The Problem of Substance in Modern Philosophy

Following are some of the most important turning points in the history of Western philosophy,
pertaining to the concept of substance.

The rationalist philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) understood ‘substance’ as an ‘in-itself’, an

existing thing requiring nothing extraneous for its existence. He also introduced a distinction
between finite and infinite substance, whereby the former required only the concurrence of God, and
the latter (substance in the strict sense) is God. Descartes takes the position that there are three
substances: (1) God (who we cannot know adequately in our present state), (2) created spirits (the
chief attribute of which is thought), and (3) created physical things (the chief attribute of which is
extension).1

Descartes begins by acknowledging the possibility of doubting the veracity of any and all knowledge
derived by means of sensory impressions, and sought to construct philosophy from what he regards
to be the indubitable certainty of self-consciousness as an immediate intuition.

Thus, after having thought well on this matter, and after examining all things with care, I
must finally conclude and maintain that this proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true
every time that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind.2

By taking this approach, Descartes places the emphasis upon the self-conscious subject, rather than
the things of nature, as the underlying basis (subiectum) for knowledge as the presencing of things.
The subject, which exists in-itself, observes the world. In so doing, knowledge is the thematic
representation, to the subject and by the subject, of that which exists actually in-itself and apart from
the subject, within the world. This representation of the thing-in-itself is a standing-over-against the
subject (obiectum),3 impressing itself upon the subject. And despite the apparent split between what
Descartes terms ‘formal reality’ (ie, actuality), and the representations of it in our understanding (as
‘objective reality’), he continues to speak of the former as a cause of the latter, implying that actual
things existing in-themselves somehow in-form our mental representations of them.

In order that an idea should contain one particular objective reality rather than another, it
should no doubt obtain it from some cause in which there is at least as much formal reality
as the idea contains objective reality. For if we suppose that there is some element in an idea
which is not present in its cause, this element must then arise from nothing. However
imperfect may be this mode of being, by which a thing exists objectively or is represented
by a concept of it in the understanding, certainly we can nevertheless say that this mode and
manner of being is not nothing, and consequently the idea cannot derive its origin from
nothingness.
Nor must I imagine that, since the reality that I consider to be in my ideas is only
objective, the same reality need not be present formally [or actually] in the causes of these
ideas, but that it is sufficient that it should be objectively present in them. For just as this
manner of existing objectively belongs to ideas as part of their own nature, so also the

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 manner or fashion of existing formally belongs to the causes of these ideas, or at the very
least to their first and principal causes, as part of their own nature. And even though it might
happen that one idea gives birth to another idea, that could not continue indefinitely; but we
must finally reach a first idea, the cause of which is like an archetype [or source], in which
is contained formally [and in actuality] all the reality [or perfection] that is found only
objectively or by representation in the ideas. Thus the light of nature makes me clearly
recognize that ideas in me are like paintings or pictures, which can, truly, easily fall short of
the perfection of the original from which they have been drawn, but which can never contain
anything greater or more perfect. And the longer and the more carefully I consider all these
arguments, the more clearly and distinctly I know that they are true.4

Objects (not to be confused with the substance underlying them) here mean objects for a thinking
person (hence ‘subjective’ in the modern sense). They are not viewed as emerging in-themselves or
proceeding from out-of-themselves (‘objective’ in the modern sense), as in the physis of the ancient
Greeks, including Platonists and Aristotelians.

For Descartes, truth was known through intuitively clear and distinct ideas, and the deductive
reasoning which followed with necessity from clear and distinct ideas. One of these clear and distinct
ideas was that of God, and God would act as guarantor that the mysterious process whereby the
actuality of things informs our thought representations of things is true and not delusive.

Following the earlier lead of men like Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Descartes saw the chief
attribute of physical substance as extension (length, width, height), and he therefore saw
mathematics as exemplifying “clear and distinct” thinking.

For the human mind has in it a something divine, wherein are scattered the first seeds of
useful modes of knowledge. Consequently it often happens that, however neglected and
however stifled by distracting studies, they spontaneously bear fruit. Arithmetic and
geometry, the easiest of the sciences, are instances of this.5

Although this approach to knowledge is radically different to that of the ancient Greeks in many
respects, it does share the view that mathematics represents the ideal type of knowledge.

The distinction between finite and infinite substance was rejected by another rationalist philosopher,
Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), who argued that only God, as infinite substance possessing
infinite attributes, could truly exist as an ‘in-itself’. He defined ‘substance’, ‘attribute’ and ‘mode’
of substance, as follows:

III. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in
other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other
conception.
IV. By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence
of substance.

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 V. By mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is
conceived through, something other than itself.6

Spinoza elaborates upon the definition of ‘attribute’ by stating that multiple attributes do not imply
multiple substances, and that substance as infinite consists in infinite attributes:

Note. – It is thus evident that, though two attributes are, in fact, conceived as distinct
– that is, one without the help of the other – yet we cannot, therefore, conclude that they
constitute two entities, or two different substances. For it is the nature of substance that each
of its attributes is conceived through itself, inasmuch as all the attributes it has have always
existed simultaneously in it, and none could be produced by any other; but each expresses
the reality or being of substance. It is, then, far from an absurdity to ascribe several attributes
to one substance: for nothing in nature is more clear than that each and every entity must be
conceived under some attribute, and that its reality or being is in proportion to the number
of its attributes expressing necessity or eternity and infinity. Consequently it is abundantly
clear, that an absolutely infinite being must necessarily be defined as consisting in infinite
attributes, each of which expresses a certain eternal and infinite essence.7

Nevertheless, the idea of God as guarantor for the correspondence between thought and actuality
became an impetus for doubt and further examination. Much of the legacy of thinking after Descartes
and Spinoza would become a quest by the thinking subject to somehow “get behind” its intended
representations to know the extramental thing-in-itself. For some, this began with a shift in emphasis
away from pure thought and deductive reasoning, the approach of rationalism, toward a new
emphasis upon sensory awareness and inductive reasoning, marking the rise of empiricism. Whereas
the former proceeds from either axioms (accepted as self-evident) or postulates (accepted by
convention), toward truths which follow of necessity, the latter proceeds from sensory experience
toward statistical truths. An example of a deductive truth would be: all men are mortal, Socrates is
a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. An example of an inductive truth would be: each and every
morning that I have observed the Sun, it has risen in the east, and I have never observed the Sun
failing to rise, or rising from another direction, therefore tomorrow morning and every other
morning, the Sun will rise in the east. Whereas deductive reasoning draws out the necessary
implications in a given idea by reason alone, inductive reasoning proceeds from an hypothesis
suggested by sensory experience, then tests the hypothesis against sensory experience to find
exceptions to the rule which would disprove it. If we find no exceptions to the rule, then the rule is
deemed to be true.

The distinction between actuality and reality (thing-itself and representation), or primary and
secondary qualities, had been developed by such thinkers as Galileo (1564-1642) and Descartes.
John Locke (1632-1704) accepted this division in principle, but sought to establish it according to
empirical knowledge, because he believed that all mental content is derived from sensory experience,
not intuitions or innate ideas of any kind. According to Locke, primary qualities are the real qualities
inherent in bodies themselves, the qualities which are physical and objective. (By this he means
‘objective’ in the modern sense of the actual thing-in-itself.) Because primary qualities are capable

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of being experienced by more than one sense, they were said to be accurately “mirrored” in our
experience. The primary qualities are solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest and number, which
provide the basis for quantifiable data. By contrast, the secondary qualities were said to be
projections of a single organ of sense (i.e., colour, sound, taste or odour),8 hence subjective in nature
(‘subjective’ in the modern sense of experiential reality in contrast to actuality).9

As promising as this new approach seemed, it was nevertheless based upon the logical fallacy that
we can compare what is experiential with what is not experiential:

Locke did not at all realize that his assertion that the ideas of primary qualities are accurate
mirror images presupposes the possibility of comparing the ideas -- the affirmed and known
things -- with the “bodies themselves,” i.e., the non-affirmed and non-known things. Such
a comparison, however, is evidently impossible, and for this reason the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities is baseless.10

Gradually, under greater and greater philosophical scrutiny, the concept of substance became a vague
notion of some mysterious “something” in which attributes inhered for their existence. George
Berkeley (1685-1753) could then argue that if substance is not an attribute, how can we know it and
how can it be anything existent at all?

The critique of Berkeley expressed the resultant dilemma: either sub-stratum is property-less
and quality-less, and so is nothing at all; or else it signifies the systematic and specific
coherence of properties and qualities, and so substance or sub-stratum is merely the thing of
common sense.11

Unlike Descartes, Berkeley takes the position that the essence of material things lies in their
perceptibility, therefore he dismisses the idea that they are extramental (existing independently of
the minds which perceive them). But like Descartes, he needs to invoke God as guarantor of the
veracity of our representations. God mysteriously conveys representative knowledge to us in an
orderly fashion, thereby establishing the laws of nature. The one substance is therefore mind or spirit.

A crisis point in Western philosophy was reached with David Hume (1711-1776). Although Hume
was an empiricist, his arguments are reminiscent of Plato’s point that universals are not “in” our
sensory experiences: If mind is a substance, and substance itself is a universal, and universals are not
“in” our sensory experiences, how do we know the substance ‘mind’, or any other substance?
Likewise, how do we know other universals, such as laws of nature? Does anyone actually perceive
causality? No. We infer causality from multiple instances of things appearing together. If all mental
content is derived from sensory experience, and things like causality are not “in” our sensory
experience, than they are simply rules that we “make up” so that the world seems intelligible to us.
These rules of convenience are not grounded upon real knowledge.

Next comes what is arguably the most important turning point in Western philosophy since Plato:
the Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In it, Kant establishes the notion of

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a type of knowledge which is not derived from experience (a posteriori), but comprises the
universally necessary conditions for experience. This latter type of knowledge is termed a priori. In
other words, the a priori forms of the intuition (space and time), and the a priori categories of the
understanding (necessary ideas like ‘causality’), are what the mind contributes to experience.
Experience is always in terms of the a priori, and apart from the a priori, there is no experience.

That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it
possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by
means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations,
partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate
these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of
objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is
antecedent to experience, but begins with it.
But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that
all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical
knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the
faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion),
an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long
practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it. It is, therefore, a question which
requires close investigation, and not to be answered at first sight, whether there exists a
knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions?
Knowledge of this kind is called a priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which
has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience.12

With reference to the intuitions of space and time, we do not arrive at an understanding of them after
comparing a series of examples of space and time, because in order to experience examples of space
and time, we must already be directly experiencing space and time. For Kant, the a priori concepts
(such as ‘substance’ and ‘causality’) and the a priori ‘forms of the intuition’ (space and time) were
purely regulative of the cognition of entities, and what any entity was in-itself (independent of
experience, or extramental) could not be known. Thus the a priori conditions of experience are
termed transcendental, whereas transcendent refers to that which is beyond experience and
unknowable. Likewise, transcendence means (for Kant) the act of going beyond experience to know
the thing-itself, which is impossible. The a priori are considered the very structure of consciousness
itself, and the basis of mathematics, logic, science and critical philosophy.

Of course, not everyone will agree. Others will challenge the meaningfulness of statements asserting
the existence of the extramental, of anything existing in-itself, and will continue the search for an
ultimate ground. Yet, the arguments have become progressively refined over time, and there is no
acceptable return to simpler ideas which have been refuted, unless of course they can be given a new
twist of meaning.

Before mentioning a few twentieth-century philosophers, it would be helpful to return once more to
Plato in order to contrast his thinking on the a priori with that of Kant.

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For Plato, the generation of all entities was in some sense dependent upon the ideal, universal forms,
the latter constituting their true being. (We have generally termed this beingness, in order to
distinguish it from any particular being, or entity.) As the mind is believed to be capable of beholding
the universal form, the mind is deemed capable of beholding the being of the thing-in-itself beyond
appearances, and even beyond words and concepts (as is explained in Plato’s “Seventh Letter”). In
the understanding of beingness, a distinction is made between essence and existence: what the entity
(a being) is essentially and in-itself (its possibility to be), and the fact of being, its actual and
contingent presencing in the stream of becoming (ie, instantiation in space and time). For example,
the ‘holy’ (or ‘holiness’, as an ideal) which makes the holy possible to be, in contrast to actual
instances (examples) of the holy.

For Kant, the a priori are purely regulative of experience, and beyond experience there is only the
being of the thing-in-itself. The a priori have no being prior to or apart from the acts of
consciousness, and the a priori have no relation to the being of things-in-themselves. Whereas Plato
alludes to mystical experiences wherein the mind can directly know and experience the universal
forms, Kant seeks to articulate the a priori categories logically, and confines direct knowing or
intuition to sensory intuition, namely, the a priori forms of space and time. This means that the a
priori categories of the understanding cannot be known through intuition, but are logically necessary.
Kant includes not only some of the fundamental laws of nature, such as causality, but God as well.

In the twentieth century, there were a number of interesting developments regarding the
interpretation of a priori categories. I wish to draw particular attention to the few which follow,
chosen for their direct relevance to the points being made thus far, and with considerations of
brevity.

While accepting that a priori categories are required to organize experience, the neo-Kantian
philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) argued that these have developed through history and that
all symbolizing activities, including language, myth, art, religion and science, should be given equal
status as the distinguishing features of human social consciousness. Furthermore, Cassirer rejects
the notion of a reality in-itself apart from symbolification.13

We have already touched upon the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), especially his
analysis of things as ready-at-hand (zuhandenheit) and present-at-hand (vorhandenheit). Originally,
emphasis was placed upon our perception of things as ready-at-hand or present-at-hand, but what
we are really describing is the being of things as ready-at-hand or present-at-hand. Ready-at-hand
is what entities are in-themselves as we disclose them in terms of categories, because something is
always something-for. The being of entities present-at-hand is derivative of being ready-at-hand,
because the being of entities present-at-hand is a narrowing disclosure of things as just there and
having properties, first made possible by things being ready-at-hand.14

It would also be helpful to mention that when categories are referred to as categories, which is to say
that we understand the beingness of things in terms of genus and species, we may describe the
reference as categorial. Otherwise, the word could be confused with categorical, used to describe

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any sentence which reports an occurrence in time, in the actual world.15 The term categorical
encompasses denotation, and also connotation when the latter is making reference to an actual thing
(a designatum), and not merely comparing ideas (comparing designations). To repeat what was said
earlier, we may designate a meaning, but what the meaning points to is a designatum.

When we are discussing things as ready-at-hand, we are usually combining both meanings, making
categorical references to actual things, and making categorial references to their genus-and-species
form of beingness. When we speak of formal logic, we are referring only to categories of genus and
species, along with the laws of their relations, without referring to actual things. Although sets may
contain actual particulars as members, all sets as sets are ideal categories. Likewise, the laws of
mathematics do not, strictly speaking, refer to actual things. For example, no two apples are
absolutely identical, yet 1 = 1 in every respect.

Sentences which describe laws rather than referring to an occurrence are termed hypothetical, in
contrast to categorical. As Hume pointed out, we do not empirically observe causality or gravity.
When we see an apple fall, we see an apple fall. We don’t perceive causality or gravity. We may
explain the falling of the apple in terms of causality or gravity, thus explaining it hypothetically, or
we may explain it in terms of the wind shaking a branch (an occurrence which may be perceived),
thus explaining it categorically. Or, we may combine both types of explanations. The point is that
hypothetical statements and categorical statements give very different types of reasons to account
for something. The law of gravity may be a reason (as explanation) for an event, but the law of
gravity is not a reason (as cause) for anything in the sense of making it happen. Laws and causes are
different things.

Such considerations also figure into the understanding of a priori, and we shall return now to
Heidegger’s interpretation of the a priori. He makes a very important distinction between the being
or beingness (Seindheit) of entities (das Seiende), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Being-as-
such (Sein). This distinction is termed the ontological difference between beings and Being. It must
be kept in mind, however, that this is not an absolute distinction, referring to two different entities.
Only the first has to do with entities as entities. All statements about entities as entities are termed
ontic statements. The being or beingness of entities has to do with the actual presencing of entities
as entitities, and entities are disclosed in terms of genus and species.

Being-as-such (Sein), is not an entity, is not ontic. It is better described as to be, or what it means to
be. Statements about Being-as-such (often shortened to the capitalized term ‘Being’) are not ontical
statements, but ontological statements. Nor do they refer to a “super-entity”, at least not in
Heidegger’s writings, because he differentiates the ontology that he is writing about as fundamental
ontology, contrasting it with traditional forms of ontology, which do not make a distinction between
ontical and ontological. Because traditional ontologies fail to distinguish Being (Sein) and entities
(das Seiende), they speak of being as if it is also an entity. These ontologies are sometimes described
as metaphysics, or metaphysical, making reference to Kant’s distinction between transcendental and
transcendent. In the metaphysical ontologies, Being is often treated as a transcendent entity, able to
exist beyond the world of living experience as a thing-in-itself, rather than a transcendental a priori,

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wherein the world of living experience is possible, yet not being prior to experience in any temporal
sense. To speak of any entity in-itself, apart from its presencing in the possibilizing openness of what
it means to be for a subject, is tantamount to the meaningless distinction between primary and
secondary qualities.

What this means is that openness for the being (presencing) of entities, is “what” makes the being
(presencing) of entities possible. Hence this openness for is comparable to a ground of everything
as “the first point from which a thing either is, or comes to be, or is known”, as in the quote above
from Aristotle (see chapter 2, note 7). The difference between Being and any other ground, however,
is an ontological difference, because Being is not an entity, but rather no-thing. Since it is not an
entity or thing, it is not categorial, nor is it categorical if by this we mean the occurrence of
something which may be understood categorially. Neither must the term ‘no-thing’ be interpreted
as a relative no-thing, for it does not refer to the absence of something. No-thing simultaneously
means the complete negation of all beings, and also “that” which makes all beings possible.

Being as the openness for beings requires beings (entities), just as beings (entities) require Being
(what it means to be) to presence. Being encompasses the being (presencing) of entities and their
transcendence (negating and going beyond entities), however implicit this remains. Entities can
encounter entities implicitly through interactions of many kinds, yet it is a special type of entity for
whom the encountering of entities can be made explicit. This special kind of entity is referred to by
Heidegger as Dasein, a word with two parts: Sein and da. The former, Sein, we have translated as
‘to be’ or ‘what it means to be’. The prefix da can be translated as ‘there’, but unlike the German
word dort, the word da does not mean ‘there’ as opposed to ‘here’. The da designates an openness
for, so that Dasein can be more accurately translated as the openness for what it means to be.16

This openness occurs with humankind, but the term Dasein does not directly refer to humankind as
entities, but rather to an ontological process which human entities participate in. Any discussion of
humankind as entities, therefore in terms of categories (the format of genus and species), is ontical
rather than ontological.17 There are important implications in stating that Dasein is not to be
identified with the ego, but these should be worked out elsewhere.

As to the term Sein, which is included in Dasein, we can now explain it as “the happening of the
world of sense in which man lives and moves and is”.18 Now it is clear why Being-in-the-world is
to be emphasized, both because of and in spite of entities: because of entities insofar as Dasein is
open for the being of entities; in spite of entities because Dasein is the transcendence of entities in
the very act of disclosing entities. The excess of Dasein beyond entities (beyond the merely
entitative), is what makes the access to entities (the access to the merely entitative) possible. To the
extent that we objectify Dasein, we misunderstand Dasein. As one writer succinctly puts it:

Excess possibilizes access, and the whole is called “transcendence.”19

The term ‘transcendence’ in this context does not refer to a thing-in-itself outside of experience, but
does refer to a transcendental a priori which holds open the horizon of the possibilities of

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experience. Dasein encounters itself, other persons, and things, with various degrees of implicitness
and explicitness, but is always capable of developing thematic (explicit) understandings. Even when
encountering things ready-at-hand, a careful examination explicates therein the implicit ways of
existing of Dasein (what it means to be). All sensa, and all representations of sensa in percepts,
disclose the world of Dasein, and insofar as these are made explicit to ourselves as human beings,
they constitute a thoroughly human world. The colour red in the world is an aspect of our colour
vision, and the meaningful associations of the colour red are aspects of our thinking, which is
symbolification in the broadest sense. Apart from our experiences of the world, sensory, emotional,
intuitive and intellectual, what is knowable? It is impossible to speak of any world beyond our
experiential world, and it is nonsensical to act as though we could imply that “a world beyond
experience” is in any way a meaningful reference.

Nevertheless, this does not limit what may be implicit to our existence as Dasein. A world without
humans is not the same as a world without Being in any sense, even though it implies a lack of
explicitly realized existence. Perhaps we could speak of a proto-Dasein, just as in science we may
make a distinction between the implicate order and the explicate order of the universe.20

David Bohm has expounded a theory on what he calls “the implicate order and the
explicate order,” which is very close to the Unobstructed Interpenetration of All Phenomena.
Bohm has said that all realities which are thought to exist independently of one another
belong to the explicate order, an order in which one thing seems to exist outside of another.
However, if we see deeply, everything is linked to everything else in the whole universe,
which is included in it and out of which it is created. This leads us to the world of the
implicate order in which “time and space no longer decide whether things are dependent on
or independent of one another.”21

The unique kind of existence which humans participate in as Dasein, which is characterized as
transcendence (excess possibilizing access), and which is never reducible to the categorial, but rather
makes the latter possible, is termed Existenz. The various modes of the Existenz of Dasein are
termed existentials,22 which is say that Dasein has its possibilities to be, but Dasein must never be
characterized as having fixed properties, as do entities present-at-hand (and even these are mere
abstractions), or be characterized as a means for something, as entities ready-at-hand. Even though
Dasein cannot always choose its circumstances, it always has a choice as to how to interpret and
comport itself toward its circumstances. Not only must we avoid the fallacy of reductionism, which
assumes that complex systems can always be explained in terms of their components, but we must
also avoid the attempt to explain existentials in terms of things ready-at-hand, or explain things
ready-at-hand in terms of things present-at-hand. Existentials have an ontological priority over
things, and things ready-at-hand have an ontological priority over things present-at-hand.

The smiling face of a friend is not a scientific object with a certain amount of emotion added
on. Nor do I “look at” the face of the friend in the same way that I look at the plasma on the
slide, even if I “add on” the emotion.”23

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Finally, for the moment, I would like to sum up by clarifying the relationship between the a priori
and objectivity. Confusion on this point leads to accusations that Heidegger, and those who have
either been influenced by Heidegger, or who have reached similar conclusions independently, value
subjectivity at the expense of objectivity.24

Contrary to Kant and others, the a priori are not merely regulative of sense data, since sense data,
or any other type of data, have no being independent of an experiencing subject or observer, in some
broad sense of the term. Although the experiencing subject or observer does not have to be human,
or even animal, it follows that the human observer cannot “apply” the a priori to the data, as if
subject and object existed independently. Nor does the subject have being independent of ‘data’,
which are entities-in-a-world. Otherwise, it would not be a subject in any sense. We must conclude
that ‘objectivity’ cannot consist of the independent existence of the so-called thing-in-itself, but is
instead a possibilizing openness for entities. If the latter interpretation is to be followed, then the
terms ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ would be correlative and ultimately inseparable. Such an
understanding would explain but also extend the insight of the American philosopher Alfred
Korzybski (1879-1950) on the relation between objectivity and thought.

Korzybski said, for example, that whatever we say a thing is, it isn’t. First of all,
whatever we say is words, and what we want to talk about is generally not words. Second,
whatever we mean by what we say is not what the thing actually is, though it may be similar.
For the thing is always more than we mean and is never exhausted by our concepts. And the
thing is also different from what we mean, if only because no thought can be absolutely
correct when it is extended indefinitely. The fact that a thing has qualities going beyond
whatever we think and say about it is behind our notion of objective reality. Clearly, if reality
were ever to cease to show new aspects that are not in our thought, then we could hardly say
that it had an objective existence independent of us.
All this implies that every kind of thought, mathematics included, is an abstraction,
which does not and cannot cover the whole of reality. Different kinds of thoughts and
different kinds of abstraction may together give a better reflection of reality. Each is limited
in its own way, but together they extend our grasp of reality further than is possible with one
way alone.25

Endnotes

1 Runes, ed., Dictionary Of Philosophy, pp. 45 & 305. Also, René Descartes, Meditations On
First Philosophy (Indianapolis: The Library of Liberal Arts, The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1975), Laurence J. Lafleur, trans. with intro.

2 Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, p. 24 (Second Meditation).

3 John Maraldo, notes to Martin Heidegger’s “The Problem of a Non-Objective Thinking and
Speaking in Today’s Theology”, in Martin Heidegger, The Piety Of Thinking, Essays By
Martin Heidegger (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, 1976), trans., notes &

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 comment. by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo, p. 26.

4 Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, pp. 40-41 (Third Meditation). The square
brackets are those of the translator, and indicate where the first French translation (in 1647)
adds a word or phrase not found in the Latin edition (of 1642).

5 Rene Descartes, “Rules for the Guidance of Our Native Powers” (Rule IV), in Descartes,
Philosophical Writings (New York: The Modern Library, Random House, Inc., 1958),
selected and translated by Norman Kemp Smith, p. 15.

6 Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, Part I (Definitions), in Benedict De Spinoza, On The

Improvement Of The Understanding, The Ethics, Correspondence (New York: Dover
Publications, Inc., n.d.), R.H.M. Elwes, trans. with intro., p. 45.

7 Spinoza, Ethics, Part I (Prop. X), Ibid., p. 51.

8 William A. Luijpen, Existential Phenomenology, Duquesne Studies, Philosophical Series 12

(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1977, rev. ed.), pp. 94-95.

9 The terms ‘reality’ and ‘actuality’ can be used as synomyms or as antonyms. An example of
the latter is when ‘reality’ designates the consciousness of something, in contrast to the thing-
in-itself as ‘actuality’. Otherwise, the two words can be used interchangeably.

10 Luijpen, ibid., p.137, citing David Hume in the footnote, A Treatise on Human Nature, vol.
I, part IV, sec. IV.

11 Runes, ed., Dictionary Of Philosophy, p. 305.

12 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason (Hazelton, PA: The Pennsylvania State
University, Electronic Classic Series, 2010), trans. by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, ed. by Jim Manis,
p. 31 (Intro., Sec. I. “Of the Difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge”.) (pdf)
Also, see the wonderfully readable passage in Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance, An Enquiry Into Values (Bantam Books, 1975), pp. 114-117.

13 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, p. 124. For an overview of Cassirer’s philosophy, see
Seymour W. Itzkoff, Ernst Cassirer, Philosopher Of Culture (Boston: Twayne Publishers,
G.K. Hall & Co., 1977), Arthur W. Brown & Thomas S. Knight, eds. Also note: Ernst
Cassirer, An Essay on Man, An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 223:

Aristotle’s definition of man as a “social animal” is not sufficiently

comprehensive. It gives us a generic concept but not the specific difference.
Sociability as such is not an exclusive characteristic of man, nor is it the

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 privilege of man alone. In the so-called animal states, among bees and ants,
we find a clear-cut division of labor and a surprisingly complicated social
organization. But in the case of man we find not only, as among animals, a
society of action but also a society of thought and feeling. Language, myth,
art, religion, science are the elements and the constitutive conditions of this
higher form of society. They are the means by which the forms of social life
that we find in organic nature develop into a new state, that of social
consciousness. Man’s social consciousness depends upon a double act, of
identification and discrimination. Man cannot find himself, he cannot become
aware of his individuality, save through the medium of social life. But to him
this medium signifies more than an external determining force. Man, like the
animals, submits to the rules of society but, in addition, he has an active share
in the bringing about, and an active power to change, the forms of social life.
In the rudimentary stages of human society such activity is still scarcely
perceptible; it appears to be at a minimum. But the farther we proceed the
more explicit and significant this feature becomes. This slow development
can be traced in almost all forms of human culture.

14 “Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are defined
ontologico-categorially.” – Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Harper & Row, Publishers,
1962), John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, trans., p.101 (¶ 15. H. 71).

15 Justus Hartnack, Wittgenstein and Modern Philosophy (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1965),
trans. by Maurice Cranston, p. 90 ff., comparing what Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
terms ‘language-games’, and what Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) terms ‘categories’.

16 Michael Gelven, A Commentary On Heidegger’s “Being And Time”, A Section-By-Section

Interpretation (Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1970), pp. 22 - 23. Also, see
William Lovitt in Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology And Other
Essays (Harper Colophon Books, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977), William Lovitt, trans.
with intro., p. xxxv ftn.2:

In a letter to Professor J. Glenn Gray (October 10, 1972) concerning this

work, Heidegger states: “Everything that I have attempted is misunderstood without
the turning from ‘consciousness’ into the ‘openness-for-Being’ that was being
prepared in Being and Time.”... Heidegger has emphatically expressed his preference
for “openness” and his disapprobation of “there” as a translation of da in Dasein.

17 Gelven, ibid., p. 23.

18 Thomas Sheehan in Martin Heidegger, Heidegger, The Man And The Thinker (Chicago:
Precedent Publishing, Inc., 1981), Thomas Sheehan, ed. with preface & essay, p. ix.

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19 Ibid., p. xvi.

20 David Bohm and F. David Peat, Science, Order, and Creativity (London and New York:
Routledge, 2000, 2nd edition), p. 172 ff., especially p. 180, which refers to the deepest level
of the implicate order as the holomovement of the universe. In psychological terms, this is
reminiscent of Carl Jung’s idea of synchronicity. For the latter, see C. G. Jung,
Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle, from The Collected Works Of C. G. Jung,
Volume 8 (Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series XX, 1973), R. F. C. Hull, trans.

21 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart, From Mindfulness To Insight Contemplation
(Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1988), trans. by Anh Huong Nguyen, Elin Sand and Annabel
Laity, pp. 112-113.

22 In Being and Time, Macquarrie and Robinson generally translate the German Ding as
‘Thing’, and the German Sache as ‘thing’. The former refers to the (theoretical-conceptual
perception of the) presence-at-hand of entities; the latter is used when referring to Husserl’s
famous statement ‘To the things [facts] themselves!’ (‘Zu den Sachen selbst!’). See H. 27-28,
pp. 49-51. The expression ‘the things themselves’ is reinterpreted by Heidegger in terms of
the existentials or existentialia (H. 42, p. 67 ff., esp. p. 70) as modes of the openness for what
it means to be. Also, Gelven, ibid., pp. 19, 50.

23 Gelven, ibid., p. 59.

24 For example, William D. Gairdner, The Book of Absolutes, A Critique of Relativism and a
Defence of Universals (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), especially p. 244 ff.
Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism is another matter, and would require a
separate examination. Be that as it may, the particular aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy
which I am most interested in offer insights which are comparable to radically different
philosophies from that of Heidegger, such as are found in Buddhism, and which have nothing
to do with National Socialism. Likewise, the influence of Meister Eckhart on Heidegger
shows that Heidegger could have developed his thinking in other directions. Lastly, I will
only mention that he did become critical of National Socialism from 1938 onwards. See Hans
Ruin, “Technology as Destiny in Cassirer and Heidegger - Continuing the Davos Debate”,
p. 18 (pdf), (Södertörn University College, Stockholm: under publication in Aud Sissel Hoel,
ed., Form and Technology: Reading Ernst Cassirer from the Present).

25 Bohm and Peat, Science, Order, and Creativity, pp.8-9, quoting from A. Korzybski, Science
and Sanity (Lakeville, Conn.: International Neo-Aristotelian Publishing Company, 1950).

© 2010 Thomas William La Porte, revised 2011.

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