REDUCTIONISM AS ABSENTMINDEDNESS: EXISTENTIALISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY AS STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING PERSONHOOD

C. STEPHEN EVANS Western Kentucky University

I. The Nature of the Person: What Is To Be Defended I wish to defend personhood, not to explain it. Obviously, however, one must have some idea of what is to be defended. I shall begin, therefore, with a very brief, relatively simple, philosophical unelaborated description of what I take human persons to be. A person is first and foremost an agent, a responsible decision-maker. A person is a being who makes choices, and who is at least partially responsible for some of those choices. And we rightly hold persons responsible for choices only when we regard those choices as free, or as stemming from previous free choices. Many other characteristics of human beings can be seen, with a little thought, to be necessary conditions for being responsible agents. Persons must be conscious and self-conscious, since a non-conscious being cannot properly be said to choose, and a nonself-conscious being cannot be a responsible chooser. As self-conscious agents, persons must be knowers, so as to be able to anticipate the consequences of their choices. As self-conscious agents, persons must be imaginative and creative, so as to be able to envision new possibilities, both for action and knowledge. In all of these contexts, both theoretical and practical, the conscious self must be regarded as possessing an essential unity. Since human persons are choosers, they are also necessarily valuers, for to choose is to value. They are certainly not purely rational thinking machines, for their actions stem from what they value as much as what they know. A human person is one who desires, loves, wants, wishes, dislikes, and abhors all kinds of states of affairs and experiences, possibilities as well as actualities. H u m a n persons do not exist, of course, as monads. Their selfhood is bound up from their earliest days with their relation to others. A person thinks of himself as the child of particular parents, a member of a particular church, a citizen of a particular state, a resident in a particular Man and Worm 14:175-188 (1981) 0025-1534/81/0142-0175 $02.10. 9 1981 Martinus N~jhoff Publishers bv, The Hague. Printed in the Netherlands.

176 neighbourhood. However, it is important to see that, at least ideally and potentially, in a mature person these social relations are not external, objective facts existing independently of his consciousness and determining him in some mechanistic manner. They are human realities which the person consciously identifies with and participates in. Thus, in participating in these communities, the identity of the self as a unified, responsible individual is not lost but affirmed. Many other elements could doubtless be added to this brief description. Interesting questions arise, for example, about the relationship between the person and his body. Though it is evident that human persons are embodied, that there is an essential unity of a person with his body, it is not at all evident that a person is identical with his body. I am prepared to argue, in fact, that a full understanding of personhood precludes identifying a person with a body, at least if the body is viewed simply as a material object in the world and not as the expression of or form of my personhood. That, however, is a topic for another paper. To avoid misunderstanding, let me try to summarize what I have and have not claimed: 1) I have claimed that persons are at least partially responsible for some of their actions. Persons are therefore at least partially responsible for being what they are and becoming what they become. I shall call this characteristic of persons their autonomy. It is important to recognize that the autonomy of human persons is incomplete and relative in character. 2) I have not claimed that persons exist independently of their past and their environment, both natural and human. Human choices occur in a context which always limits those choices, usually weights them, and sometimes (perhaps for some unfortunate people frequently) eliminates any free choice altogether.

II. The Problem: The Reductionistic Attack

Having briefly explained what is to be defended, the next question is, " W h y does personhood need defending?" Why do we find it troublesome or difficult to believe in our personhood today? The answer to that is obviously complex, but a big part of it is surely bound up with the development in the twentieth century of scientific approaches to the study o f the human person which seem to minimize or destroy the thesis that human beings are responsible agents. Let me be very careful here to note that I am not making a blanket indictment against psychology, sociology, and other human sciences. It is

177 n o t h a r d to p o i n t to i m p o r t a n t h u m a n scientists who have supported our basic, o r d i n a r y u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f what it is to be a person. A n d many scientists who have p o i n t e d o u t the extent to which we are n o t responsible agents are n o t necessarily o p p o n e n t s of p e r s o n h o o d . T h e y m a y simply be u n d e r l i n i n g the relative a n d partial character of o u r a u t o n o m y , and, b y giving us m o r e insight into the causal factors which shape us, give us the p o t e n t i a l to increase that a u t o n o m y . So what follows is not i n t e n d e d as a diatribe against psychology or the social sciences. Nevertheless, even s o m e o n e w h o is appreciative o f these sciences c a n n o t help noticing tendencies which u n d e r m i n e o u r belief in p e r s o n h o o d . These tendencies are most clearly p r o n o u n c e d in m a i n - l i n e behavioristic psychology, b u t they are n o t limited to those areas. Nevertheless, the m o s t extreme cases m a k e good illustrations since the p r o b l e m is there m o s t acute. A classic example is f o u n d in J.B. W a t s o n , the f o u n d e r o f behaviorism: Behaviorism, as I tried to develop it in my lectures at Columbia in 1912 and in my earliest writings, was an attempt to do one thing - to apply to the experimental study of man the same kind of procedure and the same language of description that many research men had found so useful for so many years in the study of animals lower than men. We believed then, as we do now, that man is an animal different from other animals only in the type of behavior he displays.1 W a t s o n sees very clearly that this a p p r o a c h to studying m a n conflicts with the t r a d i t i o n a l view o f p e r s o n h o o d . It leads to r e d u c t i o n i s m : Human beings do not want to class themselves with other animals. They are willing to admit that they are animals but "something else in addition." It is this "something else" that causes the trouble. In this "something else" is bound up everything that is classed as religion, the life hereafter, morals, love of children, parents, country, and the like. The raw fact that you, as a psychologist, if you are to remain scientific, must describe the behavior of man in no other terms than those you would use in describing the behavior of the ox you slaughter, drove and still drives many timid souls away from behaviorism.2 N o w I a m well aware that m a n y behaviorists, n o t to m e n t i o n other types o f h u m a n scientists, w o u l d w a n t to distance themselves f r o m W a t s o n . W a t s o n ' s views are extreme a n d his b e h a v i o r i s m was crude. But j u s t because he is extreme a n d crude, the tendencies we w a n t to highlight can be m o r e easily seen. A n d once seen, those tendencies can be observed in some m o r e sophisticated, less crude thinkers. W h a t are these tendencies? The threat to p e r s o n h o o d in W a t s o n stems f r o m two c o r r e s p o n d i n g a n d m u t u a l l y reinforcing c o m m i t m e n t s . First, there is a c o m m i t m e n t to a metaphysical n a t u r a l i s m . I n W a t s o n ' s words, h u m a n beings are a n i m a l s and nothing else. They are simply p r o d u c t s o f n a t u r e , a n d n o essential difference b e t w e e n h u m a n beings a n d other n a t u r a l creatures is to be c o u n t e n a n c e d .

178 The second commitment is to a mechanistic model of explanation. Since human beings are not essentially different from other animals who are viewed simply as products of nature, it is appropriate to describe and explain human activity in the same manner as one would describe and explain the behavior of these other animals. This model o f explanation is essentially a mechanistic causal one. H u m a n behavior is completely determined, and the job of the scientist is simply to discover the laws which will account for that behavior. It is important to note that it is the conjunction of these two commitments which leads to reductionism. Thus there are naturalists who avoid mechanism and thereby avoid reductionism. John Dewey and some neo-Marxists might serve as examples of this option. Alternatively, there are mechanists who avoid reductionism in their view of the person by placing mechanism in the context of a non-naturalistic ontology. D.M. MacKay might serve as a good illustration of this option. The two commitments to naturalism and mechanism often cloak themselves in the name of the " u n i t y of science" doctrine, the idea that all sciences essentially employ the same method, a doctrine which usually in practice means that the human sciences are to pattern themselves after the natural sciences. Here the natural sciences are understood in basically empiricist terms, as employing covering-laws which are verifiable by objective observation, and which therefore mention only observables among the variables. Now it seems to me that some psychologists or sociologists who are very far from the crudity and extremism of a Watson have still been influenced by these two commitments. Some standard textbooks still insist that in a truly scientific psychology, sociology, or anthropology, human beings must be treated as purely natural creatures, whose behavior must be explained by deterministic laws, which have to be empirically testable. And the net result of this is an emphasis on the human person as a product who has no real role in his own shaping. The relative autonomy of the person is denied or minimized. The traditional view of the person, while viewing the person as solidly part of nature, does not view human persons as merely products of nature. One might say that it is part of human nature to have a role in its own shaping. Sartre's claim that existence precedes essence may be extreme, but it is surely a feature of the traditional view of persons that within limits they are self-determining.

III. Strategies for Defending Humanizing Science

the

Person:

Limiting

Science

and

How can we avoid reductionism without lapsing into the posture of an

179 irrational, obscurantist opponent of science? Can we work out a modus vivendi which will preserve the essential elements of personhood while recognizing the legitimate insights and discoveries of the human sciences? I believe a careful look will reveal two basic strategies have been employed to do this. The first is the strategy of the person I call the Limiter of Science. The second is the strategy of the individual I have termed the Humanizer of Science. These two responses are closely related and may be reconcilable, but I believe it is useful to distinguish them, at least initially. Let me stress that these options are not merely the positions of people responding to the sciences, but are options which are being pursued by scientists as well. Let me try to explain these two strategies in some detail. The Limiter of Science concedes that science does and should operate in the way that reductionists advocate. To try to understand something scientifically is to treat it as a part of nature to be causally explained by laws which are empirically verifiable. However, the Limiter of Science claims that just because science is committed to this sort of method, science is necessarily limited. The limits are not arbitrary, nor are they imposed upon science by any third party. There are no areas which science cannot attempt to deal with. The limits are self-imposed and result from the commitment to scientific method. The scientific method might be compared to some special optical instrument like a microscope. While using the instrument we see things we might otherwise miss, but conversely we miss things we might be able to see without the instrument. Certain kinds of observations and certain kinds of entities are screened out in advance by the commitment of the scientist to look only for deterministic laws mentioning only entities which can be objectively discerned and preferably quantified. We have no reason, according to the Limiter of Science, to think that the knowledge gained from science is exhaustive. The claim that all knowledge is gained through science is not itself scientific but philosophical. The Limiter of Science insists that his quarrel is not with science, but scientism. However valuable scientific knowledge is, we have no grounds for absolutizing it, particularly when it comes to the human person. The Limiter insists that we must not reject other types of insights, insights which may be gleaned through self-reflection or empathetic observation of human beings, insights which may come via poetry, drama, painting, music, or religion, but which are no less true or valuable for being nonscientific. If the Limiter is himself a scientist he modestly goes about his business, secure in the knowledge that genuine science, when properly understood, is no threat to personhood. The goal of the Humanizer of Science is the same: the preservation of personhood. However, the Humanizer of Science is not willing to concede that the reductionist has adequately characterized the scientific method.

180 First of all, he may want to deny, as Thomas Kuhn and others have done, that there is such a thing as the scientific method. Science, as a human activity, is pluralistic, at least when understood historically. The empiricist description of science does not sufficiently recognize the contribution of the scientist to science, the extent to which the ideals of explanation which are sought and the basic observational concepts which are employed in science are brought to the data and even in part shape the data, rather than simply being derived from the data. The Humanizer of Science will insist that the reductionist understanding of science misfires, particularly when applied to human beings. Human behavior is basically meaning-filled and meaning-governed. To try. to observe human actions simply as quantifiable movements in the physical world is necessarily to miss the essential character of those actions. Human actions are not value-free bodily movements; they are value-charged, purposeful realities. Human beings not only act in accordance with rules; they act for the sake of rules. To understand, observe, and ultimately explain such a reality requires a "first-person" point of view. One must understand the rules of the agent. This requires an openness to teleological modes of explanation, modes of explanation which allow that an action may be made intelligible without being deterministically explained. The point is not that science must rely on introspection but that it must take seriously the categories of agency, categories which can be employed in observing our fellow agents. From the perspective of the Humanizer, the reductionist has misconstrued the essence of science. Not only has the reductionist misunderstood the natural sciences, he has taken his mistaken image of the natural sciences as a model for all science. The true method of science is not, however, to start with a rigid, a priori set of assumptions about scientific method which must be imposed on all areas in a Procrustean manner. Rather, true science adapts its methods of observation and explanation to the unique nature of the subject matter. The moral for the human sciences is clear. If human beings are unique, so should be the human sciences. To summarize, the Limiter rejects scientism, a philosophical thesis about the ultimacy and exclusiveness of scientific truth. The Humanizer concern is more with a particular philosophy of science; he rejects the view that the human sciences must pattern themselves after the natural sciences, especially when these sciences are characterized in a traditional empiricist manner.

IV.

Existentialism and P h e n o m e n o l o g y as Illustrations

The movements of existentialism and phenomenology provide an

181 interesting set of illustrations of these two strategies. They are not, of course, the only possible illustrations. We could just as well have employed classical or practicing psychologists or sociologists. Existentialism and phenomenology are particularly interesting, however, not only intrinsically, but because of the influence they have had on psychology and other sciences. How do I understand these two movements? Without attempting to define "existentialism" and " p h e n o m e n o l o g y " (an almost impossible task), let me make one simple observation. I regard the two movements as distinct though overlapping. There are some individuals, like Kierkegaard, whom I regard as existential thinkers, but not really phenomenologists, unless that term is used in an extremely broad sense. There are other thinkers, like Husserl himself, who are clearly phenomenologists but not existentialists. And, of course, there are some people, like Sartre, who have been both. I would like to claim that those who are more properly regarded as exclusively existentialists tend to be Limiters of Science, while those who tend to be phenomenologists but not existentialists tend to be Humanizers of Science. Kierkegaard and Husserl may serve as examples. In exploring their views further, more insight into the relation between existentialism and phenomenology will emerge. 1. Kierkegaard as Limiter of Science Obviously, Kierkegaard's major concern was with a particular type of speculative rationalism in philosophy, rather than with mechanistic sciences of human behavior, which did not really exist in his time. Nevertheless, the ground of his concern with speculation was the same issue - the preservation of the person as a responsible agent. His attack on Hegelianism was rooted in his belief that the installation of theoretical contemplation as man's highest end falsifies the human condition. One might say the problem with Hegelianism, as Kierkegaard saw it, is the opposite of reductionism, in that absolute idealism does not reduce man to the status of a mere animal but rather spiritualizes him to the status of an ethereal knower. But the end result is the same: the person is no longer seen as a responsible agent who has an obligation to give his life shape and direction through his choices. And this threat to personhood, like mechanistic reductionism, anchors its case in a detached objectivity which claims to b.e Reason. I think it is fair to say that Kierkegaard saw the essence of science to lie in this objectivising tendency, and that his attacks on speculative philosophy, which claimed to be scientific, could fairly be applied to anyone who seeks to extract from the sciences a comprehensive understanding of human life. Hence his thought can with justice be applied to contemporary reductionisms which claim to be anchored in science.

182 Kierkegaard's response to the threat to personhood generally took the form of conceding the nature and validity of objective thought, but emphasizing its limits, limits which are internally imposed by the very nature of disinterested thought. There are some exceptions to this in the Kierkegaardian literature, notably in the Sickness Unto Death, where the Anti-Climacus pseudonym seems to put forward a psychology which is supposed to be both exact and edifying (not to mention full-bloodedly Christian). But the general attitude in the Kierkegaardian literature is wellexpressed by Johannes Climacus, the pseudonymous author of the

Postscript. Only a very limited intelligence, or someone who cunninglywishes to guard himself against feeling impressed, could here assume that I am... playing the role of a vandal seeking to violate the sacred security of the precincts of science, and to have the cattle let loose; ... No, all honor to the pursuits of science, and all honor to everyonewho assists in driving the cattle away from the sacred precincts of scholarship. But the ethical is and remains the highest task for everyhuman being. One may ask even of the devotee of science that he should acquire an ethical understanding of himself before he devotes himself to scholarship, and that he should continue to understand himself ethically while immersed in his labors...3 Here Kierkegaard scrupulously refrains from attacking science. He simply wants to argue that science is not the whole of human life, but one activity in which humans choose to engage. One cannot therefore on the basis of science repudiate the belief that humans are responsible agents, since science is itself one sphere in which that agency is exercised, or at least ought to be exercised. The scientist or thinker who denies that man is pre-eminently an agent is therefore doing something very strange. He is ignoring an insight which he constantly must recognize. His problem is not that he lacks some knowledge which he could learn from some scientist or philosopher. He knows he is an "existing individual" but somehow does not recognize the implications of this for his own thinking. Kierkegaard calls this "systematic absentmindedness" and pokes a great deal of fun at it. The humor is not really malicious, though; it is therapeutic. It is intended to help the "objectiviser" open his eyes to what already lies in plain view. In a manner similar to Kierkegaard, the Limiter of Science expresses his appreciation for those scientific perspectives which treat human beings as if they had no autonomy. Such perspectives may teach us a great deal about the limitations of our autonomy by stressing the causal factors which shape our lives. But if someone enamored with such a perspective seeks to declare it to be the whole truth, the Limiter of Science calls a halt. Like Kierkegaard he is ready to insist that science itself is a human activity and that no sense can be made of science if one denies that the scientist is a responsible decision-maker, at least when he does his science. And, like

183 Kierkegaard, the Limiter of Science may use methods other than argument and science to make his point. His point is essentially one that is already known; what is missing is an appreciation of the truth, a human sensitivity which is perhaps best achieved through humor, drama, or poetry. I think that this concept of the Limiter of Science provides us with the real meaning of the so-called existentialist revolt against reason. Though I know existentialism has been accompanied at times with irrationalist rhetoric, on the whole I do not believe those individuals who have been termed existentialists were truly turning their backs on reason. They were simply insisting that human beings are primarily agents and that reason must be seen as an exercise of that agency. And they have insisted that this insight into the human condition is not derived from scientific reflection, but is accessible to human beings qua existers.

2. Husserl as Humanizer of Science One could hardly imagine two thinkers more different than Kierkegaard and Husserl. Kierkegaard saw it as his task to save the person from science; Husserl saw it as his task to save the person through science. Husserl's ideal from beginning to end was to make philosophy into a science. Philosophy must be a rigorous and exact science; it must be supremely scientific because it must provide a foundation for all the other sciences. Like Kierkegaard, Husserl recognized that western man faced a spiritual crisis in which the meaning and value of individual life had come into question. And, like Kierkegaard, he recognized that this crisis was closely connected to the development and impact of the sciences on man's view of himself. In the early Logos essay on "Philosophy as Rigurous Science" he characterizes the problem as stemming from a philosophy he termed "naturalism." Naturalism, according to Husserl, claims to be a scientific philosophy in that it bases itself on positive, empirical science? He certainly seems to have in mind here the kinds of philosophical commitments which both underlie and take rootage in contemporary reductionistic sciences. Husserl sees several problems with this philosophical naturalism. First, he claims it is naive in its straightforward acceptance of nature, causality, and its own method o f explanation. In effect, he charges naturalism with concealed and unexamined assumptions, s Secondly, he charges naturalism with lack of clarity with regard to basic theoretical concepts. Thirdly, and most remarkably, he charges naturalism with a kind of practical selfcontradiction. The naturalist wants to see the whole of reality, including the ideals which give human life direction, as purely natural facts. Yet the science in which the naturalist claims to ground his philosophy presupposes the objective validity of at least some of those ideals:

184 He [the naturalist] is, however, an idealist who sets up and (so he thinks) justifies theories, which deny precisely what he presupposes in his idealistic way of acting.6 Husserl's charge here is remarkably like Kierkegaard's. In effect, he too is charging the reductionist with being absentminded. However, his remedy is or at least appears to be vastly different f r o m Kierkegaard's. Instead of humor, poetry, and sharply pointed dialectics, Husserl offers us a vision of phenomenology as a science. Our problem is not with science, nor with failing to see the limits of science. Our problem is that our vision of science is too limited. We must have a science which is both richer and more radical, a science which does not rule out in advance any area of h u m a n experience and which everywhere seeks the essence of the thing - the universal and necessary meanings which structure our world and provide direction for our lives. F r o m Husserl's point of view the nature of science is dictated by the subject matter. Psychology and the other sciences that deal with man cannot hope to progress until they shed the a priori prejudice that all of the sciences must imitate the physical sciences: If metaphysicssuffered so long a time from a false imitation - whether of the geometricalor of the physical method - the same procedure is now being repeated in psychology... The true method follows the nature of the thing to be investigated and not our prejudices and preconceptions.' Husserl's phenomenology was an attempt to develop a method of doing just that - of being faithful to things as they are given to consciousness. It is well known that Husserl was a vigorous opponent of what he termed Weltanschauung philosophy. Like Hegel and Russell he thought philosophy must beware of the wish to be edifying. Science must be science and the aim of science must be truth. Nevertheless, it is just as obvious that Husserl believed that science had a spiritual meaning, and that ultimately the recovery of a holistic purpose in life depends upon the achievement of a holistic science. 0 n l y in the context of such a science can m a n really discover who he is and live in the light o f that understanding.

V. Can the Limiter and Humanizer Be Reconciled? Can the Limiter of Science and the Humanizer of Science be reconciled? Can their respective insights be synthesized? I f our analysis of these two strategies of defending the person has been sound, this is essentially the question of whether such a thing as existential phenomenology is a real possibility or a contradiction in terms. There are some similarities which are immediately obvious. Both the

185 Limiter and the Humanizer wish to defend the view that persons are responsible agents who must be understood as such and cannot simply be regarded as products of nature. Both defend relative autonomy. Both the Limiter and Humanizer criticize the reductionist as an absentminded individual whose view of man is not adequate to explain his own work as a scientist or philosopher attempting to be faithful to science. Perhaps the gulf between the two can be lessened if we recognize the extent to which the term "science" has become honorific. The Limiter concedes the field of science to the mechanist but insists that there are nonscientific insights and truths. The Humanizer, sensitive to the way science and rationality have l~ecome linked in our culture, wishes to broaden t.he term "science" so that science can incorporate these insights. Despite these points of agreement, deep differences remain. The major sticking point seems to me to be something like this: Our existential Limiter of Science sees the recovery of personhood as a task which is to be achieved through action. The phenomenological Humanizer of Science sees the recovery of personhood as a task which is to be accomplished through knowing. The first says that personhood must be recovered through existential commitment and resolve; the other says that personhood must be recovered through rational reflection. The Limiter says we must change our consciousness by changing our way of being. The Humanizer says we must change our theoretical consciousness in order to change our way of being. This is of course the classical quarrel which goes on in Hegel's children; another version of it can be clearly discerned within Marxism. Can we travel both roads at once? Can we opt for commitment and contemplation simultaneously? We must not underestimate the difficulty of doing so. Both Kierkegaard and Husserl would be suspicious of such a compromise. Kierkegaard is suspicious of " b o t h - a n d . " As the philosopher of existence, he wishes to stress the necessity of " e i t h e r - o r . " Existence involves the separation of thought and being and no "mediation" between the task of existence and "pure speculation" is possible. Husserl is equally hostile to any compromise. For him the path to health requires a commitment to philosophy as rigorous science. We must tread the path of the phenomenological-transcendental reduction to reach the plane of the detached transcendental ego, meditating without presuppositions, searching for the absolute foundations for all knowledge. Any human commitment, any concern for moral or religious guidance, perverts and destroys the scientific character of philosophy, converting it into Weltanschauungen without objective validity. Still, however difficult the task may be, I think that the existential phenomenologists were right in trying to unite these two paths. The key to reconciling them is, I think, the recollection of their common charge

186 against the reductionist and what underlies that charge. The charge, you will recall, is that the reductionist is absentminded. He denies that the human person is what he himself must be to accomplish his theoretical work. The insight which underlies this charge is that theorizing is itself a mode of existing - a legitimate mode of existence though not the whole of existence. Only when we see theoretical thought as itself a mode of being which demands a commitment does it become possible to travel the road toward commitment and contemplation at the same time. This compromise is no doubt one which is achieved on the terms of the existentialist, since contemplation is reconciled with commitment by being seen as a mode of commitment. Nevertheless I believe it is a compromise which can preserve the aims and insights of the Humanizer as well. The implications of this compromise for the defense of personhood seem to be something like this: Both the Limiter and Humanizer have a valid insight which must be preserved. But the two insights have to be put together if the battle is to be won. The valid insight of the Limiter of Science is that an understanding of personhood is acquired in and through living. Such an understanding is not the possession of science. Not only is it the case that an understanding of what it means to be a person can be acquired apart from scientific reflection; to a large degree the clarity and truth of our scientific reflections on personhood may be shaped by the courage and integrity of our lives. The valid insight of the Humanizer of Science is that this understanding of personhood which is acquired in and through living c a n b e made a theme for reflection. One of the things a human person who is fully human seeks is a reflective understanding of himself in relation to all that he knows. Hence it is not only legitimate but valuable for human beings to make their own humanness the object of their reflective life. One may not need science to gain an understanding of what it means to be a person, but an understanding of what it means to be a person is a legitimate theme for a scientific reflection which will enrich our understanding of personhood and our lives as persons. If these insights are complementary, then the tasks of the Limiter of Science and the Humanizer of Science are complementary as well. If the reductionist is absentminded, then he needs to be reminded of what he already knows, not to acquire more knowledge. Hence the strategy of the Limiter is justified. The Limiter does not parade as a scientist, but like Kierkegaard, tries - through humor, irony, poetry, perhaps drama, and even as S.K. himself did in his final days, through a direct witness in action to remind the sophisticates of what the simple wise man knows already. But the Humanizer is equally justified in seeking to show that the selfunderstanding of the simple, wise man can be made part of a coherent theoretical framework. The result of this is that one does not only know -

187 what it is to be a person but knows what one knows and how it relates to all else one knows. This is the task of a humanized science, and this too is an answer to reductionism. Ultimately it vindicates the insights of the Limiter by showing that reason cannot be identified with the narrow strictures of the reductionist. Personhood is too important to be the possession of science but also too important to be ignored by science. The quarrel between the Limiter and the Humanizer probably rests, in the final analysis, on divergent views of the capacity of rational thought to deal with the most fundamental matters - in this case the question of the being of man. The Limiter who refuses to acknowledge the legitimate claim of the Humanizer doubts the competence of human thought in such matters. He anxiously refuses to risk the vital questions of being in the perilous waters of theoretical thought. However, as Kierkegaard's own descriptions of existence so forcefully remind us, there is no way for human beings to avoid risk. The being of man is such that this being is always in question, and it is a being which must be risked to be won. If the Limiter is right in his claim that thinking is rooted in being, then we must ask whether an anxious failure to think through human being is not itself a failure to be. The corollary to seeing thought as essentially rooted in being is seeing being as essentially expressing itself in thought. If this is so, then the question of whether theoretical thought has the capacity to deal with ultimate matters is not truly legitimate for the fully human exister. He cannot avoid the task of self-understanding, and the only legitimate question is " H o w can the task be fulfilled?" Obviously, the fulfillment of the task requires the kind of fundamental or " r a d i c a l " reflection which has always shaped philosophy at its best. The success of the task cannot be guaranteed in advance but the task remains. The identification of reason with the narrow strictures of the reductionist can only be overcome by the attainment of a broadened and enriched concept of reason which shows the power of thought to deal with such issues. This task of achieving a broadened concept of reason can truly be described as a central problem, if not the central problem, for contemporary philosophy. Such a task certainly lay at the heart of Husserl's own program and it continues to be a central inspiration in phenomenological writers. It should be noticed, however, that it is equally the goal of a philosopher such as Whitehead; such a fundamental issue is not the property of any one philosophical movement. O f course the Limiter stands ready to confound the thinker who wishes to understand himself reflectively with his disturbing reminder that this quest cannot be isolated from man's historical situation. Man's personal being, including its essential social dimension, does indeed condition thought, and the enterprise of thought remains a perilous one. But the existing thinker sees such difficulties as incitements to his existential,

188 intellectual pathos. The task of the thinker is not to escape from the peril of historical being but to comprehend that historical being as an historical being. In the words of Hegel, who was not unacquainted with the fundamental issue we are addressing in closing, "the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it."s

NOTES 1. J.B. Watson, "Introduction" to Behaviorism, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), p. v. 2. Ibid. 3. S~ren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), pp. 135-36. 4. Edmund Husserl, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science," in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. Quentin Lauer (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 78. 5. Ibid., p. 85. 6. Ibid., p. 81. 7. Ibid., p. 102. 8. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 19.