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Lotze, Rudolph Hermann (1817–81)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-DC049-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-DC049-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/lotze-rudolph-hermann-1817-81/v-1

4. Metaphysics

Lotze also affirmed the centrality of ‘law’ in his conception of metaphysics. While metaphysics has a role in his system, it is a limited one: namely, to delimit not the thinkable, but the ‘actual’ – that is, what can be conceived of as actually existing or occurring without pain of contradiction. This constraint brings him to attack Herbart’s theory of being in the first book of the Metaphysics (1879). The Herbartian view is indicated in the notion of ‘pure being’ as Setzung: that ‘what we call the true Being should be found only in the pure “position”, void of relation’. In fact, on this view, it is only because pure being lacks relations that existing things are able to enter into relations at all. Herbart concludes that reality is composed of something plural, simple and indestructible: what he called ‘the Reals’. Since reality is compounded of substances that can suffer no change, and are hence immutable, the relations (into which things ‘enter in’) must be utterly external and accidental (see Herbart, J.F.).

Lotze’s polemic stands in sharp opposition to this. He proceeds with an eye to the possible contradictions inherent in such an approach. On Lotze’s account, relations ‘between’ things are impossible: therefore such relations must be internal. This relatedness is characteristic of being, yet not essentially so: what being means is something indefinable. Yet, the reality of being is ultimately exhausted by the reality of its relations. Being must be portrayed as part and parcel of a determinate and interconnected ‘whole’. Hence, it is inconceivable that one might arrive at pure being through abstraction, by an attempt to negate all relations. This activity could only empty the concept of ‘position’ of all possible content.

Lotze also questions the view which makes the being of things (qua self-subsistent things) equivalent to a substantival notion of the Real. He points out that since ‘real’ can be used as an adjective, it may indicate a property of things. So the term ‘real’ cannot be used to characterize the being of things any more than the term ‘position’ can. Since what is real must be seen as part of an ordered system, its ‘essence is only to be found in a law’. This points the way toward an interpretation of both the individual thing and the larger cosmos as systematic wholes, not as accidental juxtapositions of qualities or entities. All must be recognized as the ultimate workings of some Good, which orders and gives purpose to our reality.

While Lotze formed no school, he influenced, most notably, W. Dilthey, R. Eucken, C. Stumpf, W. Windelband, G. Frege, E. Husserl , H. Rickert and B. Bauch. Abroad, his readers and admirers included Josiah Royce and F.H. Bradley. Lotze was a figure who marked the transition from the classical era of Goethe and Hegel to a more scientifically informed philosophy. An original thinker in his own right – and despite his wide-ranging influence – today Lotze remains in relative obscurity.

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Citing this article:
Sullivan, David. Metaphysics. Lotze, Rudolph Hermann (1817–81), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DC049-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/lotze-rudolph-hermann-1817-81/v-1/sections/metaphysics-83636.
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