Comments on Boris Hennig's Essay (2008) "Substance, Reality and Distinctness"

By Razie Mah

Boris Hennig's essay, "Substance, Reality and Distinctness", appears in Prolegomena (volume 7(1), pages 5-20). His focus is on Rene Descartes.
Descartes (1596-1650) stands at the dawn of the Age of Ideas. The Age of Ideas encompasses the period from the mechanical philosophers to the time of Hennig's writing. Today (2018), stands at the sunset of the Age of Ideas and the dawn of the Age of Semiotics.
The coming age starts when Charles Peirce re-discovers the categorical nature of existence, including signs. His definition of signs corresponds to the formula arrived at by the Baroque scholastic, John Poinsot, a contemporary of Descartes.
But that is not all.
Descartes inaugurated the Age of Ideas by re-casting words, sort of familiar to the educated person of the day, but also, sort of vague. This is the main reason why Hennig's article attracts interest. Inadvertently, Hennig brings to light how Descartes changed the language, so to speak. His work is like an artifact dug up in the course of an archaeological investigation. The word "substance" has a deep history.
These comments take a practical story, about a farmer and a cow, and apply it to Hennig's inquiry. They also apply category-based models from Comments on Paul Cobley's essay (2018) Human Understanding: A Key Triad. The result adds value by excavating the word "substance" from the grounds of Hennig's essay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Sep 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942824558

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

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Comments on Boris Hennig's Essay (2008) Substance, Reality, and Distinctness

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2018

Notes on Text

These comments consider Boris Hennig's essay on Rene Descartes, titled Substance, Reality, and Distinctness, appearing in Prolegomena (vol. 7(1), pp. 5-20). They apply the category-based nested form, the relational structure of judgment and Deely's triad of sign, object and thing to the text.

Prerequisites include A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, plus Comments on Paul Cobley's Essay (2018) Human Understanding: A Key Triad.

Words in italics or 'single quotes' go together.

Table of Contents

Getting Started

A Story to Start

Substance and Subjectivity

Distinctness and Confoundedness

God Knows

Substance

Reality

The Warp of Time

Conclusion

Getting Started

0001 In 2008, Boris Hennig, writing at Humbolt University in Berlin, publishes a paper in the journal, Prolegomena. The title is Substance, Reality and Distinctness. This is one of his early works.

The central figure of the essay is Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a contemporary of the Baroque scholastic John Poinsot (1589-1644). These figures stand at the dawn of the Age of Ideas and the twilight of the Latin Age. The contrast between the two figures is presented in John Deely's book (2008) Descartes and Poinsot: The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas (the second work in the Poinsot Trilogy: Postmodernity in Philosophy).

0002 Descartes is placed first in the list because he was successful. Poinsot faded into obscurity until recently, when