The Concept of Rationality in Kondylis’s Historical and Political Works, Part 1
By Sebastian Edinger
Introduction
Although still widely unknown and untranslated into English almost entirely, Panagiotis Kondylis (1943–1998) could grow into one of the towering figures of this century’s philosophy. His impact would not be limited to specialized discourses but would have to be dealt with in the fields of intellectual history as well as political philosophy/theory. Kondylis’s contributions to both fields are not only vaguely connected; they build a logical unit, meaning his theory of the European modern age, developed over the span of several heavy tomes, serves as the foundation of his political theory and diagnosis. The thesis that binds them together is that the end of the Cold War marks the end of the age of European modernity. In this text, I am trying to shed light on this connection by focusing on a transformation of rationality during the modern age, starting from conservatism’s initial battle with early modern theories of sovereignty in the sixteenth century and ending with the complete erosion of traditional reason in the age of hedonistic mass democracy, which started to unfold after World War II and was able to run rampant after the end of the Cold War, capturing and ideologically homogenizing the entire Western world, whose common denominator, namely hedonistic mass democracy, is a stronger unifier and a theoretically more important analytical task than the last vestiges of individual peculiarity.
I will develop my argument in four steps:
(1) The relationship between rationality and sensuality on the one hand and rationality and intellectualism on the other hand in the historical part. The difficult role of rationality as a mediator between sensuality and intellect, without being identifiable with one of them, guides his analysis of the philosophy of unification (Vereinigungsphilosophie) in early German idealism as well as in his analysis of the European Enlightenment;
(2) The emergence of ontology in the seventeenth century, not only as a new philosophical term or concept but as the embodiment of a type of rationality that deals with metaphysics based on logical analysis and strict systematic critique without being rooted in religious faith;
(3) The emergence of the critique of conservatism as a logical step in the dissociation of reason and rationality, with conservatism as a critique of individual reason running rampant, allowing reason to be captured by a new type of rationality, which starts out as an advocate of individual sovereignty and Enlightenment and then gradually morphs into anonymous rationality during the formation of mass societies in the late nineteenth century.
(4) The anonymous rationality of technical reason in the age of hedonistic mass democracy dismantles the type of rationality that is considered to guarantee individual sovereignty and dignity, as well as the principle to guide humanity and the humanization of history, and replaces it with an instrumental and anonymous rationality without center. The logic of this anonymous rationality reflects the logic of hedonistic mass democracy in the age of planetary politics, which threatens to cannibalize both individual sovereignty and its classic and last possible advocate, the nation-state (as what will follow most likely will be marked by a catastrophic mixing of fragmentation and collectivism).
My reconstruction is based on the premise that there is a recognizable connection between Kondylis’s definitions of different forms of rationality in his early and late works. This connection reflects the fundamental character of his philosophical analysis, as his main goal was to develop a theory of the European modern age and its legacy in the twentieth century and beyond. While this kind of historical-genealogical approach that remains consistent through all stages of Kondylis’s work is not novel per se, it clearly distinguishes Kondylis from other philosophers of his generation and, together with his profound interest in adapting methods of the social sciences to philosophical inquiry, marks the unique character of his thought.
I. Rationality in the Early Foundation of Kondylis’s Theory of European Modernity
Since Kondylis’s dissertation, The Emergence of Dialectics. An analysis of the intellectual development of Hölderlin, Schelling and Hegel up to 1802 (1979; Die Entstehung der Dialektik. Eine Analyse der geistigen Entwicklung von Hölderlin, Schelling und Hegel bis 1802) and his study The Enlightenment within the Framework of Modern Rationalism (1981; Die Aufklärung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus) were originally planned to end up packed into one book, I will discuss them in chronological order. An important methodological remark is necessary, since Kondylis’s own basic methodological considerations are laid out in the later Enlightenment book. When it comes to the term "rationality," Kondylis does not understand the rational and the sensual as “natural enemies” but distinguishes between the rational and the logical-irrational (das Logisch-Irrationale) on the one hand and the mystical-irrational (das Mystisch-Irrationale) on the other hand. The difference between the latter is that the mystical-irrational is subrational, meaning it exists on a deeper, foundational and/or adversarial level than the rational. In certain instances, it resembles what Costin Alamariu calls the “prephilosophic” when he says “that philosophy (or science) evolves from and preserves certain elements of the prephilosophic mind” (Alamariu 2023: 74); at the same time, not everything that is mystic-irrational will ever permeate into the inner machinations of consciousness or the labor of thinking; it can also just belong to the tremor at the “unfathomable biopsychic roots of existence” (Kondylis 1984: 45), passions, or even to mere feelings and emotions. The logical-irrational, on the other hand, is irrational insofar as it violates the rules of logic, meaning the logical-irrational only exists within the logical realm as a violation of the logical rules and standards. Kondylis emphasizes that the logical-irrational is not the result of the mystical-irrational pervading the logical realm, since it cannot exist autonomously or isolated within a realm that knows only the logical as operational currency. Therefore, the opposite of the rational is only the logical-irrational, not the mystical-irrational which can only serve as an “emotional source” (emotionale Quelle) of logical activity or as an outside influence, but not as a genuine logical agent of any kind. If you draw a parallel to systems theory: The mystical-irrational itself is not and can never be an operational part of the logical system; it can only be a part of its environment.
Why is this distinction between the logical-rational and the mystical-irrational so important to Kondylis? In his own words, it allows for a scientific approach in the field of intellectual history, which views rationalism as the essence of the modern age while cutting it off from what it feeds from. If the mystical-irrational is a subterranean force and source of a fundamental philosophical stance (Grundhaltung), the reasoning that strengthens the basic stance has to counter the basic stance on the logical level, for reasoning cannot take place in another realm than the logical realm. Reasoning and rationality, therefore, are strictly bound to their genuine means but dependent on the forces they are rooted in. But Kondylis, despite undermining the strict dichotomy between the rational and the sensual, still identifies a fundamental dichotomy, namely that between sensuality and the intellect, meaning that intellectualism is the common enemy of both sensuality and rationality, although he acknowledges that an “intellectualistically oriented rationalism” also exists (Kondylis 1981: 40). Enlightenment rationalism, in particular, as a form of rationalism that aims for the rehabilitation of sensuality through the reconciliation of rationality and sensuality, according to Kondylis, “is not only as a whole, not intellectually oriented, but it outright developed its shape fighting Cartesian intellectualism” (Ibid., 33).1 Intellectualism in this sense does not refer to the intellect as an organ in a descriptive manner but is the name of an axiological principle. Understood in this sense, intellectualism cannot strive for a reconciliation of rationality and sensuality since, in its theoretical inception and by design, it articulates the superiority of the intellect as a practical organ of knowledge as well as a principle of theoretical understanding.
In The Emergence of Dialectics (1979), Kondylis analyzes the transformation of the dualism of spirit (Geist) and sensuality (Sinnlichkeit) as the intellectual key enabler of the later unifying philosophy (Vereinigungsphilosophie). The inception of this dualism dates back to Friedrich Schiller and was developed for the first time as a unifying philosophy by Friedrich Hölderlin before Schelling and Hegel further refined it. Hölderlin’s intellectual development is regarded as the central factor in this transformational process between 1795 and 1799, while Hegel’s influence on this transformation is assessed by Kondylis as'minimal’, since the latter's independent intellectual development only started to come into its own after 1802. According to Kondylis, the transition from dualistic oppositional to monistic unificationist thought corresponds in terms of intellectual history to that from the “dualistic intellectual structure of the Enlightenment” to the “monistic tendency of the German late Enlightenment.” (Kondylis 1979: 17) In this respect, the speculative philosophy of unification, which surpasses the systematic claims of the early modern “rehabilitation of sensuality” (Rehabilitation der Sinnlichkeit) laid out in the Enlightenment book, marks a specifically German breakaway from the mainstream of European Enlightenment, caused by Kant’s sharp dualism, to which the speculative philosophy of unification is the conciliation-oriented answer. Seen this way, the unifying philosophy sides with the European tradition against Kant; to be understood properly, it requires a “reconstruction of the European Enlightenment” (ibid., 19), which Kondylis presents in his Enlightenment book with an intense focus on the French and English elaboration of the relationship between mind and sensuality. According to Kondylis, it was not rationalism but intellectualism that “the Enlightenment in its mainstream, and not only Rousseau” (Kondylis 1981: 338) turned against. Philosophy of feeling and rationalism are not understood as mutually exclusive in the logical sense, but philosophy of feeling and intellectualism act as historical counter-actors. Only intellectualism is to be regarded as an antipode of the “identification of nature and reason” (meaning man is reasonable as a being of nature and as a bearer of reason is a being of nature) and therefore contradicts “the inclusion of culture in nature” (ibid., 355). Unlike rationalism, intellectualism, proceeding “from a dualistic assumption insofar as it adopts the Cartesian separation of res cogitans and res extensa,” precludes the overcoming of the Cartesian opposition (ibid., 557). If he takes it affirmatively, he plays both sides off against each other in favor of res cogitans and enthrones intellect over emotion. If he takes them up only structurally, then, regardless of any sympathy toward the philosophy of feeling, there is a gulf between the two, which is blessed in principle by intellectualism. In both cases, it contradicts the rehabilitation of sensuality, which Kondylis identifies as the essential driving force of the European Enlightenment, even still of the German Late Enlightenment, which systematically develops into a dualism, but without abandoning the struggle against nihilism waged in the name of the rehabilitation of sensuality; to this extent, the German Late Enlightenment is also, at least “in this respect, an organic component of the overall European Enlightenment.” (Ibid., 544) The rehabilitation of sensuality can be pursued by reason in agreement with its self-development and in its own interest, because rationalism, according to Kondylis, means the “purposive, formal-logically flawless use of the argumentative means offered by thinking itself in order to substantiate a basic stance.” (Ibid., 36–37) According to this view, it is not sensuality that opposes the ratio, but the logical-irrational, since the latter undermines the immanent logic of the ratio from within, instead of only being related to it according to its logical possibilities of procedure:
Since for us the criterion of the rational lies in the consistency of formal-logical thinking in the mental execution of a basic attitude, the rational does not relate in a directly contradictory manner to the mystical-irrational but only to the logical-irrational. In other words, the mystical-irrational is rooted deeper than the rational as well as the logical-irrational, both of which operate on the same level and can, therefore, only take each other head-on. (Ibid., 37)
On the basis of these distinctions, Kondylis clears the way for understanding the a-logical itself as the enabling ground of logical work and formation, and even for giving the logical a maieutic function in relation to the sensual: Sensuality is then not an irreconcilable opposition to the logical but also dependent upon the logical as a means of its formation. Where the logical-irrational is equated with the irrational, any logic that goes beyond the examination of arguments and conclusions declares itself to be universally incompetent because it cannot be, in the strict sense of the term, a medium of anything different from it; that is, what is not itself an element of logic, bound to and operating according to the depictable rules of logic and logical modus operandi, cannot become an internal component of its operation, and, therefore, cannot be processed by means of its specific formative procedure. Logic, identified with the rational, cannot engage with sensuality on its own specific ground but only falls silent beforehand due to being unable to target it directly, which is precisely the fate of the intellectually restricted intellect, which Kondylis attributes to Cartesianism in its diverse variants and against which “the Enlightenment as a whole stands under the sign of the rejection of Cartesian basic positions,” e.g., Wolffian philosophy (ibid., 172).
Understood in the sense of weltanschauung, the concept of rationalism is then a directional concept; rationalism is one of the two defining directions of modern thought; the other is empiricism or sensualism. But all “currents and opposing directions must be considered in their unity, namely as an answer to the basic question that the rehabilitation of sensuality should be positive or negative” (ibid., 21). An important hint is necessary here: The formulation of this opposition is not the result of a mere descriptive approach but owes itself to Kondylis’ methodological approach, which systematically deals with “the polemical in the essence of thought” (ibid., 53) along with questions such as the following: Which position is defended, formulated, or, if necessary, even abandoned, when, by whom, and with which reasons against which conflicting position? Which claim to power is brought forward by which actor or party against which actor or party that defends and embodies conflicting claims to power? The directions are then not monolithic, but within them there are alliances between actors who polemicize against each other in other respects, or polemical constellations. The directions cannot be monolithic since the polemical constellations themselves are neither monolithic nor mono-dimensional. The common enemies of pietists and empiricists are Wolffians, although, for example, the proto-emotivist moral philosopher Hume and the pietist Zinzendorf cannot be declared brothers in spirit since they formulate a fundamentally similar position in completely different constellations with different nuances against differently arguing theoretical enemies. The rehabilitation of sensuality marks the basic tendency of the European Enlightenment, which overarches several smaller polemical bifurcations but is not to be misunderstood as a consensual fundament.2 According to Kondylis, it was able to function as an overarching impetus since, up until Kant, all authoritative directions wanted to escape two fundamental calamities: the suspicion of atheism and nihilism on the one hand, which results from sensualist and materialist positions,3 and the suspicion of a restoration of classical theology on the other hand.4 The rehabilitation of sensuality therefore constitutes the decisive step in overcoming traditional theology, which, while not revised by rationalism, is domesticated and restricted in its influence by it, and to that extent, ironically, needs rationalism because it cannot afford to be at enmity with it. The rehabilitation does not consist in a mere juxtaposition but in a unification or at least a reconciliation; modern philosophy, insofar as it turns against reason the extremes of intellectualism on the one hand, which asserts the primacy of the intellect within an axiologically conceptualized dichotomy, and of nihilism resp. value nihilism on the other hand, which itself turns the “identification of nature and reason” against reason, thereby attacking morality and theology as pillars of modern thought, is determined by a tension between directional ideological opposites. The intellectualist line of modern thinking finds its authoritative founders and initiators in the emerging mathematical natural science of the seventeenth century and Cartesianism, with Kondylis conceding the former the predominance of effect over the latter:
Descartes is considered the founder of modern philosophy, at least insofar as modern philosophy is committed to the problems of self-consciousness and methodical inquiry. Although this evaluation is largely correct, it must be relativized by taking into account that it is not the new philosophy but the mathematically oriented natural sciences that mark the actual beginning of the modern age. (Ibid., 174)5
The intellectualistic line of the modern age sets the stage for the emancipation from classical theology and metaphysics; according to the usual understanding from a contemporary perspective, it would, at least regarding its impetus, be considered enlightening, although, sensu stricto, it does not belong to the enlightenment itself because the rehabilitation of sensuality (Rehabilitation der Sinnlichkeit) falls under the suspicion of atheism, from which genuine enlightenment thinking tries to shield itself. For it is precisely “the antagonism of intellectualism and empiricism, or mathematical-geometric and experimental methods” (ibid., 20) that culminated in the epistemology of the Enlightenment. As Kondylis emphasizes, empiricism “had to legitimize itself rationally-argumentatively (already the rehabilitation of sensuality was, as we know, a rational and not a sensual act).” (Ibid., 51-52) The “empiricist mainstream of the Enlightenment” stands in the name of rationalism in opposition to intellectualism, wherein the “logical ambiguity of rationalism” manifests itself, one of its possibilities being intellectualism (e.g., in logical formalism, in idealism, in moral rationalism), another one being the broader version of rationalism as captured by the Enlightenment, which is not only polemically opposed to intellectualism but also actively striving for the rehabilitation of sensuality (ibid., 250). For the sake of brevity, only some of the decisive stations leading up to the Enlightenment, which Kondylis deals with, can be named: The intellectual countermovement against Cartesianism receives a strong push from Newton and especially from the popularization of his thinking by Voltaire. Helvétius and Condillac had just as strong an effect in France as Locke and Hume in England, and Vico and Montesquieu in particular acted as inaugurators of historicity in modern philosophy. The importance of Leibniz, however, can hardly be overestimated because he tried to integrate all tendencies existing at his time on a level of unification philosophy that was hardly imaginable before. What makes Leibniz an especially outstanding case in the history of ideas is that, according to Kondylis,
that the aspect of Leibniz’s thinking that structurally made the strongest contribution to the emerging Unification philosophy was, in its formative stages already, in contradiction with that aspect, which could not satisfy the theoretical needs of the Unification philosophy, at least not to the same extent as the former, and was therefore put aside. By the above-mentioned aspect is meant the separation of spirit (Geist) and sensuality (Sinnlichkeit), to which Leibniz was compelled to respond with the artificial construction of the pre-established harmony on the one hand and the teleological unification of both on the other. This dilemma of Leibniz's philosophy, which permeates several contrasting oppositions (mathematics vs. metaphysics, mechanics vs. teleology, optimal static whole vs. developmental idea), can be explained, like other cases we have encountered, by Leibniz's polemical intentions, i.e., by the fact that he is facing two opponents at the same time and that combating one requires at least partial revocation of the argument used against the other. (Ibid., 580)
Beyond the logical details of Leibniz’s philosophy, the proper elaboration of which would require a lot more space than is given here, the seminal effect of his unification philosophy (Vereinigungsphilosophie) is the transcending of the opposition of intellectualism and rationalism consisting in the “elevated sensuality [being] endowed with the properties of the spirit resp. spiritualized, whereby the soul as a whole, with the help of the innate, was placed under the aegis of the moral in the broadest sense, i.e., of the spiritual principle.” (Ibid., 593) This leads to Leibniz becoming the most inspiring figure for the German Late Enlightenment, which, in authoritative figures such as Lessing, Herder, and Hölderlin, takes up the unification-philosophical impetus that continues to have a lasting effect on the philosophy of German Idealism. The linearity of the development comes to a halt with Immanuel Kant, whom Kondylis sees precisely not as the face or the Enlightenment but as an authoritative exponent of a “critique of the mainstream of the Western-European Enlightenment” (ibid., 639) that broke away from the “unification philosophy of the German late Enlightenment” (ibid., 614) by establishing a “marriage of intellectualist and sceptical positions that was radically novel” (ibid., 639). Kant marks a break with the Enlightenment insofar as, throughout his life, he stuck to the dualism he inherited from Schiller, which was conveyed from Schiller also to Hölderlin, Schelling, and Hegel during their early Tubingen days. Kondylis examines this connection in the history of ideas in his book, The Emergence of Dialectics. An Analysis of the Intellectual Development of Hölderlin, Schelling and Hegel Up to 1802 (Die Entstehung der Dialektik. Eine Analyse der geistigen Entwicklung von Hölderlin, Schelling und Hegel bis 1802) meticulously.
Although the rehabilitation of sensuality (Rehabilitation der Sinnlichkeit) also plays a key role in this book, Kondylis systematically draws on Schiller's adaptation of Kant's separation of sensuality and rationality, through which Schiller exerted a strong influence on Hölderlin. The relationship between sensuality and rationality was not furnished in an Enlightenment-compatible manner by Kant but nonetheless wielded a great deal of influence on the reconciliation-theoretical orientation of the philosophy that followed Kant. Kondylis evaluates both published writings (especially Hölderlin’s Hyperion, Hegel’s Frankfurt Drafts, Schelling's late Jena writings, and Hegel's early Jenaer Schriften) and letters in order to bring together the development of works and the personal communication of the Tübinger Stift in a comprehensive process of proof. Thinkers such as Rousseau, Hemsterhuis, Fichte, and Jacobi also play a pivotal role in Kondylis’s analysis. The merit of Kondylis’s study is, on the one hand, to show in detail how immensely influential Hölderlin, who is often considered “just” a poet, was regarding the transformation of Kantian dualism into a unification philosophy (Vereinigungsphilosophie) closer in character to monism (in the years 1795–1799), and, on the other hand, to have worked out the formative influence of Schelling’s writings from 1799–1802 on Hegel’s development of thought, which started to really come into its own after 1802. By elaborating Schelling’s influence on Hegel, quite contrary to the widespread belief that Hegel was the great solitary thinker who autonomously grew beyond the thinking of his early Tübingen comrades, Kondylis convincingly undermines the assumption that the development of dialectics is Hegel’s primary achievement, a view Kondylis calls the “Hegel legend” (ibid., 442, 577, 617, 646, 654-656, 712) – a term that plays an important role in German research on German idealism but that, as of now, could not gain the notoriety and attention it deserves due to Kondylis’s book being untranslated. This term has gained ground among German-speaking researchers on German idealism but, unfortunately, due to a missing English translation of Kondylis’s dissertation, has not gained the amount of international attention it deserves.
Kondylis attributes to Schiller a “quasi ideal-typical relevance for the Tubingen thinking of Hölderlin and Hegel,” which derives from Schiller’s “sense of freedom” (Freiheitsgefühl) and his “strengthening of the position of science, whose field is precisely sensuality on all levels.” (Kondylis 1979: 22) On this basis, Schiller re-evaluates Kant’s dualism, which nevertheless stops at the rehabilitation of sensuality and is not able to penetrate to any unification philosophy, which is also due to the fact that Schiller was not up to the philosophical challenge embodied by Kant “because he overlooks the fundamental importance of Kant’s doctrine of two worlds and at the same time does not want to seriously acknowledge Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, which has acquired an equally fundamental importance” (ibid., 295). Fichte, likewise a successor of Kant, represents a considerable challenge for the Tübinger Stift precisely because “the Kantian Fichte considers sensuality to be taken into account without rehabilitating it in the sense of Rousseau or Schiller” (ibid., 109) but rather develops a philosophy of the absolute ego, through which Hölderlin feels compelled to form his philosophy “in polemic opposition against Fichte” (ibid., 451).
However, Hölderlin does not allow himself to get caught up in fruitless polemics that could culminate in slipping back into the old dualism, and his drafts and the Hyperion are also not only theoretically inspiring poetic preparatory works but also the “first formation of a consistent philosophy of unification” (ibid., 20). In a few sentences, Kondylis describes poignantly the difference between Hölderlin and Fichte: “If the coexistence of subject and object in consciousness presupposes their separation, then this separation likewise presupposes an original unification, that of being, not that of pure consciousness. From a Fichtean point of view, of course, this is pure Spinozism.” (Ibid., 316) For moving beyond the supposed Spinozism, guidance from a reflective philosophy is needed: “If the ego is not a substance, Hölderlin now thinks, it can only be another expression for the inevitable reflective structure of consciousness.” (Ibid., 315) Kondylis traces this unfolding of the internal structure of reflection from the Hyperion fragment to the completed novel in order to demonstrate the narrative unfolding of a dialectical sequence of stages. Stricto sensu dialectical is Hölderlin's Hyperion insofar as he literarily realizes the “idea of the unfolding of the spirit in successive levels as the necessary course of education” in such a way that in the Hyperion “each level contains the seeds of the next level within itself.” (Ibid., 337)
According to Kondylis, such a construction is already demonstrable in Schelling’s natural philosophical drafts from 1797–1798,6 in which the inception of his elaboration of a dialectical concept of nature takes place: “Only a nature that is conceived as subject and object at the same time can satisfy the needs of dialectical construction; Schelling realizes under the pressure of these needs that construction as construction would be impossible if it did not proceed from the unity of subject and object on the highest level.” (Kondylis 1979: 597-98) Schelling elaborates this construction in a systematic, mature form in 1801 in his writing On the True Concept of Natural Philosophy (Über den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie), in which he begins to gain philosophical independence from the strong influence of Kant and Fichte by introducing a two-fold concept of subject-object: the subject-object of consciousness and the subject-object of nature. With the former concept, Schelling attempts to handle the basic questions of transcendental idealism he inherits from Kant and Fichte; with the latter, he allows this subject matter to transcend itself into a version of Spinozism that nonetheless absorbs the idealist problematic rather than eradicating it. In Kondylis’s words, “Transcendental philosophy works with simple reflection, but Schelling wants to work with a two-fold reflection that sublates itself by proving its own origin from the real.” (Ibid., 604)7 The real is also what Kondylis calls, in free paraphrase, the “unity of the positive and the negative within the absolute-positive.” (Ibid., 567)
Following his foundational works as an intellectual historian, Kondylis even widened his scope of thinking during the 1980s without abandoning working on the subject of his early works. In fact, he followed up on his dissertation and his Enlightenment study in 1990 with another monumental work titled The Modern-Era Critique of Metaphysics (Die neuzeitliche Metaphysikkritik), in which he adds lots of new facets to his theory of the European modern age. The one aspect I want to isolate is Kondylis’s analysis of the emergence of ontology, since it marks a crucial turning point in the formation of modern rationality.
II. The Logification of Reason and the Emergence of Ontology
The range of topics analyzed in his book Die neuzeitliche Metaphysikkritik (1990; Modern-era Critique of Metaphysics), which would deserve extensive attention and detailed analysis, is enormous. Kondylis is not focusing on a single critical approach towards metaphysics but on the logic of modern-era critique of metaphysics throughout the whole modern era, starting with Renaissance philosophy and concluding with early twentieth century philosophy. His analysis is spread across different periods within the modern era, thereby differentiating the critique of metaphysics meticulously. The common denominator of the different critiques of metaphysics is that they are critiques of metaphysical reason conducted by reason itself, although not by reason in a monolithic understanding: “The modern era struggle with metaphysics starts with the questioning or direct repudiation of the epistemic claims for legitimacy brought forth by metaphysical reason, that is, with the fundamental denial of the possibility of metaphysics as a full-fledged rational knowledge of being.” (Kondylis 1990: 14) What reason is fundamentally getting into conflict with in the modern era are different types of rationality.
Kondylis distinguishes two main types of critique of metaphysical reason: (1) A strongly language- and rhetoric-based critique brought forth by Renaissance philosophy, which invoked, starting from the fourteenth century, the primacy of vita activa over vita speculativa and ran its course all the way through the sixteenth century. Two aspects are important here: First, rationality got embedded into life and an expressive form rooted in specific life forms; second, rationality explicitly sided with rhetoric and thereby articulated a relationship to language that was decisively different from a merely logical one. (2) A scientifically based critique of metaphysics, basing itself on the development of the natural sciences and early modern empiricism (ibid., 18–19). Over the course of the early modern era, stretching from the 14th century to the inception of the Enlightenment, a lot of critical enterprises joined forces against metaphysics, nominalism, humanism, the natural philosophy of the Renaissance, and emerging mathematical science among them. Additionally, theology clashed with scholastic metaphysics in a fight for metaphysical monopoly (ibid., 55–57), with ontology as a specifically modern type of reasoning emerging from that fight during the sixteenth century as a new form of critique of metaphysics and religion.
In the age of Enlightenment, the critique of metaphysics grew from being two-fold to being four-fold, that is: (1) an epistemological critique; (2) a linguistically-based critique; (3) a historical-sociological critique; and (4) an anthropological critique (ibid., 20–21). This typological configuration, according to Kondylis, not only characterizes the nineteenth century but also serves as the principal system of coordinates for the critique of metaphysics during the twentieth century. Not only does the critique of metaphysics gain new facets in the era of Enlightenment, but a drastic change in axiology of anti-metaphysic rationality takes place by the cultural infusion of atheism into the root substance of the critique of metaphysics; as Kondylis puts it, a “profane-worldly ideological attitude” (ibid., 18) comes up serving as a new soil of anti-metaphysical reasoning that has abandoned any sympathy for what it criticizes as well as for the culture it could still flourish in. Under these conditions, a shift took place, namely the shift from a critique of metaphysical reasoning and metaphysical positions to a critique of the legitimacy of metaphysics and the foundational ground of its legitimacy. A rational critique of metaphysics then does not have to occur as a rational critique of a rational endeavor but can also occur, for example, as a critique of irrationality, identified with metaphysics (ibid., 22).
The intricacies of Kondylis’s analysis primarily concern the course of the early modern period up until the Enlightenment. Tracing the modern-era critique of metaphysics through antithetical stances and positions, Kondylis analyzes a series of entanglements that are rarely even recognized. For example, he is profoundly elaborating on the origin of ontology in the modern era, portraying ontology as an intellectualist variant of metaphysical critique (ibid., 258) while, to the contrary, Thomas Aquina’s critique of Aristotle is depicted not only as anti-intellectualist but as metaphysical (in the Christian sense) as well as anti-metaphysical at the same time, due to being philosophically designed to combat Islamic influences on the reception of Aristotle’s philosophy during that time (ibid., 32–33). Renaissance philosophy is also depicted as anti-intellectualist, being set up in an anti-metaphysical manner at the same time, this time being rooted in the primacy of the vita activa over the vita contemplativa and of rhetoric over scholastic thinking. In this regard, Renaissance philosophy resembles Heidegger’s philosophy insofar as it breaks up the logical self-sufficiency of intellectualist metaphysics by philosophically elaborating on the depth of lived life. So much for a hint at the ramifications of the book.
The fundamental idea of the book says: Metaphysics, on the level of its content, generally presupposes (a) the distinction between an immanent and a transcendent sphere (or objects), and, in its formal design, (b) offers “a system of propositions, which are connected to each other based on logical rules,” aiming for providing a “rational-demonstrative comprehension of being and its first principles.” (Ibid., 13) Conversely, all critiques of metaphysics reject the idea of the possibility that "complete rational knowledge” and the discovery or demonstration of absolute, irrefutable “truths by the means of reason” are possible (ibid.). One striking chapter of modern-era critique of metaphysics, which Kondylis analyzes succinctly and which deserves attention, is the rise and logical-critical structure of ontology in the 17th century.
Although it is common among philosophers to speak of Aristotle’s ontology, in a strictly historical sense, no such thing exists since ontology evolved from Pererius’s distinction between metaphysica generalis and metaphysica specialis (ibid., 270). The former managed to become what is today known as ontology, while the latter meant what is commonly called theology, or just metaphysics. Pererius’s distinction is being identified as the key source of the logification that characterizes ontology, due to which ontology became a sibling of logic and epistemology, all of which acted as instances of a comprehensive and specifically modern critique of metaphysics. Kondylis points out that Pererius’s distinction did not manage to become canonized, as it was already not being picked up by Christian Wolff anymore, who distinguished between ontology, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology, although it nonetheless proved to shape modern philosophical terminology fundamentally (ibid., 307). The emergence of ontology marks not only a milestone in the history of philosophy but also in the operational structure of philosophical rationality, since with the inception of ontology a specific kind of systematic investigation of the logical and epistemological structures of up until then strongly content-determined philosophies was inaugurated. Metaphysics from then on had to deal with a mode of critique that itself aimed at operating as a logically, methodically, or epistemologically oriented science, or meta-science, if metaphysics makes scientific claims. The logical or methodical means as well as the epistemic structure of metaphysical positions became not only topics (for example, in the investigation on the methodical design of a philosophical position), but also areas of critical and systematic investigation (for example, in the development of philosophical methodology as a topic of research), with ontology not stopping there but also becoming a constructive science in itself that culminated in the development of ontological systems (for example, in Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy).
[Part 2 will deal with Kondylis’s book Conservatism, or with the downfall of conservatism and the emerging of the age of mass democracy]
References:
Alamariu, Costin (2023): Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy. Independently published.
Berger, Benjamin/Whistler, Daniel (2020): The Schelling-Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801. Nature and Identity. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press.
Cassirer, Ernst (2002): Die platonische Renaissance in England und die Schule von Cambridge. In: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 14. Hamburg: Meiner.
Hösle, Vittorio (1998): Hegels System. Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Hamburg: Meiner.
Kondylis, Panajotis (1979): Die Entstehung der Dialektik. Eine Analyse der geistigen Entwicklung von Hölderlin, Schelling und Hegel bis 1802 (The Emergence of Dialectics. An Analysis of the Intellectual Development of Hölderlin, Schelling and Hegel up to 1802). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Kondylis, Panajotis (1981): Die Aufklärung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus. (The Enlightenment within the Framework of Modern Rationalism). München: dtv.
Kondylis, Panajotis (1984): Macht und Entscheidung. Die Herausbildung der Weltbilder und die Machtfrage. (Power and Decision. The Formation of World Images and the Problem of Values.) Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Kondylis, Panajotis (1990): Die neuzeitliche Metaphysikkritik. (Modern-era Critique of Metaphysics). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
It has to be noted that Kondylis, weakening his careful distinction between rationalism and intellectualism, does not avoid the term ‘Cartesian rationalism’ completely, which he uses on two different occasions (ibid, pp. 155 and 255).
The „rehabilitation of sensuality (rather: of a certain kind of it) caused a displacement of the spirit [des Geistes] and, subsequently, a threat to free will, values, and norms, especially since all of them, as is well-known, were inseparably linked to the concept of spirit [Geist] in the philosophical tradition.“ (Ibid., 53)
The degree of interconnectedness of numerous positions and intellectual tendencies is shown by the fact that Kondylis at one point speaks of the „suspicion of materialism or atheism“ (Ibid., 372). What might seem like a terminological inconsistency rather gives testimony to his consistent observation of how different positions and attitudes mix with one another.
“A two-fold distinction should be drawn in order further clarify the meaning of Enlightenment: On the one hand, the term “Enlightenment” designates intellectual intellectual currents that seek to substitute for the traditional theological worldview a secular conception of the world resp. an explanation that is as immanent as possible. On the other hand, it includes those currents that – in a more narrow sense – defend a normative-moral ideal, whatever shape this may take in concreto, not only against traditional theology but also against the skepticism and nihilism arising in or from the process of secularization itself.” (Ibid., 22)
In doing so, Kondylis also goes into detail about the usually underestimated, if not (despite Cassirer's concise study, Cassirer 2002) unknown influence of mathematical natural science on the Cambridge Platonists or the Platonic School of Cambridge, cf. Kondylis 1981: 191–209.
This thesis was also explicitly formulated, although later, by Vittorio Hösle, cf. Vittorio Hösle, Hegels System der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität (Hösle 1998: 44). Kondylis disagrees with Hösle’s assertion, that „not only Fichte, but also Schellimg himself does not satisfy the demand of a reflectively organized system“ (ibid., 47), since this thesis includes that Schelling failed to develop a fully valid dialectic and that this was left to Hegel – the very „Hegel legend“ (Hegel-Legende) that Kondylis opposed 20 years earlier, without Hösle even mentioning Kondylis’ book.
In Schelling's terminology, what Kondylis calls the “absolute-positive” would be the “self-construction of the subject-object”: F.W.J. Schelling, On the True Concept of Philosophy of Nature and the Correct Way of Solving its Problems, The Schelling - Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801, ed. Benjamin Berger and Daniel Whistler, transl. by Judith Karl and Daniel Whistler (Berger/Whistler 2020: 53. The latter is also determined by Schelling as nature and is also on the reflection level of the same, addressed as “acts of the pure subject-object” or “acts of the I” (Schelling, in: ibid., 51).