Epistemology:
Search for the Treasure
with
William Wallace & Kenneth Gallagher
A big picture approach to epistemological study
with an application from the work of
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
“Things are manifested when they are
distinguished from things that are like them.”
Msgr. Robert Sokolowski
Professor of Philosophy
Catholic University of America
“What is EPISTEMOLOGY?”
Then, “Where do we start from?”
and “Where may it lead us?”
To a beginning philosophy student,
these are very good questions.
“What is EPISTEMOLOGY? ...”
As I pondered these questions, assisted by class
readings & notes, I realized:
• What I needed was a clear context for epistemology
within philosophy, both as a field of study and how it
relates to the whole.
• What I needed was a pre-thought plan to apply to
subsequent reading and reflection about knowledge.
As our course in epistemology progressed, the
following plan emerged.
Plan for epistemological study
Method:
I. Look at philosophy as a whole and the role Epistemology plays in it, both as a
A.
B.
Category/Branch of philosophy itself, and
Role it plays throughout all branches of philosophy, taking into account
i. time
ii. space
iii. culture
iv. language
II. Be consciously aware that study of philosophy both as
A.
B.
System and
History
are necessary to understand any problem or mystery with depth, accuracy,
and most possible fullness.
Application:
III. Consciously search out those manifestations of thought that may contribute
to a philosophia perennis, furthering the foundational knowledge of man
in his search for truth.
These basic understandings came together by juxtaposing the summarized
work of William Wallace, OP, a traditionalist expert in philosophy…
Editor of the
New Catholic
Encyclopedia
& its summary,
The Elements
of Philosophy
William Wallace, OP
1918-2015
Kenneth T. Gallagher
Prof. Emeritus of
Philosophy
Fordham University
…with the work of Kenneth Gallagher, a master guide in the field of
Epistemology: The Philosophy of Knowledge.
Edith Stein
Karol Wojtyla
St. Teresa Benedicta
of the Cross, OCD
Pope St. John Paul II
1891 - 1942
1920 - 2005
With the use of this “gleaning with a purpose” approach to my
student reading, I was able to attempt an application that stems from
the point of juxtaposition of the study of knowledge with the study of
being, examined particularly through the lens of Edith Stein’s
dissertation on empathy. Fruits of this labor, which she applied to
Edmund Husserl’s Logic II as his assistant, had widespread impact
and may have led to the theology contained in Pope John Paul II’s
Theology of the Body (per John Wilhelmsson, The Transposition of Edith Stein).
First, we will follow our plan for study and take a quick look at the
broad spectrum of philosophy in order to gain a context for the
application we are about to attempt.
I. Traditional Classification Map of Natural Knowledge
Into the Branches of Philosophy
Speculative
Practical
Knowledge for its own sake
1. Metaphysics
•
2.
Knowledge for the sake of operation
or conduct
(most abstract)
Epistemology*
*Role: Defend knowledge claims in
all disciplines.
1. Arts of Making
2. Arts of Directing Human
Activity
• Ethics
• Politics
• Natural Theology
Mathematics (intermediate
abstractness) Now treated as a “special
discipline” – the philosophy of math
3. Natural Philosophy (objects
here have sensible matter by definition)
•
Phil. Anthropology
/Psychology
Special Disciplines
“The Philosophy of x,” where x
can stand for Language, Art,
Religion, Math, and so on.
The foundation for the study of all branches of philosophy, not properly
considered a branch in itself:
Logic
(Wallace, Elem of Phil., pp 4-5)
A big picture mapping serves as a constant reference. Here
it pinpoints something we need to know about epistemology
for our application: that our reflection on knowledge
(epistemology) properly flows from our reflection on being
(metaphysics).
M E T A P H Y S I C A
KNOWLEDGE
Dig here!
• Being
Down Under
~PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS PARADISIO~
II. We also need to consider both Systematic and Historical Philosophy
in our search for knowledge (Wallace, p 9).
Systematic Philosophy
Systematic Philosophy is “an
attempt to give a consistent
exposition of the main
conclusions of philosophy that
provide the most adequate
explanation of reality now
available.” (Wallace, p 9)
Example of application: How to
best answer the question,
“What are the implications of
being on knowledge?”
The History of Philosophy
“aims to survey the vast
diversity of philosophical
systems in their chronological
development so as to fill out,
and complement, the synthetic
account.” (Wallace, p 9)
Example of application: How to
best answer the question, “Do
we need an escape route from
subjectivism?”
(P. Yates, Epistemology Class Assignment Week 10)
(K. Gallagher, Philosophy of Knowledge, Ch. 10)
Now let us see what a reflection on knowledge that stems from a very
particular idea of being unfolds for us.
III. We will begin with the idea that the “being” of metaphysics we refer
to in this case is “self” as knower. The knowledge I am examining here is
knowledge that stems from my being as a human person capable of
knowing.
“Being” as Mystery
Gabriel Marcel makes the distinction for us: “A problem is an inquiry
which is initiated in respect to an ‘object,’ something which I encounter
as external to me. In an objective situation, I am here and the object is
there, complete and open for inspection. For the reason that I meet the
object as juxtaposed to myself and as not involving myself, I can envelop
it in a clear and distinct idea which delineates its limits. … A problem,
then, is an inquiry which the self apprehends in an exterior way. …
Science embodies the ultimate achievement of problematic knowledge….
“A mystery, on the other hand, is a question in which what is given
cannot be regarded as detached from the self. … If I ask ‘What is being?’
can I regard being as an object which is thrown across my path? No, for
being includes me” (Gallagher, pp 236-238).
“Body” in Two Realms
Gallagher shows us that Marcel takes us further, on to the idea of the
human body. “My body in so far as it is mine cannot be adequately
rendered in problematic categories; the body which the physiologist
studies is an objective structure available for an observer, but the
body as mine simply is not accessible in this manner” (Gallagher, p. 240).
Here we stop to consider. Referring back to the big picture map, we
see we are suddenly dealing with two fields of Speculative Knowledge:
1) the body the “physiologist studies” is within the realm of the
Philosophy of Nature according to its sensible properties; but
2) the body as mine remains within the realm of Metaphysics.
How very interesting.
Gallagher goes on: “The knower of mystery is not a spectator but a
participator: some evidence is only available to the participant and not
to the neutral observer” (Gallagher, p. 240).
[Note: We see the role of epistemology to “defend knowledge claims in all fields” (Wallace)
at work here. Body is viewed as problem according to the subject/object relation in the
Philosophy of Nature. Body is viewed as mystery in the Metaphysical realm, mine and
that which comes to knowledge through participation, open to transcendence.]
Edith Stein’s use of body in her doctoral dissertation on empathy
We see this same type of thought regarding the body taken up in
the work of Edith Stein. What Marcel refers to as “body as mine,”
Stein explores as the “living body.”
How is my body [Leib] constituted within consciousness? I have my
physical body [Korper] given once in acts of outer perception. But if we
suppose it to be given to us in this manner alone, we have the
strangest object… and we find ourselves bound to it perpetually.
Precisely this affiliation, this belonging to me, could never be
constituted in outer perception. A living body [Leib] only perceived
outwardly would always be only a particularly disposed, actually unique,
physical body, but never “my living body”…
The distance of the parts of my living body from me is completely
incomparable with the distance of foreign physical bodies from me. The
living body as a whole is at zero point of orientation with all physical
bodies outside of it. “Body space” [Liebraum] and “outer space” are
completely different from each other. Merely perceiving outward, I
would not arrive at the living body, nor merely “perceiving bodily”
[leibwhrnehmend], at the outer world. (Edith Stein, On Human Empathy)
[Note: We see the importance of “space” listed on the student outline, here getting at in
another way knowledge that unfolds from the Metaphysical idea of “body.”]
Knowledge gained by the “Living body”
By “living body,” Stein refers not to the physical body, but the
experiencing “body within” devoid of external physicality, capable of
being informed by sensation, not the same as but contributing to
the abstract “I” of the singular, human person. She writes of the
“living body” in conjunction with sensation and the faculties of the
emotions, the will, and the soul itself (see Edith Stein, On Human Empathy).
Intersubjectivity
John Wilhelmsson in The Transposition of Edith Stein, the spin-off of
his 2007 dissertation, cited Stein’s view of intersubjectivity: “we
understand ourselves through the pairing of our living body with our
physical body and we understand the other through the pairing of
our living body with the foreign physical body of the other”
(Wilhelmsson, p. 137).
By this, Stein means that we know the other through empathy –
that ability to consider our experience of our own “living body” and
extend it in an abstract way upon the physical being of another.
Knowledge through “being-by-participation”: empathy
Gallagher: “In the region of mystery what my thought does is to try to
recover and express a participation which is there prior to thought.
The thought which attempts this expression must do so by returning
to the participation itself” (Gallagher, p 242).
We come back to this idea expressed by Gallagher regarding
knowledge through the mystery of being, and find it expressed now
again in Stein’s idea of empathy between persons.
In a sense, we can say that we “return to the participation itself”
when we reflect on our own “living body” – the abstract experience
of our own embodiment. We remember from the previous slide that
Stein said: “we understand ourselves through the pairing of our
living body with our physical body and we understand the other
through the pairing of our living body with the foreign physical body
of the other.”
So there are two manifestations of knowledge here: that of self, and
that of the other, both through “being-by-participation,” so to speak.
I transpose my “living body” onto the foreign physical body of the other
We understand that when Stein says we “understand ourselves
through the pairing of our living body with our physical body” she is
talking about our human nature. When she says “we understand the
other through the pairing of our living body with the foreign physical
body of the other” she is talking about empathy – our coming to
knowledge of the other person through “transposing” our “living body”
onto the foreign physical body of the other. By this experiential
“participation” in the other through the organism of our own lived
experience, our own embodiment, we come to knowledge of the
other. We empathize through our shared experience of embodiment.
EMPATHY
transposition
My “living body”
“I”
my perception of
the other
“Thou”
Transposition of my abstract,
“living body” onto your
foreign physical body to
achieve empathy – I
recognize the other by
transposing my own lived
experience of embodiment
upon the body of the other to
gain knowledge of the other.
The impact of Edith Stein’s concept of body on philosophy
The understanding of the “living body” concept of self and the
empathetic perception of the body of the other did much to add to the
phenomenological thought of the time. In a letter Edith Stein wrote to
her friend, Roman Ingarden, while working as Edmund Husserl’s assist
editing his Ideas II manuscript, she writes,
“For the past two days, just to see if I can actually still do something
on my own, I have begun to examine more closely one of the points
on which the Master [Husserl] and I differ (the necessity of a body for
empathy).” [parentheses Stein’s] (Wilhelmsson, p 107)
Wilhelmsson goes on to show through evidence that it was Edith
Stein’s idea of the necessity of the body which she used to revise
Husserl’s Ideas II manuscript that changed his content from a
“disembodied idealist standpoint” to one in which “the transcendental
ego becomes embodied in a living body.” Husserl also speaks there of
the body being the “zero point” of orientation in space for a given
person as well as the implications of space on the phenomenological
view – also Edith Stein’s ideas stemming from her view of the body
and present in her dissertation (and quoted on previous slides), written
prior to her revision of Husserl’s Ideas II. (Wilhelmsson, p. 109)
The impact of Edith Stein’s concept of the body on theology
Stein also applied her idea of embodiment to studies involving gender
contained in her work Essays On Woman. “I am convinced that the
species humanity embraces the double species man and woman, that
the essence of a complete human being is characterized by this
duality; and that the entire structure of the essence demonstrates the
specific character.”
Wilhelmsson suggests relationship with Roman Ingarden as a common
denominator between Edith Stein and Karol Wojtyla. Many letters of
philosophical depth were exchanged between Stein and Ingarden, and
in later years Ingarden was both teacher and friend to Karol Wojtyla.
Wilhelmsson suggests that as phenomenologists, Ingarden and
Wojtyla discussed topics such as Stein’s view of embodiment, which
shaped the subsequent theological thought of Pope St. John Paul II.
“There are two ways of ‘being a body’ and at the same time a man,
which complete each other. They are two complementary dimensions
of self-consciousness and self-determination and, at the same time,
two complementary ways of being conscious of the meaning of the
body.” (Karol Wojtyla, The Theology of the Body)
Where distinctions regarding knowledge may lead us
The importance of philosophical pursuit is made clear in Pope John Paul
II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio. The work of Edith Stein epitomizes this.
St. Edith Stein makes an appearance in Fides et Ratio as a paradigm of faithful
philosophical enquiry. Edith Stein offers a challenge to women and men to pass
beyond the constraints imposed on our created and sin-affected human reason,
and to welcome the full truth of the Gospel. In his diocesan paper, Cardinal
Bernard Law expressed this view: “Edith Stein appears in the encyclical as an
example of one whose work in philosophy led her to the Truth and, in a
mystery of divine providence that must strike us all with awe, ultimately led her
to a unique share in the Holy Cross of Christ.” Her martyrdom confirms the
possibility of achieving even the most difficult reconciliations.
The witness of Edith Stein also alerts us to the sense of urgency that we find
in Fides et Ratio. In the month following the publication of the encyclical, the
pope made this plea explicit in an address at the Pontifical Urban University.
There he announced “not only the necessity but the urgency” of bringing faith
and reason together. Philosophy should not be a study only for specialists, he
explained, but should play a role in the formation of conscience for all
Christians. After all, “only in Christ is it possible to know the fullness of the truth
which saves” (98). As the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 approaches, the pope
continues to urge reconciliation so that everyone will be ready for the special
graces the celebration promises. But what is the source of his confidence? St.
Paul put it simply when he reminded the Corinthians, “God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself.” (Rev. Romanus Cessario, O.P., Crisis Magazine, Jan. 1999)
Applications now and for the future
In recent years the philosophy of the day has been applied to some
of the greatest aspects of the faith such as the sacramental life, the
praying of the liturgy, the Eucharist, our experiential knowledge of
the mystical life, and methods of evangelization, all to further
benefit our understanding and experience of our relationship with
God and his Church. (Please see the accompanying annotated
bibliography.)
Cast of experts,
in order of appearance:
Msgr. Robert Sokolowski
Rev. William Wallace, OP
1934-
1918-2015
Edith Stein
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
1891-1941
Kenneth T. Gallagher
(photo not available)
Karol Wojtyla
Pope St. John Paul II
1920-2005
Gabriel Marcel
1889-1973
Rev. Romanus Cessario, OP
1944-