“Philosophy is the faith which unifies man.”  

—Richard M. Owsley^[1]

For the entirety of my life in Bible Belt Texas, I have encountered both religionists and atheists who interpret “faith” as an irrational action: a totally emotive, rationally groundless hope in impossibilities.^[2] This also has been a regular definition given to me by academics. Nonetheless, many thinkers posit the necessity of faith as an expression of reason. Besides Augustine with his “Believe that you may have understanding” or Paul Tillich’s excellent consideration of ultimate concern in The Dynamics of Faith, there is the notion of philosophical faith put forward by Karl Jaspers in the last half of his long career. Other figures in existential phenomenology also have an important place for the act of faith, e.g. Maurice Merleau Ponty’s idea of “perceptual faith” as worked out in The Visible and the Invisible as well as Jose Ortega y Gasset’s broadening of thinking to include believing/faith in his excellent “Notes on Thinking” from Concord & Liberty. Even Immanuel Kant understood the notion of faith (Glaube) as a crucial component for any profound thinking.  

Kant argues that some ideas which can only be posited by faith—like the completeness of the cosmos or the immortal soul or freedom or God—have a justifiable place in orienting practical judgment.^[3] What he calls the “faith of reason” is a prerequisite to formulating ethical maxims: Without rational faith, there can be no morality. 

This does not mean that suddenly there is no distinction to be drawn between knowledge and faith. That, in fact, is the whole point. Seen from how I continue to struggle within the on-going causal nexus of natural events, I share in physical limits the empirical purpose of all bodies. Yet our being together as selves transcends our bumping against each other as bodies. In this light, the terms “should” and “must”— words for promoting ethical behavior—take on a different meaning than “necessary” and “apodictic”—terms for understanding the laws of nature and logic.  

When I speak of the right thing to do or the right course, I am not talking about something apodictic as would be the case in natural science or pure logic. I am not saying, I know this to be the indubitable thing that needs doing. Any necessity in the appearance of a definite life path or end is a mistaken understanding of necessity. The necessary is unyielding, that which has no cessation. Of course anyone with know-how can bend things or processes, take them in hand and put them to use. Natural laws work to human advantage by the very facticity of being unceasing: We know they will work and how to put them to work for us.  

Since limits on being good do not just come already instantiated and built into the system, they are not ready for our conscientious discovery. When it comes to a law of behavior, a rule of life—as Kant conceives it—I must struggle to formulate it and contest with others over its advisability.^[4] But in all of this, I will not discover an incontrovertible law of action. I can only posit non-contradictory maxims of behavior which may be treated as a law.^[5] This is what all of the fuss is about in a very large portion of Kant’s philosophical corpus, and the importance of the point is not limited to his oft poured over Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.  

This propensity to perplexity^[6] brings Immanuel Kant to consider“faith of reason” in his essay, “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” The essay was Kant’s appraisal of a famous debate between Moses Mendehlsson and F. H. Jacobi concerning the pantheism of Spinoza.^[7] In considering how to find a direction, Kant compares the way humans physically (empirically) locate ourselves in the world and how we mindfully (rationally) find ourselves in thinking.  

…pure rational faith can never be transformed into knowledge by any natural data of reason and experience, because here the ground of holding true is merely subjective, namely a necessary need of reason… to presuppose the existence of a higher being, but not to demonstrate it…”

 —Immanuel Kant^[8]

As the term “orient” suggests, I look eastward to the sun. All other directions can be determined from that horizon. Yet, even at night I can find a direction by locating the polestar in the north. Furthermore, even if cutoff from light in a dark room that someone has rearranged completely to trick my senses, I have at my disposal the most basic directives: left, right, forward, backward.^[9] Is there any concept in thinking that has this basic function of orientation? Kant says, yes: from pure reason I have the basic postulate of God. 

Now this is not the God of the zealot or of the superstitious. It is not really the God of an Aquinas or an Averroes as this deity is purely functional for engaging a direction in thinking and not a godhead known through revelation.^[10] God for Kant is the subjective ground for differentiation by which I find a way in spite of my ignorance.^[11]

This arises from “reason’s feeling of its own need.”^[12]

As with other forms of faith, the faith of reason has a subjective truth conviction related to what is encountered by the thinker in pure reason. Such rational faith takes heed of no legitimation from empirical, or objective, explanations. Being non-explanative, the faith of reason therefore cannot be knowledge. It provides the postulate of an unlimited intelligence that gives meaning to the limited and intelligible.^[13] The import of rational faith is not to prove beyond all doubt the causal chain of being as to meet the need for meaning in the world. 

That need itself is not theoretical but practical. There is nothing objectively knowable, when combined with all of the welter of appearances, that can make sense of being in the world.^[14] Theoretically, then, the God concept meets the condition of allowing us to judge or to explain contingencies that might otherwise have no judgment or explanation. But practically, the faith of reason is the unconditional: “…we are necessitated to presuppose the existence of God not only if we want to judge, but because we have to judge.”15 Kant locates the need for and the possibility of morality here in this thinking. Morality not from knowing, not from what is objectively the case as it is determined but morality as thinking, as what is subjectively convincing as it is “felt.”^[15]  

Such morality is the highest (complete) good, and it is only possible through freedom. That I can become disoriented in thinking or lost in the world is an aspect of my being free. Freedom—for the etymologically inclined—already leaps off the page as oxymoron: doomed to be free. Perfecting ourselves as free is our duty (doom, doing). Not so much from the constraints of what we know—empirical reality—as from what we do not know—the outcome of deciding our own course. 

This choice of direction, or possibility of being wrong, is the danger. Positing God and then willing to be in line with the Divine Will at all costs, brings on the hazard of becoming enthusiastic. Kant begins the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals by considering that the only truly good thing is a good will. He continues the theme in Metaphysics of Morals.^[16] The good will—the facticity that we can will—is a precondition for recognizing the unconditional, respecting the dignity of others, and achieving the Kingdom of Ends. Yet when I become disoriented by enthusiasm^[17]—literally “god intoxicated”—the power of will limits freedom by making all action predetermined by the Godhead. An end, as disclosed through a maxim and posited as a shared or universal duty, must be an object of free choice.^[18] If we are to accomplish the duty of being free, we must will to perfect ourselves rather than submit to the authority of God. This respects only the dignity of the divine rather than our shared human dignity.  

We can, as well, will a different kind of deity—the self. Such egotism—in its most accute form solipsism—disconnects us from the struggle of communication. Kant sees reason coming to full fruition in community. Only self-conceit uses the power of will and of reason to elevate the individual overall as though the empirical self is the center of the cosmos.^[19] Here lies the most destructive understanding of freedom and all the woe which follows quick upon its heels: we would reject our fellows as unimportant, become separate from our own kind.  

Moral being (the noumenal self, homo noumenon),^[20] however, does not require freedom from humanity at large. In my singularity—as no other, as whatever I may be^[21]—I am an end-in-myself free already from the constraints any could actually put upon me. Rational faith in the unconditional beginning becomes philosophical faith in my ownmost end and informs me that I must respect others in their authentic possibility. In working toward my ownmost perfection, I must always already be taking into account how I should be working toward the happiness of others.^[22] And that requires that I encourage them at every turn to enact their freedom.  

Thinking from our shared Beginning through the revelation of our dignity in our common struggle, how can there be freedom from all others just to submit to the Godhead or to be only for myself? It is possible that the power of imagination—which even Descartes saw as nearly unlimited—plays into our self-conceits. For instance, that irrational belief which most see as the meaning of faith actually intends that I myself would be so crucial to the Godhead, the divine would makes its will known to me— and possibly only me. Or there is the sickly power of positive thinking cult which allows me to imagine myself the conqueror of the world, in either finance or politics. Both kinds of fantasy are theoretical uses of faith’s power to justify self-importance and each refuses to admit how easily off track thinking becomes when not grounded by pure reason. When the only thing a person believes in is the self, we see the thinker hyper-individualized and narrowed in possibility: “The isolated individual is without faith, freedom, or knowledge.”^[23]

From where we and everything else intersects, we can trace things back just so far or ahead just so much before hitting the boundary of the unknown. Thinking about ethics disorients, confuses… we get lost in thinking of the good as easily as we get turned around looking for a strange address. In fact, humans have such a wonderful capacity for getting lost. Even when the signposts are quite clear and distinct, getting from A to Z involves a lot of taking “left turns at Albuquerque,”^[24] delaying or denying arrival at a desired destination.  

For my own part, I am never actually sure where I am going. If you ask me day to day, I can clue you in on what I am doing now and what I may be doing soon. Mostly, my response will be a recap of unimportant tasks or maybe recalling a slightly important immediate goal. 

But does all this mean humans can have a necessary direction, that we know a way we must go? Maybe if we add up together all of our tasks, targets, and tangents, a synthetic final end reveals itself as knowable… but, no need to be dishonest or commit such a flagrant self-conceit. We do not know of a definite course for ourselves. The paths we have trod from birth to death are mostly errant, small tracks in the woods of life. We stumble and found some beautiful thing or some kind act or some painful realization. They do not necessarily go here or there—just somewhere until they don’t anymore. When we admit this in awareness of our limitation, then we must locate a new direction by way of rational faith. As Karl Jaspers says, “Philosophical faith is not a content we believe in, but an action we believe by…”^[25] 

This faith of reason keeps us on our way without convincing ourselves that we are on—or indeed that we ourselves are—THE WAY. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Agamben, Giorgio. The Coming Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.  

Guyer, Paul. Kant. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge, 2014

Jaspers, Karl. The Atom Bomb and the Future of Mankind. Trans. E. B. Ashton. Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press, 1961. 

__________. The Perennial Scope of Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1950.

Kant, Immanuel. Metaphysics of Morals in Ethical Philosophy, 2nd Ed.. Trans. James W. Ellington, New York: Hacket Classics, Hackett Publishing Company, 1994; Kindle Edition, 2008. 

__________. “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” In Religion and Rational Theology. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Trans. Alan W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 

Olson, Alan. “Philosophical Faith and Its Ambiguities.” In Philosophical Faith and the Future of Humanity. Helmut Wautischer et al., Editors. New York: Springer Verlag, 2014. 

Owsley, Richard M. 1960. The Moral Philosophy of Karl Jaspers. Unpublished  dissertation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Dissertation. 

Woods, Alan W. Kant. Blackwell Great Minds. New York: Blackwell, 2005.  

Woods, Alan W. and George Di Giovanni. “Translator’s Introduction” to Kant’s “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” In Kant, Religion and Rational Theology. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Trans. Alan W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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^[1] Richard Owsley, The Moral Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Unpublished Dissertation, 1960), 122.

^[2] Karl Jaspers, The Perennial Scope of Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1950), 11. Also, Alan Olson. “Philosophical Faith and Its Ambiguities.” In Philosophical Faith and the Future of Humanity (New York: Springer Verlag, 2014), 80-81.

^[3] Paul Guyer. Kant. 2nd Ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 38-39.

^[4] “…the maxim of his action is determined a priori, namely, so that the freedom of the agent can be consistent with the freedom of every other person according to a universal law. Immanuel Kant. Metaphysics of Morals in Ethical Philosophy (New York: Hackett, 1994; Kindle Edition, 2008), Academy edition 382; Kindle Locations 3179-3180.

^[5] “…since those maxims of men which are based on subjective causes do not of themselves coincide with the aforementioned objective maxims, reason can only prescribe this law as an imperative of command or prohibition.” Kant. Ibid. (Academy edition, 214; Kindle Locations,  2766-2768).

^[6] I warrant in many ways that Kant is continuing—revivifying—the practice of the ancients who would construct an enchiridion (guides for the perplexed) to be passed around among their friends and family.

^[7] For the full context, cf Alan Woods and George Di Giovanni. “Translator’s Introduction” to Kant’s “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” In Kant, Religion and Rational Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 3-6. 

^[8] Immanuel Kant, “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” In Religion and Rational Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 14. 

^[9] Kant, Ibid, 8-9. 

^[10] In this regard, the God of Kant’s “faith of reason” is much more akin Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover insofar as the concept is required in order to think the four causes as well as actuality/potentiality by breaking free from the cyclical cosmos that has always been and will be. Cf Physics, Beta. 

^[11] Kant, ibid, 9.

^[12] Ibid, 10.

^[13] “Since reason needs to presuppose reality as given for the possibility of all things, and considers the differences between things only as limitations arising through the negations attaching to them, it sees itself necessitated to take as a ground one single possibility, namely that of an unlimited being, to consider it as original and all others as derived.” Ibid, 11n; cf 14.

^[14] Ibid, 12. 15 Ibid, 12.

^[15] “Reason does not feel; it has insight into its lack and through the drive for cognition it effects the feeling of a need. It is the same way with moral feeling, which does not cause any moral law, for this arises wholly from reason; rather, it is caused or effected by moral laws, hence by reason, because the active yet free will needs determinate grounds.” Ibid, 12n. 

^[16] “A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes, nor because of its fitness to attain some proposed end; it is good only through its willing, i.e., it is good in itself…” Kant. Metaphysics of Morals, op. cit., Academy location 394-95; Kindle Locations 1042-1043.

^[17] This is the charge leveled by Mendelssohn against Jacobi which Kant affirmed. Cf. “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?”, op. cit., 8. See also Jaspers’ exposition of why the faith of reason— philosophical faith—cannot devolve into enthusiasm in The Perennial Scope of Philosophy. op. cit., 10.

^[18] “An end is an object of free choice; the representation of the end determines choice to an action whereby the object is produced. [385] Accordingly, every action has its end; and since no one can have an end without himself making the object of his choice the end, to have some end of action is an act of freedom of the acting subject and is not an effect of nature.” Or of Nature’s God, I would add. Kant. 

Metaphysics of Morals, op cit., Academy edition 384-85; Kindle Locations 3219-3222.

^[19] Cf. Alan W. Woods, Kant (New York: Blackwell,  2005), 132-33; 139; 149-50. 

^[20] Cf. especially Kant’s famously strict prohibition against lying which in many ways is about not doubling ourselves through self deceit: “Man insofar as he is a moral being (homo noumenon) cannot use himself insofar as he is a physical being (homo phaenomenon) as a mere means (as a talking machine) not bound to an internal purpose (the communication of thought); but he is bound to the condition of being in accord with the declaration (declaratio) of the moral being, and is obligated to himself to be truthful.” Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, op cit., Academy Edition, 430; Kindle Locations 3956-3958.

^[21] cf Giorgio Agamben’s discussion of whatever singularity in his “Introduction to the The Coming Community.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

^[22] Cf. “Section IV. What are the Ends which are at the same time duties? They are these: one’s own perfection and the happiness of others.” Kant, Ibid., Academy Edition 385-86; Kindle Locations 3235-3236.

^[23] Owsley, 196.

^[24] Bugs Bunny’s running joke in many Warner Bros. cartoons.

^[25] Karl Jaspers. The Atom Bomb and the Future of Mankind (Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press, 1961), 262.

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