Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What’s in an essence?

An important division of things in Crusius’ ontology we didn’t consider last time is that of incomplete things. An incomplete thing, Crusius explains, is such that, if it should exist, it must be connected to some other thing. A good example would be a location of a thing in relation to other things: clearly, if a location exists, there must be a thing which is located in this manner.

In addition to such external circumstances (umstände) like location, examples of incomplete things, Crusius says, are provided by the relation of subsistence. Crusius has inherited this notion from tradition, but as it is simple and cannot therefore be really defined, it is difficult to understand what is meant by something subsisting in something else. Crusius does provide illustrations of the relation, examples being relation of a certain shape to a piece of matter, understanding to a soul and even foot to a human being. Here, that which subsists Crusius calls property (rather confusingly, because properties were also parts of essence) or predicamental accident, while that where something subsists is called a subject.

In a rather inconsistent manner, Crusius sometimes speaks as if subjects were the stable element in the relation, although in many other places he underlines that subject and its accidents are incomplete and only their combination - essence or substance - is the true complete thing, just like matter and shape or form are just two aspects of a shaped material object, like a book.

Subsistence relation forms chains, with subjects subsisting in further subjects, Crusius explains, just like science subsists in understanding and understanding in soul. Crusius suggests that these chains cannot go on indefinitely, but there must be some absolute subjects, which do not subsist in anything else. Well, to make the matters more difficult, Crusius suggests then that even absolute subjects can subsist in a further subject, just not like a property subsists in a subject.

In some cases a subject is necessarily connected to a certain property, in other cases not, Crusius says. Examples of the latter would be, on the one hand, red colour of a house, on the other hand, person’s ability to speak Latin. These two examples are very different in nature. Someone might not have an ability to speak Latin, without having an ability to speak anything else, Crusius notes. Then again, if the house is not red, it still has some colour. Colour is what Crusius calls a house’s possible way of existence or its determination.

A thing with some determinations missing cannot really exist, Crusius explains, although we can think of such an indeterminate thing as a subject of further determinations. Just like Wolffians, Crusius defines an individual thing as being fully determinate. With all its determinations, an individual is differentiated from all other individuals, while abstractions from individuals can exist only in several individuals.

Crusius also divides properties into positive and negative properties. This division is linked with the notion of determinations in the sense that when we think of a negative property, we then implicitly think of some positive property, but only indeterminately (what is not yellow is still coloured somehow). Crusius divides negative properties further into merely negative and privative determinations (think how it is different to say that coal is not alive and that JFK is not alive). Similarly, he divides positive properties into absolute properties and relations.

To further explain what makes property positive, Crusius states that all of them are forces, that is, they make other things possible or even actual by themselves or with the help of something else. This leads Crusius to deal with the notion of causality. Epistemically, he says, causality is justified by it being impossible to think of something being generated without being an effect of some cause. The corresponding principle of sufficient reason, Crusius insists, cannot be deduced from the principle of non-contradiction, because there is no contradiction when things are different at different times. Furthermore, he continues, causality is a concept we cannot really define - it is so simple that we can only show how this concept can be abstracted from our experience by noting e.g. how our experiences of fire and warmth are linked to one another, without one being part or determination of the other.

Crusius also links causality to what he calls a principle of contingency: what can be thought as not existing must have really not existed at some point in time. The idea behind this principle is that if we then find such a contingent thing existing at some point, it must have been actualised by some force.

Forces or causes are for Crusius one type of ground. There are also other types of ground, he continues. For instance, because a triangle has sides of certain lengths, it must also have angles of certain sizes. Here, the lengths of the sides are a ground for the sizes of the angles, although the sizes clearly do not cause the angles to be of a certain size. Crusius calls such an existential ground.

Both causal ground and existential ground fall under what Crusius calls a real ground: the idea is that in these cases what is grounded is something outside thought. Ideal ground, on the other hand, Crusius defines as something generating knowledge and conviction of something. He also divides ideal grounds into a posteriori and a priori grounds. In an a posteriori ground the concept of what we are about to prove is already present, while the ground at most reveals that this something exists. A priori ground, on the other hand, generates also an idea of what we are grounding.

Returning back from this detour to an essence and its properties, we find Crusius dealing with what he calls the fundamental essence of a thing and attributes, which are constant properties, grounded in the very fundamental essence of the thing. Some of these attributes are necessary or essential: the existence of these attributes is inevitable, once the fundamental essence behind them is supposed to exist. The other type of attribute Crusius deals with is natural attribute or property, which is present in things of certain type usually, but could be absent in extraordinary cases, although the fundamental essence of the thing would remain the same. He notes also that some attributes are based only on the fundamental essence of the thing, while others are based also on external, but constant causes.

Crucius notes also that some attributes mark a real existence of some condition, while others mark only a capacity for something, activated by external causes, contingent activity of the fundamental essence or both. Such activation of capacities makes then possible the change of contingent properties or modi of a thing. By a modus Crusius refers to properties that make an indeterminate thing more determinate by adding to constant properties something variable, which could be replaced by another modus.

Crusius also considers the distinction between a necessary and a contingent fundamental essence. In a necessary fundamental essence properties constituting the fundamental essence of a thing cannot be separated from one another without supposing some contradiction. In this case, also the attributes flowing from the fundamental essence of the thing must be necessary, and indeed, the only thing that can be up to chance is whether the thing itself exists at all. Contingent fundamental essence, on the other hand, refers to a fundamental essence, where some of the constituent properties can be removed without any contradiction. Crusius notes that all finite substances have in this sense a contingent fundamental essence.

These notions lead Crusius to consider a more general question: what does it mean when we consider whether presupposition of a certain determinate essence contradicts a presence or absence of a certain property? His answer is that all this question can reveal is that presence or absence of a property is necessary for a certain concept. Thus, we cannot add a fourth angle to a triangle, without making it not agree with the concept of a triangle. This does not mean that the properties of the thing would be necessary outside our concepts (e.g. a triangle could be changed into a quadrangle). Such a substantial necessity of properties is present only in the cases, Crusius explains, where removal of this necessary property would make the thing incapable of even existing.

Joachim Darjes: Elements of metaphysics 1 – Connecting things

In previous post, we saw Darjes define basic notions of thinkable and possible and various determinations thinkables and possibles can have. The next step is to relate especially the possibles in various ways to one another. The most basic concepts in this relating are those of succession and coexistence. Darjes does provide definitions for these terms, but these definitions are somewhat circular or at least rely on our notions of what it means e.g. that a thing stops to exist, when another comes to existence. Thus, we might as well take these two notions as primitive relations, on basis of which temporal and spatial relations in general can be founded.

As one might have suspected, the primary mode of connection Darjes considers is that of reason/ground – that which makes something to be what it is. Darjes is one of the most careful philosophers in making distinctions between various forms of ground. The most important distinctions lie, firstly, between reason for the possibility of something and reason for the actual existence of something, and secondly, between a metaphysical/synthetical reason, which makes something be in itself what it is, and logical/analytic reason, which makes us know what something is. Further distinctions concern the questions whether a reason is by itself sufficient to ground something, whether a reason for something lies within the thing grounded or outside it and whether reason has truly caused something to occur or merely removed some obstacles preventing something to occur.

Like all Wolffians, Darjes is not happy to just define notions, but he wants also to show where they can be deployed. Especially the question of metaphysical reason of existence is important. Darjes notes that since essences must necessarily be, there really can't be any metaphysical reason for their existence. Instead, it is only us who can have analytical reasons for knowing that some essence exists, that is, we might have reasons for knowing something is possible.

If essences do not need metaphysical reasons, the connection of essences – or in general, any subjects – with further determinations not implicit in them does require. In essence, Darjes shows here his commitment to a version of the principle of sufficient reason. Like other Wolffians before him, Darjes tries to argue for this principle, but his arguments clearly just presuppose a number of things. Darjes suggests that a determination without a reason to back it up would not be able to prevent its opposite to latch on to the same subject, which would inevitably cause contradictions. In other words, Darjes merely presumes that some explaining or even causating factor is required for connecting a particular non-necessary and possible determination to a thing – or what amounts to the same thing, for removing the opposite determination. Darjes also hastily assumes that this presumption requires the stronger supposition of a sufficient reason – that is, that for the connection of a subject and determination there must be a finitely describable series of reasons, ending with a final reason, which requires no reason beyond itself.

The first particular kind of reason Darjes considers is the essence as a reason of some affections of a thing. Such affections Darjes calls attributes, although he at once admits this concept has two meanings, depending on whether the essence is the reason of their actuality or possibility – thus, attributes could be divided into actual and possible attributes. Now, some possible attributes might still require another reason for making them actual affections of the thing in question. Such affections would not be actual attributes. While most of the Wolffians would just name these non-attribute affections modes, Darjes has still some more divisions to make. The reason actualising the non-attribute affection might be something external to the thing in question, and in that case Darjes speaks of a mode. Then again, this reason might be something intrinsic to the thing, although not its essence – Darjes calls this a mode by analogue. These modes by analogue are an interesting addition to the normal classification of determinations of things. Firstly, they resemble modes, because they are not grounded on the essence of the thing: hence, they are at least analogical to modes. Secondly, they still resemble in a sense attributes more, because they do not require anything external to the thing for their explanation.

Even modes are not a simple group in eyes of Darjes. The modes in the most proper sense are actualised just through some external effective reason. Yet, Darjes says, some modes might also have partial actualising reason in something within the thing in question (Darjes also calls these affections mixed non-attribute affections). In effect, such immediate modes would otherwise be actualised by something internal to the thing in question – and would then be just modes by analogy – but some obstacle prevents this actualisation, which then requires some external reason removing this obstacle. Noticeably, while the place of relations in relation to modes has been somewhat murky in the Wolffia tradition, Darjes clearly takes them to be a subspecies of modes – modes divide into intrinsic modes, such as qualities and quantities, which can be cognised without any reference to other things, and into extrinsic modes or relations, the cognition of which requires a reference to other things.

At this moment, after going through all these various determinations things could have, Darjes makes a detour to different ways things could be distinguished, apparently through these various affections. Some distinctions, Darjes begins, concern merely the words used – this is a logical distinction – while other distinctions concern also what the words refer to and what is then something thinkable – metaphysical distinction. A metaphysical distinction, then, concerns either things thought – real distinction – or then just our conceptions of things – rational distinction. Although the distinction between real and rational distinctions appears a rather straightforward dichotomy, Darjes thinks these two types of distinction can be classified in a more gradual manner. Real distinction might concern something intrinsic to the things distinguished, but it might also be just an extrinsic distinction, based on different ways to denominate things. Furthermore, while rational distinction can be purely rational in the sense that it has nothing to do with the objects of our conceptions, in what Darjes calls eminent rational distinction this distinction is based on the objects of the concepts. Indeed, an extrinsic real distinction can well be connected with an eminent rational distinction, which is then in some sense intrinsic, although not real distinction. The importance of this highly abstract classification for Darjes is that two attributes or an attribute and an essence of the same thing can be distinguished only in an eminently rational manner – that is, the difference between the two is not just something in our heads, but it still doesn't require that two attributes or an attribute and an essence would be two separate things. Thus, while a thing might have several attributes, it still might not be divisible into several things.

We noted in the previous post that Darjes spoke of possibles of first and second order, when other Wolffians would have spoken of absolutely necessary and contingent things. This is because Darjes defines the notions of necessity and contingency in connection with combinations of determinations and subject – determination is necessary to a thing, if its opposite cannot belong to the thing, otherwise it is contingent. Such a notion of necessity and contingency is obviously relative to the thing in question. In addition to this subject-relativity, necessity and contingency can be relative to some hypothetical condition, and if not, Darjes speaks of absolute necessity and contingency. It is quite clear that essences and attributes are absolutely necessary, while all non-attribute affections are contingent – a thing has them because of some external or internal reason, and in another situation it might well have quite different affections. While Darjesian account of necessity and contingency is primarily about determinations, he still can speak of necessary and contingent things, because he regards existence as one possible determination of a thing. Furthermore, he notes that necessity and contingency can occur not only within determinations of a single thing, but also as characteristics of connections of things.

Like many Wolffians, Darjes concludes his discussion of connections between entities or nexuses with the notions of unity, order, truth and perfection. Starting with unity, Darjes notes that all connections between things form unities, which might be, depending on the nature of connection, absolute or relative, intrinsic or extrinsic and necessary or contingent. Thus, for instance, essence and respective attributes form a necessary, intrinsic and absolute unity. Then again, non-attributive affections form only a contingent unity with the essence. Furthermore, if thing has some mode produced by something external, the thing must form an extrinsic unity with this external reason.

Order Darjes defines as a characteristic of a series of connected things, where the things are connected because of same reasons – for instance, if some causal factor connects A1 to A2, the same factor connects A2 to A3 and so on. Darjes insists that we can always express this same reason in the form of a proposition, which then acts as a rule for the order in question. Truth, on the other hand, Darjes defines as the convenience of such things that have been posited together – for instance, truth in the usual sense of the word is the convenience of what we think about a thing or what we say about thing with the concept of this thing. Since the general definition of truth does not mention any series, all truths are not orders. Then again, in all orders the members of the series convene with one another. Perfections, finally, Darjes defines as consent of various things, where consent means that things conjoined are not adverse to one another.

Joachim Darjes: Elements of metaphysics 1 – Thinkable and possible

While philosophers of Wolffian school began metaphysics usually with ontology, Darjes starts with something called primary philosophy, which should be distinct from ontology. The main difference between the two disciplines is that only latter deals with entities (ens). I shall speak in a later post what Darjes meant by an entity, but for the moment I am concentrating on his primary philosophy.

Like all Wolffians thus far, Darjes begins his account of metaphysics with the principle of non-contradiction. It is not surprising that this principle delineates the realm of possible for Darjes. More interesting is that Darjes actually has an account of what is left outside this realm. Even Wolff did define nothing as what is impossible, but it was unclear what this nothing should be – something in our minds or something more ontologically robust. Now, Darjes notes that nothing and something or impossible and possible are simply kinds of cogitable or thinkable, while thinkable simply is what we can think. Thus, metaphysics is then forcibly defined in relation to our thought, which paves the way for a complete change of ontology into an analytic of principles, which will happen with Kant. It is also important that according to Darjes we can think even contradictions – something not admitted by all philosophers – and very telling about Darjesian attitude toward thinking, which seems then to be nothing more than mere combining words together.

Darjes notes that everything thinkable, whether it be possible or impossible, has something that makes it possible or impossible. This feature making something possible or impossible Darjes calls the essence of thinkable. Darjes thus actually has a definition for an essence, which is more than one could say of Wolff. Then again, Darjesian notion of essence is is another deviation from the usual Wolffian stand, where essences belong only to possible things. Darjes also calls essence a constitutive or adequate primary concept, implying that essences are nothing but thoughts.

Darjes also introduces at this point the primary division of complex and simple, although he extends this classification to all thinkables. His method is to introduce these notions through the idea of essence. Essence of something we can think might be resolvable into further thinkables. If it is, the corresponding thinkable is complex, while if it isn't, this thinkable is simple. Note that we still appear to be moving in the level of thoughts, since Darjes especially calls the parts of essences or essentials partial or inadequate concepts. Further evidence that we are here dealing with thought is provided by Darjes' statement that division of complex thinkables must inevitably end with something simple, because we simply cannot think a bottomless series of constitution. Furthermore, Darjes notes that all impossible thinkables – nothings – must be complex, since simplicities cannot contain contradictions (another assumption that Wolff never made).

Beyond essence and its constituents or essentials, what is thinkable has what Darjes calls affections or adjuncts, in relation to which the thinkable is a subject. Knowing a bit about Wolffian tradition, one might suspect that Darjes would mention attributes and modes at this point. He will mention them, but in a completely different place, because his division of characteristics of thinkable is much more fine-grained than with earlier Wolffians. Still, something similar is in Darjes' mind, when he mentions that affections can be divided into two sorts. Some of them the thinkable has absolutely – that is, they characterise the thinkable in any situation whatever, for instance, like triangle is characterised by certain sum of angles. Some affections, on the other hand, are hypothetical, that is, characterise the thinkable under some conditions, such as when a triangle could be characterised by a certain colour, if it happens to painted in some manner. While the former affections are stable, the latter could be changed without any contradiction.

Beyond essence, essentials, attributes and modes, Wolffians also mentioned relations and Darjes makes no exception. For him, relation or extrinsic determination is something external to a thinkable which it characterises, that is, even when we have assumed the existence of the thinkable, we still need to assume the existence of something else, before this determination could hold of the first thinkable (for instance, one cannot be a child without someone else, whose child one is).

An opposite of an extrinsic determination is, of course, an intrinsic determination, that is, a determination that characterises a thinkable, even if there were no other thing to relate it to. Darjes doesn't leave this class of characteristics here, but goes on to divide intrinsic characteristics further. At first sight the division appears to just repeat the division between extrinsic and intrinsic determinations- some intrinsic determinations can be conceived without other things, some cannot. Yet, it is the word ”conceive” which is obviously important here – a determination might ontologically not be dependent on relations with other things, but we might epistemically require such relations.

The first part of the division or qualities is an easy thing to understand, and for instance, essence and essentials are obviously qualities in this sense. But what belongs to the other category? Darjes suggests that at least quantities belong to this class of intrinsic determinations. Clearly, quantity is an intrinsic determination in the sense that a thing can be of certain size without any thing external to it. Yet, if thing has a size, it must, firstly, be a complex and contain other things as its constituents. These other things or parts are then what is required for conceiving that a thing has a certain quantity – for instance, to say that a field is four acres large, we must think of field as consisting of acre-sized parts.

A thinkable with a quantity should not just consist of parts, but of parts that are in some sense same – this if how we can say e.g. that a field is six acres in size or that there are six wolves in a pack. This sameness, Darjes defines, means that these thinkables can replace one another, at least in some respect (just like if wolves are required, one wolf is as good as another, and that's why we can determine the size of a wolf pack). Darjes goes into more details of various kinds of sameness – identity or sameness of all characteristics, equality or sameness of quantities, similarity or sameness of qualities etc. - but none of this is surprising.

The one final thing to discuss at this point is Darjesian notion of existence. Unlike Baumgarten, Darjes does not try to beat Wolff in finding a definition for existence, but like Wolff, he merely accepts it as a given notion, which is related in a certain manner to the notion of possibility – what exists is possible, but something might be possible, without existing. Thus, Darjes divides possible essences into two kinds – ideal or merely possible essences and real or actual essences. The ideal essences Darjes also takes as a kind of nothing. That is, they are not nothing, in the official Wolffian sense of the word of being impossible – in other words, they are not complete negations of all existence. Instead, Darjes calls them nothing in a privative sense – they could exist, but happen to not exist.

We've already seen how innovative Darjes is in his use of the absolute and hypothetical viewpoints on various notions, and possibility is not an exception – in addition to absolute or intrinsic possibility or non-contradictoriness, Darjes mentions hypothetical or extrinsic possibility, that is, potentiality in some specific conditions. Another and more interesting use of these viewpoints concerns Darjesian differentiation between possibles of first and second order – possibles of first order absolutely cannot fail to exist,while possibles of second order cannot fail to exist under some hypothetical condition. We are obviously already speaking here of absolute and hypothetical necessity, although the term necessity hasn't yet been introduced. Darjes also makes a quick interesting remark about absolute necessity. He notes that while a thing exists, we cannot really distinguish between the essence and the existence of the thing. We can do this separation only with things that at some point won't exist and with things that must exist essence and existence just cannot be distinguished.

Christian Wolff: Remarks on Reasonable thoughts on God, the world and the human soul, also on all things in general - Fragments of ontology

It's hard to do commentary on another commentary – you are twice removed from the real meat of the problematic, and because the commentary itself has no clear organisation, there usually is no guiding thread to connect the various points. Thus, after reading the chapter on ontology I was left with mere crumbs that by themselves would not have the required length of a blog post. Still, I didn't want to make the time spend with Wolff's commentary go to waste, so I present some of these crumbs in a fragmentary fashion.

***

One key point in the atheism dispute has been the notion of modalities: if Wolff says that events in the world are hypothetically necessary, doesn't this make his theory Spinozistic? Wolff's consideration of modalities here reveals his own belief – Wolff has to define modalities in this manner to avoid Spinoza's fatalism. That is, Spinoza could say only that possibility means something that has existed, will exist or does exist, which would make all possibilities become actual someday. Wolff's definition of possibility as non-contradictoriness allows the extension of possibility to be larger than the extension of past, present and future actuality. Thus, the only truly necessary thing for Wolff is God, who has no external cause, while other things require some previous cause for their actualisation. Interestingly, the tide of philosophy was to go backwards. What is true sense of possibility and necessity for Wolff, will be disparaged by Kant as a mere formal notion of modalities, while the mere hypothetical necessity and possibility in a world of Wolff are raised to the status of real or ontologically substantial modalities by Kant.

***

Connected with the Wolffian theory of modalities is his notion of essences, which he clarifies in his commentary through a helpful simile: if I want to determine what a triangle is like, I need to only determine its essence, that is, two of its sides and the angle between them, because the rest of the triangle is determined through these measures. Unexpectedly, this very same example occurs in Hegel, when he explains how the sensuous side of a thing (say, a triangle) contains lot of surplus material that could be summarized through a lot simpler structure (in this case, through the three quantities). I suspect that Hegel didn't bother to read that much Wolff, so the coincidence is even more surprising.

***

Wolff's nominalism is a feature I did not emphasize the first time around: he explicitly says that universals or genera and species are mere summaries for similarities between things (A and B are both ostriches  because they resemble one another and all the other ostriches . An interesting question is then how the similarity is to be defined, and in general, how things are distinguished from one another. Now, in some places Wolff appears to admit at least the possibility or conceivability that two spatially separated individuals of the same species might be identical in every other respect, thus going against Leibnizian principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Then again, Wolff also subscribes to the definition of individuals as fully determinate in comparison to incompletely determined universals – we noted in case of Thümmig that this definition appears to naturally lead to the Leibnizian principle, because two distinct individuals couldn't on account of this definition be completely similar, because they would then belong to a genus defined by all their characteristics – contradiction, because this genus would then be a completely determinate universal. One possible solution might be that the complete determination of individuals would not consist of mere qualities, but also of quantitative and spatial determinations. Indeed, Wolff says ambiguously that individuals are determined by what we can perceive in them, which might include also their position in space.

***

Next time it's on to psychology!