Philosophy

Thomasius's philosophical stance was an empiricist one, not the rationalism that we find in much of the philosophical tradition and with Wolff. It is true that his belief in natural human reason and its capacity to find truth suggests a mild rationalism, but Thomasius abhorred innate ideas and maintained that all knowledge, all thought, begins with sense perception. This strong sensationism (which has similarities with Locke's position) was coupled, as has already been noted, with an enlightenment stance, in the sense that it was governed by the conviction that knowledge, truth and morality are the purview of everyone, not merely the elect few. The latter is particularly evident in the differentiation between Gelehrtheit and Gelahrtheit that he drew at the outset of the Introduction to the Doctrine of Reason.Gelehrtheit or academic learning is the domain of experts who are familiar with syllogistic logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and theology, but Gelahrtheit or practical learning is available to everyone with a healthy reason who pursues knowledge not for its own sake but for the use-value it has in daily life.

Thomasius's enlightenment convictions are similarly evident in his eclecticism. Though generally deemed a negative stance, this is not the case for Thomasius. He considers it positively as a corrective to any form of sectarian dogmatism. By his own account, he was influenced by several of his predecessors, notably, in Germany, Grotius and Pufendorf and, in England, Hobbes and Locke, and he appropriated those aspects of their theories that he found conducive to his overall aim: the spread of the Enlightenment ethos, understood here as the project of ensuring a healthy reason, one that can discover truth, that can lay open contradictions and fight prejudices.

Given Thomasius's basic presuppositions of where knowledge is likely to be found (in daily life rather than abstract speculation) and who is most likely to attain it (the person who has a healthy reason, not one corrupted by prejudices), it is likely not surprising that his epistemology was not a theoretical one. His two books on theoretical philosophy, the Introduction to the Doctrine of Reason and the Application of the Doctrine of Reason, are books on truth. They are not, however, books on truth in the traditional sense. Thomasius did not develop a philosophical conception of truth or of the condition of its possibility. He seems to have simply adopted a correspondence theory of truth and to have taken the harmony of thought and thing as a given. Certainly, this harmony was not the problem for him that it was for 17^th century thought and that it would be again in the later part of the 18^th century (with Wolff, Knutsen and Kant). What mattered to Thomasius is the enlightenment optimism that truth is possible and, moreover, accessible to everyone. His Introduction, accordingly, was presented, as specified by the book's subtitle, as providing the means by which "all rational persons, of whatever social standing and sex, are shown in an understandable manner, and without the aid of syllogisms, how to differentiate between the true, the probable and the false, and to find new truths." It is a book of instruction in proper or correct use of healthy reason.

His Application continued this theme, though this time by providing people with the means of avoiding error. Avoiding error involves the eradication of prejudices, which are among the causes of the corruption of reason. That, in turn, is accomplished through what he identifies as dogmatic doubt, not the Cartesian doubt that deems everything false so as to find a first indubitable principle, a useless enterprise, according to Thomasius. Dogmatic doubt is the doubt about particular things, beliefs, and opinions, and this he found healthy and conducive to preventing error.

Thomasius's enlightenment convictions are not, however, as straightforward as might appear. He did believe in natural reason's capacity to overcome corruption, but even as he adhered to this view, he held that an evil will is at the root of this corruption, and that we require God's grace. This conflict is particularly evident in his moral philosophy. While his initial presentation was an optimistic affirmation of the viability of a moral position he identified as one involving "rational love" (vernünftige Liebe) as the only means to a "happy, courteous and cheerful life," as indicated by the subtitle of the Introduction to Moral Theory, by 1696, he had become disenchanted with this view. Human self-interest and an evil will stand in its way.

Thomasius's moral theory is a theory of the will. He held that in moral matters, the will dominates reason. Though human beings have free choice if not externally constrained, the will is not free. Rather, it is dominated by human affects; our passions, impulses, and desires. Like Hobbes, Thomasius believed that even though subject to such inner (psychological) constraints, the will still chooses (with the aid of reason); it consciously wills. And a conscious choice is precisely what is required for a (good) action to be considered moral, a good instinct or good inclinations may make us good, may even be desirable, but by itself this is not enough to make us moral. Morality requires a conscious act of will. The trouble with morality arises because the will is determined by evil desires, in particular, lust, ambition, and avarice. Although there are noble sentiments as well, which similarly influence the will, they are in conflict with the negative dispositions. The conflict can be brought to a positive conclusion only by appeal to divine grace (God's salvation).

This ambivalence and return to theology aside, Thomasius's moral position is an interesting one. The theory of rational love is based on the fundamental equality of human beings as well as on their ability to think and choose independently (of authority). Ultimately, Thomasius's ethics is a social ethics. The theory is other-directed, and given the absence of laws and principles, constitutes a nice contrast to the formalist universalist ethics Kant would develop by the end of the next century. At the same time, the lack of any way of making this theory applicable in a context governed not by similar but instead by conflicting interests, makes something like a fomalist ethics an inevitability. By the end of the Introduction to Moral Theory, even Thomasius recognises that “rational love” will function only in relatively harmonious contexts, in others, particularly those characterised by unequal power positions, justice may well be required.

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 1167