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“Hard Philosophy” and “Soft Philosophy” is not a division between truth and error—nor between rigorous and sloppy thinking.

It would not suit the ambi-valent nature of my thesis to divide its principals as neatly as is offered in the academic distinction between Rationalists and Empiricists—endemic to curricular clarity from which few students emerge without puzzlement. There are, of course, the ideological prejudices—philosophical camps with which to ally one’s self in the ongoing search for (warranted) “true belief.” Clear oppositions also make it easier to teach undergraduates the subject. But which belief actually satisfies the wanted distinction, and which does not? What historical figures (without waffling) fully occupy the competing sides? To what purposes does one put this distinction now?

I have the same difficulties with “Rationalism and Empiricism” that I have with “Mind and Brain:” Each evokes a polemical procrustian bed upon which no event or observation fits without due stretching or chopping.

Here is my sense of the standard distinction: Rationalism views reality as a logical completeness theoretically but not actually attainable—except as a hope that the human mind will successively approximate the mind of God (the universal seat of logic). This, admittedly, is an infinite task. But the attempt is justifiable as a wordly search—a progressive capacity to explain the world’s unity and latent perfectibility—and so, correct its behavior.

Empiricism, in contrast, finds reality in the organization of sensory experience, but variously locates that reality in the nature of perceiving, or—a dangerous move—in the object itself, independent of any given perception. This leads to a disjunction wherein the world has qualities that are not (perhaps cannot be) perceived, and other qualities that are dependent on (perhaps donated by) perception. How then, can we “know” the world?

I suggest that the opposing members in these contrasting schools of philosophy often find surprising agreement in the doctines of their antagonists. This depends largely on what one takes as the prime issues of disagreement and what other (sometimes compatible) beliefs are not, at a given time, seen as important. Philosophers have a plethora of belief objects that elude specification—especially those that are peripheral to their major theses: Those philosophers concerned with, e.g., value, soul, totality—will not focus on, e.g., sense data, empirical proof, linguistic accuracy. These peripheral issues, if seriously attended to by both sides, might go a ways toward developing a “unified” theory (on some modest level) of reality and its perception—but remember, this is still war!

My point is that reciprocities between these views, while not easily forthcoming, are needed for a larger intelligibility (if such is what we want). The undecidables in each school—the fact-value points of impasse—require language and curiosity from both sides for mutual accomodation. This is a salient point in my dissatisfaction with “mind-brain,” “body-soul”—and other such dichotomies.

To briefly show this, I offer some examples from philosophers who have been traditionally assigned to the opposing schools noted here:

Rene Descartes, a Rationalist, argues that examining the coherence between ideas in the mind can be transformed into a correspondence theory between mental perceptions and the actuality of the world: If perceptions are not misleading—if no evil demon can totally deceive us (the irrefutability of “cogito ergo sum”) then the world actually is as we experience it. Taking this further, Decartes holds that while sensory perception is not misleading, it is always incomplete in regard to the immensity of its (universal) subject. This incompleteness however, comes to light through an examination of mental function—that we can contrast the limitations of our knowledge of the world with our held idea of perfection—God’s knowledge of totality. Required here, however, is the further belief that mind is up to veridical self-examination—that it knows it knows (the evil demon notwithstanding) that, as a thinking thing, it is not deceived that it thinks, and accordingly, that it exists. Such belief is based on the equating of a humanly conceived perfection (the reality of “clear and distinct ideas”) with the actuality of God’s and the world’s existence.

Descartes’ observation—that our having the idea of unlimited perfection even when in all other respects we remain imperfect, must have its source in a perfect being—and therefore may be taken as a proof of God’s existence. But this suggests a regress—from a (hypothetically) enabling God back to a created mind that mirrors Him—and then forward—to that mind’s (God-given) capacity for such mirroring as a guarantee of God’s existence. Given that God’s perfection is incompatible with deceit, the argument continues into its wordly consequence—the verifiability of actual existence.

Both the idea of perfection and, thus, of God—are based on a logical (mental) coherence between them—for neither is a sense datum. Descartes, however, justifies this further reach between the idea of perfection and other ideas—those of actuality and their subject—the physical world, within one theory. But this second pairing is between (mental) ideas and (sensate) experiences, and so requires, not coherence, but a theory of correspondence (as in mind-brain). Descartes does not see a tension between these uses; the intersection between speculative and empirical thinking is not a problem for his philosophy. Further, he does not posit a first, unifying idea through which the pairing above (if he would admit it as such) could be derived. Some later critics—notably Kierkegaard—consider the “Cogito Ergo Sum” to be a tautology: There is nothing, i.e., added to the “I am” by the “I think”—hence, no “therefore.” Here again, a more fundamental proposition is needed to give a prior credence to the “I” which occurs in both parts of the equation. But Descartes does not give us this.

John Locke, an empiricist, begins—not with mind, but with sense perceptions which he calls “simple ideas.” They are simple because of their limitations—in time, place, and scope. These ideas are the bases upon which our knowledge is built. The process requires an examination of these ideas to ascertain their origins. One set of ideas is determined by sensory experience which can be imputed to the characteristics of the objects “themselves,” e.g., density, measurement, position. This echo’s the Platonic notion of the underlying reality of such qualities: They are the qualities whose accuracy can be verified by rational agreement bolstered by mathematics—the enduring “form” of the object—which exists (as Plato has it) in “that place beyond the heavens.”

Then there are other qualities that cannot be so measured—but derive their reality from the emotional subjectivities of mind—the unruly steed (as in the Phaedrus) which feasts on the changing grasses of desire and pleasure. These (lesser) qualities are experiences of, e.g., taste, smell, color. They are the romantic ideals, rescued periodically through history as being more “personal” (therefore subjectively more true) experiences—than their rivals of form and measurement.

This distinction—between “primary” and “secondary qualities,” or as Locke sometimes put it, between “simple and complex ideas”—purports to tell us which of our perceptions are indubitably generated by things in the world, and which are “given” to things by the changing character of our perceptions. The distinction results in a dualistic theory in which knowledge is attained by different, although (for Locke) complementary ways—through the physical experiencing and measuring of sensory imput and the mental structuring, or embellishing, of such imput. Locke shares with Descartes the virtue of not finding difficulties in presenting this duality as a coherent theoretical analogue of the real world. Yet the distinction between these types is a basis of his theory, and it founders in the difficulty (which Hume later attacked) that both sets of ideas are based on a single perception—and to so separate them would lead to separate but equally absurd conclusions—that the world exists without perceivers, or that the world is formed entirely through our perceptions.

As with Descartes then, another—independent—judgment seems called for which determines, for any such idea, whether its origins are in world or mind, and how it can be brought together with its antagonist. This, in effect, would also constitutes a tri-partite theory—of which a non-derivable member (unmoved mover, perhaps) provides a prior justification that underlies the contrasting pair—and enables a theory through which we can envision the actuality of a single world—even as our perceptions of it are dualistic. But Locke—as with Desccartes—does not give us this.

Unlike Descartes, however, Locke does not base his religious beliefs upon his philosophy. He accepts the new testament as a reasonable way to approach the questions that empirical analysis cannot encompass: creation, immortality, sin, obligation, and the like. Locke’s main concern with religion is that each belief remain tolerant of other forms of belief so that all, without interference or coercion, may ponder the limits of (holistic) reason—and enjoy the possibilities and uses of (partial) understanding. This is another of his virtues.

The next philosophers I compare are Benedictus Spinoza and G. W. Leibniz. Both these philosophers are typically identified as Rationalists, but the differences between their theories, notwithstanding, are as fundamental as the differences between them and Empiricist philosophy.

The Rationalist Spinoza, in contrast to both Descartes and Leibniz, admits of only one substance, of which mind and body are attributes, and individual beings are particular modes. Substance is everything that there is. It is infinite and encompasses both God and nature. God is not separate from nature anymore than is the human mind (or soul) from God. There are no distinct realms of Heaven or Hell—and correspondingly, no after-life. Human virtue rests in a conformity with God’s nature—not through obedience to his will (as revealed, e.g., in theological dogma) but by thinking through the conundrum of rationality as existing in-the-world. This is the basis of Spinoza’s Pantheistic effort to place both meaning and its justification within a single context of existence.

The attainment of truth (and virtue), in this context, entails a self-examination. Non-conformity (with God’s nature) is not disobedience (sin)—but a privation (isolation, degradation) of potential. As humans share the aspects of thought and extension with the universe, virtue lies in a grasp (and joining with) nature’s complexity through an increasingly adequate understanding of both self and the universe as constituting the infinite idea of God. This is a theology of “immersion.” The human is an aspect of God—neither a creation nor a servant. Nature is not evidenced as primordial chaos but as timeless and totalizing geometry—and is therefore (progressively) knowable. As mind, universe, and God have (are) the same nature, there is no dualism lurking in the cognition of reality—only the task of (cognitive and affective) communion.

Leibniz, who knew and engaged with Spinoza, conceives of reality as an aggregate of distinct entities —which he calls “monads,” and characterizes them as depending, for their interaction, on a separate and transcendent God. Monads are given actuality through the union with their physical bodies, and they gain their reality through their place in the divine schema—the “pre-established harmony” through which God structures the correspondences—the physical interchange —between monads. Humans are a complex type of monad which are distinguished from the simpler types by having the capacity for thought and self-consciousness. They also have the idea of free-will.

But this conjoining of human will with divine perfection seems to contradict Leibniz’ thesis of God’s master-plan—the strict determinism that it apparently entails. For how could a universal pre-established harmony exist if humans were free to do as they would (often perversely) wish? Is “freedom,” then, defined by the (restrictive—but hidden) logical (God —given) nature of its possibility?

Leibniz here resorts to a somewhat counter-intuitive solution: God gives humans the illusion of being free, but through His infinite knowledge, all human actions are (pre- and post-facto) designed to be in acccordance with His dictate. This provokes the infamous thesis (Voltaire made such fun of it) that our world is the “best of all possible worlds.” In this (best) world, despite its deistic regimentation, humans experience themselves as having free will, and so take the indignities of life as being a necessary part of living free—however unjust the experiences of that life.

In this sense, Leibniz’ philosophy, in contrast to Spinoza’s, is dualistic—a world composed of monads of varying complexity, whose nature and future depend entirely on the will of a separate, yet all-powerful God—but whose sense of life is that of self-determination.

Spinoza rejects the traditional trappings of an afterlife—of heaven and hell, sin, reward and punishment—in favor of a single Universe (the soul as a rivulet slipping back into the ocean) that includes God as an ideal of completeness, but whose location is within—not outside—the realm of nature. In Spinoza’s words: “Deus Sive Natura.” Where God is positioned, in this context, depends (as a friend once said to me) on what one wants from God.

Curiously, Leibniz’ response to Spinoza’s single-realm inclusiveness, is that the universe so construed, would give humans no choice at all, neither in thought nor action—for they would be subject—as are animals and stones—to the single-mindless (soul-less) determinism of nature. The (separate) Divine Will “just is” the source of human freedom—for that is where it originates. More: If God did not exist in His three perfections—omniscience, omnipotence, omni-benevolence—nothing imperfect (read: human) could exist.

For Leibniz, the divine plan issues from God’s omni-benevolence, and so rationally “encloses” the amorality of natural freedom. Spinoza’s God, in contrast, as He is “within” nature, becomes the impetus for the (developmental) unification of morality and natural freedom—without the imposition of a transcendent “Will.” This impetus marks Spinoza’s essential philosophic value of a transcendental (immanent, rational, and all-inclusive) benevolence. It has no place for Leibniz’s transcendent (imposed and other-worldly) benevolence—given by a separate God.

There are always good reasons for devising a system that identifies what we need to know—with what, and how, we can know. Such systems are rare, but when successful, they are like ecumenical cathedrals in which—sorted out and variously assigned—are contained the needs, doubts, and resolutions that press on the lateness of their time—and so, present a new understanding.

Immanuel Kant’s “critical philosophy” is one such—the philosophical masterwork of his (and, as I believe, our own) time.

When Kant began rebuilding the house he had inherited, it was clear that its outworn and overargued elements must be separated, refurbished, and added to. Only then could they be made to cogently address the bases of reality, experience, and the needs—possibilities and limitations—of thought.

But Kant, interested less in housekeeping than in categories, offers a new schema which critically addresses the inherited array of intractables and incorrigibles, and so offers a system of both analysis and synthesis that would replace them.

This system is expansive —not reductive. It does not delete one member of an apparently opposing pair so as to hegemonize the other. Rather, it shows that the opposing claims—to both reification and explanation—are directed at different targets, and have different compliants in mind. The duality, once resolved, could then become—first a duet, then an oratorio. (Kant’s “Critique” and Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion” are close in historical time).

Kant offers a system of reciprocal units which provide answers to his four basic philosophical questions: What is there? How can we know? What must we do? For what can we hope?

The first question is directed at our understanding of the world—the realm of what was once called meta-physics but is now called ontology, and is addressed through the empirical sciences; the second is directed to the nature of that understanding—what was once called revelation is now epistemology, and is taken up by cognitive science and psychology; the third pertains to our desires and actions—the continuing realm of ethics and morality—which is codified in theology, philosophy, and law; the fourth question is more speculative—for it is about beauty and sublimity, art and teleology—and asks whether there is a material basis for appreciating the world-as-rational, and how it instantiates our hopes for progress.

I simplify all this greatly—when the question veers, Kant weaves between the critiques; when it threatens to disappear, he provides new rainment and a differerent home—the argument is nothing if not complex—as is the world it presents.

The aspect of Kant’s philosophy that here concerns me most is the question “for what can we hope, ” which is taken up in his third critique—of “Judgment.” This is where the concept of the “reflective”—as opposed to the “determinate”—judgment appears. Versions of the determinate judgment operate in the earlier critiques—as empirical (scientific) judgment in the first , and as moral (categorical) judgment in the second.

But it is in the third critique that Kant takes up the reflective judgment—primarily, in the apprehension of beauty, secondarily, in the appreciation and creation of art—and finally, as a sensory sign of the world’s evolution towards rationality.

As regards “beauty:” For Kant and, evidently for us as well, there is no listing of physical properties that provides evidence for our judgment that something is beautiful. But we certainly do see aspects of the world as beautiful—we are moved by art—and we often give this a considerable (sometimes metaphysical) importance.

Kant proposes that our reflections on beauty give us hope that the world is harmonious, and support our expectations that it is rational. There is reason, good reason, to want the world to—cognitively and actually—become (be) a unity. There is a different, but compatible, reason—to hope that living will (increasingly) be grounded on an ecumenical morality—as exemplified in beauty. But reasons, however good, are not determinants. They are dependent on what grounds we have for hoping they prevail.

Such grounds can be offered (I expand on Kant’s descriptions) when—on a temperate afternoon, we walk among the trees and grasses, inhaling their odors while looking up at the interplay between clouds and sky. We listen to bird-songs and murmorings of the wind, and we find ourselves completed in our own identity by the feeling that the harmony we experience justifies our hope that the world actually is as we then perceive it. We cannot know this—as we would be able to know the factual findings of experiments—and we cannot demand this—as we would categorically demand obedience to moral law.

But we can hope for a rationality that is also sensately exhibited—linking the holistic nature of the world with the variability of its changes. This is a hope we can neither prove nor demand, but one that is given credence (as Kant would have it) by our experience of beauty.

Kant makes clear what the perception of beauty does not entail—namely—possession, utility, factual analysis. We cannot want, use, or count the contents of beauty. Its perception, in his terms, must be “disinterested” (not “uninterested”)—a knowing that is based on the purity and compatibility of feeling and experience, rather than on fact, use, or obligation—or even—the actual existence of the subject of that experience.

There is another side to the reflective judgment, which is found in the experience of the “sublime.” This experience, like that of beauty, is holistic—but, here, it combines the elements of power, enormity, and fear—the power of a cataract or storm, the infinite scope of the heavens—the fear that our constricted life is not adequate to a threatening reality—so we retreat, in such cases, by fleeing from the perils of lived experience. But Kant turns this retreat back onto itself. The very experience of sublimity—when understood not as fear, but as awe—transforms fear into our capacity, even in dire circumstances, for reflection on totality. The experience of the world as sublime, becomes a capacity for distancing (and yet embracing) that which we fear. This capacity mediates the existential anxiety in our experience through our awareness that we, in fact, can reflect on what we fear. We are given a place, in reflection, for the experience of incompleteness—which thereby gives (our) reason a meliorating power over the limits of our lives—and offers the hope for a larger belonging.

Kant uses artistic creativity as the human model of the natural sublime. The artist, rather than assuming the spectator’s position of disinterestedness in aesthetic appreciation, presents its opposite—a joining with (becoming) the power of sublimity through the creation of art. Here, Kant identifies the artist as a “force of nature”—a force beyond pedagogy or will. This force is instantiated by “genius” whose power transcends both instruction and desire. It is a power “given to” but a few, but through its consequences—great art—it reveals the source of, and compatibity with, the sublime in (human) nature.

The interplay between the experiences of beauty and sublimity brings us closer to direct intuitive knowledge about the nature and juncture of two realities—those of our world and our lives. Such knowledge subsists in the tension between unattainable perfection and overwhelming power—as spectator, through the appreciation of beauty—as artist, through the expression of sublimity. It is our capacity to experience and accept this interplay that affirms the value of our lives—our status (so Kant puts it) as “a member of the kingdom of ends.” This status is also attributed (in the second critique) to the sheer “good will” of the moral person—and is probably as close as Kant wants to come to the experience of God and the immortal soul.

The experience of beauty, for Kant, is not a reference to Plato’s Forms; it is found in the phenomenal world: The perceptive walk in the garden and the appreciation of an art-work are sources. But the quality of beauty—its completeness, its clarity, its timelesness—does not come from the world. Rather, it is through the totalizing capacity of a mental faculty—judgment—that we experience it.

I return here—with a suggestion—to our previous discussion of mind-brain. Reflection, as Kant has it, is a reconciliation of realms. But this truce has a curious turn: As the mental constructions of rules of (logical) coherence and of (empirical) correspondence—whatever their discrete subjects—are both in the mind-qua-brain; and if that amalgam is a proper part of the physical world—then the rules that govern our truths must exist in the physical world as well. I refer not only to phenomenal truths—those scientific truths subject to empirical verification—but to noumenal truths that are determined by pure thought—the a-priori, or analytic, workings of the mind.

I suggest that Kant anticipated a synthesis of the mind-brain duality when he posited the “synthetic a-priori judgment.” There are two sets of distinctions here: The first is [a-priori—a-posteriori] —before (independent of ) experience, as opposed to after (because of) experience. The second is [analytic-synthetic]—the predicate “contained in” the subject, as opposed to the predicate “adding to” the subject.

The first is about the nature of knowledge—whether we can know something (about, say, the nature of thinking) that is not derived from our experience in the world, but which determines (through thinking’s very necessity of making distinctions) the world we do experience.

The second is about the nature of language—the tautology, say, of logical truths (2+2=4) as contrasted with statements in which the predicate adds to the knowledge contained in the subject (the towel is white). Here too, the formulation of a logical truth is not based on empirical experience.

I propose that the experience of beauty rests on a judgment (the reflective judgment) that, existentially, is a-priori; and linguistically, is synthetic. The content of the experience is obtained through the senses—its source is not other-worldly. Yet, its form is inherent in the mind—as it reflects on its (very) need for unity and harmony in the completeness of its thought, and finds an image of this need satisfied—in the reflective judgment that some “x” is beautiful. This purports to have us understand the possibility of the world through the nature of thought—a (developmental) notion that places our awareness of the import of sensory judgment within the process of (our) species evolution. Further, it places the notion of our need for completeness within this process—in our experience of beauty.

For our purposes, then, the brain is the world-in-perception (synthetic), and the mind is perception-as-consciousness (a-priori). We do not have theories that would satisfactorily place the one (either one) within the other. Yet we do have needs, physical and social—even metaphysical—that would reject (no?) the proposal of “identity”—that one “just is” the other.