"'Whither has God gone? ... We have killed Him--you and I! ... But how have we accomplished this? ... Who gave us the sponge to wipe off the entire horizon?'" These words from Nietzsche's madman (The Joyful Wisdom, ¤125) could well have been used to set the theme uniting the diverse thinkers and ideas considered in Roy Morrison's ambitious project. But they were not. (Nietzsche is mentioned only twice in passing.) Instead, the Preface's account of how this book is the culmination of a lifetime's study of science (Einstein), philosophy (Kant) and theology (Tillich) is followed by a stirring, though somewhat tangential, quotation about the glory of thought, from Russell's Why Men Fight.
The lack of a clear guiding-thread to lead us through the tangled web of thoughts under consideration is evident from the start. Chapter One sets out 13 "typologies". We are never told what a "typology" is, nor how these 13 are connected--except that they are all themes that will play a key role in "EKT". (This cryptic acronym, used occasionally to refer to the book's overall theory, apparently stands for the three names in the subtitle, though Morrison himself never explains its derivation.) Apparently, a typology is a sweeping generalization that prepares us for a subsequent, deeper examination of some key topic or distinction--just as a teacher might use a simplistic set of lecture notes as a reminder of key points to be explored in more depth during the lecture. (That this may be the origin of much of this book is suggested by a comment Morrison himself makes [368].) For instance, to distinguish "ontic thinking" from "ontology", Morrison claims the former obeys "formal logic", whereas the latter follows a "dialectical logic" that "does not obey the prin ciple of non-contradiction" (7); yet he fails to explain how the latter is possible! Likewise, he claims the scientific view of space and time is incompatible with Kant's theory of their transcen dental ideality, without any support whatsoever (27-28). And he insists religion and science are essentially irreconcilable, without recognizing that the incompatibility is a direct result of his own overly narrow definitions. Students may benefit from some of these introductory glosses; but anyone familiar with basic philosophical terminology can safely jump to the end of Chapter One, where a brief summary of the book's main questions and theses is provided.
Chapter One typifies the book's stylistic weaknesses: a tendency to jump from one point to the next with little or no transition; loose ends frequently left hanging, so we remain in a state of uncertainty or confusion as to what has and has not been established; frequent repetition and summarizing (sometimes even summaries of summaries!), usually without adding anything new; a penchant for imposing a semblance of order onto a topic by dogmatically enumerating a set of (usually disconnected) points and presenting them as if they were exhaustive (e.g., "the thirteen typologies" [1], the "nine criteria" violated by myths [22], and many more throughout the book, often incorporating highly stylized "operating definitions"); awkward or imprecise wording that tends to veil Morrison's meaning (as when he describes the book's five main "arguments" by stating five theses with no reference to any actual argument [44-48]); and numerous typographical and grammatical errors/inconsistencies. A good editor could have smoothed over many of these rough spots; but to some extent these problems are an inevitable result of the "cut-and-paste" method used throughout much of the book. Had these stylistic points been properly attended to, and had Chapter One's typologies been relegated to a Glossary (where their impact would have been far more effective), the overall readability of this book would have vastly improved.
Chapter Two is a selective interpretation of Kant's philosophy, with special emphasis on the "Copernican Revolution" and its implications for the notion of transcendental limits. Unfor tu nately, the chapter is riddled with inaccuracies and interpretive blunders that cast a shadow of doubt over the accuracy of Morrison's entire project. Consider the following examples: he repeatedly refers to space and time as "categories" (60,68,81; see also 27,126,378), rather than forms of intuition; he totally ignores the arguments of the Transcen dental Deduction, portraying the apriority of the categories as a mere "sleeping assumption" (58), an arbitrary "epistemological decision" (59), and a "postulation" (108); he claims Kant's philosophy has not just one but "nine touchstones" (81); he asserts (without ex planation) that time for Kant is "presupposed" by "the principle of non-contradiction" (74); he refers to the "Analogies of Experience" as a "subsection" of the "Transcendental Dialectic" (75), repeatedly confusing the latter with the "Transcendental Logic" section (e.g., 146-147); he labels Kant as "a convinced rationalist" and "a scientist" (76), in spite of Kant's efforts to transcend such labels; he misrepresents Kant's architectonic by insisting that "[t]heoretical reason has priority over practi cal reason" (85,91-92,94,99); and he grossly simplifies Kant's account of practical reason, construing it as a mere pragmatic device for accepting anything that does not violate the law of non-contradic tion, totally ignoring the key role of the moral law in preventing the "unreal, untrue, and un healthy" results that Morrison claims are inevitable (95,106). With such inter pretive infelici ties to go on, it should come as no surprise that Morrison can appreciate only the negative side of Kant, viewing him as a deist precursor of Feuerbach (85,88), who virtually single-handedly "killed God" by relegating him to the status of a mere "metaphysical idea", a "creature of reason's own thought". The extent of his bias comes to the fore when we realize that the third Critique is never mentioned throughout the entire book-- he refers instead to Kant's "two critiques of reason" [101,111]!--and that the most frequently (almost exclusively) cited secondary work is Kemp Smith's long-outdated Commentary.
By far the most serious flaw in Morrison's interpretation is its total lack of appreciation for the perspectival nature of Kant's philosophy. As I have argued else where (e.g., Kant's System of Perspectives, Chapter II), this is Kant's Critical "touchstone", not the "categories" or "objectivity", as Morrison claims (54,66). Kant's touchstone is the "Copernican" realization that the empirical and transcendental differ as equally valid perspectives on one world. Morrison, however, grossly misconstrues the Copernican Revolution, portraying Kant's side of the analogy as a crude (and hence, easy to refute) dualism whereby "the mind processes noumena" to produce phenomena (56-57, 252) and then "transport[s]" itself "from one world ... to another" in the sec ond Critique (98)--interpretations rejected by many contemporary Kant-scholars. He even mis represents Copernicus' basic insight (i.e., that the sun rests in the cen ter while the earth revolves around it), saying first that it treats the stars as being at rest and later that the spectator is at rest while the stars revolve (55,57). Quite apart from this misunderstanding, Morrison's conclusion, that "the two revolutions are hardly analogous", is totally unfounded. His rationale is that "Copernicus' revolution did not necessarily subjectivize metaphysics" (57-58), as Kant's did; yet this has no bearing on the kind of analogy Kant intended to make! (Despite his reference here to the subjectivist tendencies of Kant's thought, Morrison later identifies "contempt for subjectivity" with "Kant's critical attitude"--these constituting "another sleeping assumption" [66-68]!)
Being blind to Kant's basic perspectival (Critical) methodology, Morrison is bound to regard Kant's project as a failure. He misrepresents Kant as having attempted "to solve the problem of reality exclusively or primarily by employing epistemology" (145), when in fact epistemology can do no more than define the problem. Instead of seeing how the different considerations that give shape to the second Critique define a discrete practical standpoint, Morrison treats them as "serious contradictions and methodological oscillations from which [Kant] never extricated himself" (93). However, far from being a tragic "sacrifice of the intellect" (106), practical reason, when interpreted as a perspectival means of transcending the transcendental horizon, constitutes the core of Kant's lasting genius!
Although Morrison claims to be primarily a "critical philosopher" (368), Chapter Three portrays Tillich in a much more heroic light than Kant (see e.g., 188,191). For although Kant was responsible for placing God on the "metaphysical" side of the transcendental horizon, Tillich, more than any other scholar, performed the courageous act of "wiping away the horizon" that effected God's "de-theification" (see 173f). No responsible intellectual, according to Morrison, can believe in a personal, living God any longer, in light of Tillich's "atheistic" theology. That there is a strain of quasi-atheism in Tillich's thought is beyond doubt; but Morrison does not adequately account for Tillich's intention to replace theism's dead idol-God with a genuine (re-theified), life-affirming "God above God". In particular, he only briefly touches on the crucial role of symbols in Tillich's system (134-136)--though when he does, he is to be commended for recognizing that Tillich's approach stems directly from Kant (108; see also 178,188-190). This chapter also includes a helpful discussion of the influence of Boehme's mysticism on Tillich, and a lengthy excursus on Heidegger's philosophy (hardly mentioning Tillich). Strangely, when Morrison finally draws his own conclusions near the end of the book, he claims Tillich's attempt to cross the transcendental horizon (like any attempt) ultimately fails; yet his own prescription (namely, a courageous "humanistic stoicism and demythologized Christian symbols" [371-372]) comes off sounding remarkably like a final appeal to Tillich.
Before dealing with the remaining scholar denoted by the "EKT" acronym (i.e., Einstein), Morrison devotes separate chapters to the views of Bohr and Heisenberg. These chapters describe and (briefly) challenge the validity of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, as an "over-simplification" of the facts (32). Each chapter devotes a short section to Kant (211-214, 239-242; see also 271-274): Bohr's romantic idealism has more affinity with Kierkegaard (218) than with Kant, and Heisenberg's anti-realism stems more from Fichte (230-232). Both physi cists agree with Kant that "the transcendental horizon terminates deterministic causality and classi cal realism" (213; cf. 259); but, whereas Kant employs practical reason to reach the world of noumena, Bohr and Heisenberg employ the principles of "complementarity" and "indeterminacy" to reach the quantum world (220, 228,236). Unfortunately, Morrison's account of compatibili ties between Kant and the Copenhagen physicists goes no deeper than this. Moreover, in accor dance with his tendency to disagree with everyone, Morrison rejects Heisenberg on the grounds that "the category of causality is indispensable and inescapable" (270), even though he had earlier claimed Kant was wrong to regard his categories as permanent (they were "simply an analysis that emerged during a particular stage in the history of Western ideas" [62-63])!
The book reaches its climax in Chapter Six, where Einstein's worldview is praised as the only one that simply accepts the transcendental horizon as it stands, without trying to transcend it (279). Illustrating this book's tendency to improve as it progresses, this chapter is the most thorough and interesting of all. It presents Einstein's "minimum metaphysics" as a methodology that "reverses Kant's Copernican Revolution" (278-279), and thus paves the way for a realistic, scientific reconstruction of the Kantian categories (326-329). This, along with his unequivocal denial of the notion of a personal God, ironically makes Einstein (by far the least sophisticated in terms of philosophical and theological acumen) the only scholar whose philosophy and theol ogy Morrison does not reject! Much as Einstein may wish to turn his back on Nietzsche's mad man, however, there is little doubt as to which scholar the latter would have stared at most intently.
Despite its stylistic and interpretive problems, and a tendency to pontificate on the basis of unargued "observations" (e.g., 272-274), this book is not without merit, boasting colorful passages of poetic beauty (as when Kant's transcendental limits are depicted as a "spear" [82,90,372]), humorous wisdom ("Newton did not leave very much for God to do on a daily basis" [85]), and poignant realism (calling us to face the tragic consequences of living a life of thought [e.g., 358]), as well as a very detailed Index (amounting to 60 pages in itself). Morrison's careful application of certain key distinctions (e.g., between "metaphysics", or "ontic" thinking, and "ontology"--two terms often casually treated as synonyms [see e.g., 251]) is another strong point. Such distinctions enable him to explain how "Tillich [and others] accepted Kant's limits of human knowledge (the transcendental horizon)", yet tried to "overcome" them in an effort to "re-enchant" the world (168-169)--though Morrison himself refuses to be duped by the magic.
The main point of this book is to determine "how, where, and if" each scholar "attempts to cross the transcendental horizon" (49). Unfortunately, this goal tends to be lost in the jungle of other topics, surfacing only occasionally, almost as an afterthought. That Morrison admits to being "unconvinced" by all such attempts (e.g., 272) belies what he calls a "sleeping assump tion" of his own. Any crossing of the transcendental horizon must fail, because he defines success in terms of producing a knowable content that is "either scientifically or philosophically verifiable" (358). That this is an unrealistic, backward-looking expectation would have been more evident had Morrison composed the entire book with a clearer and more systematic view of what Kant called (in the second edi tion Preface to the first Critique) an "idea of the whole".
Stephen Palmquist, Hong Kong