Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - Thing is

Whether it was called something (Etwas) or thing (Ding), which Crusius prefers, ontologies of the time often began from a concept opposite to nothing. By this thing that is not nothing, Crusius explains, we can mean anything whatsoever that can be thought of. Yet, he continues, we can also distinguish in the class of things that can be thought those which we can only think (merely possible things) and those that are or exist also outside our thought (actual things or things in a more proper sense).

Crusius follows Hoffman in trying to find criteria for recognising what is possible and what is not and finding ultimately three criteria, only one of which is absolutely certain. The basic sign of something being a possible thing, Crusius insists, is whether someone can think it: possibility is thus equated with an ideal comprehensibility. Since no one could think as true such things that contradict themselves or known truths, we must assume that such contradictions are a sign of an impossible thing.

The principle of non-contradiction, Crusius says, is a demand that all possible things should fulfill. Then again, he adds, all possible things need not be comprehensible to us humans: a point that Hoffman made before Crusius. The idea behind this rejection is that a more perfect mind (such as God) might be able to comprehend something we cannot. Thus, if such a perfect and undeceiving person tells us to believe some apparent absurdity (say, about three persons in one divinity), then we should believe him. Crusius points out two other cases where we should believe such absurdities to be true or at least possible. Firstly, since the law of non-contradiction is the highest criteria of possibility, we must believe a seeming absurdity, if denying it would create contradictions. Secondly, if we are obligated to assume something incomprehensible in order to perfect ourselves, then we should surely accept these incomprehensibilities as true or at least possible. If none of these conditions holds and nothing else speaks to the contrary, then we should think it impossible to separate what we cannot think as separated and to combine what we cannot think as combined. These two principles complete Crusius’ criteria of possibility.

Moving on to Crusius’ criterion for recognising what is actual we might wonder whether he is actually talking about necessity: if we try to deny something actual, we immediately or mediately assume something we cannot think as true, that is, something impossible. The perplexity might go away, if we assume that, just like possibility was defined in relation to the perfect divine mind, so perhaps actuality is also here defined in relation to God. After all, God knows perfectly what there is, so if he assumes something to be non-existent, which actually is, he would land in contradiction.

Humans are not divine, so we have only a limited connection to what is actual. The human criteria of actuality, Crusius says, are always linked to sensation, which Crusius defines as a state where we are immediately forced to assume something without any further proof and which will not be revealed as imagination or dream when compared with other sensations. Indeed, without sensation we could not know that anything exists outside our own thoughts. Even our own existence we become aware of not through our thinking, like Descartes insisted, but through our internal sensation, Crusius concludes.

Having thus delineated the realm of possible and actual things, as far as we humans can know them, Crusius defines some further concepts that he will study in more detail later. For instance, when we think of a thing, whether possible or actual, we think it as distinct from other things. In other words, we think what this thing is as different from all others or we think about its (metaphysical) essence. This essence might be divided into various aspects, which help to distinguish the thing in question from some things, but not from others, just as redness serves to distinguish rose from green things, but not from tomatoes. Such aspects Crusius calls properties or qualities. Since what a thing is is a question different from whether a thing is, existence is still something different from essence and its constituent properties: essence and properties are something we can think of, existence is something beyond thought.

Baumgarten: Metaphysics – Definition of existence

One of the most perplexing parts of Wolff's ontology is his notion of determination – something that can be affirmed of a thing. Are these determinations subjective or objective? The definitions appear to support the former reading, but the way Wolff actually uses these determinations to define possible things seems to support the latter reading. Furthermore, it is unclear whether these determinations should be universals or abstract particulars, i.e. tropes. The most faithful reading would perhaps be to deny that determinations are either, since both universals and particulars are defined through the determinations. Still, they seem more like universals, since unlike with particulars, they could be joined with other determinations.

Whatever these determinations are, Baumgarten accepts the notion, although he defines it in a somewhat different manner. Something is determinate, Baumgarten says, when it has been posited as A or not-A. The term ”posited” might seem rather strange, and indeed it is so – it is not quite clear whether Baumgarten wants to say that something is affirmed as A or not-A or whether it merely is A or not-A or perhaps both. Still, what is posited in something determinate is then a determination. If the posited determination is positive, it is a reality, otherwise it is negation. Since it seems objectively quite hard to say, which predicates should be called positive and which negative, the division appears rather arbitrary – yet, it should not be just subjective, since Baumgarten clearly distinguishes cases, in which e.g. seemingly positive determinations are actually negative.

Baumgarten's manner of distinguishing various determinations appears familiar from Wolffian ontology. Determinations can belong to a thing either as the thing is in itself – then it a question of absolute or internal determinations – or then as the thing is with respect to other thing – then it is a question of relations or external determinations. The internal determinations of a thing are either ground for all other internal determinations – then they are essentials, sum of which forms an essence – while other internal determinations are affections. Affections are then either wholly grounded in essentials – then they are attributes – or not – then they are modes.

Now, Baumgarten notes that a possible thing must be something that can be regarded in itself or without any relations to other things – that is, a possibility must be something with at least a minimal identity, by which to regonise it. This is quite a remarkable suggestion that is not included, at least explicitly, in Wolff's ontology. The important consequence of this suggestion, on the other hand, is something that we find from Wolff. If something is possible, it must have some internal determinations, because without them we could not speak about anything, and since these determinations must be grounded on something, the possible thing must have an essence. In other words, all possible things should have an essence.

Clearly a thing with some essence could also be merely possible, since e.g. centaurs do have an essence without existing – this is something Wolff agrees upon. A natural question then is what makes something possible into something actual or existent. Wolff's answer is, briefly put, that it ultimately has something to do with God's decision to create just this particular world, but that it also lies beyond complete understanding of human beings. In this matter, Baumgarten deviates considerably from Wolffian example, although almost no one has recognised it.

Baumgarten almost equates the essence of a possible thing with its possibility. What about the rest of the internal determinations of a thing, especially its modes, which are not determined by mere essence? Simple, they are part of existence. More determinately, it is the sum of all the internal determinations that supposedly forms the existence of a thing. In other words, while all actual things clearly cannot have any more determinations and are in that sense complete, all possible things should also be in some measure incomplete or indeterminate.

Baumgarten's theory is remarkably curious, although even more curious is that Wolff has been considered to endorse this theory, at least implicitly. True, Wolff says that actual things are completely determinate, but he never affirms that all completely determinate things would be actual. In fact, Wolff identifies complete determination with another ontological notion, or individuality. As Wolff, for instance, accepts the existence of haecceitas, which might be described as an analogy of essence in individuals, it seems quite unreasonable to suppose that Wolff would have thought all individuals are actual.

Baumgarten, on the other hand, makes this bold move and declares all individuals to be existent, thus denying the possibility of merely possible individuals. One explanation might be that he has been led astray by the notion of positing in his definition of determinations. True, we human beings can posit some thing to be completely determinate, only if we can experience it and thus know that it exists. Yet, this does not mean that God with his infinite capacity of thinking – something which Baumgarten himself should believe in – could not think of a completely determinate individual, which still would not exist. It is then Baumgarten who has fallen for the old trick of confusing capacities of human understanding with the capacities of divine understanding – something, of which Kant was to later accuse his rationalist predecessors.

Ocean of essences

When blogging about Wolff's German metaphysics, I described his idea of modalities through an analogy of an ocean warmed by sun: possibilities swam like drops of water within the ocean, and occasionally heat of the sun made one such drop rise to the air of actuality. In this text I am going to dive deeper to that ocean and describe in more detail its denizens or possibilities. But before going into possibilities, I must begin with impossibilities.

As should be familiar, Wolff defines impossibility through the notion of contradiction: what is contradictory cannot exist and vice versa. Impossibility is then also identified with what in previous text was called nothing. Possibility is defined as contradictory of impossibility, that is, possibility is something or what is not contradictory.

Now the definition above gives a rather good recipe for recognizing an impossibility – if a contradiction pops up, it cannot be. On the contrary, it is still uncertain how one can recognize something as possible, because it is more difficult to know when something is without contradiction. Wolff himself mentions that we can have a priori proofs that something is possible, which might sound rather preposterous. Yet, one must remember that by a priori Wolff actually means all sorts of demonstrations, which can have empirical premisses. Indeed, Wolff appears to accept only actuality of something as an undemonstrated justification of it's possibility. Thus, we can learn that something is possible only by showing where to find or how to make it actual or by demonstrating it from the actual existence of something else.

What then are the possibilities and impossibilities according to Wolff? Simply put, we can think of them as lists of characteristics. Picture a huge paper full of descriptions like ”triangular”, ”round”, ”square”, ”humanoid”, ”animal”, ”mushroom”, ”pouty”, ”frivolous”, ”intelligent”, ”rioting” and infinitely many others. Circle some of these characteristics or determinations: if the set of characteristics is such that all its members can belong to a single entity, the set describes a possibility, if not, an impossibility. Note that we then have more and less detailed lists – a pair ”pyramid” and ”red” can be made more detailed by the inclusion of characteristic ”coppery”.

Now, if you are aiming at possible result, obviously circling some determinations will make it necessary to circle also other determinations. For instance, if we accept Euclidean geometry without further ado – and they did this back at Wolff's time – circling description ”triangular” forces us also to circle the description ”sum of angles equals two right angles”. The first characteristic, as it were, determines the second, or using terminology of the previous text, thing having this characteristic is a sufficient reason for it having that characteristic.

Let us now assume that we have chosen a set of characteristics, which are meant to define certain possible thing. This set forms then the essence of the supposed possibility (say, triangularity forms the essence of triangles). Clearly, changing any characteristics that is part of the essence would change the possibility (e.g. square wouldn't be a triangle anymore). In this sense essence is always constant for the possibility it corresponds to. This doesn't mean that e.g. triangular pieces of matter could not turn to square piece of matter: then this piece of matter just wouldn't correspond to the essence of triangularity anymore. In effect, when we speak of an essence of a thing, we must assume some viewpoint from which to decide what is essential and what not for the thing in question.

Note that just putting together characteristics does not produce an essence, because such a list does not necessarily refer to any possibility. What one must do is also to show the possibility of this set of characteristics. We have just seen that it is only through actuality that such a proof can be effected. In fact, we need what Wolff has called a real definition, that is, an account of how the thing to be defined can be generated.

Now, when we have determined an essence, clearly also those characteristics determined by the essence will be constant – they cannot change, unless the essence changes. Such determined constant characteristics Wolff calls attributes (note that it might be equally contextual what to takes as essence and what as attribute). Some of these attributes are shared by things with other essences – these Wolff calls common attributes – while others are proper only for the things with that essence.

While essences and attributes are constant for thing of a certain sort, there are characteristics that are not, that is, modes. Thus, triangle could continue being triangle, even if its colour would change. Clearly such a distinction between essential and non-essential characteristics depends on the perspective – while colour is not essential to a triangle, it would be to a green triangle. Furthermore, the modes are not completely separate from essential characteristics and attributes. In fact, some sets of possible modes (say, a set of possible colours of a triangle) clearly form an attribute of the thing in question (it is not necessary that a triangle has any particular colour, but it must definitely have some colour).

In addition to essential characteristics, attributes and modes, things also have relations to one another. A peculiar notion of Wolff, derived probably from Leibniz, is the conviction that all relations could be reduced to modes. In effect, this means that one need not discuss other things when dealing with one thing. Thus, while essential characteristics and attributes of a thing can be explained through one another, its modes can be grounded on its other modes, current or past – that is, all causal processes can be regarded as involving only one object at a time.

Wolffian sea of possibilities is then filled with such groupings of characteristics. Characteristics of one thing cannot clash with one another, or otherwise there wouldn't be any such thing. Yet, just by being a possibility, the thing still isn't actual – one must still add something to make it actual. Kant was later to criticize Wolff, because no addition of a new characteristic could make possibility into actuality. Yet, here Kant is clearly too harsh for Wolff, who knew that mere addition of characteristic would no difference, but ”something else” is required – what this something else, is purposefully left unsaid by Wolff at this point of discussion, although later on it becomes evident that it is the spark of God that makes everything actual.

So much for possibilities, next time I shall look at what Wolff has to say about identity.