{189}

CHAPTER VI

THE IDEA OF REALITY FOR WHAT IS INTELLECTIVELY KNOWN IN SENTIENT FASHION

 

In contrast to the classical idea of intellection, we have staked out a new and different one: sentient intellection. It is just the impressive actualization of the real as real. But this entails an idea of reality which is quite different than what is understood by reality in a conceptualizing or concept-producing intellection. Up to now we have studied reality as a mode of otherness. But now we must study it in and for itself. This will involve inevitable repetitions.

Sentient intellection apprehends the real impressively. What is thus apprehended has, as we saw, a formality and a content. Neither of these moments is independent. The formality of "reality" as a proper moment of what is apprehended makes of this latter what we call a ‘real thing’. And we express this character by saying that heat not only warms, but "is" warming. In this way three terms appear here: ‘reality’, ‘the real’, and ‘being’. This is just what we now must analyze.{190}

The foregoing terms refer to three ideas apprehended in sentient intellection. They are three ideas different from the usual ones which are intellectively known in a conceptualizing intellection. For this reason I shall, in each case, indicate that contraposition, but only with the motive of outlining the ideas. Moreover, our analysis will be cursory. These three ideas are intrinsic and formal moments of what is apprehended; i.e., they are three boundary ideas. In fact, the actuality of what is intellectively known in sentient fashion is an actuality which is common to what is thus known and to the intellection itself; that we have already seen. So, these three ideas anchored in that common actuality pertain on one hand to the reality of intellection itself, and on the other to the reality of what is intellectively known. With respect to the first, these ideas are a constitutive part of intellection and, therefore, of any philosophy of the intelligence. With respect to the second, they are the constituting thing itself of reality and, therefore, part of any philosophy of reality, of metaphysics. The boundary between the two aspects is precisely the common actuality; this actuality is the boundary between the philosophy of the intelligence and metaphysics. Since what I am here propounding is a philosophy of the intelligence, I shall say only what is necessary for my task about these three ideas.

I shall examine, then,

1. Reality.

2. The real.

3. Being

 

{191}

§ 1

REALITY

 

As we have been saying over and over, reality is first and foremost a formality of otherness of what is sentiently apprehended. And this moment consists in what is apprehended being situated in the apprehension as something "of its own", something de suyo. Reity (thingness) or reality is the formality of the de suyo.

This de suyo is the moment in which what is apprehended is "already" what is apprehended. This "already" expresses the formal anteriority of what is apprehended with respect to its being here-and-now apprehended; it is the prius. In virtue of it, the formality of reality installs us in what is apprehended as reality in and through itself. That is, for a sentient intelligence:

1. Reality is something sensed; it is a formality of otherness.

2. This formality is the de suyo.

3. It is the most radical part of a thing; it is the thing itself as de suyo.

What is now important to us is this radicality of the thing itself. What is reality as a moment of a thing?

The question is justified because we are not now dealing with a mode of being here-and-now present, but of pertaining to a thing in its radical "of itself". The de suyo constitutes, then, the radicality of the thing itself as real and not only as otherness. And this is essential. {192}

It is essential because one might think that reality coincides with existence. Something would be real if it were existent, and if it did not exist, it would not be real. But the matter is not quite as simple as it seems. To be sure, what doesn’t exist isn’t real, and what exists is real. But that is not the question, because what must be asked here is if a thing is real because it is existent or rather if it is existent because it is real. The question is justified because not only is a thing not real if not existent, but neither is it real if it does not have determinate notes. Now, existence and notes concern the content of the real. To be sure, existence is not just another note of the content. But that isn’t the question, because though it may not be a note, existence is a moment which formally concerns the content of what is apprehended but is not formally a moment of its reality. For this same reason, the fact that this content is real is something "anterior" to its existence and to its notes. Only in being real does a thing have existence and notes. Permit me to explain.

We are not dealing with a temporal anteriority, nor saying that a thing may be real before being existent; that would be absurd. Nor are we referring to some order of temporal succession, but rather to an order of formal fundamentation. And then it is clear that reality is formally anterior to existence. Existence pertains to a thing de suyo; a real thing is de suyo existent, which means that in a real thing its moment of existence is grounded in its moment of reality. We said on several occasions and quite properly that a thing has real existence. ‘Real’ means that it is an existence which pertains de suyo to the thing. If this were not so we would not have reality but a spectre of reality. It would be, I think, the key to interpret the metaphysics of the Vedanta. Existence is only a moment of reality {193} and not the other way around, as if something were formally real by being existent. What formally constitutes reality is not existing, but the mode of existing, viz. existing de suyo. For that, it does not matter to me how one conceptualizes existence, whether like St. Thomas, for whom existence is an act of essence; or like Suarez, for whom existence is really identified with the essence. That is, it is not at all clear that there is this thing which we call ‘existence’. There are "existent things", but it is not clear that existence is a moment which is somehow really distinct from the notes. The nature of the articulation between notes and existence in content is the subject of metaphysics, but not our present problem. The only important thing here is to affirm that existence always and only concerns the content of what is apprehended in the same way that it concerns its notes, despite the fact that, as we have said, existence rigorously speaking might not be a note. What is formally apprehended as real in the sentient intelligence is what is de suyo, not what is "existent". De suyo is a radical and formal moment of the reality of something. It is a moment common to sentient intellection and to the real thing: as a moment of intellection, it is the formality of otherness; and as a moment of the real thing, it is its own de suyo. Every metaphysics of reality as existent and as possessor of its own notes must inexorably found itself in the formality of reality, in the de suyo. The articulation of these two aspects of the common actuality is the prius of the de suyo. That is, the de suyo is not only the mode in which an apprehended thing is present to us, but is thereby the constitutive moment of the reality of the thing in and through itself.

This is an idea of reality grounded upon the sentient intelligence. The conceptualizing intelligence erred with respect to this moment of the {194} de suyo, and headed in the direction of a metaphysics of reality as existence. But reality is something intellectively sensed in things: it is "sensed" and is so "in" a thing. What is thus sensed "in" a thing is an "in" which is prius; hence, this intrinsic priority is the radical moment of the thing itself.

A thing qua determined in the formality of reality is constitutively a real thing; it is the real.

 

{195}

APPENDIX 6

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE FORMALITY OF REALITY

 

We have already explained that reality consists in the formality of the de suyo. It is this formality which (pardon the redundancy) formally constitutes reality. But it would be a serious error to saddle this idea with all of the conceptual elaboration subsequently brought to pass by the intellection of reality. It is not our purpose here to examine, even summarily, the content of this elaboration. The essential point is that this elaboration has not been arbitrary, but determined by the moment of the impression of the formality of reality. Thus it is necessary for us to apprehend with precision the moment or moments of the impression of reality which are in themselves determinants of that elaboration. This does not go beyond an analysis of the impression of reality; however, it carries this analysis not by way of intellection but by way of reality. It is for this reason that I here only point out the subject.

Now, the moment of the impression of reality which determines the elaborations to which I am referring is the moment of transcendentality. As we already saw in Chapter IV, transcendentality is the openness of the formality of reality as such. Reality is the de suyo, and this de suyo is open as de suyo as much to what a thing is in its-own-ness as to other things. This refers not {196} to a conceptual openness, but to an openness which in its own way is physical. In virtue of it, a real thing is real by being "more" than what it is by being colored, having mass, etc. This "more" is, then, a moment which intrinsically and constitutively pertains to the very structure of the de suyo. As I shall say forthwith, there are two serious errors about this matter which must be avoided. The first consists in thinking that the "more" is the formal mode of reality. In that case the de suyo would be something grounded on the "more". But that is impossible; the "more" is always and only a moment of the de suyo, and hence is only a grounded moment. The other error is in the opposite direction. It consists in thinking that the "more" is some type of thing more or less imaginary which is added to reality, to the de suyo. This is also impossible; the "more" pertains structurally and constitutively to the de suyo itself. Both errors are the consequence of not having apprehended the articulation between the de suyo and the "more". And this articulation is the transcendentality of the formality of reality.

Transcendentality is real; by being real, a thing is "more" than what it is by being warm or sonorous. But at the same time this "more" is a "more" of reality; it is, therefore, something which is inscribed in the de suyo as such. Transcendentality is the openness of the formality of reality as such; hence, it is "more" than the reality of each thing. It is thus grounded in the de suyo and is a moment of the de suyo itself but without being an extrinsic addition to it.

Let us now see more concretely what this structure means.

Reality is open formality. Hence reality is constitutively respective. In virtue of this each thing, {197} by being real, is from within itself open to other real things—whence the possible connection of some real things with others. That this connection exists is a fact, and nothing more than a fact. But what is not a fact, but an intrinsic metaphysical necessity, is that if such a connection exists it is grounded on respectivity. According to this line of transcendental openness, the moment of reality acquires a special character, what in ordinary discourse we call ‘the force of things’, which consists in the force of imposition of the real. To be sure, it is not a force in the sense of Newton’s or Leibnitz’ physical science; but rather a force sui generis, "forceness" or necessity. We say that something has to occur by the force of things. Here we can see clearly that this force of reality is grounded on what reality formally is with respect to its force of imposition, in the de suyo. But it is not a moment added to reality; it is a moment which expresses the respectivity of things; it is just their transcendentality. This idea of the force of things has given rise to many different conceptual elaborations. It is not important to analyze them here; rather, it will suffice to cite some examples so as to show that all of these conceptual elaborations are grounded on the transcendental moment of the force of reality. One of the most ancient (and problematic) of them is, for example, the idea of destiny, the moira in Greek tragedy. Together with it one could interpret the force of reality as nature; nature would thus be the intrinsic moment of the force of reality. But the force can be conceptualized in still another form. It can be conceptualized as law; that is what is proper to modern science. But in any case, whether law as nature or destiny, we have elaborations of something {198} in which the formality of reality itself is found to be inscribed, viz. the force of reality. This force is a transcendental characteristic of the openness of reality as such. Reality is not force, but this force is always and only a transcendental moment of reality as reality, a transcendental moment of the de suyo.

But there is still another line of transcendental openness. It is that the formality of reality is in itself a moment which has primacy over the content of each real thing. As I said, this moment of reality is, for example, a reifying moment; it is in addition a "such-ifying" moment, a moment through which what is de suyo [of its own] is formally suyo [its own] and makes suyo [its own] everything which happens to the thing; it is "own-ness". This primacy has a very precise name: power. Philosophy has continued to blot out of its realm the idea of power. It returns in a pointed way in Hegel, but even there just with respect to the philosophy of the objective spirit. "Power", as I see it, is not "force"; it is mere dominance. Now, metaphysical power is the dominance of the real qua real. The real through being real has its own power, the power of the real. This is the dominance of the moment of reality over all of its content. Real things do not consist only in the intrinsic necessity of the structure of their content and the force with which this content is imposed upon us according to its formality; they consist as well in transcendentally conveying the power of the real, the dominance of formality over content. Force and power are thus two different dimensions of the impression of reality in its character of respectivity, of transcendental openness. Here, then, we are not dealing with a mythical concept; the salient characteristic of a myth is not "power", but that determinate conceptualization {199} of power which we might better term ‘powerfulness’ or ‘potency’. A myth consists in conceptualizing the power of the real as potency, and in conceptualizing the reality of things as the seat of poten-

cies. This idea is elaborated in turn according to various interpretations, one of which consists in interpreting potency as animity; that is animism. Animism is not the conceptualization of things as power nor even as potency, but just the opposite, viz. potency as what makes animism possible. And then we clearly see that in the same way as animism presupposes potency (without being identified with it), so potency presupposes the power of the real as a dimension of things qua real. Power has nothing to do with potency nor animation; power is a transcendental moment of the real as real. It is grounded in reality, in the de suyo. Otherwise, we should fall into an absurd mythism. But neither is it a mere addition to reality; rather, it is a moment which is transcendentally constitutive of reality.

Force of reality and power of the real are the two points of the transcendental impression of reality upon which a whole gamut of subsequent conceptualizations has been based. But in themselves, those two points are formally given in the impression of reality. These three moments—de suyo, force, and power—pertain to every impression of reality and, therefore, to every conceptualization of reality in whatever historical period it may be found. I shall only add that to affirm that force and power are anterior to the de suyo is just to forget the moment of the de suyo. Within reality we do not deal with the preponderance which some {200} moments can have over others, but with inscribing them congenerically in the de suyo. Is not this precisely what, at the dawn of philosophy, Anaximander’s celebrated arhke expressed?

The impression of the formality of reality is the impression of the de suyo transcendentally open as force and as power.

{201}

§ 2

THE REAL

 

Reality is the formality of the de suyo determined in the apprehension by a mode of formalization of content which is different from the formalization of stimulation. Formalization is, as we saw, what constitutes the mode of otherness of apprehended content; it is the autonomization of this content. Such autonomization has two moments: it is independence, or autonomy of the content with respect to the apprehendor; and it is independence of what is apprehended with respect to other apprehended things—what I have called the moment of closure, or better, the moment of the closed unity of what is apprehended. Now, when these two moments are moments of the formalization of reality, i.e., when they are moments of the de suyo, then autonomization as independence of content and as closed unity of notes takes on its own character, viz. the character by which the apprehended is the real. What the real is, then, is something which can only be conceptualized based on formalization, i.e., on the sentient intelligence; it is something which must be conceptualized as being de suyo independent and one. What is this being independent and one de suyo?

1) Apprehended notes, by being de suyo independent, have their own formal character: they are constitution, the constitution of the real. Constitution is the moment in which the notes determine the form and the mode of the real in each case. And here we have the first characteristic of the real: {202} to be constitutional. This is not a theoretical concept, but a moment of the impressive apprehension of the real. Content has the capacity to be de suyo. And this capacity is, therefore, the capacity for constitutionality. It is what I call sufficiency in the order of independence or of the de suyo; it is constitutional sufficiency. And the real as constitutionally sufficient is what I call substantive reality, substantivity. Substantivity is, formally, constitutional sufficiency, sufficiency for being de suyo.

This capacity in the order of constitutional sufficiency, i.e., in the order of substantivity, can be quite varied. A real color green apprehended in and by itself is something de suyo. Each note which is apprehended in and by itself as reality (even though provisionally) has constitutional sufficiency. Being green is a mode of constitution of the real; it is the verdeal or green form of reality. And in turn, the real green has, taken in and by itself, that constitutional sufficiency which is substantivity. It is what I call elemental substantivity, because it is the independence of a single note. It is the primary and radical substantivity, because each note which is provisionally apprehended in and by itself is what gives us the impression of reality, i.e. the formality of reality.

But it is not the only case nor the most general, because what in fact happens is almost always that the apprehended content does not have a single note but many; it is a constellation of notes. In that case all of these notes have the same formality of reality, which is numerically the same and which "reifies" the total conjunction of notes. Each note by itself is no longer a reality. What is real, what is de suyo, is then not each note but only the {203} whole ensemble. By itself, no note has the capacity or sufficiency to constitute the real, but this capacity, this sufficiency, is proper only to the whole ensemble. Therefore only this ensemble is what has substantivity. But, this ensemble is more than a mere ensemble. In what is thus apprehended, each note has a determinate "position" in the ensemble. Hence, each note is not an element "in" an ensemble, but an element "of" an ensemble; it is a "note-of". Every note qua note is then formally "of". That is what I call the constructed state, in which each note is a constructed moment "of" the ensemble; it is a "note-of" the ensemble. This does not refer to some type of mysterious adhesion of the content of some notes of the substantivity to others, but to the fact that each note is real qua note only in the unity with other real notes as notes. Thus the ensemble itself is not just a mere ensemble but the positional and constructed unity of its notes; it is what I formally term a system. The formalization of what is sensed in sensing is the impressive moment of sentient intellection; in this case the formalization consists in a constellation of notes, and what is thus impressively known intellectually is a system. That is, when it has the formality of the the de suyo, the formalization of the the notes as constellations acquires the character of substantive system; it is the unity of the system. This system unity is constructed unity. Only the system now has constitutional sufficiency. Formalization sentiently grounds this intellective apprehension of what we call real things not as "things" (as we shall see immediately) but as unities of systematic substantivity. This does not refer to a conceptual elaboration, but to a close analysis of the apprehension of the real. {204}

Although every note which is provisionally apprehended in and by itself (for example, extension and intellection, each in and by itself) may provisionally have constitutional sufficiency, it is quite possible that if one tries to form a system with only these two notes, it may not have constititional sufficiency. Thus, the constitutional sufficiency of a note and a system of notes are not the same. For greater clarity I concentrated almost exclusively on the constitutional sufficiency of systems in my book On Essence. In them, constitution is clearly the mode of unity of a system. The moment of sufficiency is constituted through being a closed totality. But this concept of constitution is based upon the more radical concept of constitution as determination of form and mode of reality. The substantivity of a system is not comprised by the substantivity of its notes; on the contrary, the substantivity of these notes does not go beyond being provisional for the effects of their intellective actuality. But this same thing applies to all substantivities—all of them are merely provisional. There is only one strict systematic substantivity, that of the cosmos. Constitution, I repeat, is the determination of the mode and form of reality through notes. And this constitution can be elemental or systematic. Constitutional sufficiency is thus a substantivity which is either elemental or systematic.

2. The real, then, has a moment of reality (the de suyo) and another moment of autonomized content. Now, these two moments are not independent. To see this is suffices to look closely at systematic substantivity. Again I repeat that we are not talking about constructing theoretical concepts, but carrying out a careful analysis of any {205} apprehension of the real whatsoever. In systematic substantivity, the unity of the system constitutes its in, its intus, its interiority. Here, ‘interiority’ does not mean something hidden, lying beneath the notes, but just the unity of their system. This unity is what makes them a construct, viz. being "notes-of" the system. The notes by themselves are the projection of the unity; they are its "ex", its "extra-", its exteriority. Every reality is thus an in and an ex, an interiority and an exteriority. It is interior because it is a system; exterior because it is a projection in its notes. As a system, every reality is internal; as a projection in its notes, every reality is external. These are not two conceptual moments, but two physical moments, described apprehensibly, of the sensed construct. The projection of the unity in its notes has two aspects. On the one hand, it is a molding of the unity in its notes, a molding of the interiority; in this aspect the notes are the ex-structure of the construct, the structure of the in. But on the other hand, this interiority, this in, is actualized in the notes in which it is molded. Molding and actualization are not the same. Now, the formal respects according to which the in, the unity of the system, is actualized in all or some groups of its structural notes is what I call dimension; it is the actuality of the interiority, of the in of the system, in the exteriority of its structure. The real is, then, structural and dimensional substantivity.

I appealed to systematic substantivity for greater clarity. But what was said applies equally to elemental substantivity. A note apprehended in and by itself as real has a "numerical unity" of reality. The actualization of this unity in the note is just its dimension. {206} I use the term ‘dimension’ because in each dimension the substantivity is measured. What are these dimensions?

Let us assume that we apprehend any real thing whatsoever, for example a rock, a dog, or a star. When we do so the thing is situated in the apprehension first of all as a whole, a totum. Upon apprehending one or several notes, I apprehend, for example, a dog. The whole actualized in each note or in any group of notes is the primary dimension of substantivity. In the second place, this whole is not a mere ensemble of notes, as I have already observed. Precisely because each note, qua note, is a "note-of", the presumed ensemble of notes has a coherence in its own "of". The system is actualized in each note or in any group of notes, as a coherent whole. Finally, in the third place, this coherent whole has a type of steadiness or solidity on account of which we say that it is durable. To endure is here "to be here-and-now being". Substantivity has this triple dimension of totality, coherence, and durability. The real is de suyo total, coherent, and durable. This is not some conceptual construction, but just an analysis of any apprehension of the real. Totality, coherence, and durability are three moments of what is apprehended in its primordial apprehension.

Thus in dimensional substantivity we have the real from the standpoint of a sentient intelligence.

Classical philosophy, both ancient and modern, confronted the problem of the real with a conceptualizing intelligence. Thus it thought that the real has a very precise character. Parmenides believed that what is known intellectively is given as a jectum (keimenon); that was the origin of idea of the "atom" (Democritus). Aristotle went a step further: what is known intellectively is not the jectum, but {207} the sub-jectum (hypo-keimenon), substance. Its notes are "accidents", something which supervenes on the subject and which cannot be conceived except as being inherent in it. Modern philosophy took yet another step along this line. What is known intellectively is jectum, not sub-jectum but ob-jectum. Its notes would be objective predicates. Jectum, subjectum, and objectum are, for a conceptualizing intelligence, the three characteristics of the intellectively known real.

But for a sentient intelligence, reality is not jectum (nor subjectum nor objectum), but what has the formality of the de suyo, whether it be a note or a system of notes

sensed in their reality. The real is not a "thing" but something "of its own", thing or not. In contrast to what was thought in the conceptualizing intelligence, viz. that the real is substantiality and objectuality, in the sentient intelligence the real is substantivity. Hence, the notes are not accidents "in-herent" to some substantial subject, nor are they predicates of an object, but rather moments which are constitutionally "co-herent" in a constructed substantive system.

Thus we have what, from the standpoint of the sentient intelligence, is the real. But the problem does not end here. When I contrasted stimulus and reality, I said that heat not only warms but "is warming". Thus we have not only reality as a de suyo, and not only the real given as substance de suyo; but moreover there appears here this subtle term "is". That is the idea of being itself. The real de suyo is. That is what we must now elucidate. {208}

 

{209}

APPENDIX 7

ON THE REAL AND ITS REALITY

 

Since they deal with concepts and problems on the frontier between the study of intelligence and the study of reality, the following considerations at times go beyond mere analysis of the act of sentient apprehension of the real.

The real has its constitutional notes. These notes, by being real, almost always comprise constellations, i.e., unities which are closed and indepedent of the apprehendor by virtue of that formality of reality, "of itself", de suyo.

As closed, systematic unities, the notes have a type of closure which is common to all men, for whom real systems all present the same aspect, viz., they are things which are relatively independent of each other by reason of their notes. That is owing to the sentient structure. If it were not so, the systematic unities would be radically different from those which we now perceive. If we were to see the colors and forms of this tree with a different type of retina, we would perceive streams of photons or electromagnetic fields, for example; and that which we call a tree would not have, as a system, the character which it has in our sensible apprehension. This is what I term the homogenization of systems; it is determined by the structures of formalization. It is thanks to them that we apprehend independent "things" instead of fragments of a cosmos. {210}

In the second place, these systems come demarcated with a certain coefficient of invariance. Not that the notes are completely invariant, but the system of them has nonetheless a relative invariance in virtue of which we say that we have apprehended the same thing. That is, we are not dealing with the mere constancy of what is perceived, i.e., the invariance of notes—a phenomenon which, as is well known, is also common to animals. But what the animal does not apprehend is that type of "real constancy" which we call sameness; sameness is formally the identity of reality of a system apprehended sentiently in the invariant structure of its system of notes.

Homogeneity and sameness are two characteristics of a system of notes qua closed. But much more important and profound are the diverse types of independence of the real as determined by the type of system of its notes, i.e., inasmuch as they are independent systems "of their own".

In the first place, by reason of its constitution, each note or system of notes constitutes a form of reality. Green is the verdeal form of reality. Constitution is thus the concrete form of the unity of the real; i.e., of the "of its own".

But in the second place, there is something more. Content does not comprise only the form of reality, but also the mode of reality. A star, piece of iron or copper, a holm oak, a dog, a man, etc., are distinguished from each other as forms of reality only by their respective constitutions, that is, by the character of their notes, by their constitution. But there is a much more profound difference between these realities. The real is the de suyo. Now, in the examples cited, one sees immediately that these real things differ not only {211} by virtue of their notes, but more importantly by the way in which these notes are "theirs", are of substantivity. That is, they differ by the mode of reality, by the mode of substantivity. Thus, despite their constitutional difference and, therefore, despite their different forms of reality, iron and copper nonetheless have the same mode of substantivity; it consists "just in having as its own" its notes. This "as its own" is what is then conceptualized as a "property". In sentient intellection the "of its own" does not formally consist in being a "property", as was thought in the conceptualizing intelligence; but on the contrary being a "property" is grounded upon the sentient apprehension of the "of its own". With respect to animals, each has its own constitution and, therefore, its own form of reality. Nonetheless, they all have the same mode of reality which is different from mere "having as its own". An animal has an independence and a specific control over its environment based in large measure upon sensing. In sensing, a living animal in a more or less rudimentary fashion is an autos, a self. An animal always has at least a primordium of autos which is richer as one ascends the zoological scale. It is a mode of reality different from merely having notes as its own; it is indeed a new mode of reality which we call ‘life’. Life is not "auto-motion", as it has usually been described since the time of the Greeks; but a kind of "auto-possession", i.e. being in reality and sensing itself as an autos. Here we are not dealing with the constitution as a form of reality, but with the fact that the system as such in its independence is that which constitutes the radically formal part of an animal. And man has a mode of reality yet more profound; he is not only something which possesses itself, something autos, but an autos of a {212} different kind: viz., being not only his own substantivity, but also his own reality qua reality. The simple autos consists in pertaining to oneself by reason of the systematism of one’s notes. But in man we are dealing with an autos in which self-pertaining is not by virtue of notes, but formally and reduplicatively by the very character of reality. Man pertains to himself as reality; he is a person. A person is formally and reduplicatively a real its-own-ness.

Many forms of reality can, then, have the same mode of reality. And these modes, as we have just seen, are three: mere having "as its own", self-possessing, and being a person. They are not independent; each involves the previous one. Thus only by having determinate notes can the real be an autos, a living being. And only by being alive and by having determinate properties such as intelligence can the human animal be a person. But this in no way keeps the mode of reality from being something different from the form of reality.

But there is still more. The real is not only something independent by virtue of its notes and their mode of being real to it; rather, each real thing is a moment of pure and simple reality; i.e., it is real in the world, it is real in a wordly fashion. Worldliness is the respective openness of the impression of reality qua impression of pure and simple reality. Through it we sentiently know the real as established in the world. Now, there are various figures of establishment in reality. Living as well as non-living things are part of the world. Their establishment in reality consists, then, in that figure which I call integration. Man partakes of this condition, but is not reduced to it because as a personal reality man is not only formally and reduplicatively "his own" as reality, {213} but is his own "facing" everything real. This is a type of withdrawal in the world but "facing" the world; a type of confrontation with the world. Hence he senses himself in reality as relatively independent of everything else; i.e., as relatively "absolute". He is not part of the world, but is in it yet falling back upon himself in his own reality. The establishment of man as a personal reality in the world is thus not integration but absolutization, so to speak. In contrast to what Hegel thought, viz. that the individual spirit is but a moment of the absolute spirit, we must affirm that through his personal reality, and inasmuch as he is personal, man is not integrated into anything, either as a physical part or as a dialectical moment. To be sure, a person is integrated into the world by some moments of his reality; for example, his body. But qua personal, this same body transcends all integration; the body is personal but is so formally and precisely not as an organism or a unified system, but as

principle of actuality. On the other hand, that absolute character is grounded in a transcendence, in something which, though starting from the world (as an organism), nonetheless is in it transcending it, i.e., having a relatively absolute character. But this relativity as a moment of the absolute is not integrable, or rather, is only relatively integrable. Whence the possible unity of men has a character which is completely different from that of an integration. Men can be directed to others in a way which pertains only to men, viz., in an "im-personal" way. Other realities are not impersonal, but "a-personal". Only persons can be impersonal. And therefore, {214} while the unity of other things (because they are apersonal) is integration, the unity of men is primarily "society", a unity with other men taken impersonally, i.e., taken just as others. Moreover, by maintaining themselves as persons, i.e. as realities which are relatively absolute, men have a type of unity superior to mere society; this is "personal communion" with others as persons. All of this I say by way of illustration because in itself, the subject pertains to the study of man as established in reality.

Establishment in reality is radically given in the impression of reality. Whence it follows that reality qua reality is not a mere concept, but is physical establishment in reality. To be sure, I have a concept of reality qua reality; but this concept is never primary. What is primary and radical is the de suyo as a moment of reality qua reality. And this moment is "establishment" in reality, in the de suyo; it is apprehended in the sentient intelligence, and precisely because of that is not primarily a concept, but something anterior to any concept. For a conceptualizing intelligence, the fact that something is purely and simply real means only that it is a particular case of reality. But for a sentient intelligence, being purely and simply reality means "being now restored" in reality. Reality qua reality is, then, a physical moment of the real, that moment which I have called ‘establishment’. And the reality in which every real thing is established is not the objective field of the concept of reality, but the physical formality of reality apprehended in every sentient intellection. And since this formality is constitutively {215} open, as we saw, the establishment itself admits various manifestations. In other words, reality qua reality is a moment which is physically open to different establishments. And in fact this openness is dynamic. There has indeed been dynamic progress in the real qua real, because there has been progress in the establishment in reality. We do not know if this dynamic progress will always march forward; that is a problem which is outside the scope of our concerns here. But in principle, reality as such is something which continues to be open. {216}

 

{217}

§ 3

THE BEING OF THE REAL

 

When I contrasted reality and stimulation, I stressed that in both cases we are dealing with formality of otherness. For clarification, I presented a trivial example. As otherness of stimulation, heat is what is explained by saying "heat warms". On the other hand, as otherness of reality, we say that "the heat is warming, is warm". In this example, what I wished to draw attention to is the difference between the two formalities of otherness. In stimulation, heat pertains formally to the sentient process of the animal; it is its sign. It is, then, a type of signate pertaining or property. But heat as reality is something to which its thermic qualities pertain de suyo; it is warming. These two phrases reveal the contrast between the two modes of presentation of what is apprehended. The second (heat "is warming") shows a mode of presentation which transcends mere presentation: to say that the heat "is warm" or is warming is a mode of presentation in which the reality that is present is a prior moment of what is presented, i.e., a moment of what is presented as real in and by itself and not as a moment of its presentation. To this reality its thermic qualities pertain de suyo: prior to its presentation, the heat is warm. But then we find ourselves in a situation where what is apprehended, the heat, is described not with one term but with two. Insofar as the thermic qualities pertain to it of itself, de suyo, we say that the heat has reality in and by itself. But {218} on the other hand we utilize a second term: we say that the heat "is" warming. And here it is not just the reality of the heat which intervenes, but also what the "is" designates, viz. the being of the heat. And this poses the problem of the difference between a warm reality and a warm being; i.e., the difference between reality and being. We have already seen in what reality consists, viz. the de suyo. Hence, we must now clarify in what this which we call ‘being’ consists.

The idea of being has always been fashioned with respect to the understanding, which is to say with respect to the conceptualizing intelligence. However, the conceptualizing intelligence is essentially grounded on the sentient intelligence, which turns the ideas of reality and being upside down. Reality is not something understood, but something sensed, viz. the formality of the de suyo as proper to what is intellectively known in and by itself, prior to its actually being impressively present. Now, prior to being understood in a real thing, being is sentiently apprehended in it. In what does this being consist, which is sentiently aprehended?

Being is something much more radical and complex than the empty "is" about which we are usually told.

A) In the first place, being is above all actuality. We have already seen that actuality is something different than actuity. Actual and actuality is a "being here-and-now present" not qua present, but qua being here-and-now. It is being here-and-now present "from within itself", and not as some extrinsic denomination. It is, finally, being present from itself "by being real" and inasmuch as it is real. The radical actuality of the real consists in the unity of these three moments (being here-and-now, from within itself, inasmuch as it is real). I say ‘radical’, because the real has many actualities; but there is one which is primary and radical, viz. that which I just {219} explained. How is the real actually present from within itself by being real? Clearly, by being real and inasmuch as it is real, that wherein the real is actual is precisely in the pure and simple worldly respectivity. The real is open as reality, is open to the world. And to be here-and-now present in the world is to have actuality in it. That is the primary and radical actuality of the real. Now, the actuality of the real in the world is just its being. Being is worldly actuality. Thus the real is not only real, so to speak, not only the worldly, but the real which is present in the world and inasmuch as it is present therein. This is being. Let us now consider a couple of examples which do not formally pertain to our analysis of the primodial apprehension of reality but which illustrate what we have been saying.

An oak tree is an oak tree and nothing more; that is its reality. We see that this reality, in its form and in its mode, has its figure of establishment in the world. All of that, as I said, pertains to the reality of the oak. But the being of the oak is in another direction. Its establishment in the world "makes" (if I may be permitted the expression) the oak be purely and simply real. But this establishment of the oak in the world reflows, so to speak, upon the established oak as a whole (with its suchness, its form, and its mode) in a very precise way. It does so not by making it tree-reality (that it already was), but by making the oak which is established in the world to be here-and-now present in the world just by being here-and-now established in it. And this being now present is just being. Reflowing here consists in determination of actuality; it reaches all moments of the oak—its suchness, its form, and its mode of reality. The "such-and-such reality" {220} is converted into "such-and-such being". The same thing happens with the form and mode of reality: they are converted into "being form and being mode". This "being" is not, then, a conceptual moment, but a physical one. But it is a physical moment of actuality. It is what I have expressed in the idea of reflowing. If the oak tree

could speak it would say, "I am now established in reality as an oak." This is what a man does when he says, "I am established as a personal reality in the world." Through reflowing, in the case of man his personal reality is converted into an "I". The "I" is not the reality of the person, but his being. This phrase does not only say "I am this or that", but also "this or that is what I am." Here the "I" fulfills a task strictly of emphasis: it is I who is this or that. And this occurs not because man is capable of saying so; on the contrary, he is capable of saying so because ultimately he is so. The "I" is the reflowing of the pure and simple reality in a personal reality established therein. So, while the oak clearly cannot say it, it unquestionably has an "is thus". The "is thus" is just actuality; it constitutes the reality of the oak qua present in the world. And therein being formally consists. Thus, being is clearly something very rudimentary in the case of rocks, of the oak, and of dogs, for example. Where it is not rudimentary is in the case of man, whose personal reality is actual in the world as "being I". In the other realities, being is the most rudimentary of worldy actualities; but it always pertains to a real thing.

Hence being is something independent of any intellection; even if there were no intellection there would be—and there is—being.

B) In the second place, since every actuality is "posterior" to actuity, if follows that "being" is something posterior to {221} reality. In other words, being as actuality is ulterior to the real; it is the ulteriority of being. This ulteriority has its own formal structure, viz. temporality. To be sure, not every ulteriority is temporal; but the ulteriority about which we are here speaking, the ulteriority of being, is so. Temporality is not a structure grounded in ulteriority, nor is ulteriority something grounded in temporality. Rather, the structure of this ulteriority is formally temporality. In other words, the essential character of the ulteriority of being is temporality; the real "is". This actuality consists first of all in that a thing "already-is" in the world; and secondly, in that the thing "still-is" in the world. Hence, "being" is always "already-is-still": this is temporality. We are not referring to three phases of some chronological occurance, but three structural facets of the ulteriority of being. The intrinsic unity of these three facets is what the expression "to be here-and-now being" expresses. Etymologically it is a present participle, being here-and-now actually present in the world. Its adverbial expression is "while". Being is always and only being "while". I have explained this at greater length in "El concepto descriptivo del tiempo" (Realitas II, 7-41).

With this, two errors which I would like to explicitly state have been eliminated. One consists in thinking that ulteriority is chronological posteriority. This is false because ulteriority is not chronological posteriority, but purely formal posteriority; i.e., just temporality. And temporality does not have the structure of the three phases but rather the modal unity of three facets. The other error consists in thinking that due to its ulteriority, being is accidental to the real, something adventitious to reality. But this {222} is absurd, because being is actuality in the world, and this actuality pertains de suyo to the real. Ulteriority then simply means that reality is not formally being, but that, nonetheless, reality is de suyo ulteriorly being. Ulteriority pertains to the real de suyo. "Worldliness", in fact, is a constitutive, transcendental dimension of the impression of reality, as we saw; and because of it actuality in the world is not adventitious to reality. This actuality the real has—indeed, has to have—de suyo; it "is" because it is "real". If one wishes, reality is not being; but reality "really is". That is what I express by saying that reality is not esse reale, but realitas in essendo.

Since the real is substantivity, it follows that it is substantivity which has being; being is the being of substantivity. This does not refer to what is usually called "substantive being". There is no substantive being because being itself lacks any substantivity; only the real has substantivity. I shall immediately return to this point. Thus, there is no "substantive being", only the "being of the substantive"; this is substantivity in essendo, "being" (as participle). The "being" (as participle) of reality is just the being of substantivity.

This ulteriority of being is essential; because of it reality is not a mode of being. Just the opposite: being is the ulterior actuality of the real. Being is something grounded on reality, in the actuity of the real; and this being grounded is just ulteriority. Let us return to the example which we have been considering for the last several pages: heat is warming. This "warming" has two meanings. First of all it means that heat has warming reality. "Warming" then means that heat is a form of reality, viz. warming reality. To warm is thus to warm {223} things. But it can also mean something different. To be here-and-now warming can mean that warming is a way of being here-and-now in the world. This does not refer to warming things, but to being here-and-now in the world warming. So, the actuality of the heat in the mundane sense of being here-and-now warming is being. Thus we are not dealing with a form of reality, but a form of being. This is the whole difference and the whole unity of reality and being: everything real inexorably "is", but "is" by being already "real".

Our return to the foregoing case is not a simple exemplification of what we have been expounding; it is something more. It is a return to the essential point: being is not something understood, but something sensed. This is the heart of the matter.

C) What is the sensed being? Being is ulterior actuality of the real. And since the real itself is sensed, the foregoing question is but to ask ourselves how it is that when we sense the real, we are already sensing its being. The formal end of sentient intellection is always and only reality. In virtue of this, reality is intellectively known in sentient fashion directly in and by itself, as impression of reality. Now, this reality thus apprehended in impression "is" ulteriorly. This ulteriority is, then, "co-sensed" when reality is sensed. The way of intellectively sensing ulteriority is to "co-sense" it. It is not sensed directly, but only indirectly. If one wishes, reality is sensed modo recto; whereas ulteriority is sensed modo obliquo. This obliqueness is just what I have called "co-sensing". When I sense the real in and by itself modo recto, I am co-sensing modo obliquo its physical and real ulteriority. What is co-sensed is being. Hence, being is co-impressively sensed when reality is sensed. This does not refer to an accidental co-sensing, but to an inexorably physical and real co-sensing, {224} because it is just reality which "is" de suyo. Therefore, when we sense what is apprehended de suyo we impressively co-sense its being here-and-now "being" (participle). The impression of reality is transcendental openness to the world. Hence, it is quite inexorable that when we impressively sense the real we should be sensing that it is being in the world; this is sensed being. The apprehension of being pertains, then, physically but obliquely to the apprehension of the real; this is the obliqueness of being.

Actuality, ulteriority, and obliqueness are the three structural moments of being. Being is thus primarily and radically sensed. Such is the idea of being from the standpoint of the sentient intelligence.

Classical philosophy has addressed the problem of being from the standpoint of what I have termed the ‘conceptualizing intelligence’. To know intellectively would be to "understand"; and understanding would be intellectively knowing that something "is". That was the thesis of Parmenides and Plato, and it has stamped European philosophy with its peculiar character. But the conceptualizing intelligence is constitutively grounded upon the sentient intelligence; whence follow essential differences in the problem which we are discussing.

a) Above all, there is a profound difference in the very mode of confronting the problem. Basing themselves on Parmenides, both Plato and Aristotle subsumed intellection under logos; that is what several pages back I called the logification of intellection. But this is not all; it is furthermore the case that, for this theory, what is intellectively known consists in "being". Whence it follows that reality is but a mode of being—to be sure, the fundamental mode, but nonetheless only a mode: the esse reale. That is to say, the real is formally ens; reality would thus be entity. This is what I call {225} the entification of reality. Logification of intellection and entification of the real thus converge intrinsically: the "is" of intellection would consist in an affirmative "is", and the "is" known intellectively would be of entitative character. This convergence has in large measure etched the path of European philosophy. However, the problem does not exhibit the same character from the standpoint of a sentient intelligence. The logos is grounded upon sentient apprehension of the real; i.e., on sentient intellection. Therefore, instead of "logifying" intellection, what must be done is, as I said, to "intelligize" the logos; i.e., make the logos an ulterior mode of the primordial apprehension of the real. The formal terminus of intellective knowing is not the "is", but "reality". And thus it follows that reality is not a mode of being; indeed, being is something ulterior to reality itself. In virtue of this, as I said a few pages back, there is no esse reale, but rather realitas in essendo. Reality cannot be entified, but must be given an entitative ulteriority. The ulteriority of the logos goes "along with" the ulteriority of being itself.

b) A precise idea of ens was never reached from the standpoint of the conceptualizing intelligence. (I must of necessity repeat some things already said in order to clarify this point.) It can indeed already be seen in Aristotle, who tells us that ens (Ôn) has many meanings. They are essentially eighteen: being true and false, being act and potency, being essentially and accidentally, being accident (nine modes of being accident) and being a subject or substance, where this subject is at the same time matter or form or composed of both. This naturally permitted Aristotle to treat the problems of first philosophy with some rigor, from his point of view. Nonetheless, it would be fruitless to inquire {226} as to what, definitively, he understands by ens. He would always reply with his eighteen senses, linked only by a vague and imprecise analogy, and based upon Parmenides’ idea that ens (Ôn) is a keimenon, a jectum. But by his logification of intellection, Aristotle conceptualized this jectum as a sub-jectum (hypo-keimenon)—something which did not much clarify the question. Aristotle remained trapped in this net of concepts. Given the situation, some Medieval philosophers thought that no precise and unitary concept of ens exists. But in general they thought that reality is existence; and then either understood existence as act of the existing thing (St. Thomas) or as a mode of the existing thing (Duns Scotus). But in both cases the ens would be an existent thing which is either effectively existent or aptitudinally existent. But this is not so from the standpoint of a sentient intelligence; because as we have already seen, reality is not existence, but rather being de suyo. That is to say, it does not have to do with either a de facto act of existing, nor an aptitude for existing, but rather something prior to any act and any aptitude, viz. the de suyo. The real is de suyo existent, de suyo apt for existing. Reality is formality, and existence concerns only the content of the real. And thus the real is not ens, but is the de suyo as such. Only by being real does the real have an ulterior actuality in the world. This actuality is being, and the real in this actuality is ens. Reality is not ens; reality has its entity de suyo, but only ulteriorly. Reality is not formally entity.

Modern philosophy modified the medieval conception somewhat; this was the objectualization of the ens, of the esse reale. In various forms this is the basic idea of modern philosophy. {227} Originating from the esse objectivum, from the objective being of Henry of Ghent (14th c.), it became the central idea of Descartes’ philosophy in which what is conceived, as he tells us quite literally, is not formaliter reale, but is realitas objectiva (Meditation III and Primae et Secundae Responsiones). For Kant and Fichte to be is to be an object, to be now put there as an object, so that reality is not entity, but objectuality. But this is inadmissible, because even granting that impossible identification of being and objectuality, what is proper to an object is not its "positionality", but its "actuality" in the intellection. And the same must be said for being as intentional position or as unveiling: intentional position and unveiling are only modes of actuality, modes of being now put there, of being now intended, of being now unveiled.

 

Hence the very idea of ens is vitiated at its root in the conceptualizing intelligence. Reality is not ens, but formality of the de suyo. And the real is ens only as actuality in a world.

c) Finally, the being of which we speak is the being of the conceptualizing intelligence; it is being which is understood. But, primarily and radically being is not something understood, but is sensed being; this is the obliquity of the sentient apprehension of being. The old thesis of Parmenides canonized the opposition between intellective knowing and sensing which has been sustained throughout all of Western philosophy. Nonetheless, this opposition, as we have seen, does not exist. To know intellectively is to apprehend the real, and this apprehension is sentient. Being is nothing but the oblique moment of what is apprehended in an impression of reality. From the standpoint of a conceptualizing intelligence, what is known intellectively modo recto is "being"; whence it follows that what is oblique would be the apprehension of the real. It would be what we could call {228} the obliqueness of the real. And as I see it, that constitutes the radical flaw of European philosophy on this point (only on this point, naturally). Being understood, taken in and by itself, is always and only the human expression of being obliquely sensed in an impression of reality.

With this we have now studied two of the three points which I set forth. The first concerned the character of sentient intelligence as such; the second was the character of what is sentiently known. Now we must address the third and final point: in what does reality "in" sentient intellection consist.

 

CONTENTS HOME