Intellectualism as the Presupposition of the Foundational Philosophy

Abstract

The problem of intellectualism seems to be central for any foundational philosophy. The presented paper discusses the views of Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986), co-author of the methodological conception of the Lublin School of Philosophy (Catholic University Lublin), about the nature of intuition and intellectual evidence. The intellectualism, as opposed to agnosticism, irrationalism and probabilism, is here at the same time a metaphisical (ontological), epistemological (epistemic) and semantical position. Kamiński accepts that the human mind (intellectus) is endowed with a natural ability to read (intus legere) the rationality of a real being in its intelligible nature and this way able to achieve a necessary knowledge.

In the philosophical and methodological works of Kamiński the intellectual intuition is an eminently theoretical concept and in respect of its content epistemologicaly a very complex primitive concept. It is defined thought typical contexts of its use in a way resembling the operational definition. Kamiński understands the intellectual intuition at least fourfold: as a cognitional faculty, a higher epistemic ability (disposition), the act of cognition and as well as its results. The intellectualism permits Kamiński to maintain the foundationalism in philosophy among others things in a twofold sense: to accept some assertions (prima principia, necessary truths), whose truth is accepted as self-evident and to consider philosophy as the first basic knowledge that gives the foundations for all other particular types of knowledge. The foundationalism of Kamiński is non-dogmatic because the critical attitude extends to the basic presuppositions too. As the act of intellectual intuition itself does not ensure the truthfulness of necessary statements, Kamiński insists on its preparation and proper control. The control is brought about simultaneously on three connected levels: of language (the analycity of a statement), cognition (the evidence of the intuitional understanding) and reality (the necessity of the states of affairs). The intellectualism has a special significance in the classical metaphysics, where it explains the specificity of metaphysical reasoning. The appeal to intellectual intuition as the evidentia obiectiva does not remove completely the problem of psychologism as the intellectualism seems to blur the borders between the context of justification and the context of discovery, between the psychological order of the development of the cognition and epistemological order of its justification or the ontological order of existence.