For the Tempus-Fugitives

by Christopher Norris

  Thus Leibniz, metaphysically secure

  In his conviction that the furthest fling

  Of other-world imagining was sure

  To vindicate the actual world and bring

  Fresh proof of God’s intent. Although by pure

  Hypothesis those other worlds might spring

  Forth defect-free, yet we’d be premature

  In thinking ours by contrast not the best

  World possible. Nor should it therefore rate

  Among those worlds that failed the litmus-test

  Of what God in His goodness would create

  And man’s God-given reason thus invest

  With such necessity as must negate

  All chance events or happenings that rest

  In fortune’s fickle hands. It’s our innate

  Defects of knowledge only, so he thought,

  Not flaws in this our actual world that leave

  Our powers of explanation falling short

  Or faculties unable to achieve

  The sovereign scope by which they might purport

  To justify God’s ways to man, perceive

  How our confused cross-stitching must distort

  Truth’s fabric, and reveal the perfect weave

  Of God’s design. For otherwise there’s no

  Real obstacle to seeing how such sheer

  Contingencies—simply the way things go,

  For better or for worse—might reappear

  Transfigured in a light that lets them show

  Up minus all the gaps produced by mere

  Extent of ignorance. Then what must flow

  From what, once everything stands crystal-clear,

  Will prove (however contrary to all

  The text-book principles) that logic’s rule

  Extends beyond tautologies that fall

  Within the jurisdiction of those school-

  Of-Ockham types still laboring in thrall

  To narrow views. It reaches out, like Boole

  Much later, into the expanded ball-

  Park of a logic now deployed as tool

  And speculative instrument to link

  Up once again with everything that they,

  The strict deductivists, would surely think

  Off-limits. Else contingency might stray

  Across that formal buffer-zone and shrink

  The space of reason till it leaves no way

  For them to shut and seal the growing chink

  In freedom’s wall through which Ananke may

  Gain entrance. Then she’ll soon put on her dress

  Of science-led necessity and close

  That hole again before the Trojans press

  Dementedly against it in the throes

  Of reason stricken by its own success

  And looking on as myrmidons depose

  Scientia in the terminal distress

  Of every norm that once gave heart to those

  Trained up in her defence. Not so for him,

  Our trans-world voyager, since reason meant

  To Leibniz a conjecture that could skim

  On wings of thought across the full extent

  Of modal logic’s most inventive whim

  Or satisfy pure reason’s furthest bent

  Of speculative thought in quest to limn

  Not just the means by which to represent

  New worlds but how things stand with them aside

  From all concern with matters more germane

  To us as this-world knowers. What applied

  In those remoter regions must pertain

  With equal force beyond the great divide

  That, after Kant, would constitute the bane

  Of our modernity. Thus “woe betide

  The dupes of metaphysics”—Kant’s refrain—

  Would cut no ice for one, like Leibniz, whose

  Whole enterprise relied on jumping clean

  Across those gaps the Kantian would refuse

  To think of crossing once the risk had been

  Made plain to all. Thus: he who misconstrues

  Pure reason’s proper scope since over-keen

  To find some application he can use

  And cash idea as concept will then lose

  Not just what any valid exercise

  Of reason in its speculative mode

  Might hope to yield by way of pure blue-skies

  Reflection but whatever once bestowed

  The knowledge-granting gift to recognize

  How all our epistemic gains were owed

  To reason’s incapacity to prise

  Concepts from intuitions, or explode

  The bounds of sense. If any concept void

  Of sensuous intuition must on that

  Account be deemed defective, misemployed,

  Or downright empty, then—Kant’s tit-for-tat

  Symmetric point—the confidence enjoyed

  By Humean empiricists falls flat

  Or finds its naïve certitudes destroyed

  Once knocked into the opposite cocked hat

  By Kant’s remark that intuitions shorn

  Of concepts must infallibly be blind,

  Or lacking in whatever might adorn

  Mere sense with all the attributes of mind-

  And-world in cognitive accord. He’d scorn

  Such niceties, would Leibniz, since he’d find

  Just signs of weakness in those scruples born

  Of epistemic discipline combined

  With displaced religiosity and then

  Raised to the height of self-restrictive zeal

  By Kant’s resolve to place beyond the ken

  Of human knowers all that might reveal

  Some occult truth. Best sublimate the yen

  To know what lay beneath the seventh seal,

  Whether the voice divine pronounce amen

  Or reason exercise its old appeal

  To metaphysical ideas that soared

  Rhapsodically above the solid ground

  Of thought’s perceptual anchorage, ignored

  The rule he took such trouble to propound,

  And so had all its high gyrations floored—

  As Kant’s would-be transcendent dove soon found—

  By seeking heaven-haunts that might afford

  Fine views but, when push came to shove, were bound

  To leave the winged enthusiast bereft

  Of shove to meet its push. If Leibniz stood

  High on the list of old-style rationalists left

  Thus high and dry, there’s every likelihood

  He’d not reject the charge of having effed

  What Kant deemed the ineffable. For should

  That charge not carry a much greater heft,

  So he might ask, if put to those who could,

  If so inclined, renounce the Kantian vow

  Of epistemic abstinence, respond

  To thinking’s distant call, and so allow

  Philosophy to venture far beyond

  Thought’s customary reach yet still kowtow

  To rule-enforcers who’d themselves been conned

  By some thought-neutering idea of how

  Such ventures must stay closer to the monde

  Quotidien. Here concepts always fit

  Sense-data perfectly and intuitions match

  Their concepts with no gap that might admit

  Some room for change or let the knower catch

  A glimpse of possibilities that split

  Apart from this, our actual world, and hatch

  New worlds where those old intuitions sit

  Conspicuously awry. Then concepts latch

  Onto their sensuous content only by

  A doctrine-wrenching effort that betrays

  How much has been repressed of hopes that lie

  Precisely in that margin where the ways

  Of indurated habit come to vie

  With speculations guaranteed to craze

>   (Or so Kant thought) the minds of those who try

  To stretch their thinking round such out-of-phase

  Or off-the-wall projections as enticed

  Leibniz and company beyond the pale

  Of sensuous intuitions that sufficed

  To keep sound concepts safe within the scale

  Of human finitude. Soon the Zeitgeist

  Ensures that his idealist followers fail

  To take Kant’s point and organize a heist

  Of Leibniz-type ideas for Hegel’s tale

  Of spirit in its onward-upward climb

  From primitive sense-certainty, through each

  Successive stage of consciousness, till time

  Eventually sees fit for mind to reach

  Its goal of Knowledge Absolute. If I’m

  At risk here of appearing keen to preach

  From that same Kantian rule-book or to prime

  Aspiring space-doves with the truths he’d teach

  To curb their soaring souls, that’s not the aim

  Or any part of what I started out

  To say in limning Kant’s attempt to tame

  Leibnizian flights of reason that would flout

  His diktat. Yet Kant’s rules defined the game

  Only if he alone was fit to tout,

  As truth personified, the final claim

  To fix pure reason’s bounds beyond all doubt

  And so place Leibniz in amongst the crew

  Of dream-seers, prophets, mystagogues, plain fools,

  And all those inner-light enthusiasts who

  Took their own consciences to set the rules

  Or with each case to legislate anew

  And signal their defiance of the schools

  Where conscience always calls for peer-review

  By which to signify that reason pools

  Its limited resources and redeems

  Its good repute. Let’s take it Kant was well

  Wide of the mark in bracketing the dreams

  Of Swedenborg with thinkers who would tell,

  Like Leibniz, truths beyond the strict regimes

  Of cognitive command or such as fell

  Outside our knowledge-remit since the themes

  On which those speculators chose to dwell

  Might always prove the sort that must transcend

  Its limits. Yet, so doing, they’ll not yield

  One jot of thought-precision or suspend

  One rule of logic to which Kant appealed

  In order for their thinking to extend

  Way out beyond or way off to left field

  Of everything we’re meant to comprehend

  By Kant’s idea of knowledge as tight-sealed

  Against such threats. They issue from a far

  Away yet oddly close-up realm of what

  Surpasses understanding like a star

  Too many light-years off to fill a slot

  In some star-gazer’s list of those that are

  Worth looking out for while the rest are not

  Since they’re best viewed—as Stevens’ blue guitar

  Was heard—by other types whose favorite spot

  For viewing lies some distance off the route

  Most traveled. That’s for Kantian devotees

  Of all that comes mind-processed just to suit

  The epistemic need of one who sees

  What’s plainly there to see or renders mute

  All sounds except those pre-attuned to please

  Their aural temperament. Should they impute

  Tone-deafness to performers in strange keys

  Called forth by the remotest overtones

  Or reason’s wild excess to those who saw

  A multiverse beyond the comfort-zones

  Of this-world knowledge, then perhaps the flaw

  May lie more with the well-adjusted clones

  Of common-sense cognition than the straw-

  Man target of a thinker who disowns

  Allegiance to what Kantians deem a law

  Of all well-regulated thought and yet

  Thereby betray that really it’s their lack

  Of will to think beyond the ground-rules set

  Down in advance. What but their single-track

  Thought processes could guarantee they get

  No further than to package, then unpack

  Old concepts, terms, and arguments with net

  Result that they’re continually sent back

  To square one of the rigmarole begun

  When reason first consented to restrict

  Its speculative powers, devoutly shun

  The stratosphere, and heed the interdict

  On all new versions of the tale once spun

  By those prophetic souls keen to inflict

  Their private fantasies on anyone

  Willing to lend an ear. If Leibniz ticked

  One box then it’s by doing what appeared

  To Kant mad, bad, or dangerous—or just

  Plain idiotic—since his thought-path veered

  Far off the beaten track where one could trust

  Sense-data to prevent things getting weird.

  Thus it claimed access to such truths as must

  Hold good for any world where reason steered

  The questing intellect beyond earth’s crust,

  Our actual world among them but construed

  As full of mere contingencies and hence

  Just one amongst the branching multitude

  Of worlds whose past, present or future-tense

  Existence no logician could exclude

  From being real. This not in some loose sense

  With scare-quotes or as philosophic food

  For thought but as entitled to dispense

  With proofs empirical and use the case

  Of mathematics to convince the crowd

  Of sceptics that there’s room in reason’s space,

  Objectively conceived, for what’s allowed

  (Like numbers, sets and functions) its own place

  Among the items rightfully endowed

  With a reality whose knowledge-base

  Can be as apodictically avowed

  As any formal axiom or proof

  Demonstrative. Raise questions if you will

  Regarding whether thought should stay aloof

  From factual truths or circumstances; still

  There’s no good reason to suppose we’ll goof,

  As Kant believed, if we rely on skill

  In speculative thought to lift the roof

  On earthbound actuality, instill

  A sense of worlds elsewhere, and thus promote,

  Along with that, a feeling for what sets

  The actual world apart from those that float

  Before our mental eyes when reason lets

  Us think or dream them up. Best we devote,

  As Leibniz did, our minds to that which gets

  Us out of using “actual” to denote

  “The only world on which to place our bets”

  And shows us how the others might be real

  As ours although non-actual while to them,

  Those other-world inhabitants, the deal

  Works in reverse. Why, then, should we condemn

  A thinker whose one aim was to reveal

  How rich an actuality might stem

  From our existing in a world that we’ll

  Perhaps, as thinkers, not allow to hem

  Our modal speculations or dictate

  The scope of our conceiving yet whose own

  Intramundane complexities we’ll rate

  More highly once we’ve seen how all that’s known

  Of this world might get lost when we translate

  To those for which there’s no Rosetta Stone,

  No laws of thought or world that commutate

  Except (so Leibniz held) what could be shown

  To have the trans-world necessary kind

>   Of a priori warrant that obtained

  For truthful statements formally defined,

  Like those of maths and logic. So what’s gained

  By actualists through thinking truths assigned

  To sundry worlds unknown is best explained

  As what serves most distinctly to remind

  Us stay-at-homes with expectations trained

  On this-world evidence that worlds elsewhere

  Are, now as always, how we get a fix

  On all things actual, and how far they square

  With things in modal logic’s bag of tricks.

  Then—for those brave enough to go compare—

  The question’s what, in the resultant mix

  Of world-constituents, might come to bear

  The hopes of those whose world-allegiance sticks

  This side of Shangri-La but never yields

  So far to pessimism as to take

  The kind of this-world-only line that wields

  Its actualism as a means to make

  Hope’s countervailing drive desert the fields

  Of open possibility and shake

  All confidence in everything that shields

  The hoper from a knowledge that would break

  Their world-inventive nerve or strike them dumb

  When faced with actuality’s long haul

  Of factual hope-defeaters. Lest we come

  Around to such a verdict let’s not fall

  Back on the sage advice of those who’d drum

  Into our heads the cynic siren-call

  Of that long-serving actualist rule-of-thumb

  Which says we’re best advised to just play ball

  With this-world norms. Then no thought would betray

  The slightest hint of what might yet unfold

  As possible beyond what points the way

  To some result reliably foretold

  By reason’s basic remit to convey

  Its wordly truth as prudently enrolled

  On actualism’s side and keep at bay

  All thoughts that Ockham’s acolytes would scold

  As empty metaphysics. Where they drive

  The point too hard, those sticklers for the good

  Of thought’s self-discipline, is just where I’ve