Previously

What is Continental Philosophy Phenomenology?

(2/2)What is Continental Philosophy Phenomenology?

Now, the Conclusion:

Last time in a note I mentioned we see subject-object unity as even more basic than the in-itself-ness of the object, such as in an object of affection. In-itself-ness is not simply a pure encounter, but a later mental bracketing of the relational properties of something. And, we can easily see it otherwise. For example, in David Copperfield Dickens writes: “I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty about Dora, but of nothing else … it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wildflowers in the hedges were all Doras, to a bud (Dickens, 2004, ch 33 Blissful).”

This moves the analysis to a still more fundamental level. The modes of presence we have been tracing (exemplary, mere, deficient) are not secondary modifications that befall an already constituted object existing “in itself.” They are more basic than any such in-itself-ness. Dickens’s description makes the point with unusual clarity. David does not first encounter a neutral Dora-object and then project a “mist of love and beauty” onto her. Rather, the entire field of appearance is already saturated by her: the sun shines Dora, the birds sing Dora, the wind blows Dora, the wildflowers are Doras. What shows itself is not an independent object plus an affective coloring; the very presence of the world is Dora-presence. The “object of affection” is not a thing that then receives meaning; it is a totalizing mode of disclosure in which everything is gathered and illuminated. In this light, the traditional notion of the object an sich — the thing existing independently of any way of being taken — appears derivative. We only arrive at the idea of a pure in-itself by abstracting from the concrete ways things are already present (or absent, or deficiently present) for someone. The Dickens passage shows an extreme, almost ecstatic form of exemplary presence: the beloved does not merely stand out within the world; she becomes the medium through which the world itself appears. The same structure operates, more quietly, in ordinary cases. Houseness is present in the average house, or Niagara Falls is present as background noise, only because a particular way of taking already organizes the field of appearance. There is no prior, sealed object that then gets interpreted; the interpretation (the “taking”) is already the mode of presence.This is why the triangulation of exemplary / mere / deficient remains decisive. Those differences do not describe variations in an underlying substance; they are the primary ways presence itself happens. When the mist of Dora lifts, or when the mansion no longer appears as the full incarnation of houseness, what changes is not merely our opinion about a stable object. The very manner in which beings are present has shifted. Being-as-presence is therefore more original than objecthood, and the concrete differences in how presence occurs are what first allow us to notice presence at all.

Leibniz say Reason is an important component of this. Heidegger clarifies this issue in his 1957 book The Principle of Reason, saying “in Leibniz’s sense, a ratio sufficiens, a sufficient reason, isn’t at all a ground capable of supporting a being so that it doesn’t straightaway fall into nothing. A sufficient reason is one that reaches and offers to beings that which puts them in the position of fulfilling their full essence, that is, perfectio. ” (PR, 71). Again, we can see this by using our comparison strategy on the initially vague and indeterminate concept of reason, and so beings are going to appear differently in relation to different levels of reason: a right triangle is going to appear as a mere three sided shape to a child just learning her shapes vs how it appears to a 15 year old in geometry class vs how it appears to a geometry professor lecturing on the history of the Pythagorean theorem.

Bringing Leibniz and Heidegger’s reading of the principle of reason into the discussion sharpens the same structure we have been tracing. Heidegger’s point in The Principle of Reason is precise: for Leibniz a ratio sufficiens is not merely a prop that keeps a being from collapsing into nothing. Leibniz would be thoughtless if this is what he meant. Rather, reason is what reaches toward the being and supplies what allows it to come into its perfectio — its completed, fulfilled essence. Reason, in this sense, is not an external explanation added after the fact; it is a mode of letting the being be present in a more or less adequate way. Our triangulation strategy works directly on the initially vague notion of “reason” itself. Reason is indeterminate until we let its different levels illuminate one another. Consider the right triangle:

• To the small child just learning shapes, the triangle is present in a minimal, almost deficient way: a three-sided figure among other figures. Little of its mathematical essence is disclosed; the ratio that would bring it to fuller presence is largely absent. Likewise, the mentally challenged person may not even encounter the triangle “as” a triangle, a unique category compared to other shapes.
• To the fifteen-year-old in geometry class, a stronger ratio is already at work. The triangle now appears as a figure governed by the Pythagorean relation, with measurable sides and angles, capable of proof and construction. Its presence has become more determinate, closer to perfectio.
• To the geometry professor lecturing on the history of the Pythagorean theorem, a still richer ratio is operative. The triangle is present not only as a formal object but as a historical, cultural, and conceptual achievement — linked to Greek mathematics, to later developments, to questions of necessity, demonstration, and the very meaning of mathematical being. Here the sufficient reason approaches the fullest letting-be of the triangle’s essence.

In each case the being (the triangle) appears differently because a different level of reason is at work. The “same” object is not first given in-itself and then explained; its very mode of presence is co-determined by the reach and depth of the ratio that lets it show itself. The comparison among the three levels does for “reason” what the mansion / average house / shack comparison did for houseness, or what Dora’s saturating presence did for the object of affection: it renders an initially vague concept determinate by letting its internal differences light one another up.Thus reason, on this reading, is itself a privileged way in which presence occurs. Different degrees of reason do not merely describe the triangle more or less accurately; they first allow the triangle to be present in its more or less fulfilled essence. The principle of reason, far from being a neutral logical rule, is bound up with the history of how beings are allowed to come into their presence at all.