III.       THE FIRST SCIENCE

 

A.    METAPHYSICS.

 

            Every science operates on a certain level of universalization. Qualitative universality is less broad than the quantitative universality. That, in fact, is précised as exclusive quality of other quality, while this establishes the formal relations among beings, as they are.

 

            Moreover, mathematics is more elevated of the sciences of nature because it is more interior and thus more concrete. Its reflexivity indicates its proximity to the form of the spirit. Nevertheless, it is not reflective entirely. It does not base itself on itself; its necessity is not absolute.

 

            There is a need therefore to go up to a new level of “abstraction”, continuing the movement initiated by the qualitative abstraction and continued as far as the quantitative abstraction. We will try first to articulate this new level of abstraction and the preceding levels; we will show then the limits of the concept of abstraction when applied to metaphysics; we will delimit finally the idea of being, which is the condition of possibility of all sciences. 

 

            The science which overcomes mathematics and which has the capacity to ground it, must be determined by its object, as all the sciences, and this object must be more universal and necessary. Metaphysics, so called, is the science in which reason brings itself toward the object that is more universal; its object is also more necessary, because it integrates reflectively the movement of the spirit to that which it tends. So it constitutes the condition of possibility of all other sciences, grounds the practical relation of physics to mathematics, and of mathematics to physics.

 

 1.  The Condition of Possibility of Sciences.

 

            The condition of possibility of sciences is recognized in two ways: first, as condition of possibility of their hierarchy, then as condition of possibility of any science in particular.

 

            The particularity of diverse sciences does not impede a constitutive link. Many particular sciences integrate with others, if their particular object integrates with others. So it can constitute itself a utilitarian hierarchy. Statistics, for example, used by human sciences, are subordinate to these; the sciences more elevated have object, which uses and integrates objects of other inferior sciences. The hierarchy of using it does not mean that superior science substitute itself for inferior sciences. Despite subordination of sciences, their diversity and their interdependency remain from each other. The utilitarian hierarchy is stable according to the norms of universality; the principle of universal, superior to all that which integrates, is insurmountable. Now, Metaphysics is not universal of fact, but of law; then, it is to the vertex of other hierarchy.

 

            There is also formal universality of sciences. The hierarchy of sciences here is of the law, and not only of fact, utilitarian. From this point of view, statistics are more elevated of other natural and human sciences, because mathematics, formal, is simpler than physics or sociology, which use it. Without mathematics, these sciences would not be as they are. Mathematics, however, does not need those to function according to the proper order. When we search the rational foundation of sciences, following the rhythm of the hierarchy of law, we are led to a foundation, which is not utilitarian. Mathematics is not the crown of the hierarchy of law. This leads us to the question of First Science, under which all sciences be subordinated. This First Science, universal and necessary, is the source of every universality and necessity.

 

            The condition of possibility of any science is determined by its material object understood according to a subjective form. It does not bring the state of existence of this object; there is need that it would at least with some ideal or real objectivity, before and through the spirit. An abstract quality has a material objectivity, as the law of mathematics. All sciences, empirical or not, suppose some mode of existence of their object. Two types of contrasting abstraction structure this objectivity. Mathematics is the form of possibility of natural sciences; qualitative abstraction determines, in fact, a grouping of relations and of exclusions departing from the implicit recognition of the totality unified of being assuming itself a point of view and from the affirmation of a uniform universality of this point of view. The process of qualitative abstraction supposes then the exercise of formal unity and formal relations of which mathematics makes its specific object. Now, mathematics does not contain in itself its form of possibility, because it is not computed in itself. Its reflexivity is imperfect, and then also its universality and necessity. There is a need that here it would be a science in which the matter would be mathematical form, and that it reflects perfectly its proper form.

 

            Metaphysics looks at the universal, the compact totality of beings. This totality is the condition of possibility of all sciences, without it sciences would not have a proper real object. The universal is not only the material of metaphysics; it is also its form, whose constitution is necessary because reflective. Metaphysics interrogates being as being, in as much as it is it is formally through the spiritual act that which exercises itself in the diverse sciences.

 

2.   Metaphysics

 

The object of Metaphysics goes beyond quality and abstract quantity. Abstraction leads to a being in which ought itself be given to reason. Metaphysics looks at the first principles beyond the materiality of other sciences. The immateriality of its object makes of metaphysics a science above all sciences; the spirit here explains its necessary presence itself. The immateriality of the object of metaphysics signifies the reflective presence of the spirit itself. This immateriality is not accessible to any imaginary being, by definition. It is accessible only by means of the recurrence of the spirit on its activity, because it signifies the reflective identity and not factual of the same spirit.

 

 

            The spirit rises itself departing from a concrete operation; it enunciates outside itself; it manifest itself in the diverse operations of which it is the origin; it returns towards itself departing from these manifestations of which it comprehends the principles reflectively. Metaphysics reveals therefore the spiritual conditions of the possibility of physics and of mathematics, as these sciences are activity of the spirit in it explains itself outside itself.. The metaphysical principles are not in the level of dictating their laws to the physical or mathematical representations, at least materially.

 

            According the nominal definition of the sciences, metaphysics does not avoid the laws according to any science is determined by its object. It is therefore determined by the principle of every being. By consequence, metaphysics integrates the grouping of all other sciences, limited by a point of view, because it looks at the ultimate singularity of every being.  Here, it is therefore a paradox. The object of every science is particular, because it is determined by a particular point of view with respect to the totality of being. It is particular that which excludes other particulars; a point of view is always abstract and exclusive. There, there is no science but particular science. Now Metaphysics, which tends towards the ultimate, excludes other researches by tending towards there.  Therefore, it is particular.

 

3.   Specificity of Metaphysics.

 

            The specificity of other sciences is determined by its interest on the particular aspect of being. The interest of Metaphysics is not addressed to this particular aspect of being, but towards the necessary and universal principle of every being in as much as its is being. The totality of being is not in fact abstract. The particular points of view are necessarily articulated from an accessible totality, but irreducible to one of them as to their whole. It is because it is simple. Metaphysics looks at the compact totality; it is the crown of all sciences because it undertakes in that without which other sciences do not have an object, and therefore it will not exist. Understood in this sense, metaphysics searches the condition of possibility of all other sciences.

 

            Through conditions of possibility, it intends itself a type of conditional necessity, the condition that could be its conditioned or unconditioned time. The basic condition concerns first the spirit, and the real itself. The formal object of potency is the subjective condition of the possibility of knowledge of the real object: without this formal aspect, intelligence cannot know the material object. The formal object but it is not real; Otherwise, we will know only that, and not the real. The formal object is not constitutive of the real in itself, and we know it. The object of metaphysics is constituted by being as it is. Being as it is is not only formal object of the intelligence; it is the objective condition of possibility of any science, which looks at an aspect of the real being. To this title, it is the condition unconditioned of possibility, or the horizon of spiritual act. So the spirit does not exhaust in whatever scientific affirmation the capacity of reaching the real. Metaphysics looks at being unconditioned in as much as being.

 

 

 

B.    ABSTRACTION AND TRANSCENDENTALIZATION.

 

            The access to being in as much as it is being does not follow the way of abstraction, because it considers the totality of being

 

1.     Precise Abstraction.

 

            Abstraction leads towards a universalization which is in fact a generalisation. The generality is the fruit of a process which, identical to subtraction, stops itself to that which is broader of the considered beings in their concrete individuality. The precise abstraction is the operation through which a particular aspect is considered, putting in parenthesis other particular aspects.

 

            Between qualitative abstraction and quantitative abstraction exist a continuity and a progress of regressive type, which goes from the particular experience of the individual to the conditions of the possibility of the rational intelligibility in its unity according to the apriori laws. Metaphysics instead does not complete the search of the conditions of possibility of the sciences in a continuous mode, as if to make an abstraction more subtractive. The regression from qualitative abstraction until the work of metaphysics is not continuous.

 

            In effect, abstraction consists in subtracting always more matter to being, first individual matter (quality), then commonsensible matter (quantity). It would be possible to abstract common intelligible matter. But in this case, being would be entirely lacking of determined intelligibility, of unity; it could not be more object of an act of the intelligence. If from a content of thought we touch every determination, every difference of determined origin qualitatively, any measure or quantity, would remain only an empty being, a non-being.

 

2.     Formal Abstraction and total Abstraction.

 

            Abstraction is subtraction. Now, science does not have real content if it is only subtractive. Abstracted is constructed by the material object, apparently in the arbitrary mode, and by the formal object, necessarily; but this to which science looks at is real being. The formal subtraction supports the movement of precise abstraction, recognizing a universal independent from the particulars in which it finds itself. The formal abstraction removes itself, by way of simplification, from the “concreteness” of the particulars.  The formal abstract is a universal concept schematized, treated by particular existents, and which allows economizing. For example, “humanity” symbolizes any man, but leaves any material designated part.

 

            Being in as much as it is is a formal abstract. The form determines, in fact, a point of view on the concrete being which it presupposes necessarily. Being in as much as it is is formal, esse pauperium. Such concept of being would fill any alterity of beings, the spirit and that which it thinks, and would end negating grossly whatever meaning and whatever relation among beings.

 

            Total abstraction wants to correct that which formal abstraction would have excessively conglobated in a universal form identical in numerous particulars actual and possible. In the expression “I am a man”, man is a total abstract. In this case, the individual is not considered as such, because total abstraction ignores the individuating notes for which this is not that, although the individual, if he presents himself, retains that it would entirely mean from this concept. The total abstract considers the matter of abstract being, but in the general way, not particular.

 

            The total abstraction is not singularizing, its definition evokes such subtraction, which is better to evade. The total abstract is in fact a universal concept which does not substitute itself to individuals and which receives the meaning from the singulars. But it does not signify them with this. The total abstract, as abstract, excludes the singularizing notes. We must therefore look for other word to signify that which is appropriate in Metaphysics. The idea of being, in any case, is not abstract, but concrete and totalizing.

 

3.     Transcendentalization.

           

            Certainly, the concept of being, as concept, is a universal abstract; it leaves in the umbra that which while it conceives it, the intelligence perceives thematically. But, that which the concept designates is not the whole universal abstract. Therefore, the universal concept is taken from a concept than from an idea. The concept comes constructed from the universalizing abstraction; the presents being in its unity taken the spirit.

 

            First following the reflection, there is a need of lexical precision. The universal opposes itself to general, and singular to particular. The concept considered universal is often, in fact, a general concept, if it is obtained mediating subtraction; in this case, it is less comprehensive in as much as its extension is wider. The point of view under any beings become cultivated with the help of the general concept it is particular and individual. General and particular are therefore affirmed together in the precise abstraction. But being is not only offered in the particular mode to the generality of the concept poorer; it is that which in the singular unity of its being. Every being is singular. Being is a universal idea which designates all and any being in its to be.

 

            The passage that goes towards the singular universal distinct from the general particular is Transcendentalization. The word “transcendental” has two principal meanings. For the scholastics, it means the notions applicable to all beings, expressing their common property. Being is thus a transcendental which realizes itself in every singular, because it contains in its universality any being. The third part of the course will treat specifically of the transcendentals understood in this sense. In more recent use, becoming common, transcendental is that which, first of the effective knowledge, renders it possible; that which we have called “conditions of possibility” and “formal object” are trancendentals; similarly the activity of the spirit is the condition of possibility of the knowledge of the sensible; it is then transcendental.

 

            Understood in the conceptual sense, according to the subtractive abstraction, the transcendental is lacking of meaning. The modern meaning of transcendental renders justice to the ancient intention without submitting it to an abstract impoverishment. It suggests, in fact, of affirming the meaning of the idea in a non-formal way, but in a totalizing and integrative way, engaging the movement of the spirit, which tends there, without however being there from the origin.

 

            Being is the first known. No abstract being from any difference, but concrete being in the unity of that which composes it. We reach being not only to the end of our investigation; the spirit is in concert from the very beginning. The intelligence grasp being immediately in its unity; it abstracts its points of view, knowing to refer the abstract to the concrete. The intelligence knows that its abstraction touch being, that being is intelligible in its unity.

 

            We must therefore overcome the abstractive activity, which measures the practical activity of the spirit. The spirit is discursive, it fragments the concrete by its concrete activity; but it is not only decomposition and fragmentation. Knowing the fragment as fragment, its knows necessarily the unity of being, the origin of the fragment. 

 

4.     The Ascending Dialectics.

 

            The ascending dialectics illumine the spiritual movement here abused. It carry themselves towards a higher point, not so much by means of the affirmation of the abstract universal as of the knowledge of the spiritual necessity. A first mode of ascending dialectics rises itself from “material” to the “spiritual”. It considers first the formal similitude between the sensible beings subjected to judgements. Thus, seeing a body, we judge it beautiful of the same beauty attributed to other bodies. The spirit discovers in such manner its opening to a general concept constructed by a mode of abstraction. Nevertheless, there is no need to encounter diverse beautiful things to judge a particular body as beautiful. All becomes as if the spirit has the capacity to recognize in the particular matter some form which, in fact, goes beyond this particular being, and that it knows singularly in the immediate mode. The spirit undertakes then the study of that which is not an abstract idea, but a universal idea generated by the senses. It fulfills itself in its forms and applies them with great assurance to that which is given of experimenting.

 

            From where does the assurance come from? The forms do not legitimize themselves from themselves. Being multiple, they diversify themselves in such a way that the spirit does not find any reason of stability of the others, nor in their gathering. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 C        -           THE SPIRIT AND JUDGEMENT.

 

            The idea of being, a priori, becomes identified when the spirit approaches its presence in terms of its interiority, necessary in all the acts of the spirit. The spirit is the shepherd of being that which it affirms.

 

1.     The Unity of the Spirit and the Being in as much as It is.

 

            The spirit is not “objectively” present to itself in its simplicity. The presence to itself cannot be intuited, because every intuition goes towards an exteriority objectified, while the spirit is an interior presence to itself, to the origin of activity in which it explains its representation. The reflection is not an intuition.

 

            The presence of the spirit to itself is necessarily and immediately exercised in its activity. This presence is objectified and abstracted in the representation of itself. The spirit establishes itself really so as subject; it is in itself, present to itself in the act in which it puts itself, and from itself, autoposition of itself. In itself and from itself, the spirit in its act of objectivization puts itself in being. That which is is the end of the act of the spirit. But this is accomplished when that which is is put as an object. It is present in itself in its concrete activity.

 

            The real is not posterior to the spiritual operation. It is anterior to the act of the intelligence. It is a priori and acted upon. It is neither only passive, nor only active. The recognition of the real is an activity that constitutes a judgment in which it enunciates itself and exposes the real. The intelligence which has an aspect passive and also active; it is not enough to say that it receives passively the information from the senses; its passivity is structural and completed by the activity of judgment. In this activity, the spirit puts itself as the norm of being. It is being in as much as it is active, towards that which does not come from itself.

 

            For this the spirit, which is being in as much as it is, is a irreducible unity to its elements, unity “in” itself and “for” itself, although not only “out” of itself. This unity is good for the intelligence because in it every element abstracted remains in being. The spirit tends in effect actively towards the recognition of the unity, which spreads towards the abstractions of itself, as pure towards itself, which expression is not identical to itself. The richness of being in as much as it is, is rendered possible ‘through the interior unity reflective and grounding.

 

            But, the spirit is not “out” of itself. It enters its presence by means of an exteriority. Being passive implies a limit. Knowing the objective being is knowing it to the origin of knowledge, as a limit of the spiritual operation and a condition from the reflective knowledge of itself. The passivity of knowledge makes knowing that which rather stirs the activity, it determines it and defines it. This definition is a limit internal to the spirit. The spirit does not receive the limit of the sensibility only, as if it could itself opposed the passive sense and the active intelligence; the sensible, in fact, is perceived to the term of an activity; the understanding, although animated apriori by the unity of being, does not know it in its simplicity; rather it undergoes the attractive which determines it and limits it. Moreover, the spirit knows its limits by means of the incompleteness of its dynamism, exercised discursively in its diverse affirmations; by that moment it knows its passivity and its limit by means of a discursive movement of the understanding, never adequate to the unity of the unity to which it sees. Being is so intelligible, written to the internal of the intellectual dynamism, as that which together limits it, rules it and it gives it impetus.

 

            Knowing and exercising an activity to the internal of its limit is already surpassing it.  Understanding does not surpass its limits transgressing it, as if it could reach being in itself, but it knows it in some mode internal to the spirit itself. Knowledge of the limit is knowledge of the limit of its activity, of that which limits it and then of that which transcends it. The intellect conceives this limit in which the spirit recognizes it passivity as an echo of the offered which being makes of itself actively. Reason, then, is covered by that which, a priori, limits it, attracts it, and transcends it, by that which is in itself, and which it knows as such.

 

            Understanding affirms in judgment that which transcends it. Judgment is then a synthesis between being in itself and being which is through the understanding. This synthesis is twofold: predicative (concretive) and objective (veritative). Judgment is a synthesis which composes diverse terms which are not identical among themselves; It is concretive; moreover, it puts the existent united to being and reaches the unitary act of existence of the affirmed being; it is objective. That which is proper of judgement finds itself in the word “to be”, to which it recognizes itself a double role: that  copula, according to the intelligibility elaborated in the indicative synthesis, and that of its position in being, according to the existence affirmed by the objective synthesis. The second role is based on the first.

 

2.     The Predicative Synthesis.

 

            The predicative synthesis attributes a predicate to a grammatical subject. The subject is analytically separated from its predicate; certainly, it possesses it in the unity of its being, but in the confused mode for the understanding. The analysis allows the subject to become clear, to the identity with itself. The separation is possible and reasonable in front of the spirit if it is overcome immediately by the subject, if the subject contains really in itself its predicate. The belongingness of the predicate to the subject, real in the subject, but virtual for the understanding, becomes recognized in the affirmation privilege to the mediation of the copula. The copula manifests the belongingness of the intelligibility to the subject. This is possible if the subject is in the level of receiving such intelligibility, and then if it is intrinsically intelligible.

 

            The predicative synthesis explains that which is problematic in analytic judgment. The analytic judgment is based, in as much as to its possibility, on the principle of ontological identity. The pretext of judgment is entirely realized by tautological judgment in which the subject is identical to its predicate. The subject is one, and all that which belongs to it is proper also to its unity. The analytic judgment exercises then the principle of identity. The legitimacy of analytic judgment is founded spiritually. The judgment demands in fact objective being, that is of expressing the identity of being; now, the principle of identity founded precisely on the reflexivity of being, that is on the presence of itself; the subject is its predicate, and inversely.  It cannot deny itself this identity without denying that the subject would be that which is, objectively, without denying its immanent intelligibility, the identity of ontological being with its logical intelligibility.

 

3.     The Objective synthesis.

 

            Judgment is also objective synthesis which founds the predicative synthesis. The synthetic judgments found the analytic judgments.  The synthetic judgment refers a predicate to a subject, without which it could deduce itself analytically this predicate from the subject. In other words, subject and predicate are not inclusive one in the other. The synthetic judgment is a posteriori and a priori. It is a posteriori if the predicate is attributed to the subject according to the experience; the intelligibility of the relation here is admitted under the construction of the fact, in such a way that it recognizes itself the interiority of the predicate to the subject. The synthetic judgment a posteriori can be compared to the form of the analytic judgment, to the logical identity, recognizing the experiential foundation. The analysis can only be conceptual; the synthesis a posteriori requires the learning of experience; renders possible the analytic judgment, which would not only be tautological.

 

            The spirit does not exhaust its movement in the synthetic affirmation a posteriori. To stop the movement would in fact limit it to one intelligibility of being, and not opening it to the affirmation of being, unite to the rising of its intelligibility. Being considered as intelligible, one of its predicates is common to all its predicates. It takes in itself really all its predicates and refers itself to the rising of its intelligibility. Rather it follows that being offers itself and manifest itself in its intelligibility. The intelligible is the expression of being, which is, to the cause of its act of being. The synthetic judgment a posteriori concerns the intelligibility of being; the synthetic judgment a priori concerns the being of the intelligible.

 

            The synthetic judgments a priori have here their function. Being does not have, in virtue of its intelligibility, the reason of its being. From the intelligibility it does not follow its existence. The real synthesis, or the judgment of existence, is therefore synthetic a priori.  The affirmation of the exact attribution of the predicate to the subject is founded in the affirmation of the existence of the subject, which tells itself originally in its intelligibility, in its predicates. Rather it results a new sense of the word “being”; it is not only the copula in service of the analytic relation of the predicate to its subject, but it enunciates the position of being, which is in the intelligibility.

           

4.     The Metaphysical Causality.

 

            There is no need to look for the condition of the possibility of such affirmation of existence. Being is manifested by itself; its presence is recognized by the spirit in its unity with the origin of it and not in the closed sphere of the analytic thought. The principle of causality is synthetic apriori, considered from the metaphysical point of view. It concerns, in fact, in the first place, the intelligibility of being. It is not analytic, because the effect, although it belongs to its cause, of which it is a component, it flees from its cause; the intelligibility of the existent is diverse by the act of being, but it originates itself from being which gives itself intelligibly; the scientific duality cause-effect is so compressed spiritually. The causality is not synthetic a posteriori; certainly, being is itself intelligible through the spirit, which can not go from intelligibility to being if this does give itself intelligibly from itself; but, the spirit must know before hand the unitary being in order to know it in its intelligibility. This pre-knowledge cannot be other than the gift of being itself.

 

            The metaphysical principle of causality is synthetic apriori, without the spirit being the origin of it. As such, it is the condition of the possibility of the sensible experience of being in as much as it is. The unity of being transcends its elements. Then the unity of the fragments does not reside in particular fragments. As the condition of experience of being as being, the unity is the cause of the sensible experience. Nevertheless, the unity cannot be discerned immediately. In itself, it is not the object of experience. It does not come out without the spirit exercising it. In this synthetic and intelligible unity are not the same things, but the first is the condition of the second, the synthetic unity is the cause of the intelligibility.

 

            The metaphysical principle of causality gives the objective evidence, although reflective. The principle, in fact, is necessary and cannot be negated without contradiction. The synthetic unity exercised in all the comprehension constitutes the intelligible being. There is no intelligence of being without the exercise, on the part of the subject, of the objective unity. This unity is not an element among others, but it is the presence itself of the intelligible being. But, the unity of being is objective in the intelligibility to which it presents itself. This unity is accomplished reflectively when, returning to its activity, the sprit discovers, on one part, the unity of being present necessarily to its intelligibility different conceptually, and on the other part, the excellence through the knowledge of the presence of being itself.

 

5.     The Idea of Being

 

When we define anything, it always involves a form to it. To define an object is possible only with the help of the other objects, which are included in the definition or excluded. These exclusions and inclusions together allow the circumscription of the specificity of the perceived and known. Now, being which gives itself intelligibility cannot be define in this manner alone, because it presupposes the existence of terms or of things by excluding and including. Being in as much as it is transcends the predicate in which it renders itself intelligibly. It is in itself and from itself.

 

            Sciences study the real according to the aspects of their investigations, limiting that is their field of research to the internal totality of beings. But metaphysics, which sees being in which sciences touch the real, cannot be restricted to this field; it must include directly, all the sciences, because it sees the “to be” of being in which the other sciences are only interested in terms of the particular. Here, the superabundance of being, a mystery constitutive of being, which we must affirm and which we comprehend infinitely, originated in itself.

 

            Being is the first known, because it renders itself actively, because it is intelligible. The proposition: “Being is the first known” concerns the opening of the spirit towards that which gives itself actively. The human act is intentional. Being, which is known first, constitutes the spirit and renders itself being.