PREFACE

The following studies have their origin in a long-standing effort to grasp the foundations of discursive thinking. As a natural consequence of this effort, I have been concerned for a number of years with what is usually called analytical philosophy. A striking feature of this school is its celebration of rigor and lucidity, combined with a certain unwillingness to engage in self-criticism. Perhaps this reticence is a characteristic of every dominant academic school. It may also be a cause of decay. The strengths of the analytical movement, and its successful appropriation of the rhetoric of scientific enlightenment, have led to a general failure to understand the rhetorical nature of its own justification. There are signs that this failure is in the process of rectification. However, the signs are not yet strong enough to prevent the typical practitioner of analytical philosophy from succumbing to the temptation of confusing irony for a refutation of opposing views. Alternatively, the analyst is typically misled by the charm of his technical facility (or that of his masters) into assuming that a translation of other doctrines into his own idiom is tantamount to a refutation. And this despite strong warnings within the analytical movement as to the problematical nature of translation! In any case, I myself do not believe that the limits of analysis can be defined, or the context of analysis translated, into analytical terms. For this reason, I do not believe that the title "analytical philosophy" is a good one. Philosophy is

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show, the enthusiasm engendered by the application of mathematical, or quasimathematical, techniques (like the functional analysis of the proposition) to the traditional problems of philosophy carried with it a misperception of the intrinsic nature of these problems. This enthusiasm for analysis led to the neglect, and even the suppression, of synthesis. To cite one important consequence, the attack against psychologism, although perfectly justified when accurately formulated, obscured the fact that analysis itself, as a cognitive function, cannot be understood independently of cognition. The visibility or "evidence" of formal structures points, to use appropriately old-fashioned language, in the direction of the subject as well as the object. Those who claim that semantics, or a doctrine of meaning, is the foundation of philosophy, cannot simply begin, as would the mathematician or logician, from the fact of evidence. They must first explain how it is possible for a sign or structure to "mean" something to someone. This in turn leads, not to psychologism, but to the recognition of semantical and ontological properties by which an intelligence perceives such-and-such a structure as "pointing to" such-and-such a meaning. The property of pointing cannot just be an element in the structure; in this case, structures would point to themselves, or require no interpretation. Similarly, the capacity to point out would seem itself to point to a unity of being and thinking, of a sort not amenable to structural analysis. The current popularity of pragmatic and constructivist doctrines among analytical philosophers is a clear sign of the inadequacy of a purely structural or "formal" account of analysis. What is the "structure" of pragmatism or constructivism? How does the philosopher of mathematics decide which interpretation of the ontological significance of mathematics is sound? And let the reader note: the ontological significance of mathematics is not a question of the range of values of its variables. It is a question of the nature of symbolism, ordo et mensura, the relations we choose to symbolize, and the fact that it is relations that we choose to symbolize. In this book, I propose to investigate the adequacy of some contemporary analytical treatments of traditional topics, such as intuition, essence, unity, being, existence, and negation. I shall argue that the traditional problems associated with these topics have been ignored or distorted, rather than clarified or resolved, by their translation into the technical idiom approved by analytical philosophers. In the first three chapters, I take my bearings by the analytical literature, and attempt to develop my criticism from within the context of analysis. However, this cannot be accomplished by adopting the presuppositions of analytical philosophy. Since I wish to uncover and to study these presuppositions, my way of treating analytical procedures cannot be simply identical with that of the analyst. Furthermore, the analytical movement is not homogeneous, and it is necessary to shift perspectives in attempting to uncover assumptions shared

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by ostensibly conflicting tendencies. I have made very great efforts to understand analytical philosophy accurately, and my intention, even while developing forceful criticism, is to treat it more fairly than it sometimes treats its opponents. I want to emphasize that whatever criticism I direct against analytical philosophy as a form of scholasticism, is not directed against analytical thinking. For that matter, I have deep sympathies with the school itself, and to a certain extent, its enemies are my enemies. I have profited enormously from the long attempt to assimilate the doctrines and techniques of analytical philosophy. Nevertheless, I have fundamental criticisms. Analytical philosophy has failed to do justice to its own limits and context; it has therefore failed to do justice to itself. And this has important technical consequences within the analytical sphere. In the last two chapters, I venture upon a somewhat more comprehensive development of my theme. On the basis of the initial, immanent analyses, I turn to the problem of thinking the context of analysis, rather than to that of arriving at the context from within. This problem is in a deep sense coextensive with the history of western philosophy. I have selected certain paradigmatic figures from the tradition, in order to illustrate the two most pervasive aspects of the problem. The first aspect is the attempt to validate analytical thought by a doctrine of the whole: the context of analysis is first and last our comprehensive understanding of the human enterprise. The second is the attempt to transform the dream-like features of this comprehensive understanding into the conceptual schematism of analytical thinking. My conclusion, baldly stated, is that the dream of Enlightenment, or full wakefulness, of which contemporary analytical philosophy is a kind of decayed epiphenomenon, leads us toward the ultimately destructive effort to transform the world into a concept. This effort has two consequences. The attempt to transform the conceiver into a property of his concept fails for technical as well as for psychological reasons. As a result, either the conceiver, as excluded from conceptualization, is ignored or else, and inevitably, he returns from the dream world to which he has been consigned, and gains his vengeance by deconstructing the conceptual structures of the analyst. I write in the defense of reason. In order to contribute to this defense, I have tried, here as elsewhere, to rehabilitate old notions rather than merely to introduce new ones. This is to say that I have tried to do both, since these activities are inseparable from one another. It would have been far simpler to fly the revolutionary colors of analytical philosophy or its imminent opponent, deconstructivism. In my opinion, however, we live in a time of too many revolutions. One of the great defects of the analytical movement is that it was conceived, and to a considerable extent still regards itself, as a revolutionary break

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Under these circumstances, a man who is trying to slow down may look as though he is running in the direction opposite to that of the crowd. With this in mind, I make a final prefatory remark. Whereas this book cannot aspire to be a ktima eis aei, it has not been written in a day. Considerable thought and study have been invested in its preparation. I am sure that it contains many errors. By a transcendental law of hermeneutics, reviewers are always wiser than authors, and I am confident that my errors will be pointed out to me. At the same time, without sparing me righteous criticism, the reader may perhaps consider that my intentions will not always coincide with his own. It is my hope that this book will be of interest to reflective men, and not simply to professional philosophers. The nature of my subject, as well as the current state of philosophy, inevitably requires a certain amount of technical discussion. In conducting this discussion, I have tried to combine accuracy with lucidity, while avoiding oversimplification. To vulgarize the themes addressed in the following pages would be an affront to the reader. My goal has been to write in such a way that the non-specialist can move from step to step of each issue, even in those cases where he has no previous acquaintance with the terms and procedures of the specialist. At the same time, I have made every effort to satisfy the legitimate expectations of the specialist. In a very few cases, I have reserved some technical point for the notes at the conclusion of the book. The discussion of Casimir Lewy's work on modality in section 3 may be skipped by the general reader without any loss of continuity in the development of my argument.