In Baumgarten's
sketch of ontology we have progressed into the section on internal
disjunctive predicates, that is, to the most general classification
of all things. We have actually witnessed already one of these
classifications, namely, the division of things into singular or
universal, which with Baumgarten can be roughly identified with the
division into actual and merely possible things.
Another important
distinction for Baumgarten is the one between necessary and
contingent matters, which is actually a somewhat dual classification
in Baumgarten's philosophy. Firstly, there is the classification of
necessary and contingent features of all things. Transcendental
characteristics, which belong to all things whatsoever, are clearly
necessary. In particular, all essences and attributes are necessary –
this means only that the realm of possibilities is inevitably fixed
and what is possible, must also be possible. Modes, on the other
hand, are contingent, because one and the same thing can have
different modes at different times.
This classification
of features leads then to a similar classification in relation to
things. Necessary things are such that have only necessary features,
that is, which have only an essence and attributes, but no modes.
Contingent things, on the other hands, have modes and are thus not
necessary. We might also describe this differentiation in terms of
mutability. Modes are such things that can change, that is, a thing
might have this mode now, but something else later. In other words,
modes are features that can vary, and things with such features can
change them. Thus, contingent things are mutable. Necessary things,
on the other hand, have no features that could change and are
therefore immutable.
Another distinction
having a close connection with the distinction of necessary and
contingent is that between reality and negation. Actually, these
terms form more like a scale, at the other end of which would be
found complete negation, that is, a thing which cannot be described
through any positive predicates. Baumgarten notes that such a thing
would be actually nothingness, that is, such an entity doesn't
actually exist, but all possible things are real or positive in some
measure.
The scale of reality
is then formed by noting how much negation is added to realities in a
thing. At the other end of the scale, there is a completely positive
thing with nothing negative in it, in other words, which is not
limited by anything (this means obviously God). Other things, then, are sort
of mixtures of positive and negative features.
Now, these negative
features are either necessary to the thing having them or not.
Necessary negations concern the essence or attributes of something –
for instance, human beings have necessary negation of mortality.
Baumgarten notes that the contingent negations or privations must
then concern modes – for instance, if a certain person is blind,
this is just a privation, because it doesn't belong to the essence of
humanity to be blind. While all negations are bad things or evil,
necessary negations are what Baumgarten calls metaphysical – they
are inherent in the nature of things and thus something of which we
cannot complain. Privations, on the other hand, are true defects,
because they are defects that things ought not to have.
The idea of a scale
going from absolute negation to absolute reality is no mere figure of
speech for Baumgarten, because he truly thinks that one could
quantify such intensive notions like reality and negation. This is
part of Baumgarten's Wolffian heritage, in which mathematics is seen
as a key point in all properly scientific research. Indeed,
Baumgarten goes even farther than Wolff and with every metaphysical
topic provides explanations what would be a unit of quantity for that
notion and what meaning the ”greater-lesser” -relation would have
with it. Thus, for instance, in a minimal ordering a minimal reality
is grounded on another minimal reality and adding both units of
reality and grounding relations will make for a more complex order
(unfortunately, Baumgarten does not consider the question what to do
in cases where the comparison of structures is not so easy – if
order A has more units of reality than B, but C has more grounding
relations than either, while still less realities than A, how should
we compare quantities of A and C?).
Next time I'll
continue with the division of substances.
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