Ontologism

ONTOLOGISM. - A philosophical trend, of varied meaning, characteristic especially of modern philosophy.

I. NOTION AND HISTORY

Many controversies have arisen around the term o. (from ὄν being, λόγος discourse) and the movement has given rise to diverse and sometimes opposing qualifications. A. Lalande (Vocab. technique et critique de la philosophie, 5th ed., Paris 1947, p. 699) assigns a double meaning to the term. In the first sense o. is "a tendency of the spirit favorable to ontology (v.), understood as the search for the characters and nature of being in itself or of beings in themselves"; in the second meaning o. is referred without further qualification to the "doctrine of V. Gioberti [of the intuitive and immediate knowledge of the First Being], which he opposed to what he calls psychologism, that is, to the tendency that subordinates being to idea." Cuviller, in the preface to the edition of Malebranche's Entretiens sur la métaphysique (I, Paris 1948), qualifies o. as "the doctrine of certain philosophers or theologians, especially Italian or Belgian, of the 19th century such as Gioberti, Ubaghs and the school of Louvain, whose fideistic and anti-intellectualist tendency is the very opposite of Malebranche." Although Cuviller's critical observations may contain a part of the truth, nevertheless the effort of the ontologists of the 19th century was to reconnect themselves to ontologists "ante litteram" and first of all to Malebranche.

An ontologist of the 19th century (J. Sans Fiel, pseud.) affirms that "the fundamental idea of o. does not consist in the identification of general ideas with God, but in the immediate perception of the absolute Being" (De l'orthodoxie de l'ontologisme modéré et traditionnel, Paris 1869, p. 5), while Favre, himself also an ontologist, holds that "the human intellect essentially and immediately reaches the infinite Being itself (not such as it is in itself or within itself) and sees in him the metaphysical essences or universal ideas..." (Réponse aux lettres d'un sensualiste contre l'ontologisme, ibid. 1864). Favre moreover reconnects "the most authentic o. to St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, Denis the Carthusian, Bossuet, Fénelon, Leibniz and Gerdil." In his turn Gioberti recognizes in Malebranche a typical ontologist linked to the tradition of a doctrine that goes back to St. Bonaventure, St. Augustine, and as far as Plato, and finds representatives later in Gerson, Ficino, Thomassin and Gerdil. The ontologists of the 19th century were concerned to defend themselves from the accusation of being dangerous innovators or repeaters of ancient errors: to this end aimed the possibility of finding in earlier Christian thought indications or even premises of their speculative orientation.

The reference to Plato and to Neoplatonism (v.) is explained by the fact that o. accepted the doctrine of an intelligible world of ideas known before experience, and which remains the center of every possible actual knowledge. The appeal to St. Augustine, and then to St. Bonaventure, Roger of Marston, Matthew of Aquasparta, Richard of Mediavilla, John of Peckham, intends to refer first of all to the solution of the problem of knowledge, common in the medieval Franciscan school, founded on Augustinian illumination (v. AGOSTINO). But Malebranche himself, affirming (Recherche de la vérité, bk. III, ch. 6) that mutable and corruptible things are known in God, recognizes that St. Augustine speaks only of immutable and incorruptible realities. Nevertheless Malebranche holds that the Augustinian principle of illumination is valid for every reality. The Malebranchian interpretation was already rejected by St. Thomas, who referred the Augustinian knowledge "in rationibus aeternis" to the certainty and immutability of the first principles, reflected in the human mind from the eternal reason of God (C. Gent., III, 3). Moreover St. Augustine himself excluded any ontologistic interpretation of his doctrine, denying the vision of the divine essence, granted only exceptionally to very few men (cf. Ep., 147 ad Paulinam and De Genesi ad litteram, ch. 27). The Augustinian texts that speak of a contemplation of God referable to the wise are to be understood of the common way of knowing God, through creatures, even if by means of the ideas that proceed as truths from the subsistent Truth (cf. R. Jolivet, Dieu, soleil des esprits, Paris 1934, pp. 56-77).

Gioberti affirms that his theory of the intuition of the real Being finds in the Itinerarium mentis in Deum a point of support. In reality the Bonaventuran expressions do not speak of a proper vision of the essence of God, but rather of a "lumen," present in the human soul, which does not come from the senses, nor from the soul, but from God insofar as the soul is its image. The vision of the mind through this "lumen" is not a vision of God, but rather of the eternal reasons seen only as "moventes" the human intelligence: only when elevated to the beatific vision ("in suae charitatis plenitudine et fulgore") will it be able fully to understand them (cf. also De humanae cognitionis suprema ratione). The interest directed to various representatives of the medieval Franciscan school regarding the interpretation they gave to the doctrine of illumination would lead to particular problems of interpretive exegesis that do not concern o. alone. In the true ontologists of the 19th century the perspective is radically changed. While in the attitude of the Platonizing or Augustinian currents it was rather a question of delimiting the relationship that God has with human knowledge, this takes on quite another meaning in o., which makes of God not only the medium of knowledge but the first known.

The properly so-called ontologist movement had in the 19th century representatives in Belgium, Italy, and France. In Belgium it was aroused by the publication of Gioberti's work Introduzione alla filosofia (1850) and found followers in Ubaghs (v.), one of its principal supporters, and in others, such as Laforet, Lefebvre, Boucquillon. In Italy, after Gioberti there should be remembered Bertini, Puccinotti, Garzillo and G. Romano, V. Fornari (v.). T. Mamiani della Rovere (v.) gave a scholastic form to o. Also cited as representatives of typical o., in Italy, are Fathers Francesco and Gaetano Milone and Fathers Di Rignano and Vercellone. To the French ontologists belong, besides Jean Sans Fiel and Jules Favre, Hugonin, Branchereau, and other minor figures. O. in France, soon connected with controversies of a theological order, was combated especially by the journal Annales de philos. chrétienne and by A. Bonnety (v.).

It is to Malebranche and to Gioberti that one must refer as the principal source for the study of o. The o. of Malebranche (v.) struggles, according to various interpreters, in a dilemma: on the one hand he affirms that God is known when eternal truths are apprehended, on the other he declares: "I believe I have well proved that all things are seen in God even in this life; but this does not mean seeing God nor enjoying him" (Traité de la nature et de la Grâce, II disc., art. XVII). In reality, observes H. Gouhier (La philosophie de Malebranche, Paris 1926 p. 323), M. was ignorant of the term and the reality that one wishes to indicate by speaking of o. For Malebranche "to see God" and "to be united to him in such a way that nothing can be known except by participation in his light are one and the same." Starting from Augustinian illumination in order to extend its scope, Malebranche would not, however, assign it a meaning such as to arrive at the affirmation of an intuitive knowledge of God.

In Gioberti (v.), however, ontologism takes on a systematized and distinctive character that clearly differentiates his position. The "intuition" is the original act of knowledge. In intuition the human spirit is completely passive. The object of intuition is formed by the "Idea," which is neither a concept nor any other created thing or property, but absolute and eternal truth, beyond the human mind: in intuition the union of the mind with truth in itself is realized, and thus skepticism and subjectivism are overcome. The idea of possible being as the first object of knowledge (Rosmini) is not sufficient for this: for which reason intuition must refer to real and absolute being. It is therefore impossible to have the primitive intuition without knowing that Being is. This reality of Being appears to man as necessary, absolute, though at first in an indeterminate and confused knowledge, on account of the finiteness of the spirit. Through "reflection," which is not only psychological but ontological, the object of intuition is determined. Through intuition and reflection the spirit contemplates the Entity not in its abstractness, but as it really is, that is, as knowing, as producing existence and externalizing in its works, in a finite manner, its own infinite existence ("the Entity that creates the existent," Introd. allo studio della filos., I, Capolago 1845, p. 135). Gioberti's ontologism goes well beyond what has been called the ontologism of Malebranche. The latter's demand is primarily psychological, or rather gnoseological; Gioberti's is directly metaphysical.

II. PHILOSOPHICAL MEANING

Among the presuppositions of ontologism (not considering its possible connection with idealism [v.], to which the coincidence of the logical order with the ontological order is essential) one must place the Cartesian derivation of the real infinite from the idea of the infinite. This derivation is taken up and developed by Malebranche (Recherche de la vérité, bk. III, part 2, chs. 6 and 10, clarification; cf. H. Gouhier, op. cit., pp. 341-52). In Gioberti the idea of being is the first and necessary among ideas, and implies existence: the intuition, therefore, of being is that of the necessary Being.

But it is not difficult to point out the inconsistency of these assertions. The idea of the infinite is not first, but derives from the finite reality given in experience; it is, moreover, a concept formed through the negation of every limit in perfection and which refers to a possible essence. As for the idea of being, it does not possess actual, real infinity, but purely conceptual infinity, and is therefore bound to its own indeterminacy. Ontologism claims to make count as a "given" what is instead the fruit of demonstration, and this in order to avoid a demonstration that is held to be superfluous or too subject to objections, given the critical premises concerning the value of human knowledge. In other words, ontologism presents itself as a misguided attempt to overcome the difficulties inherent in Cartesian epistemology and the objections of Kantian criticism. Certain representatives of modern thought, insofar as they speak of an experience of the divine (Schleiermacher) or of moral values (Max Scheler), have recourse to a kind of "moral or experimental intuition" of the divine. In this case, however, the use of the term "ontologism" is foreign to its more precise meaning, which involves a connection of knowledge with God, but one attained by intellectual means, through the mediation of the idea of Being. The positive background against which ontologism moves can be identified in the meaning and value that the knowledge of truth has as a gnoseological-metaphysical exigency of the Absolute.

III. THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Ontologism in its properly philosophical expression closely involves the rational presuppositions connected with Revelation. On the other hand, the Church has taken decisive positions condemning ontologism, which passed through various phases.

The main stages were the condemnation of several works that may be supposed to be linked to the defense of ontologism made in them by Malebranche (above all, his De la recherche de la vérité [placed on the Index, 1680] and Entretiens sur la métaphysique et sur la religion [placed on the Index, 1712] should be remembered). Of Gioberti, the "opera omnia, quocumque idiomate exarata" were condemned (14 Jan. 1852). Furthermore, certain works of Mamiani were proscribed. The most important document concerning ontologism, however, is given by the decree of the Holy Office of 18 Sept. 1861, which consists of 7 propositions. Of these, the first five should be remembered above all: the first condemns the proposition according to which "immediata Dei cognitio, habitualis saltem, intellectui humano essentialis est, ita ut sine ea nihil cognoscere possit si quidem est lumen intellegibile." The second proposition refers to the nature of that being which is "in all things and without which we understand nothing" as the "divine being." The third and fourth propositions insist on the scope of that "congenita Dei tamquam entis simpliciter" cognition which implies in itself every other cognition, and the fifth returns to this as well.

A negative evaluation of ontologism from the standpoint of theodicy is unavoidable, since not only is the immediate knowledge of God contrary to the teaching of the Church (Council of Vienne and Fourth Lateran Council), but also because ontologism hardly escapes a rationalization of the mystery of God's nature. By positing intelligible things not in themselves but in God, it furthermore opens the way to pantheism, whereby God is no longer distinguished gnoseologically and ontologically, but belongs to the knowledge of the soul while forming at once its cause and its object. Finally, ontologism prejudices the distinction between the natural and supernatural order insofar as it introduces a direct knowledge of God, which is possible only in the beatific vision. See also: KNOWLEDGE; GOD; IDEALISM; TRUTH, etc.

Luigi Pelloux

O.N.U.: v. ORGANIZZAZIONE DELLE NAZIONI UNITE.