First Considerations

Exploring First Considerations With Paul Weiss

The United States has produced what many may find a surprising amount of work in broad, synthesizing metaphysical theories of reality. Leading synthesizing philosophers include Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, A.N. Whitehead, and Paul Weiss. Of these four thinkers, Weiss (1901 -- 2002) is the most recent and the least known. Most of his many books are out-of-print and little read. I have been interested in Weiss through my interest in philosophy, and have taken the opportunity recently to explore some of his writings.

Weiss has said that he tried to produce "comprehensive accounts" of the nature of reality in several books, including this relatively late work, "First Considerations" (1977). It is difficult to understand Weiss' frequently shifting terminology and emphases through his work. After "First Considerations", Weiss wrote another large book of metaphysics, "Being and Other Realities" which he described as his best work including the most mature statement of his thought. Still this earlier book is worth exploring in its own right.

I find it difficult to follow much of Weiss' writing and reasoning. The writing ranges from individualized and personal to highly abstruse. When Weiss speaks narrowly and concretely of himself, the writing is often eloquent. The more abstract discussions can be insightful but also frequently obscure. The sections of the book are written in the form of short, numbered paragraphs which sometimes makes for clarity and sometimes for disjointedness.

"First Considerations" opens with an important section "Tentative Probings" in which Weiss describes everyday life and the confusions it poses to reflection as the source of philosophical thinking. Much of the book is included in this introduction, as Weiss outlines a world of appearances of underlying, concrete actualities which becomes the source of his thought. This is followed by another insightful chapter "The Task of Philosophy" setting out Weiss' view of what philosophical thinking is to do. Philosophy is neither science nor mathematics but is instead "a self-critical quest for what is real." (20) Paragraph 15 of this section seems to me highly important in understanding Weiss' view of philosophy. Because of the unfamiliarity of this book, I will quote it here.

"Since every man is unavoidably the product of his time, culture, and studies, since at his best he is confused, ignorant, biased, limited in vision and insight -- in short, finite as mind and body, none can ever hope to achieve a perfect, all-encompassing, neutral, articulate account. No man, not even a multiplicity of them, could forge a fully satisfactory, systematic philosophy which was without serious flaw or omission. But the effort must be made. Not only is it desirable to try to push back the limits within which one had unreflectively lived, to try to avoid arbitrarily assuming what should have been examined, and to try to reduce the number of unreliable, derivative, unexplained, and unexamined judgments that are made, but it is good to expose to the critical eye of others, and hopefully to one's own at some latter time, the weaknesses as well as the promises of a philosophy, and thereby alert all to what next should arrest attention."

The remainder of Weiss' dscussion consists of several chapters in which he explains his philosophy and it apparent method beginning with a chapter titled "Experiences, Appearances, and Knowledge" and concluding with a broad consideration of "The Cosmos". Weiss distinguishes two types of realities which he calls actualities and finalities. There are five finalities in Weiss' thought at this point: Substance, Being, Possibility, Existence, and Unity." His goal is to explain the nature of both the actualities and the finalities and the nature of man and of moral life as it moves among them. Much of this is suggestive while much is puzzling.

The unique and valuable final section of the book consists of the comments on the work by six philosophers together with Weiss' responses. Weiss sent his manuscript to several philosophers, whom he thought would be critical of his project, for their responses. He received replies from six individuals: Abner Shimony, Richard De George, Richard Rorty, Robert Neville, Andrew Reck, and Robert Martin. Most of the commenters show varying degrees of sympathy with Weiss' broad conception of philosophy while objecting tellingly to his method and way of carrying it out. I was particularly interested in the brief response by Richard Rorty. Weiss was Rorty's dissertaion supervior at Yale. Within two years of the publication of "First Considerations", Rorty would publish his famous book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" which is highly critical of philosophical efforts to attempt a metaphysical understanding of reality when these efforts are much more modest than those of Weiss. As often happens, Weiss and his student took seemingly polar opposite positions, even though in my view Rorty remains something of a metaphysician.

I doubt that Weiss will ever enjoy wide scholarly or popular readership. But I wanted to get to know his thought, particularly as it involves his understanding of the nature and purpose of philosophical thinking rather than his own particular system. He deserves to be remembered.

Robin Friedman

In the discussion in the review of Weiss' philosophy in "First Considerations" I relied in part on the late Andrew Reck's essay "The Five Ontologies of Paul Weiss" in the Library of Living Philosophers volume edited by Lewis Hahn, "The Philosophy of Paul Weiss".