Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

A Discussion with Lukas Novak about Transcendental Idealism and the Transcendental Ego

The extended comment thread below began life in the comments to Why Did I Move Away from Phenomenology? (13 October 2020)

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Dear Bill,

You have exactly nailed my fundamental problem with transcendental idealism by this:

What is this transcendental ego if it is the purely subjective source of all ontic validity, Seinsgeltung? Does it exist? And in what sense of 'exist'? It cannot exist as a constituted object for it is the subjective source of all constitutive performances (Leistungen). But if it is not an indubitable piece of the world, then it cannot exist at all.

Of course, transcendental idealists will standardly respond something along the lines like:

The problem that you raise in this post only arises because you are asking the question, “What is the transcendental ego?” and expecting an answer which posits some kind of object or other;

but the problem is that the question asked does not "expect some kind of object", it simply asks whether the transcendental ego is something at all, whether it recedes [proceeds?] from pure nothingness, or not. Transcendental idealism is an effort to find some room between reality and nothingness, an attempt to declare this basic dichotomy as a mere artifact of the "natural attitude" – as if pure logic could be thus confined.

Now I wonder: you label it "Aporetic Conclusion". Why? Isn't it rather a reductio of transcendental idealism, leaving a clear way out – viz. a rejection of TI? Why can't we just conclude that "transcendental ego" is an incoherent notion and revert back to noetic realism, where both the subject and the object are just ordinary parts of the world?

Another great spot-on complaint of yours is that in phenomenology, we never get the real thing: we never get real transcendence, real objectivity etc., everything is merely constituted-as-such-and-such. I would add here: which deprives us of our epistemic rights to make any claims whatsoever about what the objective matter-of-fact really is with matters we are talking about (the nature of transcendental ego, the mechanisms of constitution, etc., whatever). In all seriously meant philosophical claims a phenomenologist is making statements about what the object of his talk (such as transcendental ego, the various structures and mechanisms claimed to be "described" etc.) is, really, an sich – and not merely qua constituted by the particular phenomenologist's ego. For else — why should such subjective constructs be of any relevance to philosophy, or to me?

In other words, the self-destructivity of transcendental idealism reveals itself not only with respect to the transcendental ego, whose Seinsgeltung cannot be merely constituted-by-the-ego but somehow original or genuine; but also with respect to the meta-question, what kind of objectivity is claimed for the transcendental idealist's philosophical statements. Either it is genuine objectivity, but then TI claims its own falsity, or a mere constituted objectivity, and then such statements are not part of philosophical discourse concerning life, universe and everything. In both cases we arrive at the conclusion that TI cannot ever be consistent and thoroughgoing: there must be a residual of realism, i.e. of a claimed capability to cognize reality as it is in itself, rather than merely qua-constituted, qua-a-priori-formed etc.

But perhaps you would not be willing to go thus far in your critique?

Posted by: Lukáš Novák | Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 12:22 PM

Dear Lukáš,

It is indeed a pleasure to find you in agreement with me since you are one of the smartest people I know. I hope you and your family are well. I have fond memories of my time in Prague and the Czech Republic.

>>Transcendental idealism is an effort to find some room between reality and nothingness, an attempt to declare this basic dichotomy as a mere artifact of the "natural attitude" – as if pure logic could be thus confined.<<

That's right. In Sartre, for example, consciousness is no-thing, thus nothing. A "wind blowing towards objects" but blowing from no direction and without any cause or ground. Hence the title *Being and Nothingness.* But of course consciousness is in some sense something since without it no objects would appear. So consciousness is both something and nothing — which certainly looks like a contradiction.

Butchvarov, too, is tangled up in this problem.

Central to Heidegger's thinking is the ontological difference between das Sein und das Seiende (taken either collectively or distributively). But if Being is other than every being, and from the whole lot of them taken together, then Being is nonbeing, nichtseiend. So Sein und Nichts are the same, although not dialectically as in Hegel. But das Nichts ist kein nichtiges Nichts; it is not a nugatory nothing, but some sort of reality, some sort of positive Nothing — which is structurally the same problem we find in Husserl, Sartre, and Butchvarov.

Also structurally similar is the notorious 'horse paradox' in Frege: "The concept HORSE is not a concept."

Posted by: BV | Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 01:32 PM

Dr. Novak:

>>Now I wonder: you label it "Aporetic Conclusion". Why? Isn't it rather a reductio of transcendental idealism, leaving a clear way out – viz. a rejection of TI? Why can't we just conclude that "transcendental ego" is an incoherent notion and revert back to noetic realism, where both the subject and the object are just ordinary parts of the world?<<

Fair question, and the right one to ask. But not easy to answer. Since you are a scholastic realist, perhaps I can soften you up by citing Aristotle, De Anima 431b20: "in a sense the soul is all existing things." Here perhaps is the charter for all subsequent transcendental philosophy. Accordingly, the soul is not merely the life principle of a particular animal organism. It is the transcendental subject to which the body and its states appear as well as the animal's mental states such as fear, lust, etc.

If this is right, then the subject cannot be "just an ordinary part of the world."

I need to hear more about your "noetic realism." Presumably you do not mean we are just parts of the material world and that all of our intellectual and spiritual functions can be accounted for naturalistically. Perhaps you will agree with me that not even sentience can be explained adequately in terms of physics, chemistry and other positive sciences.

Posted by: BV | Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 02:09 PM

>>Another great spot-on your complaint that in phenomenology, we never get the real thing: we never get real transcendence, real objectivity etc., everything is merely constituted-as-such-and-such. I would add here: which deprives us of our epistemic rights to make any claims whatsoever about what the objective matter-of-fact really is with matters we are talking about (the nature of transcendental ego, the mechanisms of constitution, etc., whatever). In all seriously meant philosophical claims a phenomenologist is making statements about what the object of his talk (such as transcendental ego, the various structures and mechanisms claimed to be "described" etc.) is, really, an sich — and not merely qua constituted by the particular phenomenologist's ego. For else — why should such subjective constructs be of any relevance to philosophy, or to me?

In other words, the self-destructivity of transcendental idealism reveals itself not only with respect to the transcendental ego, whose Seinsgeltung cannot be merely constituted-by-the-ego but somehow original or genuine; but also with respect to the meta-question, what kind of objectivity is claimed for the transcendental idealist's philosophical statements. Either it is genuine objectivity, but then TI claims its own falsity, or a mere constituted objectivity, and then such statements are not part of philosophical discourse concerning life, universe and everything. In both cases we arrive at the conclusion that TI cannot ever be consistent and thoroughgoing: there must be a residual of realism, i.e. of a claimed capability to cognize reality as it is in itself, rather than merely qua-constituted, qua-a-priori-formed etc.

But perhaps you would not be willing to go thus far in your critique?<<

You raise a good objection. For example, when Husserl makes a claim about outer perception, that it is intentional, presumptive, that it presents its object directly without images or epistemic intermediaries, etc., he means these claims to be eidetic not factual. He aims to make claims that are true even if there are no cases of outer perception. He is concerned with the essence of perception, the essence of memory, of imagination, etc. Now these essences and the propositions about them are ideal objects that cannot depend on factical subjectivity for their Seinsinn.

Posted by: BV | Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 02:49 PM

Dr. Novak by e-mail (27 January 2021):

I take also this opportunity to finally respond to your reactions to my
comment on your post
https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2020/10/why-did-i-move-away-from-phenomenology.html
— I apologize I did not manage to do so in time — you know, I am always behind my schedule with my work…
 
L.N.:
>>Now I wonder: you label it "Aporetic Conclusion". Why? Isn't it
>>rather a reductio of transcendental idealism, leaving a clear way
>>out – viz. a rejection of TI? Why can't we just conclude that
>>"transcendental ego" is an incoherent notion and revert back to
>>noetic realism, where both the subject and the object are just
>>ordinary parts of the world?<<
 
B.V.:
> Fair question, and the right one to ask. But not easy to answer.
> Since you are a scholastic realist, perhaps I can soften you up by
> citing Aristotle, De Anima 431b20: "in a sense the soul is all
> existing things." Here perhaps is the charter for all subsequent
> transcendental philosophy. Accordingly, the soul is not merely the
> life principle of a particular animal organism. It is the
> transcendental subject to which the body and its states appear as
> well as the animal's mental states such as fear, lust, etc.
>
>If this is right, then the subject cannot be "just an ordinary part
>of the world."
 
LN: Obviously, this hinges on the meaning of "ordinary". I certainly don't
propose reducing cognition and appetition to something merely material
or sub-animal. But why cannot genuine, unreduced cognition and
appetition be part of the reality just as pebbles of quartz are?
 
I agree that soul is a subject of cognitions and appearances and
appetitions. But why "transcendental"? Why must it be pushed out of
the picture, so to speak? When I say "I cognize myself", isn't the "I"
both the real, intramundane subject who does the cognizing, and the
object of this cognizing?
 
BV: >I need to hear more about your "noetic realism." Presumably you do
>not mean we are just parts of the material world and that all of our
>intellectual and spiritual functions can be accounted for
>naturalistically. Perhaps you will agree with me that not even
>sentience can be explained adequately in terms of physics, chemistry
>and other positive sciences.
 
LN: Of course I agree with all that. By "noetic realism" I mean that
cognition is (i) non-representationalist (i.e., terminating at reality
itself, not at some representations of reality — against Locke etc.);
and (ii) receptive, i.e., assimilative to, and measured by, the
object, not vice versa (against all sorts of idealism). Note that (i)
does not imply that cognition cannot err, nor does it exclude the
existence of mental representations as of that _by means of which_
(as opposed to _that which_) we cognize. And it also does not exclude
that reality-qua-cognized may in certain respects differ from
reality-qua-out-there — but it is one and the same reality which is
both out there and cognized.
 
I would say we are indeed parts of the material world (we are bodies),
but not "just parts" of it. We are not mere bodies, but spirited
bodies. But a spirited body is a body, nevertheless. I am not sure if
this dual nature of man can be analyzed in hylomorphic terms, but I
insist with P.F.Strawson that both bodily and mental predicates are
to be ascribed to one and the same subject (and unlike Strawson, I
take this to be a feature of reality, not just of our conceptual
scheme).
 
Best regards,
 
Lukas
 
BV to LN (28 January 2021): For you, the notion of a transcendental subject is incoherent and should be simply dropped. There is no genuine problem here as I think there is. For you, Husserl took a wrong turn, the transcendental turn, and went down a false path.   For you, the ultimate subject of conscious states is an "ordinary part of the world." But you don't mean this materialistically or physicalistically. You admit the "dual nature of man." Man is an animal, but not just an animal: he is also a spirit.  You are rightly skeptical of hylomorphic dualism. Are you then a substance dualist? It seems not since you say that "both bodily and mental predicates are to be ascribed to one and the same subject."  But what is this subject? Is it the body in nature?  The body is a material thing and the body, qua material, cannot think.  My brain doesn't think any more than my eye glasses see.   The latter are instruments of vision, the former an instrument of thought.  The brain cannot be the ultimate subject of experience.  The same goes for each of my body parts and for my body as a whole. I don't think with my liver or feel with my heart, which is just a pump made out of meat.  The liver is just a filter made of meat.  

 
Could the psyche be the ultimate ego?  No, it is an object of introspection not the subject that introspects. Similarly for the psychophysical complex. It is not the ultimate subject of experience.   You see where I am going with this. I am regressing to the ultimate condition of anything appearing. This ultimate condition is not to be found among the objects of consciousness. We say it is 'transcendental' though not in the Aristotelian-scholastic sense.   Whether or not it is an ego is a further question; but let's assume  that it is. 
 
I have just motivated  — in a sketchy way –  the introduction of the transcendental ego.   You don't accept this. You will say that one and the same intramundane subject is both cognizer and cognized.  So when I inspect my body, is my body inspecting my body, or some part of my body inspecting some other part of my body?  What part of the body has the power to do this?  Is my hand sensing the soles of my feet? No, I am sensing in tactile fashion the soles of my feet by the instrumentality of a hand.  Is this I a metaphysical self?  If it is, how can it be identical to the physical body?
 
You are trying to think of subjectivity in an objective/objectivistic/objectifying way like a good Aristotelian. But this approach seems as problematic as Husserl's transcendental idealism.

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7 responses to “A Discussion with Lukas Novak about Transcendental Idealism and the Transcendental Ego”

  1. Lukáš Novák Avatar
    Lukáš Novák

    Dear Bill,
    I fail to see the justification for your claims that the psyche or the psychophysical complex is not the ultimate subject of experience. The fact that it is an object of introspection does not exclude that it also might be the subject. The exclusion seems to be completely unwarranted, and so the move to the transcendental ego unjustified – all the more so, given the problematic (I would say self-contradictory) nature of this notion.
    Your crucial question is: how can my metaphysical self be identical to a physical body? This is my response:
    My metaphysical self is a substance: a substance of certain kind, having certain essence. Viz., the essence of a rational animal, i.e., a rational, sentient, living body. What does it mean?
    To be a substance is to have the essence of an entity which does not inhere in anything else but is the ultimate bearer and possessor of all its properties and operations.
    To be a body is to be a subject of spatial extension and quantifiable material qualities (“physical quantities”). A particular extension and particular qualities are not part of the essence of a body but its accidental forms; what is essential to a body is the requirement to have some sort of such forms. This requirement may be either absolute, so that the substance cannot exist without the respective accidents, or merely aptitudinal: so that the substance naturally is endowed with such forms and needs them in order to “be well”, but can, under certain circumstances, be deprived of them.
    Note that due to the fact that a particular extension (which endows the substance with really distinct integral parts and disposes these parts in space, and probably also time) is an accidental form, a material substance is not extended and divided into parts in its essence. If a man loses the lower part of his body, his humanity (his human essence) is not halved or reduced to a part: he remains wholly human. Also, the essence is wholly present in each of the spatio-temporal parts.
    To be a living being is to have an essence which requires for the respective substance a set of certain active potencies: dispositions to vital operations such as reproduction, metabolism, growth, responsivity, or active motion.
    To be an animal is to have an essence requiring a set of higher active potencies, viz. sensory cognitive and appetitive powers. The operations of these powers have a material aspect – they are often localized someplace within the extension of the body (my finger hurts) – but they have also certain immaterial aspects: they are (often) conscious.
    To be rational is to have an essence requiring the spiritual — that is, essentially unextended — active potencies of intellect and will. The operations of these potencies do not have, as such, any material aspect; they can be said to be at a certain place only in an improper sense, due to their belonging to a subject which is, in virtue of also possessing the accidental form of spatial extension, localized at a certain place.
    So, how can my metaphysical self be identical to a physical body? By being, due to its essential make-up, a subject of both spiritual and material accidental forms.
    “I am sitting on my chair and thinking.” That is: I, the metaphysical subject, have certain location and position, which are bodily, extended determinations. But I also perform certain operation which is completely immaterial — that menas, it is not in itself extended and has nothing to do with the complex of “material” forms I also possess (such as my weight, appearance, etc.) which are connected to my extension. But the subject is one and the same: it is the sitter who thinks, and noone else, and noone but the thinker who sits (a sort of “communicatio idiomatum”). There is no integral part of the sitter that can be said to do the thinking. The thinking belongs to the sitter independently of his having integral parts, there is no special relation of the thinking to the integral parts qua integral parts. An analogy: a red magnet produces a magnetic field; but its producing the filed is not in any way connected to its redness: it does not produce it qua red, or in a red way or something like that. Its magnetic quality and its hue are disparate – just like my sitting and my thinking are (the difference being that both the hue and the production of the field inhere in the substance through its extension, and so both are extensional in nature; whereas there is no similar common form situated “between” me (=the subject) and both my thinking and my sitting: the only mediator is the substance, the ultimate subject.
    My capability of being endowed with this dual set of properties may, or may not, be further explained by my essence being an essence of a hylomorphic compound. I don’t know. But it does not seem to involve (unlike the notion of transcendental ego) any obvious contradiction. I do not think qua material: I think qua endowed with intellect. Materiality is not my only dimension, so to speak, I also have others. I am truly material, but I am not material through and through.

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    Lukas,
    Thank you for the detailed and challenging response!
    >>To be a body is to be a subject of spatial extension and quantifiable material qualities (“physical quantities”). A particular extension and particular qualities are not part of the essence of a body but its accidental forms; what is essential to a body is the requirement to have some sort of such forms.<< OK. >> This requirement may be either absolute, so that the substance cannot exist without the respective accidents, or merely aptitudinal: so that the substance naturally is endowed with such forms and needs them in order to “be well”, but can, under certain circumstances, be deprived of them.<< The second disjunct makes no sense. If it is the essence of a material substance to have some set or other of accidental material qualities, then no material substance -- no body -- can be deprived of them and remain a material substance. (Of course, it can be deprived of them in the sense that, in being deprived of them, it ceases to exist.)

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  3. Lukáš Novák Avatar
    Lukáš Novák

    Bill,
    I do not say that it is the essence of a material substance to have som set or other of accidental material qualities. I say that an aspect of the essence of a materias substance is to require — either strictly or not-strictly — such qualities. The qualities are not part of the essence, they are grounded in the essence. No material substance can be deprived of the requirement of these qualities, but this requirement can, perhaps, be frustrated.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    >>Note that due to the fact that a particular extension (which endows the substance with really distinct integral parts and disposes these parts in space, and probably also time) is an accidental form, a material substance is not extended and divided into parts in its essence. If a man loses the lower part of his body, his humanity (his human essence) is not halved or reduced to a part: he remains wholly human. Also, the essence is wholly present in each of the spatio-temporal parts.<< I am not understanding this (a polite way of suggesting that it does not make sense). You are talking about a material substance, a body. Take my body. It is accidental that I weigh 200lbs. It is accidental that I have the set of material accidental forms and physical quantities that I do have. It is accidental that my parts are disposed in space as they are disposed. (Let's leave time out of it!) But surely it is essential to any material substance including my body that it be extended in space and divisible into material parts. But you seem to be denying this. If you are thinking of the essence of a material substance as an abstract or ideal object, then of course such an essence cannot have material parts. But apparently you are thinking of the essence as hidden within the core of the material substance, supporting its accidents, and as itself material. You say that the essence is wholly present in each of its parts. So each proper part of a human animal is a human animal? If I lose my legs, I remain a human animal. But if I lose my head, I cease to be a human animal. Your conception is exceedingly murky -- which is why scholastic philosophy subsided after Descartes to survive only in isolated backwaters. To put it in the form a cheap joke -- no offence intended -- the mainstreamers came to view scholastic philosophy as so much substance abuse. But this is not to say that the transcendental turn, let alone the linguistic turn, has led us anywhere!

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  5. Lukáš Novák Avatar
    Lukáš Novák

    Bill,
    yes, I think that what is essential to material substances is not their actually being extended but their being the sort of thing which requires the accidental form of extension. This is not to say that being actually extended is not de re necessary for most material substances. It seems to me incoherent to think of extension as of an essence of a body, but I concede that it is (probably) a necessary attribute of most bodies. But it cannot be a strictly necessary attribute of spirited bodies, as they can survive without being actually extended. Why do you think that “it is surely essential to any material substance that it be extended in space”?
    “Essence” can have two slightly different senses: (1) The intrinsic principle which makes a thing what it is; (2) The thing itself in its nakedness, so to speak, i.e. considered only insomuch as it is essentially determined, i.e. without its accidents. Neither of these is an “ideal object”; the former is a real principle and the latter is its precisely corresponding principiate.
    The essence(2) of a body is material(2) in the sense that it requires to be informed by extension. The essence(1) of a body is only material(1) in the sense that it makes the essence(2) material(2). Neither materiality(1) nor materiality(2) involves actual divisibility in parts. Actually divisible in parts is only that which is actually extended, i.e. a material substance qua actually informed by extension.

    You say that the essence is wholly present in each of its parts. So each proper part of a human animal is a human animal?

    That the essence is wholly present in a part does not imply that it relates to that part as to that whose essence it is. It is the essence of the whole, so it only makes the whole (say) a human animal, not its parts. But it makes each and every part a fully human part. By touching any of these parts you are touching a man.
    Compare that with extensional forms. Take a 1m long rod. Its length is not wholly present in each part of the rod but its parts are distributed along the parts of the rod. Remove a part of the rod, and you’re removing the corresponding part of its length. But you cannot thus remove a part of a man’s humanity (human essence). It is not distributed along his integral parts. This is one of the reasons why actual extension must not be considered to be essential to a man. The “ordo partium in loco” imparted by extension does not affect a man’s essence.

    If I lose my legs, I remain a human animal. But if I lose my head, I cease to be a human animal.

    Let’s assume that’s true. Of course, a substance cannot survive some of its accidental changes. If you are heated to 120 °C, you also cease to be a human animal. Some accidental changes trigger substantial changes. In fact, there is probably no other way how to trigger a substantial change than to introduce such accidental changes to the substance that it cannot sustain them. A substance requires accidental forms within certain ranges. But that does not make these accidental forms “essential”.
    But, in fact, I don’t think human death should be considered a substantial change. If human soul survives death and if it retains personal identity (otherwise it could not justly receive rewards/punishments for the live man’s deeds), then there must be one and the same individual before and after death. Therefore, the “loss of a body” must be a merely accidental change.

    Your conception is exceedingly murky — which is why scholastic philosophy subsided after Descartes to survive only in isolated backwaters.

    This is a digression, but, speaking of scholastic philosophy: Is it murky, or does it merely appear murky to those unwilling to make all those “unnecessary distinctions”? My personal impression is precisely opposite: in a scholastic, it perhaps takes a long study, but you can ultimately always say quite precisely what his position is. There are very little controversies over the proper interpretation of scholastic thinkers among experts as soon as their work gets properly explored. Whereas in case of modern thinkers — well: the interpretations of Husserl’s “phenomenological reduction” range from “a methodological rule” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/#PheEpo) to “a meditative technique leading to a irrevertible life-changing experience” (https://iep.utm.edu/phen-red/). Concerning Kant, Scruton noted that there is no agreement whatsoever among experts concerning either the content or the strength of his arguments (I have experienced it myself when taking a course on Kant taught jointly by two greatest Czech Kant experts – they never agreed on anything, especially not in their responses to objections). The meaning of a crucial Descartes’ term, “idea”, changes continuously to accomodate to his various opponents; his notion of the “objective reality of an idea”, on which his proof of God’s existence (i.e., practically everything) hinges, is muddled to the extreme (in sharp contrast with its obvious origin, the Scholastic notion of objective concept). There even seems to be a kind of law: in case of modern continental philosophers, the greater expert you are, the more probably and more substantially you will disagree in your interpretation with experts on the same level. While in case of the scholastics the inverse seems to hold.
    Nevermind – just ranting… 🙂

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  6. Cyrus Avatar
    Cyrus

    Having spent quite a lot of time around the many, many different stripes of Thomist, I find it incredible that you say this, Lukas:
    There are very little controversies over the proper interpretation of scholastic thinkers among experts as soon as their work gets properly explored.

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  7. Lukáš Novák Avatar
    Lukáš Novák

    Cyrus,
    this is a fair comment. Of course I was overstating a bit (but I was provoked!) If I should vote for the most enigmatic scholastic ever, it would be Aquinas 🙂 But there are several things to note.
    First, Aquinas stands at the beginning of High Scholasticism, which then lasted for several more hunders years. So it is kind of understandable that from the perspective of late, much more detailed and developed doctrines his philosophy is simply underdefined and undeveloped, i.e. open to many different precizations (which are the various strands of Thomism). When speaking about “the scholastics”, I rather meant the late, Renaissance or Baroque figures. Of course there always is certain leeway and indeterminacy; but in my experience it is incomparable to the chaos of competing interpretations of modern thinkers, where, as it seems, almost anything is up to grabs, and what is despised most are the traditional, intelligible “schoolbook” portraits of these philosophers.
    Second, one has to distinguish between Thomists and Aquinas scholars. A Thomist’s goal is to capture, explain, develop and pass on the truth inherent in Aquinas’s intellectual heritage. He is doing philosophy with the help of Aquinas, and so naturally interprets Aquinas in accord with what he perceives as philosophical truth. Hence the discrepancies among different Thomists. Whereas a philosophically disinterested Aquinas scholar just strives to have Aquinas right, to describe accurately his thought. The problem is that the historical accuracy of many Aquinas scholars is somewhat, well, influenced by their Thomism.
    On the contrary, today’s Scotus scholars usually are not Scotists (frankly, nowadays almost anyone is not a Scotist), which seems to be the reason why Scotus scholarship is much more convergent than Aquinas scholarship (of course, another reason is numbers: there are much fewer Scotus scholars than Aquinas scholars, what a shame :-)). True — intitially Scotus scholarship was also influenced by Thomism, to the effect that while some (such as Gilson) strived primarily to show why and how Scotus, being so different form Aquinas, is so wrong, others (such as Wolter) strived to show that he is not so different after all, and therefore — maybe? — not so fatally wrong.
    But the recent scholarship which focuses on Renaissance and Baroque scholastics (you see, those who by their “murkines” should have motivated the launch of early modern philosophy) seems to be much less partisan and therefore still much more convergent (but again, the numbers certainly play a role as well).

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