ARTICLES

WHAT

IS REALLY REAL?
RICHARDKRONER

When uontos

Plato

conveiced or of

of the realm

of Ideas as the realm

of the

an that which is really real, he introduced on," immortal distinction into philosophical To be sure, he thought.1 was preceded by Parmenides who had also spoken of what is truly seems to be real, real and had separated it from that which merely but Plato there is a vast difference between However, no degree of and Parmenides, for according to Parmenides, to is conceded the this real; is, rather, deprived reality seemingly of any truth. It is the realm of error and illusion while the realm of reality alone deserves the assent of the thinking mind; it alone on to and the truth. wanted Plato, represents being contrary, is not real at all. "save"

This world has its own truth by the phenomenal world. in realm the of the Ideas, though a truth of lower participating a has It degree. phenomenal reality. This distinction between that is really real and something that is is of real It cannot great moment. something seemingly even though be dismissed, the Platonic in its historical scheme form might be abandoned. of reality in the There are degrees our or emotions contents of are experience. Fleeting impressions of things. than the eternal nature falsities, Errors, are less real than truth. and deceptions And yet it cannot be denied that the fleeting and emotions, that even impressions erroneous and deceptions illusions have their own statements, mode of reality, though on a lower level. less illusions Parmenides reality and truth. simply identified to real is Parmenides the the true, the false is According not real; this majestic dictum underlies his whole philosophy. Plato was more the substance of the subtle; although he preserved them.
1

real

Plato

united

This

paper

was

presented

before

the Metaphysical

Society

of America,

in New York City, in March 1953.

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Parmenidean he

RICHARDKRONER

the degrees of truth when thesis, he differentiated differentiated of reality. I agree with the degrees both and Plato that truth and reality cannot be separated Parmenides
from each other.

The really real is the truly real. The sensations and emotions of my soul are less real than are the Platonic Ideas or the laws of nature. The four elements are less real than the atoms of modern true than was is more because modern ancient physics, physics nature. about relations The chemical between speculation as conceived are more elements modern real than by chemistry the same relations as conceived by medieval The activity alchemy. of the stars as discovered is more real than that by astronomy cases In all these accepted by astrology. reality and truth are To the degree to which united. there was a certain inseparably or or in in obscured ancient distorted truth, though speculation was to medieval that also there in the science, degree reality as to defined them. And to the degree which there objects by is still some obscurity in modern to that degree the science, chemical is not elements true or What the astronomical real real themselves. is really are not really relations is absolutely true, and what of reality unreal. The degree

at all is absolutely on the depends degree of truth and conversely. science can define what Modern is real only to a certain a or sense. reasons in certain Two may be given for this degree, are never thesis. the natural sciences but are at First, finished, all times on the way towards the discovery of the full and absolute is, therefore, up in always truth and error mixed as the of shows. theories, Second, presence hypothesis the natural sciences need an interpretation of the sense in which their objects are real. they are true and in which truth. There scientific There modern are not is truth and there The is therefore reality outside the natural sciences. and emotions

fleeting impressions as they are not untrue. unreal, completely can a On the contrary, a never claim to be truth and they reality ''saved" by the sciences. The artist can and does "save" them to the degree to which he is a real or a true artist. Paintings do preserve his impressions, and lyrics or music his emotions, Completelv

REAL? WHAT ISREALLY

so that we in these The feel there is a universal truth and a universal

353
reality

phenomena. taken from the fine arts shows that reality is example bound up not only with truth in the scientific sense, but also and presented the truth revealed the the poet, with by painter, or the artist in general. the composer And it might be bound up too. In this respect with other realms of human life and activity, we can no the ancient it of longer heritage?be rely upon investigation or at least the best, way of finding truth and reality, of discovering what is true and real to the highest we call such a conviction we must state rationalism, Parmenides science or or Plato; scientific both were more convinced than we kind are that of whatever is the only, and therefore degree. that we If are

fugitive

minded than they were. less rationalistically insist that We must not to is be real found in the the exclusively logical realm only nor in the wider in the realm of the natural ?neither sciences, as we will see. realm of ontology, The beautiful It also is real. cannot be expressed in any other truth which reveals a certain
way.

As error and falsity exist only in the logical sphere, though on a lower level than the truth, so also the ugly and the trivial exist in the aesthetic of the beau sphere only as the counterpart the sublime. of the measure They exist only where In fact, as error and values is applied or applicable. to which falsity are real only to the degree they are logically so also the ugly and the artistically, or aesthetically, relevant, are are still aesthet to to real the which imperfect degree only they the and Both false the borrow their reality ically pertinent. ugly a from the true and the beautiful; live in they only secondary way, values. In a paradoxical fashion by the grace of the positive one might not that the false do and the say, exist, wherever ugly tiful and aesthetic truth truth have and beauty reign, and beauty reign. to discuss later. has been said about and yet that they do exist only where to a problem we This paradox points the logical the moral values. and the aesthetic

What makes moral

can also be

morality standard

sphere alone goodness real. Acts of the will which the disagree with are not really moral acts as they are also not morally Moral

said about

354
real.

RICHARDKRONER

And yet they exist only in the moral realm; they borrow are less real their reality from the morally good. morally They as they are also really less moral acts. than morally positive They follows the object on which the follow the good as the shadow sun shines. The good is creative and has a lasting power while the bad false and existence;
good.

is destructive

itself eventually. Like the and annihilates a has the ugly so the morally bad, too, negative only of the it has from the negation it derives what existence

II

term "negative existence" raises a hard and important we the have encountered. Does indicated by paradox problem the false, the ugly, the bad really exist? Has the term "negative at all? Is not Parmenides existence" any meaning right after all The in insisting that Being Is it alone is, while is not? Non-being not true that truth, beauty and goodness annihilate their opposites, of the false, the ugly and the the very existence that they negate can exist in the Is it not true, therefore, bad? that nothing moral not fully agree the realm the which does aesthetic, logical, was driven the standards of these realms? with to Parmenides this conclusion
existence."

in order of

to avoid the

the paradoxical

idea of "negative

The

Kantians

existence and maintained error. In other words, and epistemological as they denied meaning

19th century also ruled out negative that negation always rejects falsity or dealt with in an they negativity only and denied its ontological logical way

altogether. ontology they Consequently, also denied any gradation of reality. they thought, Negativity, has only a subjective it function; reality itself cannot be negative, is always and entirely positive. In that way the Kantians iron on the than to Plato, ically were nearer to Parmenides although themselves believed they rightly than to Parmenides. There is a sense in which Parmenides The really true. It does real is thoroughly not tolerate to be and positive, negativity nearer to Plato are

whole

the Kantians

right.

thoroughly

because it is as it also does

WHAT ISREALLY REAL?

not tolerate

355

occasioned

If the opposition of truth and falsity is falsity. to that is the human finite mind, say by by thinking, and if the real and the true are inseparably then indeed connected,

But finite sub reality is rooted in finite subjectivity. own so has and has world in which itself its the reality jectivity we live, this world of ours in which truth and falsity, beauty and This world is up. ugliness, good and bad are strangely mixed negative not really real, precisely because of this mixture, but, nevertheless, And since it is real only it is real in a sense and to some degree. to some degree, we must conclude that the negative also has some or are of that there lower which contain stages reality reality is not only caused by the finally that negativity that false but the itself has a negative false, rejection existence. And so Plato is right in the last analysis. But Plato did not see that this finite world of ours has a root. not is the rejection Although negativity merely subjective a symptom of falsity. of the false, it is, nevertheless, Only in a can in which world exists also for the exist, negativity falsity false is itself the negative of the true. Since there is truth and negativity, and of the of ours, there is also up in this world falsity mixed and in and value there is it, reality consequently of and existence. Gradation negative reality as to real the the which top of approximation really is above gradation of and positive value imply the hierarchy

of truth and falsity. and beyond the alternative are finite precisely and we ourselves because Our world of of positivity and negativity which the antagonism the govern as the validity of everything in this that exists reality as well we world ourselves and all that Since the including perform. contrast of truth and error is generated by our own thinking, has to our world is subjective and everything belonging a taint. and tinge subjective Only the really consequently It is, therefore, not only above real is exempt from this destiny. of value and disvalue, of positivity and beyond the antagonism but it is also beyond and above all finite existence. and negativity, real and positive, It is absolutely infinite, as it is also absolutely finiteness It is thus separated by an and good. true, beautiful absolutely and from our world. the It is beyond abyss from our existence our will and our intentions. our creativity, reach of our knowledge,

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RICHARDKRONER

But the paradox of negative existence reappears when we put the finite, how is the really real compatible with the question: the subjective, the relative, if it is true that the the phenomenal, and badness? Compatible really real is free from falsity, ugliness it should existence, in reality this since existence, antagonistic and nevertheless finite, though negative participates as it also participates in truth, beauty and goodness. be with this its

it does participate in the really It is real to the degree to which a a on lower level and only to certain degree. real, although If the really real represents the full and perfect truth, it must the reason of that antagonism; it must conceal the itself contain precondition to the riddle which of negativity and subjectivity; it must be the key of finitude and of its own counterpart, the realm in the true is mixed up with the false, the beautiful with the so as even the bad. We may be to say the good with bold

ugly, or the cause of the partly that the really real must be the ground and relatively the origin of the real, the source of the negative, and badness. finite and so of falsity, ugliness Or to put it even more boldly: we must conclude that the really real partly negates as to account for this finite world inasmuch it has and our itself, But if we have gone finite existence. thus far, we would be in being because we frightened by our own boldness, justified even met the abyss of incomprehensibility, have of absurdity. How can the Infinite, the truth, the really real negate itself? Does this not imply that it contradicts itself? And how can we ever hope to understand the whole that sphere beyond and the positive However, taints what is above and contradiction in which the antagonism of the negative

since boldness, up our own give us we not and to leads If do this conclusion. consistency caprice not abandon the idea of the really real altogether, we are logically statement coerced to accept the contradictory that truth contradicts that reality pure and unalloyed that the itself, itself, negates Infinite is the ground of the finite, the self-sufficient the cause of the insufficient and the perfect the origin of the imperfect. With re we admiration but also with great emphatic disagreement member the thesis of who the Parmenides avoided again proud absurd by denying the reality of the negative, the finite, the

prevails? we cannot

REAL? WHAT ISREALLY

deficient and

357

could But even Parmenides altogether. imperfect a back-door excluded in the sphere through help bringing truth which nevertheless under the title of a second-class persuades the human mind. not driven we are ultimately of Parmenides, avoid the rigorism to the extremity introduced of Hegel who contradiction but insisted that this procedure leads into his system of ontology, a perfect circle ending where to a solution, if the system is made If we it begins.
so much a

I do not believe
solution, as an

that

this can be done.

and accurate formulation.

It offers

not

acute

Taken

as it is desperate and self-destructive it is as ingenious If this adventure. the whole metaphysical for it really destroys then Hegel is the only possible way of building up an ontology, in theory, in practice what Kant demonstrated has but shown as a solution that ontology namely the range transcends possibility we have is an impossible possibility; If there of the human mind. its problem is no other

of the really of attaining knowledge renounce to altogether. ontology

real than Hegel's,

Ill
it still might dealt with insoluble problems, Even if ontology an most to of all and harbor truth the important worthy point out cannot if Even carried the be ontology topics. philosophical way it could, the problem of ontol thought is the gradation of be avoided. There ogy ours: at is the really real, the top of its scale reality in this world of no matter in how hidden it may be and how great the obstacles Parmenides is real and Plato cannot and the way of ascertaining it. The really real is also the standard of all truth, beauty and in some way, too, it is the source of all that exists, at goodness; the creative, the constructive, the lasting least of the positive, But it is true values. This at least we know about the really real. that define even this knowledge the nature of what is hedged about by our inability I have called "source" or the nature real generates to which we the finite, belong. And to of our

the really the activity by which unreal forever world and partly

relative

358
is even more seriously endangered knowledge to comprehend this generation any attempt of into the contradiction, impasse inevitably tion that threatens to destroy all positive knowledge. But a more give us a clue ultimate

RICHARDKRONER
by the insight that or production leads even of a contradic of our ontological

value

through of the really and finally the self-contradiction be the self-negation was can too We rash. But this conclusion real. speak about to conceive of the really real self-negation only if we are permitted as a kind of self. is not warranted Such a conception by the The unity and good beautiful we do not attribute data. tempted
subjectivity,

careful study of the nature of contradiction may some further I said that the clarification. we we arrive when at which conclusion try to think the relation between the really real and this world would to

true the absolutely really real with as to I difficult understand is, admit, long as to the really real a kind of selfhood. We are to the really real because to attribute selfhood it is our of the
i.e., our own selfhood, which alone secures us an

to the true, the beautiful, and the good. But so, all our real and potential acts of actualizing truth, beauty and good ness, are finite, relative and to that degree mixed up with falsity, is to It and badness. and adventurous very ugliness risky transfer our self and our actions to the really real which is infinite, absolute We and self-sufficient. abstain from attributing selfhood to the therefore, may, we we must state and in that ourselves Infinite; trying to think we meant when what is of conceive the Infinite as the through source of the finite, fall into the trap of contradiction. After all, the itself, whereby human mind the is which self the self represents thinking always of a concrete individual person. Only in this sense is subjectivity existence and of the finitude of the world the source of negative in which we live. This world is finite, because the human self ness, attain to absolute truth, beauty and good but only to their broken copies. contradict We ourselves, we aim at the understanding the very moment of the therefore, in real. We fail absolute the unbroken, undisturbed, grasping is finite and can never ourselves means and ultimately contradiction originally or that the human mind contradicts that we contradict

access

even

WHAT ISREALLY REAL?

nature

359

are finite in thinking, of the Infinite, because we ourselves in and and the logical, the aesthetic too, creating acting?finite, our the moral fields of activity. The contradiction from the

the wall that separates us is, as it were, This of free and unencumbered the sight really real. of ours we can understand In contradiction well. fact, we very we not could understand the could not understand ourselves, if our knowledge broken status of our existence, did not lead into us from seeing the Infinite in that prevents From the outset we conceive purity, splendour and glory. Only because we really real from our own point of view. a broken world, we ourselves are entangled because only this impasse relative and the all its of the live in

in the we as do of conceive the real the finite, really as the Self-sufficient Infinite and the Absolute, and the Self can never take the place of the Infinite itself and We existent. are from look that place upon the Infinite. Contradictions therefore the necessary, of the really the real. inevitable restrictions laid upon our

knowledge This

in and by our self finds its clarification knowledge our In self-under standing can grant us fact, only understanding. we in which have to assess and to interpret the right perspective our knowledge of the Infinite. is reasonable only on Ontology the ground of "heautology" (if I may use a word that I first used or logic of the self. a doctrine about 30 years i.e., ago), tion. is always in the last analysis our own self-contradic a self can contradict itself, and only the human, i.e., Only the finite self does contradict it cannot arrive at itself, because in the The and perfect is truth, beauty and goodness. Logic of the thinking last analysis upon the self-identity so-called law of contradiction is a law for the sake of

Contradiction

the absolute rooted self.

the self-preservation of this self. and badness negate not only the positive Falsehood, ugliness, also the values, negate they reality and the integrity of the self. The self, therefore, is always wherever concerned, reality and truth are concerned. The human self being a finite self is involved as long as it is entangled in negative in a life and death struggle for negative that the self exists only existence means existence, on a lower level and to a lesser degree; its existence is encumbered

360
by contradiction in the portion in the logical

RICHARDKRONER

or dispro sphere, by disharmony or and aesthetic depravity sphere by wickedness to in the moral existence means writh respect Negative sphere. Its own reality is at stake the self that it is not really real itself.

its integrity, and moral. logical, aesthetic together with state that the human or finite self One might thus rightfully itself, as long as it lives and acts in this world for in that negates world the really real is no longer really real but partly negated. the real The human self, not the really real as such, is therefore of negativity. and faultiness diminish Error, insensitivity, in which we the reality and the value of the world live. They the man's real their make degrade really by imperfection. They and finite. negative altogether thus necessarily and self leads to contradiction Negativity or The merely formal negation of a proposition contradiction. as which the negative the Kantians took the model proposition existence as rejecting and pattern of all negation, falsity, is itself based upon of the ontological formal contradicts negation falsity; negativity to to the false in order and the truth. rectify thinking approach in the merely Contradiction formal sense is nothing but gainsay ing. But we would not have which action ontological alarms us and provokes and its very reality. Ontological therefore, always self-contradiction the logic, All ontology an ontology ontology contradiction to gainsay, if it were not that the is originally self-contradiction for the sake of the self's of integrity is, source

i.e., contradiction, of the thinking self. Heautology is not merely it is the ontology of the finite self.

or the negativity negativity at the same time ontological

existence

is finally ontology of self. We cannot establish as we have seen, such an of the really real, because leads into the impasse of unavoidable and insoluble and because to the It is true, it would be absurd to ascribe these self-contradiction and self-negation of the the ontology of the self also leads but these contradictions constitute self which and partly being finite unreal or

contradictions, contradictions supremely to unavoidable real.

contradictions, the very essence and substance of the finite is bound to be only partly real or positive

REAL? WHAT ISREALLY

negative; it is bound to contradict we itself ontologically

361
or heauto

of this finite self live is the world and imperfect broken, contradictory it without ourselves mending by re our the of wholeness self which is and construing degraded our own debased and But by deficiency insufficiency. being we can never hope to finite and deficient, what we are, namely so that our and the mend and our world ourselves sufficiently and is, therefore, cannot itself. We finite, mend We deficiencies would be completely world's erased and compensated. can never hope to illusion, escape ignorance, completely fallacies and deceptions in the logical realm as we can never hope to make up for our lack of sensitivity and imaginative creativity or for our faultiness, negligence are definitely self-contradictory realm. frailty in the moral who in the beings participate but in real it and really partly negate thinking, creating, acting. to the very root of our We contradict ourselves down If we state that our finite nature is the source or pre existence. we contradict of our deficiencies, because we condition ourselves, and

logically. The world

in which

We

that being what we are we cannot help doing what presuppose we do, i.e., diminishing our selfhood, our value, our reality and the distance between and the really ourselves thereby magnifying real. know that the really But on the other hand we morally for this diminu real cannot and should not be made responsible
tion and degradation but that rather we ourselves, or more

precisely each of us in his own way and to his own degree, brings about this diminution and degradation. At the bottom we thus
have a self-diminution and self-degradation, and, therefore, we

can

say But

paradoxically,
its ground.

the

effect

produces

its

cause

or

the

consequent

selfhood,
are because

is just the root and the origin of our this contradiction as it is also its nature and substance. We are what we
we are not really real, or because our existence is

negative dictory, does not

in its ultimate constitution so that no statement about contain this stigma.

and, therefore, can be made ourselves

self-contra that

1 am not what

a real self, but always only on the way goal of full and true selfhood. My real

I am, for I am not toward or away from the status is not Being but

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RICHARDKRONER

which of positivity and negati Becoming, implies the alternative even construction and destruction. And I act when vity, a still of is in immanent the action. positively, portion negativity No finite ego can ever get rid of this portion altogether. No finite a really real ego or self. ego can ever hope to become Only an infinite self, should such a self exist, can say about itself: I am Every finite self has always to admit that it is not a self in the unstinted sense of the word. it is, namely Of the three realms of self-contradiction the moral realm comes nearest to the root of the finite self, because the self is there concerned with its own integrity directly. self Therefore, moral or should I say, the is not only the most contradiction personal, most central contradiction, but it is also the most It original. and illuminates in all the other the contradictions interprets what realm does the self Only in the moral in the logical and the aesthetic spheres the self exist that itself. outside the moral contemplates objects Only to the nature clue the of the and gives experience original constitutional and self-contradiction of the finite ego. self-negation We must conclude, therefore, that, if there is any solution of this basic problem, it has to be of a moral kind. Only what know itself, while morally ontological
real and

who

I am.

realms

of

life and world.

resolves
ourselves.

the

problem

self-contradiction, the relation concerning Union

basic

resolves between

the the

basic really

Theological

Seminary.