Ratio et Fides - Robert E. Wood

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the modern papal tradition, he also, subtly and without calling attention to it, reverses elements of that papal tradition in the light of the study and development of tradition as a whole launched by Vatican II.

      The overall aim of the encyclical is to restore trust in reason and to recover philosophy’s dignity (6/16; 56/75) in order to “develop for the future an original, new, and constructive mode of thinking” (85/107), a philosophy not restricted to repeating antique formulae (97/119), but open to all that human inquiry uncovers. The understanding of the faith itself grows through that inquiry. That is why the pope underscores the importance—indeed, the indispensability—of the study of philosophy for the priesthood (62/81).

      QUESTIONS

      1. What is the main thesis of the book? What is its basic claim? What reasons are offered to support the claim?

      2. What do you understand by “faith”? By “reason”? Identify the various passages in which the pope explains what he means by these terms.

      3. Consider the basic outline of the text. Is it like a shopping list or is there some basis for the order?

      4. What do you understand by “philosophy”? Do you have a philosophy? What is the basis for it?

      5. President Bush said that his favorite philosopher was Jesus. Would the pope say that? What does the pope understand by “philosophy”? How is it related to “theology”? How are both related to “faith”?

      6. List the thinkers favored by the pope. List the philosophical and theological positions he does not favor. What are his reasons for favoring or not?

      7. What are we to do with the plurality of philosophies, theologies, and faiths? Why is there this plurality?

      8. What are the “current requirements and tasks”?

      FURTHER READINGS

      1. Kenneth Schmitz, At the Centre of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla / Pope John Paul II.

      2. George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II.

      3. D. Foster and J. Koterski, eds., Two Wings of Catholic Thought: Essays on Fides et Ratio. An expository collection.

      4. L. Hemming and S. Parsons, eds., Restoring Faith in Reason. A Latin-English text, a commentary, and a reaction by people from different traditions.

      * * * *

      PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE MAILBOX

      Grant unto us men the skill, O God, in a little thing to descry those notions as be common to things both great and small.

      —Augustine, Confessions, XI, 23

      INTRODUCTION

      Fides et Ratio spoke of several levels of truth: first of everyday experience, second of the sciences, third of philosophy, and fourth of religion (FR §30 / p. 42). They are all both distinguished and linked. The first three have their origins in common human experience independent of revelation; the fourth depends upon revelation, i.e., upon special human experience. That might be said of any religion. In this exercise we will focus attention upon common human experience—at least in our culture which is literate and has a mail system: we will explore the structures of experience found in doing a phenomenological description of a mailbox. Though not all cultures are literate and have mail systems, many of the features of experience involved in knowing and using the mailbox are found in cultures generally. And Fides et Ratio from the very beginning (FR 1/9) sets our sights upon Eastern as well as Western cultures.

      Everyday experience is presupposed by the other levels. Even revelation is addressed to everyday experience. Fides et Ratio claims that God comes to us in the things we know best and can verify most easily, the things of our everyday life, apart from which we cannot understand ourselves (FR 12/21). Science itself takes root in and presupposes ordinary experience. The evidence that science appeals to is based upon looking and manipulating as well as upon linguistic communication. The latter is not only that which appears in scientific literature but that which is used by scientists when they talk to one another: Can you fix this spectroscope? How about a cigarette? (Horrors!) What are you doing for lunch? A scientist might even say, Lord, help me to see things aright and make a contribution to my field! None of this is communicated in scientific language.

      We already know how to operate in the sensory environment and in the world of everyday linguistic communication before, during, and after we set about engaging in science. Being involved in the everyday world, doing science, and living religiously present the data that philosophers reflect upon. So, before we set about these other tasks, it is important to reflect upon what we always already know as fully formed adults. Such knowledge is purely functional and is usually not made explicit. Often what we might think about experience—our “theories” about it—do not match what we know in the mode of “how to,” but not in the mode of explicit description. We might, for example, think that knowing is a matter of sense experience alone and that it takes place inside our head, as a matter of brain processes—though the deliverances of ordinary experience speak against those views.

      The article employs the method singled out by the John Paul as the phenomenological method (FR 59/78). (He wrote his own doctoral dissertation on the German phenomenologist Max Scheler.) The term “phenomenology” is derived from the Greek terms phainomenon or “appearance” and logos or the attempt to get at essential, universal, and necessary features (the same as in bio-logy, psycho-logy, theo-logy). The fancy term for the universal and necessary is “the eidetic” from the Greek word eidos which translates as “type” or “kind” or “form.” Phenomenology is based upon careful description of the essential types of features of things appearing and of modes of attending to that appearing. Using the phenomenological method of isolating essential features involved in such appearance, the piece that follows distinguishes several aspects involved in recognizing and utilizing a mailbox.

      The first is the level of so-called empirical objectivity. What that technical philosophic expression indicates is the environment of things presenting themselves through our senses “objectively,” that is over-against us (from the Latin ob-jectum, that which is cast—jectum, from iacere, to throw—over against—ob, as in “obstacle”). The term “empirical” is from the Greek empeiria or experience. We see, handle, hear, smell, and taste things: that is the realm of empirical objectivity. The senses are the ways in which we come to know things; they are the immediate phase of how things appear to us; they present the original phenomena. John Paul says that it is a great challenge at the end of the millennium to move from phenomenon to foundation (FR 83/105). Our descriptions will prepare the way for that.

      The second aspect is most important: it is that of our own consciousness. It is the crucial feature in following the command “Know thyself” with which Fides et Ratio begins and which originates in the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi followed by Socrates (FR 1/9). How do you think about your own consciousness? It is surely that which is most intimate to you. But it is not like the things that appear to consciousness. It has no color, shape, smell, etc. No one can touch it. And it is not locked into what the senses deliver: through our reflective awareness we can come to know something about the senses that the senses do not immediately deliver. Human awareness not only senses, it reflects. Most significant, it can know the universal, necessary features of each of the sensory fields, not simply the individual things that happen to appear within them. Awareness is not an object, but the central feature of the subject who knows objects; it is the sphere of subjectivity. Its most crucial feature is the employment of the notion of Being, an odd notion that includes absolutely everything, and everything about everything; but it includes it all initially in an empty manner. That is, we do not know everything, but we are by nature referred to everything in the mode of a set of questions peculiar to humans: What’s it all about? How do we fit into the whole scheme of things? What is this “whole scheme”? Religions and philosophies are attempted answers to those questions. That is closely linked to the John Paul’s calling for a recovery and renewal of the philosophy of being (97/119).

      Third, the mailbox is not given by nature but by human artifice: it is an arti-fact. In order to make

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