Can the Word God be Meaningful?

(Delivered during Philosophical Symposium of Ateneo Schools in Mindanao, 1997 Xavier University)

1. Language, Truth, and Logic, a book written by Alfred Jules Ayer in 1936, is considered as something to popularize what may be called the classic position of the Vienna Circle. (PHP) Ayer, being one of the foremost members of the Vienna Circle, just like other logical positivists, is attracted to the methods of science. A follower of Auguste Comte, a 17th century French philosopher, Ayer argued that because of the essential character of language, metaphysics is impossible. According to Ayer, metaphysicians are working on literally senseless writings without even seeing them as non-sense. Since what goes beyond phenomena cannot be verified, then what goes beyond phenomena cannot be meaningfully described.

2. Since God transcends observable phenomena, God cannot be meaningfully described. No word could be properly attributed to God. This is quite clear in Ayer’s rejection of “the metaphysical thesis that philosophy affords us knowledge of a reality transcending the world of science and common sense”. (LTL) With the elimination of metaphysics, Ayer and other logical positivists also eliminate the meaningfulness of asserting the possibility of the existence of God. The word “God”, it is claimed, is meaningless. In Ayer's critical assessment, any language that deals with the transcendent is devoid of meaning. Any language that deals with a reality beyond sense data does not have factual content. Having no factual content, it is bereft of any linguistic significance.Any philosophical discussion on the meaning of the word “God” is due to a misunderstanding of the function of philosophy.

3. For Ayer, the only function of philosophy is analysis. It is the argument of logical positivists that it is the task of philosophers to make clear that questions should find significance in experience and that they should be verified, or else they are meaningless. But since metaphysics is concerned with what transcends human experience, it is literally meaningless. It is the view of logical positivists that the metaphysical utterance about the notion of a person whose essential attributes transcend human understanding is not an intelligible notion at all. And because God cannot be empirically verified, it follows that all assertions about God are literally meaningless. It is because a metaphysical being cannot be meaningfully described, Ayer asserts, even in language.What is logical positivism?Logical positivism is best described as “a general attitude of mind, a spirit of inquiry, and an approach to the facts of human existence”. (PHP) It rejects the assumption that the world has some ultimate purpose or end. Positivism “gives up the attempt to discover either the essence or the internal or the secret causes of things”. (PHP) It attempts to deal with facts by studying the observable relation among things. To a positivist, the laws of science are simply the laws of observable phenomena.

4. Although Comte is called the founder of positive philosophy, he did not discover this mode of thought, for as John Stuart Mill has said, “positivism was the general property of the age”. (PHP) Comte's chief mission has been the total reorganization of society, and this involves the total reconstruction of the intellectual orientation of his era. While he observes the success of science in France, which has been unfolding since the discoveries of Newton and Galileo, he also observes that science has not been assimilated in areas of politics, moral, social, and religious thought. The achievements of science have been outstanding, and what commanded so much respect for science is that it can be used to solve everyday problems, leading to new methods in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and industry. Inevitably, gaining a sense of authority from its accomplishments, science has challenged other ways of thinking, including metaphysics.

5. Positivism finds its value in the fact that science has been an essential component in the success of man’s material and social life. By employing the efficiency of scientific inquiry, positivism promises a solution to the problems not only of physical realities, but of the disorders of the society as well. Thus, the advent of a technocratic society has created the positivistic mentality. Scientists have created an atmosphere that by means of experimentation, all that can be known can be known by science.The points above in the end led to the idea that other than what science may be able to provide, all other things, including questions about the ultimate end or finality of man, bear no meaning at all. Frederick Copleston says, “what people want are practical and tangible results, and they become accustomed to look for science for anything that makes a difference”. (CP)

6. Scientific inquiry does not go beyond empirical data. Newton, for example, described the phenomena of gravity without going beyond the useful limits of scientific reasoning. Newton did not start by asking the essence of gravity, but started with gravity as a phenomenon in empirical reality. The Universal Law of Gravitation depends on actual observation in sense-experience, on what is empirically given. Newton’s discovery had great impact, and it managed to govern physics for four centuries until Albert Einstein came.People rely on scientific data in making decisions. The social sciences use scientific research before making any theoretical assertion. The scientific tool of research is used as basis and evidence in making claims. To be accepted and believed, a discipline must at least employ scientific means. Data cannot be interpreted in an arbitrary manner, therefore scientific research is necessary to obtain objectivity and universal acceptance. This is the ground and norm for theoretical validity.It can be asserted that, for positivists, “we have no knowledge of anything but phenomena, and our knowledge of phenomena is relative, not absolute”. (PHP)

7. Positivism emphasizes the view that “we know not the essence, not the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its relations to other facts. These relations are constant: that is, always the same in the same circumstances. The constant resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are termed their laws. The laws of phenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential nature and their ultimate causes, either efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable to us”. (PHP)The statement above means that human knowledge is limited to empirical reality. And empirical reality can be known through the methods of science. It is science that provides us with an understanding about the natural laws of phenomena. The problem regarding what goes beyond phenomena, therefore, is not a problem for science. What is important is that science can know the order in the nature of things whose laws it can discover. For example, physics has formulated the laws of motion, gravitation, energy, and other laws concerning natural phenomena by means of actual experimentation.It is also a fact that we do not have the means to investigate what is beyond phenomena.

8. The world beyond us is unknown, for there is no tool that could bring us to such realm. It has no meaning for us. What is important is that science has contributed so much to the development of society and its total reconstruction. The success of scientific methodology in making a nation economically healthy exerted an influence wherein its tangible results offer much importance. As such, the laws scientists make become the criterion for factual knowledge.Knowledge comes from sensible human experience. In asserting that it is only through science where man acquires knowledge, positivism has shown its strong empirical inclination. Our knowledge is acquired by observing sensible phenomena. The process goes like this: a problem is identified and a hypothesis is made. Then, scientists gather data through empirical observation. These data are subjected to experiments. Results are tested to gauge their repeatability. This repeatability becomes the basis of what we call scientific knowledge. This scientific method, as we have shown above, is the only basis of our knowledge of the world.

9. We may begin by asserting that, “the meaning of a statement is the method of its verification. (LTL) Thus, it must be evident from the statement itself that it can be verified, or else it is rendered meaningless. Thus, Ayer claims that the principle of verifiability is supposed to furnish a criterion by which it can be determined whether or not a sentence is literally meaningful. (LTL) For the sake of clarity and to avoid confusion, it is necessary that we differentiate what Ayer calls a sentence from a statement, and what he calls a statement from a proposition. He defines them: “Any form of words that is grammatically significant shall be held to constitute a sentence, and that every indicative sentence, whether it is literally meaningful or not, shall be regarded as expressing a statement. The word proposition will be reserved for what is expressed by sentences that are literally meaningful”. (LTL) Ayer adds,No statement, which refers to a reality transcending the limits of all possible sense-experience, can possibly have any literal significance. (LTL)The meaningfulness of a sentence can only be derived from sense-experience. Since metaphysical sentences are not empirically verifiable, they are meaningless. It is in this sense that Ayer's principle of verifiability can be fairly described as a rigid form of empiricism. It is the characteristic of an empiricist to eschew metaphysics on the ground that every factual proposition must refer to sense-experience. Verification rests upon empirical observation. Observable data must be perceived by the senses to make the statement meaningful.

10. There are two types of statements, the analytic and the synthetic:“Analytic statements derive their meaningfulness from the definition of their words or symbols” (PHP).In general, analytic statements already contain or imply the predicate from the subject. For example, the statement "men are mortals" has literal meaning because the word men is defined in such a way as to include the idea of mortals. The meaning of analytic statements depends on the consistent use of their clearly defined terms. For the most part, they do not increase our knowledge, and for this reason they are mere tautologies. It is necessarily true only because of the meaning of its terms — the test of the meaningfulness of a tautology is the meaning of its terms.“Synthetic propositions are either true or false in each case, and their truth or falsity can be discovered only by reference to some non-logical or non-linguistic datum, a fact” (PHP).

11. Unlike analytic statements, synthetic statements can be either true of false. These statements require some sense-experience of the objects that such statements refer to in order to test or validate its actual or possible truth.From this distinction of analytic and synthetic propositions, the logical positivists formulated their concept of literal meaning. Analytic propositions have formal meanings since their meanings are derived not from facts but from the meaning of words. On the other hand, synthetic propositions have factual meaning because their meaning is based upon empirical observation.The function of philosophyWittgenstein sums up the whole point of analysis by saying that “all philosophy is a critique of language”. (TLP)

12. Philosophy is influenced by language, and philosophical ideas depend on grammatical and syntactical structures. (LP) Philosophy is all about syntax. It is the notion of logical positivists that philosophy should be busy defining terms for science. It must concern itself with the formal meaning of terms. Philosophy, they claim, defines knowledge, classifies propositions, and displays the nature of things. By displaying the nature of things, philosophy defines empirical knowledge. The sole function of philosophy is the analysis of language.Thus, it can be said that, “the only function of philosophy is logical analysis”. (PHP) It is the “function of logical analysis to analyze all knowledge, all assertions of science and of everyday life, in order to make clear the sense of such assertions and the connections between them”. (PHP) One of the principal tasks of logical analysis of a given proposition, be it a proposition of science or of everyday life is, therefore, to discover the method of verification of that proposition. Any proposition that cannot be verified by method is meaningless.

13. For Rudolph Carnap, the method of verification is either direct or indirect.If a proposition asserts something that one perceives, one asserts something that is directly verifiable. For example, the proposition "There is a girl walking on 5th street" is directly verifiable because one's sense perception is the ground for verification. On the other hand, if one says, "This brown-colored bell is made of iron," this involves an indirect verification. To determine that it is real iron, one needs to place it near a magnet and derive another observation-statement. Thus, a logical sequence follows. "This brown-colored bell is made of iron; this bell is attracted to a magnet, therefore, it is iron." In indirect verification, we draw certain observation-statements from experience in order to prove a proposition.While the task of providing empirical data is left to the scientist, philosophers are confined to language. For although philosophers will not increase human knowledge of facts, they perform the humbler task of clarifying the meaning of terms. (CP) The task of philosophy is meaningful because it works on propositions that are based on empirically available data. Philosophers work on propositions that science provides them.

14. In Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer says that science and philosophy do not contradict each other. They work side by side.To illustrate this point, logical positivists point out that psychology as one of the empirical sciences, can serve as a model to explain the relation between science and philosophy. Behaviorism, for example, takes cognizance of how human beings react to certain stimuli found in the environment, and the results are tested in order to understand certain human experiences. The sentences of psychology, as behavioral science shows, describe sensible physical occurrences.

15. The study of human behavior is grounded on facts that are established by way of critical experimentation. In this sense, the propositions of psychology pass the principle of verifiability since such propositions are empirically grounded, the subject being human behavior.Philosophy, in performing the task of logical analysis, will simply help clarify the terms used in the propositions (or assumptions) created by psychology. Philosophers must confine themselves to the clarification of the logical meaning of words, and the elimination of syntactical ambiguity in propositions. This can be illustrated when some philosophical works make clear to psychologists the meaning of response, freedom, automatic behavior, stimuli, human subject, etc. By doing so, psychological principles of behavior are laid down, their meaning made apparent. Having known the tenets above, philosophy, according to Ayer, “as a genuine branch of knowledge, must be distinguished from metaphysics”. (LTL)

16. Metaphysics, according to Ayer, is not a philosophy. Logical analysis depends on experience. Logical analysis does not involve what goes beyond experience. Thus, when logical analysis is applied to metaphysics, says Carnap, the result is negative. According to Carnap: “It is inevitable that metaphysicians cannot avoid making their propositions non-verifiable because if they made them verifiable they would belong to the realm of empirical science since their truth or falsehood would depend upon experience.” (PHP)Since metaphysical propositions are non-verifiable according to Carnap, they are formally and factually meaningless. Being formally meaningless, metaphysics does not have any clear definition of metaphysical terms because they do not belong to the realm of human experience. Being factually meaningless, it is suggested there is no way for us to understand what lies beyond human phenomena.

17. Ayer maintains that human language cannot meaningfully describe something that transcends human experience. The assertion that the metaphysical proposition "God exists" is meaningless comes from the fact that since God is not empirically verified, it follows that what we attribute to God is unclear and insignificant.In order to illustrate this point, let us take the proposition "God is intelligent." If we say that God is intelligent, the intelligence that we attribute to God is human understanding of intelligence and not divine intelligence because we do not have an experience of divine intelligence. Our understanding of intelligence is purely human, and hence, it cannot meaningfully describe divine intelligence.Thus, if the language of metaphysics does not assert something meaningful, it should not be considered as a valid philosophy.

18. Ayer notes, many metaphysical utterances are due to the commission of logical errors, rather than to a conscious desire on the part of their authors to go beyond the limits of experience. (LTL)The danger lies in the deceptive character of metaphysics: it gives the illusion of knowledge without actually giving any knowledge. (PHP)

19. According to Samuel Stumpf, metaphysical propositions are “neither true nor false, because they assert nothing, they contain neither knowledge nor error, and they lie completely outside the field of knowledge, of theory, outside the discussion of truth or falsehood”. In order to understand this idea, it is necessary to make a distinction between empirical and metaphysical propositions. According to Ayer, empirical propositions are statements of observation, actual or possible, from which statements can be logically derived. (LP) This means that empirical statements are statements of observation from experience. It is only when statements, whether they are analytic or synthetic, are empirically verifiable that they may have literal meaning.

20. A sentence is factually significant to any given person if, and only if, the proposition it purports to express can be verified. Any empirical statement must be relevant to any experience in order to have factual content, for according to Ayer, any statement that is not relevant to any experience has no factual content. (LTL)For example, from the statement, "men are mortals," it is a requisite that the idea of mortality exists in experience to render meaning to the statement. The formal meaning of the statement is derived from the fact that the idea of mortality includes man, and the idea of man includes mortality. The statement is not senseless because its meaning is based on clearly defined terms — its meaning, as we have said earlier, comes from the meaning of the words "men" and "mortals" which can be significantly described in language, and thus, be rendered meaningful.

21. Ayer claims that there are no valid metaphysical propositions. The reason for this is the fact that the language of metaphysics that deal with the metaphenomenal does not pass the criterion of verifiability. Hence, if we are to consider Ayer's definition of a proposition, any metaphysical utterance can only be labeled as a statement. Metaphysical language fails the criterion of verifiability because they try to explain things beyond sense-experience. As we have earlier said, the realm of the metaphenomenal does not lie in the realm of human knowledge.Quite surely, the reality of God cannot be established by scientific explanation.

22. Metaphysicians, in dealing with the reality of God, have ventured into realities beyond phenomena. In dealing with such reality, the language of metaphysics has dealt with a reality transcending the limits of all sense-experience. But anything that transcends human experience is senseless because it is not based on empirical data.Any notion about God transcends human understanding, and it is not possible for man to significantly define God in human terms. A proposition that deals with God is therefore meaningless. A proposition, to be significant and to be literally meaningful, must be verifiable. In dealing with the notion of God, metaphysicians, according to logical positivists, assert something that is non-sense. If one is allowing that it is impossible to define God, Ayer argues, one is allowing that it is impossible for a sentence both to be significant and to be about God. God is beyond the systematic methodology of science. But the rejection of any language about God is a result of misunderstanding the relation between science and religious language.

23. The next task, taking into consideration recent developments in analytic philosophy, is to argue for the meaningfulness of any language that deals with a reality that is metaphenomenal. To do this, we must first deal with the tool that logical positivists use in discarding metaphysics. Henceforth, we will verify the verification principle.Science does not come across God in its investigations and indeed, whatever effort science makes, it will never be able to come across God because God is ex-hypothesi, unique. (CP)No metaphysician has supposed that one could investigate scientifically what is believed to be a metaphenomenal reality. Scientists, precisely as human beings, cannot see a metaphenomenal reality with their naked eyes. But this does not mean that one cannot have an idea of that reality.

24. Although metaphysical language is not a language that scientists use, it is still a rational use of language.To positivists, the validity of any metaphysical inquiry can never be accepted because metaphysics is not and can never be scientific. Logical positivism demands that any explanation of existence or reality should begin from science. Otherwise, any non-scientific explanation is not a valid explanation at all. Ayer points out that all explanations of facts are of the type of scientific hypotheses or else they are not explanations at all. (LP) Henceforth, to be meaningful, a statement must be scientific.

25. But the term "scientific" and "rational" are not equivalent terms. (LP) A metaphysical explanation may not be scientific, but it can be a rational explanation. When the metaphysician tries to deal with the transcendent reality of God, he is not dealing with something devoid of meaning. How and why? It is an established fact that science cannot explain everything in reality. What the scientist investigates are the things man directly observes in daily experiences. As an example, scientists have investigated how fast light travels or why sound cannot travel inside a vacuum tube.

26. On the one hand, the question on man's relationship to a transcendent reality is not a problem for science. And even if science will investigate such a problem, it will not yield any positive result. This is because the scientist does not and cannot have the means to investigate such a problem.In this sense, the Verification Principle, a method that relies on science, experiences an anomaly, an anomaly that became the basis for its ultimate demise. According to Copleston: If one says that any factual statement, to be meaningful, must be verifiable, and if one means by verifiable, verifiable by sense-experience, then, surely one is presupposing that all reality is given in sense-experience. If one is presupposing this, one is presupposing that there can be no metaphysical reality, and if one is presupposing this one is presupposing a philosophical position that cannot be demonstrated by the principle of verification. (LP)

27. The Verification Principle, in asserting that there can be no metaphysical reality, is asserting something that is unverifiable. In point of fact, Ayer experienced many difficulties in devising a satisfactory formulation for the Verification Principle, because the principle itself, to be meaningful, should be subjected to verification. Since Ayer presupposes that all reality is given in sense-experience, he certainly means that there is no metaphysical reality. But stating such assertion cannot be demonstrated by the principle because one cannot verify it empirically. Ayer is certain of phenomenal realities, but he cannot be certain if there is really no reality transcending phenomena.

28. To verify that all reality is given in sense-experience is a difficult if not an impossible task. The Verification Principle cannot account for the whole of reality because it is certain that we do not have the means to do so. The principle is an inadequate tool. It can never claim that all reality can be accounted for in sense-experience. Hence, if the principle is used to rule out the possibility of a metaphysical reality, it has to be subjected first to verification because it presupposes that there is no metaphysical reality or that there is no God. But there is no way to do this. Nothing can verify the verification principle. Certainly, it has experienced a dose of its own medicine.The certainty that there is an empirical reality does not necessarily mean that all reality can be found in experience. While it is true that our awareness is defined by observable phenomena, this does not mean that God, a reality beyond observable phenomena, is non-existent.

29. In view of the above, since the principle cannot verify that all reality is in sense-experience, then, it cannot rule out that possibility of the metaphenomenal or the transcendent.Ayer set a rigid requirement for verifiability, and that is, conclusive evidence, one that is equivalent to the theory of immediate acquaintance. But since it is difficult and too rigid as a requirement, he soon realized and which he later incorporated to the second edition of Language, truth, and logic, that a sentence, to be meaningful, need not be verifiable in the strong sense.

30. One has to admit that there are sentences that are at least probable, and since probability is not a logical impossibility, there is some sense in the proposition. The examples he cited include “that volcanoes exist in Mars” and that “there are craters in the far side of the moon”. For Copleston, on the other hand, a sentence need not be verifiable in the strong sense of the word verifiable, for “if the possibility of conceiving or imagining facts that would make the statement true will count as verifiability in the weak sense”, then, a sentence, to be meaningful, must be verifiable not necessarily in the strong sense. (CP)A sentence, to be strongly verifiable, must be empirically verifiable.

31. For example, the statement that "A certain person X is running" is strongly verifiable. Why? This is because the idea of "man" and the idea of "running" are found in sense-experience. The statement says something that is empirically observable. On the other hand, verifiability in the weak sense involves simply the possibility of conceiving or imagining facts that would make the sentence meaningful.But it can be established that statements about God could be verifiable, at least, in the weak sense. For instance, with regard to the idea of God, “when some experiential idea is relevant to the formation of the meaning of the idea of God in language, and such an idea is formed through reflection on the data of experience, then the idea of God in language fulfills the requirements for intelligibility or meaningfulness”. (CP)

32. According to Ayer, one cannot conceive of an observation that would enable one to determine whether the Absolute did, or did not, enter into evolution and progress. (LTL)This means that any knowledge about the God is beyond us, henceforth, beyond human comprehension. If it cannot be truly established by means of empirical evidence, it must be rendered meaningless. But let us see how such can be refuted.It is obvious that when we predicate attributes of God we do not invent entirely new symbols, we use terms that already have meanings, and these meanings are primarily determined by our experience. (CP)

33. The word "God" did not come from nowhere. It emerged from our appeal to everyday language to give a name to a being with whom we attribute certain experiences, experiences that could reveal the possibility of that being.

34. For instance, the Five Ways of St. Thomas are based on sense-experience, on observable human phenomena – change, causation, the orderliness of nature, et al are available to our senses. In this sense, we have given a meaning to the word "God." The meaning that we attribute to the word is made by reference to a non-linguistic or a non-logical datum, a fact. As we have shown above, the Five Ways of proving the existence of God are grounded on sense-experience, on things that we directly see.Thus, “if all the terms used in describing God were used in entirely different senses from the senses that they bear in the context of human experience, God could not be described; no attribute could be significantly predicated of Him” (CP).

35. If we take into account Ayer's claim that metaphysics is meaningless, then, the problem of being as a possible problem for the metaphysician also becomes meaningless. We must find a way in which the problem of being, the problem of God as Being, can be comprehended. We have to show how metaphysical language can be meaningful when it deals with the reality of God. It is a fact that the terms human beings attribute to God are human. But we have to use human language because we have no other. Copleston accepts the contention that the meaning of the term cannot be precisely the same when it is predicated of God as when it is predicated of human beings. (CP) But this should not be taken negatively.

36. To understand the terms we predicate of God we must first recognize the meaning of those terms in our experience.This becomes valid if, for example, we say, "God is intelligent". What we attribute to God as intelligence is but human comprehension of intelligence. We do not have an idea of God's intelligence in-it-self. But we know for a fact that when we say, "God is intelligent," we do not imply that what we mean is that God's intelligence is like ours. To satisfy this aim, we have to use analogy. The terms that are predicated of finite beings and God can only be used analogically. In that sense, when terms predicated of finite beings are predicated of God, such terms can be meaningful. This is to say, “A term which is predicated of God and of finite beings must, when it is predicated of God, be used in a sense which is neither precisely the same nor completely different from the sense in which it is predicated of finite beings. (Ibid)

37. One must be given a meaning sufficiently clear to him to enable him to recognize God, that is to say, to distinguish the divine being from other beings.Any discussion about the meaning of the terms predicated to God is a discussion about the meaning of linguistic terms. Understanding the meaning of terms before undertaking an inquiry whether there is a rational proof for the existence of a transcendent being possessing attributes described in certain terms is important so that our inquiry will not result in linguistic confusion. Thus, one must have some idea at least of the meaning of those terms.

38. We can make a distinction between objective and subjective meanings.“By objective meaning, one understands that which is actually referred to by the term in question or the objective reality referred to. By subjective meaning, one understands the meaning-content that the term has or can have for the human mind”. (CP)God-language always moves within the sphere of analogy. The use of analogy is the ground for the two classifications of meaning above that Copleston formulated in order to understand the meaning of the terms predicated of God. He classifies them into objective and subjective meaning. However, this should not be taken as a distinction between the true and the real meaning of the term and a purely subjectivist interpretation of the term. It is, according to Copleston, a distinction between that which is objectively referred to or meant by a term and one's understanding or conception of what is referred to by a term.

39. One's conception may be inadequate, but it does not follow that it is totally false. (Ibid) The objective meaning of the terms predicated of God transcends our experience. We do not have an idea of God in-itself. One cannot describe that objective meaning. The subjective meaning, on the other hand, is primarily determined by experience. This meaning is the only possible meaning one can attribute to God. It is not precisely true; but it is not precisely false either.We have no direct natural apprehension of God. We cannot observe God in experience, and thus, one cannot have a natural knowledge of God.

40. The use of analogy is by way of reflection on the things that do fall within our experience. When we do this, we locate our ideas in a middle position that make them not entirely adequate to what God means, but not entirely inadequate either. (RNL)Let us make a statement and test its validity. For example, we say, "God exists." Ayer may argue against such a statement because we do not observe God's existence in experience. For Ayer, the statement is non-sense. But let us derive an observation-statement from the statement "God exists." So we say, "If God exists, there is order in the world." We do not observe God in experience, but we can observe order in the world. The statement, on the other hand, does not suggest that the statement "God exists" implies that "there is order in the world." The reason why we derive the statement that there is order in the world if God exists is that, Copleston asserts, as far as philosophic knowledge is concerned, one comes to acknowledge God through reflection on some aspect of or factor in empirical reality. (CP)

41. Supposing that our philosophic reason for accepting God's existence is reflection on the order in the world, we can offer the statement that "there is order in the world” as an empirically verifiable statement, which is, according to Copleston, derivable in view of the empirical origin of our ideas concerning reality from the statement that "God exists." (Ibid) Of course, it is open to a reaction that we cannot justifiably conclude God's existence from the order in the world. But as we have said earlier, we do not imply that God exists if there is order in the world. What we wish to point out is that through reflection, the idea of the order in the world is not irrelevant to the idea of God's existence.

42. Our assertion that we can reflect from experience the idea of God's existence may be subject to many questions, but our assertion still remains meaningful for according to Copleston, human philosophic knowledge of the metaphenomenal must be acquired by reflection on the phenomenal, and cannot be acquired in another way. (Ibid)

43. Let us take the word “good” as predicated to God. It is a fact that we are likely to say "God is good" than say that "God is not good. Now, to say "God is good" is saying that "God is good, but not in the way that we are”. (TEG)We do have an idea of goodness. Thus, in the case of the term “good”, since there are in any case many ways of being good among creatures, there is nothing incongruous in saying "God is good, though not in our way." What makes it possible to be confident that the word "good" is in some instances applicable to God is that God is the cause of the goodness of each creature. It does not, St. Thomas insists, follow from this that to call God good is to say, St. Thomas thinks, that there is something we can only call goodness in God - goodness is the best word available for signifying this although it does so imperfectly. (Ibid)

44. If we reflect upon the phenomenal in order to attain any knowledge of the metaphenomenal, and to render meaning to our assertion about the transcendent, we need to use analogy. To say that there is an analogical relationship between God and the creatures he has made is to say that God and his creatures are linked together by common attributes - though this resemblance is not precisely the same, it is not precisely different either.Thus, we say, “what we try to mean may be inadequate, but it does not mean that it is non-sense”. (LP)

45. Metaphysics, in dealing with the transcendent reality of God, has embarked upon itself the task of understanding a language beyond the conceptions of science. The philosophy of Ayer certainly has strong points but his points are not that strong enough to rule out the possibility of a reality transcending human experience. Some things we say of God even though are imperfect cannot be improved on by denying them; their imperfection lies in our understanding of what we are trying to mean. (CP) Precisely because human language is limited, man's understanding of God is imperfect, but not incorrect.

Moral selves: Politics as a crisis of meaning

(Delivered during Philosophical Symposium of Ateneo Schools in Mindanao, Ateneo de Zamboanga 2004)

Language and Structuralism

Human existence finds at the very core of its being that it is perpetually underway to language. According to the French Philosopher Paul Ricoeur, it is through language that the responsible human subject is revealed, a subject who speaks and acts in a world that is immersed in constant conflict, a subject who continuously suffers in life but still desires to live. The human person is this never-ending desire to be.The human subject is always a mystery, and thus, he is to be understood indirectly. Human existence demands a detour through language.

Through such, Ricoeur suggests the utilization of the overflowing creativity of language in highlighting the meaning of the self. The self, according to him, is like a text. This means that the self as an actor is like the unfolding of the text into a meaningful story. To understand oneself is to interpret oneself before this story. Thus, "the narrative story also shapes us in our existence prior to our intentional consciousness. If existence is dramatic, it is the story above all that brings its drama to language”. (Hengel 1982)The thesis above does not come forth without a challenge. French structuralism proposes a different view on language, a paradigm that essentially cuts off the connection between language and the human world.

The French structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure emphasizes that language is an autonomous object for empirical science. He distinguishes between language as code (langue) and language as speech (discour). In langue, there are only differences. (Garcia 2000) Langue is a closed system of signs differing from each other. The language of the story in this sense says nothing about reality. Human existence is rendered mute because in langue, all of language's referential function is cut off. Language as code does not express a world because "the code is the real meaning of the story. The surface features are only the dressing, the envelope for the underlying structures." (Hengel 1982) For Saussure, to understand a story is to decode it.But the assertion above seems to be problematic. Understanding language as a system of signs differing from each other does not reveal anything about the speaking subject. Thus, "in langue, one can say that no one speaks."(Garcia 2000) In this regard, it will be the duty of hermeneutics "to link language anew to the speaking subject, the concrete living person insofar as the sciences of language give privilege to systems, structures, and codes cut off from the speaking subject."(Ibid.)Language is not an objective reality. Language is that medium by which we express reality and have a world. (Ibid.) In language as discour, "speaking is the act by which language surpasses itself as sign towards the world, towards the other, and towards oneself."(Ibid) Discourse, in this regard, can be referred to as the intention of saying something, on something, to someone. (Ibid.) Discourse brings us to our actual being in the world. Language is primordially reference, not difference. It is in this sense that we speak of a detour in the beginning because language is primordially mediation. It brings us to our actual existence in time because the story of the narrative is a way of understanding ourselves as actors.The claim that language consists of signs is not an absolute truth. Language is essentially linked to a speaker who says something, the other to whom something is said, and to a community upon which people come into an agreement on things through linguistic mediation. Language, therefore, opens up the social dimension of the human subject. It is his way of expressing himself to the world. Thus, it is a mode of proclaiming our being in a situation. The narrative story then is a story of a life lived expressed in and through language.Narrative and MimesisNow that we have restored the relation between language and reality, our next task will be the elucidation of how language contributes in healing the existential malady of being human.

The human person acts and suffers. Action demands decisions, and decisions sometimes fail to consider the ramifications of our actions. Thus, we fall and reflect on our failures. The human subject listens to himself and tries to understand himself by interpreting his actions. There is no better way of interpreting what we do in life except through the creative power of the narrative.Ricoeur's narrative theory presents a way of understanding the self through the activity of emplotment or mimesis. Mimesis refers to “the active process of imitating or representing”. (Garcia 2000) The person gathers the scattered events, actions, goals, causes, and desires of his life into one meaningful story. The configuration of this story is the activity of emplotment. It is a way of imitating our actions with the hope of grasping them as a meaningful whole. Understanding these seemingly disconnected events is by means of the plot. The plot, says Ricoeur, is an imitation of action. (Ricoeur 1992)For Ricoeur, the narrative has the same referential function of the metaphor. The metaphor brings us to a world, a world that is not known through a direct description. Narration brings us to the temporal dimensions of our existence by means of the poetic power of the narrative, a detour through the text of one's life story.

Narration then illuminates human action and makes manifest its temporality. Thus, "human action is shaped by mimetic activity which unfolds in the plot” (Garcia 2000) Emplotment shows forth person.Emplotment, according to Ricoeur, has a threefold structure. The composition of the plot is grounded on a pre-understanding of the world (Mimesis1). First, there is a competence for the structural aspects of human action. Every human action has a conceptual network of motives, intentions, consequences, and goals. These features help us read human action. Every action presupposes motives, intentions and goals.Secondly, human action can be narrated because it is articulated through signs, rules, and norms. (Ricoeur 1992) There is a meaningful cultural context for every action. We act according to the dictates of these cultural norms. Thirdly, the pre-understanding of human action leads us to the temporal dimensions of human action. Human action has a historical dimension. The past is not simply past. The past is always in relation to the present and the present is always in relation to what I hope for in the future.The actual activity of configuration is the occasion of the grasping together of the heterogenous (Mimesis 2). Factors such as agents, goals, means, interactions, and circumstances are taken together to form a meaningful whole. It becomes the story of a life lived. This configuration allows the reader to follow the life story in the text. It gives the point, the thought or theme of the narrative by giving it a sense of followability which leads to a conclusion. The conclusion, in this regard, is the resolution of the problem unfolded in the plot.Finally, it is the reader who completes the text in Mimesis 3. It refers to the intersection of the world of the text and that of the reader, or as put simply by H.G. Gadamer, a "fusion of horizons". The configurating act is only completed when the horizon of the text and the reader are fused. Reading the text brings a change of character in the reader. Reading results to a cathartic effect, that is, it changes the reader by making him understand the ethical content of his actions through the narrative. As Ricoeur says, one must understand that every well told story teaches something. (Ricoeur 1991) Making a change in the reader is the purpose of any good story told.

Mimesis and Time

The human experience of time is inextricably but mostly bound up with narrativity. (Hengel 1982) Every story must be understood as a story that occurs in time. Here, we must distinguish between the linear and configurative understanding of time. Linear time is seeing the series of events in a story in episodic succession. According to Hengel, "linear time is linked to the observable; it is the time that is datable". (Ibid.) But life is not a series of datable events. History is not the mere recording of successive occurrences. History or human life is rather, a happening. It is only in this sense that we can speak of a being in time. Being in time means that human existence is a “being-in-the-world”. Time is that possibility for the unfolding of human existence. Dasein, or there-being, in this sense must be interpreted as man's temporal existence.Storytelling and following a story throw us in time. (Ibid.) Narrativity manifests the development of the plot in a dimension of time emerges that is hardly linear.

The central point of Ricoeur's narrative theory is that time becomes human time when it is narrated. Here, Ricoeur makes an analysis of St. Augustine and Aristotle. What Ricoeur does is to fuse St. Augustine's analysis of time and Aristotle's analysis of emplotment because the former does an analysis of time without emplotment and the latter does an analysis of emplotment without taking into account the temporal aspects of action.St. Augustine's analysis of time as a triple present establishes a discordance between the present as past [memory], the present of the present [attention], and the present of the future [expectation]. (Reagan 1995) St. Augustine sees time as a distention of the soul (distentio anime), a slippage that goes back again and again to the threefold present, thus establishing discordance. To erase this discordance, Ricoeur appeals to Aristotle's idea of emplotment, an idea that brings concordance to what is discordant. Concordance mends discordance in the activity of constructing a plot. (Ibid.) The plot then is the means of giving a unity to the distention of the soul by giving it a temporal order.The reflection above leads the way to a temporal understanding of human action. Through emplotment human action is given its temporal unity. The scattered events of human life become one meaningful story through the activity of emplotment. It is through this that we understand the self as the unity of the discordant elements of human life.

The Subject as same and the Subject as self

The narrative reveals the meaning of human existence. Let us see how this happens by reading the Parable of the Good Samaritan.A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who also stripped and wounded him... And it so happened that a Priest went down the same way...In like manner a Levite also passed by...But a certain Samaritan being on his journey came near him and seeing him, was moved with compassion...which of these three men, in thy opinion, was a neighbor to him that fell among the thieves? (Luke 10:30-37)For Ricoeur, the parable is a unique narrative. What is surprising in the parable is that Jesus answered the question of the visitor with a question, "but a question that has become inverted by means of the corrective power of the narrative". (Ibid.) In the parable, the visitor was making a sociological inquiry concerning a certain social object, a possible sociological category susceptible to definition, observation, and explanation. (Ibid.) The neighbor, however, is not a social category with defined roles. Thus, the act of making oneself available is beyond any sociological abstraction. This is because "being a neighbor lies in making oneself a neighbor". (Ibid.) The question here becomes a demand for action. The question is thrown back to the questioner, presenting him with possibilities for being or existing.Being a neighbor or making oneself available, defies one's permanence in time. This permanence in time, according to Ricoeur, refers to the subject as being the same (idem). He calls this character. Character refers to a set of distinctive marks that permit the re-identification of the human individual as being the same. (Ricoeur 1992) A Samaritan is considered as an outcast. He is conceived as someone who has no role to portray in the society. He has no social function. But this set of characteristics enabled the Samaritan to respond positively to the surprise of the event of the encounter. Thus, the Samaritan rose above his being a non-category. And so it is in this regard that we can ascribe to the Samaritan the subject as self (ipse). The Samaritan cannot be reduced to a what. The subject who acts and is responsible for his actions is a who. The Samaritan as self is a person for others, an actor who rises above social functions. He assumes a narrative identity.Narrative identity is the integration of the subject as same and the subject as self. It is through narrative identity that we can ascribe actions to its agents. The story of the Good Samaritan is a story of a life that has an actor. Through the narrative, the Samaritan as subject is the human person who possesses the dynamism of self by being able to respond to the surprise of the encounter. The narrative is his story.

Teleology and Deontology

Narrativity brings forth the ethical content of human action. Ricoeur elaborates a discussion on Kant’s deontology and Aristotle’s teleology, noting in the end his affinity to Aristotle’s ethics of the desire to be.Kant in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals makes a proposal for an ethics based on duty. An action is done because it is an obligation on the part of the individual as a rational human being. The human being acts morally because he is commanded so by human rationality. For Kant, all ethical actions proceeds from a good will. All actions, to be ethical, must have the pure intention of the will. The will is autonomous because it is not governed by any other motive except doing what is good.On the one hand, Aristotelean teleology, proposes an ethics of one’s desire to be. To be is to act in order to attain the virtuous life. The virtuous life is the good life, the realization of the individual's self-fulfillment. To be ethical means to exert one's effort to exist and to exercise one's freedom to be. For Aristotle, virtue is exercised through practical action or phronesis. A good act is like a habit. Man must do good things habitually in order to be good. Every individual has this desire to be good, and he does good things in order to attain the good life. The good life for Aristotle is the happy life. Virtue and happiness then are intimately linked.

For Ricoeur, there is primacy to teleology than deontology. This is because there is first an urgency of the desire to be before one is called to act in the name of duty. In every human action, freedom comes first before necessity. Man, first and foremost, desires the realization of his very self, the actualization of a meaningful life. To be man is to make real my potentialities for existence, the possibilities of my being. To be man is to nurture my freedom, the ultimate expression of the self that I am.The narrative of life is an archive of stories that articulate the human condition, the human condition being the ground of man’s conscious effort to desire more from himself and the world. Man’s desire to be takes its ultimate form in the field of history. History manifests the finality of human action. This finality or end, it seems to me, is a search for meaning.

Narrative, History, and Meaning

Being human is primarily set within the background of a historical condition. Let us consider the relevance of the narrative to human historical existence. According to Charles Reagan, history is a kind of writing, and in this sense, it is a kind of narration. To explain for a historian means to show the unfolding of the plot, to make it understood. Events receive their intelligibility from their place in the plot, and historical events do not differ radically from the events framed by the plot. (Reagan 1995)There is an intimate link between the narrative, history and meaning.

Victor Frankl’s account of his experiences in the concentration camp, for instance, sets us up to one of the most potent source of the narrative meaning of human historical existence. Frankl writes,A man's character became involved to the point that he was caught in a mental turmoil which threatened all the values he held and threw them into doubt. Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had made him an object to be exterminated - under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values. (Frankl 1962)By understanding the accounts from history, we come to an understanding of the importance of human values and their significance to our desire to be fully human. History has a plot, and finding the meaning of human existence in it is the ultimate goal of any emplotment. This meaning may be concealed from us, but this only shows that life is an on-going story.

The human being as an actor suffers, but in his desire to live well, the search for meaning provides the impetus for him to continually desire to be. Again we quote Frankl, who says,one should not seek for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. (Ibid.)To desire is to desire one’s self-realization. To live is to seek fulfillment. The value of human life comes from the fact that each individual is unique, hence, irreplaceable. This uniqueness also corresponds to the uniqueness of each person’s account of himself, of his story. Every person’s desire to be, therefore, is also unique to himself. The meaning of the human subject’s desire to be, however, would not be realized in the absence of social justice. The institution supports the actualization of any human undertaking, for individuality would not find its expression without the presence of others. This presence is always a historical presence.

Justice and the Institution

The human subject’s desire to be is embedded in the social dimension of human existence. The fulfillment of our desire to be ultimately resides in our social relationships. The attainment of a good life, which is the desire of every man, does not find its fullest expression on the level of personal intimacy. The beauty and preservation of private life rests on public order, hence, the birth of the institution.The proposal of Ricoeur for a narrative ethics then takes its most defining moment in its importance in the constitution of a happy life in a just society. It is the presence of the institution that makes possible the emergence of a just society. John Rawls stresses this when he said that justice is the first virtue of the institution, as truth is of systems of thoughts. (Rawls 1971) In a just society, “what matters is that everyone is provided with the basic conditions for the realization of his own aims, regardless of the absolute level of achievement that may represent”. (Daniels 1975) The reason for this is that the fundamental attitude towards persons on which justice as fairness depends is a respect for their autonomy or freedom. (Ibid) Society exists for man’s greater self-realization. Ultimately, human reason demands that justice simply means making freedom a possibility for all. Reasonable human action can only be moved by charity under the form of justice. (Ricoeur 1965) What becomes clear here is that justice governs the purpose and the existence of the institution. The institution, in this sense, exists in order to bring forth equality among individuals who belong to it. As a structure of an organized whole, it sees to it that there is an equal opportunity for the individuals who belong to it. This means giving equal chances of living a good life, equal chances of realizing our desire to be. The institution exists “for the service it renders” (Ricoeur 1965).

Justice is the only guarantee that a happy life becomes a possibility for all and the institution only finds its true worth by safeguarding the basic freedom and desire to be of the human being.

Notes on the Tractatus

(Lecture Notes)

Introduction

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889-1951) Tractatus logico-philosophicus is a difficult book. But this should not prevent us from examining its important insights. This work is an attempt to grapple with Wittgenstein’s first book, the only one published during his lifetime. Although the goal of the Tractatus in constructing a logically perfect language is a mission impossible, it yields important philosophical points of view explaining the relationship between language, logic, and reality worthy of our philosophical scrutiny.We have lifted several epigrams from the Tractatus. An explanation follows each epigram.

1. The world is all that is the case.

The world is the sum total of all state of affairs. Truth belongs to the world, and what is beyond it cannot be expressed. To express the meaning of the world means to express what can be said about it.For logical atomists, reality consists of objects. “Only objects exist, and ideas are mere mental copies of objects.” (PA) Multiplicities have to be admitted since this is the actual state of affairs of things.The statement also expresses the limitation of human knowing. Since the world is all that is the case, the object of human knowledge is limited to what can be known in the world.Thus, what can only be meaningful is the world and everything that can be said about it. The world exists like a compendium of facts, and language, that tool that describes what the world is like, presents the world into a form that makes communication and understanding possible.

1.1 The world is the totality of facts.

This totality is revealed in language by means of atomic propositions. A proposition, says Wittgenstein, is a picture of reality. Propositions picture facts. The meaning of a proposition, then, comes from the fact it pictures. Whatever is pictured is in the picture. Language, logically speaking, is factual. Language, according to the philosophy of logical atomism, must be founded on logic and mathematics. The fact that the world has a logical order can only mean that language can only be logical, if it is to be construed as meaningful. The world, in this sense, and its logical order, can only be revealed linguistically.

1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.

Logical space here refers to the conditions for the possibility of existence or non-existence of facts. What can be said or expressed about the world is the existence or non-existence of facts situated in infinite logical possibilities. These facts constitute the sense of the world. Sense is anything that can be said about the world, and what can be said about it is determined by the facts so constituted in different states of affairs.

2. What is the case – a fact – is the existence of states of affairs.

The existence of states of affairs refers to the truth-condition of the world. What is true or factual is that only states of affairs exist. The world in this sense is made up of the different states of affairs of things. Reality is the sum total of all these states of affairs.

2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects.

States of affairs reflect the truth-conditions of objects. States of affairs refer to the way things are together with the facts that constitute them. Facts and their relations to objects characterize the over-all make up of the world.A fact is a quality added to an object. Let us make an example. In “a small red patch”, the patch is characterized as “small” and “red”. So we ask, what kind of thing is it? “red” and “small”. That it is “red” and that it is “small” constitute the states of affairs of the patch. Thus, states of affairs show the different conditions of the various things in the world. A room, for instance, can be “overcrowded”, “dimly lit”, “spacious”, etc.

2.02 Objects are simple.

Objects are simple because they are the basic stuff of the world. An object is that which is not yet predicated of something. If we take a closer look at reality, the world is made up of objects. Hence, “objects make up the substance of the world.”(TLP) Simplicity for an object here means the capacity to be predicated of something. A “flower”, as an object, is a simple reality. It becomes a complex thing when we talk of “magnolias”, “cattleyas”, “tulips”, etc. because of the distinct characteristics of each of these flowers.

2.0232 In a manner of speaking, objects are colorless.

Here, Wittgenstein explains what an object is. As a basic unit of reality, it is not predicated of anything. It is independent of any factual characterization. When it is predicated of something, it is only in such time that it becomes a thing. Facts characterize an object. When a patch contains some color, it becomes a thing.

2.024 Substance is what exists independent of what is the case.

What is the case is the existence of facts. Substance exists independent of facts. A “chair” as a substance is not necessarily brown. The one we use in school is a chair, the one we have at home is a chair, the one we have in the theater is a chair, etc., and so there are many types of chairs, but there is one and only one concept we understand as “chair”. This is because a chair does have one and only one substantial definition.Moreover, objects constitute the substance of the world, and as such objects contain the possibilities of the world. An object can possess different factual characterizations. That it can be characterized as such and such is contained in its possibility as an object.

2.0251 Space, time, and color are forms of objects.

Objects can be here or there, old or new, black or white. A car can be red, blue, or black. But although we see different colors, we see only one substance there, that of a car. We don’t see different cars, what we see are differently-colored cars. This is because a car can have many forms, and forms vary by virtue of the facts we attach to objects.

2.063 The sum total of reality is the world.

What is real? What is real is the existence of state of affairs. The world consists of facts. Facts constitute the reality of the world. What is not factual, that which is beyond the sense of logical thinking, is nonsense.Bertrand Russell believes that language can be broken down into atomic or elementary propositions. The sum total of these atomic propositions is the world. He calls them atomic because they are the most basic (following chemistry - an atom is the smallest particle of matter). What can be said about the world can be said by means of propositions. Language is no more than the collection of all atomic propositions. Language, therefore, as a repository of what can be said about the world, is the repository of what reality is.

2.1 We picture facts to ourselves.

Thinking is like picturing something. Since the world is factual, thinking about the world means thinking of a factual world.Thoughts are expressed linguistically. Since we picture facts to ourselves, the only way by which these facts can be pictured is by means of language. I do this when I make propositions. Picturing, in this sense, is a linguistic activity. Language is a tool. We use it to express facts to ourselves. To tell someone about what a chameleon is, I have to describe such in words. I paint a picture of such by means of words.

2.12 A picture is a model of reality.

A model is like a re-creation in our minds about the way a certain thing is. A diorama is a model of a building or of a certain structure. It is not the structure itself, but it brings us into the meaning of the structure. The meaning being the sense, the point of how a thing looks like. It is not the thing but it helps us perceive the thing. We look at reality by modeling the words we utter to the actual world. Meaningful words are models of reality. My language is based on my world. Wittgenstein has shown that the limits of our language show the limits of our world. For instance, it is impossible for me to speak in the Russian dialect because I’ve never heard nor conversed in Russian. More than that, this implies that there are concepts in a language which I may not understand simply because I do not live in the context of that form of language. As an example, the statement “~(J v A) v [(S v K)] v ~(J v A)” may prove too much to someone who does not have any formal training in symbolic logic. This does not mean, however, that language can’t be learned. What I am trying to emphasize is the fact that I can only deal with a language where I can picture the meaning of the signs such a language have.

2.13 In a picture objects have the elements of the picture corresponding to them.

A picture displays the sense of objects. Henceforth, a picture cannot be a mere copy. It must be an authentic copy. Whatever is in the picture must be a definite description of what it models. It may not perfectly describe the thing it pictures, but there is always an enough approximation that makes identification possible. Otherwise, such can’t be the picture of something.

2.131 In a picture the elements of the picture are the representatives of objects.

The elements of the picture refer to the configuration of the properties of the picture. These elements refer to the varying conditions that objects can have. These variations are reflected in the picture so that objects are properly represented in the picture.

2.141 A picture is a fact.

Language correctly describes the world in terms of factual statements since the world is a factual one. These factual statements are pictures of state of affairs. Language, as a picture of the world, is factual. Otherwise, language would not be able to say anything about the world.What is a fact? A fact is whatever that can be predicated of something. A thing is therefore no more than the facts that constitute it. Facts in this regard describe the kind of thing a thing is. Things always have factual content, this factual content being their state of affairs. In the proposition “There exists one and only one x such that this x is both man and mortal,” the facts man and mortal are the state of affairs of x.A proposition with one particular fact is called a monadic fact. A proposition with two particulars is called a dyadic fact. A proposition with three particulars is called a triadic fact. (PA)In p(x.y.z) the variables x, y, and z represent facts. This we can translate to “my notebook is small, red, and new.”Monadic: p is small or p(x)Dyadic: p is small and red or p(x.y)Triadic: p is small, red, and new or p(x.y.z)

2.151 Pictorial form is the possibility that things are related to one another in the same way as the elements of the picture.

Pictorial form can be elucidated by way of the following:That the elements in the picture measure up to the way things are situated in logical space.The elements, being the properties that configure the things in the picture, show the similarity between the logical possibilities of the picture and that of reality.The way things are related to each other in a particular situation, say the way fruits are arranged in a table can be observed as the same condition one sees in a picture, if such a picture were to be a true picture of such reality.

2.1512 That is how a picture is attached to reality; it reaches right out to it.

A picture is a copy of reality. A picture brings us to reality. A picture then does not lie. An ugly picture is a result of the ugly reality it has pictured. Thus, what is pictured is always seen in the picture. A picture always speaks for itself. A picture represents reality. It shows the truth condition of a thing. It shows the states of affairs of things.

2.16 If a fact is to be a picture, it must have something in common with what it depicts.

A picture is a fact (TLP). It is only in such an instance that a picture may correctly represent reality. Since reality is factual, a picture must also be factual. For instance, if I picture a stone in my mind, I am thinking of the stone’s correlation with reality. If I am thinking of a bird made of stone, I cannot be thinking of a bird in flight since a bird that is made of stone (statues, etc.) can never fly. To find something in common with reality means that a picture reveals something that is logically connected to what is real.

2.161 There must be something identical in a picture and what it depicts, to enable the one to be a picture of the other at all.

What is identical in a picture and what it depicts is factual content. What is in the picture, what is in my mind, is the actual condition of what I am looking at or perceiving. To think of something that does not exist is not thinking at all. If I picture a griffin, I am not picturing something real. It is not a real picture. But I can create it in my imagination. However, its sense cannot be established since it does not actually exist. It is not a fact. There can be no identity since it cannot be compared with something. A griffin is not something. It is but an idea where I have combined an eagle and a lion. Its ontological status cannot be established. Thus, in thinking about a griffin, I am really thinking of a lion with the head and wings of an eagle. Without the reality of these two creatures I would never create in my imagination the idea of a griffin. On the one hand, it is called a griffin since I have assigned it a name. It is no more than that.

2.181 A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical picture.

Pictorial form refers to the arrangement of the elements in the picture. It prescribes the connectedness of the different elements in the picture. This connectedness is logical. This connectedness ensures that the picture is a logical one. A picture, if it is to depict a logical world, must be faithful to the logical structure of the world.When I think of something, my thought follows a logical order. I can only think or picture out something correctly if my thinking adheres to the terms of logic. An illogical world is unthinkable, as we have shown above.

2.182 Every picture is at the same time a logical picture.

Because I can only picture a logical world, my picture of the world is a logical one, if and only if I make the right propositions. Language, as a picture of the world, acts as a logical picture, since it is structured in such a way that it has factual content that in turn gives language its sense. Only “logical pictures can depict the world.”(TLP) This is because the world has a logical structure. Logic serves as the backbone in the way we think and express the meaning of the world. Thus, language, if it is a correct expression of the world, must be grounded on logic.

2.201 A picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of existence and non-existence of state of affairs.

A picture, or a proposition for that matter, either affirms or denies the existence or non-existence of state of affairs. What is real is to be tested by the propositions we make. What makes sense is that which is answerable by a yes or a no. The possibility of being able to say yes or no rests on the actuality or possibility of certain state of affairs. It does make sense when it can’t be answered. This is because “a picture contains the possibility of the situation that it represents.”(TLP)

2.21 A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false.

Sense, logically speaking, is reducible to a true or false question. A picture then is true if it pictures what is real, false if it does not. Thus, says Wittgenstein, “what a picture represents is its sense.”(TLP) In language, a proposition is true if it agrees with reality, false if it does not. Wittgenstein affirms this by saying that “the agreement or disagreement of its sense (the proposition) with reality constitutes its truth or falsity”. (TLP)

2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.

Following Russell’s theory of descriptions, acquaintance is the only way to know if an assertion is valid or not. It is not valid if we are not acquainted with its constituent parts. If there is no acquaintance, there is no sense. Here, we affirm the empiricism of the Tractatus. If a statement does not contain any truth, it is no more than a sentence whose words mean nothing. If a statement confirms something about the world, then it is saying something. It makes sense. The importance of verification is due to the fact that “it is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or false.”(TLP)

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

It might be important to analyze the meaning of thought here. Thought is the product of the process of thinking. When we think of something, we have a thought about something. What we are concerned of is the content of our thoughts. For Wittgenstein, we can only think about facts. The reason for this is the fact that the world is all that is the case. Hence, we can only think of a factual world, a world that is there. Thinking is thinking about whatever is “in” the world. True thinking is factual thinking. The process of thinking begins with perception since it is only through the senses where we gather the raw data that our minds assemble to form a thought.

3.001 ‘A state of affairs is thinkable’: what this means is that we can picture it to ourselves.

What we think of are the state of affairs of things. Thinking is picturing. I am thinking in terms of the pictures that I can make in my mind. To think of a chair then is to picture a chair, say its shape, color, weight, etc. If I think of a happy life, happiness is not as simple as thinking about a chair. But still, I can picture it in my mind, since I have observed how people behave when they are happy.

3.01 The totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.

My thoughts are no more than a picture of the world. If for instance, I think of a tikbalang, a creature that is half-man and half-horse, the possibility of my being able to think about it is the fact that I have seen a man and a horse and that I know the concept of half. A tikbalang in this sense cannot be true, and I can come up with such a thought only because I can think of a man and a horse as conjoined objects. I can’t think of something beyond. I can only think in terms of the world I inhabit.

3.03 Thought can never be anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically.

We can never imagine an illogical world since our minds are conditioned in such a way that it can only think in terms of the logical order of the world. It is impossible to draw an illogical world. If we think illogically, it does not mean that the world is illogical. It only means that there is something wrong in the process of thinking. What becomes illogical then is not the world, but the way we think.

3.031 It is impossible to represent in language anything that contradicts logic…

Logic serves as the backbone of language. It acts as its skeleton. The structure of language follows the structure of logic. Language, in this sense, is only meaningful when it has a logical order. This is because language reflects the world. For language to properly picture the world, it must be grounded on the true condition of the world.

3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses.

“A proposition is a statement in which anything whatsoever is affirmed or denied.”(IL) Let us examine this definition. First, a proposition is a statement. But a proposition cannot just be any statement. Let us consider the following: 1. My God! 2. Who am I? 3. I am 21 years old.Statement number one does not state a fact. A proposition cannot just be a mere expression of an emotion. Rather, it must affirm or deny something. What it affirms or denies is a fact. A proposition, therefore, is always a factual statement. Consider statement number two. The second statement is not a proposition because it does not declare anything. It simply asks. There is nothing whatsoever in it. If, however, we consider statement number three, common sense tells us that it does say something. It declares a fact. It states a truth-condition. If a proposition says something true, then it affirms something about reality. If it states something false, then it denies something about reality. Knowledge is nothing but the sum total of all factual statements. If we are to judge the value of our assertions, it is good to note that science as a discipline dwells on the facts of human experience and not on speculation. In looking for the cure of certain diseases, the scientist relies on hard data and never on mere speculation. In law, for instance, the only way to establish the guilt or innocence of an accused is through the evidences presented in court. The judge cannot simply make a guess on the merits of the case. He has to rely on facts.

3.11 We use the perceptible sign of a proposition as a projection of a possible situation.

The method of projection is to think the sense of the proposition.Projection here refers to the capability of perceiving the sense of something. When we project a certain meaning, we refer to the sign of a proposition in order to know what it tries to project. Projection here means picturing. A painting, for instance, projects a certain situation. A painting is compared with reality. The painter projects what is real in a painting. What is projected is the meaning or the sense of the proposition. The word directs my attention to the sense of an object. For instance, to understand what the color red means, the sign/word “red” directs me to a color sample, a thing that is red. Only then can I get the sense of the sign.

3.12 I call the sign with which we express a thought a propositional sign.

Let us examine the proposition “This is poison.” What is the meaning of the proposition? We refer to the sign “this” and “poison”. By “this”, we mean a definite object, though such an object is not described significantly. But there is a sign and it refers to something. And so I know where it is. Next, we think of the sign “poison”. By poison, we know that it is a dangerous and a fatal substance. The thought in the proposition “This is poison” therefore is that “This thing is dangerous and fatal”. If we translate the proposition into variables, say let x be the representation for “This” and “y” the representation for poison, we can have the propositional sign “X is Y.” Here, the proposition being a sign is made clearer. X stands for something and Y represents something. Language then is a mere representation. It represents our thoughts.

3.14 A propositional sign is fact.

Propositions are statements of state of affairs. For it to be a true expression of such, propositions too must be factual. This means that its contents must be based on facts. The following must be considered regarding the proposition as a fact (PL):most everyday facts are ultimately atomic.a sentence, being the physical structure of a proposition, is a physical fact.Since a sentence is an internally structured fact, it is said to picture the world. Let us consider replacing words with objects. In the proposition, “Rodolfo Dumlao read Alice in Wonderland,” we can make this representation:Rodolfo Dumlao = plateRead = paperAlice in Wonderland = stonePicturing “Rodolfo Dumlao read Alice in Wonderland” is like putting the stone on top of the paper and the paper on top of the plate. Thus,Rodolfo Dumlao read Alice in Wonderland.Plate Paper StoneWords in this regard correspond to individual objects. As Fr. Thomas Green has stated above, since most everyday facts are atomic, they can be replaced by individual words that we consider as atomic propositions representing atomic facts.

3.142 Only facts can express a sense, a set of names cannot.

Let us examine the word “dog”. The word “dog” does not mean anything if there is no actual dog. The sense of the word comes from the fact it represents. The name then is insignificant to the existence of a state of affairs. A dog can be called “zift” instead of “dog”. The word “dog” has some meaning because of the real dog. Thus, “a name means an object. The object is its meaning.”(TLP)

3.22 In a proposition a name is the representative of an object.

The word “dog” represents the actual dog in the statement “My dog is barking.” What is its importance? This is what Wittgenstein calls the ostensive meaning of words. Words point out or direct us to the objects they represent. If I say “yellow”, what I mean is that I am talking about a color sample, yellow. If I need to tell someone what kind of color yellow is, I have to direct his attention to something that is yellow. Without the word yellow I may not be able to direct him to such color.

3.221 Objects can only be named. Signs are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.

Propositions do not tell us the ontological status of things. Propositions only reveal the truth-condition of things, their state of affairs. Only factual conditions are revealed by propositions. Their being, or the reality that they are such and such in essence, is beyond the task of logic.

3.25 A proposition has one and only one complete analysis.

Language can be reduced ultimately into atomic propositions. Let us examine the statement “Rodolfo Dumlao crossed the Atlantic”. To analyze the statement, we have to determine the entities present in the proposition, which, in this case, are “Rodolfo Dumlao” and “crossed the Atlantic.” Its formal translation into an analytic statement should be: That there is one and only one Rodolfo Dumlao which we can represent as A and that A crossed the one and only one ocean called the Atlantic which we can represent as B. The relationship can be stated as “There is one and only one A which crossed the one and only one B” or ArB, “r” representing the way A is related to B. This example above is the one and only one complete analysis of the statement “Rodolfo Dumlao crossed the Atlantic”.Following Russell’s theory of descriptions, for us to understand the statement ArB, the constituents A and B must be understood. Understanding them means we are acquainted with such realities.In Russell’s point of view, all propositions in language must be reduced to atomic propositions. In a logically perfect language, there is a corresponding atomic proposition to each fact. This correspondence is one to one.

3.328 If a sign is useless, it is meaningless.

A word as a sign is meaningful because of its use. Since the word “zift” is not in use, it does not mean anything. Meaning comes from use. It is not the word, but what the word signifies. If a word does not refer us to something, it becomes a worthless sign. A sign functions as if it directs us to the object.

3.5 A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought.

The picture-theory of meaning, in summary, explains that language ultimately is all about the propositions we make, and these propositions constitute our true thoughts of the world. In the Tractatus, logic serves as the backbone of our way of speaking. To make sense means to be logical. A.J. Ayer once said that an illogical world is unimaginable. Since the world fits the criterion of logic, our thought must also possess such a criterion to be meaningful. Language must be a reflection of a true thought. The collection of all atomic propositions, statements that pass the criterion set by atomists, would compose what can properly be called our true thoughts of the world.

4.001 The totality of propositions is language.

Language, in Russell’s point of view, is nothing but the sum of all atomic propositions. Language reveals the world, or more appropriately, picture the world. This language must be a logical one, for it is a necessary requirement for language to be logical so that it can picture a world that is logical. The implication of this is the rejection of any language that does not pass the criterion of logic. Such a language will have to be dismissed as nonsensical. We can cite an example. Let us examine the statement: “God is love.” For a statement to be meaningful, we must be able to derive several observation-statements for it to be logically valid. In the statement “God is love”, we may say that “God is good”, “God is just”, etc. But these statements can never be validated. So in this case, the statement “God is love” is not within the limits of logic.

4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality.

A proposition states something about the state of affairs of things. Since the world is a collection of facts, a proposition about the world is a picture of the world. Reality is factual since the world is factual. The purpose of a proposition is to reveal reality. A proposition is attached to reality. It shows the sense of reality. It tells us what is and what is not.

4.023 A proposition must restrict reality to two alternatives: yes or no.

As we have stated above, a proposition is true if it affirms something, false if it does not. If we examine the statement “God is love”, there is no empirical data that would affirm or deny the statement. The statement, in this regard, is a mere statement. It is not a proposition. It offers no knowledge about the world, and the state of affairs of things. Meaningfulness is based on factual content. Without it, a statement is absurd. This is because, according to Wittgenstein, “reality is compared with propositions.”(TLP)

4.25 If an elementary proposition is true, the state of affairs exists: if an elementary proposition is false, the state of affairs does not exist.

A proposition is true if it is a picture of a fact. It is false when it does not picture a fact. Its sense then comes from the fact that it pictures. Meaning then is always factual. Meaning is derived from the state of affairs of things. My language contains the sense of my world.

Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language

(Delivered during the Philosophical Symposium of Ateneo Schools in Mindanao, Xavier University 2002; also at St. Francis Xavier College Seminary, 2002; excerpts are published in Elements of Logic, 2008)

1. Analytic philosophy began as a reaction to F.H. Bradley. Bradley’s monistic idealism essentially destroys all contentions of multiplicity. For Bradley, all of reality is the content of one mind, the Absolute. The absolute is the reality. All objects belong to one and only one substance, the Absolute.Bertrand Russell rejected F.H. Bradley’s ideas, henceforth, the birth of logical atomism. Russell, in reaction against F.H. Bradley, says that the world consists of objects. Generally, the following illustrate the claims of logical atomism: first, that objects truly exist apart from the mind (extra-mental); secondly, that only objects exist; ideas exist in the mind (intra-mental); and lastly, that real objects are to be determined logically. (PA)Logical AtomismLanguage, according to atomists, is truth-functional. A compound proposition is the truth-function of its constituent parts. For instance, the statement that “Mr. Dumlao is old and happy” has two constituent statements, that “Mr. Dumlao is old” and that “Mr. Dumlao is happy”. Both are the truth-functions of the original statement. The truth or falsity of the original statement is determined by the truth or falsity of its constituent statements. So if P is true, not-P is consequently false, and if R is false, not-R is consequently true. Hence,When the truth or falsity of a complex statement can be determined from the truth or falsity of its constituent statements it is called the truth-function of its constituent statements. (PA)For them, every statement about complexes can be resolved into a statement about their constituents and into the propositions that describe the complexes completely. (TLP) A complex statement can only have sense if it is truth-functional, that is, if it can be broken down into distinct and clear atomic propositions. For instance, if we say, "The house on the hill is old and dangerous," this compound proposition must be broken into its atomic constituent propositions, which are "The house on the hill is old." and "The house on the hill is dangerous." Breaking the complex proposition enables one to understand each set of constituent atomic facts, a requirement that satisfies the task of reducing all propositions ultimately into the most basic, the atomic proposition.

2. Propositions show what they say, tautologies and contradictions that they say nothing. (TLP) Propositions inform us about the state affairs of the world. Propositions reveal the factual content of reality. On the other hand, a tautology is “a statement that is true to all of its possibilities”(PA), hence, non-informative. For example, the statement, “All bodies are extended” is tautological because the idea of a body already contains the thought of extension. A tautology is true because of the necessary meaning of terms and it does not, therefore, add any knowledge about the world. On the other hand, contradictions are statements that are false to all of its possibilities. For example, “A square is a circle.” A contradiction is a logical impossibility, henceforth, meaningless. If we examine the two, both do not provide any thought about the state of affairs of the world. They provide no data about experience, and are only formally meaningful.Generally, for atomists, “the world divides into facts. (TLP) The hard data of reality can be divided ultimately into simple and elementary propositions. Following chemistry’s principle that an atom is the smallest unit of matter, an atomic proposition is the smallest unit of any language. Reality is divided into atomic facts and the multiple units of atomic propositions should correspond to the multiple numbers of atomic facts. For atomists, there are three types of facts: the atomic, the general, and the negative fact.First, let us define the atomic proposition. According to Russell, an atomic proposition refers to a statement that expresses one and only one fact. Examples of which are: “This table is red”, “My car is blue”, and “Jose is 20 years old”. The first proposition explains the fact that “There is one and only one table, and that this one and only one table is red”. In this statement, the logically proper name “table” is assigned one fact, “that it is red”. The atomic proposition represents the attribute of “being red” attached to the object, “table”. Ultimately, all of language will have to be reduced to atomic propositions in order to uncover their factual content. Analysis therefore requires breaking all statements into atomic statements.If we adhere to the tenets of logical atomism, classes like “man”, “animal”, “plant”, etc will have to be questioned since they do not represent an atomic fact. We do not experience “man”, we know and interact with a “particular man”. We do not see an “animal”, we see “our neighbor’s dog”, the “dog owned by the police”, etc. So what are classes really? They are, atomists assert, nothing but incomplete symbols. They are there simply for linguistic conveniences. They don’t actually exist. So if X is the symbol for “animal”, X’s refer to the different animals belonging to such class, which we may name as X1, X2, X3, so on and so forth.

3. Now, it can be said that not all statements are atomistically distinct. There are, as logical atomists would later admit, general facts. General facts consist of two or more atomic facts. For instance, the statement “All men are mortal”. It is quite impossible to reduce the statement into its atomic constituents for that would require knowing all men. And so, the proposal of logical atomists is that the statement is a logical sum; it is no more than an enumeration of the constituent facts that it represents, expressed in the symbol, “for all x, fx”. Thus, for every x, there is an fx1, fx2, fx3, so on and so forth. Another alternative view provided later by F. Ramsey is that a general fact does not refer to a proposition, but it refers to something that guides human behavior. It acts as a sort of rule or prescription. For instance, the proposition, “All arsenic is poisonous.” Let “p” be arsenic. Since “p” is poisonous, and since this thing I see is a “p”, this thing therefore is poisonous.General facts were a real problem for logical atomists. For instance, what does one understand by the word “school”? If we are to divide it, we can come up with students, teachers, administrators, etc. But what precisely is a school? To say that general facts do not exist is intellectual laziness. The concept of general facts was unresolved during Russell’s time. However, analytic philosophers later admitted that reality could never be ultimately atomic.The third type of fact is the negative fact. A negative fact denotes that “there is some proposition q which is true and incompatible (or excludes) p”. (PA) To state “p is not q” means that my statement is incompatible with the fact that “p is q”. We may wonder about statements such as “Einstein is not here” or “The sun is not shining.” These are examples of negative facts. If we take into consideration the correspondence theory of truth, this means that a negative fact is that which is seen to be incompatible with whatever is the case. According to F. Ramsey, the“not” does not name anything at all (PA). In this sense, it is not a fact, but an assertion of disbelief, meaning “not-p” is a disbelief in p.Normally, facts inform us about the states of affairs of things. A negative fact, which is called as such because of its negative copula, states something other than what is the case. And so, does it tell us something? Yes, it does, and what it reveals is the sense that there is something that is not the case. It informs us that something is not the case, making us look for what really is the case. For example, if one states, “Moby Dick is not a dog”, one attains the insight that Moby Dick is not a dog, but something else. In that sense, a negative fact may also function as something directional.Moving on, we shall now explain the structure of a proposition. According to Wittgenstein, “a proposition has the structure: this is how things are”. (PI) Each fact has one and only one analytic meaning. This meaning is the truth-condition of every atomic statement. A statement is atomistically distinct if it pictures one and only one atomic fact. We say, for x to be x, there has to be "one and only one x" and if that x is in a certain relation to y, we say, "there is one and only one x, and one and only one y in such a way that x is related to y" or, simply, xRy. This we can translate into an atomic fact: "roasted pig is expensive"; x being the sign "roasted pig," and y being the sign "expensive." This shows the truth about how things are, which implies that, things have a logical order, and that this order can be known. A thing is what it is, logically.The only requirement for thought to be valid, according to atomists, is that “all thought requires the presence of its object before the mind”. (PA) A proposition is true if it pictures a fact, false if it does not. If I say that "My sister was born in 1975," and documents prove the existence of such state of affairs, then my statement has factual content. If the proven state of affairs says otherwise, then my statement consequently is false. This means that every proposition that we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted. (PA) Presence as a requirement here refers to factual evidence. Without such, a statement cannot claim any validity. A proof is necessary to make our thoughts clear and valid.In a sense, according to atomists, “there is nothing to be said beyond propositions”. (PA)

4. In a perfectly logical language, every word in a proposition must have a one-to-one correspondence with facts. Propositions show the existence or non-existence of atomic facts. Thus, "a proposition," being a picture of a fact, "is a model of reality" (TLP). Our thoughts, according to Wittgenstein, can only have sense if it pictures a fact. For example, if we consider one statistical data on the average number of children a couple may have in a place, say if there are 12 couples in a community and that there are 35 children, the result would be a statement that, "a couple in this community has an average of 2.91 children." In this example, the ".91" does not make sense. A ".91 child" does not picture a real fact. There is no such thing as a “.91” child. A “.91 child” is an incomplete symbol, not a real picture. Since there is no such fact as a .91 child, to say that there is such a child is absurd. A “.91 child” is not a fact. Imagine other examples like the unicorn, a square-circle, a dancing god, a happy frog, etc. Reality, for atomists, is a clear picture. Any statement that is not faithful to such requirement is nonsensical.Meaning as Use: Transition to the later WittgensteinAsserting that philosophy is a linguistic neurosis, Wittgenstein suggests in the Tractatus that, “most propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false but nonsensical”. (TLP) The source of a philosophical problem is the confusion one finds in the use of language. Philosophy is not about the discovery of what is true or false, or of what is factual, for such belongs to the sciences. Philosophy, in this regard, cannot have a claim to new facts. However, metaphysicians use philosophy as if they are advancing theses that purport to express some sense, when in fact, what they are doing is simply exploit the uses of words like “being”, “existence”, “God”, to name a few. Thus, philosophical problems are, in this regard, a kind of a linguistic neurosis.

5. Metaphysical assertions produce no more than nonsensical claims for they find no basis in the state of affairs of man. We shall see here how Wittgenstein’s thoughts evolved.The Blue and Brown Books of Wittgenstein is the transition to his later philosophy. Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy rejected the tenets of logical atomism, citing its inadequacy and impossibility. Meaning, Wittgenstein asserts, cannot be limited to picturing. Language performs other functions, not just picturing facts. Thus, he states,There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. (PI)Language can never be reduced to logical propositions. The language of everyday life does not come in the form of propositions, but they make sense. When a baby cries, and utters a sound, that sound is already an articulation of meaning, although the baby is not declaring a fact. This sound is not a proposition, but it makes sense. The sound may connote discomfort or hunger. Meaning moves beyond the horizon of pure logical thinking. While it is true that propositions picture facts, meaning is not and can never be confined to propositions. Propositions are our first step into the ladder of meaning, and after we climb beyond them, we move on to the more difficult aspects of reality, to the more complicated language games.The statement “I love you”, for instance, is in the form of a proposition, but it is not just a proposition; it is about a person, his life, and his proposal of life and love. To mean the words “I love you” then is to enter into a deeper realm of meaning, a realm that may never be appreciated by the person to whom the words are being directed to because there may not be a common ground for understanding to take place.

6. Henceforth, it can be said that there is futility in constructing a logically perfect language. Wittgenstein says, “the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty”. (PI) It seems absurd to reduce the world into objective and formal translations. There are things that do not fit the criterion of strict logic. Thus, the requirement of reducing language into atomic propositions is untenable. It is an impossible project.Let us take as an example the familiar adage, “The family that prays together, stays together.” Logic would require the production of observation-statements in order to substantiate such claim. But of course, the realm of faith is beyond the limits of pure logical reasoning. There is no way to verify the end-result of prayers, but that does not make them absurd. Why? Because it is a religious language, and hence, it is not a matter that one must subject to the tenets of logical investigations. It is an activity in language that is not supposed to be decided by analytic logical thinking. This is because its special character comes from the special character of religious experience itself. God, for instance, cannot be subjected to the rules of science, because he is ex-hypothesi, unique.Why is the picture-theory of meaning limited? In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein asserts that the Tractatus views language as a “naming game”. Let us examine this. A word is a sign for something. That something we label with a name. Naming, then, is marking with a sign. The object is known through this sign. This naming game is learned ostensively. Ostensive meaning is the meaning that we apprehend directly. In order to know the meaning of an object, we utter its name, and point to the object that the name represents. If I say "blue," I must find a color sample blue and point to it. The child learns language this way. Now, a sentence us no more than a jumble of words, and sentences must have correct grammatical form to be able to represent a state of affairs, which is a combination of objects. The structure of the sentence is a guide to the structure of the world. This structure is a logical one.But the naming game cannot be the adequate description of the phenomenon of language. Language is meant to serve for communication. (PI) Thus, when we say something, it is more than naming something. We don’t name but mean. For instance, if a father tells his beautiful daughter during a visit by a suitor, "Anne, it is already eleven in the evening ”, the father is not acting as a timekeeper. It is not time that he wants to convey. He is simply telling his daughter that “it’s late” and that “it is not proper”. It is in the use of the statement where meaning comes from. If it is said with a higher tone, it may mean that “I am angry” or that “This should not happen again.” This means that there is not one specific way of speaking. There are no definite rules for communicating. What is important is that a message is clear, that a statement points to something that one wishes to say. It is not in the saying; it is in what is said.

7. Wittgenstein sums up his later philosophizing about the function of language in this sense, comparing language to a toolbox:Think of the tools in the toolbox: there is a hammer, pliers, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails, and screws. (PI)The metaphor of the tools in the toolbox emphasizes the fact that language has many uses, not only naming. We have seen, for example, the function of the word “eleven”. The fact is that "eleven" in the example above is not a mere name. It even does not have a meaning if it is not put into a particular context. “Twelve”, for instance, besides the fact that it signifies “noontime”, implies that “It is time to eat”, “It is too hot outside”, etc. It is nonsensical to ask for the meaning of words, for meaning is revealed only in use. We must, as Wittgenstein claims, not ask for the meaning, but ask for the use.To answer the question of function, Wittgenstein advises us: "don't think, but look" (PI). Looking here signifies something very relevant. It is in seeing things that we learn to do things. Allow me borrow one of Aesop’s fables, “The Crab and Its Mother” to make this point clear: “Why do you walk so crooked, child?” said an old crab to her young one. “Walk straight!” “Mother,” the young crab replied, “show me the way, and when I see you moving straight ahead, I’ll try to follow.” We understand human action when they are actually performed. Looking then is seeing how an action is done, and in doing so, one learns the meaning of such. By learning this meaning, one is inclined to follow. Language behaves in the same manner.The different uses of language reflect the different types of language games. Imagine the first few words of a baby like "da-da" or "ma-mam." For an atomist, these words are devoid of any sensible fact. But look, it means something. It tells us something. For someone who knows the experience, it may mean that the child needs some water, etc. Language, in this regard, is not only informative. It does not only picture facts. It can also be directive. The meaning is in the action that needs to be done, not in the statement. Consider an early morning experience when siblings shout to each other, "we're late!" The primary function of the statement is not only to state the fact that they are late; it asks someone to "hurry up", it expresses anger that one is “too slow”, etc.

8. The reason for the above conditions is that we use words connotatively. If we examine the words "politician," "public servant," and "government official," we will find out that these words function differently though they signify one reality. We use the word "politician" when we are critical of the government. The word "politician" has a negative connotation. It implies corruption, search for personal gain, and partisanship. If we want to praise a person in authority, we use the word "public servant." The word is used in a positive sense, connoting sincerity and commitment to public service. "Government official" is rather neutral. It is used when we need not be critical or appreciative. Even the manner we call our parents speak of the kind of relationships we have. “Daddy” may be appropriate for the elite, not for peasants. “Tatay” and “Nanay” speaks of simplicity in life. There is a particular language for a particular purpose. When one is being sweet, one can call his partner as “sweetheart” or “honey”. When a wife has an animosity towards her husband, she can call him his surname.Thus, it can be stated that “a word is not a name” and that “though it can be used as a name, it can also be used in numerous other ways”. (PI) This we can illustrate by way of the word “disabled”. One issue would be when one has a “disabled” brother who cannot avoid quarrels in school because he is oftentimes humiliated. Now, to avoid this unwanted prejudice and to emphasize the fact that persons with physical handicaps also possess skills, the government, through the prodding of NGOs, introduced the use of "differently-abled," instead of the infamous "disabled." The term "differently-abled" goes beyond merely naming the condition of persons with physical handicaps; it also points to what they can do. The term transcends the negativity of disability.

10. Why is such the case? Why is meaning beyond the purely logical? Justus Hartnack suggests,The ideal of a purely logical and mathematical language is only an illusion. Language is not a name for a single phenomenon; it is the name of the class of an indefinite number of language games. (WMP)If the Tractatus were right, there would only be one language-game, as if there is only one game. "Different language-games show a family resemblance, and the number of different language-games is indefinite, indefinite because a language-game is blurred and indistinct-there is no hard edge" (WMP). A word has numerous uses. Using words means playing different games. In each game played, a different function is shown.A statement does not have one single task. If a statement is to have some sense, its sense must be shown. Its sense can be exhibited by showing its use. If someone tells you, "you look stupid," he is not really telling you what your outside appearance is. In a deeper sense, the expression is used to irritate. The requirement of the Tractatus to break statements into constituent acts shows its limitation in its view of sense and non-sense.Not all words are as simple as the word “red” or “chair”. For instance, if one hears that, "The Dela Cruz family hates Juan," what does one precisely mean by the subject "Dela Cruz family"? Does one mean the father of the family, the siblings, their whole generation, including those who are dead, or their living members, including their three-year old child? There seems to be an ambiguity here, but such ambiguity is eliminated when we move beyond truth-functional language. One has to see the context of the statement so that one is not mistaken. The statement might be a sweeping one making it avoid the nuances of language. There is a necessity to appreciate these nuances, for in the margins lie deeper meanings that need to be uncovered. Wittgenstein says, “if we want to walk, we need friction … back to rough ground!” (PI)

12. The rigid requirement of a purely logical language must be discarded. The idea of a rough ground above is the arena of ordinary language. Nuances can always be allowed for that is the essence of everyday language. According to Wittgenstein, "language is in order as it is" (PI). The purpose of language is conversation, and as long as a language enables one to communicate, then there is nothing wrong with that language.Ordinary language philosophyEarly atomism, we may recall, has expressed that “language is a picture of reality; language depicts the logical structure of facts”. (WMP) The whole of the Tratatus is the assertion that language is a picture of reality. But it cannot be just any picture for that matter; it must be a logical picture. Language must conform to the laws of logic, or else, it can be dismissed as nonsense. Thus, any word has a meaning in being the name of something. A word represents or refers to something. (WMP)The symbolism that we find in the Tractatus is this: Symbol P represents a certain fact Q, so that P means Q, and only has a meaning in so far as Q exists as its truth function. A word in this regard is a symbol for something, that something being a fact. A word is a representative of one and only one fact, and this is necessary so that there may be no two sets of symbols representing one particular fact.The rejection of such symbolism is clearly manifested in the meaning of the word “five”. Hartnack argues,If one asks what the word five names, the question is based on a misunderstanding; the appropriate question is to ask how the word five is used. (WMP)The word five does not represent anything whatsoever, not unless one attaches it to a particular mode of action, say counting apples. The meaning of the word five is not inherent to the symbol five; it only acquires meaning when the word is applied to a particular activity. It is wrong then to presuppose that words have inherent meanings. They have none. They only become meaningful when they are used. So we do not ask what five means, but how five is used. For instance, a biscuit may cost “five cents”, an office may have the announcement, “limited to five applicants only”, or a medicine may have a prescription, “five ml daily”. As one may notice, the word five in the examples have different connotations coming from the different instances to which it has been applied. Thus, there is strictly not one source of meaning.Sources of meaning are what one calls a life form.

13. Language expresses a form of life. Since language shows the limits of my world, language also reveals the limits of my life. This is shown when our backgrounds affect the way we understand things. For instance, the influence of our backgrounds is even evident when we are told to spell out abbreviated words. A teacher-husband might ask his wife to spell out the word "prop." Someone who has some training in commerce will think that this word is "property." On the other hand, someone who is logically inclined will think that this word is "proposition." There is no point to quarrel about this, for this is not a matter of testing one’s mental aptitude.Consider for instance the sense of a joke. The possibility of joking reveals the fact that language has many functions, each function showing its particular sense. If this were untrue, there would be no way to examine the sense of a joke. Language cannot be a mere picture of reality. It would be absurd to reduce every joke into a proposition, for it need not be a proposition. The meaning of a joke comes from the context of the participants in a discussion. The context of the discussion determines the sense of a joke. It involves a particular life form. Conservative parents do not appreciate green jokes. This is because if one does not live in that particular life form, one always fails to see the context. This is why a sense of humor is always difficult to grasp. It must, so to speak, be understood.How does one discover a life form? Or more exactly, how does one learn how to use language? According to Hartnack,Just as learning the names of playing cards or the pieces in a chess set is not learning to play bridge or to play chess, so to know the names in a language is less than learning how to speak. (WMP)One can invent a word, say TQ13, and say that it corresponds to a particular tree. The purpose can be personal. It is a password that enables one to identify that particular entity. But if it is a purely private act, with no connection whatsoever to something conventional, then one is mistaken in thinking that his act makes some sense. Even if one knows all the pieces in chess, one cannot play chess if he does not know the rules. Rules imply an agreement. Two parties are in agreement, and so, there is a meaning being communicated. In the case of a private password, or a private formula, one cannot make sense if one cannot communicate what he intends to say. To say something is already to mean something, that is, it means that one intends to do something. If nothing could be done about what I know, and if I say something that only possesses a private meaning, there is really nothing in what I know and in what I am saying.Language is the repository of human action. If in a language one cannot make requests, describe or ask questions, it means that these human activities do not exist there. (WMP)

14. Language contains our intentions, plans, activities, ideas, actuations, behavior patterns, cultural norms, predicaments, moral sentiments, etc. Different generations play different language games. Different generations listen to different types of music. “Rap” is absent from the language of older generations, and “Elvis” may not be accommodated as a nice music genre twenty years from now. The words “po” and “opo” are absent in American culture. Japanese vow their heads as a sign of respect; we don’t. Politicians use the handshake as a vital tool in public relations, academicians don’t do that much. Young lovers hold their hands; sweet couples kiss each other before saying goodbye. Such is a medium not available to less intimate partners. Thus, to be able to say “I love you” means that there is already something in doing so. When one means what one says, one intends to do something about it.Words have meanings, and these meanings are carried by the particular entities to which they have been assigned. The word “building”, since it already has clearly defined limits as to its logical structure as a fact, remains the same symbol for that particular fact, although one particular structure, say “The building on F Street” to which that symbol has been assigned may have collapsed. With respect to proper names, Jose Rizal remains to be Jose Rizal although he has become non-existent. The physical reality to which the meaning has been assigned may have been gone, but the sense of who Jose Rizal was to the Malayan race remains.The picture theory of meaning was an imprisonment of language. The reason is that, “picturing or depicting the world is a meaningless notion; there are many different language games; some of which serve to describe, to assert, to report”. (WMP) Picturing held language captive. Creativity is inherent to the human spirit. This creativity could also be made available to language because language is a human reality. Analysis is so limited that it also limits the sense of everyday experience. To say that there are different language games means that there are so many human activities. These activities represent the different ways we apprehend reality.

15. Our ways of apprehending reality are always expressed linguistically. But it is expressed in a way that cannot be confined to the difficult requirement of a logical ideal by way of atomic propositions, since to do something is already to express some meaning, though that meaning may not have the logical form of a proposition.A word is and will always be a tool. It cannot be confined to one specific function, that is, to naming facts. Wittgenstein adds, “a word is not a name; a word can be used as a name, but it can be used in numerous other ways as well”. (PI) In the Tractatus, there is a one to one correspondence between words and facts. To say that P is Q means that a sign P represents a fact Q. P here names Q, Q being the fact that needs to be apprehended. The name P then is contained in the fact P. It cannot name another fact, for doing so would entail some confusion.Although there is a point to what has been stated above, it is important to realize that a word cannot be limited to its function as a sign. To illustrate this point, let us examine the word “trees”. “Trees”, of course, correspond to a physical reality, and to pronounce the word enables one to think of such physical reality. But to the mind of an environmentalist, “trees” mean something else. It may mean man’s disregard for nature, the selfishness of loggers, the ineptness of the government, etc. To a poet, the word reminds him of a poem, not of a physical entity. This disproves the claim that a word is a name, for a word may be used for some other purpose. It can even be a call to action. To shout “Cory, Cory” during the Edsa Revolution of 1986 does not mean that one is reciting the name of a particular individual; it is a call for change. The different functions of a word manifest the different kinds of language games.Language games refer to the different activities that we perform. We perform something when we understand it. To state that language games have nothing in common is to say that a specific activity requires a specific understanding of it. Each language game is of a different kind, just as a particular ballgame is different from all the others. This is because each game has its particular rules. Praying, dancing, making some noise, cracking a joke, etc require different contexts.

16. There cannot be a single language game. The word language is not a single phenomenon; it is the name of the class of an indefinite number of language games. (WMP) Just as there is an indefinite number of human activities, there is also an indefinite number of language games. This means then that there is an indefinite number of ways of making sense. To make sense, however, means to be in a language. This is because to make some sense means to make some understanding about something, and understanding happens linguistically. There is no other way available. In as much as every human activity is a particular instance of some kind of an understanding, each human activity is a particular language game. One can only play a game when one understands that game.Recalling the Tractatus, language in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy performs only one game, and that is picturing reality. Language is a picture of a fact, and it does nothing else. For language to be a valid picture of reality, it must conform to the rules of logic. This ideal is achieved by means of atomic propositions. Language in this regard is reduced to a collection of atomistically distinct propositions. The ideal is to free language of its nuances, to get rid of bumps along the way, in order to make clear the meaning of words. But this rigid requirement, this “regularization” of language, proves to be too difficult to achieve, for although physical entities can be reduced to atoms, human activities are irreducible to such due to their complexities. To say that there is just one language means that there is one and only one way of understanding reality.The metaphor of language as a toolbox emphasizes the countless function of language. It cannot be limited to one particular use. The reason for this is the fact that human reality cannot be limited to picturing reality. We always do something about reality, and in doing so, there is already a kind of understanding, an understanding which involves language all of the time. Why? It is because understanding can only be transmitted through language. I learn playing bridge by knowing the rules, and rules are known through words, meaningful words.Moreover, we always discuss certain matters from a particular point of view, from a specific context, from a standpoint. The context of the discussion comes from the language game the participants in a discussion are into. To say something means to adopt a particular stance, that position becomes the source of meaning for the speaker. This implies the fact that language games provide us with the rules in any conversation.

17. Misunderstanding occurs when two speakers talk from a different context. The context is the arena where a particular game is played. It is the board in a game of chess, the hard court in basketball, the pool in swimming. Just as chess can never be played in a basketball court, one cannot play bridge while doing some gymnastics.So we may ask – what is it that makes sense? A proposition, of course, always makes sense. But to say that language must be in the form of a proposition in order to make sense does not make sense. The analysis of propositions to set out their correct logical form is no longer relevant, if there is no longer any correct form. (WMP) There is no such thing as a correct logical form of language, for language, according to Wittgenstein, “is in order as it is”(PI).In view of this, what is therefore is the task of a philosopher? It is not the task of the philosopher to find the correct syntactical form of a statement. Philosophy cannot be limited to the syntax of logical propositions. To state that, “There is one and only one X known as the Rubicon and one and only one Y known as Caesar and that Y crossed X” is no longer necessary. To say that Caesar crossed the Rubicon is enough, and by this we understand the fact that a particular person known as Caesar crossed a particular river known as the Rubicon. We therefore say that,The philosopher’s task is not to correct the proposition, but to understand it…A proposition has neither a correct or an incorrect form – it can only be understood or not understood. (WMP)Let us re-examine the proposition in view of what we have stated. A proposition is anything whatsoever that affirms or denies. It states a truth or a falsity. It can only have a yes or a no answer. A proposition, in this sense, states a fact or denies the same. But any sentence, be it complete or not, already states something as long as it is used to communicate something. For example, builder A can simply say “Slab” and builder B can interpret this to mean, “Bring me a slab”, “There is a problem with this slab”, etc. It is not necessary to have the S – C – P form of the proposition. The context of the discussion will set the tone for whatever is supposed to be grasped. Obviously, a person who does not live the context of carpenters may not easily acknowledge what builder A means. This does not mean, however, that one can’t enter such context.

18. What gives value to philosophy, according to Hartnack, “is this very fact that propositions and other utterances can be misunderstood. If there were no such possibility of misunderstanding, there would be no philosophy”. (WMP) Philosophy aims at the logical clarity of our thoughts. In this regard, its nature is linguistic. Misunderstandings occur because there seems to be a misconception with respect to the way language functions. Misunderstandings happen when we are out of context.The task of the philosopher then is to put into proper context the point of every discussion. Let us take the proposition “Mickey Mouse is a millionaire”. From the context of a rigid logical analysis, the propositions seems unclear for it may be equal to the statement “Mickey Mouse rides a Ferrari” or that “Mickey Mouse owns a mansion”. As a matter of fact, the statements are devoid of any sense. But putting it into a greater context, say, from the point of view of a child or of a cartoonist, it may mean that “Mickey Mouse is a great character” or that “I can think of many things about Mickey Mouse”. It can be said, therefore, that logical misunderstandings that lead us into philosophical problems can arise from confusing one language game with another, from supposing that different language games are one and the same language game, or from regarding some games as the only legitimate kind. (WMP)What is clear above is that to place a certain language into its proper context means that we have to situate language to the proper language game to which a particular language belongs. Oftentimes, we dismiss religion because it is not scientific, and we at times say that scientists are non-believers because they argue that the existence of God cannot be established experimentally. Science is experimental and it cannot deal with God since God is beyond science. But on the one hand, one cannot simply dismiss the existence of God because it has no scientific basis. If one does, one is implying that our only source of knowledge and understanding is science. Blurring a context results to a philosophical problem.But what is a philosophical problem? Hartnack says that, “the presence of a philosophical problem is symptomatic of a misunderstanding of the logic of language”. (WMP)

19. A philosophical problem is always linguistic in nature. If we consider the language about God, and how it can be meaningful, it is necessary to separate our views on God from the world of the experimental sciences. To assert that God does not exist because there is no scientific evidence for his existence is a linguistic nonsense. Why? It is because science cannot be confused with religion and religion cannot be an experimental thing. Religion works on the rudiments of faith; science on the tenets of cognition. To understand the reality of God properly, man must situate any language about God to where it belongs – the context of faith. This only proves the point that the philosophical problem on God’s existence or non-existence is nonsensical. If the language of science and religion are clarified, then there is no more confusion. The solution to a philosophical problem, as Wittgenstein asserts, is its dissolution. Once we make clear all that we mean to say, there wouldn’t be any need for philosophy.The logic of language in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is the context of language, the perspective that participants are into in order to form an understanding. This context is a “form of life”, a category that implies a basic recognition of certain aspects about a particular thing or event making one understand the context. Meaning emanates from this form of life, for if one does not belong to a particular life form, one cannot effectively say something about something. Having the right to say something about something means belonging to a particular life form.

20. To say something means to understand something. What we understand always has a claim to truth. A truth-claim can only be valid when one is in the right context. This truth-claim comes from one’s understanding. Misunderstanding occurs when we are out of context, when we say something about something though we know nothing about that thing. Knowing here refers to the fact that I recognize basic things about a particular reality. Knowing means erasing the confusion. Knowing means making things clear. But it is this – “clarity does not lead to the solution of the problem, but to its disappearance”. (WMP)To make things clear means that we do not confuse a particular language game with another language game. It also means we do not mix up different life forms. This also implies that when we discuss certain matters, we must discuss from the same context. If this is done, then the problem disappears. But what kind of a problem is this? It is the problem of misunderstanding. We misunderstand a particular aspect of reality if we do not play the same language game. The rules of soccer if for soccer; the rules of basketball is for basketball. That’s how we are supposed to talk to each other.As we have stated above, philosophical problems are in a way nonsensical. For instance, if we ask, “what is truth?”, “what is virtue?”, or “what is freedom?”, the emergence of such questions simply come from the lack of clarity with respect to one’s definition of truth, of virtue, or of freedom. When one understands the definition of these terms, and I mean definitions in use, one does not need to ask, since the sense of each of these terms have been clarified.

21. There is no solution to the problems of philosophy; the task is to dissolve them. This dissolution happens when language, the sense of the terms we use, are clarified. Once the logic of our language is clarified, one will have a clear view of reality. Clarity, in this regard, is the task at hand.The ultimate task of philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, is “to show the fly the way out of the fly bottle”. (PI) The fly here is the confusion that results from misunderstanding language. To end the problem, we do not prescribe rules, like the way logical atomism does. We do not give the fly a definite direction, for obviously, it cannot apprehend such. We simply lead it to the very way it entered the bottle; we open the bottle. This is to say that we let language be; we open it to its possibilities. We let language take its natural course. There is no need for an ideal; language is just fine! This is exactly what Wittgenstein meant in the latter part of the Tractatus. We quote,My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: any one who understands them eventually recognizes them as non-sense. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it. (TLP 6.54)The important task of philosophy remains to be the logical clarification of thought. (PA) Wittgenstein’s early philosophy adheres to the idea that propositions are the raw materials that philosophers work on in order to make sense. (PA) Philosophy analyzes propositions to make them attain a level of clarity. But after that has been done, one should move on beyond analysis and begin to understand.Philosophy, Wittgenstein asserts, “is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language”. (PI) The emergence of a philosophical problem is result of misunderstanding the grammar of language. Philosophy in this regard is a certain kind of therapy. It corrects our misunderstandings by making language clear. The later Wittgenstein introduced us to the reality of language as a multi-faceted entity. Language can never be confined to a perfectionist form of logic. But the logic still remains to be there. Language is only meaningful if it remains faithful to what the states of affairs of things reveal. It’s just that these different truth-conditions cannot be captured as a picture.Although according to Wittgenstein, philosophy is limited to the analysis of terms, analysis cannot be absolutely equated with picturing. Thus, rejecting his early philosophy, he adds, “ a picture held us captive”. (PI)

22. Picturing is just one type of philosophizing, and there are other types. The picture-theory of meaning is an imprisonment of language. But it can be asserted though that reductive analysis is not wrong; it is inadequate. Philosophical analysis concerns itself with the clarification of terms and linguistic concepts, and to the elimination of what seems to be non-sensible, on what is meaningless. But it cannot be totally tied to the demands of logic. The value of reductive analysis, putting in mind, of course, the rigidity of its logic, resides in the fact that it enables us to eliminate nonsensical assertions. Through reductive analysis, the statements “All Filipinos are lazy”, “All women are weak”, etc. are rendered meaningless. Without logical analysis, there is no way to eliminate such non-sense.We have to remain steadfast to the idea that philosophy concerns itself with language and the clarification of such. This is because it is only through language where we get to discuss and know the affairs of the world, and so language displays the sense of the world, and to use language is already to deal with the world, with man’s states of affairs. As we have said above, understanding is always a matter of language. For Wittgenstein, to do philosophy is to think in terms of meanings, meanings that come in linguistic form. Philosophy can only be a linguistic activity, though the content of this activity may vary in view of the many concerns of the person who philosophizes.A philosopher, thus, always expresses a linguistic thought, and this linguistic thought has reality as its substance or content. We can claim, therefore, that philosophy deals with all the things that we say. Thus, it is said, “there are no philosophical problems, only linguistic puzzles”.

23. A philosophical problem has the form: I don’t know my way about. (PI) The idea above can be made evident in Walter Gallie’s discussion of essentially contested concepts. If we are to analyze the meaning of words, it seems clear that there are certain parameters to consider. These parameters reflect the way how a word may evolve, or acquire meaning. These parameters enable one to understand the use of a term, although, in a manner that is not always clear. This lack of clarity makes a term highly contested.The word “championship” (PL) can be a good example. “Championship” can mean being a “better sportsman”, which also means, playing by the rules honestly. It also means that “championship” is not a physical or a tangible thing, like medals and trophies, but that it is all about character. Being a champion in this sense may mean being defeated in the game, but winning still by being able to “capture the purpose of the game” which is the development of one’s “personal character.”It can be said, however, that the statements above are mere alibis, empty notions, and meaningless connotations of the word “champion”. A team becomes a champion by winning games, and you do not win games if you do not have the skill and talent, notwithstanding all the hard practices necessary to prepare for the game. The true gauge of championship, in this sense, is winning. For if one wins, this means that one has prepared better than the other team. Whatever is meant it is important to note that to assert a meaning is to assert a claim to truth. A truth-claim must always be grounded. This grounding is always experiential, for it is in experience where truth, and its meaning, ultimately resides.The puzzle about the word “championship” is due to the fact that the notion of value, it seems to me, is not a clear concept. If it is clarified, then it can have its formality as a term, and its proper use. But this brings us to a second parameter, which is conformity. If we conform to the same understanding about the meaning of value, then we reach a level of connection, and we may share the same with respect to the way we look at things. If one conforms to the meaning of “championship” as character building, then one follows the norm set therein. There is no disagreement here, for we simply abide by the principles set thereunto.

24. By norm, we refer to the very way by which things are done in a context deemed proper by a community of individuals, reaching a commonality of understanding. To conform to a certain norm means to acknowledge the propriety of certain rules towards the achievement of a purpose.The contestability of meaning comes from the term itself. Since we consider the internal structure of a term as evolving, the conflicting contexts upon which a term may be applied makes a term puzzling, always puzzling. This statement can be explained by the fact that such terms, the philosophically puzzling ones, are persistently vague because it is put against the background of a community whose values and ways of perceiving things change from time to time. There seems to be no clear cut way of determining the meaning of a term, for indeed, if a meaning can be determined at all, it is the shared experiences of a linguistic community that sets the tone of such. In the end, philosophy can only describe, and not prescribe. Wittgenstein advises, “philosophy must simply do away with explanation”, and as such, “it leaves everything as it is” (PI).Finally, as Wittgenstein suggests, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”. (TLP) This, to my mind, is the last word for philosophy, for philosophy seems to venture into a discourse that sees no end, simply because the ground or logic of the discussion is not clarified. Every statement has its own logic; each statement possesses its own sense. Where one cannot make any sense in what one says, one must not say at all, for to say something is already to mean something. This has been the failure of all metaphysicians who claim that they are dealing with first principles. But in examining the things that they say in greater detail, they are not saying anything at all. Sense cannot be said; it can only be shown. And metaphysics misses this point.

25. The last statement in the Tractatus is a signpost that prescribed certain signals with respect to the direction that philosophy must take. The direction still is linguistic, though it may not be confined to what is strictly logical. A statement can be analyzed in different ways, and it is the task of philosophy to clarify the grounds for such analysis. Although there is no longer one single ground (logic), there is still the need to understand the sense of each statement and its relation to the world, and that world is not only factually meaningful, but meaningful in many other ways too.

Perspective, Ideology and Social Reality

(Delivered during the Phavisminda Conference at Silliman University, May 2007; Published in the Phavisminda Journal Vol. 7, 2008)


What is the function of a writer[1]? Consequently, it can also be asked, what is the function of art? To the first question, the response shall be direct – the function of a writer is to reveal reality. It is the writer’s task to inform human consciousness of the reality of the world and to put forward a perspective of the human condition. The second question needs an indirect route, for we need to ask what is presupposed when any aesthetic formulation is conceived. To this, we say, that art must reveal the truth. Truth must be in art; art must be in truth.

The philosopher, writer and literary critic who glorified the paradigm above and rebelled against the prevailing systems of his time was no other than Georg Lukacs[2] (1885-1971), author of the Marxist cultural revolution in Europe, whose influence finds alliance in the Critical Theory of Hokheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse. According to Lukacs, “in any true art, there is no content of which man is not the focal point”. (Lukacs 1963, 19) He adds, “literature must be able to portray the contradictions, struggles, and conflicts of social life in the same way as these appear in the mind and life of actual human beings.” (Lukacs 1981, 143) Furthermore, he notes that it is the task of the writer “to portray the connections between these collisions in the same way as they focus themselves within the human being”. (Ibid, 143) Liberation[3] from human alienation is only possible if man frees his consciousness from the images painted by capitalism, and this comes about by way of the realist aesthetic tradition, which is “not contented simply with the appearances of truth, but builds its edifices on truth itself.” (Lukacs 1978, 31)

Georg Lukacs’ Critique of Modernism

Lukacs’ critique of modernism is elucidated in his two works, namely, The Meaning of Contemporary Realism and Essays on Realism. In order to understand Lukacs’ aesthetic theory, we must begin with his putting into question the aesthetic paradigm of modernism. Modernism[4] for Lukacs is a capitalist instrument. It is, by and large, an artistic medium that thrives in the character of form and style. For Lukacs, modernism fails in showing the substance of social reality. Modernism considers substance as secondary to formal coherence. He suggests, imploring of course his Marxist leanings[5], that what is to be understood in any work of art is not merely the subjective and formal criterion developed by the artist, but more importantly, it is the clear understanding of the totality of his historical consciousness. For Lukacs, the artist’s subjectivity is no longer what matters, because the means in achieving the fullest possible reflection of a totality does not coincide with subjective meaning. The writer[6] must intend to bring forth the meaning of objective reality and not the subjective contents of his mind. For Lukacs, this objective reality refers to man’s roots in a historical totality.

The modernist tradition advocates that “there is no outer reality; there is only human consciousness, constantly building, modifying, rebuilding new worlds out of its own creativity”. (Faulkner 1977, 25) This criterion emphasizes the criterion of formality in modernism. Modernity is devoid of any substance. It dwells on an illusion. But according to Lukacs, the goal for all great art is to provide a picture of reality in which the contradiction between appearances and reality, the particular and the general, the immediate and the conceptual are made clear. (Lukacs 1978, 34) Modernism does not show this contradiction. It only shows the ideal and neglects the real. Modernism paints an illusory[7] world of beauty and color. Any true work of art must depict the pain and struggles of human existence because, according to Lukacs, “the effect of art results from the fact that the work by its very nature offers a truer, more vivid, more complete, and more dynamic reflection of reality. (Ibid, 36)

Important to the understanding of the task of art is an elaboration of the meaning of reification[8]. What is reification? Reification is “the process by which capitalism permeates the whole of reality”. (Ibid, 5) Objective reality, according to Lukacs, has been deeply embedded or reified in the consciousness of the masses. This means that the truth of the human world is objectified. Reification reduces the truth of human activity into an object. The same thing happens in art, where the truth of the human world is replaced by modernist leanings on the glory of form and self-gratification.

It is in the sense above that modernism must be rejected, since for the bourgeois mind, “a correct theory of objectivity is an impossibility,” (Lukacs 1978, 25), and we must thereby appeal to the realist tradition, which is, “the art of copying from nature as she really exists in the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking presentation of that which is daily taking place around him”. (Faulkner 1977, 1) The task of art, Lukacs says, is to de-reify reality. The writer must free it from the illusions imprinted in it by capitalism by showing the objectivity of man’s world. A real work of art stands on its own as a real presentation of that objective world[9]. It reflects an objective world where man lives and experiences the miseries of life. It manifests all that is significant in the area of life it tries to depict. In real life, there are real people, real suffering, and real struggles.

In a capitalist society, modernism defines “persons in terms of abstract quantities”. (Ibid, 34) Mass media[10], for instance, sometimes undermine its poor audience by putting emphasis on the latter’s weight, education, upbringing, social status, and worst, their face. In architecture and design, the presence and the interplay of colors inside a mall or a modern fast food chain, and in cimena, the sex and violence menu of a Hollywood flick take away from us our objective consciousness of reality. The human mind is rendered mute by the beautiful images of modernism. In the end, it is man himself who loses the authentic meaning of his humanity.

Ideology and Perspective in Literary Texts

According to Lukacs, “the basis for any correct cognition of reality, whether nature or society, is the recognition of the objectivity of the external world, that is, it’s existence independent of human consciousness”. (Lukacs 1978, 25) Applied to literature, it speaks of the objectivity of the external world as the substance of every work. The truth that matters, for Lukacs, is the truth that concerns man. It is a work that understands man. This understanding results from the conception of a perspective. This perspective refers to the truth of man’s world.

Modernism[11] is insufficient as an art form because it deprives literature of a sense of perspective. (Harrison 1998, 678) Perspective determines the course and content of any realist writing. It is what allows the delineation of what is significant and insignificant. Content determines form, and there is no content which man himself is not the focal point. (Ibid, 676)

Of course, Lukacs names realism as the primary aesthetic mode of the new socialist literature. (Kadarkay 1991, 343) Realism puts forward an aesthetic presentation of man’s historical totality. This totality is lost in modernist art forms because of its “exaggerated concern with formal criteria and the questions of style and technique”. (Lukacs 1963, 17) For Lukacs, as a contrast to this, what matters is “the view of the world, the ideology, the welstanschauung underlying a writer’s work that counts.” (Ibid, 19) Realist literature simply aims at a truthful reflection of reality and what it tries to bring about is the concreteness of man’s life. Realism, Lukacs adds, is not only a style among others, but “the basis of literature”. (Ibid, 48)

Writing, as an ideology, presents the writer’s conscious views about life and the problems of his time. (Ibid, 71) Realism makes human life the subject of all its aesthetic constructions. He adds,

In the portrayal of a story, a real plot leads inevitably to testing human feelings and experiences against the external world, weighing the living interaction with social reality and finding this light or heavy, genuine or false, whereas the psychological or surrealistic introspection of the decadents simply offers the superficial internal life a completely restricted field, entirely free of any criticism. (Ibid, 145)

According to Lukacs, for the realist writer, it is the question of ideology that he takes into account when he writes. The modernist writer, on the other hand, glorifies form and style at the expense of the substantial content of the character’s life. For Lukacs, taking the ideological question means that the writer who portrays real human beings need in no way be completely aware that a portrayal of such is already the beginning of a rebellion against the prevailing system. (Lukacs 1980, 149) For Lukacs, only a realist aesthetic theory provides man with a reply to the question of ideology. “It is important to show the distortions evident in modern society”, and he praises Thomas Mann, for instance, for “showing distortion for what it is, tracing its roots and its concrete origins in society”. (Ibid.)

Art and Social Reality

A literary work of art should not only arouse our imaginations, but more importantly it must reflect the ideological decay of contemporary capitalist society. The only way to free man from his alienation is to bring him to a conscious awareness of his social totality. Lukacs has shown the connections between history, with all the material struggles of man, and literature, which for him must be no more than a reflection of human reality. The reality of man is the totality of his material struggles which forever define his way of life and survival, and therefore, the very meaning that he creates for himself, including his conceptions of the aesthetic. Writing must be true to man’s material conditions, so that writing as an art does not become a mere reproduction of gibberish mediums. Writing must enable man to retrace his roots in a totality, a totality that reveals his authentic state of being.

For Lukacs, “the concept of totality is a dynamic reality that enjoys an ontological status”. (Kadarkay 1991, 272) This totality manifests the reality of man as a being who is situated in social, political, economic, and historical conditions where he experiences the struggle for liberation. This totality defines the reality of human existence. Literature must therefore be grounded on this truth.

The work of art must therefore reflect correctly and in proper proportion all the important factors objectively determining the area of life it represents. (Lukacs 1978, 38) A literary subject of this kind is thus already rich and developed because a genuine love of life and human beings arises in it as the result of its own contact with life. (Lukacs 1981, 147) For Lukacs, the great novels of our time reveal the driving forces of history that are invisible to actual consciousness.

Lukacs explains that the essence of discourse is the category of concrete totality; it is the category that governs the notion of reality. Truth emerges out of this discourse. But modernism’s theoretical and practical conception of the world is not faithful to the real conditions of man. Its basis of action is not the essential nature of man’s real problematic. The man found in modernist art forms is not the man who suffers from the political and economic tragedies of his time.

It is the function of art to make us see, however painful it might be, the sufferings of men, the sufferings of real men, and not the artificiality of modern life. Art must uncover the undercurrents in the real world of man. Real human life can be found in the slums, in the lives of street children, in the palengke, in sugarcane plantations, and the bodegas where there are real people. Real people do not exist inside the mall. Every color, every shape, and every smile inside the mall is nothing but imaginary and artificial.

Present day spectacles like cultural and social gatherings, elections among elitist clubs, intellectual conferences and meetings are but ways of pretending to see the truth about man but in truth they are no more than a hypocritical way of showing concern for man’s socio-economic and political conditions. These events are mere illusions. Held in plush venues stacked with delightful meals, the theme, participants and topics misrepresent social reality. Real people, many of them victims of injustice and inequality, dwell outside.

As writers, it is our task to lay claim to our real, objective life. Philosophical ideas are not only a symbolic expression of the world but must be the presentation of the real world, the real objective world with all its conflicts and anguish. Human thought must reflect in a manner that is clear the important factors objectively determining the meaning of life. Thinking in this sense must be an objective portrayal of the individual’s social and economic conditions. Lukacs asserts,

The more artless a work of art, the more it gives the effect of life and nature, the more dearly it exemplifies an actual concentrated reflection of its times and the more clearly it demonstrates that the only function of its form is the expression of this objectivity. (Lukacs 1971, 52)

Any literary piece or artwork must express reality and send the message of truth it represents to those who involve themselves in its evolution through time. Thus, art must go beyond the mere expression of beauty, for art is also about real life. Art must express the human problematic. It is the duty of the writer as an artist to reveal the truth of the human condition. After all, man writes for his fellow human beings. It is the writer’s ultimate obligation to tell his readers the truth of human life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources on Lukacs

Lukacs, Georg. History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971)

____________ The Historical Novel (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press,
1983)

____________ The Meaning of Contemporary Realism (London: Merlin Press,
1963)

____________ Essays on Realism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981)

____________ Writer and Critic (London: Merlin Press, 1978)


Other Sources

Curtis, Michael The Great Political Theories (New York: Avon Books, 1981)

Deleuze, Gilles Anti-Oedipus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983)

Faulkner, Peter Modernism (London: Harper and Row, 1977)

Harrison, Charles. Art in Theory (Malden: Blackwell, 1998)

Kadarkay, Arpad Georg Lukacs: Life, Thought and Politics (Cambridge:
Blackwell, 1991)

Marx, Karl Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (New York: Prometheus
Books, 1988)

Nietzsche, Friedrich The Birth of Tragedy (New York: Dover Publications, 1954)

Notes:

[1] This paper is an attempt to put into words my view of the human world. I have always thought that life is difficult and that however beautiful others may want to paint it, reality is that there exist in this world the many faces of injustice, hatred, inequality, discrimination, domination, and many other evils. A writer must be honest to the truth of human life. It is, to my mind, the writer’s task to tell people what the world, our world, is really like. This I believe is the function of writing as an art. To quote Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, “art saves man, and through art, life.” (Nietzsche 1954, 59)
[2] According to Rodney Livingston, “Georg Lukacs is one of the most controversial figures of his own age and of ours. As a Marxist philosopher, he has been credited with the most profound development of Marxist theory since Marx. He has been widely regarded as a major influence on writers as diverse as Heidegger, Benjamin, and Sartre. He played a big role in the Hungarian revolution after the First World War… From inside party lines he has been accused of deviations from the current party line as well as revisions of Marxist doctrines. From outside Marxism he has often been identified as one of the chief spokesmen for the dominant communist cultural ideology.” (Lukacs 1978, 7)
[3] Alienation is also the alienation of human consciousness. Human consciousness, according to Lukacs, is imprisoned in a false consciousness. Political economy hides the slavery that one can find in the modern work place. The colors, lighting, and overall ambiance of beautiful workplaces hide the reality that the poor worker earns a pittance compared to the huge profit of the corporation. As Marx says in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, “the more the worker exerts himself, the more powerful becomes the alien objective world which he fashions against himself.”(Marx 1988, 44) To change this system, Lukacs advocates for the elevation of the consciousness of the proletariat, saying that because of the nature of a capitalist economy, objective consciousness is lost and must be recovered.
[4] Lukacs asserts that “modernism suggests that the form of an object is always determined by the self, through the self’s inner activity. Aesthetic pleasure is always objectivized self-gratification”. (Lukacs 1978, 33) Such notion is in congruence to the function of capitalist technology where emphasis is on the fulfillment of human desires.
[5] Lukacs is known for his brand of Marxism as Western Marxism. Lukacs says that orthodox Marxism, the wing to which he belongs, is not about a blind obedience on the thesis of Marx. Orthodoxy, he says, refers to method, a method that leads to the truth. Method for Lukacs is something that can be developed if only to satisfy the demands of the present.
[6] Lukacs’ literary criticism is best elucidated in The theory of the Novel (1920) and The Historical Novel (1936). Both trace the history of the novel as a genre.
[7] This illusion is made manifest by malls, glossy magazines, American Idol, Hollywood, Harry Potter and others, alienating man from his real conditions. On the other hand, there are films which vividly illustrate the human condition. We can cite “Tinimbang ka ngunit kulang” (social critique), “Himala” (popular religion), “Ora Pro Nobis” (political persecution), “El Crimen de Padre Amaro” (church ethics), and “Romero” (religion and politics) as prime examples.
[8] The theory of reification is one of the major contributions of Lukacs to Marxist thought, along with his ideas of ideology, false consciousness, and class-consciousness.
[9] Think, for instance of “Presumed Innocent” (crime) by Scott Turow, “The Brothers Karamazov” (guilt) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Old man and the sea” (the human will) by Ernest Hemingway, “Death of a Salesman” (meaning of work) by Arthur Miller. These works represent the objective human world.
[10] It is important to explain the phenomenon of modern television. Modern TV, the toolbox of hyper-nonsensicality, brings us to a cultural bankruptcy. Talents are hidden beneath an array of foolish and gibberish re-reproduction of Western literary inventions, shown for the sake of entertainment and not truth. Our children know nothing about us, for the tools of modernity alienate them from their roots. Their consciousness is forever embedded in an identity that does not know itself. Kris Aquino exemplifies the non-sense of modern television.

[11] The lack of perspective in modernist writings is in view of its reduction of objective reality to the subjective conditions of the writer. This leads to the alienation of human nature. For Lukacs, modernism alienates us from our true historical conditions by freezing objective reality in the reified ideas immanent in modern literature.

Childhood in the Margins

(Delivered during the 2005 PHAVISMINDA Conference; Published in Being Human: Essays on the Philosophy of the Human Person, 2004)

Statement of the Problem

Emmanuel Levinas elaborates in his magnum opus, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, the groundwork for an ethics of the human face, “choosing as basis, the ethical basis of society, the self’s responsibility for the other”1. For Levinas, the face, which is a metaphor for the other, refers “to the poor, the stranger, the abandoned, the orphan”[i], or put simply, the suffering man who is left in the margins, hungry, and dying. The face, the marginalized, reminds us of our responsibility. The “I’ only finds its meaning when it answers the call of the other. To be responsible means to proclaim that the “I” in the here and now is an “I” that says, “I am for you”.

Fundamentally, man, as a social being, exists for the sake of his fellowman. To be a man, therefore, is to be a “man for others”. Social ethics presupposes man’s responsibility for the other. Responsibility consists of two terms: response and ability. It is precisely because we have the ability to respond that we must act on the appeal of the other.

The face of the other appeals to us, but the reality of human life suggests that we have been indifferent to the plight of the other. Our indifference to the suffering other is a symptom of western culture’s self-centeredness. The influence of western culture has come to our shores, and it is evident in the self-centeredness of many Filipinos. This kind of culture, according to Levinas, is “a form of egology”.[ii] This egology, with which we are more familiar with as egocentrism, “refers to the basic tendency of the self to place itself at the center”[iii], resulting in the neglect of the other. This paper attempts to trace the reason for the ego’s neglect of the other, and in uncovering this indifference, hopes to bring a voice to that suffering face. Reiterating the thesis of Levinas, it shall be the main point of this paper that “responsibility comes through the other”[iv], and as such, there is a need to elaborate on the meaning of this responsibility.

The root of the problem is the refusal of the ego to recognize this responsibility, and because of this, the other continues to suffer. This paper will deal with two important concepts: totality and infinity. We quote from Leovino Garcia, in his paper “Infinite Responsibility for the Other” in Unitas (Volume 65):

“To the idea of totality corresponds the egocentric (or I-centered) model of relation and society; to the idea of infinity corresponds the ethical (or the other-centered) model of relation and society.”[v]

To concretize our reflection on this very important matter, allow me to direct our attention to the street children in our urban centers. Malnourished and fragile, young innocent children live as beggars in the streets, a familiar sight in many of our cities.
The face of the child in the streets is an obvious phenomenon, but humankind hears not the cry of this moral obligation. The face of the children in the margins of the streets is a face that many of us try to avoid. Moreover, the face of that child, our present human condition suggests, is a dying one. It is the face of a poor child neglected and is dying from starvation because society does not see the rationale in sharing a piece of bread to those who have nothing to eat, or more philosophically perhaps, because the homo economicus in man finds indifference a better option than feeding the hungry. But Levinas teaches us that the face of that child presents itself as an ultimate demand – “Do not kill”.[vi] What the margins of the street reveal is the face of an innocent child who has to suffer from society’s inadvertence, a clear picture of western man’s neglect of the other. Levinas asks, “has western humanism been a failure because it has remained a humanism of the I and has not become a humanism of the other man?”[vii]

Our disregard of the other, of the other’s fragility and mortal existence, results in death. And this is manifested in the reality of starving children who do not enjoy a basic right – food on the table. In many poor nations, death accompanies the indifference of the western world. The face of the child suffers from this evil. Surely, we have forgotten, that “the human face is a concrete expression of mortality”.[viii]

Otherness and Ethical Responsibility

Ethics is first philosophy. The reason for this is the fact that first and foremost, man is a moral subject, ergo, free, and with that freedom comes responsibility. Fundamentally, as a moral subject, man must answer the call of duty, for he possesses a sense of right and wrong – rationality and reasonableness oblige man to do the good.
An ethical relation is an other-centered relation. Man, primordially, however, exists for the good of the other. Ethics exists for the sake of the suffering other. Why? Without the other, the self has no meaning. The other, in addressing me, makes me inalienably responsible.[ix] The meaning of human action emerges when it is directed to the other, the other being at the receiving end who defines the character of that deed.

But who is the other? The other as other, says Levinas, is the face that one sees. In many instances, however, we refuse to see the face. For instance, if one considers the streets of the city where poor Badjao children thrive to earn a pittance by begging, many are indifferent to their plight due to the refusal to see the person who wears the dirty clothes. This refusal is what Levinas calls an allergy. The Badjao child in the margins of the streets, felt as a mere disturbance, suffers from this allergy. This allergy exists because man is afraid of his responsibility for the other. Such indifference makes the other suffer.

The suffering other, that anonymous being that one encounters in the margins, is oftentimes manipulated in order to satisfy the desires of the ego. This is the kind of atrocity perpetuated by individuals who are supposed to take good care of abandoned children, an atrocity that reminds us, of “the violence and the seductive powers of totalitarianism[x].” Many among us have done nothing except build an image for ourselves. For instance, child advocacy by some groups, with no real philosophical content, has become mere propaganda. It has been the way things are, for politicians need to win again, and organizations need the funding. These people are the ultimate expression of that egoistic self, a self that only desires what is good for its survival. And in the process of preserving itself, the other is destroyed, its validity thwarted, and simply dismissed as somebody who is not a real concern.

The desire of humankind for self-preservation makes the other a nemesis, a threat to one’s existence. Because of one’s concern for a self-image, there follows a failure to recognize the “otherness of the other”. Philosophical reflection, patterned from a primal form of egocentricity, is always guilty of such. Thus, in reflecting about the question of the self, one may find a profound understanding of human nature, but such essentially neglects the question of the other.

Moral philosophy, more than an examination of the intrinsic nature of human action or the human person’s desire to be, should be, more importantly, a way of caring[xi] for the other as face, the other as a suffering face. Morality should be a morality that cares, period. Morality should act for the sake of those who are suffering from the abuses of the human will. Ethics exists for the other.

Egonomy and the Children in the Margins

Life in the metropolis is a testament to the present Filipino’s indifference to the other. Let us attend to the margins of metropolitan life, and again, the streets. If one is truly observant of his surroundings, one should not fail to see the heart shattering presence of very young street children begging in the streets. At one time I saw a child, probably aged three, running the streets to beg. A mother, with almost no sign of present society’s scheme of things, carries her one year old and approaches each vehicle that stops. Later, a little baby cries of hunger, his brother unable to find a way of helping him out of his miserable existence.

If one looks at all the giant edifices all over the metropolis, the gadgets that one uses and discards in order to be updated of what is trendy, and the way one spends the days life in cinemas, malls, and parties, the sight of these innocent children would be no more than a statement of one’s irresponsibility. Garcia writes,

“The egonomy of the western civilization finds its practical expression in the western way of life. In this lifestyle, there is privilege accorded to objectification, control, manipulation, technology, planning, and exploitation.”[xii]

The miserable condition of these children is a modern day plague. Children have become the unlikely victims of egocentricity. They occupy the silence and emptiness of the streets, for the ego refuses to acknowledge their existence. There they are, existing merely as statistical data and wandering in the brutality of modern civilization, waiting for their ultimate test of torture, serving as specimens of modern society’s indifference. Our encounter with them is no more than a fleeting moment of a little kindness, if not hypocrisy.

The streets belong to the “nobody”, and thus, the young children who live there have become a “nobody”, a nameless face. They have been forced out from their homes because of poverty, family or military conflict, but many of them are stripped of their humanity because of injustice, for their parents do not have a share of society’s wealth, and so in the streets they dwell, forlorn, forgotten, and dying.

Society’s lack of attention, its disregard for those lives in the margins, has resulted in man’s greatest problem - the presence of unending violence in our modern day existence. This violence speaks of the absence of our sense of responsibility. On the personal level, the self that I am neglects the presence of the face. The self that I am moves as if everything else revolves around it. The self that I am acts as if the world belongs to it. We call this attitude selfishness. The self exists for itself and no other.

Totality and Violence

In the process of totalization[xiii], the “I” dwells in the center and becomes the master of the fate of the other. The “I” becomes the center of the world, the source of meaning of the world. It is the “I” that determines what the “other” should be. The other, and his very freedom, is subjugated, thwarted. For Levinas, “totality refers to a fundamental perspective wherein the self is at the center. In this attitude or perspective, the self reduces the other to itself.”[xiv] This reduction, which is showcased in western man’s indifference, results to violence, the kind of violence that our world today experiences. Violence exists in the world because of the ego’s indifference. The denial of the other is the foundation of this violence.[xv]

Totality is a thinking that starts from the same and returns to the same.[xvi] According to Dr. Garcia, this can be explained by way of a metaphor. Totality can be painted in the story of Ulysses, where he leaves on a journey only to return home.[xvii] The self returns to the self. The ego returns to the ego. The self exists for its own sake. For Levinas, “totality is egonomy”[xviii]. The self is the law. The self is the center of reality. All meanings emanate around the self. Moreover, if applied to the real conditions of man, Levinas says, “egonomy is practically expressed as economy”.[xix] The face suffers, for the other is dominated by the powers of economy. The other becomes the objectified face, the manipulated and the abused face. The other has nothing, and so in terms of the economy, reduced to a mere means to an end. In the egocentric model, truth comes from the power of the ego. It is the will of this ego that has a rightful claim to objectivity. The other and his claim to truth are annihilated. It is the self that knows, and knowledge becomes simply the principle of the will of the ego. The ego that defines the limits of what is true and what is just is an ego that does not know what is other than itself. Such blindness results in violence.

Children who grow on the streets will soon obey the rule of the jungle. Uncared for, they grow without a sense of value, and as such, commit themselves to the kind of violence that the streets taught them. Sooner or later, the child will come face to face with his own death. Who is this child? In a capitalist society, that child becomes the face of a helpless worker, who as victim of oppressive working conditions, suffers and is reduced to the level of things, reaching the point of almost starving to death. In a tyrannical regime, that child is the face of an unwilling victim of political oppression, sacrificed for the sake of justice. In the social sphere, that child is the face of an alien entity, whose voice is unheard, whose significance is equal to nil, for he is the illiterate, the uneducated, the dirty man in the street. In the cultural dimension, that child is the face of a dying voice in the wilderness, whose survival and very way of life is partnered with extinction.

The other then is a victim of the gods of the ego. The insignificant other is the child who dies from tuberculosis because his parents cannot afford its cure, the child who has to die in an ambush after being caught in the crossfire, the child who has to become a victim of bombings and salvaging, and all because of the reason that that child is an other, a face that has been abandoned. The law of the ego is clear: to stay in power, it must kill. The predator must have a prey for it to realize its very being, for it to actualize its nature. There is violence because of man’s concern for self-preservation. The ego, in order to exist, kills the other through his indifference.

Infinite Responsibility

For Levinas, “infinity is the thinking that moves from the same to the other”[xx]. Here, one can have the metaphor of Abraham “who leaves home forever for an unknown land”[xxi]. Abraham is the symbol of the person who reaches out to become a man-for-others. To reach out means to leave oneself in favor of the other. Infinity, for Levinas, in this sense, is the infinite responsibility for the other. What is the meaning of this? The original encounter with the face is that of an infinite responsibility. There is an obligation, a demand to act. In my refusal to see, what is presupposed is that I have already recognized the other, but the initial effect is that of rejection, of allergy. The only feeling that the “I” shows to the other is that of antagonism, that of violence.

This we can plainly see. Every time a young girl, poor and untidy, approaches a teenage student who is about to enter the halls of the school, the initial reaction is that of disgust and abomination. Such an act is a visible display of the violence against the other. Is it not that education exists to make us better humans?

The face, which appears instantly as antithetical, implies the radical demand to recognize the otherness of the other. The response is grounded on the ethical. It is a moral responsibility. The example above suggests that the initial reaction of abomination is due to the refusal to see the face of the other. What is seen is the dirty clothing, not the child who is wearing such. If only one makes the effort to see the eyes of that innocent young being, then one would certainly feel what is to be done. This is not a request. It is a call to action. The other demands our responsibility.
The other demands that I become responsible. The face of the other speaks of man’s task. The other is the ego’s superior[xxii], not a co-equal. I exist for the other. According to Levinas, “the avoiding of the other, the refusal to see his face, is only possible when the “I” has seen the other and experienced him as an other who demands recognition as other”.[xxiii] It is in being responsible for the other that the meaning of the “I” is determined. What am I if I have done nothing for my brothers? What is a father if he has not loved his children?

In the face of the other, the “I” becomes “the accused”[xxiv]. And in the end, the question that reverberates to the deepest part of one’s selfish ego, is simply this – what have I done to you? There is no escape. The ego must be responsible. The ego will have to face that moment. There are only two options. Either the “I” rejects the other, or accept the otherness of the other. It can only be rejection or responsibility. It is either I refuse to see that face, or accept responsibility to whatever has happened to that face, to that dying face.

Through the other then I realize who I am. I am mortal, just as the other is. I have a face, just as the other has a face. I am responsible for the other. I can never be responsible for the kind of being that I am if I neglect the otherness of the other. The self, when it goes back to itself, finds that the self is but empty. My moral existence, the person that I am, only finds its sense in its being for the other.

This responsibility can only be concrete because the other, the face, is a concrete existing reality. It is not about the fulfillment of the desires of the spirit. The face, that dying child in the margins, is hungry. We end,

“Levinas stresses that this infinite responsibility is not to be interpreted spiritualistically. Since the other is a very concrete someone, the poor, widow, orphan, foreigner, displaced person, with very real wants and needs, the answer to his demand will also be very concrete.”[xxv]




1 Leovino Garcia, “Infinite Responsibility for the Other: The ethical basis of a human society according to Emmanuel Levinas”, in Unitas, volume 65, no. 2 (Manila: University of Sto. Thomas Press, 1992).
[i] Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An essay on Exteriority, trans. by Alfonso Lingis (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 299.
[ii] Ibid, 43.
[iii] Garcia, Infinite Responsibility for the Other, 6.
[iv] Ibid, 13.
[v] Ibid, 3.
[vi] Ibid, 199.
[vii] Levinas, Humanisme de l’autre homme (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1972), 113.
[viii] Levinas, “Beyond Intentionality,” in Philosophy in France Today, edited by Alan Montefiore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 109.
[ix] Garcia, Infinite Responsibility for the Other, 13.
[x] Stephen Strasser, Emmanuel Levinas: Phenomenological Philosophy (1982), p. 613
[xi] For a perspective of an ethics of care, see Carol Gilligan, In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).
[xii] Garcia, Infinite Responsibility for the Other, 6.
[xiii] Totalization, Dr. Garcia writes, is not in itself bad. He adds that the problem occurs when this fundamental perspective is applied to people. Totalization, when applied to other people, becomes tyranny. Garcia, Infinite Responsibility for the Other, 7.
[xiv] Ibid, 5.
[xv] Ibid, 10.
[xvi] Ibid, 3.
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 82.
[xix] Ibid, 38.
[xx] Ibid, 3.
[xxi] Ibid.
[xxii] Emmanuel Levinas, “Signature”, edited by Adrian Peperzak, in Research in Phenomenology, vol. 8, 1978.
[xxiii] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 225.
[xxiv] Emmanuel Levinas, “On the trail of the other”, in Philosophy Today, trans. by Daniel Hoy, vol. 10,
no.1, 1966.
[xxv] Garcia, Infinite Responsibility for the Other, 13.

Language, Being and Transcendence

(Published in the PHAVISMINDA 2007 Journal, Volume 6)

Language, according to Heidegger, is the house of Being (Heidegger 1977, 193). It is the place where Being presents itself to Dasein (There-Being); Dasein is the place whereby Being makes itself accessible to man. Language, in this sense, is constitutive of the man’s being-in-the-world (Sallis 1993, 357). Man, as Dasein, has the fundamental character of thrownness. By being thrown into the world, it is through man whereby the Being of beings becomes manifest. It is through man whereby Being is known. Metaphysics, says Heidegger, is the basic occurrence of Dasein (Heidegger 1977, 112). For Heidegger, Dasein dwells on the disclosure of Being through the nothing (the unsaid in human speech), which stands as its groundless ground and source of meaning. The nothing, Heidegger, says, makes possible the openness of beings (Ibid., 105). This openness comes to man in language, for Being “is perpetually under way to language (Ibid., 239).”

St. Thomas, on the other hand, views human language differently. Language, for St. Thomas, is the means whereby the reality of Being as the ultimate cause of all beings is made known to the human intellect. According to John Caputo, St. Thomas understands language as an activity of man, to be mastered and perfected like any other craft and not as a response to the address of Being (Caputo 1982, 165). For St. Thomas, the reality of Being does not unfold in language; instead, through language, the reality of Being is affirmed by way of causal participation. Man, as being, participates in Being by sharing in the latter’s pure act of existence. St. Thomas’ understanding of language accounts for the ultimate root of man’s intrinsic act of existence that directs him to a transcendent source, God as Being.

Language and The Problem of Being

Before we go deeper into the relation between man and Being, it is necessary to trace back Heidegger’s analysis of the problem of Being. Heidegger’s analysis of the problem of Being is out of his fascination with the word “is.” The question of Being, Heidegger says, is something we keep within the understanding of the “is,” though we are unable to fix conceptually what that “is” signifies (Heidegger 1962, 6). The word “is,” therefore, expresses and opens up the issue in his metaphysics of language – the issue is Being. Magda King says that if the “is” were missing from human language, there would be no other word and no language at all (King 1964, 28).

Language is an event that has Being as its ultimate origin, a house that is arranged according to a pattern inscribed and prescribed by it (Richardson 1963, 535). This means that Being makes manifest the presence of beings to man through language. Being therefore reveals the truth of beings to human consciousness through language. Now, without the “is” in language, language would be meaningless for it wouldn’t express any truth to man, for there would be nothing in language that will reveal that being is and not nothing. The “is” in language presents the reality of beings, that they are beings and not nothing.

It is recorded that Heidegger’s quest for the meaning of Being was inspired by Franz Brentano’s On the Manifold Meanings of Beings for Aristotle. Aristotle understands Being as ousia, which refers to the active concrete and changing substance, actualized by form. Aristotle rejects the abstract world of forms of Plato and considered the particular entities in the world as the really real. To be real therefore means to be a substance or to be an attribute of a substance (Guignon 1993, 45). For Aristotle, substances form the structure of the world. They are objective and independent existing entities. But Aristotle’s explication of substance as real deals with beings, not Being. In the sense, Aristotle bypassed Being. But Heidegger says that we sense more in things than mere substance and accidents for things are closer to us than the sensations that announce them (Richardson 1963, 440). Aristotle has examined beings in his metaphysics but was oblivious to the fact that they are the manifestations of Being. Aristotle, therefore, is oblivious to Being.

Furthermore, Aristotle defined language as a sound that signifies something (Sallis 1993, 363), and this means that he is not aware of the role language in the disclosure of Being. Aristotle is ignorant of the radical role that language plays in the disclosure of beings. According to Heidegger, Being comes to man’s awareness because man belongs to language. Thus, he says, it is the home where man dwells (Heidegger 1977, 193). This belongingness means that of all existing beings only man can ask the question regarding Being. And the reason for this, according to Heidegger, is that human existence means standing in the lighting of Being (Ibid., 204). For Heidegger, human existence thoughtfully dwells in the house of Being (Ibid., 239). Dasein, or man, by being thrown into the world, lives in this house. Dwelling in the house of Being enables man to speak of a world. Henceforth, it is language that makes the world a world for man, a world where his possibilities are realized. To speak of the world, then, means to speak of Being. Man, by being-in-the-world, stands in front of Being. Thus, man as Dasein bears witness to Being, gives voice to Being (Clarke 2001, 53).

For Heidegger, it is through the nothing that the openness of the meaning of beings is revealed. Nothingness opens up the possibilities of being human. Nothingness reveals what it means for man to exist. As source of meaning, the nothing brings forth the different possibilities of being-in-the-world. These possibilities are shed light in language for language reveals the truth of being-in-the-world. This is because language, as the house where Being dwells, is the same place where meaning is. Language, in this regard, reveals the reality of Dasein as being-in-the-world.
Now, we ask, what is in human language that allows the possibility of saying? If language is the place where Being comes into light, then there must be something in language that allows this coming-into-presence and self-concealing as its source or ground. For Heidegger, in the very instance of whatever is said, a hidden plenitude is left unsaid (Deely 1967, 172). This plenitude enables the possibility of saying. This plenitude refers to the nothing, the unsaid in speech, which “presuppose the possibility of saying, of disclosing (Sallis 1993, 358),” Heidegger says,
The nothing comes to be the name for the source not only of all that is dark and riddlesome in existence which seems to rise from nowhere to return to it but also of the openness of Being as such and the brilliance surrounding whatever comes to light (Heidegger 1977, 93).

This nothing is the veil of Being (King 1964, 11). Ancient metaphysics, according to Heidegger, conceives the nothing in the sense of non-being, that is, unformed matter, matter that cannot take form as an informed being (Heidegger 1977, 109). Thus, for a long time, metaphysics exposes the nothing to only one meaning: ex nihilo nihil fit – from the nothing, nothing comes to be (Ibid., 109). But Being and nothingness belong together, for Heidegger says, “the Nothing functions as Being” (Heidegger 1949, 353). What does this mean?

For Heidegger, the Nothing is an abyss, the groundless source of meaning where the reality of being human is made manifest. He says, “ if man is to find himself again into the nearness of Being, he must first learn to exist in the nameless” (Heidegger 1977, 199). The nameless is the silence in human speech. Silence presupposes the fact that one has something to say. But science and mathematics, according to Heidegger, have dismissed the nothing as meaningless. Science gives up the nothing as a nullity. Thus, he states that, for these two fields what should be examined are beings and, besides that, nothing; beings alone, and further nothing; solely beings and beyond that, nothing (Ibid., 97). Science rejects the nothing precisely because scientific language requires methodical objectivity. The scientist sees the nothing as empty, as something that is devoid of any objective sense. Thus, for the scientific discipline, the silence of the nothing does not say anything. Science conceals the nothing from man. Science renders mute the possibilities of man in the realm of silence.

But silence is not all silence. Silence opens up the possibilities of saying something. To every man, what silence reveals is the possibility of saying something about what still remains hidden. The truth of being human dwells in the nothing for Being is encountered in this silence. If truth dwells in silence, we must actually experience it. So where do we find this silence? Heidegger says that:

If the nothing itself is to be questioned as we have been questioning it, then it must be given beforehand. We must be able to encounter it (Ibid., 100).

The nothing, according to Heidegger, reveals itself in anxiety (Ibid., 103). Anxiety makes man silent, so that because of anxiety what humans have to say falls silent, making the reality of beings slip away. But what is anxiety? Anxiety, Heidegger says, is not a kind of grasping of the nothing (Ibid., 104). Anxiety refers to the state of mind that brings humans to the indeterminate possibilities of their existence. In speech, this state of mind points to the indeterminate possibilities of saying. What anxiety reveals to man is that through the nothing the reality of beings comes into light, that they are beings and not nothing. Anxiety, then, opens up the meaningfulness of beings for humans. Henceforth, the dismissal by science of the nothing implies its annihilation of the Being of beings. The rejection of the unsaid in language means the dismissal of the meanings still concealed in such silence. The dismissal of silence, of nothing as nothing, is a dismissal of what it means to be human.

An instance of being held out into the nothing in speech occurs when one travels to a far place and bids goodbye to a beloved. During this anxious moment, one says goodbye and the girl says nothing, remains silent. But this silence makes the openness of Being of the girl. Her silence reveals that there is something in her that she wants to say. Her silence discloses something about her as a human being. Her silence means something. Her silence captures her Being as a girl who is in love with someone who will be leaving her. Her silence opens up what the departure means to her and to their relationship. Thus, ex nihilo omne ens qua ens fit (from the nothing all beings as being come to be) (Ibid., 110).

St. Thomas: Being as Source

Being for St. Thomas is not the lighting up process but the ipsum esse subsistens that renders beings their being by way of causal participation. Language for St. Thomas addresses Being in a different way. For St. Thomas, every being (ens) is a being insofar as it participates in esse. Being for St. Thomas is the cause of the act of existence in beings. This distinction between Being as ipsum esse subsistens and beings as ens is closely related to Heidegger’s distinction between Being and beings. The reason for this, according to John Caputo, is that ens derives its meaning from esse. A being is a being insofar as it is referred to the act of existing which in its unparticipated state is pure act. St. Thomas, then, Caputo says, cannot be accused of oblivion of the ontological difference between Being and beings.

Language for St. Thomas addresses the question of Being in a manner different from that of Heidegger. St. Thomas’s metaphysical inquiry on language begins with the question “Can we use any words to refer to God?” (Aquinas 1969, 195). Language, for St. Thomas, acts as a bridge that enables humans to discover a metaphorical insight into Being. What is grasped is only metaphorical because man does not have a direct knowledge of Being. As we will show later on, all of man’s knowledge of Being is only by way of negation (Clarke 1972, 139). Humans know through God’s effects that God is, and that God is the cause of other beings, that God is super-eminent over other things and set apart from all (Aquinas 1955, 30). Thus, when we say, “God is good” what we mean is that “God is good, but not in the way we are.” St. Thomas’s concern, then, is to know how, for instance, goodness can be predicated literally of God. To say that God is good means that goodness as perfection is present in man but only in a finite way; God as the ultimate source of this perfection is infinitely good. Any knowledge of God can be based only on metaphorical resemblance with beings as his effects.

What does God as Being mean for St. Thomas? We have seen in Heidegger that Being is the Being of beings that makes them manifest. The metaphysics of St. Thomas, on the other hand, is a metaphysics of causality which takes into account the causal relationship between Beings and beings, between God and humans. For St. Thomas, Being is the ipsum esse subsistens that renders beings their esse or existence. Thus, his metaphysics is a metaphysics of creation, which makes esse the most fundamental act that gives the human being the principle of his existence. It is esse that makes humans be. In this sense, Being is the ultimate source of man. Henceforth, man is a being by virtue of his participation in esse. Being, as the unlimited source of existence, is present in all beings, not as part of the essence or nature of beings, but as an agent is present to that upon which it acts (Clark 1972, 62).

Explaining this point is very important in understanding how language brings man to his knowledge of Being. How does any word describing Being become meaningful? The Thomistic tradition contends that any language dealing with Being is used to signify something transcending all things, but we make such language meaningful by demonstrating from effects that Being exists, for as we shall observe, any language about Being is derived from these effects (Gilby 1969, 259-261). By this, St.Thomas means that any language that deals with God is finite, and since the finite subject is a creature of God, there must be a way in which the finite language of beings could describe God. In the Summa Theologica, St.Thomas asks, “Are words used univocally or equivocally of God and creatures?” (Aquinas 1969, 205) St. Thomas says that the univocal predication of God and creatures is impossible, for every effect falls short of what is typical of the power of its cause (Ibid.). Any language that deals with God cannot have a univocal meaning for this will mean that God is totally distinct from man. This will make God totally unknowable. On the one hand, any language that deals with God cannot be equivocal, for “we never use words in exactly the same sense of creatures and God” (Ibid.). Hence, the solution according to St.Thomas, is that:

In this way some words are used neither univocally nor purely equivocally of God and creatures, but analogically, for we cannot speak of God at all except an the language we use of creatures, so whatever is said both of God and creatures is said in virtues of the order that creatures have to God as their source and cause (Ibid.).

God as Being gives perfection to man and, therefore, God is both like and unlike man. Thus, when we speak of Being as the ultimate source of human existence we have to use analogical language by virtue of this resemblance. Man is like and unlike God in view of the former’s participation in esse. Any word then that we use in order to describe God results from man’s being created in God’s image and likeness. St.Thomas is concerned to maintain that we can use words to mean more than what they mean to us: that we can use them to understand what God is like, that we can reach out to God with our words even though they do not circumscribe what He is (Aquinas 1969, 293). Thus, to say “God is good” does not mean we go beyond the meaning of the word good. Rather, it is entering into the deeper meaning of the word in order to find there a trace of God’s presence in man. To go deeper into the meaning of the word means to transcend the finitude of this word. To transcend this finitude means to trace the presence of God as Being, as primordial source of being, in man.

Transcendence and Being Human

In Caputo’s Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics, Caputo argues that St.Thomas remains oblivious to the radical role played by language vis-à-vis Being (Caputo 1982, 158). According to Caputo,
The idea never entered St.Thomas’s mind that language opens up the field of presence in which we dwell, that language shapes the whole understanding of Being (Ibid., 164)

Caputo accuses St.Thomas of using language only in a technical sense. His argument is that St. Thomas merely used language as a means of communicating the meaning of Being. Language simply had no role in the formation of meaning, and its value is reduced to being a sign of communication that human beings utilize. In Heidegger, Caputo argues, “language is Being’s own way of coming to words into human speech,” and this means that, “it is not the human being who speaks but language itself” (Ibid., 159). Language, according to Caputo, bids the coming-into-presence of things in the world. Thus, language does not only express the world, it is the light that makes the world a world for man. Language is not just a representation of meaning but it is that which gives meaning. Language cannot be reduced to a mere means of communication. It is not just a sign that signifies something. It is the very way by which the meaning of something comes into the open. Caputo further opines that language for St. Thomas does not posses this radical role because St. Thomas, says Caputo, “is innocent of the encompassing importance of language in bringing beings to appearance, in letting them be in their Being” (Ibid., 158).

But Caputo’s critique of Thomistic language simply proves that Heidegger’s metaphysical understanding of language is different from that of St. Thomas’s understanding. Analogical language is never alethiological, and alethiological language is never analogical. According to Fr. Norris Clarke, Heidegger, as a phenomenologist, “can only describe how Being actually appears in consciousness” (Clarke, 55). Therefore, he has not gone “to the necessary ontological conditions of possibility or intelligibility of what appears, not even to the intrinsic act of existence within beings” (Ibid.). In this regard, Heidegger simply imprisons man to the conditions of his finite existence. The reason for this is that Being, in Heidegger’s sense, is only immanent, not transcendent (Ibid., 52). Now, such claim has an important implication for Heidegger’s conception of language. Heidegger merely confines language to the conditions of man’s finite existence. Therefore, language, in the Heideggerian sense, does nothing in addressing the problem of unity of man to a transcendent Being as the ultimate source of his being. In view of this, Heidegger may very well be accused of ignoring the importance of the analogical character of language that allows the possibility of transcending the finitude of language.

Heidegger has not gone deeper into the power of language to signify the causal relationship between Being and beings, between God and man. Heidegger’s conception of language does not allow humans to find a deeper context for their finite condition. Thus, when man is placed within the limiting horizon of finite existence, he will be unable to raise the question of a transcendent Being upon which his existence is rooted (Clarke 1994, 138). Heidegger is forgetful of the capacity of language to trace the unity between Being and man in the intrinsic act of being. Knowledge by analogy helps man point out a deeper context of his existence – transcendence. The truth is that Heidegger neglects the insight that analogy presupposes the reality of an ultimate source of intelligibility for the existence of creatures.

Heidegger’s conception of language limits man to his finite possibilities. It does not answer man’s quest for the ultimate root of the meaning of his existence. The problem is that Dasein merely waits for Being to manifest itself. Dasein cannot reach to any meaning beyond his finite conditions because he has to wait for Being to reveal this meaning to him in language. In this sense, language owns the human being, and humans are forever imprisoned in their finite possibilities.

St. Thomas’ conception of language, on the other hand, enables man to transcend his finite condition and enter into his final unity with the Source. Language signifies the relationship between man and the ultimate source of his existence, God. This transcendence is impossible in the Heideggerian notion of language. Transcendence is not brought about by anxiety. Anxiety is a purely finite condition and, as such, can only reveal the reality of man’s finitude. The meaningful context of transcendence is revealed to us, according to St.Thomas, only by our desire to know Being. This desire or love of truth reveals itself. St. Thomas’ conception of language enables man to transcend his finitude and find the presence of Being in his own existence as ultimate ground and source. The inadequacy, then, of Heidegger’s conception of language lies in its inability to trace the ultimate ground of the intrinsic art of existence among beings.

Heidegger’s problem then is that he does not answer the most important question raised by St. Thomas for metaphysics: “why is there something rather than nothing?” To answer such question is to account for the reason why beings exist. If raising the question of Being is important for metaphysics to retrieve it from the dust of tradition and scientific reasoning, then it is also valuable for Dasein to answer this question in order to quench his thirst for the ultimate meaning of his existence. Saying that Dasein is not enough. There is a horizon beyond the finite character of Dasein. Such horizon is the response to the question why being is and not nothing. This is the horizon of the transcendent Being, the ultimate source of all creation, the very reason indeed why beings are really real.

Finally, there must be an orientation not only to the presence of things, but more importantly it is a deep drive that transcends the human being’s mere consciousness of a world. Limiting ourselves to the horizon of the world does not end our infinite hunger for the ultimate meaning of human existence. Henceforth, man must cross the bridge that brings him to the ultimate meaning of his being. This is a bridge that St. Thomas offers us, a bridge that unites man to one transcendent Being as the ultimate ground and source of his existence.


Selected Bibliography


Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1969)

Caputo. John. Heidegger and Aquinas: An essay on overcoming Metaphysics
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1982)

Clark, Mary. ed. An Aquinas Reader (New York: Image Books, 1972)

Clarke, W. Norris. Explorations in Metaphysics (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994)

Gilby, Thomas. ed. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1969)

Guignon, Charles, ed. Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings, ed. David Krell (New York: Harper and Row
Publishers, 1977)

_______________ Being and Time (New York: Harper Books, 1962)

_______________ What is Metaphysics?, trans. R.F.C. Hull and Allan Crick
(Chicago: Gateway, 1949)

King, Magda. Heidegger’s Philosophy (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962)

Richardson, William. Through Phenomenology to Thought. (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1963)

Sallis, John. ed. Reading Heidegger (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1993)