Commentary on Dahlstrom’s freely accessible article. You can find it (and other wonderful articles) here:
https://www.bu.edu/philo/profile/daniel-o-dahlstrom/
https://www.bu.edu/philo/files/2019/09/d-being-and-beinggrounded.pdf
Dahlstrom is one of the greatest philosophers alive, and familiar with Heidegger’s thought like none other. I’ve been rereading some of his articles lately; and am now working through his article on Leibniz+Heidegger and their respective understandings of “rationality,” “reason,” “ground.”
After a short introduction in which Dahlstrom illustrates the issue, we’ll find this great paragraph:
Here, we have it all: Leibniz in the blue corner, Heidegger in the red corner. Ready – Set – Fight! It’s not a boxing match, of course. What’s on the line here might be even more pressing, urgent, and dangerous than the well-being of two athletes: The principle of sufficient reason! Nihil est sine ratione, later: principium reddendae rationis sufficientis.
You can familiarize yourself with it on the wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason – and there’s a brilliant book on it by Stefan Schmidt called Grund und Freiheit: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-20574-8
For a long time, I tried to understand the link between that principle of sufficient reason (and its different interpretations) and modernity. For some reason, here it is not only Leibniz but also Schopenhauer who becomes important to Heidegger’s own thought. Schopenhauer, whom Heidegger does not even count to the inner circle of “philosophers”, important or unimportant ones.
Dahlstrom takes on this challenge for us. A mysterious distinction comes up between reason (Grund) and ground (Boden) that leads us directly into one of the most important questions for Heidegger-scholarship: What is the rationality of Heidegger’s thought?
The thesis is: “thanks to pursuit of the sufficient reason of beings, we lose sight of being as the ground for beings”. We could on first sight understand this thesis as: modern rationality is but only one form of rationality. A very dominant one. Excluding other forms of rationality. Making it (almost) impossible for us modern people to even imagine something not-rational that is not automatically irrational. And yet, getting this right – understanding that the criticism of modern rationality does not lead into irrationality – is essential for thought.
This is the aim of Dahlstrom’s article:
In his first chapter, Dahlstrom explains Leibniz’s principle by drawing attention to its ontological status. We would misunderstand it if we took it as a “statement”. Rather, as a principle, it determines what it means for a thing to be at all (cf. 129). That this principle “holds” (ist gültig) of true propositions is only secondary, in the sense that it is derived from being an ontological determinant of things.
Dahlstrom also explains why the universality of this principle does not interfere with the idea of absolute freedom or the contigency of the world. (cf. 131-2 (Leibniz’ Compatabilism)) (based on a distinction between the factical and the necessary ground of the factical, resembling the distinction between ground and ground of existence that will become so important for Schelling’s Philosophy).
This reconstruction is difficult to follow if not familiar with the intrincacies of Leibniz’ arguments, for example for logical necessity of God’s creation of the best possible world. What’s important to the dialogue between Leibniz and Heidegger is the way Leibniz’ seeks to think-together the contingency of the world and the universality of the principle of sufficient reason. Here, Dahlstrom:
What becomes more and more obvious is that a distinction might be necessary between Leibniz himself and his treatment of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR, for short) and the metaphysical status of that principle and the fundamental role it played for modernity. If Heidegger’s criticism misses its mark when directed at Leibniz himself, it might nonetheless still hit bullseye when directed at the metaphysical interpretation.
Now, for Heidegger Leibniz is mainly a metaphysician, one of being-historical magnitude and significance (which means that his thinking shaped history (or, as Heidegger would perhaps phrase it: his thinking is shaped by history (the history of beyng) as if Leibniz is the spokesperson for the secret and underlying development of our understanding of being)). Heidegger does not differentiate between Leibniz’ metaphysics and his logic, he does not extract an epistemology from it, an ethics, a theology; but tries to think all of these aspects as expressions of the underlying metaphysics.
For Heidegger’s understanding of L’s principle of sufficient reason (PSR) this implies that the principle itself must be examined in regard to its metaphysical implications. Dahlstrom writes about the aspect of “reddere”: “This stipulation, Heidegger contends, implicates the standard reading of the principle in modernity’s project of absolutizing subjectivity, since it is precisely the knowing subject to whom the ground or reason is supposed to be given. … Heidegger maintains that the sort of knowing in question here for Leibniz is scientific and the ground or reason to be given is that of a true sentence or assertion in the context of proof or justification.” (136)
What happens here, at least as Heidegger sees it, is a turning (Umschlag) where the principle’s full significance comes to light. If read like Heidegger wants us to read it, with the emphasis on “giving-reasons”, only that for which the sufficient reason can be given exists. In this case, the praxis of reason-giving turns into an ontological determinant of the being of beings. Not: beings dictate how reasons can be given, but: reason dictates what can be, hence, what “is”.
And as Dahlstrom points out, “reason-giving” is thereby limited to scientific reasons, explanations, true assertions, proofs in the context of the mathematical sciences (cf. 136). There is, with other words, a narrowing down of all possible interpretations of the principle to those limited to (modern) subjectivity.
Dahlstrom shows that for Heidegger the “reddendae” in the more advanced version of the principle is the most decisive aspect of the principle. If what “is” is determined by the praxis of reason-giving and this praxis is then understood as the scientific praxis of providing proofs, making true assertions about objects, then not only the world of possible beings is reduced to assertable objects, but also, by virtue of the aspect of the reddendum, which is understood as “giving-back” reasons, the further limitation is linked up with the subject to whom the reasons must be given back. The subject thereby becomes the one in charge: both of providing reasons and of approving them. Here, the reasonable, rational subject is both: the judge and the one whose job is it to provide the reasons. ~ The Empowering of the Modern Subject.
However, as Dahlstrom points out, Heidegger seems to ignore that for Leibniz the one who gives the reasons and for whom creating and reason-giving is the same, namely God, is not in lack of these reasons. It is not the case, for Leibniz at least, that the subject is the one coming up with reasons that need to be “given back” in order for things to be. This “subjective turn” that Heidegger sees in Leibniz’ later version of the principle and his emphasis on the “reddendum” is perhaps initiated but not yet accomplished.
Again, Heidegger might be right about the historical transformations of the principle that came after Leibniz, but he is ignoring the nuances of Leibniz’ position. Dahlstrom concludes (139):
In Heidegger’s nonstandard reading the principle is primarily an expression of the empowering of the modern subject – empowering itself, overpowering the world:
For Leibniz at least, there is no reduction of the principle of sufficient reason to what the subject can do (scientifically or else). In the centuries that followed Leibniz, the emphasis on the “reddendum”, this demand for providing reasons, certainly underwent a transformation, a narrowing down of possible interpretations, where, as we already said, what counts as reasons, as sufficiency, as the one giving and approving reasons, was more and more limited to the modern human subject’s rationality: the animal rationale in the very modern understanding of rationality.
For Heidegger, as Dahlstrom points out many times, thereby the principle of sufficient reason became the defining principle of modernity. And it is exactly this demand, this necessity of giving reason back to the subject, thereby rendering the subject the master of reason(ing), empowering it, that Heidegger deems to be ignored, misunderstood. In it, as Dahlstrom quotes Heidegger: “lies the aspect of the unconditioned and thoroughgoing claim to supplying the mathematically-technically computable grounds, the total ‘rationalization’ ” (SvG 173) (here: 139).
- What the Principle of Sufficient Reason Presupposes:
Being as a Groundless Ground
In order to understand Heidegger’s position, it is important to note that Heidegger tried to find a way of thinking “reason”, “ground”, “grounding” (begründen) in a manner that is not limited to the (capacities of the) human subject. What I mean by this is that for Heidegger the ground for something is not necessarily one that we as humans, by virtue of reason, provided. Reason-giving, asking for reasons, providing reasons, is derivative of the more primary “activity” of being which “grounds” beings.
A shift of emphasis happened, from this primordial grounding activity of being (however conceived) to the grounding activities of the human subject, that coincides with modernity and with the reinterpretation of the principle of sufficient reason. Heidegger sees this shift manifested in the reddendum: instantiating the reasoning subject as the judge and presenter of reasons.
“Begründen”, as it is understood in modern times, is an activity precisely suited to fit the demands of modern science. It means, roughly, to provide the causa for the observable effects, explaining unknown processes by tracing them back to known processes, and doing so in a manner that is not bound to one singular individuum nor to one singular moment in time but rather to all subjects and in all possible situations (the criteria for objectivity are: trans-subjectivity trans-occasionality). The demand for “trans-subjectivity” of justification has no place for the individuality and alterity of subjects. Therefore, the subjects must be “the same”, at least metaphysically.
What Heidegger is aiming at is, at minimum, a critique of this practice of narrowing reason(ing) down to only include this kind of scientific reasoning. While perfectly suited to generate “objective knowledge”, that is secured knowledge of objects, its applicability ends where one is not dealing with objects. “Objectivity” is only universal, if this universality is gained by restricting “all that is” to objects.
“Begründen” already means something completely different in the realm of politics and morality where decisions must be “justified” by someone capable of “free” decisions, thereby taking responsibility for one’s actions.
In the realm of philosophy, as Heidegger understands it, we’re first of all not only dealing with objects. Secondly, the claim of the metaphysical sameness of the subject cannot be justified. Its justification stems from the need to secure knowledge. It serves an epistemological demand but does not match any experience. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, philosophers have understood that the reasoning-capabilities of the human subject (whatever they are) are derivative and dependent in many regards. Human reasoning is bound to a body, bound to a society, bound to a specific context and situation, bound to history, bound to a specific understanding of being, and based on that primordial grounding activity that Heidegger always emphasizes – in short, it is nested in a complex set of presuppositions. Any reasoning ignorant of these presuppositions is doing so without paying attention to what is essential to it. It must be called “naive”, “ignorant”, “blind”. Enlightenment that is unaware of its history is in danger of turning into horrendous tyranny.
Back to Dahlstrom’s great article: Now, Heidegger, when he talks about the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), draws attention to that primary grounding activity that is never in need of the reasoning of the subject but rather grounds any possible reasoning. Every reasoning-activity (modern science, morality, common sense, philosophy, and so on), is dependent upon a “clearing” which is one of many words that Heidegger uses to describe this deepest level of presuppositions.
Dahlstrom referring to Heidegger about this “clearing”:
Not paying attention to what grounds beings, what happened instead, historically, is that rationality was identified with subjectivity, meaning, that what it means to be human is exactly this: asking for and giving reasons. The a priori conditions for (the being of) objects are “located” in the subject and thereby identified with the rationality of the subject. As Heidegger tries to show in reference to Kant, the subject now is in charge of the objectivity of the objects. It “holds” the conditions for the ob-iectivity of objects. The Subject is the essence (the substance) of objects.
In regards to the principle of sufficient reason, it is the subject who is equipped with the sufficient reasons for what it means for something to be at all. While for Leibniz, the principle was still bound up with the creation of things by and through God, relying on the work of Aquinas, and only the “reddendum” pointed to the intellectus of the individuum, it is now (with Kant, Heidegger argues) the human transcendental subject who holds and is in charge of these reasons. Nobody implied that humans are capable of creating objects. Rather, what happened is that the intellect, the rationality of the human subject, became the determinant of what things “are.” The “createdness by God” became the “constitutedness by the transcendental subject”. ~ and as Dahlstrom mentions in the footnote, it is the ancestral paradigma of “creation” (Her-stellung) that allows this transformation to happen.
In the words of Heidegger (here quoted on p. 141):
Tomorrow: more!