be an effect disproportionate to is capacity

since it cannot even account for its own being.

56. Only a being which is being by essence (God) can cause the being of

anything that exists (what we call creation) (See Below Aquinas).

57. Besides the efficient causality, matter and form can also be

considered as types of causes. We have already seen matter and formas co-principles of the corporeal entities. Matteris what causes an

entity to be corporeal, form is what makes an entity to be what it is in a

specific way.

58. But there is a fourth type of cause, the final one which we will find very

important in Ethics. Everything acts in view of a purposes, whether this

is known by the agent itself (case of spirits) or not (case of non-rational

creatures, whether animate or inanimate).

59. Whereas material, formal and efficient causes work in the present, the

final cause works from the future: the target which is the aim of the

arrow, the good which is the aim of all beings.

60. TO BE (to exist in reality) means to have ESSE (the act of being) which

is received by any existing reality by the one who is ESSE by essence

(God).

61. Important to note: in English the word being has two meanings:being, as a noun, is the same as entity (ens in Latin), i.e. anything

which is in existence; being, as a verbal, form indicates the actual act

of existing. The infinitive of the verb TO BE is expressed in Latin as

ESSE. Therefore ESSE is that by which a being exists, i.e. the condition

for anything to exist; ens (being in English) is that which has the

conditions for existing, i.e. it has a specific way of being what it is

(ESSENCE), and it has ESSE. To exist therefore is not exactly the


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same as to be, because for anything to exist it needs to have ESSE, i.e.

it has to be. Only in God to be and to exist coincide, because the way of

being of God (i.e. his essence) is to be (esse).

62. Is this ESSE a univocal concept? I.e. is it said in the same way of all

beings that exist? Certainly it is said of everything that exists becausethis is what makes them exist. But not in the same way, since to be a

dog is different from being a man, or a tree, or God.

63. In this sense ESSE is an analogical concept, i.e. it is said of everything

that exists but not in the same way, yet having a common meaning.

64. One of the important functions of philosophy is to put order among the

concepts that we have obtained from reality, and analogy and

univocity are an example.

65. Metaphysics studies also the properties of being in so far as is being:

they are the so-called Transcendentals because they are beyond the 10

predicamentals (or supreme categories) of the reality. They are

moreover interchangeable with the concept of being. These are:

TRUTH which is being insofar as it is the object of the intellect; GOOD

which is being insofar as it is the object of desire; ONE which is being

insofar as it is considered in its internal unity; and BEAUTY which is

being as object of contemplation stemming from the order of its parts.

66. At the beginning of rational thinking about reality in the Greece of 6th or

5th century B.C. one topic occupies the minds of the philosophers: to

establish a unifying principle through which the diversity of reality could

be explained: this expresses the characteristic of the human mind that

constantly seeks order as a condition for the intelligibility of reality.

67. Thales placed this principle in the water, Anaximander in theundetermined and unbound,Anaximenes in the wind, Pythagoras in

the number, Heraclitus in movement, Parmenides in being (esse

univocally considered). Parmenides says that there is only one way of

being: To Be, while the various ways of being are just appearance.

How did Parmenides get there? Simple: all things have being in

common; then, what would make them different? Something different

from being. However, the only thing different from being is non-being:

hence there are no differences because any difference would be non-


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being (that is, it would not exist). Where is the snag in this fuzzy way

of reasoning? The fact of considering TO BE (esse) like a genus or a

predicament, or a supreme category. However TO BE is above any

supreme genus: it is the transcendent condition for any being to exist in

reality.

68. The case for a principle is its simplicity: however the early Greek

philosophers perhaps with the exception of Anaximander - focused on

what was in itself not simple but complex even from the physical point

of view.

69. The incapacity of establishing strong foundations for a comprehension

of reality led to the rising of the Sophists characterized by skepticism

not only about truth but also about morality.

70. Against the Skeptics rises powerful the figure ofSocrates. His

contribution to philosophy is fundamental: the Logos orthe intelligible.

Socrates wipes the mind clean from its ghosts represented by

superstition, false gods (in those days the stars and planets) and the

like. He insists on focusing on what we have around in a way that we

can know what something is, and in doing so we define it. And so the

definition becomes a verbal expression of the idea of that thing (that

which makes that thing intelligible: its essence). Socrates is accusedof atheism, and of corrupting the youth of Athens. He is condemned to

death. Socrates never wrote anything. His disciples Plato and

Xenophon popularized his teachings.

71. Plato changes the points of reference of the previous philosophers in a

dramatic way. He elaborates on the idea of Socrates and comes up

with an original kind of doctrine. If the material reality is in a constant

state of flow (Heraclitus) one cannot say much about things, what they

are, what their nature is, blah, blah, blah. On the other hand, the ideas

that one has are immutable, do not change, they are permanent. So

those ideas are the reality in reality. But, where are those ideas? Are

they in my mind? Unlikely since even I am not the real one, but the idea

of me is real. The only possibility was to place the ideas in a world

apart, separated from the material world, which Plato called hyper-

uranium where ideas have a reality on their own. This doctrine is the

basis of Platos doctrine on participation. A wicked demi-god, the


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demiurge, chained the ideas to the material reality, so that material

things now participate in an imperfect way in the world of ideas. Even

man was at one stage in the world of ideas where he contemplated all

the ideas present there. This doctrine founds Platos doctrine on

knowledge. Every time a man knows something new he actually

remembers what he has already seen in the previous world of ideas.

All very simple but also damaging the reality we see and touch by

denying it on the ground of change and motion and constant flow. Also,

if an idea is the mental expression of what something is (essence,

form), things may have as many essences as ideas (the idea that man

is a man, but also an animal, and also a living being, etc.). In doing so,

Plato also takes away the essence of things from the things

themselves. Centuries later St. Augustine, deeply inspired by Plato,

placed the platonic ideas in the mind of God, and Aquinas used his

theory ofparticipation in order to explain the existence of the whole

reality as a created reality.

72. Aristotle is the most realist of all. In we experience motion and

change, why deny the reality of things? Even motion and change are

realities (they are ways of being) and they need to be explained.

Moreover, why should we claim the existence of a world of ideas

separated from the material realities? Ideas are universal mentalexpressions of forms that are individualized in corporeal things. The

genius of Aristotle now comes in. He introduces the fundamental

distinction that there is between act and potency. This doctrine is going

to affect the whole of Aristotles teaching and needs to be understood

very well. What is potency? A real capacity of acquiring a perfection

that something or someone does not have, and which something or

someone has the capacity to receive. What is act? The perfection

acquired or to be acquired. Example: A man has a real capacity tobecome an engineer, if he studies for it. To be an engineer is a

perfection of man. As long as a man does not study for it he is said to

be in potency respect to being an engineer. Once he has studied and

passed his exams he becomes an engineer in act. The process that

leads from not being to being an engineer is a movement, or a

change. What is, then, movement, or change in general? The

passage from potency to act. How can, then, movement or change be


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explained in the world we know? Things move or change because in

doing so they tend to the acquisition of perfections they can have

but they still do not possess.According to Aristotle then the way of

being of things is not one in an absolutely rigid way (as Parmenides

taught) but there are many ways of being including a way of being in

act, another of being in potency, and another of being in act and

potency at the same time and not in the same way (i.e. a way of being

in movement).

73. For Aristotle, as well as for the ancient philosophers, the world of sense

experience, the material world, had always existed; in other words, the

problem ofa beginning was not posed. Things exist and they do so

necessarily. Pay attention to what this means: if things exist

necessarily this means that a cat exists because it is a cat..?!?!? Inother words, the fact of being what it is (its essence, its nature) justifies

satisfactorily why the cat exists. The essence of a cat is the cause of

its own existence. Creation in this perspective is not an option: the

God of Aristotle is not a Creator, but the first unmoved mover, that

keeps other things moving as the first efficient causality. However, a

deeper analysis may prompt to ask ourselves whether other beings,

besides the ones already existing, could exist. And if they could, why do

they not exist, since they have the cause of existence in themselves?The only possible answer is that they are not necessary beings, they

are contingent. But then what makes me say that the existing things are

necessary? Nothing; it is an assumption. Therefore we can also

assume that the existing beings are contingent (they may or may not

exist). If the world was made only of contingent beings, nothing would

then exist since nothing can give being to itself. But since things exist;

therefore there must be a necessary being that is able to cause the

being of other beings, i.e. to make other things participate of its beingand make them existent. We call this being necessary being, whose

essence is to be, God. This reasoning, used by St Thomas (13th

Century), not only demonstrates the existence of God but also of God

as a creator and the necessity of an act of creation for things to exist.

74. The only necessary being is God, and this is why only God can create

because only God can transmit being (esse) to things and draw them

to existence out of nothing.


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75. Going back to the cat: if a cat is not the cause of its existence, then its

existence has being received by God. There is then a real difference

between its being what it is (essence) and its being (esse). It is a

composition that Aristotle had missed for the reasons explained before.

76. It is not sufficient for anything to be what it is in order to exist. It isnecessary for it to have esse or the act of being, which only God can

give as a participation of His own being.

77. The deep philosophical speculations of the ancient Greek philosophers

flows into the so called Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages where

Aquinas shines as a star.

78. The Scholastic Philosophy represents a progress respect to Ancient

Philosophy by introducing ideas such as Creation ex nihilo and God asIpsum Esse Subsistens. These ideas, though extracted from the Holy

Scripture, contain deep philosophical implications and characterize

Medieval Philosophy as true Christian Philosophy (See E. Gilson).

79. There is continuity and development between ancient thinkers and

medieval thinkers. However, in the later stages of Scholastic Philosophy

someone starts changing the goal posts of the past.

80. Following a deep skepticism about the real role that philosophy hadplayed, there comes about the feeling that human intellect is not really

able to grasp the truth of things. The continuity with the past is being

progressively lost and the desire to start philosophizing fromscratch

and from a different vantage point is born. From then on the world

witnesses the birth ofsystem philosophies, where ideologies (-isms)

rather than ideas take the stage.

81. In the 15

th

Century William of Occam takes a different turn. He askshimself what words represent after all. They are flatus vocis (empty air)

since they do not make reference to any reality. When I say dogwhat

am I actually referring to? Not any dog in particular but to an abstraction

that does not have any correspondence in reality. In other words: the

idea of dog makes reference to nothing in existence. In doing so Occam

is actually asking what the nature ofuniversals is. Ideas are realities

that exist in our mind as universals. Do they correspond to anything in

reality? The answer of Occam is no, and therefore even words that


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express them are empty air. Now, this is a critical stand because if

words are empty air all our way of knowing collapses: we cannot know

anything. Since the right answer to the issue of universals depends on

asking the right question about them it is clear that an endless

discussion about it will not produce fruits. The way in which Occam

presented the question had already an implicit negative answer. It is

true that ideas exist as universals in our mind, but in reality they exist

individualized as the forms of the things known. In other words,

universals in our mind do not have an act of being on their own,

but they have the act of being of the individual things that exist in reality.

82. The late Scholastic discussions on the universals contributed to casting

a deep shadow on philosophy and increased a dissatisfaction that led

eventually to the appearance ofDescartes and the principle ofimmanence which polluted the whole history of Western Philosophy up

to our own days.

83. Before talking about Descartes we should remember an important fact:

Descartes was a brilliant mathematician: his love for mathematics is

reflected in the philosophy he established. Incidentally even Plato had a

special propensity for geometry (see the Platonic solids). This common

interest is explained by a simple fact: mathematical entities are perfect

in themselves: they are complete and have intrinsic cohesion which is

logical and understandable. The conclusions of mathematical

propositions are not verified in reality: they are intrinsically evident. It is

not surprising therefore that mathematics can become a point of

reference for all those who are disillusioned with the material world

where many times it is difficult to know what is going on, a reality in a

constant state of flux where one can make so many mistakes of

assessment, and where there is little or no room for certainty.

84. Descartes tried to know the world after the mathematical fashion and

mathematics became the only method to approach reality with clear

and distinct ideas, where there is no possibility of error and where one

can find complete certitude. The philosophy of Descartes becomes

Mathematic-ism. Ideas with the mathematical clarity of Descartes are

applied to reality, which is then interpreted with absolute certainty.

Unfortunately ideas with mathematical clarity can only reside in the


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mind. In the philosophy of Descartes these ideas, though, are imposed

on the reality, forcing the reality to be what we think they are.

85. The inversion effectuated by Descartes philosophy is clear: in all

previous philosophical doctrines the reality molds the mind and truth is

the adequation between the mind and things; with Descartes it is themind that molds reality, it is thought that posits being, it is the mind

that decides what is real and what is not real, what is true and what is

not true. This is what we call principle of immanence.

86. Reality then is whatever one thinks of it. There is no doubt that many

among us are immanentists and relativists, whenever they force reality

to be what they want it to be.

87. At the beginning of his philosophizing, Descartes rejects everything saidpreviously and starts afresh with his sentence cogito ergo sum

which is the summary of the principle of immanence: I think and

therefore I am, not being as the foundation of thinking but the other

way around.

88. Starting from the cogito, Descartes assumed that he would be able

to establish a demonstration of the reality outside his mind. The fact is

that reality cannot be demonstrated because it is evident. Reality is

the starting point: either one assumes that there is a reality outside his

mind and in this case it needs not be demonstrated or he assumes

that it may not exist and in this case it needs to be demonstrated. It is

what the Spanish philosopher Carlos Cardona calls The Metaphysics

of the Foundamental Option.

89. However, as Etienne Gilson has demonstrated, any philosophy that

tries to bridge the reality starting from the cogito is doomed to fail

90. The principle of immanence should not be considered as an

extravagant philosophical stand; it has been the cause of much

suffering and human misery with two ideologies in power (Nazism and

Communism) which practiced a kind of social engineering over millions

of people with devastating effects. What someone said some time ago

is still true: whoever tries to build a paradise on earth ends up by

creating a hell worse than the real one.


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91. Ideologies are the natural offspring of the principle of immanence.

Ideologies tend to reduce the whole reality to one of its aspects, making

it the whole reality (matter in the case of Communism; race in the case

of Nazism). Ideologies stem from a mind which has refused to comply

with the whole reality choosing voluntarily one of its aspects and, when

in power, imposing it to the rest of reality.

92. It is in this way that the philosophy of Nietzsche (the idea of super-man)

fed the Nazi ideology of the super race, and the philosophy of Marx

(there is nothing but matter) fed the Communist ideology of materialism.

93. Descartes opened a Pandora box from which all the evils flew away. A

mind uncontrolled by the reality becomes the controller of reality, its

measurer. And since human mind is part and parcel of that reality, it has

suffered a blow whose effects are easily perceived in very sensitive

areas of our life. The right reason is vanished in the issue of abortion, of

the family, of sexuality and of life. The culture of death of our society

has deep roots in that principle of immanence which started as a

philosophical play-game.

94. Descartes began a process that naturally shifted further the goal posts

of philosophical thinking. An extra-mental reality whose existence was

taken for granted by the classic and medieval philosopher becomesproblematic with Descartes: its existence has to be demonstrated. In

this step the mind is not happy with knowing reality: it wants to be sure

that what it knows is really there. Since this demonstration is not

possible, there are only two solutions in order to justify what we

perceive: it is either God who in a number of ways creates the

conditions of our knowledge (Leibniz, Spinoza, Malebranche), or it is

our mind that establishes those conditions (Kant). It is in this way that

the goal posts are shifted from knowledge (classic and medievalphilosophy) to the conditions of knowledge (modern philosophy).

95. In Kant there is still some remnant of the reality which is called

phenomenon (appearance). However, what appears has to be given

intelligible form by the mind itself: the latter is actually made in such a

way that it can dress the phenomenon with properties (a priori

categories) that the mind has by itself.


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96. Therefore, those aspects of reality (substance, accidents and even

causality) which were taken as belonging to the corporeal reality in the

classical philosophy, are now categories of the mind. This obviously

excludes any possibility of a metaphysics open to the spirit and

ultimately to God.

97. The Philosophical premises established by Occam down to Descartes

and the Rationalists and Empiricists of the 17th

and 18th

Century strike a

deadly blow to the possibility of knowing God, and they fully blossom in

Kants philosophy.

98. From Kant to absolute Idealism the steps are quite easy: having

stripped the reality and reduced it to phenomenon, who can prevent

someone to state that even phenomena are products of the mind? The

whole reality is what I want it to be (Hegel and the contemporary

Philosophy).

99. Cannot we see in all this history of philosophy a cycle that begins at the

time when Adam and Eve, enticed by a diabolical temptation (eritis

sicut Dei, you shall be like God), rejected Gods sovereignty over the

whole creation in the presumption of replacing Him, and ends with the

philosophical, nay diabolical, pretension of being creators of all that

exists?

100. The philosophers after Descartes stop being philosophers and become

ideologues. God for Feuebach becomes the idea into which man

projects himself as a being free from all miseries and limitations. The

world of Schopenhauer becomes the prisoner of the Will to Life,

characterized by an incessant necessity totally opposed to the freedom

that characterizes human will. Man therefore becomes a miserable

passive subject to a necessity that he cannot change. Nietzsche

Superman and the morality of the Strongest opposes the Christian

morality which is the morality of the weak. For Marx there is no other

reality but matter and economic forces that shape the life of people and

of nations. Freuds repressed sexual instincts explain mans neurosis

and everything else. And so on and so forth until our own days passing

through Rationalism, Empiricism, Idealism, Positivism, Phenomenology,

Existentialism, Structuralism, Logical Neo-Positivism, etc.


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101. True philosophy is wisdom, and wisdom necessarily anchors to the

reality which is not in our mind but outside it. Wisdom therefore is based

on the reality of things which the mind knows and respects in what they

are and in what they do.

102. So far we have seen this wisdom (sophia) in action in the attempt tofind a rational explanation of the constitution of reality. It has been a

purely theoretical exercise, i.e. knowledge of the reality for

knowledges sake.

103. However, knowledge obliges, in other words it commits us to behave in

a certain way towards it. How should then we behave towards a reality

that we find given to us? This is the task ofpractical philosophy which

leads us directly to the issue ofethics.

104. The same wisdom that led us to investigate the constitution of reality

will be the basis for our investigation in ethics or morality; this requires a

rational foundation based on a sound metaphysics of being.

105. Central to ethics is the issue ofgood and ofevil as its counterpart

106. The problem of evil has always been a favorite topic of philosophical

speculation: what is good? What is evil? Can objective criteria be

established, valid for all men, in order to establish what is good andwhat is evil? Why should we do good and avoid evil?

107. A philosophy based on the principle of immanence will necessarily lead

to a conclusion in favor of a relativist type of ethics. A philosophy

based on the metaphysics of being will reveal ethical objectivity

because based on the nature of things.

108. We may tackle the issue of ethics or morality (actually the two terms are

different) from the point of view of movement. It sounds unusual, but letus see.

109. We have seen how the peculiar characteristic in common with all

physical corporeal entities is movement, and the analysis of movement

has enabled us to make important discoveries about the metaphysical

constitution of such entities.


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110. It is appropriate to ask now: why movement? Why do things change?

The answer has already been given: because in doing so things acquire

a perfection (a new act) they did not have before, yet they have the

capacity of acquiring.

111. The perfection acquired is therefore something fitting the nature of thingand as such it represents a goal by which the thing is drawn and

towards which the thing tends. Everything then moves (consciously or

not) towards those goals that keep them in their existence and perfect

them: this is what the philosopher calls GOOD. Good is that which all

things strive for.

112. The opposite is EVIL which all shun because nothing would put its

being in danger by striving for it.

113. It follows that true freedom in man is not the capacity of choosing

between god and evil, but the capacity of choosing between different

goods; no one would choose evil for evils sake but for the good that is

contained in everything that is.

114. To live in an ethical way means to respect the nature of things that

speak to us, and primarily to respect our own nature which is rational.

Therefore ethical life consist in always doing what is in accordance with

the right reason, i.e. a reason illuminated by what things are and by

what they are meant for. Example, a reason that concludes that sex is

for pleasure is not the right reason, since the purpose of sex is

procreation.

115. The fourth cause after the efficient, material and formal, is the final. In

order to know anything corporeal, we need to know how it came to be

(efficient cause), what makes it to be what it is (formal cause), what

makes it be material (material cause) and what it is made for (finalcause). Everything exists in view of an end; everything has a purpose.

116. Nothing is completely intelligible without the knowledge of the final end,

i.e. its purpose, whether that be practical or esthetic.

117. I would say that probably the final end (finality) is what makes things

really intelligible and probably best explains what a thing is. The mission

of Christ makes the reality of Christ more intelligible: it was convenient


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that Christ be true Man and true God at the same time in order to carry

out the Redemption of mankind in the way in which He did.

118. Is there an ultimate purpose for everything that exists? When we speak

of the ultimate purpose (or end) of anything we actually imply creation,

i.e. the call to existence out of nothing done by God. The question istherefore: for what ultimate purpose did God create all that exists? A

hammers purpose is to drive nails. But its purpose is there insofar as

the hammer exists. And it exists insofar as someone made it. And he

who made it did so because a hammer is a good. In other words, the

goodness of the hammer, not yet existing as such, moved the will of its

maker to produce it. The goodness of things moves the will of man.

In the case of God, there is nothing that can move His will except his

own will. God creates because he wants and not because things that hemakes are good. Things are good because God wants them to be and

so to express the goodness that He is. This is the ultimate end of

everything: to manifest the goodness of God and, by doing so, to direct

everything towards Him. The desire that man has for good is ultimately

the desire for an infinite goodness that is God Himself. The ultimate end

of everything is God Himself.

119. We can now understand better the reality of movement as a circular

process that begins in the eternity of God with the creation of the world

out of an act of love and continues in time, where the created things

return to God through the pursuing of goods that are the expression of

the essential goodness of God. As Dante, the Italian poet said: lAmor

che muove il sol e laltre stelle (..That Love that moves the sun and

other stars).

120. Practical philosophy deals also with Beauty (which is a

transcendental of being) and Art, which is the good habit (virtue) ofmaking, as opposed to Prudence which is the good habit of doing and

which directly affects ethical behavior.Thomas Aquinas identifies thethree main characteristics of beauty: integritas sive perfectio (integrity or

perfection), consonantia sive debita proportio (harmony or due

propotion), and claritas sive splendor formae (clarity or splendor of the

form). While Aristotle likewise identifies the first two characteristics, St.


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Thomas conceives of the third as an appropriation from principles

developed by neo-Platonic and Augustinian thinkers.

121. Philosophy of Law deals with the nature of Justice which is the virtue

that perfects the will in its constant determination of giving everyone

what is his due, and the nature of Law which should always reflect thenatural moral lawinscribed in mans nature.

122. Philosophy of History deals with human events of the past; it asks

whether history moves to an end, and in a circular way and therefore

without goal, or in a linear way, from a beginning therefore towards an

ultimate goal. If linear, are the wills of men really free? Does then

history move by an inner necessity (as postulated by Hegel), or is there

a will outside History that directs mens wills in a necessary way? The

Christian answer is as usual not either/or but and/and: History moves

towards its final goal by the cooperation of the free will of men with the

Providence of God.

Documents

Annoscia C - IN LOVE WITH SOPHIE.pdf