On Metaphysical Necessity

Franklin I. Gamwell

Description

In this collection of essays, Franklin I. Gamwell offers a defense of transcendental metaphysics, especially in its neoclassical form, and builds a case for its importance as a tool for addressing abiding problems in philosophical theology and morality—including talk about God, human fault, moral decision, and the relationship of politics and religious freedom.

In Part I, Gamwell argues against Kant and a wide range of contemporary philosophers, for the validity of transcendental metaphysics designated in the strict sense. He engages with Aquinas, Schleiermacher, Augustine, and Reinhold Niebuhr to argue that neoclassical metaphysics, for which the divine whole is itself temporal or forever self-surpassing, provides a more coherent account of God than does classical metaphysics, for which the divine whole is completely eternal. In Part II, Gamwell looks at transcendental metaphysics designated in the broad sense. In particular, he takes up the moral opportunity with which humans are presented, and argues that the moral law depends on a comprehensive good, that is, a good defined metaphysically in the strict sense. He then offers an extended discussion of the relation between transcendental metaphysics and morality, and explores Ronald Dworkin's view of the relationship between democracy and religion, the question of whether religious activities are properly exempted from generally applicable laws, and the constitutional debate about national and states' rights.
Introduction: On Transcendental Metaphysics
Metaphysics
Transcendental
The Following Chapters

Part One: God And The World: Metaphysics In The Strict Sense

1. A Defense Of Metaphysical Necessity
Recent Thinkers
The Pragmatic Self- Refutation
Recent Thinkers Revisited
Metaphysical Necessity

2. Speaking Of God After Aquinas
A Reading Of Aquinas
Analogical And Purely Equivocal Names
Theistic Arguments
Burrell's Alternative
The Principle Of Prior Actuality

3. Schleiermacher And Transcendental Philosophy
Schleiermacher's Introduction To Dogmatics
An Assessment Of Schleiermacher's Achievement

4. The Source Of Temptation
Augustine: Through Adam To The Devil
Reinhold Niebuhr: Sin Posits Itself
Another Account: Human Fragmentariness
Conclusion

Part Two: Morality And Democracy: Metaphysics In The Broad Sense

5. Moral Creatures And Their Decisions
Neoclassical Metaphysics In The Strict Sense
Moral Understanding
The Strictly Metaphysical Definition Of Good
Moral Creatures As Subjects
The Transcendental Moral Principles

6. On The Interpretation Of Religious Freedom: A Conversation With Ronald Dworkin
Dworkin's Interpretation
Dworkin's Interpretation: A Critique
Toward An Alternative Interpretation

7. On Religious Freedom And Its Free Exercise
Recent Theories
Politics By The Way Of Reason
Free Exercise Exemptions
Convictions And Confessions

8. The Revolution's Promise
Popular Sovereignty
The States' Rights View
The National View
Consequences Of The Revolution

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Philosophy of religion
• Theology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438479323
• Langue: English

Extrait

ON METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY
ON METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY
ESSAYS ON GOD, THE WORLD, MORALITY, AND DEMOCRACY
FRANKLIN I. GAMWELL
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gamwell, Franklin I., author.
Title: On metaphysical necessity : essays on God, the world, morality, and democracy / Franklin I. Gamwell.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2020 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019030515 | ISBN 9781438479316 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781438479323 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Metaphysics. | Philosophical theology. | Ethics. | Religion and politics.
Classification: LCC BD111 .G33 2020 | DDC 110—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030515
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for
F RAN
“the last, my love, the final thing”
CONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION : O N T RANSCENDENTAL M ETAPHYSICS
Metaphysics
Transcendental
The Following Chapters
PART ONE

GOD AND THE WORLD: METAPHYSICS IN THE STRICT SENSE
1 A D EFENSE OF M ETAPHYSICAL N ECESSITY
Recent Thinkers
The Pragmatic Self-Refutation
Recent Thinkers Revisited
Metaphysical Necessity
2 S PEAKING OF G OD AFTER A QUINAS
A Reading of Aquinas
Analogical and Purely Equivocal Names
Theistic Arguments
Burrell’s Alternative
The Principle of Prior Actuality
3 S CHLEIERMACHER AND T RANSCENDENTAL P HILOSOPHY
Schleiermacher’s Introduction to Dogmatics
An Assessment of Schleiermacher’s Achievement
4 T HE S OURCE OF T EMPTATION
Augustine: Through Adam to the Devil
Reinhold Niebuhr: Sin Posits Itself
Another Account: Human Fragmentariness
Conclusion
PART TWO

MORALITY AND DEMOCRACY: METAPHYSICS IN THE BROAD SENSE
5 M ORAL C REATURES AND T HEIR D ECISIONS
Neoclassical Metaphysics in the Strict Sense
Moral Understanding
The Strictly Metaphysical Definition of Good
Moral Creatures as Subjects
The Transcendental Moral Principles
6 O N THE I NTERPRETATION OF R ELIGIOUS F REEDOM : A C ONVERSATION WITH R ONALD D WORKIN
Dworkin’s Interpretation
Dworkin’s Interpretation: A Critique
Toward an Alternative Interpretation
7 O N R ELIGIOUS F REEDOM AND I TS F REE E XERCISE
Recent Theories
Politics by the Way of Reason
Free Exercise Exemptions
Convictions and Confessions
8 T HE R EVOLUTION’S P ROMISE
Popular Sovereignty
The States’ Rights View
The National View
Consequences of the Revolution
N OTES
W ORKS C ITED
I NDEX
INTRODUCTION

ON TRANSCENDENTAL METAPHYSICS
The importance of metaphysics to both philosophical theology and moral and political theory has been on my mind for some years, where philosophical theology asks about God and this world, and moral and political theory ask about the principles for our decisions and our decisions together in the political community. I have chosen the chapters collected in this volume with a view to that importance. As a kind of thinking about pervasive conditions, metaphysics is also, on my intention, a kind of critical reflection—where “critical” means simply reflection that seeks not only to formulate but also to validate relevant understandings. “Metaphysics” designates, then, in two systematically related senses. On the one hand, “metaphysics” has a strict sense, which means an explication of all possible reality or existence as such—where “as such” means the character or nature of existence in its most general sense. On the other hand, “metaphysics” has a broad sense and means an explication of all possible subjectivity or subjectivity as such.
The two are united in the most general moral and political principles—because they are themselves metaphysical in the broad sense, even while the good or telos, whose pursuit is what those principles prescribe, is defined metaphysically in the strict sense. Moreover, the metaphysics commended here is transcendental, where this means that both existence as such and subjectivity as such are literally designated, and is neoclassical, where this means that all possible reality and all possible subjectivity are best understood in terms of becoming rather than being (the meaning of both terms is further clarified later in this introduction and, respectively, in chapters 1 and 5 ).
Several of the chapters that follow have been previously published, although each has been revised in minor ways in order to ensure consistency in the concepts and terms used throughout. The introduction and chapters 5 and 8 appear here for the first time. The common theme throughout is the importance of metaphysical necessity both to philosophical theology and, through it, to moral and political theory. Precisely because this theme persists, I wish to speak of metaphysics in both strict and broad senses. If some thinkers within the current philosophical context allow the metaphysics of subjectivity, most reject or are suspicious of the metaphysics of existence. In this context, surely the first task is to make a case for the latter. Chapter 1 , then, is an argument for metaphysics in the strict sense, and the following chapters of part 1 exploit this conclusion for several discussions in philosophical theology: about Thomas Aquinas’s concept of theistic analogies, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s account of how dogmatics relates to philosophy, and whether either Augustine or Reinhold Niebuhr is convincing in describing the relation between God and the source of temptation to human fault or sin.
The importance of metaphysics to philosophical theology is, then, background for the discussion of morality and democracy, which concerns metaphysics in the broad sense. In part 2 , I am especially concerned to clarify what Immanuel Kant called “the supreme moral principle” (although, as I argue, that principle is a comprehensive purpose, not Kant’s categorical imperative) and its significance for religious freedom. Chapter 5 includes an argument for a comprehensive purpose, whose telos is defined metaphysically in the strict sense, and serves for part 2 what chapter 1 does for part 1 . In other words, chapter 5 seeks to bridge the two senses of metaphysics, so that a supreme moral principle results.
This conclusion is then exploited in chapter 6 through a conversation with Ronald Dworkin, a thinker whose political judgments I have long admired but whose moral and political account of religious freedom, as that of many others, I find problematic. I propose, in contrast, the way of reason as the form of political community constituted by religious freedom and consistent with transcendental metaphysics. The subsequent chapter addresses the problem of religious liberty, that is, claims for exemptions from generally applicable laws, and argues, given transcendental metaphysics, that opposition to the law is not cause for such an exemption. The final chapter seeks to confirm the importance of transcendental metaphysics to historical interpretation by showing how the former provides a resolution to the enduring debate between the so-called states’ rights and the so-called national view of the US Constitution’s authority.
In sum, then, these chapters have been chosen to commend transcendental metaphysics in its neoclassical mode, and to confirm its importance by application to abiding problems for philosophical theology and human existence—including talk about God and the world and morality and democracy.
I express my gratitude for permission to republish here chapters that have been previously published. Chapter 1 was published in the Review of Metaphysics 71, no. 2 (December 2017): 233–64. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 2 was published in the Journal of Religion 81, no. 2 (April 2001): 185–210 (© 2001 by the University of Chicago). Reprinted by permission. Chapter 3 was published in Schleiermacher, the Study of Religion, and the Future of Theology: A Transatlantic Dialogue , edited by Brent W. Sockness and Wilhelm Grab (Berlin: Walter DeGruyter, 2010), 135–49. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 4 was published in Augustine Our Contemporary: Examining the Self in Past and Present , edited by Willemien Otten and Susan E. Schreiner (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018), 267–91. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 6 was published in the Journal of Religion 95, no. 4 (October 2015): 506–33 (© 2015 by the University of Chicago). Reprinted by permission. Chapter 7 was published in the Journal of Religion 97, no. 4 (October 2017): 500–523 (© 2017 by the University of Chicago). Reprinted by permission.
I also express my gratitude to Philip Devenish, Brent Sockness, Schubert Ogden, and Alex Vishio—each of whom read some of the essays enclosed herein and gave me the benefit of his critical response. I thank especially the late Schubert M. Ogden, to whom, more than any other single individual, I owe the education I have received—not least, with respect to the following chapters, even if he might disagree with some things I say therein. <