Philosophy Study

Volume 2, Number 1, January 2012 (Serial Number 6)

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Philosophy Study
Volume 2, Number 1, January 2012 (Serial Number 6)

Contents
Ancient Philosophy
Heraclitus as a Process Philosopher

Daniel W. Graham

German Philosophy
Kant, Fichte, and the Act of the I

Charles E. DeBord
Kants Copernican Revolution

19

Milos Rastovic

Philosophy of Science
Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy

27

Salahaddin Khalilov

Philosophy of Mathematics
The Virtue of Open-Mindedness

35

Aladdin M. Yaqub
Arithmetical Proof and Open Sentences

43

Neil Thompson

Ethics
Euthanasia in a Welfare State: Experiences from the Review Procedure in the Netherlands

51

Theo A. Boer
God Commanded What? A Critical Response to Robert Adams on the Abraham Dilemma
John A. Houston

64

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1-8

Heraclitus as a Process Philosopher

Daniel W. Graham
Brigham Young University

At least since Hegel identified Heraclitus as a philosopher who dealt with becoming, it has seemed obvious to
perhaps most scholars that he was in some way a philosopher of process rather than a philosopher of being. (For the
views of Hegel and some early interpreters, see Graham 1997, 46-50.) Indeed, ancient sources say that for him all
things are in flux, and one cannot step twice into the same stream. Yet for all that, many interpreters of Heraclitus
perhaps unwittingly portray him in ways that are inconsistent with his being a process philosopher. And there are
those who wish to downplay the role of flux in his system as well. In any case, to call him a process philosopher
remains a vague claim until an interpreter specifies in what sense he is committed to process. Even more important,
perhaps, is the question whether Heraclitus can maintain a coherent theory of process, given interpretations both
ancient and modern that portray him as violating the principle of non-contradictionoften precisely because of his
theory of flux. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that Heraclitus is indeed a process philosopher, and more
importantly to spell out in what way he is, and to defend his theory as a consistent and indeed philosophically
sound starting point for understanding the world as a process; I will end by pointing out some ways in which his
theory accords with modern scientific explanations of the world.
Keywords: Heraclitus, process philosophy, Presocratic philosophy, Greek science

1. Material Flux
I wish to begin by laying out what I think is at once a fairly traditional and a highly sophisticated view of
Heraclitus, that of Jonathan Barnes. He identifies three main principles in Heraclitus philosophy, the doctrines
he calls Flux, the Unity of Opposites, and Monism (1982, 75-76). He sees flux as the principle that everything
is always flowing in some respects (69, original emphasis). According to the Unity of Opposites, every pair
of contraries is somewhere coinstantiated; and every object coinstantiates at least one pair of contraries (70).
The Monism in question is the material monism Barnes thinks Heraclitus inherits from his predecessors.
According to material monism, there is only one kind of material constituent of everything in the world:
according to Aristotles interpretation of his predecessors, either water, or air, or fire. If, for instance, water is
the basic reality, then everything else (e.g., earth, air, fire) is an appearance of water under certain conditions.1
Barnes sees the Unity of Opposites as being entailed by Flux as well as supported by additional evidence
(75-76), while Monism is a logically independent thesis. Barnes three principles are similar to those enunciated
earlier by W. K. C. Guthrie (though there is one significant difference in Guthries formulation of three
principles).2 I refer to Barnes account in part because few other interpreters provide a precise enough analysis
of Heraclitus to even allow such a summation. It may be, of course, that Heraclitus is a fuzzy thinker who does
not admit of precise formulations; on the other hand, it behooves us to try to go beyond fuzzy thinking in trying
Daniel W. Graham, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Brigham Young University; main research
fields: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Greek Science.

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

to understand his theory, and Barnes has made a valiant effort to do so.3
When I say Barnes interpretation is traditional, I have in mind the fact that the roots of his interpretation
go back to Aristotle. Aristotle attributed something like Flux (probably a stronger version than that of Barnes in
fact) and also Monism to Heraclitus.4 And indeed, the flux theory interpretation comes also from Plato, and
probably goes back at least to Hippias of Elis.5 Because of its Aristotelian origins, Barnes interpretation is
liable to gain uncritical acceptance. But there is one striking fact about this kind of interpretation that is too
often overlooked: Flux and Monism are fundamentally conflicting principles that tend to give different answers
to the question of Heraclitus ontology. On the one hand, Flux says (in Barnes carefully limited version) that all
things are changing in some respect, or (in an unrestricted version) that all things are changing in all respects.
On the other hand, Monism, that is, material monism, says that ultimately all things are one stuff, namely, for
Heraclitus, fire. But if all things are one stuff, and there is one subject for every change, then all changes are
basically non-substantial changes. Remember that for Aristotle, there are four types of change: coming-to-be or
perishing in the category of substance; increase or decrease in the category of quantity; alteration in the
category of quality; and locomotion or change of place in the category of place.6 The last three types of change
are kinds of accidental change. Hence they are, according to Aristotles ontology and typology of changes,
instances of relatively insignificant change. According to Aristotle material monists did not allow substantial
change,7 and Aristotle finally had to rescue this type of change from oblivion by developing his own more
sophisticated and comprehensive theory of change (Physics I). Hence, if we follow the logic of this exposition,
it turns out that, despite all the fuss, Heraclitus admits only accidental change. What is really real is not process,
but substantiality, that of the underlying reality that is the subject of all change. Heraclitus is not a process
philosopher but a substantial monist, who tricks us into thinking he is a process philosopher. He allows
accidental change and makes a lot of commotion about it, but he blocks the most important kind of change, and
indeed rules out a priori fundamental or radical change.
One way out of this is to notice that fire is a queer kind of stuff that is perhaps more an ongoing process
than a stable substantial reality. If we pursue that route, we have to take the apparent claim of Monism
ironically. If we give Flux pride of place from the outset and say that this principle dictates the nature of reality
for Heraclitus, then we end up at about the same place, overthrowing or somehow discounting Monism in the
interests of Flux.
For all these reasons, it seems to me that it does not make a lot of sense for Heraclitus to embrace both
Flux and Monism. To the degree we take material monism seriously, we trivialize flux as a mere local variation
of an all-pervasive static reality. To the extent that we take Flux seriously, we find ourselves compelled to
sweep Monism under the rug. Flux and Monism are fundamentally incompatible principles. They can coexist in
a system only if at least one is limited in its application. Or they can coexist if Heraclitus rejects (at least tacitly)
the law of non-contradiction. In fact, this is just what Barnes says he does, in part on the basis of the Flux
principle itself (79-81).8 Nevertheless, to reject the law of non-contradiction is to accept logical chaos, and it
must disqualify any system from serious consideration. In fact, there is no reason to think that Heraclitus rejects
the law of non-contradiction for all his paradoxical utterances (any more than to think that Socrates rejects it for
all his paradoxical claims). Paradoxical sayings are provocative heuristic devices; they need not be taken at face
value, and usually should not be. If any interpretation that does not commit Heraclitus to the denial of the law
of non-contradiction can be found, it will be ipso facto superior to any that does so commit him. So let us press on.

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

I have not yet said what I mean by process philosophy. The real question at stake in an examination of
Heraclitus principles is one of ontology: is the ultimate reality a substance (or a fact or a bundle of properties,
etc.) or a process? If the former, Heraclitus is a substance theorist of the sort Aristotle considers the Milesians
to be. If the latter, he is by definition a process philosopher who makes stable structures secondary to processes,
and puts flux at the foundations of ontology. This will make him a philosopher of becoming rather than being,
and to that extent, vindicate Plato and Hegel against Aristotle (or at least Aristotle when he is emphasizing
material monism rather than flux). One indication that Heraclitus is a process philosopher would be his
acceptance of some sort of change other than alteration. For according to Aristotle, material monists allow only
alteration, or change of qualitynever generation or destruction, or change in the category of substance, since
there is only one substance which is always present as a substratum to all changes.9 Let us then turn to
Heraclitus account of change and see what he has to say about this.
Heraclitus does address the question of basic changes in his system. According to him, The turnings
[tropai] of fire: first sea, and of sea half is earth, half fireburst [prstr] (B31[a]). For souls it is death to
become [genesthai] water, for water death to become earth, but from earth water is born [ginetai], and from
water soul (B36). The first passage deals ostensibly with cosmology, the second with chemistry. But the
general pattern is the same, allowing that soul is equivalent to fireburst, or some kind of fiery
meteorological phenomenon. The crucial point is that there is a determinate series of stuffs such that one
changes into another: earth turns into water and water turns into fire; fire turns back into water, and water into
earth. What is most telling for the question of changes is that in the process change is likened to birth and death:
the birth of one stuff is the death of another. While we can safely say that Heraclitus lays out no typology of
changes like that of Aristotle, the language of birth and death is the language fitting for substantial change,
which in Aristotles terminology is genesis and phthora, coming-to-be and perishing, or, more literally, birth
and death. What the terminology implies is a radical change from stuff to stuff such that there is no
transmission of identity from one elemental body to another. When one stuff is born, another dies. Heraclitus
envisages then a radical change with accompanying loss of identity, not a mere alteration of an ongoing reality.
There is a set sequence and order of changes, but no continuing substratum.10
One further fragment is well known as a statement or portrayal of flux: On those stepping into rivers
staying the same other and other waters flow (B12). There are several alleged river fragments, but I follow
Geoffrey S. Kirk and Miroslav Marcovich in accepting only B12 as a genuine fragment.11 All the other
statements can be satisfactorily accounted for as paraphrases (more or often less apt) of B12. This fragment
(and its offspring) is often taken as evidence for radical flux. As Plato reads it, Heraclitus says you cannot step
twice into the same river.12 If we stick to B12, we see that this is a misreading: the major contrast is between
the different waters and the same rivers. Thus, the changing contents of the rivers are not evidence that the
rivers have changed (hence that you cannot step twice into them). Indeed, the deeper point seems to be that the
changing waters are a necessary condition for the existence of the rivers. If that is so, the changing waters
actually constitute the rivers, and maintain them as the same rivers. This study in the physics of rivers suggests
an object lesson in Heraclitean metaphysics: changing matter is consistent with, and perhaps constitutive of,
stable structures of a higher level. There is also a second reading hidden in the fragment: the words are
syntactically ambiguous, as are the words in a relatively large number of the fragments, and if we take the less
obvious reading, we find that those who step into the water remain the same as the waters flow on.13 That is:

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

those who ford the different waters of the rivers remain the same in stark contrast to the claim that people as
well as rivers change rapidly. The suggestion is that in a certain sense the travelers maintain their psychic and
cognitive integrity precisely by confronting the changing waters, or more broadly, their changing surroundings.
The general conclusion of both readings is that low-level changes somehow sustain high-level stability. Flux is
a basic fact of nature, but it allows and perhaps sustains permanence.

2. Supervenient Stability
If there is flux at the level of the basic constituents of the world, it would seem that the world is chaotic,
and so most commentators on Heraclitus from Plato on have thought. Yet this is not the picture we find in
Heraclitusquite the opposite in fact. As we have already seen, in B31(a) and B36 Heraclitus identifies a set
order of changes, from earth to water to fire. There is a determinate sequence of changes. Moreover, there is
also a determinate order: A road up and down is one and the same (B60). Although the application of this
observation is broad, commentators tend to agree that it should at least include elemental transformations.14
There is a road up, from earth to water to fire, and a road down, from fire to water to earth. In Heraclitus there
is no cycle strictly speaking: no way of circling from fire to earth without going back through water (Kirk 1954,
114-15). Nevertheless, at each turning there is a two-way exchange, as B31(a) makes clear: half of water
becomes earth while half becomes fire.
There is also a set ratio of exchange in the transformations of elements: <Earth> is liquified as sea and
measured into the same proportion [logos] it had before it became earth (B31[b]). That is, there is a fixed
equivalence between earth and water such that n measures of earth equals m measures of water, and we get a
chemical equivalence: a E b W. As Heraclitus puts it: All things are an exchange for fire and fire for all
things, as goods for gold and gold for goods (B90). He does not say that fire is all things, but that it is a
standard of value against which all things can be measured. So:
a E = b W = c F.15
His world is not chaotic; rather, it is orderly and precise in its turnings or reversals or transformations.
While there is no conservation of substance, there is a conservation of matter in general and presumably of
energy. The result is a world in which stability is possible in spite of constant change. This fact can be seen
most clearly in his description of the cosmos: This world-order [kosmos], the same of all, no god or man did
create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures
(B30). The world that we know is permanent, notwithstanding the fact that parts of it are turning into something
else (fire) or reappearing from something else (fire). It is precisely the fact that measures are balanced against
measures that maintain the world. There is an equilibrium state between transformations: water evaporates,
condenses into cloud, rains down, and so water is lost and returned, ultimately in equal measures. Surprisingly,
Heraclitus has the most permanent cosmos of any early philosopher: instead of a cosmogony, his world is
everlasting, from past to present to future unchanged in its overall structure though constantly changing in its
particular contents. If we use the river fragment as a guide, we may infer that what makes the cosmos the
vibrant reality it is, is precisely the everliving alternation of elements that underlies it. Were there no
exchanges, the world would be sterile and unproductivedead.
Incidentally, this is the fragment that could provide the best textual support for material monism.16
Stripped of modifiers, the statement says the world is fire. If this is a statement of essential predication, then the
world must be fire and nothing else. Nevertheless, the statement also says that fire is kindling and being

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

quenched. Taken together with the other passages that entail that fire perishes and is reborn, I think it is best to
read the passage as a figurative connection between the world and fire. Fire is the most insubstantial of
elements, and as such the claim that it is the fundamental element exposes the folly of making any element
fundamental. One stuff turns into every other in turn, so none is prior, except insofar as one can reveal the
impermanence of all. What emerges from this fragment is a claim that the world itself, despite the fact that its
contents are continuously being transformed, or indeed because of this process, is stable, permanent, and
everlasting. The ultimate outcome of elemental instability is cosmic stability.
Not only does flux somehow produce order, it presupposes order. Heraclitus claims that all things happen
according to his logos (B1). The logos exists forever and can be heard, but most people do not understand it
when they hear it (B1). According to the logos, wisdom is knowing that all things are one (B50). Again we
seem to be led back to material monism, in which all things are one. Yet if we study the way in which all things
are one, we get a different picture: As the same thing in us are living and dead, waking and sleeping, young
and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these
(B88). The second sentence explains the first: the way things are the same is that there is a process by which
one condition changes to another. And this change is not radical: Cold things warm up, hot things cool off, wet
things become dry, dry things become moist (B126). If opposites were really identical there would be no
change. But the sameness is explained as change. Hence the sameness is not identity, but connection through a
continuous process. All things are one by being connected.
The logos is both a message and a principle. The principle is the underlying order according to which all
things happen. Presumably it is expressed in the sequence of changes among elements, in the fixed proportions
of elements. Some sort of law of change is prior to the changes and processes manifest in natural events. So
does that mean there is something prior to process in Heraclitus ontology? Not necessarily. For the law of
change is manifest only in the processes themselves. It has no being apart from the processes that exemplify it.
Heraclitus, for his part, does not present the logos as a transcendent principle, and indeed, there are those who,
on both philosophical and philological grounds, deny that it means more than account or speech.17
If we return to the river fragment, we see that for Heraclitus stability may emerge from a process of
constant exchange and replacement of material contents. To put it in a philosophical way, form supervenes on
flux. As long as some sort of equilibrium state is achieved, we may find a long-lasting structure which is
characterized by constant material changesuch as the river Cayster, which flowed through Ephesus in
Heraclitus time two and a half millennia ago and still does, although Ephesus itself is long gone (there is an
archaeological site at the place of the Roman-period city), the river has a new name in a different language, the
river bed has shifted, and the harbor has silted up as the shoreline has receded.18 Similarly, human beings are
stable entities constituted in part by their confrontation of the changing waters of rivers and their changing
surroundings in general.
Beyond the superstructures that Heraclitus recognizes as supervening on material process, there is the
implication that the tension between low-level flux and high-level stability is all-important. Were it not for the
replacement of matter in the river, there would be no river, only a stagnant marsh or a dry wadi. Were it not for
ever-changing stimuli from their environment, humans would have no knowledge of the world. Were it not for
the transformations of everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures, our Earth would
be dead and empty, as dead and empty as the moon that astronauts visited decades ago. The only stability that is
valuable is that which arises from material interchanges, from the living and dying of the elements, and the

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

related cycles of cosmic masses, such as the water cycle. Without these processes the world would be without
form and void. Process is basic, but it does not preclude order; rather, it provides the foundation for a creative
order that depends ultimately on the lawlike behavior of matter.

3. The Scientific Heraclitean

Heraclitus advocacy of process is remarkable for both its boldness and its precociousness. But let us
consider it also against the empirical evidence available today. In that connection, I would ask us to examine
ourselves for just a moment, as Heraclitus says he examined himself (B101). (Although the chemistry is new,
Heraclitus had a kind of chemical theory of his own, as we have seen, that did similar work for him.) Every
minute of every day we are drawing in breath from the surrounding air. With each breath we draw in at least
500 ml of air. In our lungs, oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide: oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. In our
blood stream hemoglobin in red blood cells bonds with individual molecules of oxygen and carries it to each of
our cells, approximately 10,000 trillion of them. At rest the heart beats 70 times per minute. Each blood cell
completes a circuit of the vascular system in about 60 seconds, from the lungs to the heart to the arteries to the
arterioles, to the capillaries, to the venules, to the veins, and back to the heart and then the lungs. In the
capillaries blood cells come into contact with stationary cells of the body. At each cell membrane oxygen is
absorbed from red blood cells and carbon dioxide passed out.
Meanwhile, our digestive system is breaking down food into glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, and
glycerol, which pass into the blood stream. Each cell takes in the nutrients it needs. Glucose travels into the
cytoplasm, where it is converted into pyruvic acid, which in turn is taken into the mitochondrion, where in the
complex reaction known as the Krebs cycle and Oxydative Phosphorylation, one molecule of glucose is turned
into 36 molecules of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), and water. ATP is the energy currency of the cell; whenever
the cell needs energy, it pays in ATP: gold for goods and goods for gold. As ATP is expended carbon dioxide,
water and other wastes are expelled. Each cell has about a billion molecules of ATP in it, all of which will be
expended within two minutes time while another billion are generated. Inside us a river of blood flows down,
then up, day in, day out, hour by hour, minute by minute. Our blood pumps about 300 liters of blood per hour.
A massive network of vessels 100,000 km long carries blood to every individual cell in the body. As long as the
river flows on, we live and flourish. If for a few seconds the constant chemical exchanges should stop, we
would faint; if for a few minutes they should stop, we would die. Like a river that without circulation would
perish, like a fire that without consuming fuel would flicker out, without the balanced processes of respiration
and oxidation, we would die, become a corpse more fit to be cast out than dung. But even as we continue to live,
our component cells are dying. Each minute 300 million cells die. But by the same token another 300 million
cells come to birth. The death of some cells is the birth of othersand without that interchange we would cease
to exist. The physiology I have shared is modern, but the insight is ancient. As the author of the Hippocratic
treatise On Breaths put it: If the passages of the air into the body were cut off, in a small fraction of a day one
would perish (4). The human body is a living manifestation of flux.
Now, this example at the level of the physiology of the individual body is just one of many examples we
might choose. We might begin at the cosmic level, where the universe is expanding via cosmic inflation, having
started from a microscopic beginning. Evolving conditions in the early universe eventually allowed for the
possibility of atoms and the production of hydrogen atoms in particular. Gravity brought these atoms together
into masses large and dense enough to generate nuclear fusion, which produced atoms of helium and then

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

heavier elements, while supernova explosions produced still heavier elements, which were then dispersed to
provide the seeds of rocky planets like Earth. One such planet condensed in the orbit of a yellow star at the
edge of the Milky Way. It was large enough to hold on to an atmosphere and far enough from its star to allow
for liquid water, but not so far that it would all freeze. Liquid water produced seas and a carbon-rich surface
allowed for the beginnings of life.
Cyanobacteria began to undergo photosynthesis, producing oxygen molecules as a waste product. The free
oxygen molecules poisoned most bacteria, but allowed for a new kind of organism to used oxidation to run its
cells. The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere also produced an ozone layer that blocked much ultraviolet
light, allowing the possibility of living things on land. Evolution produced more complex life forms.
Meanwhile the molten center of the planet produced tectonic action on the surface, along with volcanism. This
action produced greenhouse gases and an uneven surface that kept the planet from being permanently covered
by ice and snow during ice ages.
The preceding is just a small sample of the conclusions of modern science. Their lesson is that, from the
flux of subatomic particles to the motions of molecules to the physiology of complex organisms to the stability
of species to climate change to the plate tectonics to the revolutions of galaxies to the life histories of stars and
of the elements that make up the universe to the inflation of the universe itself, everything is in flux. And yet
there is order. If the cosmos itself is more ephemeral than Heraclitus recognized, yet the order is more profound
and pervasive. If we learn anything from modern science, it is that all things are in flux, while events and
objects (which may be seen as stable or self-sustaining events) are orderly. After all the reconceptualizations of
modern science, we find that Heraclitus theory captures the patterns of the world. Dynamic equilibrium is the
manifestation of order, a kind of everliving process.
Heraclitus is, I hope we can see, a philosopher of process, arguably the first,19 and one who still has
something to teach us. And in his process theory, he may have advanced one of the rarest kinds of philosophical
theses: one that is true.20

Notes
1. Aristotle Metaphysics, 983b6-21, 984a2-8.
2. Guthrie identifies three principles: the unity of opposites, constant flux, and the fact that the world is a living and
everlasting fire (Guthrie 1962-81, Vol. I, 435, see 435-59). The last principle seems not to be consistent with material monism.
3. For further reflections on Barnes, see Graham, 1997; 2006, ch. 5.
4. Flux: Metaphysics, 1010a7-15; Topics, 104b21-22; On the Heavens, 298b29-33 (a commendably cautious statement);
Monism: Metaphysics, 984a7-8.
5. Plato Theaetetus, 152d-153a; cf. Cratylus, 402a-c; Aristotle Metaphysics, 983b27-33 with Mansfeld 1990, 22-96; Patzer
1986, 49-55.
6. Categories, 14; Physics, V.1-2.
7. Metaphysics, 983b6-13.
8. Cf. Guthrie: He ignores the law of contradiction, he insists that opposites are identical (1962-81, Vol. I., 463).
9. Metaphysics, 983b8-13; On Generation and Corruption, 314a8-11, b26-315a3.
10. Cf. Osborne: For Heraclitus the things we meet with are not manifestations of a universal stuff (energy) which we
encounter in its various guises and never gets destroyed but is always conserved. For Heraclitus the important point is that the
elements do get destroyed (1997, 101).
11. Kirk 1951; Kirk 1954, 366-80; Marcovich 1967, 194-214. (Kirk accepts B91[b] as a fragment, but not the problematic
B91[a].)
12. Cratylus, 402a8-10.
13. Kahn 1979, 167. I have tried to capture the ambiguity of the Greek in my translation above. The Greek of B12: Potamoisi
toisin autoisin embainousin, hetera kai hetera hudata epirrei. The words toisin autoisin (the same) are sandwiched between

HERACLITUS AS A PROCESS PHILOSOPHER

potamoisi rivers and embainousin those who enter, they agree morphologically with both the preceding and the succeeding
terms, are adjacent to both, and can be construed with eithera rhetorical and semantic tour de force. This double entendre
reiterates Heraclitus message in the river fragment: sameness and change are correlative and interdependent states. Plato, the
spurious B49a, and the spurious B91 all get the point wrong. The rivers and the people fording them remain the same despite
(because of) the changing contents of the rivers.
14. E.g., Diogenes Laertius 9.8-9; Kahn 1979, 240-41. Kirk identifies five ancient interpretations, of which the application to
the elements is the commonest (1954, 105-12).
15. The point of providing equations is not to make Heraclitus look like a modern scientist, but to show that he admits a good
deal of precision in his world of flux.
16. This seems to be Aristotles reading in Physics, 205a3-4; idem, On the Heavens, 279b12-17 and Simplicius On the
Heavens, 294.4-7 seem to understand B30 as entailing a conflagration such as the Stoics envisage, in which the cosmos is
periodically consumed by fire.
17. See now Gianvittorio 2010.
18. [S]hall we say that while the race of inhabitants remains the same, the city is also the same, although the citizens are
always dying and being born, as we call rivers and fountains the same, although the water is always flowing away and more
coming? (Aristotle, Politics, 1276a34-39, revised Oxford trans.).
19. To establish his priority would take a longer argument than is justified on this occasion. Since I reject the common
Aristotelian interpretation that makes the early Ionian philosophers material monists, I do not think the argument is a trivial one.
Indeed, I see Heraclitus as arriving at his process philosophy by way of criticizing and clarifying the Generating Substance Theory
of his predecessors (see Graham 1997; 2006).
20. I read a version of this paper at the Ancient Philosophy Society meetings in Sundance, Utah on April 15, 2011. Part of
this paper is taken from a talk I gave at the Symposium Antiquae Philosophiae, Samos, Greece, and Ephesus, Turkey on July 25,
2005. I benefited from comments of my fellow symposiasts, and also from constructive criticism of an anonymous referee of this
journal.

Works Cited
Barnes, Jonathan. 1979. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2 vols. Rev. ed. (1 vol.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
Gianvittorio, Laura. Il discorso di Heraclito: Un modello semantico e cosmologico nel passagio dell oralit alla scrittura.
Hildesheim: Olms, 2010.
Graham, Daniel W. Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006.
---. Heraclitus Criticism of Ionian Philosophy. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15 (1997): 1-50.
Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. A History of Greek Philosophy. 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1962-81.
Kahn, Charles H. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979.
Kirk, Geoffrey S. Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1954.
---. Natural Change in Heraclitus. Mind 60.237 (1951): 35-42.
Mansfeld, Jaap. Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990.
Marcovich, Miroslav. Heraclitus. Mrida, Venezuela: U of the Andes P, 1967. 2nd ed. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2001.
Osborne, Catherine. Heraclitus. From the Beginning to Plato. Ed. Christopher C. W. Taylor. Routledge History of Philosophy.
Vol. 1. London: Routledge, 1997. 88-127.
Patzer, Andreas. Der Sophist Hippias als Philosophiehistoriker. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1986.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol.2, No. 1, 9-18

Kant, Fichte, and the Act of the I

Charles E. DeBord
University of Kentucky

Fichtes various articulations of the Wissenschaftslehre (theory of scientific knowledge) are self-conscious
attempts to systematize Kants critical philosophy. Fichtes notion of the pure I (ich) serves as the theoretical
starting-point for his exposition of transcendental idealism, and in many ways this concept is analogous to Kants
notion of the transcendental unity of apperception explained in the Critique of Pure Reason. This paper argues that
although Fichte and Kant agree on (1) the active nature of the pure I, (2) the distinction between pure and empirical
apperception, and (3) skepticism concerning the possibility of theoretical knowledge of any positive (i.e., noumenal)
content of the pure I, their respective notions of pure apperception differ in that Kant affirms the conceptual priority
of the pure I to its objects while Fichte denies the same. Fichtes departure from Kant on this point foreshadows
many later recognition theories of consciousness, e.g., those of Hegel and Marx.
Keywords: Kant, Fichte, German idealism, critical philosophy, transcendental philosophy, philosophy of mind, self, ich

1. Introduction
In his Second Introduction to An Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (published in
1797), Johann Gottleib Fichte remarks that his theory of scientific knowledge is in complete accord with
Kants and is nothing other than the Kantian philosophy properly understood (Fichte 1994, 52). In this
presentation, Fichte considers himself a systematizing disciple philosophizing in the Kantian spirit if not the
letter of the same. Fichte attempts to justify his project to the reader by noting that although Kant did not
present his critical philosophy as a system, the systematicity thereof is nonetheless implicit: I am very well
aware, Fichte says, that Kant has by no means actually constructed a system nevertheless, I am equally
certain that Kant has entertained the thought of such a system (1994, 62-63, original emphasis). Though one
might question the truth of either or both of Fichtes assertions here, it is enough at present to note that Fichte
himself seems to believe them. Setting out to establish just such a system, Fichte attempts to explicate the
nature of the pure I (analogousif not identicalto what Kant termed the transcendental unity of
apperception) by way of a transcendental analysis of the mutual determination of the I and the objects it
cognizes.
However, in attempting to identify the significance of Fichtes self-alleged systematic exposition of Kant,
one must take care to attempt to identify any novel elements introduced in the attempt: that is, one must sort out
whether Fichtes employment of concepts is logically equivalent toor even consistent withKants, whether
Fichtes conclusions differ substantively from Kants and whether Fichtes arguments in support of his
conclusions amount to the ones articulated by Kant. Complicating this interpretive matter to some degree is the
Charles Eugene DeBord, professor of philosophy, philosophy instructor, University of Kentucky; main research fields: Kant,
Hegel, and German idealist aesthetics.

10

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

fact that Fichte was well aware that other Kantians (or pseudo-Kantians, as Fichte considered them) disagreed
with his conclusions concerning the Kantian philosophy. In the Second Introduction, Fichte states that while it
may seem arrogant to declare his own interpretation both original and true to the spirit of the Kantian
philosophy, in fact, however, the presumption this seems to imply may only be apparent, for one may hope
that others too will subsequently come to understand the book in question (1994, 66).1 In his various
articulations of the Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte believes himself to be expressing in systematic form both what
Kant did say in his critical philosophy as well as what Kant would have said had he presented the contents of
that philosophy systematically.
This paper focuses on a question crucial to Kants transcendental philosophy and foundational to that of
Fichte, i.e., what can theoretical philosophy tell us about the existence and identity of the self? The I (ich) as the
act of self-positing is the ground of Fichtes entire Wissenschaftslehre (best translated as theory of scientific
knowledge), and the notion of self-consciousness presented therein seems to be motivated at least somewhat
by Kants remarks on the transcendental unity of apperception in the Critique of Pure Reason, though clearly
Fichte has in view the whole scope of Kants treatment not only of human cognition of objects but also ones
moral relation to the world. In what follows I argue that Fichtes conception of the pure I as expounded in his
1794 Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre and the 1797 Second Introduction is logically consistent with
Kants on three points: first, concerning the active nature of pure apperception; second, concerning the
distinction between pure and empirical apperception; and third, concerning their skepticism of any positive
conclusions about the noumenal content of the pure I. As to the relation of the pure I to its object, however, I
argue that Kant affirms the conceptual priority of the former to the latter while Fichte denies it.

2. Kants I
In the transcendental deduction, Kant distinguishes two varieties of apperception dissociable from one
another in philosophical reflection, i.e., pure and empirical.2 Each amounts to a kind of self, but Kant argues
that conclusions applicable to one of these must not be uncritically applied to the other. In both editions of the
first Critique Kant takes great care to identify exactly what sorts of claims philosophy may soundly make about
the self on the basis of the fact that objects are cognized at all. Indeed, Kants criticism of the third paralogism
is entirely grounded on this paralogisms failure to attend to the distinction between these two kinds of selves;
that is, the third paralogism is said to be guilty of conflating propositions true only in an empirical sense with
those true in a transcendental sense.3 The third paralogism can thus be seen as an application of this conflation
to the notion of personhood.
What, then, are supposed to be the characteristics distinguishing the pure I from the empirical I? To begin
to answer this question, it will be useful to sketch briefly Kants argument for the necessary unity of
transcendental apperception. Kant articulates the fundamental presupposition of his argument thus: If every
individual representation were entirely foreign to the other, as it were isolated and separated from it, then there
would never arise anything like cognition, which is a whole of compared and connected representations (Kant,
A 97). Here Kant defines cognition as a whole the parts of which are representationsthe parts are not merely
collected in the whole, they are ordered therein. Since, however, representations amount to distinguishable
unities of the manifold given in intuition, they must not only be ordered but also unified via a synthesis of
apprehension, without which no representation could be reproduced by the imaginationif there were no
synthesis of apprehension, the mind would have no way of identifying any representation as self-identical,

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

11

which it must do if it is to be able to distinguish different representations from one another.

Kant observes that not only does the human mind make such differentiations, these distinctions also seem
to take place in a rule-governed fashion. In cognition, the imagination reproduces representations with
regularity, and without such regularity concepts could never arise, because according to Kant concepts amount
to unities of the syntheses of particular representationsif representations were reproduced only randomly,
there would be no unity in their synthesis fit to be grasped as a concept. Cognition requires such unities,
because without consciousness that that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before,
all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain (Kant, A 103). This is to say that unless
representations are ordered according to a rule, concepts cannot arise and the imagination would have no
cognitive function. Since such a regularity is in fact present in human cognition, concepts do arise in thought.
For Kant, it is just these concepts that make possible the cognition of objects as such: objects for consciousness
must be thought as unities, and Kant argues that such unities are grounded on the recognitions of synthesized
representations, i.e., on concepts. If the mind has no concepts, it can cognize no objects. If imagination does not
reproduce representations according to rules, there can be no concepts. Without the synthesis of apprehension,
representations are not distinguishable from one another and so could not possibly be reproduced at all. Thus
the possibility of the existence of objects rests ultimately on the possibility of some enduring ground of this
synthesis.
This enduring ground of the minds consciousness of objects, according to Kant, must be transcendental,
i.e., a condition for the possibility of experience that is not itself a feature of experience. He argues that in
cognizing objects as such, the mind does so according to certain a priori rules that condition the intuitions
apprehended by sense (Kant, A 106). For Kant, any such a priori imputation of a rule to experience is the
minds synthetic cognition of what must be the case, not simply of what is: for instance, no amount of mere
appearances could impress upon the mind the notion that if something is embodied, then it must be extended in
space; this rule must always already guide cognition universally and necessarily. Every necessity, Kant
declares, has a transcendental condition as its ground (Kant, A 106). The enduring transcendental condition
that grounds the possibility of the consciousness of rule-governed experience is transcendental apperception,
i.e., the pure self.4
In the first edition of the first Critique, immediately after having demonstrated why the unity of human
consciousness must be grounded in transcendental apperception, Kant moves to distinguish this pure self from
the empirical self with which it might quite easily be confused (this strategy can be seen as foreshadowing his
criticisms of the paralogisms). Transcendental apperception is not any particular self-concept or personality,
and in fact the latter could not in principle accomplish the epistemological work of the former: any individual
self-concept can only be constructed by abstracting from experiencethis is sense in which it is the empirical
selfand while we may affirm that transcendental apperception grounds ones self-concept (inasmuch as it
grounds the existence of any concepts whatsoever), it is not to be identified with that self-concept.5 Kant holds
that the empirical self is one concept among a host whose existence is founded upon the pure self, and because
the latter is transcendental, we are not warranted in ascribing it any properties the notions of which have their
ground in experience.6
Perhaps less obvious than this distinction between the pure self and the empirical self is the precise sense
in which transcendental apperception can be said to be a self or an I at all. Norman Kemp Smith maintains

12

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

that Kants Critical philosophy does not profess to prove that it is self-consciousness, or apperception, or a
transcendental ego, or anything describable in kindred terms, which ultimately renders experience possible
(2003, 261). That the first Critique does not claim to demonstrate that apperception makes experience possible
is less clear to me than it seems to be to Smith. It seems that in his explanation of the notion of transcendental
apperception Kant means to elucidate the necessary conditions for the human minds cognition of objects. Thus
perhaps Smith means that given the conditionality of such a claim, we cannot with total accuracy say that Kant
is necessarily arguing for the existence of transcendental apperception. It does seem, though, that Kant would
have every reason to accept the quite modest claim that the mind does in fact cognize objects, and insofar as he
accepts this, it follows for him that transcendental apperception actually exists and makes objects possible.
Smith may mean that transcendental apperception is not a sufficient condition for the existence of objects, and
indeed, Kant admits that the spontaneous element of cognition is accompanied by a receptive one.7
However, another possible meaning of Smiths statement invites closer inspection: in concluding that
transcendental apperception makes possible the experience of objects, Kant would have been unwarranted in
positing the existence (even conditionally) of a transcendental self identical to the transcendental apperception
he had just described. One might read Smiths statement as a precaution: take care not to ascribe the status of
thinghood to transcendental apperception. Read in this sense, Smith seems to be pointing to a mistake easily
made in attempting to understand the nature of transcendental apperception. Kant describes transcendental
apperception as the I think that must be able to accompany all my representations (Kant, B 131). As
Richard Aquila notes, while the I think expresses empirical knowledge for Kant, the term I itself remains a
mere thought, as yet provided with no determinate reference (1992, 148). The transcendental I is provided
with no determinate reference precisely because it is no determinate thing at all. The being of transcendental
apperception is nothing other than its activity.8 To ascribe to the transcendental I any sort of substantial being
apart from this action is to fall victim to the lure of the first paralogism. Aquila goes on to say that it would be
perfectly appropriate for Kant to say that my use of the I can at most express the existence of some
intelligent being (1992, 149), and here we must be cautious in our interpretation, for it might be clearer to say
that the pure I should at most express the action of self-consciousness (i.e., its cognition of itself) and not any
sort of substance of the same. As Theodor Adorno remarks, When [Kant] says that the I think accompanies
all my representations, this contains something else, namely the idea of spontaneity or activity (2001, 89).
Kant seems to hold that the notion of such activity amounts to the entirety of what can be predicated of the pure
I in itselfsince it is pure, it has no phenomenal content, and the very form of the pure I is just its cognizing
activity.
What, then, is the relation between the transcendental I and the objects of experience? Specifically, does
Kant hold that transcendental apperception is in any sense prior to objects of experience? The following
statements from the first edition of the first Critique might lead one to believe that the pure I must exist before
objects of experience come into existence:
There must be a condition that precedes all experience and makes the latter itself possible, which should make such a
transcendental presupposition valid. Now no cognitions can occur in us, no connection and unity among them, without that
unity of consciousness that precedes all data of the intuitions, and in relation to which all representation of objects is alone
possible. (Kant, A 107, my emphasis)

In what sense does the unity of consciousness precede experience? Smith argues that the priority is

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

13

merely logical (i.e., as it occurs in the context of the deduction presented by Kant) and that any existential
priority apparent in Kants language is simply the residual product of his pre-critical, Wolffian notion of the
soul.9 This interpretation (the first part of it, at least) seems well-founded: at no point in his deduction of the
necessity of transcendental apperception for the cognition of objects would Kant have been warranted to assert
that this pure apperception exists at any time before the objects it cognizes come into existence. Indeed, if the
claim that the pure I is nothing other than its cognizing activity is accepted, Kant would have been inconsistent
if he had held to any such doctrine of existential (i.e., temporal) priority: the pure I exists only insofar as it
actually cognizes an object.
Transcendental apperception seems also to be prior to experience in another sense: insofar as the concept
of the pure I is not mixed with experience, it is dissociable from the latter in philosophical reflection as a
necessary condition for the latters possibility. As such, Kant holds that we are conscious a priori of this unity.
Thus it seems that Kant holds the unity of consciousness to be conceptually prior to experience in just the same
way that the pure productive imagination is conceptually prior to the understanding. 10 The fact that
transcendental apperception occupies a logically prior position in Kants deduction of the possibility of
objective experience is no accident of his presentation; it is because of its status as a concept of which the mind
can be conscious a priori that it must also be logically prior in any transcendental deduction of the possibility
of experience. I suspect that Smith has this conceptual priority in mind when he notes apperceptions priority
in the development of the deduction, but the distinction between its conceptual priority and the consequent
logical priority seems to be one worth explicating.
It should be made clear, however, that no existential priority follows from the fact that the pure I is
conceptually and logically prior to objective experience. Kant argues that since humans have no ability to intuit
the manifold without sensation, the synthesis of representations is a necessary condition for the unity of
apperception. Because he holds that humans are capable only of sensible intuition (as opposed to what he calls
intellectual intuition), the conceptual priority of the pure I cannot be any indication of its existential
prioritythe unity of consciousness and the existence of objects are in actuality mutually conditioning.

3. Fichtes I
Turning now to an investigation of Fichtes treatment of these issues, it must be shown that his notion of
the pure I is consistent with Kants relative to the epistemological role each plays in cognizing objects. Thus far
it has been shown that (1) Kant holds that we are justified in declaring the transcendental unity of apperception
to be an act that unifies rule-governed representations as objects by way of concepts. As such it is the ground of
both objects of experience that are external to the cognizing subject as well as empirical self-consciousness,
though (2) as Kant emphasizes, the former is by no means identical to the latter. Furthermore, (3) Kant argues
that we are not justified in ascribing any substantiality to transcendental apperception if by substantiality is
meant particularity (i.e., thinghood), either phenomenal or noumenal. Transcendental apperception is not itself a
possible object of experience, though Kant seems to affirm that we have a concept thereof. It must now be
shown that on each of these three points, Fichtes account is consistent with (if not identical to) Kants. It must
further be shown that, in contrast to Kant, who holds that act of the unity of consciousness is logically and
conceptuallybut not existentiallyprior to objects of experience, Fichte denies the conceptual priority of the
former to the latter.
Even in introducing his philosophy, Fichtes pronouncements on the Wissenschaftslehre seem at odds with

14

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

Kants conclusions as we have just stated them. In the 1797 Second Introduction, Fichte remarks that the
Wissenschaftslehre sets out from an intellectual intuition, namely, an intellectual intuition of the absolute
self-activity of the I (1994, 54-55). Above it was shown why Kant did not accept the possibility of intellectual
intuition as a function of human cognition: all our intuitions are apprehended by means of the senses; there is
no receptivity without sensibility.11 Fichte agrees and claims to be using the term intellectual intuition in a
different sense than the one given in Kants articulation of transcendental idealism. Fichte affirms that the
immediate consciousness of the thing in itself is a complete perversion of reason, an utterly unreasonable
concept. Rather, the intellectual intuition of which the Wissenschaftslehre speaks is not directed toward any
sort of being whatsoever; instead, it is directed at an actingand this is something that Kant does not even
mention (except, perhaps, under the name pure apperception) (1994, 56). The Fichtean notion of intellectual
intuition is absolutely fundamental to his transcendental philosophy. As Vladimir Zeman remarks, for Fichte,
intellectual intuition becomes the Archimedean point which founds his whole philosophy as well as the means
of overcoming that dualism which Kant either did not want to or could not shake off (1996, 217).12 Though a
terminological departure from the vocabulary of the first Critique, Fichtes concept of intellectual intuition is
firmly rooted in Kants philosophy of transcendental apperception.13
If one may say that the identification of pure apperception with an act of the mind is evident in Kants first
Critique, one should note that it leaps off of the pages of Fichtes 1794 Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte holds that the
first principle of human knowledge is a Tathandlung which is not and cannot be found among the empirical
determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the ground of all consciousness and alone makes it
possible (1997, 11, my translation). For Fichte, I am expresses both the Is act of positing itself and the fact
that the I has been thus self-posited. On the one hand, what is being posited in this act is nothing other than the
existence of the pure I: Fichte claims that the I exists only insofar as the I posits itself as existing.14 Fichtes
account of the manner in which this act makes objective consciousness possible reflects the logical progression
of Kants deduction of the categories: Fichte begins with intuition, moves to the productive power of
imagination, and then articulates the relation these two faculties bear to the understanding and the cognition of
objective reality. The imagination, he states, produces reality; but there is in it no reality; only through
interpretation and conception in the understanding does its product becomes something real (1997, 152-53, my
translation). Such an analysis reflects Kants contention that the principle of the necessary unity of the pure
(productive) synthesis of the imagination prior to apperception is thus the ground of the possibility of all
cognition, especially that of experience the unity of apperception in relation to the synthesis of the
imagination is the understanding (Kant A 118-19). Both Fichte and Kant conceive of the imagination as
producing material to be cognized by the understanding and in this way grounding the work of the
understanding. It is in turn the understandings cognition of the products of imagination that makes possible the
experience of objective reality.
On the other hand, it seems that the difference between Kants assessment of the unity of consciousness as
expressible by the propositional attitude I think and Fichtes definition of the I as its own act of positing itself
is primarily a difference not of content but of emphasis and approach: whereas Kant is concerned to stress the
limits on what could justifiably be predicated of the unity amounting to/resulting from the act expressed by I
think, Fichte lays stress on the nature and existence of this unity as an act. A number of plausible reasons
could be given for this difference. For one, Fichte might have taken Kants remarks on limiting predication to
have been sufficiently emphatic while viewing his treatment of pure apperception qua act of consciousness as

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

15

somewhat inchoate and thus ripe for further exposition. Another reason for the difference can be located in the
distinction between Kants area of concern in writing the first Critique and Fichtes in articulating the
Wissenschaftslehre. Taber expresses this contrast thus:
No longer are we seeking especially the ground of the possibility of physical science, that which assures us of the
necessary and universal truth of discoverable natural laws; but it would seem that we are now looking for a primordial
truth, a principle from which all certainty, even that which accrues to the principles which account for science, is derived.
(1984, 449)

In any case, while there seems to be no evident inconsistency between Fichtes definition of the pure I as
the act of self-position and Kants account of the activity of thought as contained in the concept of pure
apperception, Fichtes emphasis on the primacy of the practical in his account of the pure I is perhaps more
evident than Kants in the latters explanation of transcendental apperception. Kant and Fichte seem to give the
same blueprint for the possibility of experience as the result of the activity of the pure I, but it must be noted
that because of Fichtes conscious attempt to assimilate theoretical and practical philosophy according to an a
priori Tathandlung, his concept of the pure I involves a moral significance absent from Kants account in the
first Critique. 15 Nevertheless, when restricted to the standpoint of transcendental epistemology, Fichtes
account of the pure I is not inconsistent with Kants.
As to the second point of our comparison, Kant takes great pains to distinguish transcendental
apperception from empirical apperception. Above it was remarked that in deducing the necessity of the unity of
consciousness, the existence of a particular subsistent unity (Kants standing self, i.e., a personality or
individual self-concept) is not at all secured. Fichte could hardly be clearer in his agreement with Kant on this
point, noting in the Second Introduction that all that could be produced by the act of combining these many
different representations would be a manifold act of thinking, which appears as a single act of thinking as such,
but by no means a thinking subject who engages in this manifold act of thinking (1994, 61n, original
emphasis). It is evident in this and other passages (cf. the above-cited lines from the beginning of Part I of the
1794 Grundlage) that Fichte is at least as careful as Kant to deny that we are warranted in asserting the
existence of any particular abiding subject on the basis of the existence of the unifying transcendental act of
consciousness.
Furthermore, just as Fichte mirrors Kants distinction between transcendental and empirical consciousness,
Fichte is also careful to avoid drawing metaphysical conclusions about any transcendent (in the Kantian
sense), substantial soul. Concerning this third point of comparison, Fichte displays characteristic scorn for
dogmatic interpretations of Kant (among others, Fichte mentions K. L. Reinhold by name in the 1797 Second
Introduction) that would in Fichtes opinion ignore the foundations of transcendental idealism by reintroducing
metaphysics concerned with the noumenal realm. Fichte scoffs at what he deems to be attempts to ground the
self in a substance existing outside of consciousness after having admitted (as Kantians) that any cognizable
external objects are always already grounded on the transcendental unity of apperception: their earth rests
upon the back of the great elephant; and the great elephant itself?it stands upon their earth! (Fichte 1994,
68-69). As is well-known, one could convincingly argue that there is even less of a place for the noumenal in
Fichtes philosophy than there is in Kants, but for the present concern it is enough to note that Fichte is in
agreement with Kant that pure apperception is not to be confused either with the (phenomenal) empirical self or
with some particular (noumenal) thing-in-itself.

16

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

Finally, as to the priority of pure apperception to object-consciousness, I have thus far argued that Kant

seems to hold to the conceptual and logical but not existential priority of the transcendental unity of
apperception relative to objects of experience. Fichtes treatment of this issue in the 1794 Foundations differs
from that in the first Critique in its approach as well as its conclusion. Fichte agrees with Kants denial of the
existential priority of the pure I to the existence of objects, and Fichte treats the real relation of each to the other
as one of mutual limitation.16 Fichte of course denies the claim that objects preexist the pure I; he argues that
such a thesis is unable to accomplish the goal of a philosophical exposition of consciousness. He is no less clear,
however, in his denial of the existential priority of the I to objects; he argues that in order to identify the pure I
as self-identical, consciousness must always already cognize the pure I as opposed to that which it is notthat
is, consciousness must, in positing itself, posit that which is non-identical to the I, i.e., the world of objects.
Every opposite, he declares, insofar as it is such, is thus just by the power of an act (Handlung) of the I, and
from no other ground. Opposition in general is simply posited by the I (1997, 23, my translation). In the act of
self-positing, the pure I posits opposition a priori: But that everything, wherein this X lies, is not that which
represents, but rather that which is represented, I can learn through no object; for just in order to be able to set
up something as an object, I must know this already; hence it must, for any possible experience, originally lie in
my self (mir selbst), that which represents (Fichte 1997, 25, my translation).
This statement seems to differ substantively from Kants treatment of the concept of the object: as we have
noted, Kant claims that since human cognition has no faculty of intellectual intuition (in the sense of an
immediate intuition of non-sensible content), the synthesis of representations is necessary for the unity of
consciousness. Consider, however, that insofar as the manifold of representations is only cognizable empirically,
this necessity can only be cognized by abstracting from experienceour understanding, according to Kant,
can only think and must seek the intuition in the senses (Kant, B 135). We may say that the unity of
apperception is for Kant conceptually prior to the minds experience of objects just because the necessity of the
synthesis of representations can only come about via abstraction from experience, while the unity of
consciousness can be cognized a priori.
For Fichte, however, since the concept of the object necessarily inheres in the concept of the I, the concept
of the not-I can never be abstracted from experience; it must be cognized a priori along with the concept of the
pure I. Fichte comes to this conclusion, it seems, because his deductive strategy differs from Kants: Fichte
does not introduce the impossibility of intellectual intuition (in the Kantian sense) as a consideration for why a
synthesis of representations is necessary for the unity of consciousness. Instead, he starts from the premise that
any real identity is as such always already distinguished from that to which it is non-identical, and insofar as
this is the case, although the pure I is logically prior to the not-I in Fichtes presentation, he does not hold it to
be conceptually prior.
Tom Rockmore explains the difference between Kants concept of transcendental apperception and
Fichtes notion of the opposition of the not-I to the I in terms of the function(s) of the cognizing subject:
Although Fichtes view of subjectivity is inspired by Kant, it is not the same as or simply reducible to the Kantian view.
Kants transcendental unity of apperception combines two functions in a single concept: the permanence of the subject that
is threatened by a Humean bundle approach; and the synthetic combination of the unsynthesized contents of sensory
intuition that Kant, illegitimately applying the category of plurality beyond experience, regards as forming a diverse
collection.
Fichte immediately separates the functions of permanence and synthesis in order to substitute the finite human being as

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

17

the experiential subject. What for Kant, following Descartes, is still an abstract subject, or epistemological placeholder, is
for Fichte a real human being. In this way, Fichte resituates the abstract, transcendental Kantian analysis at the level of the
interaction between a human being and objects or other human beings. The resultant theory is obviously transcendental
only in a weaker than Kantian sense since it considers the conditions of real rather than possible interactions between the
subject and objects that impact on it. (1996, 85)

Although the full set of systematic ramifications of this difference between the philosophies of Kant and
Fichte may remain unclear, I submit that it may serve to focus attention on the practical significance Fichte
attaches to the self-positing of the pure I. Kant did not present his philosophy of the interaction of the unity of
consciousness and objects of experience in the systematized fashion of Fichtes 1794 Grundlage; the first
Critique is less a deduction of theses about the nature of the interaction of I and not-I than it is a propaedeutic to
metaphysics and the warranted assertion of synthetic a priori propositions. Fichte operates on the supposition
that Kant accomplished the idealist turn but did not organize his principles systematically. In his attempt to
articulate a transcendental system along Kantian lines, Fichte employs the notion of the pure Is Tathandlung to
ground both theoretical and practical philosophy: the pure I is not just the fact of transcendental apperception, it
is also the primordial act that initiates moral striving in the world. The apparent difference in their conclusions
concerning the conceptual priority of the pure I seems relevant to Fichtes work at least: had Fichte admitted the
conceptual priority of the I relative to the not-I, the course of the 1794 presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre
might have been plotted radically differently, since Fichtes philosophy of interdetermination would not have
featured so prominently if indeed it would have appeared at all. Considered in this respect, Rockmores remark
that Fichte resituates the Kantian analysis at the level of the interaction between a human being and objects
or other human beings foreshadows a critical turn in modern theories of consciousness. Fichtes denial of the
conceptual priority of the pure I to the world against which it strives announces German idealisms departure
from the Kantian/Cartesian understanding of consciousness as a matter of the abstract epistemic orientation of
an isolated individual. Many subsequent recognition theories of personhood, including those of Hegel and Marx,
are as such basically indebted to Fichtes resituation of transcendental apperception along emphatically
practical lines.

Notes
1. The book Fichte mentions here is Kants Critique of Pure Reason.
2. Cf. Kant, A 107. All citations of Kant in this paper refer to Critique of Pure Reason (1998).
3. Cf. Kant, A 362-63/B 421-22, 428-30.
4. On this point, cf. Karl Ameriks, who argues in some detail that Kants argument in the transcendental deduction does not
entail that the possibility of representationor even thoughtis restricted only to beings capable of transcendental apperception
(1997). However, even if Amerikss argument is sound, transcendental apperception would nonetheless seem to be a necessary
condition for the possibility of any beings conscious comprehension of experience qua rule-governed: the special collective
function of transcendental apperception that Ameriks describes is precisely what is required for the comprehension of synthetic a
priori judgments, e.g., the very scientific laws the legitimacy of which Kants first Critique sets out to salvage contra Hume.
5. Cf. John Taber, who remarks that it is to be kept in mind that, by suggesting that the I think is an empirical proposition,
Kant really does mean to put it in a class separate from both experiential claims involving sensibility and (illegitimate)
metaphysical claims about the thing in itself the I expressed in the empirical proposition I think is not an empirical
representation (1984, 447).
6. It has been pointed out that Kants account may not be internally consistent on this point. For instance, Tom Rockmore
argues that Kants account of the logical conditions of knowledge rests on an account of psychological conditions, thus
erroneously involving empirical concepts in a purportedly transcendental explanation. The irony, Rockmore notes, lies in the
fact that Kants theory in effect is guilty of the very psychologism that Husserl, following Kant, rails against (1996, 84). Presently,
however, this criticism of Kants method need not detain us, since it does not seem to be a focal point of Fichtes systematic

18

KANT, FICHTE, AND THE ACT OF THE I

reinterpretation of the pure I.

7. Cf. Kant, A 97.
8. Cf. Kant, A 108.
9. Cf. Smith 2003, 260-61.
10. Cf. Kant, A 116.
11. Cf. Kant, B 135.
12. Concerning the dualism Zeman mentions here, see below.
13. Cf. John Lachs: Fichtes novel contribution here appears to be the insistence that conceptualized sensory intuitions do
not constitute consciousness either: each requires an intellectual intuition to accompany it. But the novelty is apparent only. The
idea was thoroughly developed by Kant and led to his famous pronouncement that I think must accompany all our
representations. Viewed in this light, intellectual intuition reveals simply what Kant called the transcendental unity of
apperception (1988, 174).
14. Cf. Fichte 1997, 17.
15. Although I will not here attempt an explication of the relation of the pure I to the Fichtean concept of the ideal self, it
must be noted that the two are (importantly) non-identical. As George Seidel explains in his commentary on the Grundlage, the
absolute or ideal self is posited by the finite self, which alone is actively conscious and consciously active. This absolute or ideal
self is the ultimate source of the ought (1993, 29). Lachs expresses this relation as two ideal poles: The Absolute Self is the
theoretical groundwork of all reality, the self as Idea is the infinitely distant outcome of practical striving. Between the two
stretches the world of individuated selves, finite persons seeking to understand the one and achieve the other (1988, 172).
16. Cf. Fichte 1997, 28.

Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor. Kants Critique of Pure Reason (1959). Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001.
Ameriks, Karl. Kant and the Self: A Retrospective. Figuring the Self: Subject, Absolute, and Others in Classical German
Philosophy. Ed. David E. Klemm. Albany: SUNY, 1997. 55-72.
Aquila, Richard. Personal Identity and Kants Refutation of Idealism. Kant-Studien 70 (1979): 259-78. Rpt. in Immanuel
Kant: Critical Assessments. Vol. II. London: Routledge, 1992. 143-67.
Fichte, Johann Gottleib. Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1997.
---. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Lachs, John. Is There an Absolute Self? The Philosophical Forum 19 (1988): 169-81.
Rockmore, Tom. Fichtes Antifoundationalism, Intellectual Intuition, and Who One Is. New Perspectives on Fichte. Ed. Daniel
Breazeale and Tom Rockmore. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1996.
Seidel, George. Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre of 1794: A Commentary on Part 1. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1993.
Smith, Norman Kemp. Commentary to Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Taber, John. Fichtes Emendation of Kant. Kant-Studien 75 (1984): 442-59.
Zeman, Vladimir. Appropriation of Kants Critique of Pure Reason: Fichtes Second Introduction to Wissenschaftslehre. New
Perspectives on Fichte. Ed. Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1996. 213-25.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2011, Vol. 2, No. 1, 19-26

Kants Copernican Revolution

Milos Rastovic
Duquesne University
In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explains his critical method as an experiment in metaphysics. The aim of that
experiment is to establish an entire revolution in philosophical thinking, which was initiated by the Copernican
revolution in cosmology in order to find the secure path, and its possibility application to metaphysics. Kants aim
in Critique of Pure Reason is to rescue metaphysics from a blind groping by undertaking a revolution in
metaphysics as Copernicus has brought to cosmology. Kants Copernican turn consists in the assertion that the
possibility of knowledge requires that the objects must conform to our cognition. From Kants view, we can
know only what we construct, make, or produce as a necessary condition of knowledge, but we cannot know
the mindindependent external world, i.e., the world which is independent of us. Kants epistemological
constructivism is the central point to his Copernican revolution.
Keywords: epistemology, constructivism, representationalism, Copernican Revolution, science, nature, metaphysics

1. Introduction
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something
about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence
let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform
to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to
establish something about objects before they are given to us. (Kant 1998, B xvi)

Kant famously began his Critique of Pure Reason by explaining his critical method as an experiment in
metaphysics (B xvi). The aim of that experiment is to establish an entire revolution in philosophical
1

thinking, which was initiated by the Copernican revolution in cosmology (B xvii). Copernicus denied the
Ptolemaic geocentric system, because it did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions
by assuming that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer. Contrary to the geocentric system,
Copernicus was a proponent of the heliocentric cosmological system by suggesting that the motions of the
heavenly bodies are a result of the motion of the observer on the Earth. With this change in perspective,
2

Copernicus believed that he would have a more successful approach to cosmology as a science.
In comparison with Copernicus, Kant considers the foundation of science in order to find the secure path,
and its possibility application to metaphysics. In the Preface of the B edition of Kants Critique of Pure Reason
(1787), he explains the foundation of science (logic, mathematics, and physics) in order to find a secure path. In
logic, mathematics, and physics, reason finds the secure course of a science through two criteria (B vii):
(1) If science makes persistent progress, it means that science finds the secure course of success.
(2) Scientists must achieve an agreement about their common aim, and use a correct method in achieving
the royal road of science.
Milos Rastovic, MA, Department of Philosophy, Duquesne University; main research fields: German Idealism (Kant, Hegel),
Nietzsche, Marx & Critical Theory, Ancient Philosophy, Heidegger, Existentialism, Modern Philosophy, Epistemology, Social and
Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Law.

20

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

Though at one time the queen of all the sciences, the procedure of metaphysics is now merely a blind
groping without unanimity among many concepts. Through the history of metaphysics there was a battlefield
in which nobody ever gained any lasting possession on his victory (B xv). For this reason, it is necessary for
metaphysics to enter a new royal path of knowledge as a science. In other words, Kant argues that logic,
mathematics, and physics have established the secure path of science, but metaphysics has not. Consequently,
for Kant, the key question is: how are logic, mathematics, and physics possible? Or rather, what is the
respective status of logic, mathematics, and physics as knowledge?
Kants aim in Critique of Pure Reason is to rescue metaphysics from a blind groping by undertaking a
revolution in metaphysics as Copernicus has brought to cosmology. In Kants interpretation, Copernicus
observed movements not in the objects of the heavens but in their observer (B xxii). Analogically to this view,
in Kants epistemological context, he rejects the traditional thesis that the subject must conform to the objects.
By contrast, Kants Copernican turn consists in the assertion that the possibility of knowledge requires that the
objects must conform to our cognition (B xvi). In other words, we can cognize the objects a priori only what
we ourselves have put into them (B xviii). From Kants view, we can know only what we construct, make,
or produce as a necessary condition of knowledge, but we cannot know the mindindependent external
world, i.e., the world which is independent of us. Kants epistemological constructivism is the central point to
3

his Copernican revolution. Kant builds his main epistemological position according to the Copernican
assumption that knowledge depends on the observer.
Based upon this consideration, in this paper, I will clarify two things:
(1) The ground of Kants Copernican revolution is demonstrated in the B Preface of Critique of Pure
Reason in which he examines the difference between a science (logic, mathematics, and physics) and
metaphysics, i.e., the secure path and blind groping.
(2) The consequence of Kants Copernican revolution is his constructivist approach to knowledge.
Constructivism militates against direct realism and a representational approach to knowledge.

2. The Secure Path of a Science

Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy is a consequence of his reading of Copernican astronomy in
the rise of modern science, and his theory of science is based on that reading. As we adduced, Kants aim is to
compare the status of logic, mathematics, and physics with metaphysics as knowledge in order to find a secure
path for metaphysics. Kant asks himself: Now why is it that here the secure path of science still could not be
found? Is it perhaps impossible? (B xv).
According to Kant, logic is an example of the secure course of science, which was finished and
completed by Aristotle. Kant says, That from the earliest times logic has traveled this secure course can be
seen from the fact that science the time of Aristotle it has not had to go a single step backwards and until
now it has also been unable to take a single step forward (B viii). In logic, from Aristotle to now there is not a
single step backwards or forwards. Every single step in logic, which occurs by interpolating psychological,
metaphysical, or anthropological chapters, belongs more to elegance of logic, i.e., it is not improvement but a
deformation of the sciences when their boundaries are allowed to run over into one another (B viii). For Kant,
the boundaries of logic are determined quite precisely, and their aim is to prove the formal conditions of valid
thinking without any correlation to the objects of cognition. In fact, logic can find the secure path of science
only if reason does with itself and its own form, but not with the external objects of cognition. In this sense,

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

21

reason determines itself a priori as a pure cognition without any reference to other sources of knowledge such
as experience.
Kant distinguishes two kinds of cognition:
(1) A posterioriall our cognition begins with experience (B 1), but it does not mean that all cognition is
empirical.
(2) A prioriit is independent of experience.
We are in possession of a certain a priori cognition if it is thought along with its necessity and strict
universality: Necessity and strict universality are therefore secure indications of an a priori cognition, and also
belong together inseparably (B 4). A priori cognition is a product of our mind, e.g., mathematics (B 15). For
this reason, we cannot find Pythagorean numbers in reality and nature. According to Kant, mathematical
judgments are always a priori because they carry necessity and universality with them. For instance, 7 + 5 = 12.
The concept of the sum of 7 and 5 is the unification of both numbers in a single one. I can get the concept of the
sum of 7 and 5 only if I go beyond the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 seeking assistance in intuition, which
4

corresponds with these numbers.

Unlike logic whose aim is to prove formal rules of all thinking without any reference to the objects,
mathematics and physics are the two theoretical forms of cognition which aim to get knowledge about the
objects, i.e., to determine their objects a priori (B x). The cognitive success of mathematics depends on its
ability to construct the objects according to a priori concepts (B xii). In this sense, mathematics and physics
have required a revolution before they found the secure path of a science. This revolution has required the
transition from gathering mathematical and physical examples to the development of their theories. However,
the record of their achievements has not been saved for us. For mathematicians, only the new royal path
remained unforgettable. The revolution in mathematics consists in the recognition that the method of
mathematics is not grounded on the inspection of the figure or on the properties and the concept of the figure,
but rather on the act in which the figure has been constructed according to a priori concepts. In fact,
mathematical knowledge in order to ensure the secure path of science has to prescribe to the figure necessarily
5

from what we ourselves put into it. For Kant, we construct or produce the figure a priori in the
imagination:
For he [Thales] found that what he had to do was not to trace what he saw in this figure, or even trace its mere concept, and
read off, as it were, from the properties of the figure; but rather he had to produce the latter form what he himself thought
into the object and presented (through construction) according to a priori concepts, and that in order to know something
securely a priori he had to ascribe to the thing nothing except what followed necessarily from what he himself had put into
it in accordance with its concept. (B xii)

Also, in the history of physics the revolution was brought neither by observation nor by analysis, but by
the experimental methods, which discover the law of nature. The common aim of mathematics and physics is to
find the secure path of science. However, the difference between them is that mathematics constructs the
objects, while physics is relating to knowing nature as it is. In this context, Kants term nature does not mean
the thing in itself (noumenon), but rather the thing as given in experience. For Kant, the revolution in natural
science was suggested by Francis Bacon who incited the experimental method. Here, Kant considers natural
science as an empirical science which gives us an empirical law. Kant illustrates natural science as an empirical
science in the following examples:
When Galileo rolled balls of a weight chosen by himself down an inclined, or when Torricelli made the air bear a weight

22

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

that he had previously thought to be equal to that of a known column of water, or when in later time Stahl changed metals
into calx and then changed the latter back into metal by first removing something and then putting it back again, a light
dawned on all those who study nature. They comprehended that reason has insight only what it itself produces according to
its own design. (B xii, B xiii)

These three examples (Galileo, Torricelli, and Stahl) show us that the experimental method has a similar
role in cognition as drawing the geometric figure. In natural science, before the experiment we have to make
calculations which could be the result of an experiment. In mathematics, before drawing the geometric figure
we construct it a priori: Thus I construct a triangle by exhibiting an object corresponding to this concept,
either through mere imagination, in pure intuition, or on paper, in empirical intuition, but in both cases
completely a priori, without having had to borrow the pattern for it from any experience (B 741, B 742).
Kants main point is that reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design
(B xiii). As a result, reason cannot conform to the external world, but the external world must conform to
reason in order to secure the royal road of science. Thus, reason approaches nature with its principles not like a
pupil, but like an appointed judge who compels witness to answer the questions he puts to them (B xiii). In
6

this sense, reason is not only passive in the cognition of the nature, but at the same time it is active. Reason
cognizes the nature as given in experience according to universal law. In physics, the universal law of nature is
given a priori. The question is: how we can cognize the universal law of nature a priori? From Kants account,
we can cognize the law of nature a priori only if we apply mathematical knowledge to nature. For Kant, the
significant example of the application of mathematical knowledge to nature in the history of science is the
Copernican revolution: Ptolemaic geocentric system dominated in the history of science, especially in the
medieval period, until Copernicus. In the Copernican astronomical theory, Ptolemaic geocentric system has
been changed into a heliocentric conception of the universe. Copernicus astronomical theory as a hypothesis is
grounded upon an empirical approach to the universe. For Kant, the problem of Copernicus hypothesis can be
solved a priori:
In the same way, the central laws of the motion of the heavenly bodies established with certainty what Copernicus assumed
at the beginning only as a hypothesis, and at the same time they proved the invisible force (of Newtonian attraction) that
binds the universe, which would have remained forever undiscovered if Copernicus had not ventured, in a manner
contradictory to the senses yet true, to seek for the observed movements not in the objects of the heavens but in their
observer. (B xxii)

Newton claims that he cannot solve the problem of gravitation because he cannot go beyond experience.
7

He can only pose the hypothesis, which is not deduced from the phenomena. On the contrary, Kant thinks that
Newton is successful in solving the problem of gravitation because he applies mathematical knowledge to
nature a priori. Consequently, for Kant, if we apply mathematical knowledge, which is a priori, to the universe,
we can cognize the natural law a priori because it is necessarily inherent in the very nature of things (Kant
2002, 38). However, it is unclear who formulates the natural law: the subject or the object. For Kant, there is a
unity between the subject and the object: the subject knows the object itself under the unity of otherness.

3. Kantian Constructivism
A direct consequence of Kants Copernican turn is the constructivist approach to metaphysics likened to
approaches to mathematics and physics. However, metaphysics has not yet become a science as are
mathematics and physics. From Kants view, there are two possibilities for metaphysics:

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

23

(1) The traditional approach to knowledge (the subject conforms to the object. The inference of that
approach is that we can know the mindindependent external world);
(2) The object conforms to the subject. The result of that approach is that we know what we construct:
This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of
the celestial motions if he assumed that entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have a
greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way
regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we
can know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the sense) conforms to the constitution of our faculty
of intuition, then I can very well present this possibility to myself. (B xvi, B xvii)

Kants constructivist approach to epistemology militates against direct realism and representationalism.
Direct realism is an approach to knowledge which claims that we can directly grasp the mindindependent
external world. Representationalism claims that we can know the mind through the representation which stands
between the subject and the object. The difficulties of representationalism lie in analyzing the relationship from
the representation to objects, in a word in showing that representations in fact represent (Rockmore 2007, 57).
Contrary to direct realism and representationalism, the constructivist approach to knowledge claims that we
cannot grasp the mind neither directly nor indirectly. According to the constructivist approach to knowledge, I
cannot know the world as it is in itself, independent of the subject, but only what I can make, produce, or
construct as a necessary condition of knowledge.
Kants own approach to knowledge is twofold:
(1) Epistemological representationalismwe can grasp indirectly the mind through our representations of
it. This kind of approach is suggested in the famous Herz letter (1772) in which he asked himself: What is the
ground of the relation of that in us which we call representation to the object? (Kant 1967, 71). For Kant,
representation is in the middle between the subject and the object, i.e., our knowledge depends on the relation
8

of the representation to the object. The term representation (Vorstellung) designates an idea in the works of
the rationalists and empiricists. For rationalists and empiricists, the world is understood as an independent
reality of the subject.
(2) Epistemological constructivism is derived from mathematics: we can know only what we construct.
Or rather, epistemological subject constructs the object (Gegenstand) as a necessary condition of knowledge.
This is Kants answer to his question in the letter to Herz. Kants constructivism refutes the notion that we can
ever know the mind. In fact, Kants constructivist approach to knowledge implies the metaphysical unity
between the things as appearance (phenomena) and the things in themselves (noumena), between the subject
and the object (B xxi). This metaphysical unity suggests that we can get knowledge only in the relation between
the subject and the object: the subject constructs the object which is itself related to the subject.
However, if we gain a deeper insight in Kants analysis of the relationship between the subject and the
object, we can see that his metaphysical unity consists of three elements:
(1) phenomenon (representation of representationwhat is immediately given in perceptual experience:
Since no representation pertains to the objects immediately except intuition alone, a concept is thus never
immediately related to an object, but it is always related to some other representation of it. Judgment is
therefore the mediate cognition of an object, hence the representation of a representation of it [B 93]);
(2) appearance (every appearance is phenomenonrefers beyond themselves to what appears);

24

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

(3) noumenon (thing in itself, independent of us [Rockmore 2007, 36, 37]).

The main key is that we cannot know the mind, i.e., the world as it is in itself because it is not given in
experience. In other words, we cannot know the mind which is independent of us, but rather we can know only
what we construct as a condition of our knowledge. According to Kant, we can know that the external world
exists through inner experience, but not the world as it is in itself: But this persisting element cannot be an
intuition in me. For all the determining grounds of my existence that can be encountered in me are
representations, and as such they themselves need something persisting distinct from them, in relation to which
their change, and thus my existence in the time in which they change, can be determined (B xxxix).
Kants constructivist approach to knowledge can be illustrated in the following way:
Object

cause (subject affected by sensation)

Subject

Effect (representation)

Sensation + Our contributions (mind) = theory of constructivism

For Kant, the basic conditions of knowledge are intuition and concept: But besides intuition there is no
other kind of cognition than through concepts (B 93). Kant argues that all concepts rest on functions,
ordering different representations under a common one (B 93). The subject is affected by sensation, and the
process of unification of different representations under a common one occurs through the application of the
categories, i.e., the pure concept of the understanding. Each such unity is a pure concept of the understanding.
The pure concept of the understanding pertains to objects a priori in order to construct objects of
experience (B 105). In fact, we can only experience objects as unified if this unity stems from the application of
the categories.
According to Kant, cognition of an object requires proof for its possibility whether by experience or a
priori (B xxvi). However, if we cannot cognize a thing in itself (noumenon), i.e., the external world as it is,
Kant suggests a comfortable thought: we can think about it (B xxvii). In other words, the only thing that we can
cognize is a transcendental illusion. This kind of illusion is the product of our imagination (B 103). In this
context, Kant writes, But I can think whatever I like, as long as I do not contradict myself, i.e., as long as my
concept is a possible thought, even if I cannot give any assurance whether or not there is a corresponding object
somewhere within the sum total of all possibilities (B xxvi). In sum, catch me if you can.

4. Copernican Revolution and Constructivism

To sum up, Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy is the result of his reading Copernicuss theory of
science. Copernicus changed the geocentric conception of the universe into a heliocentric one. Analogically to
Copernicus, Kant inverts the relationship between the subject and the object in a way that the subject knows
only what he produces in itself in accordance with its own plan (B xiii). From this view, Kants Copernican
revolution is the central point to his constructivism.

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

25

Kant did not discover the constructivist approach to knowledge. The source of constructivism9 we can
find is in ancient Egypt, e.g., the construction of geometrical figures in plane geometry. The foundation of
constructivism stems from the mathematical claim there exists as we can construct (Bridges 2010). The
mathematical approach to knowledge is contained in Kants famous claim that we can cognize of things a
priori only what we ourselves have put into them (B xviii). In the Kantian sense, it means that we cannot
know the mind as it is, since we can only construct the object. Kants constructivism gives us a different
approach to knowledge without the pretense of knowing the world as it is. However, the main contribution of
Kants constructivism to epistemological theory is his view about the relationship between the subject and the
object. In the traditional epistemological conception, the subject depends on the object, but Kant reverses that
relationship, and makes the object dependent on the subject. If the subject can determine the object prior to
experience, it makes possible a priori knowledge:
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something
about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence
let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform
to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to
establish something about objects before they are given to us. (Kant 1998, B xvi)

Notes
1. There are disagreement among philosophers about the link between Copernican revolution and Kants philosophy. Hans
Blumenberg refutes that there is the link between Copernican revolution and Kant philosophy (Blumenberg 1987). Bertrand
Russell argues that Kants Copernican revolution is propositions may acquire truth by being believed (Russell 1967, 14). By
contrast, Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Schelling argue that Kants Copernican revolution is the central point in Kants philosophy
(see Reinhold 1786; Schelling 1958, 599).
2. Nicholas Copernicus in the book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres explains his turn to the observer:
In opposition to common sense I dare to imagine some movement of the Earth; since mathematicians have not (yet)
agreed with each other, I was moved to think out a different scheme ; by supposing the Earth to move, demonstrations more
secure than those of my predecessors (could) be found for the revolutions of the sphere all (celestial) phenomena follow
from this (supposition) (Preface and Dedication to Pope Paul III).
3. Reinhold refers to the relation between Kant and Copernicus revolution in his first letter Briefe uber die Kantische
Philosophie (1786).
4. For Kant, pure intuition is the form (manifold of appearance) of an object, and pure concept is the form of thinking of an
object: Only pure intuitions or concepts alone are possible a priori, empirical ones only a posteriori (B 75). Kants
epistemological approach is grounded on the relation between the subject and the cognitive object. Kant stresses that the mind
contributes the form to the cognitive object, which lies a priori; but the cognitive object contributes the matter, which is only
given to us a posteriori: I call that in the appearance which corresponds to sensation its matter, but that which allows the
manifold of appearance to be ordered in certain relations I call the form of appearance (B 34).
5. Latter in the chapter The Transcendental Doctrine of Method of the Critique of Pure Reason, when Kant distinguishes
mathematics which constructs concepts and philosophy which analyses concepts, he also takes constructivist approach to
mathematics: Philosophical cognition is rational cognition from concepts, mathematical cognition that from the construction
of concepts. But to construct a concept means to exhibit a priori the intuition corresponding to it (B 741).
6. On the one hand, reason is passive because it respects the objects. On the other hand, reason is active because it works
with the objects.
7. Newton says, But hitherto I have not been able to deduce from the phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity,
and I do not contrive hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis (Newton
1960, 546).
8. The term mindindependent external worldin Kants Critique of Pure Reason is something that we cannot know (thing
in itselfnoumenon). In Kants epistemological theory we cannot be affected by an object, but only by the representation of a
representation of it (B 93). In this sense, the term object (Gegenstand) has the same meaning as the term mind in Kants
Critique of Pure Reason. However, Kant does not show that appearance (phenomena) refers to the mindindependent world,
which is an argument against representationalism.
9. The term constructivism is related to many different approaches in cognitive (philosophy, mathematics, biology, and

26

KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

psychology) and noncognitive fields (arts and international relations).

Works Cited
Bonavec, Daniel. Kants Copernican Revolution. The Age of German Idealism. Vol. VI. Ed. Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M.
Higgins. New York: Routledge, 1993. 40-67.
Bridges, Douglas. Constructive Mathematics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2010 Ed. N.p.: n. p. N.pag.
Blumenberg, Hans. What Is Copernican in Kants Turning? The Genesis of Copernican Revolution. Cambridge: Mitt, 1987.
595-614.
Goldman, Avery. The Metaphysics of Kantian Epistemology. Proceeding of the ACPA. N.p.: American Catholic Philosophical
Association, 2002. 239-52.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.
---. Letter to Marcus Herz. May 26 1789. Philosophical Correspondence. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1967.
---. Prolegomena, Indianapolis. IN: Hackett, 2002.
Newton, Isaac. Principia Mathematica. Trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley: U of California P, 1960.
Redding, Paul. Continental Idealism. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Reinhold, Karl Leonhard. Briefe uber die Kantische Philosophie. Teutscher Zeitschrift. Erster Band, Leipzig, Aug. 1786:
124-25.
Rockmore, Tom. In Kants Wake. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
---. Kant and Idealism. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007.
---. On Constructivist Epistemology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Russell, Bertrand. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Josef von. Immanuel Kant. 1804. Schellings Werke. Munich: Beck, 1958. XXII-720.
Weldon, Thomas Dewar. Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 27-34

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy

Salahaddin Khalilov
Azerbaijan University
This paper substantiates the idea that particular science reflects only a certain angle of a complex model of the
world. Guidance as to adding particular science data in order to achieve a holistic picture of the world is a
philosophical outlook. The meaning of each relatively closed system is revealed only in the context of a more
capacious system. According to the author, as the material world itself, its epistemic models as well are built
according to the principle of matryoshka dolls. The rational and irrational are discussed in the paper as equal
moments of scientific knowledge. Contrary to the importance given to randomness in synergy, the author considers
if it is possible to find out the causes of all events. In order to do this, other viewpoints and structure levels should
be considered. There is a hidden order in every chaos, and that is revealed only in a certain situation. The main
issue is taking into account the counter action of the system with the environment.
Keywords: chaos, synergetics, randomness, rational, irrational

1. Introduction
A mans life, like his thought, exists between two poles: between physical and spiritual lives.
For the reason that our aim is to determine the place and role of knowledge in human life, we will attempt
to analyze it separately according to the perspectives of both lives. The notion of knowledge itself, in fact, is
differentiated according to these different perspectives. It is traditionally accepted that knowledge consists of
the information gained by men from the external environment through sensory cognition and then of its
different transformations obtained through logical cognition. However, this type of knowledge, in fact, is an
integral part of a life directed to the maintenance of mans physical existence. And what is important in the
spiritual life of man is not cognitive knowledge, but spiritual states (hal) and stations (maqam). It is true that
the senses also play significant roles at the beginning, but they do not act here as sense-perception, but they act
here as sensual experiences, excitements, and supreme feelings.

2. Scientific and Philosophical Thought

For thousands of years, human beings have either tried to cognize larger-scale events considering their
own current and practical activities or, considering the meaning of life and the highest power as well as the
being who created the universe, they have sought the solution to all other problems in the divine power and in
worshiping him.
In fact, this is the starting point of science and religion. Both of them have chosen from the actual life of
Salahaddin Khalilov, professor of philosophy at Azerbaijan University, Head of the East-West Research Center,
Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Felsefe ve Sosial-siyasi Elmler (Philosophy and Social-Political Sciences); main
research fields: Philosophy of Science, Science about Science, Philosophical Comparativism, Phenomenology, Philosophical
Aspects of Eastern and Western Civilizations, Philosophy of Abu Turkhan, Cognitive Theory.

28

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

the human being and once again have been relatively-independently structuralized and developed for applying
to the same actual life.
Correspondingly, philosophical thinking also has two different sourcestwo starting points. The first of
them is the philosophy which has its roots in the practical activity of the human being as well as in rational
thought and generally in rational life; it is the very way that goes from naive realism to the idea of God and
religious philosophy. And the second is the philosophy which has arisen from astonishment, intuition, and the
sense of holiness; this is the way that begins from the idea of God and religious philosophy and moves towards
the philosophy of actual life.
These two ways, which come face to face with each other, of course, intersect somewhere here.
Simultaneously, there have been attempts at thinking in both directions and trying to unite the two different
types of thinking and worldview.
For materialist philosophy, sensualism, and the rationalist teachings, which confirm that the cognitive
process starts from sensory experience, the direction of the cognitive way is from the specific towards the
general and from real material to scientific-theoretical theses, for even general principles mostly come out as
the components of rational cognition when deductive methods are implemented. It means that in terms of time
and space, the human being acts in a local environment so his learning object should also be finite. If the
solution of a vital or even mathematical problem leads to infiniteness, then it is explained such that the task has
not been correctly put and its solution is impossible. The aim here is to transform the object of cognition into
the finite models of the infinite world. At the same time, logical thinking itself is finite and belongs to local
objects, and it only exists for the solution of solvable problems.
On the contrary, if the human being imagines his own personal life and the local environment that
surrounds him as an indivisible part of infinityin other words, if he looks at the concrete events of life from
the peak of eternity and infinity, then sensory cognition as well as logical thought becomes helpless here.
However, two variants are possible here. Firstly, in return for this infinity, the human being feels himself as
nothing and abandons hope to achieve anything with his own experience and mind in the cognition of the
world. He leaves himself up to the will of supernatural powers, at best to the discretion of divine belief. In this
case, in order to keep balance, it becomes necessary to connect with those supernatural powers and to use
mystical methods. Mythical thinking is mostly distinguished by these aspects. The second is to consider
religious emotion and the general harmony of the world as well as the idea of unity and to seek the finite in the
infinite and to be based for the cognition of the finite on the pieces of information which come through the
non-rational way.
In fact, the situation considerably changes if scientists go a step further from the level of being ordinary
researchers as well as from the level of generalization and systematization of the empirical experiment, to wit,
if they are not only limited to logical cognition and take a creative attitude towards the problem. If a research
includes the pieces of information which was intuited in some way or another, then it could not be explained
within the conventional cognitive models, and the removal of the research subject from locality towards an
infinite context could not be elucidated by these models. Depending on the research and the angle of the
approaching method, what is important here is either the non-revealed (non-conscious) consciousness or
intuition, or irrational cognition, or ecstasy and prophetic revelation. However, according to the traditional
approach within New Age epistemology, the sensory experiment and rational cognition are the main lines of
scientific cognition. The way the problem is put and the subject of research are determined at this very level.

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

29

When and how alien cognitive means intervene is basically accepted as a subjective factor as well as a
creative impulse. In fact, there is not here only one, but two ways.

3. The Intersection of Ways

Where and how does the way, which goes from the sensory experiment towards theories and principles,
intersect with the way that comes down from the divine level to daily practices?
To be sure, if each of the research of problems in different subjects is accepted as an independent chain of
cognition as well as an intellectual movement, then it is entirely possible that these movements that are in
different directions could intersect each other. Nevertheless, here we look at the intersection through vertical
lines, but not at that of the surface of the plan; and this is the very meeting point where rising up and walking
down thought ways meets.
The data, which have been obtained by the different ways that differ from traditional research methods and
their sources that are unknown, are accepted by scientists as a sort of coincidence. It means that it is not certain
in advance when the muse will come and intuition will be active and when a darkness will be lightened. All
these are counter-intuitive and have not arisen from the logical course of cognition and healthy thinking and at
the same time they are additions that occur unexpectedly, like a gift from the unseen world or a divine
gift. However, according to other thinkers (poets, philosophers, and theologians), the human attains
knowledge not in a planned, balanced, and predictive manner but as a result of an inner spiritual progress and
spiritual enlightenment as well as a divine gift; and other types of knowledge that are attained otherwise are
considered as imperfect and one-sided. This approach, which is widely spread in philosophy, implies that the
ultimate truth could be attained not with sensory experiment and logical thinking, but it could be attained as a
divine gift through divine inspiration, ecstasy, and prophetic revelation.
However, we disagree with this confrontation and one-sided approach. We think that either real scientific
activities or philosophical research demand to synthesize both of the cognitive ways.
Scientists have to seek outside influences whenever they cannot explain the events, which happen in
relatively closed systems that they research, within the boundaries of that system. Such outside influences are
accepted either as a coincidence or the appearances of the higher system on the lower system. For example,
the emergence of a self-directed and regulated motion in the homogeneous and amorphous system (as well as in
chaos) is not understood by logic. A number of researchers consider the emergence of order in chaos almost as
a sensation, and the study of such non-standard events is presented as a new scientific direction and method
which differs from the conventional sciences. The main reason why so much importance is attached to
synergetics is to emphasize this very abnormality and exception.
The synergetic method is a quiet ordinary and normal research method while it comes down through the
vertical. That is to say, not only certain types of systems but also all objects and events as well as relatively
closed systems and even so-called fully closed systems, being the parts of bigger systems and infinity, are
carriers of their harmony. The period of motions in large systems is larger than usual, and the understanding of
lower systems of their own situation, because of not having patience to wait, as a stationery situation is
natural. And suddenly, this stationarity is disordered and the new order and rule appears from amorphism and
chaos. In other words, whatever exists earlier appears in our viewing circle and draws our attention. If the
subject is excluded, then the equilibrium of a local system is disturbed, to wit, not depending on our observing,
the balance of a local system is upset. (It is interesting that a same event could be accepted as disorder from

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

30

one side and as new order from another.)

In fact, just because ordinary science works within the scopes of stationary systems and local time, it
accepts the rules, which are incompatible with the system and could not be explained within the system and
comes from outside (in fact from a higher system, for instance, from cosmos), as a disturbance of the inner rule.

Fig. 1. Alternative perspectives of the same system.

Note:
(1)
(2)
(3)

The diagonal creates the knot point in each small square.

The diagonal creates the knot point from the each two small squares.
The diagonal creates the knot point from the each three small squares.

Indeed, science is not sufficient to provide the claim (or need) of the human being to include the world as
a whole. For the reason that science serves the detailed and adequate expression of the world, it could be
claimed that within a scientific activity only local world, namely, a certain part of the world which is included
by our viewing circle could be learnt. Even inside the local world, rules could be chosen differently.
An example of the classification of the frameworks knot point and dividing it into different rules is shown
in fig. 1. Similarly, different rules, panoramas, harmonies, and structures-ornaments appear when we look over
the world or a local part of it in different cross-sections and different perspectives as well as at different angles.
What is important is that the talking point here is not time-space continuum and the locality of the
geometric space, but the paying attention to the world from a certain perspective and the choosing a certain
type of attitudes from within the complex and multi-scale attitude system and adopting them separately. It
means that a number of models of the world are established and it is demanded to gather these models
somehow in order to create the general scientific view of the world. In fact, because it is very difficult to reach
the most general and the total view, the human cognition uses here the possibility of contrary connection. Being
somehow in contact with the ultimate destination, it not only determines its own orientation but also gets
additional strength for its motion. This is the very attraction of the purpose and the ultimate destination! To
move is captivated by the absolute and general harmony, as if the human being by throwing a lasso rivets
himself to the other end of the word and tugs himself! Alpinists also behave in this way. Each time the hook is
thrown to the top of the destination, and thus the rope becomes the shortest and most acceptable way between
the alpinist and the top of the destination. The distance is overcome not only on account of brawn but also with
the support from the top of the destination. The gravitation is not repulsed only by muscle strength but also by
means of the gravity from above. It is easy to rise up when the wish of the above is completed with the
consent of the below.

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31

4. A Light on the Horizon

It is impossible for a human being, who does not imagine the ultimate destination, to find a way. Any
moving trajectory is not yet the way, because a light should be seen at the end of the way. By leaving one
empirical-real material to another, one could be lost within the chaotic collection of these materials. It is not
possible to create a theory by collecting empirical data. On the contrary, the counters of the theory should be
predetermined so that the empirical material could be correctly placed and connected, to wit, it is necessary to
have some early information about the data that are sought. It seems of course too paradoxical and
contradictious. It is not a coincidence that even in ancient ages Plato turned this dilemma into the subject of his
dialogues. In his dialogue Meno, a debate between Socrates and Meno takes place. Meno asks Socrates that
how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?. And Socrates points out the second
part of the problem: if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the
very subject about which he is to enquire (Plato 2008, 383-84). Here the problem towards the difference
between one form of knowledge and another, namely, the problem of the relativity of knowledge emerges.
Science cannot go from pure darkness to light. Science seizes a ray, which has come from somewhere, and by
following it, goes through the way of emerging into the daylight. This ray could not be a result of empirical
research; it comes from afarfrom the philosophical approach towards the world as well as from inspiration
and ardour; it is called intuition or Gods gift in different contexts.
The science can never replace the function of philosophy.
Any concrete scientific field and the special sciences reflect a certain perspective of the complex model of
the world and the structure of the majority of the certain kind of knot problems. And the philosophical
standpoint is the directing power for the whole view of the world. For the fundamental principles of a great
number of scientific principles have been put forward by philosophers. Werner Karl Heisenberg, for instance,
thinks that the atomistic philosophy of the Ancient Greeks should be methodological basis for the contemporary
atomic physics (Heisenberg 1989, 28).
The search for ultimate substance in ancient philosophy developed in a number of directions. We can
divide them into two main parts. It was started either from accepting a substance (water, air, fire, etc.) or a
number of substances, for example, the four elements (water, air, fire, and earth.), as prima materia, or the
starting point was not the matter, but numbers or the primarity of the geometrical form.
The concept of atomism itself is an extension of the first line. That is to say, the smallest material
beginning is accepted as a basis. What is important is that after passing several hundreds of years, the
development of science has eventually provided an opportunity to re-establish these philosophical ideas on the
basis of experimental and mathematico-theoretical material.
I mentioned above that each field of science researches the world not as a whole, but as local problems.
The attention is drawn to a perspective or a local part of the world and this part is seemed as if it is the
whole world. In fact, considering the principle of the identity of the whole and the part, each field of science
researches the whole world. However, we are in need of the service of philosophy for collecting the fields of
science. The development of science in the 20th century was so noteworthy that the atomistic model that had
been put forward by Leucippus and Democritus were driven into a corner and sloughed off by the mathematical
model of the world, which had been put forward by Pythagoras and Plato. The question here is that modern
physics cannot accept the atom or elementary particle as a material particle which has its concrete trajectory.

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

32

Now, we can speak of particle only with a certain probability; it is mostly easier to present it as a packet of
waves. And what is the most important here is that the only thing which remains stable is the mathematical
formulae. For this very reason, Heisenberg points out that the elementary particles for the modern quantum
theory are mathematical forms in the last instance, they are merely more complex mathematical forms in
comparison with the geometrical forms that were conceived in the age of Pythagoras and Plato (Heisenberg
1989, 36).
The most remarkable aspect of Heisenbergs point of view is that he considers that it is easier to explain
the achievements of modern physics in the context of the teaching of Heraclitus. As in case the notion of fire
is replaced by energy, then contemporary scientific ideas become compatible with that of Heraclitus
(Heisenberg 1989, 35).
The reason that made Heisenberg address the history of philosophy is that not being satisfied with the
local research in a certain field of physics, he tries to create the general scientific view of the whole world and
give the indivisible mathematical formula of the whole material (Vyaltsev 1971, 126).
It becomes clear that the creation of the general view is possible, without being based on a few centuries of
empirical and theoretical researches, considering the more universal notions, to wit, it is possible with
philosophical approaching. On the contrary, if theoretical ideas and philosophical models had not existed, the
empiric materials would probably have lost their ways. However, modern physics follows exactly the line
drawn by Plato and the Pythagoreans (Heisenberg 1989, 37).
We are now in the 21st century. If Einstein and Heisenberg had been alive, they would have probably
drawn their attention to the other ideas that were put forward in philosophical teachings, but at the same time,
scientific searches still could not approach them now. I mentioned above that Heisenberg differentiated between
the two philosophical directions on which the scientific-theoretical notion, which is connected with the
searching of the fundamental substance, is based. However, there is a third direction, too. It is re-emergence of
the principles, which were formerly put forward by Parmenides and Anaxagoras and can be bases not only for
materia but also for soul. Namely, Parmenides was guided by the idea of unity. At the same time, Anaxagoras
and the Neo-Platonists based their ideas on the idea of nous. I think the development of science in the 21st
century will continue with this direction. Michio Kaku, for example, writes in the preface of his book, Physics
of the Impossible:
So is it impossible to think we might one day be able to teleport ourselves from one place to another, or build a spaceship
that will one day take us light-years away to the stars? Normally such feats would be considered impossible by today's
physicists. Might they become possible within a few centuries? Or in ten thousand years, when our technology is more
advanced? Or in a million years? To put it another way, if we were to somehow encounter a civilization a million years
more advanced than ours, would their everyday technology appear to be magic to us? That, at its heart, is one of the
central questions running through this book; just because something is impossible today, will it remain impossible
centuries or millions of years into the future? (Kaku 2008, xii)

Kakus fantasy, in fact, seems entirely emaciated. The problem of invisibility has already become one of
the most real studies of Japanese researchers. For now, the concrete steps towards the screening of the object as
well as towards creating the effect of absolute transparency have been taken. Not only are the films on the
journey to stars as well as on the reading of thoughts and on the issues of telepathy being made but also
science itself is doing certain research studies in this field.

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

33

In a word, these quests of realizing the impossible are not only a finding of Kaku. It is possible to say that
all the great thinkers of all times have not been satisfied with what is possible; they have achieved what they
could, and have thrown a stone at what they could not have achieved. Some of them, in turn, have thought even
on its philosophy and have presented the unattainable and unfathomable as a form of reality. In his book, The
Unknowable, Semen Liudvigovich Frank, who is an outstanding researcher in the field of the philosophy of
science, tries to explain the attempts of mind to go beyond its possibilities as a regularity. Yet Frank accepts that
our cognition is sufficient to cognize existence only within a limited circle. Our standpoint will be clearer if
we take into consideration the fact that the cognitive ability of the human being is limited not only qualitatively
but also quantitatively (Frank 1990, 218-19).

5. The Order of Chaos and Internal Program

It is questionable that if the discrepancy between the upper and lower systems appears and if one of them
is subjected to the change, then how the other one will approach this change. If we take into consideration the
fact that in comparison with the lower system, the upper system, in one sense, plays the role of the environment,
then this question will sound as reminding of the known problem between the central element and the
environment. It reminds us of Avenarius doctrine of the principal coordination as well as of the theory of
contrary relationship. The century-old discussions towards comparing heredity with the upbringing as well as
towards comparing the gene with the environment will also be remembered here.
The environmental change influences its inhabitants (the central factor) by some means or other. However,
is it possible for the changing of an inhabitant to find its reflection in the environment? Or in other words, how
many inhabitants factors should be changed to consider the environment to be changed.
Or, another question arises here. Is it possible, in principle, for the factor and environment to be changed
without depending on one another?
For the teaching of Abu Turkhan, which begins directly from eternity and relates the reasons of all changes
to the system that has been planned and programmed on the universal scale, and which claims that nothing is
accidental and a more universal harmony appears on all scales, the order of things is a ring and a component of
the order of the universe. If, at any stage, a certain system seems to us as chaos, it means that the time of
planned intentional change has not yet reached. Therefore, all of them pre-existed in the program in advance.
Merely for the reason that we are not aware of and the fine structure of the system that we call chaos, we also
cannot see the embryos of the forthcoming regulated motions that are hidden here.
The emergence of an order in chaos and reaching the transition time to the regulated order could be
possible only for two reasons. The first reason could be taking it into account in the internal program. The
second reason, in turn, could be taking it into consideration in the program of the upper system, namely in the
external program, as the condition in the lower system is conditioned by the environmental condition. When
the environment changes, then its previous balance is disordered and it passes to a new condition. In this case,
chaos itself is seen as a balance. That is to say, the systemthe lower systemis established such that all
its internal elements share the equal rights, to wit, they become identical. This internal balance is possible just
because the external environment also does not show the initiative to disorder it and furthermore, it provides the
opportunity for this to happen.
The mentality that has been formed within nature study is so that additional energy is needed only for
establishing order. In the rest cases, the processes are intended to disorder any order and to the transition to

34

SYNERGETICS AS A POSITIVISTIC TRICK FOR PHILOSOPHY

dynamic balance. It is known in physics as the law of increasing entropy. The increase of entropy, in turn,
means the decrease of information. That is to say, further energy is needed for giving further information to the
system as well as for increasing the information that it has preserved.
Every substance and event, as well as the information that the system has preserved within itself, is first of
all either its primary program or its genetic formation. The information that has been added to the system as a
result of outside interference usually appears at the level of macrostructure. For example, a household good is
put only in a room which is filled with air. And the information about this room now will be connected to that
household good. Air acts here only as a background and those who want to describe the room do not refer to the
air here and its parameters. The molecular content absolutely is not of concern here. If the second or third thing
is put in the room, then their correlations to one another as well as the distance between them become the
subjects of a new macrostructure and so of new information. The problem of design appears here. However,
this design does not include the structure of these things, their internal structure, and the information that they
have preserved in themselves. In one sense they have been left aside from the structure. What is of concern here
is the structure of the model created by the designer. The internal structures of things are not taken into account,
that is, they are included in the backgroundchaos. The information here is, in fact, what we have included.
The information that has been preserved by these things and their separate elements is an unshown and secret
information.
As a general rule, the secret information that chaos has preserved in itself is not taken into consideration.
The fact that there is no such thing as absolute chaos is not taken into account as well. The elements, in
turn, are not wholly identical. Furthermore, the possibility of differing the elements, which have previously
acted as identical, from each other with the change of the external environment is sunk into oblivion.

6. Conclusion
To sum up, synergetics appears at the crossroads of the cognitive way which rises from the bottom and the
cognitive way that begins from the top. Though the fact that inorganic systems also preserve a program in
themselves and they are in fact potential organic beings has newly been accepted in nature study, it was
investigated in philosophy long ago.
In this respect, endeavors of evaluating synergetics like a new methodology and attempts of pushing
philosophy out of the agenda by transferring the methodological function of philosophy to synergetics bring to
mind the traditional characteristics of positivism and neo-positivism. However, in spite of the fact that science
develops continually, it can study the universe only by adapting it (the universe) to the finite models.

Works Cited
Frank, Semyon Lyudvigovich. [Incomprehensible]. oscow: Pravda, 1990.
Heisenberg, Werner Karl. . [Physics and Philosophy. The Part and the Whole]. oscow:
Nauka, 1989.
Kaku, Michio. Physics of Impossible. New York: Doubleday, 2008
Plato. [Dialogues]. Vol. I. Moscow: Eksmo, 2008.
Vyaltsev, ndrey. [The Mathematization of Physics] // . Moscow: Nauka,
1971.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 35-42

The Virtue of Open-Mindedness

Aladdin M. Yaqub
Lehigh University

Bayesianism is a theory of probabilistic reasoning that attempts to capture the logic of confirming and
disconfirming hypotheses. I first argue that Bayesianism reveals striking parallels between structures universally
held as paradigms of rational belief systems and structures typically considered clear examples of irrational belief
systems. I next explain that the crucial difference between these two types of belief systems is found not inside the
systems but outside them, in the dynamics, i.e., the attitudes, by which such systems are revised and maintained.
The principal attitude that distinguishes these belief systems is open-mindedness. I conclude that rationality and
irrationality are primarily properties of attitudes, and derivatively of persons (who exhibit such attitudes) and of
beliefs (that are maintained by such attitudes). It turns out then that, on the one hand, the Bayesian approach reveals
important truths about the nature of rationality and irrationality, but, on the other hand, it is inadequate as a theory
of rationality, since it leaves some aspects of rationality and irrationality unaccounted for. The Bayesian analysis on
the basis of which these conclusions are reached arises from a careful examination of the Duhem problem, which is
the problem of determining the disconfirmation impact on the plausibility of hypotheses collectively responsible for
a false observational consequence.
Keywords: irrationality, Bayesianism, the Duhem problem, open-mindedness, attitude, belief system

1. Introduction
My concern in this paper is with systems of beliefs that are generated, revised, or sustained without
violating correct rules of deductive or probabilistic inference, rather than with modes of irrationality in which
people misuse inferential rules, the frequency of this misuse in various human populations, and its implications
for forms of actual cognition.1 Although I think these issues are important, I am interested in the more
insidious forms of irrationalitythe ones that have the appearance of evidential sensitivity and the appeal of
inferential correctness.
At the heart of the matter is the Duhem problem (Duhem 1954), which was presented (e.g., by Imre
Lakatos) as a difficulty for unsophisticated falsificationism (Lakatos 1970). The problem concerns the
distribution of degrees of disconfirmation on statements that are collectively responsible for generating false
predictions. Even from this rough description, it can readily be seen that the structure of the problem is critical
to revising, and hence generating and sustaining, belief systems, for it is the problem of giving an account of

Acknowledgements: I benefited greatly from discussing the main points of this paper with Leora Weitzman and Sergio
Tenenbaum. Roslyn Weiss read a draft of this paper and suggested the deletion of a problematic section. I followed her suggestion.
A referee for this journal made many thoughtful and helpful comments. I am grateful to all those individuals for their suggestions,
comments, and critique.
Aladdin M. Yaqub, assoc. prof., Department of Philosophy, Lehigh University; main research fields: Logic, Truth Theory,
Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics, Islamic Philosophy.

36

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

the ways in which the degrees of plausibility of hypotheses, assumptions, and theories are supposed to be
influenced by negative evidence.
The paper is divided into three main parts. In the first part, I present widely discussed episodes in the
history of astronomy to serve as case studies. In the second part, I give a Bayesian analysis of these historical
episodes. In the third part, I discuss important philosophical implications of this analysis.

2. An Example
Consider as an illustration the following well-known events in the history of astronomy.
In 1845 astronomers John Adams and Urbain Leverrier predicted that the seventh planet, Uranus, was not
the last planet in our solar system, as was widely believed at the time, and independently described the
characteristics of a hypothetical planet. Their reasoning was as follows. If Uranus were the last planet, then
given Newtonian gravitational theory it would follow that the actual orbit of Uranus must be different from the
observed one; but if a planet, with appropriate characteristics, is assumed to exist beyond Uranus, the
theoretical results could be made to agree with the empirical data. Thus they deduced mathematically the exact
characteristics of a hypothetical planet whose gravitational force would account for the perturbations observed
in the motion of Uranus. In 1846 a planet with those characteristics was actually discovered: the eighth planet,
Neptune.
In 1859 Leverrier described the characteristics of another hypothetical planet, which he called Vulcan.
Following the same pattern of reasoning, Leverrier conjectured the existence of Vulcan in order to account for
the observed perturbations in the motion of Mercury. He predicted that Mercury was not the first planet, as was
believed. This time, however, no such planet was discovered. Observations further confirmed the previously
accepted view that there is no planet between Mercury and the Sun. Astronomers began to suspect that
Newtons theory itself could be responsible for the error.
Astronomers doubts were amplified when Einstein demonstrated in 1915 that the observed orbit of
Mercury could be deduced mathematically from his general theory of relativity together with the assumption
that Mercury was the first planet. Einstein concluded that the original disagreement between the theoretical and
empirical orbits of Mercury was not due to perturbations produced by an undiscovered planet but to
inadequacies in Newtons gravitational theory itself. Einsteins mathematical solution also served to confirm his
general theory of relativity and the auxiliary assumption that Mercury was the first planet.
The important thing to note here is the impact that auxiliary assumptions and other contextual elements
have on the process and outcome of confirmation. In each of these historical episodes, Newtons theory
together with an auxiliary assumption (Uranus is the last planet in 1845, and Mercury is the first planet in
1859 and 1915) entailed an empirical claim that was found to be false. In 1845 and 1859 when Newtons theory
enjoyed wide currency and there were promising alternatives to those auxiliary assumptions, the
disconfirmation generated by the false predication was largely applied to the auxiliary assumptions rather than
to the theory itself. In 1915, however, the context was different. Newtonian gravitational theory was facing a
serious challenge from a new competitor, the general theory of relativity. No planet inside the orbit of Mercury
had been discovered; hence the assumption that Mercury was the first planet was left without any promising
alternative. Most important, when the new theory was conjoined with the old assumption, the theoretically
deduced results coincided with observed data about the motion of Mercury. This time the disconfirmation effect
of the original false prediction was for the most part applied to Newtons theory itself.

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

37

3. Bayesian Analysis
Bayesianism is motivated by the belief that the process of confirmation (and disconfirmation) is essentially
probabilistic. It is founded mainly on two principles.2 The first asserts that the notion of probability involved in
this process is correctly characterized as a subjective (epistemic) notion. In more precise terms, a sentence of
the form The probability of h is q (symbolically, Pr(h) = q) is relativized to an agent A and is interpreted as
asserting that q measures the degree of As belief in h (i.e., the degree to which A is confident that h is true)
given As background information and assuming that As belief revision is rational. The second principle asserts,
roughly, that if Pr(h) is As degree of belief in h when e is unknown to A, then the conditional probability Pr(h|e)
should be As degree of belief in h once e becomes known to A.
Bayess theorem occupies a central place in the theory (hence the name Bayesianism). According to this
theorem, the probability, Pr(h|e), of the hypothesis h in light of the evidence e (the posterior probability of h
relative to e) is a function of three terms: the probability, Pr(h), of the hypothesis h without presupposing e (the
prior probability of h relative to e), the probability, Pr(e), of e without presupposing h, and the probability,
Pr(e|h), of e assuming that h is true. Here is the mathematical statement of the theorem:

Pr(h | e) =

Pr(e | h) Pr(h)
, where Pr(e) and Pr(h) > 0
Pr(e)

An instance of relative confirmation occurs when Pr(h|e) > Pr(h), of relative disconfirmation when Pr(h|e)
< Pr(h), and of neutrality when Pr(h|e) = Pr(h). Degrees of confirmation and disconfirmation can be represented
by various measures. The two most frequently employed are the relative difference Pr(h|e)Pr(h) and the
relative ratio Pr(h|e)/Pr(h).
Jon Dorling was the first to give a Bayesian analysis of an example of the Duhem problem (Dorling
1979).3 Howson and Urbach presented a similar analysis of another example of the problem (Howson and
Urbach 1993, 131-42).4 My Bayesian analysis of the Duhem problem is deeply indebted to these works. Its
contribution, however, consists in the generality of the conclusions and the philosophical implications.

3.1. Computing Pr(h|e) and Pr(k|e)

In order to present a Bayesian analysis of the Duhem problem, we need to give a formal approximation of
this problem. Let h and k be two mutually consistent statements. Usually, one is considered a theory and the
other an auxiliary assumption. This distinction, however, does not enter into our analysis. Let o and e be two
observational statements that are mutually inconsistent, i.e., o e , or equivalently, e o , where
stands for entailment and the over-bar represents negation. o is a consequence neither of h alone nor of k alone
but of their conjunction; symbolically, h
o, k
o, and hk o, where hk is an abbreviation of h & k. e
is observed to be true and hence o is found to be false, which implies that the conjunction hk is refuted by e.
The important question is now this: How do these facts collectively influence the plausibility of each of the two
statements h and k? Is this a case of pure disconfirmation? If so, how should this disconfirmation be
distributed between h and k? If this is a case of mixed confirmation and disconfirmation, which statement is
to be confirmed and which is to be disconfirmed, to what degree, and under what conditions?
Suppose that an agent A knows (or at least, accepts as true) all of the assumptions listed above. Suppose
further that A believes that h and k are independent of each other. These suppositions translate into the
following probability relations:5

38

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

(1) Pr(hk|e) = 0 (hk is refuted by e)
(2) Pr(e|hk) = 0 (hk entails o, which is inconsistent with e)
(3) Pr(h|k) = Pr(h) (h and k are independent of each other)
(4) Pr(k|h) = Pr(k) (h and k are independent of each other)
(5) (3) and (4) also hold for all possible combinations of h, k,

h , and k .

Our goal is to compute Pr(h|e) and Pr(k|e). Bayess theorem gives us the following two equations:
(6) Pr(h | e) = Pr(e | h) Pr(h)
Pr(e)

(7) Pr(k | e) = Pr(e | k) Pr(k)

Pr(e)
Suppose that Pr(h) and Pr(k) are known (to A). So in order to compute Pr(h|e) and Pr(k|e) we need only
compute Pr(e|h), Pr(e|k), and Pr(e). First we use the principle of total probability to expand Pr(e), Pr(e|h), and
Pr(e| h ).
(8) Pr(e) = Pr(e | h) Pr(h) + Pr(e | h ) Pr(h )
(9) Pr(e | h) = Pr(e | kh) Pr(k | h) + Pr(e | k h) Pr(k | h)6
(10) Pr(e | h ) = Pr(e | kh ) Pr(k | h ) + Pr(e | k h ) Pr(k | h )7
But Pr(k|h) = Pr(k) (4), Pr( k |h) = Pr( k ) (5), Pr(k| h ) = Pr(k) (5), Pr( k | h ) = Pr( k ) (5), and Pr(e|kh) = 0
(2). Hence, (9) and (10) can be simplified as follows:

Pr(e | h) = Pr(e | k h) Pr(k )

(12) Pr(e | h ) = Pr(e | kh ) Pr(k) + Pr(e | k h ) Pr(k )

(11)

Substituting (11) and (12) in (8), we obtain (13).

(13)

Pr(e) = Pr(e | k h) Pr(k ) Pr(h) + Pr(e | kh ) Pr(k) Pr(h ) + Pr(e | k h ) Pr(k ) Pr(h )

The equation below is obtained by substituting (11) and (13) in (6).

(14) Pr(h | e) =

Pr(e | k h) Pr(k ) Pr(h)

Pr(e | k h) Pr(k ) Pr(h) + Pr(e | kh ) Pr(k) Pr(h ) + Pr(e | k h ) Pr(k ) Pr(h )

Dividing the numerator and denominator of (14) by the factor Pr(e | k h)Pr(k )Pr(h) results in the
following formula:
(15) Pr(h | e) =

1
Pr(e | kh ) Pr(k) Pr(h ) Pr(e | k h ) Pr(h )
+
1+
Pr(e | k h) Pr(k ) Pr(h) Pr(e | k h) Pr(h)

Similar analysis produces a parallel expansion for Pr(k|e) (we interchange h and k, and
(16) Pr(k | e) =

and

k ).

1
Pr(e | hk ) Pr(h) Pr(k ) Pr(e | h k ) Pr(k )
+
1+
Pr(e | h k) Pr(h ) Pr(k) Pr(e | h k) Pr(k)

Formulas (15) and (16) show that the posterior probabilities of h and k relative to e depend on the prior

39

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

probabilities of h and k as well as on the likelihoods Pr(e | hk ), Pr(e | kh ), and Pr(e | h k ). A closer look at
these formulas reveals that a hypothesis runs less risk of disconfirmation if one or both of these conditions
obtain. First, the credibility of the hypothesis is initially higher than that of the other assumption. Second, e is
more likely to be true when the hypothesis is true and the other assumption is false than when the hypothesis is
false.
Now consider the two situations below, in each of which the agent A believes that h, k, o, and e satisfy the
conditions specified in Section 3.1 above.

3.2. First Application of the Formulas (15) and (16)

A believes that h and k are more likely to be true than not, and that h has a higher chance of being true than
k does, say Pr(h) = 0.8 and Pr(k) = 0.7. A knows, however, that there is a well-developed alternative, l, to k such
that l and k are mutually inconsistent, and e is not a consequence of l alone but of the conjunction of l and h. (A
might think that l has a very small chance of being true.) Furthermore, A does not believe that h has any viable
alternative. Thus A believes that e has a much better chance of being true, say 3 times better, when h is true and
k is false than when h is false, whether k is true or not. In fact, A is indifferent between e given

hk

and e

given h k ; hence let Pr(e| h k ) = Pr(e| h k ) = q. Given these assumptions, we can measure, using the formulas
(15) and (16), As confidence in h and k after e has become known to A.

Pr(h | e) =

1
0.78
q 0.7 0.2
q 0.2
1+
+
3q 0.3 0.8 3q 0.8

Pr(k | e) =

1
0.15
3q 0.8 0.3 q 0.3
1+
+
q 0.2 0.7 q 0.7

For A, therefore, almost all of the disconfirmation effect is passed to k, and hs credibility remains almost
intact.

3.3. Second Application of the Formulas (15) and (16)

If A were to believe that e is considerably more likely to be true, say 7 times more, when
to be true than when either

hk

or

hk

hk

is assumed

is assumed to be true, and that e is equally likely to be true whether

hk

or h k is assumed to be true, then As confidence in h, once e is known, would increase to (approximately)

0.89, and in k would decrease to (approximately) 0.075.

Pr(h | e) =

1
0.89
q 0.7 0.2
q 0.2
1+
+
7q 0.3 0.8 7q 0.8

Pr(k | e) =

1
0.075
7q 0.8 0.3 q 0.3
1+
+
q 0.2 0.7 q 0.7

Such a situation is, therefore, an occasion of mixed confirmation and disconfirmation. These striking
results demonstrate the great influence that contextual factors can have on the outcome of the process of

40

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

confirmation (and disconfirmation).

3.4. Interpreting the Results

The general situation discussed in 3.2 (or perhaps in 3.3) fits the Neptune episode of 1845, described in
Section 2, and the Vulcan episode of 1859 (and perhaps for a few years after that), also described in Section 2.
The situation changes, however, when, in the ensuing years but before 1915, Einsteins general theory of
relativity was not yet fully developed but the Vulcan assumption was no longer seen as a viable alternative to
the assumption that Mercury was the first planet. The new situation can be analyzed as follows. For A (now
representing a group of astronomers), Pr(e | hk ) is not much higher than Pr(e | h k) and Pr(e | h k ) ;
perhaps it is slightly higher, say 1.1 times more. In this case, Pr(h | e) 0.57 (down from 0.8) and

Pr(k | e) 0.30

(down from 0.7).

Pr(h | e) =

1
0.57
q 0.2
q 0.7 0.2
+
1+
1.1q 0.3 0.8 1.1q 0.8

Pr(k | e) =

1
0.30
1.1q 0.8 0.3 q 0.3
1+
+
q 0.2 0.7
q 0.7

Both hypotheses have suffered disconfirmation, and both are in trouble. In 1915, however, when Einsteins
general theory of relativity was a well developed alternative to Newtons gravitational theory, and Einstein
demonstrated that e (the orbit of Mercury is such-and-such) could be deduced from his theory without
invoking any Vulcan assumption, Newtons theory received a significant disconfirmation, while the auxiliary
assumption (Mercury is the first planet) was highly confirmed. The analysis in this case is similar to 3.3.8

4. Philosophical Implications
The analyses in Sections 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 have several important philosophical implications that go
beyond what has been discussed thus far. Perhaps the most immediate implication concerns the manner in
which a dogmatic belief, which in principle can be tested and disconfirmed, is shielded from disconfirmation. It
is widely thought that the principal irrational procedure responsible for protecting a belief from evidence that
might refute it is the constant development of alternatives (such as l) to certain auxiliary assumptions (such as k)
to prevent the main hypothesis h from experiencing any significant degree of disconfirmation. According to the
analysis in 3.2 and 3.3, this is an effective procedure. Furthermore, the agents method of updating belief
appears quite rational once those alternatives are constructed. The agents dogmatic commitment to h comes to
light in the constant constructing of alternative auxiliary assumptions.
I suggest, however, that this diagnosis is not quite right. All entrenched scientific theories appear to be so
guardedan observation that made Lakatos describe the practice (with approval) as brilliant scientists
conspiring to pack everything they can into their favorite research program with a sacred hard core
(Lakatos 1970, 187). A brief survey of the history of any important scientific theory is sufficient for
establishing this observation. Yet the dogmatism is not rightly located in the construction of alternative
auxiliary assumptions but in the unwillingness to develop or even consider alternatives to the core hypothesis
(the one to be protected). As our analyses show, taking into consideration an alternative hypothesis can

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

41

dramatically alter the distribution of degrees of disconfirmation and confirmation.

It is possible to have the appearance of being reasonable and the power of being persuasive by following
the rules of inference and answering the calls of evidence, but nevertheless avoid ones treasured dogma being
refuted by simply ignoring alternative explanations. In doing so, however, one falls into irrationality. Compare
this to occasions in which rationality triumphs, for instance, when a radical theory like Einsteins general theory
of relativity, which challenged many received world views, including the then universally accepted view that
physical space is Euclidean, was seriously entertained by scientific communities, which exerted intense
theoretical and empirical efforts in testing its central hypotheses.
Another implication of this analysis is that the crucial difference between structures universally held as
paradigms of rational belief systems and structures typically considered clear examples of irrational belief
systems is found not inside the systems but outside themin the dynamics, i.e., the attitudes, by which such
systems are revised and maintained. Thus I suggest that rationality and irrationality are primarily properties of
attitudes, and derivatively of persons who exhibit such attitudes and of beliefs that are revised or maintained by
such attitudes.
If this is true, two consequences follow. First, rationality, since it is a property of attitude, is best thought
of as a virtue. This locates our thesis within virtue epistemology. The virtue of rationality is primarily
open-mindedness 9 the willingness to consider alternatives to ones favored hypotheses. The second
consequence is that this analysis tells us that, on the one hand, the Bayesian approach reveals important truths
about the nature of rationality and irrationality, but that, on the other hand, it is inadequate as a theory of
rationality, since it cannot account for other truths.
As we have seen, scientists tend to devise, under the impact of negative evidence, alternatives to auxiliary
assumptions, rather than challenge the correctness of the core theory. I do not think, however, that this tendency
is driven by a dogmatic attachment to the core theory, such as irrational agents have, for instance, to their
favorite conspiracy theories. I think that in the case of scientists the tendency is driven by how much easier it is
to formulate alternatives to auxiliary assumptions than to produce major theories with wide explanatory range.
Compare the labor, creativity, and genius that went into the making of the general theory of relativity with the
relative ease of constructing the alternative Neptune hypothesis. Describing this tendency as a conspiracy of
scientists to protect a sacred core theory misses the point in my view. Scientists are usually open to any
promising alternative, be it to an auxiliary assumption or to a central hypothesis. It is simply much more
difficult to come up with alternatives to major explanatory theories than to auxiliary assumptions. An
alternative theory, to start with, has to regenerate all the explanatory and predictive success of the older theory
as well as to account for phenomena that the older theory could not accommodate.10 This is a tall order. So I
suggest that there is nothing resembling what motivates irrational conspiracy theorists here. Irrational agents,
unlike scientists, are not open to any alternatives to their pet theories. They are not sufficiently open-minded,
and that is their vice.

Notes
1. The important literature dealing with irrationality as flawed reasoning includes: Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972;
Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky, 1982; Johnson-Laird 1983; Kybrg 1983; Stein 1996.
2. There are other principles as well. The Principal Principle, for example, extends the scope of the theory to cover certain

42

THE VIRTUE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS

kinds of statistical inference.

3. A clear and concise discussion of Dorlings work is found in Earman, 1992, 83-85.
4. It is worth noting that Howson and Urbach included (in both editions, 1989 and 1993) a reference to a 1982 unpublished
work by Dorling titled Further Illustrations of the Bayesian Solution of Duhems Problem.
5. It is clear that not all of these conditions are independent of each other, but I list them for the sake of simplicity.
6. Here is a derivation of this formula:

Pr(eh) Pr(eh (k k )) Pr(ehk) Pr(ehk )

=
=
+
Pr(h)
Pr(h)
Pr(h)
Pr(h)
Pr(ekh) Pr(kh) Pr(ek h) Pr(k h)
=
+
Pr(kh) Pr(h) Pr(k h) Pr(h)
= Pr(e | kh) Pr(k | h) + Pr(e | k h) Pr(k | h)
Pr(e | h) =

7. This formula has a derivation similar to (9) (see note 6).

8. The analyses given in Section 3.4 presuppose some adequate solution to the Problem of Old Evidence. The problem was
originally posed by Clark Glymour in Theory and Evidence (1980, 85-93). Together with the Problem of the Prior, the Problem of
Old Evidence has proven to be a serious obstacle to Bayesian confirmation theory. The problem is this: assume that e is old
evidence, that is, at some previous time t it was discovered that e was true. Let h be a hypothesis that is proposed at a later time t*,
and which entails e. Since, at t*, Pr(e) = 1 (because e is known to be true) and Pr(e|h) = 1 (because h entails e), the posterior
probability of h relative to e, Pr(h|e), is identical with the prior probability of h relative to e, Pr(h). Thus, according to this
reasoning, old evidence has no confirmation impact on any hypothesis that entails it. But this flies in the face of scientific practice.
For instance, when the general theory of relativity predicted an orbit for Mercury that agreed with the actually observed orbit, the
credibility of the theory increased. Solutions have been proposed to this problem. Some of them were discussed by Glymour
himself. One approach is to presuppose a counterfactual situation at time t* in which the probability of e is set at the measure it
had before it became known to be true. As with every other approach to the Problem of Old Evidence, there are well known
problems with this approach. I cannot within the scope of this paper propose and defend a solution to this problem. I need only
presuppose that at least one of the proposed solutions to this problem is sufficiently adequate for the analyses of this section to be
feasible.
9. This is not the only component of rationality, but it is the principal one. Rationality also involves, for instance, correct
inferential and revision procedures.
10. My claim is not that any new theory is expected to account for all the old evidence, but that if a theory T* is proposed as
an alternative to a theory T, then T* is expected to accommodate all the old evidence that was explained by T.

Works Cited
Dorling, Jon. Bayesian Personalism, the Methodology of Research Programmes, and Duhems Problem. Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science 10 (1979): 177-87.
Duhem, Pierre. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. 1905. Trans. Philip Wiener. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1954.
Earman, John. Bayes or Bust: A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1992.
Glymour, Clark. Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.
Howson, Colon, and Peter Urbach. Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. 2nd ed. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
Johnson-Laird, Philp. Mental Models: Towards a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference, and Consciousness. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard UP, 1983.
Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1982.
Kybrg, Henry E. Rational Belief. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6.1 (1983): 231-73.
Lakatos, Imre. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.
Ed. Lakatos and Alan Musgrave. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970.
Stein, Edward. Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.
Wason, Peter, and Philip Johnson-Laird. The Psychology of Reasoning: Structure in Content. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 43-50

Arithmetical Proof and Open Sentences

Neil Thompson
If the concept of proof (including arithmetic proof) is syntactically restricted to closed sentences (or their Gdel
numbers), then the standard accounts of Gdels Incompleteness Theorems (and Lbs Theorem) are blocked. In
these standard accounts (Gdels own paper and the exposition in Boolos Computability and Logic are treated as
exemplars), it is assumed that certain formulas (notably so called Gdel sentences) containing the Gdel number
of an open sentence and an arithmetic proof predicate are closed sentences. Ordinary usage of the term provable
(and indeed unprovable) favors their restriction to closed sentences which unlike so-called open sentences can be
true or false. In this paper the restricted form of provability is called strong provability or unprovability. If this
concept of proof is adopted, then there is no obvious alternative path to establishing those theorems.
Keywords: Gdel numbers, arithmetical proof, Gdels Incompleteness Theorems, Lbs Theorem

1. Introduction
What formulas ought to be regarded as capable of being provable or unprovable? And as far as arithmetic
proof is concerned, what Gdel numbers ought to be regarded as arithmetically provable or unprovable? By a
formula being capable of being provable is meant that if that formula is combined with a provability
predicate, a valid sentence, syntactically speaking, results.
If the logical grammar of sentences containing proof predicates is restricted to closed sentences, then the
standard accounts of certain limitative (Boolos 2007, 220) theorems such as Gdels Incompleteness
Theorems and Lbs Theorem are blocked.1 By contrast, formulas which are open sentences containing free
variables are then treated as neither provable nor unprovable, because a free variable cannot be made the
subject of a predicate so as to produce a formula which is true or false.
As far as arithmetical proof is concerned, Gdel numbers of open sentences have been hitherto looked
upon as capable of proof, it has been assumed that the mating of an arithmetic proof predicate and the Gdel
number of an open sentence is a closed sentence, because all Gdel numbers can be treated as distinct objects
and not as merely representatives of open sentences. If an open sentence is not susceptible to ordinary proof, its
isomorphic counterpart, its Gdel number, cannot be intelligibly the subject of an arithmetic proof predicate
either. This issue raises the concept of diagonalization in the following context: Does the diagonalization of a
formula containing a proof predicate and a free variable with that formulas Gdel number result in a closed
sentence? For the purposes of this paper, Boolos Computability and Logic is treated as offering a standard
account of the limitative theorems along with Gdels original paper. The traditional idea of a proof (the
original exemplars of which were to be found in works like Euclids Elements) is not controversial. From
grounded assumptions (archetypically axioms but other sentences such as definitions and descriptions that
might equally qualify), the use of the rules of inference allows sequences of valid inferences; the final part of
Neil Thompson, BA, LLM; main research fields: Logic, the Foundations of Mathematics.

44

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

the final sentence of such a sequence is thus said to be proved.

The current edition of Boolos uses a more general idea of a proof, but for current purposes, establishes
proof on a basis that reflects these traditional ideas:
... a formal deduction is some kind of finite array of symbols, and there are definite, explicit rules for determining whether
a given finite array symbols is or is not a formal deduction. The notion of deduction is syntactic in the sense that these
rules mention the internal structure of formulas, but do not mention interpretations. In the end, though, the condition that
there exists a deduction of D from turns out to be equivalent to the condition that every interpretation making all
sentences in true makes the sentence D true which was the original semantic definition of consequence. (Boolos
2007, 166)

Such an approach is surely suggestive of the notion that deductions involve relationships between
sentences and moreover sentences which are formulas capable of being regarded as true or false.
Gdels arithmetization of proof relies on establishing a correlation between numbers and syntactic objects
(presumably in the metalanguage) to provide a heuristic for translating how we can reason about syntactic
objects by reasoning about numbers. Such a heuristic thus requires that an isomorphism be established between
the Gdelian and the conventional proof system so that provability statements about sentences are accurately
reflected in arithmetical proof statements about certain numbers. As Gdel wrote:
... the procedure described above [of gdel numbering] yields an isomorphic image of the system PM in the domain of
arithmetic and all metamathematical arguments can just as well be carried out in this isomorphic image. This is what we
do below when we sketch the proof; that is by formula, proposition, variable, and so on, we must always understand
the corresponding objects of the isomorphic image. (Gdel 1931, 147, Gdels emphasis)

As far as Gdels key sentence 17 Gen r is concerned, the expression emerges on close scrutiny to be a
purported sentence about the arithmetical provability of the Gdel number of an open sentence even if Gdel
(Gdel 1931, 151) saw it as making a statement about its own unprovability in an important sense.
Some open sentences might be instrumental in proofs if not provable themselves; yet it is implausible that
the sort of open sentences whose Gdel numbers are implicated in Gdel sentences could be regarded as
provable under any circumstances. No meaning as a statement could be ascribed to the putative sentence x is
unprovable is unprovable any more than to The Gdel number of x is unprovable is not arithmetically
provable. This paper treats open sentences (formulas containing free variables as objects of predicatesopen
predicate formulas as they are generally called here2) as non-sentences in the full (closed) sense of the term
sentence. Such non-sentential formulas are thus neither true nor false. This is the standard view in the
literature. As Quine explained:
Expressions such as x contributes ... which are like statements except for containing x or y without a quantifier, are
all called open sentences. They are fragmentary clauses, neither true nor false as they stand, and of interest only as
potential parts of closed sentences.... Closed sentences are what we have been calling statements; it is just these that have
truth values.... Open sentences are neither true nor false, but they may, like terms, be said to be true of and false of various
objects. The open sentence x is a book may like the term book itself be said to be true of each book and false of
everything else; and ... x = x ... (is) true of everything. In general, to say that an open sentence is true of a given object is
that an open sentence becomes a true statement when x is reinterpreted as a name of that object. (1974, 121)

Free variables are rather like pronouns in ordinary speech that have not been assigned a designated person
or object. Such open sentences (which are indeed well formed formulas) might therefore not be treated as
sentences capable of proof. When the free variable in such an expression is assigned a specific identity or that

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

45

variable is bound, the expression acquires a specific meaning as a sentence and is true or false. Until that point
is reached, it is not possible to ascertain precisely what is asserted and whether one can regard it as capable of
being either true or false.
Certain open sentences (open predicate formulas) containing free variables may pattern the truth of
closed sentences conforming to a schema. And a proof may involve making logical inferences from open
sentences where certain such expressions are used as a kind of paradigm of sentences in general or as a
statement form or schema. Such open sentences which are universally true (or false) of every individual may
for that reason be treated in some practical fashion as sentences, because they appear to have a truth value when
all such sentences in that format are logically true.
Schematic open sentences of this type thus provide a template or matrix form for closed sentences when
the names of individuals are substituted for the free variables or the sentences are quantified. Such schematic
open predicate formulas might appear in proof sequences or deductions but may not be the subject of proof
predicates.
Some inchoate connection with implicit quantification is obvious. It is attractive to think that the open
sentence x = x is true, because it is true of all instances of x. Universal generalization indeed allows
inferences from certain expressions containing free variables to sentences about individuals. But none of this
justifies treating open sentences as capable of proof, and does not mandate us to treat formulas other than
closed sentences as capable of proof (or disproof). So in so far as the rules of inference allow, inferences from
such schematic formulas to closed sentences may form steps, but not be the final ponentials or deductions, in
proof sequences.
Whatever might be urged of the provability of schematic formulas such as x = x and principles of
inference such as universal generalization, such a prospect is certainly not present with g sentencesif they can
indeed be credibly called sentences. They are certainly not universally schematic. Expressions along the lines
of x is unprovable of the kind involved in Gdels analysis lack both a specific content and a universal or
schematic validity, so they certainly cannot be regarded as being true or false and cannot intelligibly be the
product of inferences. Open sentences (or their proxies) are not syntactically illegitimate as formulas, they
may be deployed in proofs but not so to constitute the ultimate object or ponential of a proof sequence.
Deployed as sentences as the object of a provability predicate, they ought to be regarded, in formational terms,
as solecisms. We are not compelled to embrace a concept of proof that allows them to be provable.
Yet definition at some level is a matter of volition, and deciding how any concept of provable might be
approached is a matter of choice in constructing a logical system. The only difficulty in adopting any formal
definition of provable is whether it meets the practical usages of the term as it has been traditionally used. So
what are the advantages of allowing open sentences or their numerical proxies to be capable of proof? It is
suggested that there is no cogent case for adopting such a notion of proof apart from their use in establishing
the so-called limitative theorems.

2. The Logical Syntax of Proof Predicates

Gdel (1931, 171 [formulas]) and Boolos (1989, 183 [sentences])3 take apparently divergent views about
what objects are the subject of proof although the reasons for any divergence never clearly emerges. Boolos
approach seems preferable, because it is difficult to see how for all formulas, for example, including single
brackets, could be treated as being the subject of proof although it does not clear up whether open predicate

46

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

formulas can be subject to proof. It is suggested that in terms of logical syntax, only closed sentences (or their
Gdel numbers) ought to be capable of treatment as the ultimate ponential of a proof sequence and so as
provable or unprovable.
Three approaches to proof and (respectively) arithmetic proof might be suggested:
(1) All formulas are subject to proof and all Gdel numbers of all formulas are subject to arithmetic proof
(Gdel).
(2) Only sentential formulas (open and closed) are subject to proof and only the Gdel numbers of
sentential formulas (open and closed) are subject to arithmetic proof (Boolos).
(3) Only closed sentences are subject to proof and only the numbers of closed sentences are subject to
arithmetic proof. (The preferred approach to proof is as urged in this paperstrong provability and
unprovability.)

3. Assigning a Meaning to Unprovable: Strong Unprovability

These divergent approaches to provable produce some problems for the meaning and scope of
unprovable that can be expected to be the predicate constituted by the negation of provable. So should the
predicate unprovable form closed sentences with any object or any formula or only closed sentences?
The following appear to be possible approaches to unprovable or arithmetically unprovable:
(1) Valid sentences are formed when any object or at least any formula (or its corresponding Gdel
number) is combined with the predicate unprovable or the corresponding arithmetic predicate (Gdel).
(2) Valid sentences are formed when any closed or open sentence (or the corresponding Gdel number) is
combined with the predicate unprovable or the corresponding arithmetic predicate (Boolos).
(3) Valid sentences are only formed when a closed sentence (or its corresponding Gdel number) is
combined with the predicate unprovable or its corresponding arithmetical predicate.
The last approach can be termed strong unprovability. Under strong unprovability, all other sentential
formulas containing an unprovability predicate (including arithmetic unprovability predicates), which do not
take closed sentences or their indexical numbers as objects, are thus syntactically invalid and such formulas are
neither true nor false. The term proof apt is used to describe an open sentence or Gdel number of an open
sentence that validly forms a sentence with a provability predicate.
If strong unprovability is rejected, to state that an open sentence or an open predicate formula, say Ox
(where x is a free variable), is unprovable amounts to this: there is no proof sequence of sentences such
that the ultimate ponential of that proof sequence is Ox. Call that final (compound) sentence N Ox
where N is a sentence. But this final conditional sentence cannot itself be a sentence unless the ponential
Ox is also a sentence.
If it is not, how can it be intelligibly expressed that there is no such proof sequence? But that is not the
same as saying that open sentences are unprovable. More accurately, if strong unprovability is adopted, it might
be said that x is not proof-apt in that it is not part of the domain of objects which can be made the subject of a
provability predicate in syntactical terms.
It might be thought that even if we accept strong provability, we are not compelled to accept strong
unprovability; our approach to unprovability is as a matter of definition involving unconstrained volition or
choice. But if we do not adopt strong unprovability, we risk weakening the utility of any concept of
unprovability.

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

47

By adopting strong provability (and unprovability), a number of central tenets of modern logic are
unobtainable by existing accounts even if some other path to their proof remains a possibility. These
include Gdels undecidability theorem, Gdels introductory sketch, and the diagonal lemma; and Lbs
Theorem.

4. Gdels Undecidability Theorem

This theorem depends on Gdels 17 Gen r being a sentence. It is equivalent to Sb(rZ(n)17). It is clear that
this formula is derived from a substitution in a formula containing an arithmetic unprovability predicate (p viz.
-17 Gen q) of the free variable by the Gdel number of that formula (Z(p)) which itself contains a free variable.
Under the strong arithmetic unprovability concept, the resulting formula is not a well-formed sentence.

5. Gdels Introductory Sketch

The same criticism applies to [R(q);q] (or its descriptive correlate qK4 in Gdels introductory
sketch) where q is the indexical number of a class sign (an open predicate formula containing a free variable).
The sentence qK is derived by substituting for a free variable, the indexical number of a class sign. Such
a substitution does not create a syntactically correct sentence if the indexical number is one of a non-(closed)
sentence if strong unprovability is adopted; [R(q);q] is thus not a sentence.

6. The Diagonal Lemma

Another result that is affected by strong unprovability is the diagonal lemma.5 The key concept is the
diagonalization of an expression and especially the diagonalization of a provability or unprovability predicate.
Boolos account is: if A is an expression with Gdel number n,
diagonalization of A is the expression x(x =

A is defined to be the expression n, and the

A & A) where A is a formula in the language of arithmetic

that contains just the free variable x. Boolos claims that the diagonalization of A will be a sentence about a
number, as does Smullyan (Smullyan 1992, 6). But where A contains a provability predicate and if the relevant
Gdel number is the Gdel number of an open sentence, then the resulting formula is not a sentence if strong
unprovability is adopted. The Boolos proof (Boolos 2007, 221) of the diagonal lemma depends on
diagonalization producing a sentence in every case including those involving provability predicates. So if
strong provability/unprovability is adopted, sentences containing provability predicates constitute exceptions to
a measure of generality of the diagonal lemma. And if the diagonal lemma is not valid for provability predicates,
Boolos and Smullyans accounts of Gdels incompleteness theorem results cannot be obtained any more than
Gdels own.
There is no proof gap occasioned here because such formulas do not have truth values, and hence there
is no breach of the Law of the Excluded Middle. If provability predicates only form sentences with proof-apt
syntactic objects (viz., closed sentences), then it is possible to say that the formula ( (say with Gdel number 1)
is not proof-apt and its mating with a provability predicate is formally incorrect, but not that it is provable or
unprovable.

7. Boolos Proof That There Is No Definable Set of Gdel Numbers of the Theorems of Any
Consistent Extension of the Numerical Theory Q
Boolos proof of the indefinability of the set of the Gdel numbers of the theorems is not an account of the

48

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

unprovability of sentences or their Gdel numbers but of the membership criterion (y) of a putative set of
numbers of sentences in T.
The predicate defines the set referred to. According to the diagonal lemma there is a sentence G such
that:

( G )

This, of course, assumes that G is a legitimate sentence of T which is derived from an open predicate
formula with the predicate . This formula has a Gdel number and it is this number which is used to

derive G. The same objection applies to G here as to any other Gdel-style sentences containing a
provability predicate: if the relevant Gdel number is not proof-apt, the diagonalization result is not a valid
sentence.
So what exactly is meant by G and G ? In this context,Boolos working out of the diagonal lemma
says it is the expression x (x = n & y (A(x,y) & C(y))) and n is F . In this context, F is the
TG

expression y (A(x,y) & C(y)); F is a open predicate formula so F is the Gdel number of a
non-sentence. Hence G is the diagonalization of F and its Gdel number is the number of an open
predicate formula. Another casualty of the adoption of strong unprovability is Tarskis Theorem that
follows immediately from the proof that there is no definable set of the Gdel numbers of the theorems of
any consistent extension of the numerical theory Q.

8. Lbs Theorem
Lbs Theorem (which is acknowledged to be a corollary of Gdels) is also undermined by the
illegitimacy of its own key sentence by a similar analysis. The Lb sentence is also of a similarly
indeterminate content although Lbs Theorem requires no contradiction to establish its extraordinary
result.
Lbs Theorem states that if B(y) is a provability predicate for a system, then for any sentence A:
If B(A) A , then
A.
Lbs Theorem is regarded both as a corollary of, and interdependent with, Gdels Theorem, though
producing a considerably more surprising and counter-intuitive result. Lbs sentence does not appear to
threaten systemic consistency but it does threaten to contaminate the systemic concept of proof. The key
sentence to be constructed is C Prov C As Boolos points out (2007, 225),6 the Lb result is strongly
reminiscent of being able to prove that Santa Claus exists from merely accepting that S (If S is true, Santa
exists.) is a sentence. A sentential expression C defined by means of C Prov ( C )is circularly
defined. If it is constructed along the same lines as [R(q); q] or 17 Gen r, the same syntactical problem of
using the Gdel number of an open predicate formula as the subject of a provability predicate to produce a
valid sentence arises.
Boolos version (2007, 235-37) of Lbs Theorem starts with an application of the diagonal lemma to
an open predicate formula (B(y) A). B(y) is a provability predicate and y a free variable. Such a
diagonalization only yields a sentence when the Gdel number is that of a closed sentence if strong
provability is adopted.
If strong unprovability is adopted, Gdels and Boolos proofs of the incompleteness of PM (and similar
systems) are flawed because g sentences themselves are flawed, itself does not, of course, establish PMs
completeness. Indeed other incompleteness proofs are offered in Boolos and elsewhere. Some are based on a

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

49

form of diagonalization, others on structures that resemble paradoxes such as Berrys. It is not feasible in this
paper to analyze every such proof. However, Boolos account of the shortest proof of the incompleteness of Z,
Elementary Peano Arithmetic, justifies examination: Say that m is self applicable if m is the gdel number of
a formula F(x) and F(m) is provable in Z. Let n be the gdel number of a formula G(x) expressing x is not
self-applicable. If n is self applicable, G(n) is false and provable, impossible; thus n is not self applicable and
G(n) is an unprovable proof (1985, 292).
This proof is flawed (if strong unprovability is adopted) on the same basis as that urged in this paper
against Gdels original analysis: m and n are Gdel numbers of open predicate formulas and not of sentences.
And the predicate self-applicable is a provability predicate because it requires that F(m) be provable in Z.
G(n) (defined by reference to the negation of F(x) is also a provability predicate. G(n) is thus flawed (like a g
sentence) because n is not proof-apt.

9. Should We Nevertheless Adopt an Alternative Proof System in Which Gdel Sentences

Are Legitimate?
It is acknowledged that adopting notions of provability which allow open sentences or their Gdel
numbers to be the subject of proof predicates allows the demonstration of standard accounts of Gdel and Lbs
Theorems. That is not a reason to reject strong provability or unprovability as these limitative theorems do not
establish positive outcomes that justify the adoption of weaker forms of proof predicates.
There is one last issue that justifies further examination. If strong provability and unprovabiity is adopted,
are there other important (and perhaps non-limitative) results threatened apart from Gdel and Lbs Theorems?
It is suggested that the claims made in this paper need to be analyzed and digested before those issues are
pursued.

Notes
1. It is not possible to examine every account of these results in this paper and the accounts in Gdel (1931) along with
Boolos accounts that are treated as standard expositions.
2. In this paper the preferred term for open sentences is open predicate formulas to strictly distinguish them from closed
sentences, which are treated here as sentences correctly so called, which do not contain free variables as predicate objects.
3. Boolos (2007, 167-68) implicitly takes such an approach when it talks about sequents which are finite sets of sentences
with the last step or bottom line being what is deduced.
4. These expressions are equivalent (see Gdel, 1931, 149): [R(q);q] means the formula resulting from class sign numbered q
having its free variable replaced by the Gdel number for the formula n K
rov [R(n);n]); i.e., the formula numbered n is
unprovable.
5. Boolos (2007, 226-27) discusses some undecidable sentences derived without using the diagonal lemma, but the example
given by using what Boolos calls the Gdel-Grelling formula GG(x) expressing x is not self applicable. Putting aside the
apparent puzzle that this exposition constitutes a proof that GG(m) is true, the important aspect of this example is that m is the
Gdel number of an open sentence, and the same difficulty arises in relation to standard Gdel sentences: As Boolos writes, Let
us modify the definition of heterologicality by substituting provable for true. We then get the notion of self-applicability: a
number mis self-applicable in Q if it is the gdel number of a formula (m) is provable in Q. Now the same apparatus that
allowed us to construct the Gdel sentence allows us to construct the Gdel-Grelling formula GG(x). Let m be its Gdel Number.
If m were self applicable then GG(m) would be provable, hence true, and since what it expresses is that m is not self applicable,
but this is impossible. So m is not self applicable, and hence GG(m) is true but unprovable (226-27). However, since m is not the
number of a closed sentence, so if strong unprovability is adopted, GG(m) is not syntactically a valid sentence.
Boolos (2007, 227-29) proceeds to give an outline of a different approach to an undecidable sentence in Chaitins theorem

50

ARITHMETICAL PROOF AND OPEN SENTENCES

which Boolos regards as inspired by Berrys paradox that concerns the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen
syllables. That phrase appears to have named that integer in eighteen syllables. The discussion which follows raises issues going
beyond that dealt with in this paper and raises the prospect of a (very large) number which is unprovable by ordinary
mathematical means (229) and indeed how such a number is to be validly named.
6. The Rosser sentence (Rosser, 1936) is another sentence (which says of itself only that for every proof of itself, there is a
refutation that is not longer than that proof) which relies for its construction on the same approach that Gdel adopted for 17 Gen r.
Cf. Boolos account of Rossers proof (2007, 224) where the diagonal lemma is applied to produce the sentence RT.

Works Cited
Boolos, George, John Burgess, and Richard Jeffrey. Computability and Logic. 5th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.
Boolos, George, and Richard Jeffrey. Computability and Logic. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.
Gdel, Kurt. ber formal unentsheidbareStze der Principia Mathematica und verwandterSysteme I. [On Formally
Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I.] 1931. Rpt. in Kurt GdelCollected Works
Volume 1. Ed. Solomon Feferman, et al. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.
Priest, Graham. Beyond the Limits of Thought. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002.
Quine, Willard. Methods of Logic. 3rd ed. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul, 1974.
Rosser, John. Extensions of Some Theorems of Gdel and Church. Journal of Symbolic Logic 1 (1936): 87-91.
Smullyan, Raymond. Gdels Incompleteness Theorems. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 51-63

Euthanasia in a Welfare State: Experiences from the Review

Procedure in the Netherlands
Theo A. Boer
Protestant Theological University

This paper is based on an ethical analysis of 1,200 reports submitted to one of the five Regional Review
Committees on Euthanasia in the Netherlands in the years 2005-09. Despite legal and professional safeguards with
regard to euthanasia, and despite the overall high quality of care, the Dutch euthanasia practice is still not
unproblematic. This paper identifies some important ethical issues: the sometimes obscure meaning of patient
autonomy; inferior quality of care or refusal to accept care, which aggravates a patients suffering; insufficient
spiritual, social, and psychological care; fears for a terrible death on the basis of outdated experiences in the past;
and undue pressure from the side of relatives. Despite these concerns, and despite the fact that euthanasia remains a
morally problematic death, however, the Dutch euthanasia practice can be described as morally solid.
Keywords: euthanasia, end of life decisions, ethics

1. Introduction
The Netherlands is one of the few countries in which euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legalized.
From the early eighties through the mid-nineties of the last century euthanasia was formally illegal but
informally tolerated under a set of well-defined due care criteria.1 In June 1994 this tolerance gained legal
status. Although still being illegal, physicians who reported a case to the Public Prosecutor and who had met
the criteria had nothing to fear. In 1998 this task was taken over by five Regional Review Committees. These
committees, consisting of a lawyer, a physician, and an ethicist, assess the reported cases in the light of the law,
medical practice, and medical ethics. If one or more of the criteria are not met, a committee notifies the Board
of Procurators General and the regional health care inspector of its findings. The Public Prosecution Service
determines whether an offence has been committed which could result in prosecution. The inspector decides
whether or not the case should come before a disciplinary tribunal.2 All this means that even according to the
2002 legislation, euthanasia is still against the law. A doctor may enjoy immunity from prosecution when he
can convince a committee that the circumstances were exceptional.
The vast majority of euthanasia cases take place in a context of terminal cancer a few days or weeks
before a natural death was expected. The euthanizing doctor is in almost all those cases the home physician,
Theo A. Boer, Ph.D., Protestant Theological University, an associate of the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University; main
research fields: Theological Ethics, Normative Theory, Medical Ethics. As a member of a Regional Euthanasia Review Committee,
he reviews about 50 euthanasia cases per month. His recent publications include: Recurring Themes in the Debate about
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Journal of Religious Ethics 35.3 (2007): 529-55; Stem Cells, Pluralism, and Moral Empathy.
Ethics and Embryos: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Ed. Lars stnor. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008. 121-34; and What If the
Embryo Is Not a Person? Ed. Jared A. Jaworski. Advances in Sociology Research 8 (2011):169-85. Together with Paul E. Capetz,
he edited James M. Gustafsons Moral Discernment in the Christian Life (2007).

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EUTHANASIA IN A WELFARE STATE

with whom the patient had had a long relationship of trust. Only in exceptional cases, the euthanasia is
performed in a clinical setting. Hence, these cases are also known as traditional euthanasia cases.
The numbers of euthanasia stayed on a constant level for a number of years: around 3,500 a year on a total
of deaths of about 120,000. However, a nationwide survey published in 2007 showed a dramatic decrease in the
numbers of euthanasia: from 3,500 in 2001 to 2,300 in 2005, a decrease of 34%.3 During the same period, the
numbers of palliative sedation showed a similar increase; to some doctors and their patients, sedation may have
become the better alternative to euthanasia, not only because it may be the best kind of care, but also because it
saves the doctor both the paperwork and the emotional stress related to performing euthanasia. Moreover,
Dutch hospitals and physicians have since 1995 gradually updated the quality of palliative care so as to match
standards found in the UK and the Scandinavian countries.
However, recent data show that euthanasia is on the rise again. The Review Committees received 1,923
reports in 2006; 2,100 in 2007; 2,331 in 2008; 2,636 in 2009; and 3,136 in 2010.4 No scientifically solid
explanations have been given for the reason for this new increase; at least one important observation is that the
increase takes place entirely within the realm of the above mentioned traditional cases.
This paper is based on my own analysis of 1,200 reports submitted to one of the five Review Committees
in the years 2005-09. The region from which they are taken comprises both urban and rural areas and has a
religiously diverse population.5 Of the 1,200 people who died, there was only one person under 21 years old: a
17-year-old boy. The remaining cases consisted of patients between 22 and 94 years old.6
Most physicians make use of a standard reporting document.7 The questions have an open character and
cover the medical condition of the patient, the nature of the suffering, the reasons why this suffering is
experienced as unbearable, the nature and the history of the patients request, the doctors assessment of the
mental competence of the patient, and the role of other players in the fieldhealth care professionals, relatives.
Physicians need to have consulted a second, independent doctor, who must have seen the patient at least once
and who gives his or her own assessment with regard to the due care criteria. The reports of these
SCEN-doctors (Support and Consultation Euthanasia in the Netherlands) are looser than the formal reports
submitted by the euthanizing doctor. This looseness yields many personal, and sometimes compelling,
impressions from the doctors involved.
The analysis given here is not a scientific survey but a systematized collection of observations through the
eyes of an ethicist. If there are any human decisions which have existential implications, they are decisions
about life and death. My purpose is to discuss some questions on the basis of the materials reviewed, questions
such as: Is euthanasia a surrogate for good palliative and spiritual care? Do patients request euthanasia out of
concern for their loved ones? Which are the existential dimensions that euthanasia has for patients and their
doctors?
Details from the cases have been changed so as to protect the privacy of those involved. All my
observations, even the more critical ones, need to be seen against the background of the fact that in almost all
reported cases, the situation is desperate: There are no prospects of recovery, the suffering of a patient is severe,
and the request is informed and voluntary.
Has, then, euthanasia in the Netherlands become normal medical practice? The impression from the
review procedure is that it has not. Only in exceptional cases, physicians perform euthanasia several times a
year. The majority of those who report euthanasia do not report more than once a year. The 1,200 cases I
reviewed within a period of four to five years were reported by a total of 825 physicians. 590 of them reported

EUTHANASIA IN A WELFARE STATE

53

only once, 213 doctors two or three times, and the rest four or more times.8 Most doctors who perform
euthanasia consider it a justified yet problematic or even action. One doctor writes, I have to mention that this
euthanasia has been emotionally very burdensome. I do not regret having done it, but I do hope I will never
have to do it again. Many doctors indicate to their patients that euthanasia will only be effectuated if the
physician himself has no doubt left in his or her mind. One doctor writes, I strongly reject the suggestion that
performing euthanasia becomes a mere technical procedure. For me and others, it continues to be extremely
burdensome. The general impression is that, for most doctors, euthanasia is a contested option which comes in
only when the alternatives are exhausted. As a physician remarks in a recently published study by cultural
anthropologist Anne-Mei The, The policy of the Dutch with regard to euthanasia has become more liberal, but
the professionals who must do the work have become more reserved (The 2009, 50).9
When a committee has second thoughts about a case, a physician and/or the consulting doctor may be
asked to provide additional written information or may be invited for an interview. To many physicians such
procedures add to the burden. A doctor writes, The comments of your committee put a damper on this
otherwise so serene process. A physician, who was asked to clarify some ambiguities in his report, writes,
This procedure gives me sleepless nights. Still, I would do it again, if I had to. The many checks and balances
which surround the Dutch euthanasia practice justify some confidence that the review procedure effectively
prevents euthanasia from becoming normal medical practice.10

2. Euthanasia and Autonomy

2.1. Autonomy Language Expressing Suffering
The Dutch law only permits euthanasia if the patient makes a request which is informed, lasting, and
voluntary. This does not mean that autonomy (or the prospect of losing it) constitutes the sole reason for a
euthanasia request. For many patients it is rather the physical suffering (to which we will come later) which is
basic to their request. Given this suffering, patients use all their powers of persuasion to have their request
honored, and this implies the use of strong autonomy-related language. The form of the request is autonomy,
the reason behind it is suffering.
Doctors frequently mention that patients press hard for having euthanasia. He tells me that if I do not help
him, he will hang himself, a doctor writes, and another doctor, This man is demanding. He has attempted to
commit suicide twice and a third attempt would have huge repercussions for the whole ward. In about one out
of a hundred cases, a patient lends weight to a request by mentioning the possibility of ending his own life, or
by mentioning earlier plans to do so. Occasionally reference is made to the way animals are euthanized: We
dont even allow dogs to suffer like this. Why me?. Sometimes relatives bring up this point, too. The question
arises whether doctors are always free enough to make their own assessment about the situation.
Relatively frequent are references to a patients earlier thoughts about euthanasia. Some patients have held
a year-long membership of the Dutch Right to Die society NVVE (Nederlandse Vereniging voor een
Vrijwillig Levenseinde), others carry an advance directive expressing the wish for euthanasia just in case
even before they get sick.11 Since she can remember, a physician writes about a woman in her early forties,
she has been preoccupied with finding the right way to die, This is the way he is, another doctor writes,
making arrangements is all he ever does. This patient is a medical engineer and is used to thinking two steps
ahead. In the same manner, he now seeks to prevent the complications and the pain. Patient is a scientist and

54

EUTHANASIA IN A WELFARE STATE

meticulously manages every one of his fears.

Sometimes there is cynicism between the lines. Her wish has always been everyones command, a
doctor writes about a former high school director. Another physician observes almost aloof, If things dont go
the way Mother wants them to go, this stirs Mothers irritation. This man has been in the military for 30
years, writes another doctor. When he says, Fire! he is used to having his men do just that. A colleague
writes, When I suggest her to wait a week or two, she gets furious: In that case, I will come after you with my
gun.12 Doctors normally refer to such pressure as proof of the severity of the suffering and of the firmness of
a request. (In cases of undue pressure the physician is not likely to grant the request and the committee will not
see the report.)
Two additional remarks may be in order. First, the question needs to be asked whether doctors always
provide sufficient information about the palliative treatment options. Insufficient knowledge of, or access to,
the full range of palliative options may explain why some patients and their relatives put so much pressure on a
physician to perform euthanasia. In a recently published study, former Health Minister Else Borst, who was one
of the fiercest advocates of the present law, concedes that euthanasia may have come too early in the
Netherlands, We did it in the wrong order. [W]e gave in to the political and societal pressure for euthanasia
[before we had properly arranged palliative care] (The 2009, 209). An insight into this need for good palliative
options was reflected in British discussions on the subject. In 2004, Lord Joffe submitted the Assisted Dying for
the Terminally Ill Bill to the British House of Lords. This bill included the requirement that patients seeking
euthanasia would first have to privately consult a specialist in palliative care (House of Lords Select Committee
2005). We will come back to the issue of insufficient care below.
Euthanasia in the Netherlands is neither a patients right nor normal medical practice. However, the
wording of some advance directives issued by Right to Die Societies, public statements of some politicians, and
various media productions and media discussions send a different signal: euthanasia is a justified claim on the
side of the patient and should be considered as normal medical practice. This may cause tensions in the
doctor-patient relationship. When a doctor decides not to perform a euthanasia, takes her time before making a
decision whether or not to grant a request, or when a consulting doctor issues a negative advice, some patients
and their relatives express disappointment and even anger. Physicians continue to see euthanasia as a last resort;
patients increasingly regard it in terms of a right.

2.2. Loss of Autonomy as a Reason in Itself

For about 60% of the patients, the irreversible loss of autonomy itself, which is typical of many situations
of terminal cancer, is a reason underlying a euthanasia wish: being bound to home, having become entirely
care-dependent and/or bedridden, not being able to go to the bathroom or to plump up ones own pillow. Being
totally dependent of others does not match the person he used to be, a physician writes, He was co-director of
a big company for years and was used to having things go his way. Every request for help was an agony for
him. Obviously dependence upon others for ones daily needs for many patients is irreconcilable with their
idea of a good life. I am no longer a full human being, one patient explains, my friends only visit me out of
pity. An object of care, another patient complains, is all that is left of me. Often the contrast between
better days long gone and the present situation constitutes an important part of the suffering: a sportswoman
who is bedridden, a company director who has become care-dependent, a motorcyclist who feels stuck between
the four walls of his room, a once talkative man who can no longer speak as a consequence of laryngeal cancer,

EUTHANASIA IN A WELFARE STATE

55

a policeman who always sought to assist others who now has to beg for help, a woman with a passion for
hiking now bound to a wheelchair.
Dependence in the case of terminal cancer does not come alone. For some, it may rather be the
combination with other elements of physical sufferingpain, anxiety, nauseawhich makes being dependent
intolerable. Dependence also symbolizes the irreversible process of bereavement and dying which lies ahead.
The absence of things to look forward to may become all the more difficult for those patients who have no
sense of an afterlife, no hope of ever coming home. Relatively frequentlyin about one out of fifty
casespatients refer to a medical or nursing career. She has been a nurse all her life, writes a physician, but
having others take care of her is the last thing she would accept. An important part of her self-esteem has
always consisted in taking care of others. Now that she can no longer care, her life lacks meaning. Some of
these patients may not find dependence in itself intolerable; their rejection of dependence rather stems from a
personal incapacity to make the switch from one role into another. But for others the aversion may almost be a
matter of worldview, especially when not only ones own dependence, and not only dependence in the limited
context of a terminal disease is rejected, but rather dependence in se. Such a general rejection may be present
when, e.g., admittance to a nursing home in itself is said to equal unbearable suffering. Advance directives
reflect such an aversion: If my condition would justify admittance to a nursing home, it is my wish to have my
life terminated.
This sturdy rejection of dependence is a reason for moral concern. The question to be asked here is: What
exactly constitutes the unbearable suffering in those contexts? Is it the physical suffering which causes the
dependence? Or is it the fact of being dependent in itself? If in a euthanasia report, dependence itself, rather
than the physical and psychological inconveniences coming with it, constitutes the suffering, there is reason for
criticism of the anthropology underlying such a request. Such a criticism can come from both a philosophical
and a theological angle. Most religions hold the view that being human always, and by definition, implies
awareness and acceptance of the fact that our lives depend upon powers that sustain us, bear down upon us, and
that we cannot fully master. Philosophically, we can point to a Kantian conception of autonomy: not
dependence in itself, but the way in which we respond to this dependence, indicates our autonomy. Kantian
autonomy involves making use of the freedoms one has left within ones existence; it does not involve
questioning the existence itself.

3. Suffering
Most patients describe their situation primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of suffering. Pain is mentioned
in 43% of the cases, nausea in 41%, dependence on others for daily care in 48%, loss of autonomy in a wider
sense in 18%, dyspnea in 29%, extreme fatigue in 22%, anxiety in 22% of the cases, a loss of body functions
(incontinence, a loss of speech) in 11%, and meaninglessness (including loneliness) in 11% of the cases.13
Some reports are especially compelling. Her sister vividly explains her predicament. There is nothing left she
can do; she cant even wipe the tears from her own eyes. A doctor writes about a patient with metastases in the
bones, Last week he broke two ribs when he was assisted in going to the bathroom. The next day he sneezed
and broke another rib. Now he wont let anyone touch him, not even his own wife. A special category of
patients is those suffering from cancer in the face and mouth. The cancer itself, and surgical procedures to
remove or halt it, can have a severely disfiguring effect on the patients face. To many a committee member, the
sheer announcement on the front page of a euthanasia report of the presence of facial cancer suffices to finish

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off a case as correct. Heartbreaking is the report of a woman with facial cancer who has small children, She
wants euthanasia before her children start avoiding her and no longer show affection to her. For this woman
the help comes too late. A week before the euthanasia her 6-year-old daughter first stops exchanging signs of
affection and in the end avoids visiting her mother altogether.
Many patients expect euthanasia to be a good deathespecially in contrast to the natural death that is
expected. A man describes the appointed day of euthanasia as a day of celebration. When I tell her that I will
fulfill her request, another doctor writes, she becomes very emotional: a mix of laughing and crying, she
claps her hands and starts hyperventilating from emotions. When I tell her that the criteria have been met, a
consulting doctor writes, she insists on hugging me. Taken the severity of the suffering, the lack of prospects,
and the unique license of a physician to bring about a certain and smooth death, it is not difficult to imagine that
some patients ascribe their doctors a priestly status.
In some cases, it seems, the physical condition is not the real cause of a patients suffering. As a
92-year-old lady describes, Ive wanted to die for years. Why must I have a serious disease before I may ask to
be euthanized? Her primary problem is not her health, but problems connected with her age. Cases like these
may in the future constitute the real challenge to doctors in the Netherlands. As a physician observes, [t]he
pain and the nausea are under control, but the real problem is that we havent succeeded in finding a
meaningful activity during his last weeks. He bluntly refuses every suggestion we make. Patient has a tan and
gives a vital impression. What really causes her suffering is that she can no longer make any essential
contribution to the lives of others. Its like floating in space, another patient describes his suffering, there is
no goal, no fixed points, just uncertainty and lack of meaning. I am bored all day, a 70-year-old man
complains, The only thing I notice are cars parking in and out. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling all day
makes no sense, a patient tells a consulting physician. About another patient a physician remarks emphatically:
All this respectable and once active lady can do is sit at the window and chase away the crows with her cane.
It should be stressed that in virtually all these cases the patient also suffers from a terminal disease. But to some
patients, their physical illness comes in welcome, in a sense. Some of them would have preferred to have died
much earlier, but jurisprudence (the so called Brongersma case) rules that the present euthanasia law was not
designed for cases in which there is no medically classifiable illness (Boer 2007).
Not only does the degree of suffering vary from patient to patient, but also the individual tolerance level.
One doctor is confused about these differences. How can the suffering of this patient be unbearable? Another
patient, who suffers more than she does, has not asked for euthanasia! A physician describes how his patient
can handle more than he had expected: Earlier on this man had believed that once he would be unable to read,
life would become meaningless. Quite unexpectedly, however, his stamina kept pace with his suffering.
In 10% of the reports, patients with a euthanasia request still enjoy some things in life: smoking a cigar,
playing cards, watching television, making music, having the grandchildren over, making a cross puzzle. His
wife and he enjoy every day that is left and try to make every day into a little party, one doctor writes. In some
cases, reference is made to positive side-effects of the terminal illness or of the waiting: Patient wanted to
have euthanasia months ago, but is happy to have waited some time. This difficult period has brought the
family closer together. Over the years she has learned to accept her increasing dependence. Some of her
friends wash and bathe her, and she is comfortable with it. One doctor writes, Patient was a member of the
Right to Die Society from its very beginning. Three months ago she insisted on having euthanasia. In hindsight
she is happy I didnt satisfy her request. She has had many meaningful experiences since. Patient was a

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57

construction worker for most of his life. During the two years of his sickness, he finally learned to talk. He, his
wife and his kids have become a lot closer since. Amidst a process of physical withering the terminal phase
thus provides opportunities for flourishing as well. Theologically St. Pauls words come to mind: But though
our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (II Cor. 4.16, KJV). It is of course
questionable whether the conviction that a patient amidst severe physical deterioration can find new strength
can serve as a moral argument against euthanasia. But within a framework of terminal care, it may keep
patients who are faced with of a terminal and agonizing illness from making a euthanasia request. Those cases,
naturally, are not reported to the Committees.
In some cases a patients euthanasia wish is hard to feel sympathy for. The patient vividly tells me about
the surplus value of euthanasia. He had a fantastic life, and the way he dies should not spoil this. Patient is
known to be a true bon vivant. Being bed-ridden is not compatible with his conception of a good life. I would
prefer euthanasia as soon as possible, an elderly man says, my grandson will start a bachelor program in
physiotherapy next week and his father intends to run the New York marathon on Saturday.14 Remarks like
these sometimes lead to doubts within a Review Committee whether the suffering can be classified as
unbearable. In practice, however, not one single case was furthered to the Board of Procurators General by any
of the five Committees in the period 2005-09 merely on the basis of the argument that the suffering was not
unbearable. After all, even more dubitable cases still take place within a context of a terminal disease. More
importantly, a committee lacks the instruments to check the severity of a patients suffering. It is hard, if not
impossible, to rule against the testimonies of at least two physicians plus one or more advance directives of a
patient.

4. Past Experiences and Concern for Relatives

In an estimated 15% of the cases, a euthanasia request is in part motivated by previous traumatic
experiences from the dying of parents, siblings, partners, or, if the patient was a health care worker, experiences
with former patients.15 Ive seen these kinds of deathbeds in the hospital I worked in, a patient motivates her
request. Many other such references are found: Patient has seen his father die in agony and pain, Patient has
witnessed the absolutely horrifying deathbed of his father and is determined to avoid a situation like that, The
image of his own father dying in agony has haunted him ever since, Patient had witnessed her mother die and
had therapy for years in order to come to terms with what she saw, I still remember my father before he died.
He was a wreck. The image of my real father got clouded. Although the majority of those connections cannot
fail to impress the reviewer, some of them are less convincing. A patient with two weeks left at the most desires
euthanasia because his uncle was kept in an artificial coma for 20 years; a patient requests euthanasia because
he has witnessed his fathers murder in Bosnia; or the death of a loved one to which a patient refers took place
decades ago, when palliative care was not developed as fully as it is nowadays. The impression from the reports
is that doctors do not always correct such mistaken associations.
Another kind of connection is the one between a euthanasia request and the wellbeing and preferences of
the present bystanders. First, in a relatively low percentage of cases, the concern for ones relatives tends to
keep a patient from requesting euthanasia. Family members dislike the idea of a prompt and unnatural death or
insist that they can go on caring for a while longer. Her son knew about her view on euthanasia, but now that
she has picked out a date, he gets very emotional. Her 24 year old son bursts into tears. He and his father are
not ready for this yet. But at the end of our conversation they give in: We have no right to keep mama from

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having what she wants. A man suffering from Alzheimers postpones his euthanasia request for almost a year
due to the enormous grief this causes for his children. Another physician writes, She wants the euthanasia
for herself. Her husband protests: Think about the grandchildren. They love to pay you a visit. But she can no
longer summon the courage to go on. In some cases a pastor assists a patient to reach the decision to have
euthanasia despite protests of the family. Incidentally, the euthanasia is kept a secret from relatives and a death
is presented as a natural death.
More frequently than being reluctant, relatives welcome the possibility of euthanasia. This comes naturally,
since the Committees do not see cases of patients in which euthanasia was not given due to protests from
relatives or friends. In an estimated 5% to 10% of the cases the wellbeing of relatives is explicitly mentioned as
a reason for a euthanasia request. The general presumptions against the influence of family members on the
process will make physicians hesitant to make any reference to family pressure, so this percentage may in
reality be higher. Advance directives contain wordings such as, I want to protect myself and my family from
more suffering or my relatives have gone through enough agony. A doctor writes about a teacher and mother
of three grown up children, Part of her suffering was caused by the fact that her children saw her go downhill.
A consulting doctor writes, The last five minutes of our conversation, when his wife has left the room, the
patient confides to me that his wife can no longer handle the situation, and that this indeed is one of the reasons
for his request. Both her husband and her children have seen enough suffering now, a doctor writes.
Sometimes the family pressure is less subtle than that: Put this situation to an end doctor, a 42-year-old wife
and mother of three exclaims, The cancer is destroying the whole family!
When a report contains remarks such as these, a committee may want to ask additional questions with
regard to the voluntariness of the request. One exceptional case in which the relatives forced an inexperienced
doctor to perform euthanasia on their mother who had been sedatedMother is suffering!was classified as
negligent by the committee. Concern for the feelings of the relatives never constitutes a reason to terminate
the life of a patient: The Thomistic Principle of Double Effect, Kantian ethics, and other normative theories rule
out the idea that a patient should die in order to ease the suffering of the bystanders. But despite this resolve not
to let the feelings of bystanders rule a case, health care workers and pastors need to realize that having to see
ones beloved suffer without being able to intervene does sometimes constitute a form of true and severe
suffering in its own right. Traumas collected at the deathbed of a beloved may cause anxiety, stress, and
insomnia for weeks, months, or years to come. In turn such experiences predispose people to make a euthanasia
request when they themselves are diagnosed with cancer. Palliative care should imply concern for the patient
and his relatives, and the impression from the review procedure is that such concern is not always given.

5. Religion
The medical and legal character of the review procedure explains why references to religious views are
found in only 5% of the reports. In most of these references, religion features as a support for a decision to
resort to euthanasia or as a comfort that death may not be the end. Some examples of remarks are: I have
spoken to the pastor, one patient says, and she says that the gift of life may be returned to God when it
becomes too hard; The impression she got from her pastor is that there are no religious objections to her
decision; He prays the Lord every day that he may go to heaven soon, if necessary through euthanasia. This
positive role of religion is hardly surprising. In the eighties, ethicists such as Heleen Dupuis and Harry Kuitert,
who both started out as Reformed theologians, are part of the core of the euthanasia elite (The 2009, 132).16

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59

Also the synods of the two largest Reformed denominations at the time presented theological arguments in
favor of euthanasia.17 Simply enough, those with an overriding religious presumption against euthanasia are
not likely to make a request. In about 1% of the cases, a pastor is present at the moment of the actual euthanasia,
saying a prayer, performing a liturgy, lending emotional and pastoral support.
Still, many a patient has ridden a roller coaster of emotions and second thoughts. Given the traditional
religious objections against euthanasia, it is hardly astonishing to see patients and physicians engage in a
complex dialogue with this rejection. Patient is convinced that the good Lord will forgive her this decision, a
doctor writes about an elderly lady. Her strictly Reformed pastor, just as one would expect from a strictly
Reformed pastor, was not delighted to hear about her euthanasia plans. Yet she is determined that she can
square this both for herself and for God.
Some of those involved have quite unexpectedly changed their minds. As an observant Roman Catholic,
one doctor writes, I have always been against euthanasia. However, the predicament of this patient forces me
to make an exception to the rule. Patient has been a nurse for many years, a physician writes, during which
she was firmly opposed to euthanasia on religious grounds. Being in her present state of pain, however, she is
amazed how easily she has adopted a more liberal attitude. Patient is a conservative Christian with a strong
aversion against euthanasia. But now that he is suffering from cancer, everything is different. This observant
Jehovahs Witness who has recently rejected a blood transfusion quite surprisingly has no hesitations to request
euthanasia.
Rather frequently doctors seem to assume that the only objections against euthanasia are religiously
motivated. These are bright people, not impeded by their religion, a physician remarks, leaving in the middle
the exact relationship between brightness and religiousness. The patient is no longer religiously involved, a
colleague writes, so nothing or nobody will keep him from having euthanasia. In the view of many advocates
of the Dutch euthanasia practice, only religious persons have objections to euthanasia. The more secularized
people are, the more in favor they are considered to be. This may be correct in general, but there are exceptions,
especially from the side of both religious and secular physicians with an increasing emotional and professional
aversion from performing euthanasia.18 Philosophical arguments against euthanasia (e.g., from a Kantian point
of view) can seldom be found in the reports.
Religious objections are also known from other worldviews. There is a patient with a deep aversion of
regular medicine; even at the most burdensome stage of her illness she takes only half a tablet of Tylenol a day.
Her husband is confused about her euthanasia request: How does this go together with our holistic
spirituality? he asks.
Sometimes the decision to have euthanasia itself has religious dimensions. A woman refuses all kinds of
palliative care: It belongs to the aesthetic of her being, her physician writes, she is part of the cosmos, to
have euthanasia when the time has come. Patient no longer finds comfort in his faith. Instead, it is the
decision to have euthanasia that gives him peace of mind. One would not expect this from a former crane
operator, a doctor writes with some amazement, But he has an almost Buddhist view on life and death. For
eight years now, he has considered to end his life.
In as many as 10% of the cases allusions are made to the expectations of patients or their relatives about
what comes after death. Many patients expect a kind of shared flourishing together with loved ones who have
deceased. A patient writes in her advance directive, What do I have? What is there left to do? I want to go to
the Good Lord, to Henk, Ellen, and Gertrud. Patient is no longer religious, but still expects to meet her

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daughter and her husband. Those at the other side, who have guided her through this life, will meet with her
after her death. Patient has a strong faith. Life is a big feast, and when it ends, he may come back as a baby.
In one case a physician comes close to playing the role of a priest. What will come now, he says minutes
before administering the lethal injection, we dont know, but Im sure you will experience a lot of good.19
The trained moralist finds many hints which indicate that a patient might have been better off receiving
more spiritual or psychological coaching. One physician writes about the last weeks of a talented physics
professor. The doctor observes that the relationship between the professor and his children may need healing
and reconciliation. But the professor refuses, I had a beautiful life. This is it. Another physician writes about a
lady in despair because she has not seen her son for eight years. The physician makes no attempt to bring up the
option of reconciliation. Another physician describes a patient in agony: Patient is crying and hyperventilating
the whole time. The anxiety may be related to her physical condition, but also to her upcoming death or even
to the very decision to have her life actively terminated in due course. She is a firm believer, another doctor
writes, but not knowing what comes after death makes her frightened, and a colleague, Although he cannot
go on living like this and wants to die, he is fearful of what comes after. Again no spiritual help was given.
Patient is very afraid of dying, an oncologist writes when referring an elderly lady back to her home doctor,
I recommend you to bring up the possibility of euthanasia in due course. Upon reading these and other
records one gets drawn into the tragic of existential anxieties and unsettled family conflicts. Proper palliative
care will have to consist not only of physical palliation, but also of spiritual or psychological care. From the
reports, the impression is that at least in some cases euthanasia can hinder a patient in finding completion in
life.

6. Euthanasia and Quality of Care

About one out of ten reports contains a reference to the quality of care. In a good deal of these cases there
is gratitude on the side of the patient and his relatives for the efforts made by the caregivers. One advance
directive adds to the euthanasia request: P.S. I would like to thank the doctor and all the other professionals for
the excellent care they provided. Patient feels at home and comfortable in this nursing home, a doctor writes,
but even the most excellent care cannot take away the suffering. Patient was enthusiastic about the quality of
hospice care, another doctor writes, but still wants euthanasia.
But there are also reports of insufficient care. Perhaps the most important category of patients consists of
those who refuse to accept care. Palliative care could be better, a doctor writes, but the patient rejects the
alternatives. Euthanasia is all she wants. This proud lady rejects being admitted to a nursing home. For her
this equals unbearable suffering. Tinkering with embroideries in some room, singing songs to keep up our
spirits, I dont want all that, another lady is quoted, and an elderly man, My bare bottom washed by a young
girl, never! Patient finds the idea of someone else taking care of her horrifying. On my question what
makes her suffering unbearable, a physician writes, she replies that it is having to ask others for help. Asking,
asking, asking, I cant and I wont! Some people live in total social isolation. They lack knowledge on how to
get access to care and are too tired or disillusioned to change that. Patient is lonely, so lonely, a consulting
doctor observes almost dryly. A doctor writes about a 50-year-old man who is handicapped after a motorcycle
accident, He deserves better care than he gets, but refuses. Getting washed and dressed takes hours. The
severity of his suffering is related to a total lack of a social network. Some doctors describe patients who
refuse better care as antisocial but neverthelessalbeit hesitantlygrant the patients request.

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61

Sometimes part of the suffering is caused by too much treatment. The slightest perspective of healing is
seized with both hands, but when all treatment has turned out to be futile, some patients are regretful. A doctor
writes, All in all patient received chemotherapy three times. There was no effect whatsoever, except that it
ruined what was left of his wellbeing. Even reports without explicit allusions to the burdens of too much
treatment impress the reader by references to an excess of invasive treatment. I wonder whether all that
treatment had much effect, a patient confides to his doctor, but I have to blame myself. I consented. The
question thus arises whether some of the suffering may have been aggravated by medical treatment. If that was
the case, would it not have been better to resort to palliative care? But then, of course, others have survived
cancer exactly thanks to invasive treatment.
A disturbing observation is that some patients might not have requested euthanasia if they had received
adequate palliative care. We already pointed to the poor level of spiritual care. Some physicians contribute in
their own manner to the patients anxiety instead of providing reassurance. His oncologist had told him that
the rest of his life would be nothing but pain, pain, pain, a doctor writes. A colleague writes, His
pulmonologist sent him home with the warning that there is a real chance of suffocation. Patient lives at
home and a home health nurse visits him twice a day. Since he is incontinent, he sometimes lies in his own
feces for a long time. Patient hardly gets any help, another doctor writes, and when he does, it is always
someone different. In two weeks time he has seen twenty new faces.
Let me introduce Mrs. Hansen, 69 years old, an artistically gifted woman and a trained physiotherapist.
Five years ago she became addicted to the prescription painkillers of her late husband. Through a vicious circle
she developed a kidney and a liver insufficiency. She is now addicted not only to painkillers but also to
sedatives, sleeping pills, and a number of other medications. Two years ago she made a euthanasia request. At
first her physician refused, but he changes his mind in the course of the years. I have tried to talk her into a
detoxification program, he writes, but she quit with no success. In addition, she has a lot of social issues. She
lost contact with her two sons and her only daughter visits her once a week to bring over some groceries. In
this case there seemed to be one ray of hope: Patient submitted an application for a nursing home two years
ago and was looking forward to move. Unfortunately her application got lost and she will have to wait for
another couple of years. This is unacceptable to her. Instead of commanding access to a nursing home this
doctor then consents to performing euthanasia three weeks later. The case was dismissed as adequate by the
committee, but this does not mean that there are no ethical questions to ask. Like some of his colleagues, the
physician seems to have entered an ever narrowing alley with no possible return. The combination of heavy
involvement of the physician with a claiming patient in utter despair, a patient who wants euthanasia and
refuses the alternatives, in combination with earlier allusions of the physician that he or she will perform
euthanasia if necessary, a physician may feel trapped; however, there may also be relief: at last, there is no
longer this patient with his daily phone calls, weekly visits, and heartbreaking stories. In other cases, the
apparent absence of any attempt to find proper care may have been motivated by the short life expectancy of
the patient, but not here. So why not make more attempts to arrange the best of care?
However, would the care in a hospital, nursing home, or hospice be that much better? The bad reputation
of nursing homes, which is one of the reasons for qualifying a future transfer into such an institution as
unbearable suffering, at least in part goes back to real problems: shortage of staff, insufficient hygiene, lack of
privacy, a socially untrained staff. One physician hardly suppresses his own evaluation of life in a nursing home:
I can sympathize with her request, she writes, she is totally care dependent and gets little personal

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attention. One patient in a hospital indicates that one of the motives for his euthanasia request is the fact that
he never sleeps through the night. Staying in a four-bed room, I am constantly being woken up by noises.
The institution he is in has a serious shortage of staff. Apart from the pain and the distress, he tells me he has
lain in his own excrements a couple of times now, and he does not want that to happen again. The severe
suffering of this man is intensified by the impersonal setting of his care institution.
There is a disturbing case concerning a patient who underwent her last, futile cancer treatment in the
hospital. The consulting doctor writes, Patient never thought about giving up because she found her life worth
living, despite everything. But that changed during her last hospitalization. For the duration of her six day stay
she received not half of the help she needed. One afternoon she was stripped to the waist so she asked a nurse
to help her arrange her pyjamas. The nurse refused. On the afternoon of her departure there was no one to help
her. There was no wheelchair and she and her husband had to arrange their own taxi. At that moment something
snapped. These six days were so dehumanizing that she blew a fuse. Her husband affirms this. On top of her
physical condition, he affirms, his wifes suffering was caused by the humiliation she underwent in the
hospital. This case report, and similar reports of cases in which part of the suffering was connected to bad
care, was approved by the Review Committee. After all, the patient did suffer unbearably. Review Committees
are supposed to work within the framework of an overstrained health care system, not criticize it.
A lack of adequate palliative care can in other cases be read between the lines. Whether this applies to
12%, 5%, or only 2% of the cases is an empirical question which belongs elsewhere. But the fact that poor
quality of care sometimes adds to a patients suffering is beyond doubt. Demographic developments in western
countries hardly provide much hope that the pressure on the already overstrained health care systems will
decrease. The reports of these patients are heartbreaking and justify a public and political discussion which
goes beyond traditional pro and contra euthanasia positions. In the polarized Dutch euthanasia discussion
in the 1990s, any allusion to bad quality of care as a reason for euthanasia was dismissed as anti-propaganda.
Those times are over. Irrespective of where one stands in the euthanasia debate, each case in which the decision
to terminate ones own life is based, wholly or in part, on poorly provided care, is one case too much. The
availability and accessibility of premium palliative care, physical and spiritual, is in everyones interest.

Notes
1. When dealing with a patients request for euthanasia, a doctor must:
(1) be convinced that the patients request is voluntary and well-considered;
(2) be convinced that the patients suffering is unbearable and that there is no prospect of improvement;
(3) inform the patient of his or her situation and further prognosis;
(4) discuss the situation with the patient and come to the joint conclusion that there is no other reasonable solution;
(5) consult at least one other physician with no connection to the case, who must then see the patient and state in writing that
the attending physician has satisfied the due care criteria listed in the four points above;
(6) exercise due medical care and attention in terminating the patients life or assisting in his or her suicide.
2. See <http://www.minvws.nl/en/folders/ibe/euthanasia_the_netherlands_new_rules.asp>.
3. The assisted suicide rates went down even sharper: from 300 in 2001 to 100 in 2005. The number of requests for
euthanasia or assisted suicide dropped from 9,700 to 8,400. The number of non-voluntary euthanasia cases went down from 950
to 550 (Wal et al. 2007; Onwuteaka-Philipsen et al 2007).
4. Regionale toetsingscommissie euthanasie, Jaarverslag 2007, Den Haag, 2008; Regionale toetsingscommissie euthanasie,
Jaarverslag 2008, Den Haag, 2009. Regionale toetsingscommissie euthanasie, Jaarverslag 2008, Den Haag, 2009 Regionale
toetsingscommissie euthanasie, Jaarverslag 2010, Den Haag, 2011. See also <www.toetsingscommissie.nl>. It is generally
believed that the true number of euthanasia cases exceeds the number of reported cases by 5%-15%. This explains the difference
between the number of 1,923 reported cases in 2007 and the estimated number of 2,300 real cases in 2005.

EUTHANASIA IN A WELFARE STATE

63

5. The reports occasionally contain references to the patients religious backgrounds. In the analyzed cases, there were
indications of Humanistic, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Western versions of Hindu, and Buddhist spiritualities,
but no allusions to Islam, despite the fact that they are believed to represent about 6% of all citizens.
6. Of a sample of 162 patients 3% was aged 20-40, 31% aged 40-60, 48% 60-80, and 18% 80 or more. 55% of the patients
were females, 45% males.
7. Of this document, there exist older and newer versions.
8. It should be noted that I do not see all the reported cases: about 40% are reviewed by a deputy-ethicist member. This
means, in practice, that the number of physicians having reported only once in those four to five years will be lower.
9. Another critical study of the Dutch euthanasia practice is Gerbert van Loenen (2009). Both studies illustrate that critical
observations about the morality of euthanasia are still going on.
10. These procedures are in part prescribed by the law, in part developed in the review procedure, and in part developed by
the Dutch Physicians Organization KNMG and their SCEN-networks.
11. My informed estimation is that the percentage is about 40%. This membership is a complex issue. Although the Dutch
law does not require an advance directive, 99 out of 100 patients do provide such a document. The most common document,
however, can only be downloaded by members of the largest Right to Die Society in the Netherlands.
12. The remark should not be understood as a threat; only in exceptional cases Dutch households carry a weapon license.
13. Based on a sample of 134 reports from the total 1,200 reports analyzed here.
14. For more on issues of timing, cf. Boer 2009.
15. Occasionally a patients wish for euthanasia is based less on earlier traumatic experiences than on downright positive
experiences from an earlier euthanasia: Patient has witnessed the euthanasia of one of her neighbours and finds it a beautiful way
to die when suffering gets the upper hand.
16. According to The, the fact that some of the players in the field were Reformed theologians was an important factor in the
publics acceptance of euthanasia (2009, 133, 168). The most influential health lawyer at the time, Henk Leenen, was of Roman
Catholic descent: Leenen therefore knew what was needed to convince those who had doubts (The 2009, 137).
17. These synods later withdrew their support (see Samen op Weg-kerken 1999).
18. Cf. Anne-Mei The, Verlossers naast God, 196 ff.
19. The wordings of this case were also taken from the television documentary Rob Hof 2003.

Works Cited
Boer, Theo A. Is euthanasie een maakbare dood? Een bijdrage vanuit het perspectief van de meldingsprocedure. Nederlands
Theologisch Tijdschrift 63.2 (2009): 154-63.
---. Recurring Themes in the Debate about Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Journal of Religious Ethics 35.3 (2007): 529-55.
House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. 3
vols. London: The Stationary Office, 2005.
Loenen, Gerbert van. Hij had beter dood kunnen zijn: Oordelen over andermans leven [He would have Been Better off Dead:
Judging about Other Persons Lives]. Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2009.
Regionale Toetsingscommissie Euthanasie. Jaarverslag 2007. Den Haag, Ministerie van Volksgezondheid en Ministerie van
Justitie, 2008.
---. Jaarverslag 2008. Den Haag: Ministerie van Volksgezondheid en Ministerie van Justitie, 2009.
---. Jaarverslag 2009. Den Haag: Ministerie van Volksgezondheid en Ministerie van Justitie, 2010.
---. Jaarverslag 2010. Den Haag: Ministerie van Volksgezondheid en Ministerie van Justitie, 2011.
The, Anne-Mei. Verlossers naast God: Dokters en euthanasie in Nederland [Redeemers alongside God: Doctors and Euthanasia
in the Netherlands]. Amsterdam: Thoeris, 2009.
Wal, Gerrit van der, et al. End-of-Life Practices in the Netherlands under the Euthanasia Act. NEJM 356.19 (2007): 1957-65.
Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregtje, et al. Evaluatie van de Wet toetsing levensbeindiging op verzoek en hulp bij zelfdoding. Den Haag:
ZonMW, 2007.
Weg-kerken, Samen op. Samen op Weg-kerken pleiten voor nadere bezinning euthanasiewetgeving. Utrecht, Samen op Weg
Kerken, 1999.

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1, 64-71

God Commanded What? A Critical Response to Robert Adams

on the Abraham Dilemma
John A. Houston
Purdue University

In his Finite and Infinite Goods, Robert Adams structures the Abraham dilemma around the need to reject one of
the following three jointly inconsistent claims: (1) If God commands me to do something, it is not morally wrong
for me to do it. (2) God commands me to kill my son. (3) It is morally wrong for me to kill my son. Accepting any
two of these propositions necessitates denying the third. Adams rejects (2), but presents weak arguments for doing
so. I argue that Adams ethical framework avails him of a stronger case for his rejecting (2) than what he presents.
Keywords: divine commands, Abraham, moral psychology, Robert Adams

1. An Epistemological Difficulty?
In Finite and Infinite Goods, Robert Adams wrestles with the Abraham dilemma. He observes that any
satisfactory answer to the dilemma requires one to reject one of the following three jointly inconsistent claims:
(1) If God commands me to do something, it is not morally wrong for me to do it.
(2) God commands me to kill my son.
(3) It is morally wrong for me to kill my son.
Adams considered position is to reject (2). He observes that Kant voted solidly to reject (2) and he
concurs, suggesting that Kants response is substantially correct (Adams 1999, 284). Additionally, he declares,
I agree with Jeremiah that the true God never commanded any such thingnever even thought of doing so
(279). His reasons for rejecting (2), however, seem much weaker than what his framework actually allows.
Rather than directly arguing for the falsity of (2), he argues for the implausibility of Gods having issued any
such command. Regarding Adams position Philip Quinn states, He does not argue directly for the falsity of
(2), and I do not see how he could successfully do so within his frameworks doctrine of transcendent divine
goodness (2002, 463). Quinn is right about the lack of direct argument from Adams, but as I will argue, he
may be incorrect in claiming that Adams framework cannot avail him of such an argument.
Adams indirect argument for rejecting (2) focuses on the epistemological difficulty of properly
identifying such a command as coming from God. Agreeing with Kants rejection of (2), he states, The
problem, as he [Kant] recognizes, has an epistemological dimension. Among purported revelations, which of
them are authentic and really come from God? (Adams 1999, 284). Adams goes on to suggest that we must
test purported messages from God for their coherence with ethical judgments formed in the best ways available
to us (284). He concludes, In any cultural context in which it is possible to worry about Abrahams Dilemma,
it will hardly be credible that a good God commanded the sort of sacrifice that is envisaged there (290). By
John A. Houston, Ph.D. candidate, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University.

A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO ROBERT ADAMS ON THE ABRAHAM DILEMMA

65

appealing to the commands lack of credibility, Adams infers that, given the lack of coherence of the
command in question with our own best ethical judgments, it seems implausible that such a command comes
from God.
Adams position amounts to recommending a posture of epistemic abstinence towards (2) (Quinn 2002,
465). He suggests that, as long as it remains implausible that Abrahams command was issued by God, then
worrying about Gods potentially commanding such a thing is a waste of spiritual energy (Adams 1999, 290).
Such a reply to the Abraham dilemma is less than satisfying. While the theist can reject no claim from the
inconsistent triad without considerable sacrifice, surely any purported solution to the dilemma ought to be put
forth in the strongest available manner. If one possesses the tools to argue more directly for the falsity of any
one of these claims, he ought to avail himself of those tools. Adams response, as it stands, is considerably
weak.
Consider the limitations of Adams position as it stands. His failure to argue directly for the falsity of (2)
leaves him having to wrestle with the epistemological question of whether it is possible for God to successfully
make known that such a counterintuitive claim is indeed coming from Himself.1 When faced with this question,
Adams is forced to admit that his position leaves him open to the objection that an omnipotent deity would
have the power to cause a sign that we could not credibly fail to recognize as a genuine command from God to
offer otherwise unnecessary human sacrifices and that he has no definitive reply to this objection.
Much would depend on whether we could see the author of the command as the supreme Good. If we could, then perhaps
trusting obedience might seem the right course. A situation in which I would find it reasonable to believe that a good God
had given such an abhorrent command seems to me so unimaginable, however, I think it is at best a waste of spiritual
energy to try to decide what one should do in that case. (Adams 1999, 290)

It may be that Adams is ultimately correct in claiming that for 21st century Western Christians such as
himself, entertaining such questions is a waste of spiritual energy. But his case for its being in principle a waste
of energy is far from definitive. Because Adams attempts to set this question aside in virtue of its
unimaginable nature, one might simply respond by observing that his argument here appeals more to peculiar
psychological facts about Adams himself than to anything about the nature of the command, or its being
discernibly issued by God. Yet, as long as (2) is recognized as a possibility, one must either answer the
epistemological question definitively, or be content to leave the question open-ended. It seems that Adams opts
for the latter. However, if Adams were to make a direct case for the falsity of (2), such additional
questionswhether existential (What if God were to make such a command of me?) or epistemological (How
could I be sure it was God who issued the command?) in naturebecome negligible.

2. Moral Psychology and the Notion of Goodness

A more direct argument for the falsity of (2) is made possible through combining other features of Adams
Platonic ethical framework. One of the most interesting elements of Adams proposed ethical framework is his
suggestion that there is a divinely ordained link between our fundamental moral intuitions and the Good, such
that our evaluative practices naturally trace fragmentary resemblances to a transcendent Good (Adams 1999,
358). According to Adams, human beings possess a set of pretheoretical beliefs that are grounded quite apart
from and prior to any metaphysical and theological speculation. He observes that a considerable range of
beliefs about what is good and what is wrong in detail must be prior in principle to sound theorizing about the
nature of goodness and the nature of wrongness (356). Further, he states, The grounds for accepting a theory

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A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO ROBERT ADAMS ON THE ABRAHAM DILEMMA

of the nature of goodness or wrongness will presuppose an understanding of the role to be filled by that nature;
and in my account a lot of particular beliefs about what is good or wrong enter into the determination of that
role (356). Thus, although in the order of being the divine nature is prior to mundane goodness or wrongness,
when it comes to the epistemology of values, Adams affirms the priority of fundamental pretheoretical beliefs
about goodness and wrongness to the development of theory.
According to Adams, our fundamental pretheoretical beliefs consist of both inferential and non-inferential
doxastic evaluative attitudes, which are themselves informed by a wide range of inputs that are not beliefs,
including feelings, emotions, inclinations, and desires (358). Adams appeal to our fundamental non-inferential
inputs suggests there is some basic and universally distributed characteristic within the human species when it
comes to evaluating actions. This characteristic, he observes, has gone by many names. One might call it
vision, intuition, or moral sense. Adams prefers to call it moral sense (358-59). Whatever one calls this
basic evaluative doxastic attitude, it seems evident that Adams regards it as determinative of the available
options for human beings when evaluating actions. He notes that it is in accord with this basic moral sense that
people weigh reasons for actions by depending on sensitivities that involve feelings and inclinations as
inputs (359). Thus, in his ethical framework, the structure of basic human emotions plays a normative role in
the evaluation of at least some actions: The doxastic process takes the emotion itself as an input, rather than a
belief about the emotion. We may not be able to characterize the emotion adequately except in terms of the
evaluative belief, perhaps as a feeling that something would be wonderful or horrible (358).
Whence comes this fundamental moral sense of human beings? According to Adams its origin is God. He
affirms our possession of this basic moral sense in his chapter titled Revelation of God. In this chapter he
distinguishes Gods general revelation from His special revelation. According to his account of general
revelation, human beings possess primitive non-inferential doxastic attitudes derived from a divinely ordained
capacity to experience horror or wonder in the face of some actions. He posits a reciprocal relationship between
our pretheoretical moral sense and Goodness, such that Goodness informs our basic moral sense, and our moral
sense plays a formative role in our understanding of the nature of Goodness. For Adams, the basic structure of
human emotional intelligence informs not only our idea of what the good and the wrong are, but what we could
possibly conceive them to be. Within Adams epistemology of values, our most fundamental moral sentiments
are rooted in and informed by basic non-inferential doxastic beliefs that God has established within our very
nature. This outfitting of our nature with a particular sort of emotional intelligence is part of Gods general
revelation of Himself, and helps make possible communication (and the potential for relationship) between God
and human beings.
If Adams account is right, then human beings have been outfitted by God with at least some basic
non-inferential doxastic attitudes that are formed and informed by rudimentary feelings, inclinations, and
desires. These feelings, inclinations, and desires naturally affect our ability to approve or disapprove of certain
actions. Therefore, on Adams account, it is reasonable to assume that there are going to be some actions such
that human beings naturally regard them as, in themselves, horrible. This is not to suggest that our natural
pretheoretical attitudes about goodness or wrongness obtain such a tight relationship with God that anything
that is good or wrong will be appreciated by any and all observers.2 I believe Adams would reject such a claim,
in virtue of the critical stance he recommends toward somethings being good or right.3 But surely we
should expect to be able to identify at least one member of what Adams claims is the non-empty set of the most
primitive pretheoretical beliefs that human beings hold in virtue of their non-inferential doxastic attitudes. I

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submit that if Adams can claim any member belongs to this set, surely it is the belief that the ritualistic killing
of ones children is, in itself, horrible.
Adams admits that, despite the practice of child sacrifice among Abrahams contemporaries, the biblical
account of Abraham does not fail to convey the horror of the command (278). However, as he goes on to point
out, what is missing in the biblical account is any suspicion on Abrahams part that to kill his son is morally
wrong. It is important not to overlook Adams account of the relationship between badness and moral
wrongness. Adams carefully distinguishes between the wrong and the bad. The former belongs to the obligation
family of concepts, the latter belongs to the value family of concepts. Neither is a necessary nor a sufficient
condition for the other. However, as I have indicated, there is evidence in Adams epistemology of values that
he is not content with any account of morality that would attempt to wholly sever obligation concepts from
value concepts. Attempting such a separation might mean being left with the potential for Gods commands to
be fundamentally counterintuitive and bizarre. Adams wisely avoids such a scenario with his suggestion that
there is some minimal role that our emotions, feelings, and inclinations play not only in our evaluation of what
is good and bad, but also in our opinions about what is morally permissible. According to Adams, we can
reasonably expect that morally obligatory acts not be radically incongruous with our natural pretheoretical
dispositions toward actions. He states, theory could be rejected out of hand if most of the obligations it
assigned us were to perform actions that have always been regarded as wrong. There is a limit to how far
pretheoretical opinion can be revised without changing the subject entirely (246). Put another way, any moral
theory offering an account of obligation wildly opposed to our most basic moral sense ought to be ignored.
Adams grounds obligation on divine commands. Thus, obligatory actions are those that God commands us
to perform. Further, as previously shown, Adams epistemology of values includes the claim that we can
reasonably expect some level of consistency between our moral sense and any tenable account of obligation. In
addition to this crucial feature of his ethical framework, Adams maintains the following claims about the nature
and purposes of God:
(1*) God is supremely Good.
(2*) God intends to successfully and positively relate to human beings.
I contend that, if we take these propositions in conjunction with Adams epistemological claim that there
obtains some important connection between our pretheoretical attitudes and what we can recognize as
obligatory, it suggests something about the range of things that God might command of human beings. For, if
God is supremely Good, intends to successfully and positively relate to man, and is not to stand at odds with
His own purposes, then it seems necessary that there be some limitation upon the types of commands that He
would issue to human beings. In other words, it is not implausible that God be obligated4 to respect the deepest
and most universally distributed moral sentiments that He Himself has ordained in human nature. Given these
considerations, I introduce the following conditional statement, which I believe to be consistent with (though
not compelled by) Adams ethical framework: If the deepest rooted convictions of our pretheoretical moral
sense are given us by God, and a basic feature of our pretheoretical moral sense is repugnance and horror at the
ritualistic killing of our children, then we can reasonably and confidently expect that God will not command us
(i.e., human beings) to kill our children. Call this the Moral Certainty Thesis.5
Before arguing that Adams ethical framework is consistent with MCT (the Moral Certainty Thesis), I
should clarify three things about the thesis. First, the killing to which MCT refers is limited to cases of
sacrificial killings that are, as Adams puts it, otherwise pointless (289). Henceforth I will use killing as

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A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO ROBERT ADAMS ON THE ABRAHAM DILEMMA

shorthand for sacrificial killings that are otherwise pointless.

Second, I must address a potential concern regarding the veracity of MCT on the basis of anthropological
evidence. Some might object that accepting the second conjunct of MCTs antecedent would be nave, due to
anthropological evidence that certain cultures seem to experience no horror or repugnance at child sacrifice.
However, attempting to cite counterexamples in individuals or groups that lack the capacity for such horror or
repugnance is to misunderstand the nature of my claim. MCT is a ceteris paribus claim regarding human beings
as such, and is proposed as true only in the absence of intervening efficient causes. Just as the observation that
human beings are the kind of creatures that naturally possess the power of sight is not shown to be false by the
fact that some individuals are blind, so the claim that human beings naturally experience horror at child
sacrifice is also not shown to be false by citing counterexamples that occur via defect in individual human
beings (e.g., pathological disorders or brain damage). Nor is it falsified by pointing out that some cultures have
lacked such sensibilities. For, even if it could be demonstrated that certain individuals or even entire cultures
have utterly lacked this basic capacity, the fact might obtain via reason of intervening efficient causes that have
nothing to do with their basic nature or pretheoretical moral sense. It is in principle possible that through
repeatedly performing perverse acts that people can come to diminish, or even destroy, their basic natural
aptitudes that would be otherwise present, including the capacity to experience horror at the killing of their
children. The fact that repeated acts of cruelty engender callousness or indifference in the agents that perform
them is no argument against the horrific nature of those actions, but rather a sobering reminder that perverse
actions can engender perverse states of character. If one objects that such a claim is somehow self-sealing, I
suspect her quarrel is not with this claim only, but any claim that human beings possess some minimally
recognizable common moral sense. When Adams refers to a common pretheoretical moral sense of human
beings qua human beings, he is referring to fully functioning human beings, not moral monsters or those who
have become severely corrupted through the habitual practice of perverse acts.
Finally, while MCT is consistent with maintaining the objective badness of killing our children, it is not
intended to say anything about the objective badness of the act in question. To argue for such a claim requires
more work, since it raises further difficulties regarding how, and in virtue of what, child sacrifice might be
objectively bad. This question would set us back on a form of the Euthyphro dilemma, attempting to determine
if X is either bad or wrong because God prohibited, or God-prohibited because bad or wrong. I need not weight
in on the Euthyphro dilemma to motivate the point I wish to make with MCT. With these clarifications in place,
I turn to whether Adams Platonic ethical framework is consistent with MCT.

3. Divine Commands and Perverse Precepts

I have argued that Adams accepts that the most deeply rooted convictions of our pretheoretical moral sense
are given us by God. Further, I believe he would grant that repugnance and horror at the prospect of child
sacrifice is a God-given aspect of our moral sense. Thus, I conclude that he would accept the whole antecedent
of MCT. Further, through discussing Adams commitment to Gods supreme goodness (1*) and Gods intention
of positively relating to man (2*), I have attempted to show why he should be motivated to accept the
entailment from MCTs antecedent to its consequent. Nonetheless I suspect Adams might still have reservations
about the consequent of MCT, on account of his explicit concern about domesticating the transcendence of God
(285). If I can allay this concern, there seem no remaining obstacles within Adams ethical framework to
prevent him from accepting MCT.

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69

MCT does not undermine Adams worry about domesticating divine transcendence. The point of MCT is
to draw attention to the basic expectations that human beings might reasonably have when it comes to Gods
issuing commands. If God is (as Adams maintains) the supreme Good, then we can reasonably expect that, in
virtue of having created creatures such as ourselves, there are certain actions that He just will not command us
to perform. This is not to suggest it is incumbent upon God to never issue commands that cause discomfort.
Real love often requires real sacrifice. Rather, my point in stating MCT is that we can expect God not to
contravene His explicit (according to Adams, revealed) purpose of successfully disclosing Himself as the
Good to man. This means not issuing perverse commands, at least one of which is the ritualistic, and otherwise
pointless, killing of our own children.
The reasoning thus far presented in support of MCT might be summarized as follows:
(i) God intends for our natural (and God given) pretheoretical moral sense to engender moral obligations.
(ii) God intends for his commands to engender moral obligations.
(iii) Gods intentions are never contradictory.
(iv) God would not issue commands that stand in direct contradiction to our fundamental pretheoretical
moral sense, (i)-(iii).
(v) Our deepest pretheoretical moral sense includes the conviction that it is wrong to kill our children.
(vi) Thus, one can reasonably expect that God would not command us to kill our children, (iv) and (v).
I have already given evidence that Adams grants (i) and (ii). Premise (iii) is offered as a basic feature of
omniscience and perfect rationality which I will further explain and argue for momentarily. Perhaps premise (iv)
would give Adams pause when it states God would not due to his explicit concern about our
domesticating divine transcendence:
Even in applying the ethical criterion, however, we should not reject proposition (2) too easily. Religion would be not
only safer than it is, but also less interesting and less rich as a resource for moral and spiritual growth, if it did not hold the
potentiality for profound challenges to current moral opinion. Religions connection with the transcendent would be
threatened if it could not demand costly sacrifices for distinctly religious reasons, or if ones acts of faith and devotion
could not be allowed to be costly in any way to anyone besides oneself. If we believe in divine commands at all, we should
not want to hold that they can never be surprising. (285)

I am not denying Adams claim that God might require of human beings great sacrifices that are
unpleasant. Nor am I denying that these commands may at times be surprising. But, it does not follow from this
that they may therefore sometimes be perverse. Further, as I have suggested, it would be perverse for God to
issue to a man the command to kill his children. Adams acknowledges this perversity at a certain level when he
very poignantly asks:
Why would God want to be obeyed in such a horrible way? It is not as if the world contains so few occasions for the heroic
performance of duty that God would need to create a crisis by commanding an otherwise pointless killing. The meaning
of the gift depends not only on its costliness to the giver but also on the desires or values of the recipient. How would you
like to receive for your birthday a brightly wrapped box with a card on it announcing, the costliest and most precious gift
I could find, and open it to discover the severed head of either the giver or the givers child? (289)

The perversity to which Adams here alludes is a perversity of obscenityan obscenity evinced by our
horror at the act. I grant the presence of this perversity. But I wish to point out that Adams Platonic ethical
framework avails him of an even stronger claim. By drawing on his claims about human beings fundamental
pretheoretical beliefs and non-inferential doxastic evaluative attitudes, Adams can argue that an even deeper

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A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO ROBERT ADAMS ON THE ABRAHAM DILEMMA

perversity would obtain if God were to command such an acta perversity that obtains through the notion that
properly functioning human beings will experience moral horror when faced with such a command.6 This
stronger perversity lies in the self-contradiction and irrationality it would entail for God to issue such a
command to creatures such as human beings. For, if God creates human beings and outfits them with an
emotional intelligence that naturally informs them that child sacrifice is horrific and not to be performed (all of
which Adams grants), then to issue any such command would be for God to thwart His own expressed intention
of having a loving relationship with human beings. Such perversity extends beyond our horror at the
commands immediate obscenity. It is perversity at a more fundamental levela perversity that arises in virtue
of Gods standing at odds with His own express purposes. Thus, on this line of reasoning, to grant that God
might issue such a command is to grant the possibility of Gods intentional self-contravention. But to grant this
is not pious, it is absurd, as it attributes a fundamentally irrational act to an allegedly supremely rational being.
The philosophical grounds for this line of reasoning are made explicit by introducing a principle of
accidental divine limitation that explains how Adams can deny that God would issue such a command without
at the same time denying divine transcendence. This principle is incipient in my argument thus far, but now I
make it explicit: In virtue of freely doing Y, God will not do X. (Call this the Consistency Principle.) In the
present discussion, Y is the free act of creating human beings, while X is the issuing of commands contrary to
the most fundamental (allegedly God-ordained) convictions of human beings non-inferential moral sense.
Because such a limitation derives from Gods freely choosing to create human beings, it does not compromise
or domesticate divine transcendence. The point is simply this: on Adams view God was not necessitated to
create human beings; however, in virtue of freely choosing to do so, God embraced limitations regarding what
types of commands He could issue to them. If, as Adams claims, God is supremely Good and intends to
lovingly relate to human beings, and is not to perversely stand at odds with His own purposes, then He must
accept limitations as to what He might command of creatures such as ourselves.7 This means not commanding
us to ritualistically sacrifice our children. Such a limitation, however, is not extrinsically imposed upon God,
but rather voluntarily embraced by God in virtue of freely choosing to create human beings. Thus the
Consistency Principle neither denies nor domesticates divine transcendence, but obtains in accordance with
Gods perfect rationality. While it is a feature of perfect rationality and omniscience not to harbor contradictory
intentions, it is also a feature of practical rationality not to deliberately engage in actions which frustrate ones
own ends.
The point of the Consistency Principle is to appeal to the internal rational consistency one might
reasonably expect within the divine nature and the acts that flow there from. There is evidence in his Finite and
Infinite Goods that Adams would be sympathetic to this need for divine self-consistency. Within his discussion
of the Abraham dilemma, he approvingly cites similar intuitions from Linda Zagzebski: Though it is not
unreasonable to say that Gods goodness includes more than the moral, isnt it unreasonable to say that any one
part or aspect of Gods goodness can be in conflict with another? (283). Though in the context of this citation,
Adams is arguing against the possibility of there ever being a moral dilemma in which there is no permissible
act, the principle with which he is agreeing applies also to the rational self-consistency that would prevent God
from commanding certain actions of human beings, including the ritualistic, and otherwise pointless, killing of
their children.
In conclusion, it seems that the Consistency Principle, at the very least, accords with Adams claim that
God is supremely Good and intends to relate to human beings in a recognizable manner as such. Further, this

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71

principle does not compromise or domesticate the transcendence of God. For, according to the Consistency
Principle, the restriction proposed upon Gods commanding child sacrifice is not in virtue of something other
than God, but in virtue of what God is said to be. Such a limitation obtains in virtue of Gods free choice and
essential rationality. As such, this limitation is attributable to God and God alone. By availing himself of these
other important features of his ethical framework, Adams can argue more directly for the falsity of (2). In so
doing, he is no longer left in the weak position of recommending epistemic abstinence regarding the
command. On the contrary, he is left with a strong and principled denial of (2), yielding him a more formidable
response to the Abraham dilemma.

Notes
1. I retain the traditional masculine pronoun when referring to God in this paper to retain consistency with Adams own
locution as I comment on his work.
2. This is not to confuse badness with wrongness, or goodness with rightness. As I point out shortly, Adams distinguishes
value concepts from obligation concepts. Later I discuss how Adams attempts to tie our pretheoretical beliefs to obligation
specifically.
3. Adams recommends openness to the possibility of somethings being good or rightor notwhen dealing with any
empirically identifiable property that we regard as good. (See his discussion in 3.2 of chapter two: Empirical Confirmation and
Reflective Equilibrium, esp. 74-76.)
4. I later explain in detail what might be the nature and source of this obligation.
5. The word play here is intentional, suggesting that we can have moral certainty about certain moral matters.
6. Perhaps one might attempt to circumvent this perversity claim by arguing that God could issue a command without the
intention that the recipient act on the command, and that this was the case with Abraham. Thus, insofar as Abraham was intending
to act on the command he was morally wrong, but because he was following a divine command, he was not wrong in a
blameworthy manner. According to this argument, (1) is the member of the initial inconsistent triad that ought to be rejected.
Perhaps this is correct. I doubt it. However, the point of the present paper is to attempt to strengthen Adams proposed solution on
his own grounds, not provide an alternative solution in its stead.
7. Notice it is not merely the contingent nature of human beings that motivates this point, but the kind of beings that humans
are. Human beings are perceiving, thinking, feeling, and are relational beings, capable of immense joy as well as profound
suffering, due to their capacity for gratuitous awareness of the conditions in which they find themselves.

Works Cited
Adams, Robert Merrihew. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
Quinn, Phillip L. Obligation, Divine Commands and Abrahams Dilemma. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64.2
(2002): 459-66.