A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Deel 3. The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality

[p. 53]

Chapter II
The structure of a thing

§ 1 - Introduction.

Our first problem is: how can we gain theoretical access to the structures in which things present themselves to our naïve experience? We have shown that each theorization of the latter results in a misunderstanding. The very intention to give a satisfactory theoretical account of the naïve experiential attitude, must consequently keep us from theorizing it.

As far as I know, immanence philosophy, including phenomenology, has never analysed the structure of a thing as given in naïve experience.

We do not forget that Scheler in his posthumous treatise Lehre von den drie Tatsachen has undertaken an important attempt to explain the different character of natural, specific scientific, and phenomenological experience¹. As an opponent of Kant's transcendental synthetical a-priorism, he agrees with us in his protest against any view that considers natural things in our naïve experience as the products of a theoretical synthesis. Just as we have done, he warns against every imputation of theories to the naïve attitude.

But he fails to offer any positive insight into the plastic horizon of naïve experience. Scheler only presents a somewhat impressionistic image of the latter, whose difference from the theoretical attitude is indicated in a negative rather than in a positive manner. In any case, he does not explain what a thing of naïve experience actually is.

On the basis of my previous critical sketch of phenomenology², I feel justified in saying that Scheler was unable to penetrate to the actual structure of a thing of our naïve experience. To represent the latter correctly, he would have been obliged to

1 Included in Vol. I of Schriften aus dem Nachlasz (1933) p. 329 ff.

2 Cf. Vol. II pp. 485 ff. and pp. 584 ff.

[p. 54]

abandon his immanence point of view and his Idea of cosmic reality, which furnish him an a-priori starting-point.

We have already seen how Husserl misinterpreted the thing-structure of reality, as one of the ‘regions of the “material” sphere, next to the sphere of functional-sensory qualities, spatial figures etc.¹.

We must therefore resume the discussion of the problem: what procedure must be followed to gain the desired theoretical access to the structure of things in naïve experience? Since this access cannot be acquired without theoretical analysis, we must obviously seek a point of contact in the theory of the modal spheres.

We must first see how far we can use the modally defined concept of function, and at what critical point it is insufficient in our present enquiry.

Let us begin with a functional analysis of a natural thing. Take as an example: this budding linden before my window. It is of great methodological importance to point out that by limiting my theoretical attention to this concrete natural thing, I am actually engaged in a theoretical abstraction. In veritable naïve experience, things are not experienced as completely separate entities. This point is ignored or rather denied by Scheler². It must be emphasized, however, if we are to understand the plastic horizon of reality, and if we are to avoid a naturalistic and atomistic interpretation of the latter. Nevertheless, I will provisionally begin with the abstraction in question. Theoretical analysis ought to proceed from the simple to the complex. It will become apparent in the sequel that the ‘simple’ only occurs in the full complexity of a universal interlacement of structures.

In addition, we should be aware of the fact that what appears to naïve experience as a simple structural whole will appear not

1 Cf. Vol. II pp. 17 ff.

2 Cf. Scheler: Die drei Tatsachen p. 361: ‘Nichts ist gewisser, als dasz natürliche Wahrnemung alle Gegenstände die Sie uns gibt, als einzelne und individuelle Gegenstände gibt’. [There is nothing more certain than the fact that all the objects given in natural observation, are given as singular and individual objects].
But with regard to the direction of our perceptual attention, this statement certainly ascribes to naïve experience a theoretical abstraction which is contradictory to its essence. While intending to give the quintessence of non-theoretical observation, Scheler has already theorized it.

[p. 55]

to be simple at all from a theoretical point of view. Really simple structures are not to be found in the macro-world of human experience. Even in its inner structure of individuality everything in this world shows a more or less complicated interlacement of typical structures. But this is a subject of later examination. For the present we must leave it alone.

The tree before my window undoubtedly has subject-functions in the modal spheres of number, space, motion and energy. In its numerical aspect, it is subject to arithmetical laws; as a spatial figure, it is subject to original spatial laws; as a moving figure and as a mass of energy it is subject to kinematical laws and those of energy, in the original modal sense intended by phoronomy¹ and physics.

But as long as the tree is viewed only in these abstract aspects, it is theoretically meaningless to speak of a linden. Neither does it make sense in this case to appeal to the individualization of the modal functions concerned (explained in Part I ch. VII of the second Volume), in order to discover in them the expression of a typical structure of individuality corresponding to a linden. If within their field of research physics and chemistry meet with typical structures of individuality, such structures will certainly not be those of living things, so long as the biotical aspect of experience is eliminated. Rather they will be typical structures of atoms, molecules, crystals, etc. And the modal individuality the latter show within the mathematical and physical aspects, as such, displays nothing that can evoke the idea of a linden.

A fortiori a merely functional viewpoint discloses nothing within the mathematical and physical aspects by which a tree delineates itself as an individual thing, in the general functional coherence within the modal law-spheres concerned. Instead, this functional coherence, guaranteed by the modal meaning-structure of a law sphere, seems completely to absorb the individual functions of the tree as a thing.

A purely mathematical-physical analysis of the latter must necessarily eliminate its typical structure as an individual whole and replace it by a system of interactions between energy-functions. And in this functional system there is no room for a distinction between internal and external processes of energy-

1 Phoronomy is the purely geometrical theory of motion, also called ‘kinematics’.

[p. 56]

exchange with reference to a tree. The ultimate points of reference of the physical system are atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, deuterons, photons, etc., and electro-magnetic fields and fields of gravitation, which are no ‘things’ in the sense of naïve experience. Chemistry, too, has nothing to do with the structure of the tree as such, as long as it restricts itself to the viewpoint of inorganic and organic chemistry and eliminates the biotical anticipatory sphere of the physical-chemical aspect.

But, when we observe the organic vital aspect of our linden, the situation changes. It is evident that this tree has a central function in the biotical sphere which, no matter whether or not it will appear to have an original or nuclear type of individuality¹, is in any case characteristic of the structure of the individual whole. It is a subject-function which is the ultimate functional point of reference for the internal structural coherence of the tree in the typical groupage of its different modal aspect-functions.

1 The expression ‘original or nuclear type of individuality’ is used in the same sense as in the general theory of the modal spheres. Cf. Vol. II, part 1, chapt. VII, § 3, pp. 423 ff.

The qualifying function in the structure of a linden.

Because it occupies a central position in its structure, this biotical subject-function may be called the qualifying function of the tree. In no other modal aspect can we find a modal function capable of qualifying a linden as a structural whole. And, it is also important to notice that this qualifying biotical function is the last subject-function of the tree's temporal structure.

Does this mean that the temporal reality of our linden is completed in the biotical modality? If such were the case we would indeed be confronted with an individual ‘Ding an sich’ in its metaphysical sense, or to be more exact, the tree would not at all exist ‘for us’. A thing existing in a pre-psychical modal isolation would be excluded from the inter-modal temporal coherence of meaning, necessary for human experience.

The impossibility of terminating the reality of an individual thing in a specific modality. The typically qualified object-functions.

The thingness of a linden does not allow itself to be fundamentally enclosed in any single modal aspect within the temporal order. In the psychical modality, a tree functions as a typically

[p. 57]

qualified¹ individual sensorily perceptible image. It has, in other words, a typically qualified modal object-function in this modal aspect. In the logical modality, a tree functions as the qualified individual object of a possible concept, and as such it contains the objective logical characteristics of the thing; in the historical aspect it functions as a qualified individual object of possible culture; in the linguistic modality as an individual object of symbolical signification; in the social² modality, it has a potential individual social object-function (consider trees in parks, along streets, etc.); in the economic sphere, it has the function of a qualified object of economic valuation; in the aesthetic sphere it is a qualified individual aesthetic object (object of aesthetic appreciation); in the juridical aspect it functions as a qualified individual legal object (rēs), even if as yet it were a rēs nullius; in the ethical modality it functions as a qualified individual object of our love or hate; and finally in the sphere of faith, a tree functions as an object of our belief (e.g., we believe it has been created by God, or is merely a product of nature, or - in the case of an animistic belief - it is inhabited by a demon or a good spirit).

A tree does not have a subject-function in any post-biotical modal law-sphere. In such spheres it has only object-functions, whose structural character is typically related to its qualifying biotic subject-function. We have repeatedly observed that in the naïve attitude the various modal aspects of an individual thing are experienced only implicitly, without our articulately being conscious of them, and without our executing a theoretical analysis of its modal functions, as accomplished above. Nevertheless the elimination of any one of the modal functions of the linden here before my window results in an abstraction foreign to our naïve experience, and which our cosmic self-consciousness refuses to identify with this concrete tree. The elimination of the logical object-function of the linden, for example, would make it impossible for us to have any experience of it as an individual thing. The latter would then also be deprived of all the object-functions it possesses in the subsequent modalities. It could not be named or play an objective rôle in human cul-

1 ‘Qualified’, namely by the qualifying function, in the entire structure of this natural thing.

2 The term ‘social’ is meant here in the modal sense of the aspect of intercourse.

[p. 58]

ture, in human intercourse, economy, aesthetic enjoyment, juridical life, etc.

Seemingly this would result in a falling back into an animal manner of awareness of things belonging to an animal's bio-milieu; and this mode of awareness cannot be called experience since it lacks any relation to a selfhood. But, in fact, the result would be quite different, because the attempt to eliminate the logical object-function of a thing in our experiential world can be made in theoretical thought alone, and cannot affect our actual experience. We are only confronted with the theoretical result of a theoretical abstraction.

Our theoretical experiment must lead to the elimination of a thing's entire structure. If I theoretically eliminate the logical object-function of a tree, the tree itself is necessarily lost to my theoretical glance. An appeal to the subjective synthetical function of the Kantian categories will not be of any avail. The most that they could do would be to clarify the functional view of reality, employed in classical physics, but we have already seen that they cannot even do that. And in any case, they have no bearing on our naïve experience of things in their typical structures of individuality.

But did we already grasp the typical thing-structure of our linden in our theoretical view? No, we did not yet arrive at a theoretical idea of an individual whole. Our previous analysis has been restricted to the functional domain of the theory of modalities; but the latter, by its doctrine of modal structure, modal subject-object relation, functional opening-process¹, and individualization of modal meaning, could furnish the necessary point of contact, needed to find a theoretical access to a thing's structure of individual totality.

1 Also termed: unfolding process, and process of disclosure.

The typical structure of the internal opening-process and its coherence with the functional structure of the modal aspects.

The key to our problem is supplied by the tree's qualifying function. We have established that the latter is its last subject-function, and the ultimate functional point of reference for the entire internal structural coherence of the individual whole in the typical groupage of its aspects. This description is, however, not exhaustive; the qualifying function is also the tree's charac-

[p. 59]

teristic leading or guiding function. It plays the central rôle in the tree's internal unfolding process. The latter reveals an internal totality-structure and is, therefore, essentially different from the merely functional unfolding-process treated in the first part of Volume II.

Under the guidance of the qualifying organic vital function the anticipatory spheres in the tree's earlier modal functions are opened and directed in a typical manner. This is to say that this unfolding-process is no longer understandable from the general modal structure of the pre-biotical functions. The fact that the latter have biotical anticipations in a general modal sense is not sufficient to explain why the opening-process in the pre-biotical aspects of the linden exhibits a typical biotic qualification which is characteristic of this tree, as such. This state of affairs appears to depend upon the structure of individuality of this tree as a whole, in which the biotical function, in a special type of individualization, has the central rôle of a qualifying function. This is not understandable from the general temporal order of the aspects, which finds expression in their general modal structure. This general temporal order is maintained in every structure of individuality. But the latter belongs to a different dimension of our experiential horizon, which is not reducible to that of the modal spheres, though it pre-supposes the general order of modalities. Through the typical structure of our linden, as an individual living whole, the earlier functions acquire an internal inter-modal structural coherence, which is distinct from the external functional coherence of the different types of individuality within the modal aspects.

In the theory of the modal spheres we concentrated solely on the functional structure of the opening-process and learned nothing of the typical internal structure of the latter as found in the things of naïve experience. But we can now see the close relationship between these structures. The internal structure of a thing pre-supposes a functional structure of its modal aspects and an inter-functional coherence of the latter.

I do not mean to say that naïve experience is based upon a theory of modal spheres. I have continually warned against such a misunderstanding. The functional structure of reality is not based upon theoretical thought, the latter is rather based upon the functional modal structure of reality, of which there is an implicit, although inarticulate awareness in our naïve experience.

[p. 60]

Within the typical total structure of our linden, the internal unfolding-process is executed so completely that the tree, as an individual thing (marked by its qualifying function), exhibits an integral internal unity¹. This is the reason why this typical structure can express itself in all of its modal aspects, even in its post-biotical object-functions. All of them are related to an individual whole whose typical internal structure lies at the foundation of the typical internal coherence of its modal functions. It is this typical totality-structure which also determines the central rôle of the biotical function in this temporal coherence of internal functions.

1 We shall see that this internal unity cannot be guaranteed by the leading biotical function.

The qualifying function indicates the intrinsic destination of a thing in the temporal world-order.

The qualifying function indicates the intrinsic destination of a thing in the temporal world-order, which should not be confounded with an external teleology, nor with a metaphysical entelechy of a ‘natural substance’. An external teleology cannot explain the veritable internal structure of a thing. The qualifying function of our linden, indicating its intrinsic destination, is an essential factor of the internal structure of this tree. External teleological relations, on the contrary, can only concern its reference to other beings. To the question: ‘What end or purpose can our linden serve?’ the answer may be, e.g.: ‘We can enjoy its shade, and birds can build nests in it’.

Such ends lie outside of the internal structure of the actual thing. It is true that they play an essential part in our naïve experience, because the latter does not separate a thing from its context with other beings. But in the structural subject-object relations of naïve experience the object-functions of our linden are bound to the internal structure of individuality of the latter. This is why in the naïve attitude we do not confound the inner nature of the tree with the needs of other beings which it may satisfy. Its inner destination as a linden is implicitly distinguished from its external teleological relations.

Apparently this intuitive distinction can be satisfactorily accounted for by the metaphysical concept of entelechy introduced by Aristotle. The entelechy of a living being is conceived of as the inner telos (end) of its internal material process of

[p. 61]

becoming, and, as such, it is clearly distinguished from any external teleological relation. But our critical analysis of the Aristotelian concept of substance¹ has shown that this apparent accordance with naïve experience cannot detract from the fundamental difference between the naïve conception of a thing and a natural οὐσία. It is the very structure of individuality which appeared to be imcompatible with the latter. And, since our view of the qualifying function of the linden, as that typical internal function which indicates the intrinsic destination of the whole, is unbreakably bound to this structure, it cannot be conceived in terms of an Aristotelian entelechy.

1 Cf. pp. 9 ff. of this Volume.

§ 2 - The unity of the thing-structure and the modal sphere-sovereignty.

The modal sphere-sovereignty of the different aspects of a thing is not affected by the internal structural principle of the individual whole.

We have now to consider the question if the internal unity of a thing guaranteed by its structure of individuality is indeed compatible with the general theory of the modal spheres. In the previous section we have stressed the inner connection between the modal structures of the different functions of a linden and the typical internal structure of the individual whole. Nevertheless, at first sight this connection implies a difficulty, still accentuated by the fact that every attempt at a theoretical analysis of a whole seems to destroy it.

This difficulty concerns the modal sphere-sovereignty of the aspects, which cannot be affected even by the internal opening-process of the pre-biotical functions of our linden under the guidance of its qualifying function.

Metabolic processes, for instance, occurring within the internal structure of a living organism, have doubtless a physical-chemical aspect. As such, they are processes of exchange of energy subjected to physical-chemical laws. Nevertheless, metabolism in its typical inner structure is bound to the individual whole of a living organism. Its energy-aspect is opened under the typical guidance of the qualifying function of this organism and thus it shows a typical biotic qualification.

Does this mean that in the internal structure of the living organism the modal boundaries between the energy-aspect and the

[p. 62]

biotical aspect are levelled out? The general theory of the modal law-spheres decidedly denies such a supposition. It maintains the modal sphere-sovereignty and consequently rejects every idea of a causal relation between the aspects concerned. There is not a hidden ‘entelechy’ or ‘vital force’ which can explain the metabolic processes in their physical-chemical aspect. Nor can the biotical aspect be reduced to the energy-aspect. The biotic anticipations of the energy-functions, disclosed in the internal opening-process of the living organism, retain their physical-chemical character. The assumption of a causal encroachment of vital energy upon the physical-chemical aspect of metabolism would only result in a pseudo-explanation. The different modal aspects of a real causal process ought to be accurately distinguished.

But this very view-point of the general theory of the modal spheres seems to contradict the idea of an individual whole introduced by the theory of the structures of individuality. And this is why the South-African philosopher H.G. Stoker was of the opinion that we need a concept of substance, since the theory of the modal law-spheres does not explain the absolute internal unity of a thing, as guaranteed in God's creative plan. It is therefore necessary to consider the relation between the modalities and the structures of individuality in greater detail. It will be shown that the contradiction alleged exists only in appearance.

As to Stoker's objection it should be primarily observed that from the very beginning we have acknowledged the insufficiency of the theory of the modal spheres to account for the internal structural unity of a thing. We have, however, proceeded from this theory to that of the typical structures of individuality. It is true that for the sake of a theoretical analysis of these plastic structures we were obliged to make use of our previous analysis of the functional structures of the modalities. But we have stressed the fact that the structures of individuality belong to another dimension of our experiential horizon. It was therefore to be expected by anticipation that we should arrive at the critical point where the theory of the modal aspects cannot help us any further.

Nevertheless, we must maintain the thesis developed in the second Volume that there exists an unbreakable coherence between the functional structures of the modal aspects and the internal structures of individuality by virtue of which the things of naïve experience present themselves as individual wholes.

[p. 63]

Even in the internal structure of a thing the modal sphere-sovereignty of its different functions is not abolished. The reason is that this modal irreducibility appeared to be founded in the same temporal order which is also the basis of the plastic horizon of human experience. But a thing is more than the sum of its individualized modal functions. It shows the typical structure of an individual whole, in which the continuous unbroken coherence of its structural functions is guaranteed by cosmic time. The appearance of an inner contradiction between modal sphere-sovereignty and the internal unity of a thing is only due to the Gegenstand-relation. It is due to the theoretical ἐποχή of this cosmic temporal continuity, which is necessary to grasp the inner structure of a thing with its typical groupage of modal functions in our analysing theoretical view.

The inter-modal character of the unity of a thing and the internal individual thing-causality.

The individual unity in the diversity of modal functions is essential to the thing's internal structure, but this unity cannot be of a modal character. We have established that within its modal boundaries the qualifying biotic function cannot exercise any causal influence upon the physical-chemical functions of the living organism. But the real causal processes occurring in the internal structure of this organism proceed after the pattern of an individual whole, which lies at the foundation of all its modal functions and expresses itself in each of them in a specific-modality. The different modalities of the internal causal relations are never real, as such. They are nothing but modal aspects of a real whole which has a continuous duration in cosmic time. Every modal function of this individual whole must have a bottom layer in the continuous inter-modal coherence of cosmic time in which any temporal reality is embedded¹.

1 Cf. Vol. II pp. 473 ff.

The internal thing-causality is neither to be explained in terms of a theory of parallelism, nor in terms of a theory of interaction between the modal functions.

It should be clear that this conception of internal thing-causality is neither to be explained in terms of a theory of parallelism, nor in terms of a theory of interaction between the modal functions.

[p. 64]

Both of these theories are of a metaphysical origin. This is already evident from the fact that they have been devised to solve the metaphysical problem concerning the relation between ‘soul’ and ‘material body’, conceived of as different substances. And this pseudo-problem was born from the very lack of insight into the continuity of cosmic time and from an absolutization of the theoretical Gegenstand-relation. It is unmasked as a pseudo-problem as soon as we have seen that metaphysical substances in this sense do not exist and that every real causal process occurs in the continuity of cosmic time.

A closer examination of Stoker's argument.

Stoker has pointed out that time cannot operate causally, as such. If, consequently, a thing is only the sum of its functions plus time, then, as yet, no real explanation of the individual internal unfolding-process has been given. And, if the question is so put, Stoker's remarks are doubtless correct, although Stoker rejects our Idea of cosmic time.

Time, abstracted from empirical reality, cannot work causally. But it is fundamentally incorrect to suppose that a thing is nothing more than the sum of its functions plus time. Time is not an external something that joins itself to the various functions. But, as previously established in the general theory of the modal spheres, the various functions are intrinsically temporal in character. Even in the modal structures of meaning, cosmic time is always present in anticipating and retrocipating functions. The temporal horizon lurks behind and in the modal horizon of reality.

Temporal reality does not end in the modal functions; it is not shut off in the modal horizon of the law-spheres. Rather, it has - if I may use this image - its inter-modal prolongation in the continuity of the cosmic coherence.

The continuity of cosmic time is not empty. Reality is present in the continuous intermodal temporal coherence.

My answer to Stoker's argument may therefore be summarized as follows: the continuity of cosmic time is inter-modal, but not empty. Time, in its continuity, may not be cut off from reality, as a floating abstraction, and then joined to reality by means of a plus sign. Reality, in its typical thing-structure, is present in time's continuous coherence.

[p. 65]

In fact, reality has its inter-modal bottom-layer in the continuity of cosmic time.

And it is only in this cosmic temporal bottom-layer of every thing-structure that the individual whole of a thing is realized. Its individual identity receives its determination from its internal structural principle. It is this identity that is intuitively experienced in naïve experience.

This identity is consequently more than functional. And this ‘more’ does not mean an empty temporal coherence (as Stoker has apparently interpreted my viewpoint), but it lies, within time, in the reality of the thing itself, as an individual and integral whole. The philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea does not first break up a thing's unity into modal law-spheres, and then, in retrospect, seek unity in a thing. The transcendental Idea of the individual whole precedes the theoretical analysis of its modal functions. It is its pre-supposition, its cosmological a-priori.

The identity of a thing, rooted in the continuity of cosmic time, is, however, not the metaphysical identity of a substance, as the absolute point of reference of its different ‘accidental properties’. Nor can it be the radical identity of the different modal functions of the thing concerned. The modal aspects of reality find their deeper identity in the central religious sphere alone. But temporal things are perishable, they do not have a supra-temporal selfhood; their thing-identity is only that of a temporal individual whole, i.e. of a relative unity in a multiplicity of functions.

Why the temporal identity of a thing cannot itself become a ‘Gegenstand’ of theoretical analysis.

It is impossible to make the structural continuity of a thing, which guarantees its relative identity, into a Gegenstand of theoretical analysis. Any attempt to do so results in intrinsic antinomies. By means of theoretical analysis we can only establish that the temporal duration of our linden, as an identical whole, is bound to the maintenance of its realized internal structure, qualified by its typical leading biotic function. But in this way we do not penetrate to the inter-modal continuity of the individual whole.

We are no more able to isolate the cosmic temporal bottom-layer of a thing-structure, than we can theoretically isolate our intuitive faculty. All theoretical isolation pre-supposes the inter-modal continuity of cosmic time.

[p. 66]

This was why I wrote in an earlier work that the way in which the internal unfolding-process in a tree, in its inter-modal structure of individuality, is possible, is an unsolvable problem, both for philosophy and the special sciences¹.

Theoretical thought here reaches its limits and thereby reveals that it is not self-sufficient. To grasp a thing's temporal unity within the functional diversity of our cosmos, it must appeal to the naïve experience of time. Theoretical thought can only approach it by means of a transcendental Idea, a limiting concept. By so doing it explicitly accounts for this unity as a transcendental pre-supposition of the philosophical analysis of a thing's structure. The philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea thus gives a theoretical explanation of naïve experience but does not replace it.

Is this a deficiency of this philosophy? Must our view be augmented here by an Idea of creation which, apart from the modal horizon of our experience, conceives of the unity of a thing in a new concept of substance? Is Stoker right in thinking that from the very need of such a concept it clearly appears that created reality does not exist in the mode of meaning, but only possesses meaning?

Let me begin with repeating that our Christian cosmonomic Idea contains the Idea of creation and is completely permeated with it. But, I deny that it is possible for theoretical thought to eliminate the modal dimension of our experiential horizon, without entangling itself in meaningless and antinomical absolutizations. I deny that the unity of a thing, as presented in naïve experience, can be theoretically comprehended, if we merely view it in another ‘conic section’ of the cosmos², viz. that of substances.

Even though Stoker has not yet developed his viewpoint in greater detail, I foresee that his effort will lead to an illegitimate extension of the task of philosophical thought.

Stoker speaks of a substantial causality in the internal structure of things. I speak of individual thing-causality in the sense that there exists a typical structural coherence between directing and directed functions in the continuous real bottom-layer of a thing as an individual whole. We both are seeking to account

1 De Crisis in de Humanistische Staatsleer (1931), p. 109.

2 Cf. Stoker: Die Wijsbegeerte van die Skeppingsidee (1933, p. 44). I have borrowed Stoker's term ‘conic section’ (kegelsnede) from this writing.

[p. 67]

for a state of affairs which within the thing's internal structure exceeds the boundaries of the modal spheres. It is not my intention to quibble with Stoker over the word ‘substance’. I must assume on the ground of his writings and on personal correspondence that he does not intend to defend a metaphysical concept of οὐσία. Nevertheless, I do not yet see what new philosophical perspectives are opened by attempting to grasp inter-modal continuity in a supposedly non-metaphysical concept of substance. Even the temporal identity of a thing cannot be experienced apart from the diversity of its modal functions; it is a relative identity, pointing beyond and above itself to the inter-modal meaning-coherence of time and the radical unity of meaning in the central religious sphere of our experiential horizon. Stoker apparently distinguishes the thing's ‘substantial’ unity from meaning. Sometimes he calls this substantial unity: ‘force’, ‘dynamic reality’, ‘will’ or ‘love’¹. In my opinion this use of analogical terms without any modal qualification of their meaning is only confusing.

It betrays, at least in a terminological respect, the influence of an irrationalistic metaphysics; and I suppose it shows an after-effect of Schelerian ideas in Stoker's thought, an after-effect incompatible with his present rejection of a metaphysical concept of substance. If this supposition is right, it explains also Stoker's maintenance of the neo-scholastic conception that the ‘substance’ of created things is to be conceived as a being which cannot be identified with meaning. In this case we are once again confronted with the analogical idea of being, which pretends to embrace both God and His creatures, though in a different sense. Then we must again seek for an independent point of reference for meaning in a created ‘substance’. Then it also becomes understandable why Stoker cannot agree with our rejection of any dichotomy of human existence within the temporal horizon. For he holds to the scholastic conception of a material substance and a soul-substance, which is not intrinsically compatible with the central religious meaning of the ‘heart’ as the single and integral concentration-point of human existence.

1 These terms are to be found in Die Wijsbegeerte van die Skeppingsidee p. 25.

[p. 68]

A closer analysis of Stoker's substance-concept as he has provisionally explained it.

In the face of all these implications of Stoker's substance-concept I fear that he has not succeeded in conceiving it in a non-metaphysical sense. Indeed, what could it add to our conception of the thing-structure, explained above, if it really lacked any metaphysical implication? Stoker ascribes to substance a dynamical being. We have constantly emphasized the dynamical character of all created reality in its dependent existence as meaning. Stoker is not satisfied with this. He seeks for a hidden energy, will or love in the substantial core of all created things lying behind meaning; consequently lying also behind the essential meaning-coherence which determines the existence of all things within the temporal and religious horizon of human experience. I cannot see how this attempt may escape from landing in genuine metaphysics, which tries to transcend the horizon of meaning by absolutizing analogies presenting themselves within this horizon. Energy (force), will and love cannot be one and the same within the temporal horizon of meaning. Every analogy is bound to an original meaning-kernel which determines its specific sense. But, when we take the terms concerned in an undefined analogical sense, we can operate with them in a speculative way. Then we may assume that the substantial being of our linden is force, will or love, and so on, and nobody is able to deny it on experiential grounds, because one does not know in what sense these terms are meant. In poetry the aesthetical imagination may seek expression in pregnant metaphors which have no other rôle than evoking a visionary picture of nature. But in philosophy we are not concerned with the visionary world of the poet. Here we are obliged to explain the meaning of our words in their theoretical use, and this meaning is bound to the theoretical dimension of our temporal horizon, although this theoretical dimension points beyond and above itself to the pre-theoretical and supra-theoretical dimensions.

Within the integral meaning-coherence of cosmic time, energy and love are original meaning-kernels of two different modal aspects, viz. the physical and the moral modality. The analogies of these meaning-kernels, implied in other modalities, have a different sense determined by the modal nuclei of their own spheres. This state of affairs is not affected by the structures of individuality. The radical unity of all the different modalities

[p. 69]

in which they coalesce, is not to be found in a supposed ontical sphere of substances which, as such, is sought beyond and behind the horizon of meaning. On the contrary, it is the concentration-point of meaning in the imago Dei, which is nothing in itself, but rather the reflection of the Divine Being in the central human sphere of creaturely meaning. And since the fall of mankind this imago Dei is only revealed in its true sense in Jesus Christ.

As to ‘will,’ as the supposed substantial kernel of ‘created being’ we must remark that it is a specific direction of human ‘acts’, which have different modal aspects and may assume different structures of individuality. In any case it is impossible to ascribe volitional acts to inorganic things, to plants or animals, because they lack a self-hood.

We must thus conclude that a substance-concept which seeks the substantial kernel of all created beings in force or energy, will or love, can only result in a general confusion with respect to the specific nature of created things.

Stoker, who wants to base philosophy on the Idea of creation, should guard against this confusion, since the Idea concerned implies that everything has been created after its proper nature. The cause of this lack of clear distinction is to be sought in the very attempt to find a substantial kernel of created things beyond the horizon of meaning. Such an attempt is indeed meaning-less, because this horizon delimits the very nature and mode of existence of everything created. Beyond this horizon there exists nothing except the Divine Being which is the Origin of all meaning.

This is the reason why philosophical thought which tries to discover a substantial being of created things as the independent bearer of meaning, must always land in meaningless absolutizations of theoretical abstractions. And since these abstractions are taken from the very meaning-coherence of our temporal horizon of experience, this attempt dissolves itself in intrinsic antinomies. But the absolutization, as such, which is inherent in this attempt, is incompatible with the Biblical conception of creation and reveals the influence of un-Biblical dialectical basic motives.

A return to neo-Scholasticism?

Stoker denies the metaphysical character of his concept of substance. And, indeed, as far as I can see, he has not borrowed

[p. 70]

this concept from Greek or medieval scholastic metaphysics. But I have already observed that his terminology clearly betrays the influence of modern irrationalist trends of thought and I supposed this might be due to an after-effect of Schelerian ideas.

In Scheler, as well as in French spiritualistic neo-Scholasticism, we can observe a strong influence of some ideas, borrowed from Leibnitz' monadology, but transformed in an irrationalist-dynamical sense.

With Stoker this influence may be noticed especially in his conception of the substantial kernel of things as ‘force’. We have remarked that within the theoretical horizon the concept of ‘force’ immediately requires a delimitation of its modal meaning. Naïve experience is also aware of ‘force’. But it is entirely foreign to the idea that it would be the hidden ‘essence’ of all things; it experiences energy in its original modal sense only implicitly; ‘force’, however, is experienced explicitly as a particularly strong manifestation of energy (in its coherence with sensory feeling) in concrete natural events, or in a human or animal body.

In the non-theoretical experiential attitude, no one seeks the ‘essence’ of a picture, a table, a statue, a plant, or hill in ‘force’, but one experiences the force of a storm, the force of muscles, the force of a water-fall, of a moving body, etc. And this naïve experience of force always occurs in an unbreakable meaning-coherence with other ‘qualities’ of things and events. Only in the aspect of faith can the naïve experience of force be related to a revelation of God's Being. But when this is done without conceiving force in the integral meaning-coherence of the temporal order, one lands in a primitive mythology.

In his conception of monads as ‘metaphysical concentration-points of force’ Leibnitz hypostatized the theoretical concept of force as it was introduced in Newton's physics. Trying to penetrate to the hidden ‘substantial kernel’ of created reality, lying at the foundation of the merely phenomenal world, he elevated an undefined physical concept (which had only sense in the whole meaning-context of Newton's system) to the rank of a metaphysical attribute of monadic being. Here, too, the result was only mythological. In our critical analysis of this metaphysics in the second part of Volume I we have shown that the dynamical conception of the monads (implied in the metaphysical concept of force) was inspired by the autarchy-motive of the Humanistic ideal of personality.

[p. 71]

As to the voluntaristic turn of this Leibnitzian conception in Stoker's concept of substance, we must remark that it is also found in French neo-scholastic spiritualism. Whereas in Leibnitz ‘force’ was supposed to be the hidden autarchical stimulus of the representations within the monads, spiritualist neo-scholasticism conceived it as a volitional energy, the impulse of ‘action’.

And Stoker's identification of this ‘volitional force’ with ‘love’ may be influenced by the modern irrationalistic reaction against the scientialist view of the world. The ‘controlling attitude’ of natural science, which furnishes only external and formal mathematical knowledge of the universe, is opposed to the ‘loving attitude’, which penetrates to the internal essence of things which is love and a longing for completion (cf. also Grünbaum's book Herrschen und Lieben).

All this may evoke a feeling of aesthetical pleasure, but it can hardly be maintained that it is inspired by the Biblical motive of creation, nor that it could aid in deepening our philosophical insight into the inner nature and structure of temporal things. I agree that in its central religious sense love is the fulfilment and radical unity of all temporal meaning in the Divine plan of creation. But a Christian philosopher should remember that this radical love can only be found in the imago Dei, which has been radically obscured by the fall of mankind and is only revealed to us in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer.

It is meaningless to seek this love in an independent substantial being of the things of our naïve temporal experience and to identify it with a metaphysical ‘volitional force’. This is nothing but a vain speculation originating from a neo-romantic turn in the Humanist freedom-motive. A Christian neo-scholasticism may try to accommodate this mystical metaphysics to the Idea of creation, but this is not the way in which we can arrive at a real reformation of the philosophical attitude of thought through the Biblical basic motive.

In this context it strikes me that Stoker thinks his conception of substance gives a better expression to ‘the autonomous being and value of the cosmos with respect to God’¹. For it is this very autonomous being and value of the created world in itself which must be denied from the radical Biblical viewpoint of

1 The South-African text of this quotation reads: ‘die eien zijn en die eienwaarde van die kosmos teenover God’.

[p. 72]

creation. Here we are confronted with the core of the question if we can ascribe to created things a mode of existence which is being in the traditional metaphysical sense of the word.

It deserves special attention that in their discussion with the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea, Roman Catholic philosophers avail themselves of the same argument which Stoker alleges in favour of the maintenance of the concept of substance and the metaphysical idea of being. But they also acknowledge that here an ultimate difference is at issue between Roman Catholicism and the Reformation, especially the Calvinist Reformation¹.

In my opinion, the maintenance of the traditional metaphysical idea of being and of the substance-concept implied in it, is only understandable from the dialectical scholastic basic-motive of nature and grace (super-nature). I agree that recent Roman Catholic neo-scholasticism which as much as possible seeks to interpret this theme from an Augustinian point of view, has seriously tried to purify it from its dualistic character.

Especially Marlet's interpretation deserves particular attention. Nevertheless even he, who has shown such a great sympathy with the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea, is of the opinion that in the last analysis this philosophy, because of its rejection of the substance-concept, fails to do sufficient justice to the autonomous being of the creature in its relation to God.

He, too, ascribes this to the theological influence of Calvin. In his struggle against Servet's pantheistic interpretation of God's immanence in the created world, this Reformer is supposed to have emphasized the transcendence of the Divine essence with regard to the creature to such a degree that he denied to the latter the principle of existence which metaphysically is called being. On the other hand, he accentuated the immanence of God's activity in the world so strongly that the activity of the creature no longer could be viewed as a consequence of its

1 In the recent thesis of O.J.L. Albers O.E.S.A. Het Natuurrecht volgens de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (1955, drukkerij Gebr. Janssen), defended at the University of Utrecht, this difference is laid at the foundation of a comparative study of the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea and Thomistic metaphysics. It is striking to observe that this Roman Catholic author raises the same objection against my conception of the religious concentration of the meaning of our temporal world in the imago Dei in man, as can be found in Stoker. This criticism, however, is lacking in Roman Catholic authors who display an accentuated Augustinian inspiration.

[p. 73]

proper being. In the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea this has led to a theoretical absolutization of the ‘religious moment’ in the relation between God and creature, with the neglect of the ontical relation implied in the analogy of being. And here, so Marlet concludes, is to be sought the fundamental difference between the transcendental Idea of analogical being and the three-fold cosmonomic Idea of Calvinistic philosophy, notwithstanding every deeper unity of Christian inspiration¹.

I cannot agree with this reduction of the difference to a theological problem. Therefore we had better leave this question alone as to whether Marlet has done justice to Calvin's theological view of the relation between God and creature². The only point at issue here is the religious basic motive of the scholastic metaphysical theory of analogical being and the concept of substance implied in it. And it cannot be denied that it is the motive of nature and grace that we have found to be of a dualistic origin.

It is impossible to reverse this relation, as the Dutch neo-Thomistic philosopher Robbers has done in his discussion with the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea³; one cannot maintain the thesis that the Idea of analogical being is the real basic motive of neo-scholastic thought, while the motive of nature and grace is only secondary and dependent on the former. Our transcendental critique has shown that the dialectical Idea of analogia entis originated from Greek philosophy and was ruled here by the dialectical religious basic motive of form and matter. It could not be accommodated to the ecclesiastical doctrine of creation except by the scholastic basic motive of nature and grace. One should not obscure this essential point by transforming the religious basic motive into a metaphysical or theological Idea. The latter is dependent on the former. It is not metaphysics or theology which rules the religious basic motive

1 Grundlinien der Kalvinistischen Philosophie der Gesetzesidee als Christlicher Transzendental philosophie (München, 1954) p. 133/4. Marlet appeals here to J.L. Witte S.J. Het Probleem Individu-Gemeenschap in Calvijn's Geloofsnorm (1949) Vol. I p. 136.
Cf. also Dr P. Schoonenberg S.J. Een Gesprek met de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, in the philosophical chronical of the review ‘Streven’ (Year VIII Vol. 1 nr 2, 1954).

2 Cf. Prof. G. Berkouwer, Identiteit of Conflict? (Phil. Ref. 21 Year 1956, pp. 1-44).

3 De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee in Gesprek met het Thomisme, Studia Catholica 24 (1949) pp. 161-171.

[p. 74]

of philosophical thought. The latter is its supra-theoretical starting-point, its central spiritual impulse.

By denying created things a metaphysical substantial being we have not detracted anything from their proper reality and activity, which is fundamentally distinct from the Divine Being of the Creator. We have only stressed that this reality is of the character of meaning, which cannot be independent and self-contained. The real value of every creature is implied in its meaning-character, not in a supposed ‘being in itself’. The very intention of metaphysics to find a substantial kernel of created things outside of the horizon of meaning leads to ‘nothingness’, to meaningless absolutization. Neo-scholasticism, no matter whether it is found in Protestant or in Roman Catholic thought, may assimilate important parts of the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea. Nevertheless, its ultimate spiritual impulse is not that of this philosophy. The scholastic basic motive of nature and grace, however much accommodated to the radical Biblical starting-point, is incompatible with the radical antithetical attitude with respect to the un-Biblical basic-motives of philosophical thought. It is obliged to seek a compromise with them. Therefore, it is always inclined to assimilate Greek or Humanist motives by accommodating them to Christian belief. This is the final difference between Reformation and Scholasticism in philosophy.

A summary of my provisional objections against Stoker's substance-concept.

I can now summarize my provisional attitude toward Stoker's introduction of a supposedly non-metaphysical concept of substance as a supplement to the theory of the modal law-spheres.

1. After conducting a modal examination of reality, based on the theory of the modal spheres, Stoker wishes to take a closer view of the things of naïve experience. With this desire I am in full agreement; however, I believe this examination is the very task of the theory of the structures of individuality, which cannot be replaced by a theory of substances in the line of Stoker's provisional hints.

2. I object to any view which does not conceive of meaning as the exclusive mode of existence of all of the things created, unless this difference should turn out to be merely a question of terminology. But apparently this is not the case since Stoker's view appears to result in a fundamental criticism of the whole

[p. 75]

content of my cosmonomic Idea, especially of the Idea of a religious concentration point of our temporal world. Stoker rejects the central position of mankind in our ‘earthly cosmos’ and wants to view everything ‘in its immediate relation to God’ without the intermediary of Jesus Christ. This is why he raises a serious objection against the entire ‘Christocentric’ direction of the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea. And this is indeed a serious point of difference.

3. I consider it incorrect and intrinsically contradictory to maintain that there are two entirely different ways to contemplate reality, corresponding to different ‘conic sections of the cosmos’, and excluding any mutual connection. If the theory of the modal spheres and the theory of the structures of individuality are not arbitrary constructions but are grounded in the cosmic order, they cannot exist without an intrinsic coherence or connection. Anyone who accepts the theory of the law-spheres, as Stoker does, cannot eliminate the modal viewpoint in his theoretical examination of the structures of things, even though the theory of the law-spheres is admittedly inadequate to explain naïve experience without the supplement of a theory of the typical structures of individuality. It is true that Stoker does not intend to deny an inner connection between the modalities and his idea of substance. But he believes his concept of substance enables him to grasp an absolute ontical unity of a thing which lies byond the horizon of meaning, and is really being, independent of its modal functions, whereas the latter are dependent on substance. And I deny that he is able to do so.

4. I do not simply object to the term ‘substance’, but to the danger that - contrary to Stoker's own wishes - such a concept will make it easy for speculative motives to gain an entrance into re-formed philosophy.

The temporal non-modal unity and identity of things cannot be grasped in a theoretical concept. This unity and identity has its foundation in cosmic time, which alone makes all experience and theoretical thought possible.

5. Stoker has shown with great acuteness that if a thing is only a complex of its functions plus cosmic time, then no explanation can be given of the opening-process within its total structure. I am very grateful to Stoker for this criticism. It has caused me to clarify a point, presumably not sufficiently developed in my earlier writings. This misunderstanding arises from thinking that the continuity of cosmic time, which cannot

[p. 76]

be grasped in a theoretical concept, is not filled with reality. The consequence would be that reality is resolved in its modal functions within the law-spheres. I hope my closer explanation has cleared away such a fundamental misinterpretation.

Finally I want to stress that my critical remarks concerning the implications of Stoker's substance-concept do not detract in any way from my appreciation of his important attempt to enlarge the prospects of our reformed philosophy. My only intention is to warn against the danger of assimilating this philosophy to a neo-scholastic trend of thought which holds to the traditional metaphysical Idea of being with all of its religious and philosophical implications. And these implications are the more critical if Stoker means to emancipate his transcendental basic Idea of creation from its Biblical coherence with the motive of fall into sin and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit. For by so doing his ‘philosophy of the Idea of Creation’ would land in a ‘theistic thought’ which is even decidedly rejected by those prominent Roman Catholic trends of neo-scholasticism which move in the Augustinian line of a philosophia Christiana.

§ 3 - The inner articulation of structural types. Radical types, geno-types and variability types.

The structural principle of a linden, in whose analysis we were engaged, appeared to exceed the boundaries of the modal spheres. In the modal dimension of our experiential horizon we could establish the typical biotical qualification of the tree's structure of individuality. But this structure itself appeared to embrace all of the modal aspects in subject-object relations characteristic of naïve experience. It individualizes the modal functions and groups them together in a typical way within the cadre of an individual whole. The idea of the internal structural unity of this real whole, guaranteed by the inter-modal continuous coherence of its functions in cosmic time, precedes every analysis of the modal diversity of these functions. This is the fundamentally new viewpoint that the theory of the structures of individuality has opened.

In which dimension of the horizon of human experience does this internal unity have its foundation? Here we have the first question pertaining to the theory of the structures of individuality.

[p. 77]

In our treatment of epistemology we discovered three transcendental dimensions in the experiential horizon arranged in perpective levels.

The temporal horizon appeared to be the foundation of the modal horizon. And both appeared to form the perspective in which arises the horizon of the structures of individuality. If the internal unity of a thing is grounded in this last dimension, it follows that it can only be a temporal unity in the modal diversity of the functions. As long as we keep this fundamental point in mind we will not fall back into the speculative metaphysical concept of substance. Nor can we be entrapped by a modern vitalistic ‘holism’¹ which seeks to grasp the individual whole of a living organism by reducing its physico-chemical aspect to a modality of its central bio-psychical sphere².

In the plastic horizon of cosmic time, a thing's modal functions are neither joined together into a metaphysical ‘substance’, nor into a functional identity of modal functions. But they only come together in the continuous operational coherence of a structural unity of irreducible modal functions, a coherence which as such is necessarily inter-modal and temporal in character.

This structural unity possesses a law- and a subject-side. We propose to show in greater detail that the modal functions of a thing can only become its internal structural functions insofar as they are the expression of its structural unity as an individual whole.

The cosmic temporal order of the modal aspects could only be theoretically approached by an analysis of their modal structures, in which this order finds expression. Similarly we can obtain a theoretical insight into the typical total structures of individuality only by analyzing their internal structural functions in the different modal aspects, as they are typically grouped within an individual whole.

It is in vain to seek for another theoretical access to these structures, because theoretical thought is bound to the Gegenstand-relation.

1 ‘Holism’ (derived from the Greek word ‘holon’, i.e. a whole, a totality) signifies: view of totality.

2 The biotical and the psychical aspects are not distinguished here as irreducible modal spheres.

[p. 78]

The structures of individuality as typical structures of temporal duration.

The cosmic temporal order expresses itself, according to its functional structure, in the modalities of meaning, and according to its structures of individuality, in the internal typical groupage of the modal aspects within structural totalities.

In the Prolegomena we have said that all the basic structures of temporal reality are grounded in the order of cosmic time. We assumed that all of them are specific structures of time and as such are necessarily related to the factual duration of transitory things, events, processes, acts, social relationships, and so on¹.

This might seem to be a bold thesis so long as it could not yet be tested in its confrontation with the real states of affairs.

Meanwhile the general theory of the modal spheres has shown the rightness of this hypothesis with respect to the modal structures, at least insofar as it appeared possible to show a temporal succession in their realization in genetic processes. In addition the analysis of the opening-process of the modal spheres appeared to confirm our hypothesis.

But in the nature of the case this evidence remained bound within certain limits. In the first place we should remember that the modal aspects are only realized in structures of individuality, which in principle function in all the modal spheres of our temporal horizon. This is to say that when we establish that organic life could only develop after the realization of an inorganic world adapted to its needs, we can only mean that this inorganic world (our earth as a part of the solar system), in its typical structure of individuality, is typically qualified by a physico-chemical energy-constellation. Nevertheless, this earth had already potential object-functions in the biotical and the later aspects. These potential functions were only opened and actualized after the appearance of living organisms, plants, animals and man.

Similarly, when we establish that in the genetic process of human life the development of feeling precedes that of the logical function, and the development of the latter that of the cultural function of controlling formation, which in its turn precedes that of the lingual function etc., we can only mean a process of actualization of potentialities already present in the structural principle of human bodily existence. In the

1 Vol. I, p. 29.

[p. 79]

temporal order of the modal aspects there cannot be a real succession. We could only show that this order has a temporal character because it is necessarily related to a genetic process of realization which reveals successive phases of actualization of the different modal aspects in accordance with this order. But these successive phases of realization are bound to structures of individuality which exceed the boundaries of the modal aspects. As such, these typical total structures have no real duration, since they belong to the law-side of cosmic time. But the individual things, processes, etc. in which they are realized, do have it.

This is to say that the temporal character of the order of the aspects expressed in their modal structures can only be proved indirectly in their theoretical abstraction.

Secondly, it follows from this indirect character of the evidence that it cannot be applied to the three mathematical aspects of our temporal horizon of experience. For it will appear that there are not to be found any structures of individuality whose typical qualifying function is of a numerical, spatial or kinematic modality. We could only show that the factual temporal duration of individual things and events has mathematical aspects and that in these aspects the factual duration of realized numerical, spatial and kinematic relations follows the modal temporal order of their law-spheres concerned. From the analysis of their modal structures we could then conclude per analogiam that these aspects are arranged in the general cosmic order of time.

On the other hand the thesis that the structures of individuality are really typical structures of cosmic time, may be proved in a direct way. This is very important, because in this way, too, it convincingly appears that they have nothing to do with metaphysical ‘substances’. In general we can establish that the factual temporal duration of a thing as an individual and identical whole is dependent on the preservation of its structure of individuality.

The duration of a book or a picture is typically different from that of our linden, or from that of a radio-active element or a machine, etc. This will become clear in the course of our further investigations, when we have analysed their typical structures of individuality in greater detail. We may, therefore, conclude that these structures are really typical structures of temporal duration.

[p. 80]

The inner articulation of structural types.

The internal structural principle determines the subjective or objective individuality of the whole. It belongs to the law-side of cosmic time; it is a typical law of individuality, which rules the structural coherence of the different functions within the individual totality. As such it is an inter-modal law, a typical unity of order in the modal diversity of its aspects, just as the individual whole, as its factual subjective or subjective-objective correlate, is an individual factual unity in the modal diversity of its functions. Every structural type exhibits an inner articulation of typicalness, descending from an ultimate irreducible general type to an ultimate species which embraces no further specific types. But we cannot theoretically approach this inner articulation of the structures of individuality in the current way, which is only a method of logical classification. For this method ignores the very problem in which we are concerned here, viz. the typical groupage of irreducible aspects within a structural unity of order.

In general its view-point is determined by a specific scientific field of research. In addition there appears to exist a great divergency and confusion with respect to the foundation of a classificatory system in the different branches of science which have need of a typology.

The concept of species in modern biology.

A striking example of this divergency and confusion is to be found in modern biological systematism. Since the rise of genetics and phylogeny the concept of species has lost that unity of meaning which it possessed in the Linnaean system. Diagnostic, genetics and phylogeny avail themselves of different criteria, which are not to be combined. This confusion expresses itself even in terminology. Diagnostic speaks of taxon in the sense of a collection of isoreagent individuals; phylogeny defines a species as a phylon in the sense of a phyletic series; genetics calls a species an isogenon or isogenetic unity and defines this concept as a collection of individuals having the same genotypical composition. In addition genetics has developed another concept of species, viz. that of the ‘reine Linie’ (Johanssen), which it defines as the collection of all individuals descending from one or two isogenetic-homozygotic parents, no matter whether they have become also homozygotic or heterozygotic¹.

1 Cf. Ad. Meijer, Logik der Morphology (1926) and J. Lever and H. Dooyeweerd, Rondom het Biologisch Soortbegrip II (Phil, Ref. 14th Year 1949, p. 33 ff).

[p. 81]

A great many modern biologists are of the opinion that the higher generic classifications of plants and animals lack a natural basis and are only artificial categories, products of a generalizing logical abstraction. Consistent evolutionistic students of phylogeny consider also the concept of species as a conventional construction of the human mind. The influence of philosophical and religious pre-suppositions is manifest in these views.

The difference between a classificatory and a typological method in modern psychology and psychiatry.

In modern psychology and psychiatry there is an increasing insight into the fundamental insufficiency of a rigid classificatory method. The reason is that the traditional class-concept implies a sharp distinction between the groups encompassed by the different classes, whereas any attempt at a psychological typology of human personalities is confronted with the impossibility to establish rigid limits between the types. The characteristic properties of the latter appear to be manifold and gradual; there exist ‘flowing transitions’ from one type to another, mixed types, intermediary forms which contradict the class-concept. The famous psychologist W. Stern has therefore established that a psychological type is sharply to be distinguished from a class: ‘The limits between a type and its neighbour-types are always flowing; ...Transitional forms necessarily belong to the structure of the type-division’¹.

This may have a close connection with the essentially unfixed character of the temporal act-structure of human nature, which will ask our attention presently.

But the chief point is that the different attempts at a psychological typology show a similar divergency with respect to their foundation as appeared to exist in the biological classifications.

1 W. Stern, Die differentielle Psychologie in ihren methodischen Grundlagen (Barth, Leipzig, 3rd ed. 1921) pp. 173 ff.
Compare also Carl G. Hempel and P. Oppenheim, Der Typusbegriff im Lichte der neuen Logik (Leiden, 1936), who have made an interesting attempt at a logistical foundation of the type-concept as an ‘Ordnungs-begriff’, in contrast to the class-concept. This formal-logical treatise, how-ever, is not serviceable in our theory of the structures of individuality.
Cf. also A. Seiffert, Die kategoriale Stellung des Typus (1953).

[p. 82]

The so-called ideal-typical method in modern sociology and the typological concepts of dogmatic jurisprudence.

In the so-called cultural sciences we meet with a typological method which clearly betrays its origin from a historicist view of temporal reality. We mean the ideal-typical method introduced in sociology by the German scholar Max Weber. Historism denies in principle that the different types of modern social relationships such as marriage, family, State, Church, trade, or those of a primitive society, are founded in constant structural principles which determine their inner nature. From the absolutized historical viewpoint it can discover nothing but individual transitory cultural phenomena involved in a continuous change and development. In this line of thought Weber conceived the typological concepts of sociology as relatively arbitrary constructions of the human mind, in which certain empirical historical traits of the different social relationships are intentionally exaggerated to gain an ‘ideal type’. For the historian such ideal types are only auxiliary concepts, which can help him to understand the subjective social meaning of human actions and to give a causal explanation of their probable issue.

In dogmatic jurisprudence and the general theory of law the generic and specific type-concepts are preponderantly viewed as means of legal technique. In the footsteps of Rudolph v. Jhering it is denied that they have any foundation in the order of reality and they are considered to be only serviceable to an economic-logical classification of the legal material.

Similar to modern sociology, legal theory lacks any foundation in a theory of the social structures of individuality. The result is that it also lacks any deeper theoretical insight into the inner nature of the different types of legal spheres, whose internal character is determined by the structural principles of the social spheres in which they function. Dogmatic jurisprudence shows a traditional tendency to absolutize the typical legal spheres of the State (private civil law and public law). It is only due to this state of affairs that, generally speaking, the current unscientific concept of sovereignty could maintain itself in the dogmatical theory of the sources of law.

Sociology of law, on the other hand, has often the tendency to ignore the inner nature of the legal spheres of the State and to absolutize economically qualified law originating from the social spheres of industry and trade.

*

[p. 83]

This is sufficient to explain why the current methods of forming generic and specific type-concepts cannot be serviceable in our theory of the structures of individuality. Leaving alone their specific scientific orientation, we must conclude that they lack a sufficient foundation in the structural temporal order of created reality.

For an analysis of the inner articulation of the structural types of individual totalities we need in the first place a criterion to establish the ultimate irreducible genera, which form the foundation of their further structural articulation. This criterion ought to be founded in the plastic dimension of the temporal order. It is only to be discovered in the typical structural group-age of the modal aspects within the structural whole.

Radical types and the kingdoms of individual things, events, or relationships circumscribed by them.

The first and most fundamental difference between the structural types is determined by the modality of their typical leading function, which gives the structural whole its typical qualification and internal destination.

This criterion delimits the ultimate genera of the structures of individuality, which, as such, are not enclosed in higher generic types. Because of their elementary and fundamental character they circumscribe invariable structural orbits of individuality whose further typical articulation is dependent on them.

We shall designate these elementary genera by the term radical types, and the structural orbits of things or other individual totalities encompassed by them, we shall call kingdoms.

In the macro-world of naïve experience our plastic horizon shows three radical types of a pre-logical qualification. They delimit three kingdoms, viz. 1) that of inorganic kinds of matter, things and events, all of which have a typical qualification in the energy-aspect; 2) that of plants and their bio-milieu, which kingdom has a typical biotic qualification; 3) that of animals, inclusive of their typical symbiotic relationships, their form-products and animal milieu, a kingdom which is typically qualified in the psychical aspect.

Naïve experience is generally not confronted with the difficulty due to so-called border-cases, where the biologist may be in doubt whether the entity in question belongs to the inorganic kingdom or to the vegetable or animal kingdom. Most of these border-cases present themselves in the micro-world, which is

[p. 84]

not directly accessible to pre-theoretical experience. For the present they may be left alone, because they do not affect the existence of the three kingdoms concerned¹. The latter are

1 I do not overlook the problem concerning the nature of the various kinds of virus, particularly the specific virus which causes the mosaic disease in tobacco-plants. The American scholars Stanley and Wijckoff discovered that this virus is an albuminous matter of an extremely high molecular weight and fit to be crystallized. Thus it seems that a non-living ‘substance’ possesses the capability of assimilation, which up till now was considered to be an exclusive property of a living organism. A virus-molecule of this specific type is apparently able to multiply by transforming the specific kinds of matter present in the tobacco leaves.
B. Bavink (Ergebnisse und Probleme der Naturwissensch. 9th ed. 1948, p. 360) is of the opinion that we are here confronted with a discovery of an extremely important significance for our entire view of the relation between inorganic and living ‘substances’. I do not believe so, though I do not deny in any respect the high scientific importance of Stanley's and Wijckoff's discovery. The chief point is that the virus concerned has appeared to be a non-living ‘substance’, which is only able to multiply in a ‘parasitical’ connection with the living tobacco-plant. This is to say that the boundaries between the radical types are not levelled out by the assimilatory phenomena concerned. The question as to whether the assimilation itself is to be considered as an internal process of the living organism, in which the virus has only a catalytic rôle, or as a physico-chemically qualified process, is of a secondary concern. Bavink's opinion that Stanley's and Wijckoff's discovery has already proved that the latter solution is right, is certainly premature. It is hardly acceptable that the multiplication of the virus-molecule would occur apart from the internal reaction of the living organism, since mosaic disease can only develop in the living plant. In addition, Bavink overlooks the problem how albuminous molecules of so highly complicated a structure can originate apart from a living organism. To solve this difficulty some biologists have supposed that a virus is perhaps a micro-organism which has degenerated to a parasite and has retained nothing of all its particular vital capacities but that of assimilation. (Cf. the inaugural address of H.J. Staudinger, Freiburg 1946).
In any case Bavink's premature conclusion is doubtless connected with his so-called emergent evolutionism. According to this theory, life emerges from inorganic matter when the latter attains to an extreme complexity of physico-chemical constellation. In the same way mind is supposed to be a new product of evolution emerging from non-mental life when the latter has risen to an extreme complexity of organisation (Cf. C. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolution).
We have argued in Vol. II (pp. 107 ff.) that life in its original sense is not a ‘substance’, but an irreducible modality of our experiential horizon, which cannot be defined by secondary phenomenal criteria. The philosophical theory of emergent evolution does not explain anything when it assumes that life is an emergent evolutional result of dead matter.

[p. 85]

generally accepted also in biological diagnostic, which has established specific criteria for the distinction of plants and animals; these criteria are also applicable to the micro-world of protozoa and protophyta. As such, they cannot be of a radical typical character because they concern only sensorily perceptible characteristics, referring to physico-chemical properties (e.g., the presence of chlorophyll and a cellulose-membrane in vegetable cells). But though these criteria are not valid without exception, they are related to the foundational radical types of our plastic experiental horizon.

It should not be objected that there is a pan-psychistic view in the philosophy of nature which ascribes to plants and even to inorganic matter some kind of feeling-life. This is a metaphysical assumption which cannot be verified by experiential data and lacks any foundation in the plastic horizon of our temporal world. It cannot be seriously doubted that in the macro-world of naïve experience there is a radical difference between animal behaviour and merely vegetative reactions upon physiological stimuli, and that this difference is due to the typical leading psychical function of the animal structure. Animal psychology has shown this even with protozoa, such as infusoria, notwithstanding their lack of a differentiated central nervous system¹. Naturally the psychological experiments concerned cannot prove anything if it is a-priori denied that the objective sensory aspect of animal behaviour gives verifiable expression to subjective animal feeling functions. But such a prejudice is tantamount to denying the possibility of animal psychology. A materialistic behaviourism cannot account for the facts as they are critically established. Its ‘objectivism’ is meaningless and contradictory since it ignores the truth that every objective phenomenon is bound to the subject-object relation, and outside of this relation dissolves itself into nothingness.

1 Cf. the very critical analysis of the psychological experiments concerned with J.A. Bierens de Haan, Die tierischen Instinkte und ihr Umbau durch Erfahrung (Leiden, publ. E.J. Brill, 1940) pp. 274 ff., esp. pp. 278-281.

Animal psychology and behaviourism.

Animal psychology should doubtless guard against an anthropomorphic interpretation of animal behaviour. But we have explained in the second Volume that the feeling-aspect is a general modality of our experiential horizon, which may not be

[p. 86]

identified with any typical structure that expresses itself in it. It embraces both animal and human emotional sensations and we are able to distinguish them after their typical structures of individuality. No single structural type can transcend our experiential horizon because all structures of individuality belong to its plastic dimension. Behaviourism ignores this horizon. Therefore it has a false and meaningless view of human experience.

Animal behaviour cannot be experienced as such outside of the radical type which delimits the animal kingdom from that of plants and that of the inorganic world. This is to say that this behaviour has a psychical qualification, which cannot be neglected without eliminating its typical animal nature. Indeed, the specific scientific criteria which the biologist handles to distinguish animals and plants, presuppose the radical types which alone can make this distinction meaningful. For, why should biology seek for material criteria if the difference between the animal and the vegetable kingdom were not presupposed in the plastic structures of our experiential horizon?

Differences in the physico-chemical properties of the cell-bodies could, as such, never evoke the idea of these kingdoms. It is only because of the border-cases, where at first sight the individuals do not betray their radical type, that the biologist seeks for secondary empirical criteria of a natural scientific character. But these criteria themselves show their true meaning only in the context of the radical types to which they refer. The usual lack of a cellulose-membrane in the animal cells may hang together with the psycho-motor structure of the animal body, in contradistinction to the vegetative structure of that of plants. For this psycho-motor structure requires a complete plasticity of the cells. Even the lowest kind of protozoa, viz. the amoeba shows this trait, though it should be granted that this criterion cannot be applied without exception.

As a rule (though not without exception) plants are enabled by means of their chlorophyll and sunlight to produce the most complicated combinations of their bodily matter from very simple kinds of matter in the inorganic world, whereas animals have to take organic matter from their food to assimilate it. This fact betrays an inner coherence with the temporal order of their types. The animal kingdom could not develop before the inorganic world and the vegetable kingdom had begun their temporal evolution. The vegetable kingdom had even to produce the

[p. 87]

typical physical-chemical constellation of the atmosphere necessary for the development of animal life, by delivering a sufficient quantity of free oxygen. In the modal horizon this genetic succession of the kingdoms appeared to correspond to the temporal order of the aspects, in which the energy-aspect precedes the biotical, and the latter modality precedes the psychical.

The denominator of comparison of the radical types.

Since the radical types are the ultimate genera in the inner articulation of the structures of individuality, it makes no sense to seek for a higher ‘logical’ genus of ‘living beings’, which is supposed to embrace plants, animals, and man¹. Nor is it meaningful to construe a higher genus of ‘sensory beings’, as Aristotle does in his Metaphysics.

Such a method of forming generic concepts betrays a fundamental lack of insight into the structures of individuality, as they are grounded in the plastic order of cosmic time. We are here confronted with the same state of affairs as has already been discussed in the general theory of the modal spheres, viz. that every distinction of the different fundamental structures of our temporal horizon of experience presupposes a basic denominator of comparison². We cannot theoretically distinguish the different modal aspects without such a basic denominator. Similarly we cannot distinguish the different structures of individuality if we have not an a-priori Idea of their common basis of comparison. Every absolutization of the theoretical Gegenstand-relation implies the necessity to seek this basis in theoretical thought itself. By so doing the irreducible character of the radical types cannot be acknowledged and a pseudo-logical genus-concept must replace the cosmic temporal order, which indeed is the only legitimate basic denominator of these radical types.

1 Naturally this objection does not pertain to the use of a collective name, but to the method of theoretic concept-formation.

2 Compare Vol. I p. 47 and Vol. II pp. 18 ff.

Why there does not exist a human radical type.

Mankind is not enclosed in a temporal kingdom of individual beings. I have explained in another work³ that the human body, as the individual whole of a man's temporal existence, shows a very complicated interlacement of different typical structures

3 Reformatie en Scholastiek Vol. III (not yet published).

[p. 88]

which are combined in a form-totality, qualified by the so-called act-structure. This act-structure is successively founded in an animal, a vegetative and a material structure. It gives the human body its proper human character. But this act-structure, though it functions in all of the modal aspects, lacks, as such, a typical qualifying function within a temporal sphere. It is the immediate temporal expression of the human I-ness, which transcends the cosmic temporal order. The reason is that human existence is not restricted to the temporal world, and does not find its ultimate internal destination in the latter. Every radical type, qualified by a typical leading function, implies an inner restriction and limitation of the internal temporal destination of the individual beings enclosed in it. But man is created after the image of God, as the lord of the ‘earthly’ temporal world. Therefore his body lacks any trait of specialization which would bind it to a specific milieu. The erect gait, the spiritual expression of the human face, the human hand formed to labour after a free project, testify to the fact that the human body is the free plastic instrument of the I-ness, as the spiritual centre of human existence.

The act-structure of this body is neither qualified by a logical, nor by an ethical function. It is not even qualified in the faith-aspect. If it were, human act-life would be either enclosed in a typical theoretic radical type, or in a typical ethically or pisteutically qualied¹ structural frame. But the truth is that human acts, with their threefold intentional direction (viz. the knowing, the volitional and the imaginative directions), may assume the most different structures of individuality. The act of praying is typically qualified as an act of faith. The act of scientific or philosophical reflection is typically qualified by the theoretical-logical function of thought, the act of aesthetical imagination is typically qualified in the aesthetical aspect of experience, etc. But the act-structure of the human body lacks, as such, any typical qualification. It is this very structure which makes the human body the field of free expression for the human spirit, i.e. for the religious centre of human existence.

This is why the traditional scholastic qualification of man as a rational-ethical being is unacceptable, as is the metaphysical dichotomistic view of body and soul, in which it is rooted. The

1 In this context ‘pisteutic’ (from Gr. πιστευτιϰός) means qualified by faith.

[p. 89]

unqualified act-structure of the human body is quite different from the traditional conception of a ‘rational soul’, in the sense of an immortal spiritual substance which is the metaphysical ‘form’ of the ‘material body’. Nor is the human body to be conceived as a ‘material substance’ distinct from the soul, or, in the genuine Aristotelian sense, as the ‘matter’ of the ‘soul’, which has only actuality through the soul as its ‘form’. The human body is man himself in the structural whole of his temporal appearance. And the human soul, in its pregnant religious sense, is man himself in the radical unity of his spiritual existence, which transcends all temporal structures.

No better than the traditional-scholastic conception of man as a rational-ethical being is the modern historicistic view that man is qualified by his cultural activity. Although it is undeniable that the latter has a human character and cannot be ascribed to animals, the cultural function can no more qualify man than the logical or the ethical modalities of his temporal existence. As explained in Volume II, it is only due to the absolutization of the historical aspect that the modal character of the cultural function has been overlooked.

If man lacks a specific temporal destination, it follows that the typical differences of race, nation, etc., and those of temperament and character-disposition can never result in a division of mankind similar to the division found in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The exaggeration of racial differences is only due to racial ideologies which lack a scientific foundation and are anti-Christian and inhuman in their political application.

But the further explanation of this subject belongs to philosophical anthropology, which we have reserved for a separate work. In the present context our only concern was to show that mankind is not enclosed in a radical type of the plastic temporal order. Man belongs neither to the animal kingdom, nor to a specific human kingdom of ‘rational-ethical’ or ‘cultural beings’.

Radical types of a secondary order which are typically related to human social life.

We shall see, however, that in the plastic dimension of the temporal order there are to be found radical types of a secondary order which are essentially related to the societal life of man, and in this sense have a typical human character. Their very plurality shows that they cannot give a radical typical determination of man himself. The secondary structural types, on

[p. 90]

the contrary, which we shall meet with in the animal kingdom, are implied in the radical type of the latter. This state of affairs already found expression in our circumscription of this radical type.

The leading function and the foundational function of a structural whole.

The radical type appeared to be the elementary and most fundamental structural principle for the typical groupage of the different modal functions within an individual whole which lacks a supra-modal centre. It determines the modality of the leading or guiding function, which qualifies every individual totality belonging to the same kingdom. But it does not inform us of the further inner articulation of a structure of individuality.

How can we theoretically approach this articulation in the descending series of divergent structural types with their complicated bifurcations according to the principles of similarity and diversity? This is a problem which since Plato's dialogues Sophistes and Politicos has repeatedly been discussed in philosophy, without having found an ontologically well founded solution.

The general theory of the modal spheres has laid bare an inter-modal structural coherence between types of individuality which present themselves in different law-spheres¹. It appeared that this structural coherence reveals a surprising analogy of the architectonic construction of a modal structure. There are modal types of an original or nuclear character, there are others which appear to be typically founded in nuclear types of a preceding modality, and still others which refer forward to original types of a later arranged modality. This state of affairs is very important for our further analysis of the inner articulation of the structures of individuality. It is well founded in the plastic dimension of the temporal order. And thus we are not in danger of falling back into arbitrary methods of logical classification, when here we seek a methodical point of connection for our following investigations.

The radical types remain our starting-point. But now we proceed from the modal determination of the leading function of an individual whole to the types of individuality which this function assumes in the inner articulation of a structural principle. If these modal types lack an original character, we have

1 Cf. Vol. II, pp. 414-425.

[p. 91]

to seek the modal aspect of the structural whole in which the latter displays its nuclear type of individuality. If this aspect precedes that of the leading or guiding function, it appears that the structural whole is characterized by two functions, viz. its leading function and a foundational function which has the nuclear type of individuality.

The anticipatory structure of the foundational function does not affect its nuclear type of individuality.

But here we are confronted with a difficulty which at first sight assumes the semblance of an antinomy. In the structural whole the foundational function cannot be in a closed condition. In its own modality it must express the structural unity of the whole in its qualification by the leading function.

This implies that the foundational function can only be conceived in an anticipatory coherence with the leading function; and this state of affairs must also reveal itself in its type of individuality. Does this not result in a cancellation of the distinction between anticipatory and nuclear types within the modal spheres?

When we consider this difficulty we should remember that we have met with a similar aporia in the analysis of the opening-process of the normative anticipatory spheres of the modal aspects. It has appeared that this opening-process is founded in the historical sphere, but in the last analysis is guided by the modal function of faith. In this context we have observed that the question in which modal sphere the process of disclosure takes its start, is only to be answered by distinguishing the two correlative directions of the cosmic order of time. In the foundational direction the historical sphere appeared to be the starting-point, in the anticipatory direction it could only be the modal sphere of faith. The circumstance that in the last analysis the opening of the historical or cultural aspect is itself guided by faith does not detract from the foundational rôle of the former in the process of disclosure.

In an analogous way we must solve the difficulty regarding the relation between the foundational and the leading function in the structures of individuality. The fact that the former can only be conceived in an anticipatory coherence with the latter does not affect the nuclear character of the type of individuality of the foundational function. In the retrocipatory direction of cosmic time this type shows no specific foundation in another

[p. 92]

type of a preceding modality. The leading function, on the contrary, does show such a retrocipatory typicalness. In other words, the original or nuclear type of the foundational function reveals itself only in the retrocipatory direction of time. In the anticipatory direction it does not appeal to another original type of a later arranged modality. It is consequently not the nuclear type itself which anticipates the leading function, it is rather the foundational function to which it belongs, that does so. The latter shows an anticipatory coherence with a leading function of a non-original type. This anticipatory structure of the foundational function, however, cannot give its type of individuality an anticipatory character.

The appearance of two characteristic structural functions in the further inner articulation of a structure of individuality turned out to be bound to the condition that the guiding function lacks an original type. It may be asked whether there are also structural totalities whose qualifying function shows an anticipatory type of individuality. This question is not to be answered in an a-priori way. I can only say that so far as my inquiry has extended I have not met with them.

Geno-, or primary types and variability types.

If the foundational function exhibits a morphological type of a specific modality, this may be an indication that we are confronted with a structural whole in which different structures are interlaced and combined into a typically qualified form-totality. The presence of such a foundational function may also indicate interlacements of different structures which lack such a combination into a morphological whole.

Both possible states of affairs will demand our attention in the course of our further investigations.

In the present introductory phase of our inquiry the interlacement, as such, gives us a criterion for a general division of the structural types presenting themselves within the same radical type. This division is founded in the plastic dimension of the temporal order, because the structures of individuality are interlaced in the cosmic coherence of time and cannot realize themselves in their theoretical abstraction. This is a state of affairs similar to that which we have observed in the modal structures. In the modal horizon the inner structural coherence of a modality is to be distinguished from the inter-modal coherence between the different aspects. Similarly, in the plastic horizon the inner

[p. 93]

coherence of the structural functions within a typical structural whole is to be distinguished from the inter-structural coherence due to its interlacement with other types of individual totalities.

But here the analogy ends. For, whereas the inter-modal coherence of the aspects finds expression exactly in their internal modal structures, a similar state of affairs in the plastic horizon is precluded by the very nature of the structures of individuality. Here the interlacements between structures of a different type only find expression within the latter in special types of individuality which are clearly distinct from those belonging to the irreducible inner structure of the whole.

Insofar as structural particularities in the descending inner articulation of a radical type are to be ascribed to the internal structure or inner nature of the individual whole, we shall style them geno- or primary types. Insofar as these structural particularities are dependent on morphological interlacements of an individual whole with individual totalities of a different radical- or geno-type, we shall speak of variability- or pheno-types.

The latter pre-suppose the geno-types and are consequently not to be viewed as a complex of external traits impressed upon an individual whole by another totality, independent of the inner nature of the former. This would be a mechanical view which does not fit to the structures of individuality. We can only say that the variability-types give expression to a variety of types of interlacement which, as such, cannot determine the inner nature of the totalities interlaced.

It may be that specific types of interlacement with other individual totalities are injurious to the natural unfolding of an individual whole. But it is indubitable that, generally speaking, interlacements are a necessary requirement for the realization of the inner nature of a thing. In other words, it is the geno-typical nature of an individual whole itself which is the ultimate standard of the distinction between natural and unnatural interlacements, consequently also of the distinction between natural and unnatural variability-types.

Within the vegetable and animal kingdoms we are, in addition, confronted with the enigmatical state of affairs that there are inter-structural interlacements which are natural to one of the interlaced individuals, and unnatural with respect to the internal structure of the other. A striking example of this state of affairs is to be found in the parasitical forms of symbiosis.

[p. 94]

The internal differentiation of geno-types.

Geno-types may exhibit an immense internal differentiation of structural, mutually cohering larger and narrower sub-types, which retain their internal geno-typical character and are not reducible to variability-types.

Within a geno- or primary type the descending inner articulation will end in ultimate sub-types which show no evidence of further internal differentiation.

Within the radical type animal, for example, many geno-types can be distinguished: mammal, bird, fish, coelenterat, mollusc, insect, and so on. And within the geno-type insect, systematical zoology further distinguishes coleopteron, neuropteron, dipteron and others. The dipteron-type is again differentiated into culicide, tabanide, chironomide, etc. while the culicide-type permits a further distinction into the culex and the anopheles-type. The latter is composed of a great number of types, one of which is the maculipennis. This maculipennis, in turn, includes the messeae type, the typicus type and the labrianchiae type, the latter of which appears to contain the atroparvus and the elutus-type. Here we have arrived at final sub-types, which themselves again admit of numerous pheno-typical mutable variations, dependent upon the environment in which the animals live.

It is not the task of the theory of the structures of individuality to develop a typological system of this differentiation on its own account. It has only to lay bare the foundation of such a system in the plastic dimension of the temporal order and to analyze the problem of the structural whole in the diversity of its modal aspects. Special sciences are in a constant danger of surrendering to an evolutionistic or historicistic view which results in an elimination of the structures of individuality. Therefore it is necessary to emphasize that every genetic viewpoint pre-supposes these structures. The latter cannot be subject to genesis and evolution, it is only their realization in changeable individuals which permits a genetic investigation according to specific scientific viewpoints. Ideovariations (mutations) which occur within the vegetable or animal kingdoms cannot give rise to new structural principles, but only to individuals which exhibit a specific geno-type not yet realized before.

Every attempt at a causal genetic explanation of the geno-types and the radical-types themselves is meaningless. Every phylon which phylogeny seeks to establish, pre-supposes the radical types and their inner articulation in different geno-types whose successive realizations in individuals it arranges in a

[p. 95]

phyletic series. These realizations are dependent on specific conditions, but these conditions can never be constitutive of the structural principles whose realization was subject to the process of genesis. The great process of cosmic-temporal becoming presupposes the Divine creation of all things after their proper inner nature. And it is the temporal world-order which in its plastic dimension determines the inner nature of all individual totalities which are subject to genesis and decay in time.

The philosophical implications of evolutionism.

A consistent evolutionism must begin with a theoretical destruction of the modal structures before it can proceed to a theoretical destruction of the structures of individuality. It cannot accept irreducible modal aspects of the genetic process, because this would contradict the very pre-suppositions of evolutionism. The older Darwinistic theory was obliged to construe the process of genesis after the pattern of the classical Humanist science-ideal.
The continuous coherence of the modal structures and the structures of individuality in cosmic time, as well as their successive genetic realization in conformity to their temporal order, was replaced by the construction of a gap-less continuous mechanistic system of phylogenetic series; no single structure was supposed to be irreducible and the modal boundaries between the physico-chemical, the biotic, the physical and the post-physical aspects were completely levelled out.
The modern conception of emergent evolutionism rejects the mechanistic materialism of Darwin and Haeckel. But it has not abandoned the basic tenet of the latter, viz. that the biotic, psychical and so-called ‘mental’ modalities of temporal reality have originated from physico-chemical constellations in a process of continuous evolution. Nevertheless it tries to maintain the proper nature of the ‘higher levels’ of reality resulting from this process. This implies antinomies which we shall examine in the last chapter of this volume.
Evolutionism is not a specific scientific theory; it is a philosophical view. The discoveries of palaeontology which furnish the chief direct test of this view, refer to a genesis and evolution within the cadre of irreducible basic structures of individuality. They do not show that evolutionistic image of the development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms and of mankind which nowadays is to be found, e.g., in the works of J. Huxley and Simpson. Even the facts established by embryology, to which Haeckel appealed as the convincing proof of his famous ‘biogenetic basic law’, have nothing to do with the philosophical basic tenet of evolutionism. The same remark must be made with respect to the results of the so-called ‘blood-reaction’, which are interpreted as indirect proofs of the theory of descent. In the explanation of our anthropology we shall return to these questions and treat them in greater detail. In the present context we had only to lay bare the philosophical implications of the evolutionistic view of the genetic process.

[p. 96]

The distinction between radical types, geno- or primary types and variability types is not limited to the kingdoms of natural things.

The division between geno- and pheno- or variability types calls to mind the distinction, current in the biological doctrine of heredity, between geno- and phenotypical factors¹, respectively traced back to intrinsic genetic predispositions and environmental influences.

Nevertheless, our division is not oriented to a specific scientific viewpoint. It pertains to the structures of individuality, as such, which should be presupposed in every specific scientific typology and cannot be replaced by the latter. This must be evident from the fact that the very problem in which a philosophical analysis of these structures is concerned, viz. the typical unity or order in the diversity of modal aspects of an individual whole, exceeds every specific scientific viewpoint.

But it might be that a cautious philosophical analysis of this fundamental problem can lay the foundation for a scientific revision of the classificatory concepts of systematic biology in a really structural-typological sense.

The distinction between radical types, primary types and variability types in the sense explained above, was applied to biology by Dr J.H. Diemer², whose promising life ended in a German concentration camp. In an important thesis and different later writings he tried to demonstrate that the acceptance of this structural principle of individuality, in its correlation with the modal principle of function, can furnish a satisfactory solution to the controversial biological problem of structure. According to him, the traditional concept of species has lost its scientific value, since it has appeared that it is impossible to define it by means of sharp and generally serviceable criteria.

1 In biology the word ‘genotype’ has two meanings: 1. the fundamental constitution of an organism in terms of its hereditary factors; 2. a group of organisms each having the same combinations of hereditary characteristics. A phenotype is one that is distinguished by visible characteristics rather than by hereditary or genetic traits; the word also denotes all the individuals belonging to such a type.

2 Over Biotypen van Anopheles Maculipennis (thesis, Leiden, 1935); Het Soortbegrip en de Idee van het Structuurtype in de Biologie (Phil. Ref. 1st Year, 1936 pp. 30 ff); De Totaliteits-idee in de Biologie en de Psychologie (Phil. Ref. 4th Year 1939); De nieuwe holistische Biologie (1936).

[p. 97]

The relation of structural type and subjective (or objective) individuality of a thing.

We have observed that a type, as a structure of individuality, has the character of a law. Within the ultimate sub-types of geno-types, no further internal differentiation is evident, but these types, too, can never pass over into the a-typical subjective (or objective) individuality of the whole determined by them.

In our naïve experience the identity of the whole is retained throughout all transformation within its so-called ‘accidental’ properties. If this identity were to be viewed as that of the internal structural principle only (i.e. of the geno-type in its inner articulation and in its enclosure by the foundational universal radical-type), then the datum in naïve experience would not yet be accounted for in a sufficient way.

This datum is not only the constant identity of an individualized geno-type, but very definitely of this individual whole which exhibits it in the context of its variability-types.

Our contention is that the identity in question must possess its law- and subject-sides in a mutual, unbreakable correlation; in other words, it must be both a-typically individual, and determined in conformity with its internal structural principle.

Let us again return to the first example of our analysis: the structure of a linden tree. In its radical type, its biotical function is its directing, leading, or qualifying function.

The ultimate sub-type of its geno-type is the boundary of the internal differentiation of its structural principle. And, since our tree will appear to be a typically qualified form-totality, in which different structures are interlaced, we may expect that its total structure has a typical foundational function. In addition, as an object of human culture, it shows a variability-type in its interlacement with my garden. It has become a garden-tree whose appearance typically differs from that of an un-cultivated individual of the same geno-type.

But this typological approach of our linden remains focused on the law-side of its individuality. As soon as we direct our attention to its individual subject-side, we must establish that also its subjective identity cannot be guaranteed by any of its modal functions, not even by its radical function in its ultimate a-typical individuality.

No cell remains the same in a living organism. But neither the inner changes in the individual biotical aspect of these micro-structures, nor the constant changing of the cells taken as a

[p. 98]

whole, can violate the individual identity of a tree. This clearly testifies to the fact that the latter is not based upon the modal horizon of our experience but upon the structurally determined individual whole. The only material point is that the qualifying function (in that individual manner, proper to this linden in my garden) continues to lead and direct its earlier functions, especially the physico-morphological pattern of the whole, as the foundational function; and that the inner operational coherence of this thing continues to reveal itself as an individual totality, in which every changed part continues to play its proper rôle.

And this individual totality, in its determination within the plastic horizon, furnishes the foundation of the internal structural functions of the three, and not vice versa! It is inter-modal in principle and expresses itself in each of its internal modal functions. This implies that a structural-theoretical examination of the latter presupposes the foundational transcendental Idea of the individual totality.

Theoretical thought does not dominate the plastic horizon; the reverse is true; the latter is the foundation of a correct Idea of totality. Only by bearing this in mind can the truth about the inner structure of things be discovered.

§ 4 - Structures of individuality hidden to naïve experience and disclosed through theoretical investigation.

Our first introduction to the analysis of structures of individuality has chosen as an example a living natural thing, accessible to our naïve experience, without further qualification.

The sensory aspect of a tree presents itself in an objective macroscopic perceptional image in which its numerical, spatial, kinematic, physico-chemical and biotic functions (with their macro-processes) are objectified in relation to our subjective-sensory perceptive function.

A scientific structural investigation, however, that is not one-sidedly restricted to a theoretical concept of function, can disclose structures of individuality in the micro-world, which have not been objectified in the macroscopic perceptional world of naïve experience.

[p. 99]

Why can we not find any original types of individuality in the mathematical modalities?

In this context we have to explain more precisely why original types of individuality are not present in the numerical, spatial and kinematic spheres. The reason is that in these three mathematical aspects no single qualifying or foundational function is to be found characteristic of the structure of an individual real whole. No single real thing or event is typically qualified or founded in an original mathematical aspect.

The energy-aspect appears to be the first modality in which the radical function of a kingdom of individual totalities presents itself.

Modern physics and chemistry have been confronted with the inner structure of atoms and molecules (as typical combinations of atoms) not in an a-priori manner, but after long inductive investigation. The positivist view that atoms are nothing but economical scientific fictions, since they are not perceptible to the eye of sense, has proved to be untenable. The reality of atoms and molecules has been definitely established from their perceptible operations. What is real cannot be resolved into bare modal functions, even though physics and chemistry focus their attention exclusively upon the physical and mathematical aspects of these micro-structures.

Radio-active investigations, for instance, succeeded in making the operations of individual atoms directly perceivable. It is now possible to view their activity objectively by means of the senses. Photography enables us to follow the path taken by an individual particle in the encompassing gas-filled space. The number of individual electrically charged atoms, thrown off by a radium quantum in a specific time, can be counted. This demonstrates that the theoretical investigations of physics have reached a real individuality-structure of the micro-world, which cannot be enclosed in the physical law-sphere, even though its qualifying function belongs to the latter. Physics teaches that the visibility of a body is dependent upon its relationship to light waves that touch it (whose wave length lies between 760 to 380 milimicron - a milimicron equals 0,000001 mM). We know, however, that the objective sensory aspect of reality is itself not physical in character.

Physics alone, from its modal physical point of view, cannot teach us what atoms really are, what they are as real micro-totalities.

[p. 100]

A purely physical ‘Ding an sich’, still referred to in philosophic discussion, is an intrinsically contradictory metaphysical construction. Modern wave-mechanics may resolve the old rigid material corpuscles into so-called ‘Wellenpakete’ (packets of waves), but the most this concept can do is making the physical aspect of atoms accessible to us.

Classical mechanics conceived of matter as rigid, not capable of being added to or decreased. Kant viewed it as the space-filling substance in all physical changes. This conception of matter has been definitively discarded by modern physics as useless; the latter no longer recognizes an actual concept of substance¹; but to infer from this that the transcendental Idea of an individual whole is hereby affected, is to confuse reality with its physical aspect².

Neither the reality of macro-things nor that of atoms can be exhausted in one or more law-spheres. The temporal unity of an individual whole (no matter whether it is to be conceived as a thing or as an event), in the diversity of its modal functions, is not modal in character, and can, therefore, not be grasped in any physical concept of function.

In the radio-active phenomena, physics encounters the physically qualified internal structural principle of radio-active elements, displaying a purely internal disintegration process, which cannot even be influenced by external, purely functional factors.

1 Constant typical operational quanta are not ‘substantial’.

2 B. Bavink, too, appears to fall into this error in his cited work p. 209. He stretches the physical concept of function too far in his thesis: ‘Die Welt besteht aus lauter einzelnen Wirkungsquanten h, die in... einer vierdimensionalen “Ordnung” (x, y, z, t) verteilt sind’. [The world consists of merely single quantums of energy h, divided into... a four dimensional order (x, y, z, t)].

The internal structure of so-called chemical elements.

And does not each chemical ‘element’ display an internal structure of individuality, differing fundamentally from a functionalistic concept of substance?

The presumably final or elementary ‘building blocks of matter’, namely, electrons and protons (as well as the newly discovered neutrons, positive electrons, deuterons, mesons) viewed physically, exhibit in their free state the general energy function of mass and charge.

[p. 101]

In the relationship of an internal atomic structure, however, they have a typical spatial order (according to the new wave mechanics, quantified wave paths around a centre) and possess typical chemical-physical totality-properties, related to a specific number and to a typical order of electronic paths. The atom, as an individual totality, is not to be deduced from the bare modal functional properties of its more elementary elements. It possesses a veritable structure of individuality in the radical type of the kingdom of physically qualified totalities.

A more complicated structure is to be found in molecules and crystals. But, just as in the case of a macro-whole like our linden-tree, a closer analysis of these structural complications must be put off till we have arrived at a special investigation of the enkaptic interlacements of different structural types, and especially of the figure of the enkaptic structural whole. The reader has not yet been prepared for a closer consideration of these complications in the present, merely introductory phase of our enquiry.

Observation: Modern physics now realizes that it cannot teach us what fills its modal functional schema x, y, z, (ci)t. It can only teach us how it is filled in the modal sense of the energy-aspect, though this ‘how’ implies the typical quantum-structure of energy-operation. Even though physics itself was obliged to renounce the concept of substance, metaphysics is again ready to reconstruct it as a speculative basis for the physical concept of function. The neo-Thomistic philosophy of nature clings to the ether as a necessary substantial bearer of energy-operations, though since Einstein's theory of relativity this ether can no longer play its classical rôle as an absolute system of reference. But even outside of the neo-Thomistic trend of thought we can notice a remarkable revival of the substance-concept in philosophically interested scientists. I need only indicate Eddington's hypothesis that there is a world-substance unknown to physics, which can fill the formal schema x, y, z, t. It is supposed to be psychical in its nature. ‘Matter’ is then considered to be only a formal modus, in which this world-soul appears to one of its parts, namely, to a conscious human spirit or to an animal. This is a complete restoration of metaphysical psycho-monism as it was earlier defended by Heymans in the Netherlands.
‘Materialism’, which could always place itself as an antipode against this spiritualism, is supposed to be refuted by the recent evolution of physics. And the hypothesis in question is assumed to be corroborated by the fact that the physical world-formula is purely mathematical in character, and mathematical forms are of an ‘undoubtedly spiritual’ character. As if Planck's ‘Wirkunsquantum’ h had a modal mathematical meaning! Naturally with respect to such an idealistic metaphysics, physics had best maintain a wise silence. But

[p. 102]

physics, when it is confronted with phenomena which do not allow themselves to be purely functionally explained, may not ignore the structures of individuality which express themselves in the latter. As these structures appear to be structures of cosmic time, they have nothing to do with the rigid concept of substance, as an absolute point of reference for its accidental relations.

The internal structure of a living cell.

Biology has discovered the cell as the last independent viable unity of a living mass, without being able on its own account to solve the philosophical problem of its structure of individuality. And in this case, too, it is true that - even though the qualifying function of this thing-structure, at least in plant cells, is of a biotical modality - the thing-structure itself is not resolved in this function. The reality of the cell is beyond doubt, though it is not directly accessible to naïve experience.

The individual organic vital function of a cell, in the internal thing-structure, directs the numerical, spatial, kinematic and physical-chemical functions. And the thing-structure expresses itself objectively in the theoretically opened sensory image of perception, in its objective logical function, and so on. But here, too, we are confronted with structural complications which can only be treated in a later phase of our inquiry. Therefore we cannot yet subject the internal structure of the cell to a closer analysis, but must restrict ourselves to some general remarks.

Electrons, protons, etc., may freely move outside of the atomic structures; similarly the biotical function, as such, also reveals itself outside of the typical cell-structure. Modern histology has made evident that at least more developed bodies, in particular those of animals and men, contain many living, non-cellular combinations. But, apart from their relation to living cells, the so-called exoplasmic constituents of the organism, do not appear any more viable than the so-called endoplasmic particles within a cell deprived of its nucleus¹.

Both structural totalities remain hidden to naïve experience; only theoretical investigation unfolds them to us². In both cases

1 Cf. Dr R. Woltereck, Grundzüge einer allgemeinen Biologie (1932) pp. 313 ff.

2 It stands to reason that natural science also reveals to us macro-thing-structures which, because of their gigantic distances from our earth and spatial circumference, are just as much hidden to naïve experience. Naïve experience is bound to the natural field of perception though we have seen that it is by no means restricted to the sensory aspect of its experiential world.

[p. 103]

we are struck by the indissoluble coherence between the internal thing-structure and the external functional relations, and by the enormous intricacy due to the fact that the simple structures function in evermore complicated totalities.

Both states of affairs will be in the centre of our later investigations concerning the study of mutually interconnected structures. Before conducting such an investigation it is necessary for us to institute a schematic investigation with respect to other radical and geno-types of individuality.

Unless we have gained such a schematic synopsis, we cannot acquire an insight into the nature of the intertwinements of the different thing-structures.