Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics

by Michael Novak

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.brThis is an OCR edition with typos.brExcerpt from book#58;brCHAPTER III. Ontology And Epistemology. The conclusions of the two preceding chapters have led us to a further problem which we shall here be forced to face. If it be true that thought does in point of fact express the nature of things, then it would seem to follow that the science of thought is the science of things, that ontology and epistemology coincide. In this connection two questions arise#58; Does Hegel identify the two? And if so, what does he mean by the identification and what justification is there for it? It is to the task of answering these questions that we now address ourselves. To the first of the above questions there can, I think, be only one answer. Hegel does identify logic and metaphysics. In the first place, we have his own explicit statement on the point. Since thoughts are "Objective Thoughts," he says, "Logic therefore coincides with metaphysics, the science of things set and held in thoughts#151;thoughts accredited able to express the essential reality of things."1 Besides such an explicit statement, one might offer as evidence the whole logical bias of the Hegelian philosophy which is unquestionably towards this identification. Since the categories "really are, as forms of the Notion, the vital spirit of the actual world," and since things or objects which do not agree with them are accidental, arbitrary, and untrue phenomena ;3 since the universal aspect of the object is not something subjective attributed to it only when it is an object of thought, but ratherbelongs to and expresses its essential nature, it follows that the science which has to do with these universals is ipso facto the science of reality. This science, of course, is logic. Logic, therefore, is metaphysics.4 lEnc., sect; 24. 'Ibid., sect; 162. 'Cf. Werke, Bd. V, p. 231. Notice also H...

Genres: Politics

Hardcover

First published April 1, 1972

About the author

Michael Novak is an American Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat. He is George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute

Novak served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1981 and 1982 and led the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1986.

In 1993 Novak was honored with an honorary doctorate degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquín] due to his commitment to the idea of liberty. In 1994 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.