The Aretelogical Challenge

Carmen Cozma. On the Ethical Phenomenology of Life. Rome: Edizioni Eucos, 2007. 145 pp.

A review by Thomas Ryba

 To my knowledge, the book, On the Ethical Phenomenology of Life, by the Romanian philosopher Carmen Cozma, is indisputably original on two accounts: it is the first book-length treatment in English of the philosophy of A.-T. Tymieniecka, and it is the first work in English to extend the ethical implications of Tymieniecka’s grand project of a phenomenology of life.  On this score, Tymieniecka could not have wished for a more able interpreter, Cozma being a seasoned and well-respected expert on philosophical ethics, having authored five books on ethics and related themes and having been, for some time now, a fellow traveler with A.T. Tymieniecka and a member of the International Society of Phenomenology and Sciences of Life of the World Phenomenology Institute.

The book Cozma has written consists of s brief preface and six densely argued (but self-contained) chapters, each of which stands on its own as an independent essay, but each also cycles over some of the material of the preceding chapters.  Each chapter thus presents a different but overlapping perspective on the significance of A.-T. Tymieniecka’s phenomenology particularly for aretological ethics, which is at the heart of Cozma’s own philosophical interest, but the sequence of chapters also work together to form an argumentative whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

In this review, what I should first like to do first is to summarize Cozma’s argument and then attempt an evaluation of her accomplishment.  Because the chapters at time are repetitious, I will attempt to re-build that argument without reference to her restatement of particulars.  I will also omit a summary of her final chapter, both because it seems to me to be misplaced in the sequence of chapters, but also because it repeats in greater detail many of the points made in the chapters I have chosen to summarize.   It is only after that argument is restated as a whole that I will move on to a brief evaluation.

The argument contained in this book

In the preface to her book, after making a brief argument for the importance and impact of A.-T. Tymieniecka’s philosophy in the last quarter of the 20^th century and the first seven years of the 21^st, Cozma argues for the centrality of the “ethical referential” as a constant in the corpus of Tymieniecka’s philosophy.  Whether it is in the background or foreground, it is Tymieniecka’s constant referencing of the ethical in her philosophy of life, which makes the close connection between the ethical and the ontological worthy of additional philosophical exploration.  This further exploration is precisely what Cozma sets out to accomplish in subsequent chapters.

Beginning her exploration in a first chapter entitled, “Within the Moral Philosophy’s Openness,” Cozma appreciates the extraordinary hermeneutical challenge she faces in disclosing the connection between ethics and ontology in a corpus as complex and difficult as that of Tymieniecka’s.  As her guideposts to this interpretive task, Cozma follows three themes at the heart of Tymieniecka philosophy: (1) that Life’s self-individualization is the context for an adequate phenomenology, (2) that the human creative act is the “hub” from which the “spokes” of the mind’s ordering of the world radiate, and (3) that the creative act is grounded in the human condition which is a “foothold” of stability in the otherwise inconstant ocean of life (14). 

To provide evidence that these themes (which are clearly ontological) entail the ethical (which is not so apparent), Cozma rehearses a repertory of twenty-one distinct theses that show the interdependence of the ontological and the ethical.  Though the list is too long to repeat verbatim, these assertions can be collected according to the three themes identified above. 

Belonging to the theme of the inadequacy of traditional phenomenology is Cozma’s thesis that Tymieniecka’s philosophy implies that the eidos of human life should be supplemented with an ethos of human life (16).  Belonging to the theme of the centrality of the human creative act is Cozma’s thesis that the moral sense is really a “’harmonizing logoic principle,’” that is, it is one of the fundamental “sense bestowing functions” in addition to intellectual and aesthetic meaning (17).  Belonging to the theme that the creative act is grounded in the human condition is Cozma’s thesis that there are numerous evidences of this grounding, especially in the variety of humankind’s continuing quests for measure and equilibrium, for moral examples to imitate, for standards and for freedom (16-18).  The purpose of her rehearsing these twenty-one themes is to establish the richness and the profound relevance of Tymieniecka’s phenomenology to answer the moral challenges of our time. 

Specifically, the moral ramifications of Tymieniecka’s philosophy provide means by which we may face contemporary “moral disorientation” in order to discover a “superior creative ideal of life,” one that helps us better balance our contradictory existence with an authentic wisdom (21-22).  Citing Tymieniecka, Cozma says that the way such virtues can be formed is “’as the intersection between passionate commitment to self-individualization’” and the unity that issues from “sharing-in-life that underlies the social order” (23).  But this can only happen in the philosophical arena if ethical theory and practice take account of human creativity and do not privilege cognition or belief.  The human dialectic with the Lifeworld must be recognized as similarly driven (23).  The challenge is to remake the existential order in light of this recognition.  Moral existence, as a subset of the existential order, is to be remade, as well.

After establishing the promise of Tymieniecka’s philosophy of life for ethics in her first chapter, Cozma moves on, in her second chapter “The Human Experience and the Moral Creativity,” to focus on the way human experience and moral creativity interanimate one another so that a real ethics can result.  Here, the notion of the human becomes the first focus.

For Cozma, human existence is tantamount to the granting and embracing of life’s meaning which also includes the invention and acceptance of human ideals and excellences (31).  But the granting of meaning and invention of ideals are not acts which are absolute—they are not acts which create meaning and ideals ex nihilo—but are conditioned by what it means to be human (31).  Nevertheless, values, such as “order, tranquility, wisdom, love, goodness, justice, fairness, discipline,” etc., and the capacity “to regenerate through equilibrium, measure, decency, truth and simplicity” instilled in humankind according to harmony with the Logos allows the human to become a “little creator,” to create in relation to the living whole of the universe (31).  It is this creativity that constitutes the singularity of humankind and its “exceptional position” in the cosmos (33).  This uniqueness is expressed in humankind’s endeavors, in art, metaphysics, science, and religion (35). 

Among these endeavors, the artistic is paradigmatic because art penetrates into the depths of human becoming in order to create unique objectivities which then change and remake the given order of meaning (36).  This re-creation of meaning is a re-creation of human personality as much as it is the re-creation of the objective order, but it does not constitute a mutation which is a radical break with the human.  Rather, creativity is an unfolding of humankind’s most recondite potentialities.  Characteristic of the self-creation of personality are two modes: self-explication and self-interpretation.  They are especially characteristic of humane creation when they take the self as a moral self on the path of ethical evolution (43-45). 

No creative activity can take place except that it serve a set of constituent human values which themselves are expanded in the creative process.  Thus, human values lie at the beginning and the end of humankind’s creative evolution.  But simply because they are human values does not mean they are set in opposition to the rest of the cosmos.  Cozma (following Tymieniecka) argues that the human duty to build a life replete with dignity and liberty cannot be accomplished except in harmony with the cosmic order (52).  The acute development of the moral sense makes it clear that humankind’s forging of its own excellence entails that it must assume the role of steward of everything that lives (52).  Here, human creativity meets cosmicization.  The most elevated form of human creativity finds itself in activity which produces “constructive unity, beyond the antagonistic struggle intrinsic to existence, beyond the destructive tendencies and energies of dispersion and atomization” (56).

In “The Aretelogical Challenge,” the third chapter, Cozma sets out her rationale for an aretological ethics—an ethics of virtue—based on Tymieniecka’s philosophy.  Aretological ethics, according to Cozma, is the only variety of ethics that can bring together human creativity and cosmicization in the self-creation of the moral individual in such a way that growth in virtue is tantamount to growth in humanity.  But for balance in this growth to be maintained, this growth must make reference to some measure or standpoint from which a “purchase on reality” is possible (59).  What is wanted is a new version of the Aristotelian metron as a mean between extremes, a moderation between excess and dearth, a balance between oppositional extremes; what is required is a mesotēs (just medium) or aurea mediocritas (golden mean) which would be the coordination of and harmonious balance in living (60).  This Cozma calls a key principle of life (61).  But in a curious way, this means that the desire for measure becomes itself the measure of moral excellence.  It is the desire for measure which lies at the heart of truly creative self-individuation, but this desire for measure means that creative self-definition cannot proceed in opposition to life but must be accomplished in balance with it.  Here, human responsibility is virtually unlimited; it is open to the whole of life, so that humankind must “assume a unique responsibility” to the whole of the cosmos (69).  Humankind’s challenge is to display its highest value, its moral nobility, as a necessary equilibrium” within the individual, within the community, and with the cosmos, itself (70).

How then are we to understand virtue, if the measure sought is the desire for measure?  In the fourth chapter, “Modulations upon the Virtue’s Issue,” Cozma traces the new trajectory for virtue theory that Tymieniecka’s philosophy entails.  One productive way of recapturing the significance of virtue in this new context is to remind oneself the original meaning of aretē.  Originally, aretē was construed as the actualization of the telos or end of humankind; originally, it meant “’the capacity of man to fulfill the essential function’” for which he exists (74).  But this essential function has an individual and a social orientation.  Virtue as this teleological capacity can be equated in particular with the constructive and affirmative social values such as “’harmony, peace, order, stability, mutual understanding, justice, rectitude” and sympathy, especially as these are promoters of fulfillment, freedom, and creativity in the self and among others (75).  This teleological capacity should not be construed as a product, alone, of the human powers of reason or as a natural gift; rather, it is the “fruit of the subliminal passions of the human soul” (76).  Given this undepletable font, it is not without reason that Tymieniecka can say that the aforementioned values issue from two more fundamental sources: “’generosity”’ and “’infinity’” (77).

When looked at from the point of view of its potential for individuation, virtue shows itself as the “’innermost passion to be true to oneself,’” but it is worked out according to the measure (or balance) between freedom and respect for the other (82-84).  In this way, virtue as the capacity for humankind to fulfill its essential function is given a new interpretation which—at its most expansive—is the capacity for humankind to become the custodian of the unity of everything that is alive.  In the context of the current decline of civilization, this new interpretation of virtue brings with it a new interpretation of what it means to seek justice, as well.  It means nothing less than commitment “’to founding universal measures’” (88).  It is in the ontological and moral reorientation that accompanies these redefinitions of virtue and justice that humankind finds its completion and fulfillment.

Having offered a redefinition of virtue along the lines of Tymieniecka’s philosophy of life, Cozma is now prepared for the payoff.  In the fifth chapter entitled “Toward a New Humanism,” Cozma makes the case that an ontological ethics conceived according to the above principles will result in the rebirth of humanism.  Her revisioning of human nature as transcendently self-creative and self-perfecting restores positive valuation to human existence both in its own right and in its cosmic purpose.  Necessarily coupled with the promise of self-perfectibility also comes the custodianship of Life (91). 

Entailed by this dual role is the necessity that humankind take responsibility for the enlightenment that is required for its accomplishment.  Here, the Platonic dictum “Know thyself” is given new vitality, and according to Cozma, “the highest meaning of life’s understanding” becomes the “capacity to ‘reflect entirely’ that is ‘to live entirely,’ and, here, ‘to live’ “means to become self-individualizing and at the same time to harmonize with the whole of life” (92).  With this harmonization with life also comes responsibility for the world which humankind makes.  Thereby, the notion of the dignity of humankind is also given redefinition. 

Finally, human dignity is construed by Cozma as complementary to what it means for humankind to fully live.  Human dignity is thus re-construed as “the ability to re-create himself permanently, in accordance with the complexity of the world, contributing to its humanization” (96).  This is tantamount to a new humanism which, because it instills new human meaning into existence, making it possible for humankind to discover the joy of a life worth living (108).

The importance of this book

The above represents an attempt to capture the main thread of Carmen Cozma’s argument in “On the Ethical in the Phenomenology of Life.”  The simple narration of the thread of this argument is the best testimony to the importance of this book.  As I said at the beginning of this review, Cozma’s book is a first.  Simply stated, nothing like it in connection with the philosophy of A.T. Tymieniecka has been before written.    For this reason alone, this book deserves attention.

In her exposition of the implications of Tymieniecka’s phenomenology of life for philosophical ethics, Cozma has given us a work which is a testimony to the richness of this phenomenology.  What is a background theme in Tymieniecka’s philosophy becomes foreground in Cosma’s treatment, and the reader will be impressed both with Cozma’s mastery of Tymieniecka’s philosophical corpus as well as her mastery of the history of ethics and its enduring issues.  Especially good is Cozma’s ability to impress upon the reader the compatibility of the creative principle in humankind and the importance of measure in harnessing that creativity.  Also especially important is her argument that Tymieniecka’s philosophy prepares the way for a re-constituted humanism.  Not all readers will find this a happy prospect, but they will not be able to gainsay Cozma’s efforts in making a plausible and passionate case for it.   

Any disciple of a great thinker must necessarily follow one of two paths: either (1) s/he will extend the thought of the thinker by remaining within the scope of his/her system’s principles or (2) s/he will extend the thought of thinker by expanding and/or correcting the system’s principles, while preserving the spirit of the whole.  The scholasticisms which follow the first path may be termed scholasticisms of the letter while the scholasticisms which follow the second path may be termed scholasticisms of the spirit.  Carmen Cozma’s book follows in the tracks of the first train of scholasticisms.  What I mean is that this is not so much a book which augments original thought in order to take it in a new direction as it is a book which traces the (often) unstated implications of an established body of works.  In the latter purpose, Cozma proves herself very able.  She has extended Tymieniecka’s philosophical project into the realm of aretological ethics with great consistency. 

Like most first attempts to convey the relevance of an original thinker, there are also weaknesses of two kinds in this work—weaknesses connected with substantive issues and weaknesses connected with grammatical infelicities. 

About substantive issues, I want to make only one remark.  Because Cozma is a scholastic of the letter, the reader gets very little sense of what she, herself, brings to the discussion.  As a close reader of Tymieniecka, she is among the best, but her own voice tends to get swallowed up in her exposition of Tymieniecka’s philosophy.  As I read this work, I wished for a more daring extension of the ideas, an extension which would describe the way Tymieniecka’s often very abstract ideas might be made concrete.  What I wished for, more specifically, was an explanation of how the phenomenology of life might concretely result in a practical program of human moral formation.  Even so, what one gets in this work of Cozma’s is an insightful prolegomenon to what, no doubt, will be a fuller treatment to come.