The Death of Philosophy

by Thomas-Fogiel, Isabelle; Lynch, Richard;

  In a word, the use of this term expresses the impossible conjunction of two mental orientations, representation and reflection. Consequently, the problem can be posed in the following way: to know always signifies orienting toward the object (reference). This object is a depiction in space and time. But what the Kantian theory brings out, despite itself and in its own defense, is another modality of knowing, namely, knowledge as reflection upon one’s operations (self-reference). We thus have a fissure in the nuclear structure since these two mental orientations are mutually incompatible and cause the system to implode.

  Conclusions: The Two Orientations

  The conclusions of this analysis are therefore clear and can be expressed in one sentence: Kant privileges the idea of reference ad extra but at the same time articulates, with a strange oxymoron that weakens the former idea, the necessity of another orientation; this paradoxical necessity is revealed in two of the most important moments for the Kantian system—namely, the determination of mathematics’ validity and the thematization of the “synthetic unity of apperception.” Obsessed by the “demand for referentiality,” nevertheless at the same time and in the same way Kant points out the necessity of another orientation—an orientation that the post-Kantians will adopt but that the neo-Kantians will abandon.

  Before examining neo-Kantianism’s point of departure, which is the origin of the twentieth century’s race to reference, it is probably not without value to note in passing how the Kantian definition of validity still determines the entirety of our mental universe today. It is difficult to conceive of a definition of knowledge other than that of mathematical or physical rationality, as is attested by the fact that every new discipline, as a candidate for scientificity, begins by mathematicizing itself (like, for example, economics). To be sure, the definition of mathematical and physical rationality is certainly not the same in various systems since Kant. Nonetheless, the fact remains that knowing has been defined for two centuries as knowing an object, that is, is specified from an orientation toward the object. We can understand the history of all the possible configurations of philosophy in light of this observation. For example, it could be said that when philosophy is not science, it is nonsense (the analytics), or else poetry (Heidegger), or even hermeneutics (Gadamer). But whatever unfathomed differences there may be in these proposed definitions, they all have a definition of “science” as knowledge of the object as a common background and shared presupposition. When Heidegger exclaims that “science does not think,”58 what he has in mind is still this scientific definition of knowledge. He does not criticize it but rejects it in favor of a meditative thought that turns more and more toward poetry. Likewise, if hermeneutics considers itself to be of a “lesser truth value” than the hard sciences, this is because the Kantian definition of validity remains in effect. This Kantian definition is, in fact, a “positivist conception of knowledge,” in the sense that there is ultimately no other rationality than the mathematical/physical—however one might define the essence of this rationality: as knowledge of something that is given as a Gegenstand and as the connection between an intuition and a concept (Kant); or as a mere logic connected, for physics, with a posteriori experience (the Vienna Circle).

  This positivism will be the path pursued by the first philosophers who in 1850 will advocate a “return to Kant,” in Eduard Zeller’s famous phrase. And in fact, with neo-Kantianism we can witness the abandonment of what I have characterized as metadiscourse, the renunciation of the question, “How do we know that we know?” (the orientation of reflection) in favor of a simple epistemological question, “How do we know?” and even, to take up Hermann von Helmholtz’s expression, “In what way do our ideas correspond to reality?”59 (the orientation of reference). Between Wissen (knowledge [savoir]) and Erkenntnis (learning [connaissance]), the first neo-Kantians would plow the furrows of Erkenntnis. This reading of Kantianism, so decisive in the history of the “race to reference,” is what I must now show; this passage from the science of knowledge to epistemology [la théorie de la connaissance] (from Wissenschaftslehre to Erkenntnistheorie) is what we must next understand.

  11

  Helmholtz’s Choice as a Choice for Reference: The Naturalization of Critique

  From the Transcendental to the A Priori

  The return to Kant is in fact the choice of a single path that brings an end to the tension in the critical project. It is a matter of “returning” to the question of representation as an explication of the relation between a subject and an object. Let’s first of all recall that, from 1810 to 1850, Hegel and his disciples were the main figures on the philosophical scene. Henri Dussort points this out, “From 1800 to about 1840, speculative thought, its famous developers and their disciples occupied the center stage.”1 Friedrich Engels himself noted that this enthusiasm for the Hegelian doctrine was at its peak between 1830 and 1840, “It was precisely from 1830 to 1840 that ‘Hegelianism’ reigned most exclusively, and to a greater or lesser extent infected even its opponents.”2 But beginning in 1850, this widespread Hegelianism rapidly broke down, and as Ernst Cassirer notes, “In place of the metaphysical orgy inspired by post-Kantian philosophy, a complete sobriety appears.”3

  Why did it break down? In fact, it is traditionally attributed to the development of and the orientation adopted by the positive sciences, which seemed to undermine the Hegelian analysis of the sciences and the ostensible absence of mathematics in Hegel despite the fact that the age witnessed a clearer and clearer mathematicization of all the positive sciences. This is an established historical point, in the sense that it is indeed what his contemporaries said—it was necessary to distance philosophy from Hegelianism and tie it to the so-called exact sciences. However, we could maintain that it was not only about Hegelianism’s ostensible “weakness” or nonconformity with the science of the time but also about a choice for a kind of rationality (representation, to the detriment of reflection). The opposition between Wissenschaftslehre and Erkenntnistheorie is less the opposition between one conception that will turn out to be false (German idealism) and another one, true (positivism), but rather the choice between two possible orientations for philosophical questioning.

  What launched this return to Kant, apart from Eduard Zeller’s famous discourse, was Hermann von Helmholtz’s simultaneously scientific and philosophical elaboration as a whole. From a general point of view, Helmholtz presented a positivist reading of Kant that tended to “naturalize” the critical project. First of all, this resolute naturalism reflected Helmholtz’s scientific training, since, apart from logic (which would not be reinvigorated until after his time), he distinguished himself in all the distinct sciences of the nineteenth century—the biological, physical, and chemical sciences, and geometry.4 Helmholtz’s scientific viewpoint can be expressed relatively simply: his fundamental approach consists in applying strictly mechanistic and quantitative models to all phenomena, including biological phenomena. In doing so, he disagreed with his era’s physiologists’ vitalism. In his eyes, a Newtonian mechanism could account for the totality of natural phenomena. What is of interest to me is the way that he thought Kant could justify this entirely Newtonian conception of science. His decisive reinterpretation of Kantian concepts is always carried out along the same axis: a concealment of the reflexive dimension and a naturalization of Kantianism. On this point, we should note the shift in meaning that occurs in Helmholtz’s use of the terms “transcendental” and “a priori.” In all his analyses, Helmholtz considers these concepts to be strictly equivalent. In fact, he reduces knowledge to two dimensions: knowledge is either empirical or a priori, that is, it is either dependent upon or independent of experience. With this reduction, he purely and simply identifies a priori knowledge with transcendental knowledge. But in Kant we could enumerate not two but indeed three ways of knowing: the transcendental, which is knowledge about knowledge, not a mode of knowledge of objects; then a priori knowledge, defined as a structure independent of experience; and f
inally, a posteriori knowledge. Thus, here we should note the impact of Helmholtz’s shift, for we can read the first eclipse of reflection in it. Indeed, to reduce the transcendental to the a priori amounts purely and simply to concealing the possibility of a metacognitive questioning (knowledge of knowledge). This first shift of meaning that paves the way for the naturalization of critique is echoed by another, just as important, namely:

  The Psychophysiological Interpretation of the A Priori

  Here we must grasp the movement of Helmholtz’s interpretation—it first effects an initial reduction, of the transcendental to the a priori, and then understands the a priori in psychophysiological terms. This is indeed what I have characterized as a naturalization of critique. This second shift can be seen above all in Helmholtz’s theory of perception. This theory of perception is based on the fundamental law of the physiology of perception, articulated by Johannes Müller, called the “law of specific nerve energies.” This law explains that our sensible impressions do not depend upon the type of stimulation but exclusively upon the stimulated nerve. Each kind of nerve provokes in us a unique, specific, and incommensurable form of sensation, regardless of the kind of external stimulation. Inversely, the same stimulation, in contact with different nerves, causes different sensations. For example, the same sensation can be caused by a given source of light (electromagnetic waves) but also by pressure on the eyeball, or even, Helmholtz explains, by a displacement of the optic nerve caused by a brusque movement of the eye, etc. Thus, various sources can have the same effect. On the other hand, the same electromagnetic waves will prompt a sensation of heat if they are in contact with a nerve of the skin and a sensation of light if they are in contact with the nerves of the eye. It follows, from a general point of view, that the type of our sensible impressions does not depend on the type or the origin of the stimulation but on the stimulated nerve—such is what the “law of specific nerve energies” says. But Helmholtz interprets this physiological law as a proof of the Kantian thesis about the a priori forms of sensation. Sensations do not depend upon the object (since, in the last example, it is the same object—namely, electromagnetic waves) but upon the subject (the affected nerve). There is thus a psychophysiological predisposition of the subject that explains that the sensation will be of one sort or another. This is why, Helmholtz explains of the discovery of this law of specific nerve energies, that “in a certain sense, it is the empirical fulfillment of Kant’s theoretical concept of the nature of human reason.”5

  These two displacements (the shift between transcendental and a priori and the shift between a priori and psychophysiological) illustrate Helmholtz’s relation to critique, which he summarizes in a passage in “The Facts of Perception”:6

  That is the answer we must give to the question: what is true in our ideas? In giving this answer we find ourselves at the foundation of Kant’s system and in agreement with what has always seemed to me the most fundamental advance in his philosophy.

  I have frequently noted in my previous works the agreement between the more recent physiology of the senses and Kant’s teachings.7

  Thus, Helmholtz claims in fact to have arrived at the same conclusions about the a priori as Kant but through a scientific demonstration, drawing upon experimental verification. Not only does he judge that the transcendental derivation on the one hand (Kant) and the empirical derivation on the other (here, the law of specific nerve energies) give the same status to the propositions that they yield (which is inaccurate in Kant’s eyes, since the transcendental deduction is absolutely necessary while the empirical is always hypothetical), but he also considers the results of these deductions to be identical. In doing so, he draws an interpretation of the forms of sensibility in terms of the origin, or even the cause, of our affections—this is characteristic, in my view, of the naturalization of the transcendental, because precisely the question of the source, of the origin, should be avoided in Kant through recourse to the concept of transcendental.

  Thus we have here a dual movement of naturalization: first, Helmholtz encompasses the a priori and the transcendental within one term, thereby denying the transcendental’s specificity; next, he assimilates the empirical results of physiology to Kant’s philosophical statements. As Moritz Schlick saw it, Helmholtz believed his theory of knowledge to be in better agreement with Kant’s than it really was.8

  To be sure, it could be retorted that this naturalization is already present within critique. Remember, on this point, that Husserl reproached Kant for having naturalized the subject—but Helmholtz incontestably accentuated what was only one tendency among others in critique. He embodies the first great naturalist reading of critical statements. This naturalist reading has the advantage of erasing the contradiction induced by the Kantian use of the term “intellectual,” but it has the disadvantage of cementing the distinction between two kinds of questions: “How do we know?”—which leads to investigation into the nature of our knowledge (is it dependent upon experience or not, a priori or a posteriori?)—and “How do we know that we know?”—which leads to an investigation into the very structure of knowledge, as knowledge of knowledge. Helmholtz’s system marginalizes the second question so much that it eliminates it.

  This naturalization becomes even more apparent if we consider a third example: Helmholtz’s transformation of the Kantian distinction par excellence, the distinction between things in themselves and phenomena. Indeed, his naturalism culminates in this reinterpretation—which, moreover, allows us to understand how this reading of Kant had such a decisive influence on the Vienna Circle and logical positivism at the beginning of the century, thus determining what would become the “race to reference.”

  The Physiological Future of the Distinction Between Things in Themselves and Phenomena

  In “The Facts of Perception,” Helmholtz reformulates the distinction between things in themselves and phenomena in physiological terms—phenomena are what the perception tells us about the nature of the real. He extends the thesis of the thing in itself as “unknowable,” because perception does not give an image of the real but only consistent signs. Indeed, Helmholtz, taking the law of specific nerve energies as the basis for his thesis about access to the real, shows how this law in itself implies the rejection of a theory of perception as a simple reflection of the real. The specific action of nerves (that is to say, our psychophysiological constitution) is interposed between the objective cause of a sensation (for example, electromagnetic waves) and its transformation into a sensation. It follows that this sensation does not give us a reflection, nor an image, nor a copy of the real but is the regulated result of stimulation of the nerves. This leads Helmholtz to reject any naive realism or natural and immediate empiricism, for which sensations give us a trace of the real and in which perception would be considered as a copy of exterior things. The only correspondence that we can establish between perceptions and the causes of stimulation is, Helmholtz tells us, a relation encrypted by signs. Nevertheless, once this naive realism has been rejected, the specter of radical skepticism emerges, as it does in all Kantians. But Helmholtz averts the possibility of skepticism (according to which, because our sensations are not images of things, they are dreams) by advocating a new form of “scientific realism.” Indeed, insofar as signs are consistent, they tell us that the real processes are also. We have to acknowledge here that the structure of such reasoning actually appears very Kantian: it is neither naive realism (perception as a reflection or copy of the very thing) nor for all that radical skepticism (there is no connection between our perception and things). The connection is in fact a relation through the law; the signs’ regularity informs us about things’ regularity and about the lawfulness of real events.