This
raises an immediate question: surely trees and stones do not function in all
the modes? It is such a question that
tempts us to separate the world into two spheres of object and subject. We could think here of Descartes dualism
between the thinking mind as the knowing subject separate from the physical
world of matter, or of Locke’s mind filled with sensations caused by the
external material world. Against this
reformational philosophy offers an original and unique perspective on the
subject-object distinction using the theory of the modal aspects (see the next
section). We can best understand this if
we first look at “object-functions”.
When
we analyse a tree we can see how it functions actively in the first five modes
of being, however we should also notice that we perceive and analyse the tree,
we can admire the beauty of the tree, or assess its economic value. The existence of the tree is therefore not
shut off from our perceiving and logical functioning. While it is true that
trees do not perceive and reason they can be perceived and reasoned about. This means that despite not functioning in an
active way within the sensitive and analytical aspects, they do function
passively in relation to human perception and analysis. These are what we call the trees
object-functions.
What
this shows is that the modal aspects make relations possible; my perceiving
relation towards the tree is possible because we both exist within the
sensitive modal aspect. The modal laws
therefore constitute relationships of coherence. I as an active perceiving
subject relate to the tree as a perceived object.
Rene
Descartes' dualist view has shaped the way philosophers think about our
knowledge of the world and leads them to ask the question: how can we as
knowing subjects come to know the “external world”. Notice that while reformational philosophy
can speak of a coherence between the knowing subject and her environment the
common philosophical tendency to speak of the “external world” creates a
separation between the two and sets up the classic, and irresolvable, problem
of how we can defeat the sceptic and show we can have knowledge of the
world. Such a way of putting the problem
clearly does not do justice to the fact that both knower and known exist in the
same world and function within the same modal spheres. We can see that a reformational analysis of
the subject-object relations shows the mistaken nature of this way of framing
the problem of knowledge. Rather than a
gap that must be bridged from a knowing subject to a known object, we have a
genuine relationship between the two through a whole array of irreducible
modes. The passive functions really
belong to the nature of the object and are not mere subjective add-ons. The object does not exist “in itself”,
separate from us, as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant thought, but in
relations, we can only take an object out of these relations in an act of
thought as an abstraction.
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