Being and Other Realities

A Late Work Of American Metaphysics

Paul Weiss (1901 -- 2002) was an American philosopher who thought in an ambitious, grand manner, seeking a broad view of reality. He was born on New York City's Lower East Side and ultimately earned his PhD at Harvard with Alfred North Whitehead. Weiss worked with Charles Hartshorne on editing and publishing the papers of the American philosopher Charles Peirce. He studied the history of philosophy with Etienne Gilson. Weiss was known as a dynamic teacher in a career spanning over sixty years at Bryn Mawr, Yale, and Catholic University.

Weiss wrote prolifically on a variety of philosophical themes. In 1958, Weiss wrote a book titled "Modes of Being" which articulated his broad philosophical position. Years later, in 1995, Weiss wrote "Being and Other Realities", perhaps the most development statement of his philosophical position. Unfortunately, Weiss' books have been little studied subsequent to his death.

In the Preface to "Being and Other Realities", Weiss described the broad, ambitions scope of the work, stating: "It is best read as a proposed map of all reality, and is best tested by seeing how it meets the challenges: does it squarely face and answer the questions that a claimed comprehensive account of reality raises? Could it be lived?"

Weiss develops a pluralist non-reductive philosophy based on what he terms "actualities", or concrete existing things. Actualites are found in four separate "domains" of reality developed in the first four chapters of the book: 1. the humanized world, 2. humans, persons, and indivdiuals, 3. nature, 4. the cosmos, Weiss argues that it is critical to understand each of these domains and not to try to equate one to another.

Each domain for Weiss has its own unifying "ultimate" and there are also important ways of "mediating" as humans do from one domain to the others. The chief of these Weiss terms the "dunamis-rational" of which Weiss says: "the Rational is intelligible and structuralizing: the Dunamis is pulsative and vitalizing." Some philosophers emphasize Dunamis and intuitionism while other recognize only the Rational. As he does in much of his thinking, Weiss wants to have both.

With all this, we are not yet through with Weiss' account of reality. He saves the broadest and most obscure for last: the study of Being. For Weiss, Being is necessary and the source of the ultimates, the domains, and the concrete actualities. While necessary itself, Being allows for contingeny in the world of the actualities. There is a broad obscure monism, probably a mysticism, in Weiss' account of Being together with the pluralism of the domains. The focus on Being will remind readers of Heidegger, a philosopher that Weiss treats with rejection.

Weiss offers a broad historically based account of the development of metaphysics, of how philosophical thought develops through competing metaphysical views, and of what Weiss sees as the importance of philosophical, metaphysical thinking. The book begins with a lengthy "Recapitulative Introduction" which sets out the roadmap and the goals of the book well. I found it worth rereading the introdction after reading the book. Weiss says:

"The present work begins with an examination of the humanized world, and then moves on to consider individual persons, natural beings, and cosmic units, each in a domain of its own. It then faces the problem of how one can pass from one domain to another, attends to the ultimates that all actualities presuppose, and arrives at the Being that necessarily is. It then takes account of the fact that Being necessarily produces the ultimates, and how these can jointly produce the actualities at which one had begun, as well as others existing in other domains. At the end, it opens up the question of whether or not it could be lived."

The writing style and organization of this book are mixed. Much of it is abstract and highly difficult to follow. At times, when the book becomes more personal, it can be eloquent. Sections of the book are written in the form of a discussion between Weiss and an interlocutor who, at several points, sharply critiques Weiss for the numbing, obscure character of the book. I thought these dialogue passages helped move the book along.

In its scope, abstractness, and obscurity, "Being and Other Realities" is far outside the mainstream of current philosophical thinking. I have been interested in Weiss for a long time and found it valuable to read and struggle with this book.

Robin Friedman