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.
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