Revue de la
B.P.C.
THÈMES
XII/2001
http://www.philosophiedudroit.org/
____________________________________________________________________________
Prof. Ralph Nelson,
Department of
Political Science,
University of
Windsor (Ontario).
Yves Simon, Philosopher at work : Essays by Yves Simon, edited by Anthony O. Simon, Lanhama, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefliel, 1999, pp. Vii-219.
_____________________________________
Here is a
collection of eight articles of the
late Yves R. Simon[1] edited by
his son Anthony. The earliest dates from 1943, the latest from the very year of
Simon's death in 1961. Such topics as the vocation of the philosopher, social philosophy,
the metaphysics of knowledge, and metaphysics tout court are covered. There is
no entry from his important work on moral and political, save for some
references in passing. However, this is not intended as a criticism since the
articles actually included fit very nice together as exemplifying what Simon
saw as the philosopher's task. In Prévoir et savoir (1944), Simon had
stressed that the philosopher and the scientist are kindred spirits. Disdainful
of literary philosophy, Simon pursued a rigorous knowledge. There is no doubt
that his close reasoning requires a steady attention on the part of the reader.
I take the study of analogy as a case in point, for in that analysis are
illustrated the author's depth, acuteness, subtlety in a striking way. The
collection includes a public address, a lecture, three studies previously
appearing as chapters in books, and three contributions to learned
journals.
Fittingly,
the book begins with an address on the vocation of the philosopher. The
situation of the philosopher is not an easy one. Years of reflection are
required to deal with philosophical problems often in solitude. Unlike he
positive sciences where team-work is common, and even if the philosopher
belongs to a tradition or school, he is on his own. Descartes thought that if
all thinkers adopted his method, consensus would be likely. The disputes within
Cartesianism dissipated that illusion. Given his lot, the philosopher requires
certain virtues such as, "the fearless love of truth, ... selflessness,
fortitude, and humility" (p. 5). The fact that the greatest philosophical
minds are open to criticism should not delude him into a false sense of
superiority simply because he sees their defects. And Simon says, if he is
fortunate, the philosopher will have satisfaction of sharing his inspiration
and demonstrations with others in that joy of friendship that makes all his
effort worthwhile.
Is the
philosopher a worker? This one of the facets considered in an exercise in
defining the kind of work involved in three human activities : manual labour,
moral work, and the contemplation of truth. The various kinds of works are
marked by being useful and implying motion. Thus philosophical or scientific
research qualifies at work. Obviously the subject matter of work differs in the
three instances. While research is work, and for those involved in it so
consuming that it is easy to lose sight, contemplation as a terminal activity
is not work. The aim of this exercise in definition is to preserve the
contemplative ideal in an gage dominated by the demiurgical ideal.
In his
essay on Jacques Maritain's philosophy of science, Simon not only pays tribute
to his old teacher and friend, but indicates his signal contribution to the
restoration of Thomistic philosophy in the twentieth century. Recognizing that
Maritain had done much for the advancement of the philosophy of nature, Simon
focuses on his principal contribution in working out the relation between the
philosophical approach to the study of nature, which the rejection of Aristotle
by the new physics had not destroyed, and positive science, particularly
physics. Noting the bipolar character of the physical object as intelligible
and observable, Maritain then argued that emphasis may be
placed on the ontological, on one hand, or on what he calls the empiriological,
on the other. Empiriological intellection is
not mere empiricism. The emphasis is illustrated by a comparison of the
different way in which a human being is defined in philosophy and in zoology.
Another way of making the point is to state that the ontological analysis is an
ascending one, resolving its concepts in being, the positive analysis a
descending one, resolving its concepts in the observable. Since empiriological
analysis utilizes mental constructs, fictions, entia rationis, this might lead
to the conclusion that this provides support for an idealistic justification of
positive science, but, according to Simon, Maritain's originality consists in
developing a realistic interpretation of positive science. While cooperation
between the philosopher and scientist is desirable, the possibility of conflict
between two visions of the world remains open.
When the
philosopher who is a Christian believer, as was Simon, is called upon to take
stock of the relation between reason and faith, he initially passes in review
the various doctrines to which he adheres through revelation rather
demonstration. He adheres to the mysteries of the Christian religion that
embody truth beyond the grasp of the human intellect. He contrasts these truths
with those we understand by the natural process of science and reasoning,
attaining to the knowledge that God exists. The negative method and the method of
analogy allow us to say something about the divine, but the final result is a
learned ignorance about God. We realize the limitations of our metaphysical
abilities. Turning to Christian faith and the question of authority, Simon uses
some of his well-known analyses of authority to identify the kind of authority
in belief, and to state "the substitutional character of authority in
matters of theoretical assent." (p. 48). He invokes the Pauline
formulation of faith. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was not
unusual for philosophers to pass judgment on the reasonableness of
Christianity. But if that means a rational establishment of the truths of
faith, Simon denies any such ability. All that an be established is that
propositions of faith are credible. Beyond philosophy, supernatural theology is
in the classical phrase faith seeking understanding. Simon concludes with a
valuable set of procedure for theology including its subject matter, use of
conceptual analysis, defensive measures, argumentations, and inferential
discourse. He also gives reasons why theology in spite of its eminence falls of
the scientific state.
The
longest selection in this book, about a fourth of the whole, "An Essay on
Sensation" is a truly remarkable achievement. It is without doubt the most
profound philosophical analysis of sensation in our time. Simon himself refers
to the writing of Bertrand Russel and what he has to say about the distinction
between sensation and perception and other aspects of problems bearing on the
sources of our knowledge in sense experience, but the generalization made about
the empirical tradition in England apply as well to Russel's enquiries ; the
starting point of the elaboration are impressions. The supposedly radical
departure does not go back beyond impressions to the core of sensory
experience. This is certainly the case with the classical trio of Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume. They simply did not adopt a really point of departure. Simons begins by discussing
two kinds of passion : heteronomic and autonomic. Only the latter is
appropriate in understanding sensation "Sensation begins where heteronomic
passion ends." (p. 62). A second feature of sensation is that it involves
immanent, not a transient, action. The third defining feature is that in
sensation there is an objective union. Sensation is two-sided in that it refers
to a mode of the psyche and to an event. Perhaps the best instance is memory,
something we possess, but of an event in the past. Simon suggests t hat certain
forms of idealism consist in ignoring or denying this bivalence. The
"decisive question is whether the senses ever achieve certain conformity
to a real state of affairs." (P. 104).
The last
part of the essay on sensation examines the role of sensation in modern
theories of sciences (e.g. Duhem, Poincare and others), Simon's answer to the
decisive question is the defence of "the experimental absolute" (p.
110). Only in this way is there no need to build a bridge from the purely
subjective to the objective.
One might
ask what could be more distant from a treatment of sensation than an
investigation of the abstruse world of mathematical abstraction. Aside from the
technical account of the various kinds of abstraction, the main point in
Simon's article is to question the identification of logic and mathematics
associated particularly with the name of Bertrand Russel who expounded this
thesis in the early years of the twenty century, and never repudiated it. Simon
takes the position that even if mathematics is not the science of real
quantity, it has its proper truth and cannot be reduced to logic, that is, to
mere consistency.
Among
English-speaking Thomist the works of James Anderson and Ralph McInerny on
analogy are well known. However, the differences between these two philosophers
is more noticeable than their similarities. Simon sets out to deal with the
problem of analogy by investigating what he calls analogical sets, a
particularly apt name for the arrays explicated. Generally educated people are
acquainted with the theory of sets in mathematics. Here the concern is with
sets of meanings and analogical terms convey several meanings. This is the case
whether one refers to analogy of attribution, metaphor, or the analogy of
proper proportionality.
This is
not of logical interest alone, for "the fundamental concepts of
metaphysics are analogical." (139) If analogical abstraction is at issue,
the object abstracted "remain diverse in act and consequently the analogue
is not, in strict propriety of language, a universal." (p.143) As would be
the case with univocal terms (when predicated of different species, a generic
term leaves aside differences). There is abstraction by way of confusion; there
is multiplicity and an order. This unusual turn of phrase is explained when Simon
says that analogical abstraction "proceeds by 'fusing together' the
members of a set." (p. 156) The complexity of the concept explains why
many reject it in philosophy, impatient with the nuances required in its
elaboration.
In the
famous instance, so often cited in the literature, the term healthy as applied
to body, food, and complexion, the analogy of attribution, the term is properly
predicated of the body and than by attribution through causality to the others
as cause or effect of a healthy body. The causal relation is key. In the
analogy of proper proportionality, being is predicated of the members of set,
but while each shares intrinsically in the predicate, each does so in a
different way. So there is intrinsicality with diversity, as term stands for
"diverse, but not unrelated meanings." (p. 146)
It is not
a matter of pure disjunction between attribution and proper proportionality, as
some would see it, for in one instance, the set composed of substance and
accident, there is a mixture of the two. Other analogical sets mentioned
concern the notion of good, evil, life, and relation. It would seem that part
of philosophical insight consists in identifying the kinds of notion pertinent
to inquiry as to whether they are analogical or univocal and, if analogical, of
what kind.
The
starting point of the metaphysics of knowledge is "the experience of a
diversity between to and to know." (p.173) The opening sentence of the
last selection recalls Simon's early treatise, L'ontologie du connaître (1934),
only translated into English in 1990. Several of selections falls under that
heading. For the most part the final selection is linked to the essay on
sensation and reiterates some of its main themes. More is said about the
concept of intentionality that has played such an important role in
contemporary philosophy. There is a lengthy critique of idealism and a contrast
made between L'ouverture à l'univers and the production of just another
system. We are reminded that Simon adopted Maritain's lable, le réalisme
critique, as his own.