Modern Philosophical Presuppositions in The Doctrine Of Substance (or on “having” and “seeing” ideas) Cover Image

Presupoziţii filosofice moderne în Doctrina substanţei (sau despre „a avea” şi „a vedea” idei)
Modern Philosophical Presuppositions in The Doctrine Of Substance (or on “having” and “seeing” ideas)

Author(s): Anton Adămuț
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Editura Lumen, Asociatia Lumen
Keywords: Descartes; Kant; Hegel; logic; dialectics; substance; concrete; intuition

Summary/Abstract: Camil Petrescu owes Plato a lot. He owes, maybe, even more to moderns, to Descartes, Kant and Hegel especially. From Descartes he does not take just the method, but also the result – the cogito, not less the intuition. Camil will be disturbed by the excess of the deductive procedure to which Descartes appeals. The great lack of the Cartesian formula is that not even for one moment does it achieve precisely what it had initially intended to draw from cogito: the existence of the necessary external reality. Then, the Copernican revolution of Kantian type consists in moving the center of gravity from object to subject as far as the knowledge of object is regarded. With this, it is said, Kant lays the foundation of modern science and certainty, once reached, becomes necessary and universal. In reality, Camil Petrescu states, with this Copernican turning, Kant did not lay the foundation of modern science but of dialectical thinking, without suspecting the significance of dialectical thinking. The Kantian turning must be “returned”, Camil believes, returned in such a way that the subject and the world of necessity are face to face. As far as Hegel is concerned, the idea and notion of concrete did not lack from his philosophy, but they were faithful companions of Hegelianism. The claim regarding the possession of concrete was, for Hegel, absolute. His dialectical logic only intends to be a logic of concrete absolute. Hegel will however mistake the theory of concrete with the concrete itself. He wants a complete concrete and has only a complete concept of concrete. Hegel had the essential intuition of dialectical becoming, but he did not understand, not even by far, its meaning. In the following study I will stop at three philosophical relations of substantialism with modern philosophy and which the Romanian thinker considers implicit and from which he parts explicitly, I do not know if rightfully!

  • Issue Year: II/2013
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 15-31
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Romanian