## 1. Biographical Sketch



Nicolai Hartmann (b. Riga, 1882, d. Gottingen, 1950) was
recognized in the first half of the twentieth century as one of the
leading German philosophers, on a par with Husserl, Jaspers, or
Heidegger. Born in Riga, in what was then called the Livonia
Governorate, a German-speaking part of the Russian Empire (now
Latvia), Hartmann was Baltic German, spoke German at home and Russian
at school, and at age fifteen went to a German boarding school in St.
Petersburg. His engineer father died suddenly when Hartmann was eight
years old, but left him with a predilection for both music and
astronomy, hobbies that would remain with him throughout his life.
After gymnasium in St. Petersburg, he studied medicine for two years
in Dorpat (Tartu, Estonia), decided that a more comprehensive course
of study would be more satisfying, and switched to studying philosophy
and classical philology, again in St. Petersburg. Revolutionary
uprisings there led to the closing of the university in 1905. As a
Baltic German, he did not see himself directly involved in Russian
affairs, and, unwilling to interrupt his studies, he transferred from
cosmopolitan St. Petersburg to the landlocked town of Marburg,
Germany, to study philosophy with Hermann Cohen (1842-1919) and Paul
Natorp (1854-1924), the leaders of what was later to be called the
"Marburg School" of Neo-Kantianism.



He completed his degree in summer 1907 with his work "On the
Problem of Being in Greek Philosophy before Plato"
(*Uber das Seinsproblem in der griechischen Philosophie vor
Plato*, Hartmann 1908). His massive "Plato's Logic of
Being" (*Platos Logik des Seins*) and the shorter
"Proclus Diadochus' Philosophical Foundations of
Mathematics" (*Des Proklus Diadochus philosophische
Anfangsgrunde der Mathematik**,* Habilitation)
appeared in 1909. All of these show the imprint of his Neo-Kantian
teachers. Probably influenced by reading the phenomenologists,
including Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Max Scheler (1874-1928); by
the rediscovery of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) through the work
of Hans Pichler (1882-1958); and finally, by rereading
Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel during the period of a general Hegel
renaissance, he began to break free of Neo-Kantianism (Harich 2000).
While he was teaching in Marburg and publishing a number of shorter
works that prefigure his later ideas, he was called to serve in WWI.
Starting in 1914, he served as an interpreter and letter-censor. He
spent time on the Eastern Front, and then returned to Marburg in 1918.
By the time he returned to Marburg, Cohen had left for Berlin and
Natorp's influence was in decline, and he was greeted as their
successor. By this time, however, he was also the furthest of any of
their former students from the Neo-Kantian position (Harich 2000).
Reflecting on his career, he declared 1919 the year he worked out his
final approach to a "new ontology."



He became professor at Marburg in 1920, and then came to occupy
Natorp's Chair in 1922. Hartmann was called to Koln, where
Scheler was teaching, in 1924, where he taught until 1931. There he
met his second wife, Frida Hartmann (*nee* Rosenfeld),
in the "discussion circle" of philosophy students and
professors that he hosted at his own home throughout his entire career
(Fischer and Hartung 2020). He was appointed professor in Berlin in
1931, as the "safer" choice in contrast to both Heidegger
and Cassirer, who were also candidates for the post (Gerhardt et al.
2015). After the Second World War, Hartmann was elected President of
the German Philosophical Association for both the acknowledged value
of his philosophical ideas and his apparent lack of any improper
compromise with Nazism. (For more complete biographical information,
see Harich 2000, Heiss 1961, and F. Hartmann 1978.) While
Hartmann's presence and influence were strong during his
lifetime, after his death in 1950 his ideas attracted no further
attention. It is difficult to determine why things have gone this way.
Even researchers of Neo-Kantianism have completely ignored
Hartmann's work, despite his intellectual biography and the fact
that his work shares numerous features with both Marburg and
Southwestern Neo-Kantianism (see, e.g., Luft 2015; De Warren and
Staiti 2015). Although lack of translations into English and the
working of "selective memory" (Beiser 2014) have certainly
played their part, other reasons are needed to explain this situation.
Hartmann has likely been ignored by scholars of Continental philosophy
not least because, historically and politically, Heidegger came to
dominate German philosophy and was antagonistic to him, seeing the
older Hartmann as one of his chief rivals. Concerted historical
research is needed to understand this state of neglect.



Like many other philosophers of the time, Hartmann rejected system
building as the goal of philosophy, but he embraced a systematic and
careful mode of philosophizing. He had a perennial suspicion of
ultimate solutions. His open-ended dialogical attitude was not
dogmatic, and he did not encourage students to adopt his positions on
issues but to think for themselves about topics systematically. This
attitude is especially evident in the recently published transcripts
of his beloved "disputation circles" (Fischer and Hartung
2020). In his writing, he adopted a non-speculative, sober style of
analysis. His language was clear, and his method was rigorous, almost
pedantic, proceeding punctiliously step by step, without anticipating
solutions or taking anything for granted. His writings are organized
in such a way that the reader is held in check and feels unable to
foresee the next step in the argumentation. Virtuosic expertise in the
history of philosophy is displayed throughout his works.



On the whole, he comes off as a "classical" philosopher in
a time when philosophical fashion seemed to demand anything but that.
The explosion of philosophical schools and movements in the early
twentieth century, eager for novelty and controversy, seemed to have
had little tolerance or interest in patient investigations into major
traditional problems of philosophy. He was strongly shaped by late
nineteenth century Neo-Kantianism and its issues, including the
controversies over materialism, the limits of science, historicism
(relativism), and pessimism, and was at least inspired by empirically
oriented metaphysicians such as Hermann Lotze (1817-1881),
August Trendelenburg (1802-1872), and Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906)
(see Beiser 2014). Recent work has also examined the influence of
Russian philosophers on him (Tremblay 2017; Tremblay 2019). He thought
of himself as a more faithful Kantian than the German Idealists as
well as his Neo-Kantian teachers and peers, honored Kant's
memory by taking seriously the claim that that there are some problems
that reason cannot solve, but criticized Kant himself for his dogmatic
idealist assumptions. Aristotle and Hegel were also major sources of
inspiration.



Recent work on Hartmann has shown that he dealt with central twentieth
century problems, such as the realism-antirealism debate, the
reductionism-pluralism alternative, and with ways to resolve the
"two cultures" divide that continues to torment
contemporary philosophy (Peterson 2017; Peterson and Poli 2016;
Hartung, Wunsch, and Strube 2012). His systematic and novel responses
to these problems should be of interest to a contemporary audience,
whatever their philosophical pedigree. The establishment of the
 Nicolai Hartmann Society
 has shown that scholars interested in Nicolai Hartmann and his ideas
are present everywhere, not only in North America and Europe but also
in South America and Asia. The proceedings of international
conferences on Nicolai Hartmann (Poli, Scognamiglio, Tremblay 2011;
Hartung, Wunsch, and Strube 2012; Peterson and Poli 2016; Peterson
2017b; Kalckreuth, Schmieg, and Hausen 2019) and this entry provide
information on Hartmann's thought that may facilitate a renewed
evaluation of his contributions to philosophy.


## 2. Works



Three English translations of major book-length works have appeared
within the last ten years, adding to the two existing translations and
reissues of *New Ways of Ontology* (Hartmann 2012b [1953]) and
the *Ethics* (Hartmann 2003, 2004 [1932]), originally published
earlier in the twentieth century. Volumes one and two of his ontology,
*Ontology: Laying the Foundations* (2019a [1935]) and
*Possibility and Actuality* (2013 [1938]), as well as the
posthumous *Aesthetics* (2014 [1953]), have been completed. New
translations of shorter works include "How is Critical Ontology
Possible?" (Hartmann 2012a [1924]), "The Megarian and the
Aristotelian Concept of Possibility" (Hartmann 2017 [1937]), an
obituary for Max Scheler (Hartmann 2019b [1928]), and Hartmann's
1914 review of the first volume of Husserl's *Jahrbuch*
(Hartmann 2018). Other translations will no doubt be produced in the
coming years.



English readers have only a handful of book-length treatments of
Hartmann's thought to consult (Peterson and Poli 2016; Poli,
Scognamiglio, and Tremblay 2011; Kelly 2011; Werkmeister 1990;
Cadwallader 1984; and Mohanty 1957). For German readers, Martin
Morgenstern's *Nicolai Hartmann: Zur Einfuhrung*
(1997) provides a comprehensive, if very brief, introduction, and
Wolfgang Harich's two works *Nicolai Hartmann: Leben, Werk,
Wirkung* (2000), as well as *Nicolai Hartmann: Grosse und
Grenzen* (2002), provide unparalleled insights into the life and
work of Hartmann.



While he wrote at length and with significant originality on
epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of history, natural and
social science, and many other topics, Hartmann's central
preoccupation was with developing a new ontology adequate to the
changed scientific and humanistic intellectual landscape of the early
twentieth century. Since Hartmann himself indicated 1919 as the year
he finally broke through to what he called his "new
ontology" (Harich 2000, 9), we could divide his voluminous work
into two periods: an earlier Neo-Kantian inflected period, and a later
period defined by the new ontology. But even this line is difficult to
draw cleanly. The published works for his degree referred to above
fall clearly into the earlier period, while some early essays, such as
"Systematische Methode" (1912) and "Uber die
Erkennbarkeit des Apriorischen" (1914), already show signs of
moving beyond the confines of the Marburg approach. The book
*Fundamental Philosophical Questions of Biology*
(*Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie*, 1912) also stands
out in this period as his earliest attempt to tackle the ontological
issues contained in philosophy of biology. Here we will set aside the
works of the earlier period.



The inter-war period was the time of his most extensive output. In his
1921 *Grundzuge einer* *Metaphysik der Erkenntnis*
(*Fundamentals of a Metaphysics of Cognition*), Hartmann
declares his independence from the Marburg school (while occupying the
Chair of one of its founders) by challenging one of its central
tenets: cognition does not create its objects, as Neo-Kantianism
holds, but grasps something that exists independently of it. Put
briefly, the *Metaphysics of Cognition* discusses the
interaction between epistemology and ontology and the unavoidable
dependence of any epistemology on ontological assumptions. He
published his truly magisterial, innovative and comprehensive work on
*Ethics* in 1926, which includes some extensive remarks on the
ontology of values in some core chapters (Hartmann 2002-2004). The
first volume of the commissioned *Die Philosophie des deutschen
Idealismus* (*The* *Philosophy of German Idealism*,
on Kant, Fichte, and the Romantics) appeared in 1923. Two very
important essays on ontology also appeared in the mid-twenties,
"How is Critical Ontology Possible?" (2012 [1924]), and
"Kategoriale Gesetze" ("Categorial Laws,"
1926), which are the major precursors of his fully developed
ontological views. If we set aside his continued strong output of
essay-length work, then between 1926 and 1935 his major publications
include Volume 2 of his *Die Philosophie des deutschen
Idealismus* (*Philosophy of German Idealism*) in 1929,
*Zum Problem der Realitatsgegebenheit* (*On the Problem
of the Givenness of Reality*) in 1931 (reprinted in Hartung and
Wunsch 2014, 177-264), as well as *Das Problem des geistigen Seins:
Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der Geschichtsphilosophie und der
Geisteswissenschaften* (*The Problem of Spiritual Being:
Investigations into the Foundations of the Philosophy of History and
the Human Sciences*) in 1933. *On the Problem of the Givenness
of Reality* is significant not only because it is revised and
incorporated into Part III of *Ontology:* *Laying the
Foundations*, but because it was originally presented to a meeting
of the Kant-Gesellschaft in Halle dedicated to the "turn to
ontology and realism in contemporary philosophy" (Hartung and
Wunsch 2014, 181). Subsequent to *Ontology: Laying the
Foundations* in 1935, he steadily churned out the remaining
volumes of his ontological work, publishing *Possibility and
Actuality* in 1938 (Hartmann 2013), *Aufbau* in 1940, and
he completed the fourth volume *Philosophy of Nature* in 1943,
although it was not published until 1950, after all of the other
volumes could be republished after WWII. The *Aesthetics*,
under revision at the time of his death, was posthumously published in
1953 (Hartmann 2014).



Given the vast scope and meticulous reasoning of Hartmann's
work, this entry cannot aspire to adequately present its rich content.
But since Hartmann was a problem-oriented thinker, the task will be
made easier by discussing the theses of his major works under the
headings of the problems with which he was attempting to deal. In the
remaining four sections, we will look at Hartmann's responses to
these questions: What is the relationship between thinking and being?
What is valuable, and relatedly, what is the place of humankind in the
world? What is the structure of the real world? Finally, in the
Conclusion, What is Philosophy?, we will also very briefly consider
Hartmann's conception of philosophy in relation to that of his
contemporaries.



Since Hartmann organized his bulky books into short chapters,
subdivided into sections usually no longer than two or three pages, we
follow his method of internal referencing by indicating the relevant
chapters and sections. The following abbreviations will be used: ME =
*Grundzuge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis*; S =
"Systematische Philosophie in eigener Darstellung"; ET1 =
*Ethics* (Volume 1: Moral Phenomena); ET2 = *Ethics*
(Volume 2: Moral Values); ET3 = *Ethics* (Volume 3: Moral
Freedom); P = *Problem des geistigen Seins*; OLF =
*Ontology: Laying the Foundations*; PA = *Possibility and
Actuality*; A = *Der Aufbau der realen Welt*; N =
*Philosophie der Natur*; ELO = "Erkenntnis im Lichte der
Ontologie"; NW = *New Ways of Ontology*; and AE =
*Aesthetics*. The chapters of various *Introductions*
will be referred to as "Intro". For example,
"NIntro5" and "N3c" will respectively refer to
Section 5 of the Introduction and Chapter 3, Section c of the
*Philosophy of Nature*. (These abbreviations are also included
before the bibliography below.)


## 3. What is the Relationship between Thinking and Being?



Hartmann was committed to approaching the problem of cognition from
the perspective of its embeddedness in a broader cognitive and
ontological context. Human cognition is in a perpetual state of
unrest, dynamically allowing us to get our bearings in an
overstimulating environment, to orient ourselves in the world, and to
pursue practical projects. It is an active and open process of coming
to terms with an environing world in historical time, not an isolated
and static epistemological exercise. In our unrest we come up against
problems in need of solution. Hartmann was strongly influenced by
Kant's famous claim that experience presents problems that
reason is unable to solve, such as the "antinomies"
bearing on the origin of the cosmos and of freedom. This is a claim
about the limitations of human reason, and more generally, a statement
about the relation between thinking and being. Contrary to dogmatic
metaphysics, Kant claimed that thinking does not have complete access
to being. Our very consciousness that there are problems in
reality--not just temporary, episodic problems but perennial,
enduring ones--in fact demonstrates this limitation quite
clearly. If we begin with the whole "phenomenon of
cognition," as Hartmann did in his groundbreaking
epistemological work, and not merely with the narrower relation
between subject and object, we see that it includes features such as
"problem consciousness" and "cognitive
progress." These complex "facts," he showed,
presuppose that there is an ontological basis for what is cognized.
The main point of *Metaphysics of Cognition* was that
epistemological discussions always entail ontological assumptions
about the nature of what exists. Determining the minimum set of these
assumptions for an adequate account of cognitive phenomena was its
task.



In distinguishing himself from his predecessors and peers, Hartmann
carefully situated himself between various forms of idealism and
exaggerated scientific realism. In contrast to his "logical
idealist" teachers, German Idealists like Hegel, and
phenomenological idealism, Hartmann thought that human thinking did
not have easy access to its own workings, let alone those of the real
world, and they certainly did not play the primary role in
"constituting" the world. In contrast to naive
realists and positivists, he did not think that human perception and
experience provided an unmediated adequate cognition of the world
either. Deliberately positioning himself between these forms of
idealism and naive realism, Hartmann produced a
"critical" epistemology that based itself on Kantian
principles.



As one of the phenomena of cognition, Hartmann took human
consciousness of problems very seriously. He believed that in the
history of philosophy and science, thinkers arrived at many so-called
solutions to problems by means of hasty theoretical assumptions rather
than patient investigation. Any philosophy deserving of the epithet
"critical" must be able to set aside the assumptions that
arise from theoretical "standpoints" that can prejudice an
investigation from the start. Critical philosophy, for Hartmann,
designates a stance "this side" of idealism and realism,
engaging an *epoche* (suspension) with respect to
questionable standpoints. Such standpoints can blind us to seeing what
is "transhistorical" in the history of philosophy, as well
as to what is "given" in phenomena. The contrast between
the historical and the transhistorical is a significant one for
Hartmann and shapes much of his thinking. It does not coincide with
the traditional contrast between timeless essences and historical
particulars, for instance, but cuts across it, as we explain
below.



It is already evident in the definition of problems themselves. Three
aspects of problems must be distinguished. There is the
"statement of the problem" (*Problemstellung*), its
particular and perhaps idiosyncratic characterization; there is the
"current state of the problem" (*Problemlage*),
more stable but still historically malleable; and there are the
"contents of the problem" (*Problemgehalt*),
including its sometimes nonrational and impenetrable aspects, which
are properly "metaphysical." It is worth quoting at
length:



> 
> Human beings are the ones who first "state" problems
> (*Problemstellung*); they are brought up to see the current
> state of the problems (*Problemlage*) in a tradition, but also
> labor to transform this situation themselves. By no means, however, do
> human beings have dominion over the contents of problems
> (*Problemgehalt*). There is nothing in the problem contents
> that is a product of human artifice. The problem content is already
> given along with the overall structure of the world and the place of
> humankind in it, and something of this content can change only to the
> degree that the world and humankind also change in their fundamental
> features. The history of problems does not have to do with the problem
> contents (*Problemgehalt*), but only with the stepwise shifting
> of the current state of the problem (*Problemlage*) tied to
> them and the multifariously varying statements of the problems
> (*Problemstellung*) within these contours. Problem contents
> persist identically, while the latter emerge or are submerged
> historically in unforeseeable variety (ME1b).
> 



Transhistorical "problem contents" could include both real
and ideal factors, and only meticulous investigation can determine
what these are. Unfortunately, there is no *a priori* way to
determine which is which. While this conception of
"problems" is likely influenced by the southwestern
Neo-Kantian Wilhelm Windelband (1958 [1893]), this distinction is
actually widely applicable throughout Hartmann's work. The same
transhistorical-historical division applies to ethical values as well
as to ontological and cognitive categories, though in different ways.
In general, it allows Hartmann to take a middle path between the
extremes of absolutism and relativism, whether in regard to
epistemology, ethics, or to ontology. Investigation of phenomena in
all of these areas leads us to see that some core factors are
relatively stable, while other elements are culturally and
historically variable. This conception of problems sits midway between
the Anglo-analytic view that problems like "*the*
mind-body problem" are simply "there" and have
nothing historical about them, and a historicist view in which
everything about the problem is historical, with no stable problematic
factors at all.



Kant's work inspired this stance on the relation between
thinking and being, as we see in Hartmann's sophisticated
interpretation of Kant's "supreme principle."
Readers will recall Kant's principle: "the conditions of
the possibility of experience in general must at the same time be the
conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience"
(Kant 1998 [1787], A158/B197). This was Kant's attempt to
formulate a universal basic principle for the relation between
thinking and the world. For Kant, this meant that the
intersubjectively and objectively valid "forms of
intuition" and the "concepts of the understanding,"
which science relies on to explain the objects of experience, must be
dictated by the mind to the world in its very experience of things.
Hartmann argued that this expresses a "restricted identity
thesis," meaning that the principles or conditions of both
subject and object are neither completely identical nor completely
different. As Hartmann reads it, Kant's principle is itself
entirely "this side" of the distinction between idealism
and realism. In other words, it can be interpreted in the direction of
placing the conditions of experience inside the subject (Kant's
idealist solution), or both within and beyond the subject in the world
(a realist solution). Hartmann claims that Kant's idealistic
interpretation, which makes these conditions internal to the cognizing
(transcendental) subject, results from a "dogmatic
prejudice." He believes that a solution that remains faithful to
the phenomena of cognition can be proposed that places the principles
or conditions of experience not within the subject but within the
wider reality of which both subject and object are parts. The at least
"partial identity" between subject and object which
conditions the possibility of knowledge results from the fact that
both subject and object are determined by some shared ontological
principles structurally superior to both. In other words, according to
Hartmann, in his explanation of valid *a priori* cognition,
Kant relied on a false dichotomy. Either representations are
determined by the object, or the object is determined by
representations. Hartmann points out that this is not a complete
disjunction, and so is false. The third possibility is that both
representation and object are determined by a third factor, namely,
principles that are valid for both subjects and objects. These
principles are what Hartmann calls categories. The partial identity of
cognitive and ontological categories, however, must be very carefully
delimited. This is the work of categorial analysis, the central task
of ontology. Incidentally, many of Hartmann's responses to
Kantian idealism anticipate those of recent "new realists"
and "speculative realists" by almost a century (Peterson
2017a).



The methodology that Hartmann recommends reflects the critical stance.
In order to avoid precipitous standpoints, an unbiased philosophical
inquiry moves through the three main stages of phenomenological,
aporetic and theoretical development. The first stage is descriptive
and requires the systematic collection of all the available evidence
relevant to whatever is under scrutiny. Frequently, descriptions end
up in conflicting theses, often in the form of aporias. More than
anyone else, Hartmann rehabilitates the value of aporias (see
Schlittmaier 2011 and Rescher 2011). Aporias themselves are
informative and should not be forced to disappear by *fiat*,
such as an *a priori* assumption on the overall uniformity of
reality or the assumption that we have a direct, transparent access to
reality. The last phase of the philosophical method consists in using
as few metaphysical assumptions as possible for the systematic
theoretical coordination of the results from the first two phases (ME,
S). Metaphysical assumptions are necessary for the task of
incorporating phenomena and aporias into a framework able to make
sense of them. Since metaphysical assumptions are not directly
supported by descriptive data, it is advisable to keep them to a
minimum, or to assume the weakest possible metaphysical
assumptions.



An original way of distinguishing between ontology and metaphysics
underlies the third stage of theoretical development. Ontology, for
Hartmann, deals with what can be subsumed under at least partially
cognizable categories, while metaphysics deals with the nonrational or
noncognizable. Two main consequences follow from this view of
ontology: firstly, ontology is primarily a theory of categories, in
the sense that all ontological distinctions have the form of
categories (AIntro1), and secondly, "science" in all its
branches (including the human/social sciences) is ontological in all
its ramifications (OLF37a), and is the most powerful ally of ontology.
This is rather at odds with the mainstream view of science as an
eminently epistemological affair (present in positivism,
Neo-Kantianism, phenomenology, existentialism, postmodernism, etc.).
This is one of the issues on which Hartmann firmly departs from the
Neo-Kantian legacy, as well as from the generalized critique of the
natural scientific approach in mainstream twentieth century
Continental philosophy.



This methodology is already employed in the *Metaphysics of
Cognition*. A phenomenological description that extracts the
"essential features" from the phenomenon of cognition
would note that: cognizers face off against something to-be-cognized;
they attempt to "grasp" that something; they form an
"image" (broadly speaking) of that something; the image is
somehow "determined" by the something; that something is
entirely untouched by the cognizer's attempt to grasp it; they
may or may not be in error about it (truth criterion); cognizers may
become conscious of problems surrounding the something; and they may
succeed or fail in making cognitive progress regarding them (ME5a-i).
From among these factors, take the central feature of
"grasping." The phenomenon of grasping generates an
aporia: how does the mind go "out of itself" to grasp a
transcendent object? The sense of being faced with something that one
did not anticipate or create and that one must now "grasp"
is often simply backgrounded by antirealists who claim that the mind
unconsciously creates its objects, or is imprisoned in a circle of its
own "positings" (ME6a). This is a
"skeptical-subjectivistic" resolution to the aporia of
grasping that simply ignores rather than does justice to the
phenomenon. It fails to distinguish between image and thing; what is
currently "objectified" in it; the object and the
"transobjective" (currently unknown but knowable); and
what may even be "transintelligible" (nonrational) in the
thing. Only by retaining the Kantian distinction between object
(appearance) and "thing-in-itself" can we account for this
central phenomenon of grasping. Far from being irrelevant, Hartmann
believes that the thing-in-itself is the "fundamental and
eminently critical concept" (ME30a). It is needed to explain the
phenomenon of transcendence in the total phenomenon of cognition.
Problem consciousness, which entails "knowing that you
don't know," implicitly recognizes what is transobjective,
and possibly transintelligible, in the thing. It implies a relation
between the subject as existing knower and something existing
independently of it. The phenomenon of cognition overflows the domain
of epistemology into ontology.



> 
> The mere fact (*Faktum*) that in problem consciousness and
> cognitive progress cognition ineluctably extends beyond its limits,
> and that problem consciousness does not stop at the limits of
> cognizability, forces us to realize that in general the ontological
> character of the object overpowers the object-character of being,
> i.e., that ontological being in itself is concealed behind
> gnoseological being in itself (ME9f).
> 



In other words, what problem consciousness entails is that objects are
always more than "an object for a subject," and even the
natural attitude toward the world takes this for granted. The burden
of proof is thus on idealism to show that there is no such thing. This
is in fact impossible, since even idealism assumes at the very least
that the cognizing subject is something "in itself,"
otherwise there is nothing but an infinite regress of representations
(ME30b-c). The regress has to stop with something that
"is," and we need ontology to determine what this
means.



The question of the section, "What is the relation between
thinking and being?", is thus answered by way of an extensive
phenomenology, aporetics, and theory of cognition that clings to the
basic aspect of transcendence and grasping, debunking rationalist
pretensions to transparently cognize everything. It is not the case
that "being is immanent to thinking," but that
"thinking is immanent to being." "This ontological
immanence has the simple meaning of *total embeddedness* of the
rational in a larger sphere of the nonrational, in whose thoroughgoing
relations it is completely interwoven and in whose existing
determinations it remains interwoven even where a consciousness of
these relations does not extend. It is the total embeddedness of
thinking and of cognition as a whole in being" (ME35d). It
should be noted that Heidegger also demoted cognition to secondary
ontological status in *Being and Time* (SS13, 1962 [1927]),
and refers there to Hartmann's book.



In later work, the embeddedness of cognition in a wider network of
social, affective, and practical activity is highlighted to an even
greater extent, and is further considered in the context of debates
over universalism and relativism (or the contrast between
"science" and "worldviews") (e.g.,
AIntro9-11). Put simply, Hartmann embraces a nonreductive naturalistic
interpretation of humankind, recognizing cognition as an adaptive
embodied transcendent act embedded in the context of other acts and
ontological relationships in the natural and social worlds (ELO). This
perspective, including his interpretation of Kant explained above,
means that our concepts of categories are human products, and are
attempts to grasp stable ontological principles. As such our attempts
can be inadequate. Principles themselves may have nonrational
elements, since they are transcendent objects too. The partial
identity between cognitive and ontological categories is rooted in
being, rather than the mind alone, and persistent problems arise from
human interaction with the world and each other.


## 4. What is Valuable? What is the Place of Humankind in the World?


### 4.1 Ethics



Before we can resolve fundamental problems regarding ethical norms,
duties, rights, or happiness, Hartmann argues, we have to ask
"what is valuable?" in the first place. The traditional
moral question "what ought we to do?", posed by the
Kantian ethics of duty, presupposes the more fundamental axiological
question, "what is valuable in life and the world
generally?" (ET1Intro5) What is "practical" about
ethics is not that it helps us find the means to reach ends, but that
it helps us identify the ends of action themselves (ET1Intro3). These
ends are values. In the *Ethics*, the only book to be
translated into English in his lifetime, Hartmann rejects the putative
subjectivism, formalism, and intellectualism of Kantian ethics, and
draws on Aristotelian virtue ethics for inspiration. Although he was
mainly influenced by Max Scheler's *Formalism in Ethics*
(1973 [1916]), which argues for a moral realism of values, Hartmann
departs significantly from his approach in many ways (Kelly 2011a;
Romer 2012). Hartmann also responded to Nietzsche's call
for a "transvaluation" of values, developed a typology of
distinctively Modern values out of Nietzsche's work, and defined
a moderate position between the extremes of value absolutism and value
relativism. Like his conception of problems, his conception of values
carefully distinguishes between the transhistorical and the
historical.



The same kind of argument used in the previous work, which begins with
complex "facts" and reasons to their necessary conditions,
is used in the *Ethics*. Hartmann held that the phenomena of
moral exemplarity, the idealization of moral types, the phenomena of
self-criticism and accountability, conscience, and even the historical
dominance of content-oriented virtue theory, all testify to an *a
priori*, intuitive sense for values. But Hartmann does not erect
an intuitionism of values out of this. A persistent theme throughout
his ethics is that morality is a creative enterprise, that it demands
a discerning sense for values and creative efforts at synthesis that
engage the whole person. "Ethics applies itself to the creative
power in man," he claims, and it awakens "man's
creative, spontaneous, living sense of what ought to be, of what in
itself is valuable" (ET1Intro2). He repeatedly asserts that
moral life is life in the midst of conflicts of value, and that these
conflicts are almost never cleanly resolved. "Real moral life is
not such that one can stand guiltless in it. And that each person must
step by step in life settle conflicts, insoluble theoretically, by his
own free sense of values and his own creative energy, should be
regarded as a feature of the highest spiritual significance in
complete humanity and genuine freedom" (ET2 25b).



While a novel axiology constitutes the core of Hartmann's
innovative approach, his treatment of the "problem of
freedom" in the last part of the book is also as groundbreaking
as it is unique. He dissects the problem of freedom and reveals
"personal autonomy" to be a novel form of determination in
the world. Rejecting Scheler's "metaphysical
personalism" as resting on a teleological prejudice, Hartmann
conceives of human beings as meaning-makers who realize values in
action. Their "place in the world" is to bring values into
reality which without them would otherwise remain unrealized (ET2
11h). Elsewhere he states that "humankind is the trustee
(*Sachwalter*) of values and of the ought in the real world.
Human beings are the intermediary that implements them in
actuality" (S 40; P14f). Because aesthetic values and objects
are some of the most meaningful and significant for human beings, he
also develops an extensive analysis of them in one of his final
works.



On reading the *Ethics*, the overall impression is of a kind of
cautious optimism in face of an apathetic and pessimistic Modern
culture. Hartmann was familiar with both Nietzsche's and
Scheler's critiques of *ressentiment* and Modern culture
(Nietzsche 1989 [1887]; Scheler 1994 [1914]), but Hartmann believes
that the human sense for values can be cultivated, that we can learn
to see the value abundance in the world and our relations to others
again, and that we can be creative actualizers of higher values in the
world. But to make this possible, what is first needed, counter to the
long ethical tradition, is to make the "central task" of
ethics "an analysis of the contents of values"
(ET1Foreword). Against the formalism and intellectualism of Kantian
ethics, it highlights the importance of our affective sense of values;
against the relativism and subjectivism of Nietzsche, it shows that
there are universal features of value experience and a structure to
the domain of values which can give some guidance in prioritizing and
synthesizing values in conflict.



Values, for Hartmann, are ideal entities. Mathematical entities and
values "exist" in an atemporal way, and have their own
determinations. In short, temporality is what radically distinguishes
real categories from ideal categories, and apart from temporality,
individuality is the second feature distinguishing real being from
ideal being. Everything ideal is general, and everything real is
individual. Everything real is unique and it exists only once. The
general in reality is real only "in" individuals (A37e).
Given the thesis that there are at least these two main types of ideal
entities, what else is shared by the entities included in the sphere
of ideal being? Hartmann considers the following three general
features. 1) The overall geography of both mathematical entities and
values is unknown. The constant efforts of the best minds and the
accumulated experience of humankind have been able to explore some of
their territories, and partially to map their landmarks. The overall
shape of mathematics and the overall shape of the territory of values,
however, are far from being charted. 2) Both the region of
mathematical entities and the region of values extend beyond the
boundaries of real being. Many mathematical structures are far from
being exemplified in reality and some will never be. The same patently
applies to values. 3) Both mathematics and ethics claim universality.
This is part of their nature as ideal beings. On the other hand,
neither mathematics nor ethics are able to capture--from their
own point of view--the whole of reality. There is no single
mathematical model of the world, and there are no good reasons to
believe that there will ever be one. Similarly, there is no single
ethical understanding of the whole of human experience, and there are
no good reasons to believe that there will ever be one. This last
issue is especially important from an ontological point of view,
because it shows that the universality of both mathematics and ethics
is different from the universality of ontology (Poli 2009a,b).



Nevertheless, an analogous relation between the transhistorical and
historical prevails here as in Hartmann's understanding of
problems, and, as we will see, in his understanding of categories.
There is a transhistorical content to values that is exemplified in
varied cultural and historical contexts and individual actions, in the
same way that there is a transhistorical problem content that is
addressed by various thinkers in different places and times. In the
context of the ethics, Hartmann employs the "spotlight"
metaphor to account for the shifting structure of value preferences
and value consciousness in different times and places, while
value-contents themselves are unchanging. From the whole realm of
values, value consciousness "cuts out a little circle of
something seen" and this circle "wanders about" the
ideal realm of values (ET1 6a; AE27e; Cadwallader 1984). Human beings
have affective access to the full range of values, but their cultural
ethos only presents them with a limited selection of this range. The
individual capacity to "see" values also changes with age
and axiological maturity. Groups and communities change by following
different guiding values. This latter case shows how historical and
social conditions are at work in shaping the territory of accessible
values. The interplay between individuals and the groups to which they
belong finds moments of stability in the mutually adjusted selection
of shared values. Repeated acts of valuation tend to produce stable or
fixed orders of individual and social preferences, or *ethos*,
whose guiding values press to be realized. The current
"maintenance-loss" model of language acquisition (Black et
al. 1998)--which basically means "use it or lose
it"--would also seem to apply in the case of cultural value
preferences and patterns of valuation. New visions and corresponding
behaviors can be rejected, or they may occasionally be accepted and
contribute to behaviors shaped by different values.



The second part of Hartmann's massive tome is comprised of an
extensive survey of western values, including ancient Greek,
Christian, and Modern values. Valuational conditions in the subject,
our sense of agency, and environmental values form the prerequisites
for the lasting fulfillment of genuinely moral values. The elementary
conditions in the subject are life, consciousness, and personality.
The last of these contains a number of values within itself: activity,
suffering, strength, freedom, foresight, and purposefulness (ET2
11a-h). The elementary conditions in the object are the goods and
situational values, such as environmental conditions, the causal
nexus, material possessions, community and family, and social goods
(law, language, knowledge, education, and
"free-association"). Goods and situations are not moral
values, but they are morally relevant, and are the conditions of
having moral values at all (ET2 12a-g).



Purposefulness in a way sums up the other conditions in the subject,
and also designates a structure of ontological determination unique to
humankind, which Hartmann calls the "finalistic nexus."
Our purposefulness is what allows us "to actualize values which
without our help would remain unreal" (ET2 11h), and it
structures all forms of practical intention, from striving and willing
to hoping and taking on attitudes. He defines the finalistic nexus as
a three-part structure: 1) affirming or setting up the end in
anticipation (which presupposes values and value perception); 2)
working backwards from the end to the nearest means leading up to it,
and so on, back to the first step; 3) actualizing the end through the
series of means in the real temporal and causal order (ET1 20c). In
this analysis, finalism is not something opposed to causality, but
obviously requires causality, and this "plus" of
determination inserts itself into the many-layered causal series.
Naturalism misunderstands this because it fails to see purposefulness
properly as noncausal (ET1 20e). The significance of this analysis of
finalism is decisive for his ethics and philosophical anthropology in
general, especially in the discussion of freedom of the will, and is
also important because it forms the basis for the critique of
teleological metaphysics that Hartmann embraces from the beginning to
the end of his career.



The core of his axiological analysis focuses on moral values in the
western ethical tradition. He considers a handful of general or
fundamental values, including the good, the noble, richness of
experience, and purity, before launching into more detailed analyses
of three historically dominant clusters of values stemming from
ancient Greek, Christian, and Modern morality, all of which continue
to carry normative force today. In the Greek group, Hartmann covers
justice, wisdom, courage, and self-control, and discusses
Aristotle's theory of the mean with reference to values such as
generosity, ambition, and magnanimity. The core value of the Christian
group of values is brotherly love. This kind of love is directed at
whomever is nearest, to the other person as person (ET2 24a).
Truthfulness, reliability, faith, modesty, and humility are other
values that fall in this group. In contrast to these historical
clusters, there are also values associated with the impulse to
transform them, turning against comfort, tradition, and inertia,
exhibiting a striving for progress, chasing ideals that go beyond the
life of the individual. It is hard to name some values in this third
group because they are so new, but Hartmann calls the first value
"love of the remotest," following Nietzsche. It is love
for the ideal of humankind as it should be, and knows that ignoring
this ideal is wrong. Radiant virtue (Nietzsche's
"*schenkende Tugend*"; see Nietzsche 2006) is
connected to the present. It is the sense of spiritual fullness,
imparting to others spiritual goods, an overflowing ability to share,
to broadcast values, and the delight in so doing.
"Personality" is the sense that each person has a unique
character and complex ideal personality that they "ought"
to approximate as best they can. It is a new norm for the person. The
singularity of personal behavior is as much an "ought" as
is the universal ought. His descriptions and discussions of many of
the values considered central to western morality, especially of the
Modern ethos (ET2 30e-33f), are fascinating and worth sustained
attention.



Hartmann also discusses the structure of the value realm that we can
discern, even if we cannot map it in its entirety. Two organizing
principles of the value domain are especially important: that of
strength and that of height. The strength of a value is indicated by
the gravity of its violation, while the height of a value is expressed
in the merit deriving from its fulfillment. These two principles
operate in opposite directions: the strongest values are also the
lowest values, while the highest values are the least strong ones.
Usually, lower values are simpler (that is, they possess less
intuitable content) while higher values are more complex. The laws of
strength and height have significant consequences, the two most
important of which are the following: 1) violating a lower value is a
more serious offense than violating a higher value; 2) fulfilling a
higher value is a greater good than fulfilling a lower value. In
Hartmann's words, "sinning against lower values is
ignominious, shameful, revolting, but their fulfillment only reaches
the level of decency, without rising above it. Offending against
higher values, by contrast, does indeed have the character of moral
failure, but nothing of the directly degrading, while fulfillment of
these values may have something uplifting, liberating, indeed
thrilling about it" (ET2 28e). Offending against life is a grave
offense, while respecting it has very little merit. But the
fulfillment of spiritual goods is a merit much greater than the merit
corresponding to respect for more elementary goods, such as
environmental goods. If the architecture of values is based on levels
of dependence, then the ethos of a person whose behavior is oriented
to a higher value, but who does not simultaneously respect the values
that support it, is structurally discordant. The higher values to
which she refers are not sustainable. Loving with distrust or giving
with cowardice are not authentically virtuous behaviors (ET2 63f). A
pattern of valuation is constructed step by step from the most
elementary levels upwards.



Value antinomies and conflicts also structure the domain of values.
Some typical conflicts include that between justice, which demands the
same treatment for all, and personal love, which demands special
treatment for one individual. The value of personality stands in
antinomic relation to universal values like justice and brotherly
love, both of which demand a certain kind of equality. There are
various forms of contrast, not just antinomy proper. The clash between
universal and personal, and between present and future are others, and
in a way all values conflict with each other in concrete situations
(ET2 36g). In light of these clashes, a frequent source of error is
fetishizing one value at the expense of others, leading to the tyranny
of a single value. Fanaticism of justice which attacks love,
fanaticism of love which leads to self-sacrifice, fanaticism of love
of the remote which becomes a hatred of the present (Nietzsche) are
some typical cases. In a way, every value taken to an extreme is a
danger, so avoiding extremes through synthesis is crucial. "Only
a sense of justice which is at the same time loving, only a brotherly
love which also considers the far distant, only a pride which would
likewise be humble, could be valid as an ideal of moral conduct"
(ET2 36g). He goes so far as to say that values reach fulfillment only
in synthesis with others.



The ever-present conflicts of values are also a condition of personal
freedom, because no decision would be needed if there were no conflict
(ET3 16e). Hartmann's analysis of freedom covers the various
senses of autonomy exposed by Kant's ethical theory, but adds
another layer that responds directly to the problem of value conflict.
Because the actual ethical existence of the person is
"higher" than values, freedom is incompatible with
complete determination of the person by a higher
principle--whether god, duty, or even values (ET3 16f). Freedom
cannot bear the form of an ought at all. Interestingly, Hartmann was
clear about this long before Sartre. Freedom has to be regarded as a
plus of determination in face both of natural law and of moral law,
ontological and axiological determination (ET3 16g). By our actual
initiative we decide actual conflicts, and "personal
autonomy" is the person's capacity to endorse values, to
transform a value into one's own determinant, to commit or not
to commit oneself to a value, and values are impotent without our
commitment to them. We are the mediators of the ought in reality, and
only personal commitment to them can bring them to actualization (ET3
17c). This explicitly opposes any simple intuitionism about
values.



As readers may have noted, this position on freedom resonates with
later existentialist thinking, and like it, levelled devastating
arguments against any form of metaphysics that imposed any form of
determination on humankind. Hartmann's critique of teleological
metaphysics is one example of this (ET1 21b-d). The anthropomorphic
roots of cosmic teleology stem from our own purposefulness. Its
anthropomorphism is philosophically expressed in the assertion of the
primacy of axiological determination in the universe over ontological
determination. While the finalistic nexus is a phenomenon of our
structure, it cannot be generalized to the structure of the universe,
or we would overturn the basic ontological structure of the real
world, and this "metaphysical humanization of the Absolute is
the moral annulment of man" (ET3 21d). Hartmann claims that if
the cosmos were teleologically oriented toward the good, then there
would be no place for what makes humankind unique in it. Hartmann
considers "deliverance from the nightmare of teleology" to
be one of the chief accomplishments of Modern philosophy, because with
such a metaphysics genuine morality becomes impossible (ET3 5e). By
restricting finalism to its proper place, ethics rehabilitates
humankind, recognizing its limited but also weighty cosmic
significance.


### 4.2 Aesthetics



If the "place" of humankind is to give meaning to the
world, then meaning-giving through the arts has to be examined. In the
arts, humankind achieves some of its most significant instances of
endowing the world with meaning. Hartmann says that "the
bestowal of meaning that comes into human life via aesthetic values
consists fundamentally in nothing other than in the convincing feeling
of standing face-to-face before something of absolutely intrinsic
value--before something for whose sake alone it would be worth
living, regardless of how the conditions of one's life stand
otherwise" (AE35b).



As in the ethics and epistemology, one of the main features of
Hartmann's aesthetics is its close interplay with ontology.
Hartmann intentionally focuses his aesthetics on the problem of the
aesthetic object, and sets aside investigation of the correlated acts.
Hartmann distinguishes two "strata" in the aesthetic
object, which he calls the foreground and the background. In his
words, "the aesthetics of today still concentrates mainly on
analysis of the act, and this is why the stratification relationship
[in the object], although it has often been noted, is not yet familiar
to it" (P47a). The foreground is comprised of the real, concrete
and sensible dimensions of the object, everything that is independent
of the presence of a subject who beholds the object and seeks to
understand it. The background strata vary with the kinds of content
the foreground lets appear, and the background exists only for the
subject who grasps it. This level is typically organized into many
distinct sub-levels. A theory of this kind obviously raises two
questions: first, how do we articulate the relationship between the
two levels? Second, how do we articulate the relationship among the
sublevels of the background stratum? In response to the first
question, Hartmann describes a "relationship of
appearance" on the basis of which--as has been pointed out
on innumerable occasions--the foreground (i.e., the matter of the
object) imposes constraints on the background. Most important for the
definition of aesthetic values is to realize that these values attach
to the "relation of appearance" itself. In other words,
the aesthetic values that fall under the general heading of
"beauty" are defined as values that are carried by the
"appearance relation" that emerges between some materially
existing "foreground" of the object and some unreal
"background" that exists only for the beholder. The skill
of the artist consists in manipulating this relation of appearance.
Aesthetic values are different from moral or vital values in that they
do not attach to an existing thing, but exist only for a subject who
appreciates aesthetically; they are values of the object as
(intentional) object, independently of reality or unreality; they are
tied to the relation of appearance itself; and they are values
specific to each object and unique to it (AE4c). In all cases, values
like beauty, the sublime, the graceful, charming, idyllic, or sweet,
as well as all species of the comical, such as farce, the ridiculous,
funny, and humorous, are tied to the relation of appearance and
specific to each object. Notably, Hartmann completely revises
Kant's definition of the sublime, detaching it from the
transcendental, the realm of the quantitative, and the oppressive, and
implants it into the natural and human, terrestrial and nearby, fixing
it in the object and a "psychic need of the human heart"
(AE31b). It is rooted in the "attraction of the human heart to
what is magnificent" (AE31c), and our human desire to bring
meaning into life. The sublime is a form of beauty that responds to
the human need for greatness. "It is that specific appearing of
an unsensed background in a real sensed foreground of the object,
which accommodates the needs of man for greatness, and, with the
greatest ease, overcomes any resistance opposed to it" (AE31c).
It is also noteworthy that Hartmann treats both comedy and music at
far greater length in the *Aesthetics* than most other authors
of comparable works in the history of philosophy.



That part of the theory which concerns the typical stratification of
the background is completely original. In response to the second
question above, the answer is that different aesthetic objects display
different articulations of the background stratum. In the case of
literary works, for example, Hartmann distinguishes at least six
different levels for more sophisticated genres like epic narratives or
novels, while other genres have fewer levels. This applies to lyrical
poems, for example, whose expressiveness is articulated into fewer
levels because of the constraints imposed on the admissible expressive
forms. Hartmann cites the portrait as an example of a visual aesthetic
object. He distinguishes the following levels in its background
stratum: the three-dimensional space in which the subject of the
portrait and some elements of the setting appear; the movement of the
subject's apparent corporeality; the subject's character;
their individual idea, or the idea that the person portrayed has of
themselves; the symbolic, or the universal content manifested by the
portrait. His discriminating and extensive analyses of works by
Beethoven, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Rembrandt, among many others, are
worthy of close consideration by theorists, as is the entire
theory.



As in the ethics, Hartmann again reminds readers of what the analysis
teaches us about the place of humankind in the world. "If man
with his powers, his sense of values, and his occasional capacity for
realizing values, is capable of bestowing meaning and value, then
precisely the senselessness of the world as a whole obtains a meaning
for him. [...] A world that, without man, was already filled with
meaning would render him superfluous even despite his gifts for
bestowing meaning" (AE35a). Both the ethics and aesthetics
entail a unique philosophical anthropology that inserts humankind into
the complex stratified structure of the world.


### 4.3 Anthropology



Fischer has argued that Hartmann should be counted among the members
of a "Cologne Constellation" of thinkers whose main
project was the development of a philosophical anthropology that
combined serious reflection on human being as a biological creature
with the findings of the human sciences and humanities (Fischer 2012).
Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985), Hartmann, and later, Arnold
Gehlen (1904-1976), are included in this group. They all shared the
desire to bridge the dualism between natural scientific and humanistic
accounts (Scheler 1928, Plessner 1928, Gehlen 1940). They knew each
other's work, and their mutual influences remain to be
disentangled. While Hartmann did not write a book devoted to
philosophical anthropology, his ideas on the topic are scattered
throughout a number of works, including *The Problem of Spiritual
Being* (1933), OLF (1935), a long review of Gehlen's book
(1941), and "Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie" (1944).
Characteristically, Hartmann's view rejects both reductive
naturalistic accounts as well as the anthropocentric exceptionalism
that characterizes many idealist humanistic views. In *The Problem
of Spiritual Being*, Hartmann explains that the category of the
"spirit" is divided into personal, objective and
objectivated spirit. Personal spirit is the spirit of the individual;
objective spirit is the living spirit of communities; and objectivated
spirit characterizes the products of spirit. As he also explained in
the *Ethics*, the categorial features of personal spirit are
consciousness, will, foresight and teleological activity. None of
these features pass to objective spirit. There is no consciousness
apart from individual consciousness, and the same applies to the other
capacities. He thus rejects the idealist conception of a unifying
absolute spirit. In order to ward off materialist reductionism, he
embraces a nonreductive naturalism that acknowledges the ontological
dependence of higher functions on lower processes without detriment to
the autonomy and novelty of the higher. He carefully works to
reconcile the disparate facets of the human phenomenon, such as the
fact that human beings are vanishing specks of dust in a vast cosmos
as well as the only beings capable of creating masterpieces of art
that give meaning to the world. Human beings are ontologically
stratified creatures, including physical, biological, mental, and
spiritual features that reflect the stratified structure of reality.
Hartmann's anthropological ideas have gotten a good deal of
attention in recent research (Kalckreuth et al. 2019; Hartung and
Wunsch 2014), and could also form an intriguing starting point for
comparison between Hartmann and other writers, such as McDowell
(Wunsch 2020). The nature of the stratified ontology of the real world
on which it is based remains to be explained.


## 5. What is the Structure of the Real World?



Hartmann claims in *Ontology:* *Laying the Foundations*
(1935) that the book "form[s] the prelude to an ontology that I
have been working on for two decades," and that "[a] new
critical ontology has become possible. The task is to make it a
reality" (v). The book paved the way for a systematic treatment
of ontology by introducing (1) the difference between modes of being
(the modalities of possibility, necessity and actuality), spheres of
being (real and ideal), and ways of being (*Dasein* and
*Sosein*), as well as (2) a treatment of emotional transcendent
acts as constituting the requisite pre-conceptual acquaintance with
the harshness of reality. The main thesis put forward by Hartmann in
*Laying the* *Foundations* is that all ontological
differences are categorial articulations of being, not differences
between being and non-being. Parts and wholes are both authentic
aspects of being; independent and dependent entities are similarly
aspects of being; physical, biological, psychological and spiritual
types of being are all manifestations of being, and none of them is
"more being" than any other. From the point of view of
ontology, no part, aspect, or moment of reality is "more
being" than any other part, aspect or moment of it. The fact
that, say, the existence of biological entities depends on that of
physical entities does not imply that physics is "more
ontologically real" than biology. Existentially dependent
entities are as ontologically genuine as existentially independent
ones. This basic premise is one of the points of departure for his
ontological pluralism. All entities, whatever their type, demand the
same careful ontological scrutiny. Hartmann's analytic
development of ontology begins with the theory of ontological
modalities elaborated in *Possibility and Actuality*. The main
purpose of this book is to demonstrate that modalities ground the
differences between the two principal spheres of being (real and
ideal) and the two secondary spheres of being (knowledge and logic).
Finally, *The Structure of the Real World* and *Philosophy
of Nature* present in detail the many fundamental and special
categories within the real sphere of being.



Given his unique reading of Kant, "categories" become the
central theme of Hartmann's ontology. Hartmann's theory of
categories entirely breaks with Kant's or Hegel's theories
of categories by explicitly denying that categories are concepts.
While we need concepts in order to refer to categories, concepts never
capture categories entirely, just as our "images" of
objects never capture "what exists" entirely.



Categories deal with what is universal and necessary (AIntro12).
Categories articulate in particular the *Sosein*
("being-such-and-such-a-way") of entities; they specify
configurations, structures and contents, not forms of existence
(AIntro7). Categories specify the fundamental determinations of being,
and are "principles" of being. As fundamental
determinations of being, categories form the interior of entities, so
to speak. In this sense, categories are immanent to the world, and do
not form a second world (A16b). The categorial interior of entities
can be viewed in terms of a core-periphery organization: the most
fundamental categories structure the innermost core of entities, while
other categories, such as scientific ones, add progressively more
superficial layers. Ontological categories are the most fundamental,
and form the network of internal, dynamic determinants and
dependencies which articulate the furniture and structure of the
world. Categories do not form a homogeneous continuum, but appear to
be organized in groups (AIntro15). Some categories belong to all the
spheres of being (ideal and real), some to the entire real world,
others to a specific stratum of reality. The first group of
categories, "modal categories," is analyzed in detail in
*Possibility and Actuality*; the second group,
"fundamental categories," is covered in *The Structure
of the Real World*, while the third group, "special
categories," is explored in the *Philosophy of Nature*
and other works. Fundamental categories include (1) categories
organized in pairs of opposites, such as principle-*concretum*,
element-complex, and form-matter; (2) *strata* categories, such
as those that distinguish inanimate, living, psychological, and
spiritual beings; and (3) the categories of intercategorial
connections, or the group of categorial *laws*, such as the
laws of coherence, stratification, and dependence among
categories.



We come to know ontological categories through the objects that we
come to know. However, our knowledge of ontological categories is even
more provisional than our knowledge of objects. The difference between
knowing objects and knowing categories explains why ontological
categories are often confused with concepts. The problem is that
categories do not allow direct acquaintance as objects do. Concepts
are names of ontological categories, which implies that concepts are
partial, static, separate representations of items that in themselves
are both essentially dynamic and inseparable from other ontological
categories. Like the knowledge of objects, the knowledge of
ontological categories also changes--when ontology develops, our
understanding of ontological categories develops as well, so that we
gain a deeper and better grasp of their articulation and subtleties.
Some categories have countless variations, others only a few minor
ones. The most general and schematic categories are those with the
most meager content, and they are therefore those that change least
(A27b).



The two main aspects of categories are their generality and their
character of determination. This second feature is what makes them
principles. Principles exhaust themselves in this determining role.
They only exist for something else; they are something only with
respect to the *concretum* that they determine and are
*in*. Principles are nothing without their *concretum*,
and the *concretum* cannot exist without its principles (A1a;
6b; 16b; and elsewhere). The ontological aspect of the categories
consists in some kind of determination of their *concreta*.
Categories as principles are independent from their *concreta*,
but not from other categories (A11c). Principles imply one another,
and all the categories characterizing a stratum of reality work
together (A15c). Categories are far from being the only principles of
entities. There are also highly particular principles structuring
specific domains of being--such as natural laws or psychological
laws--which are *concreta* with respect to general
categories (A25f). There is a gradation of principles from the most
general categories to specific real cases. Empirical laws are
*concreta* with respect to general principles, and they are
principles with respect to individual instances.


### 5.1 Fundamental Categories



Among fundamental categories, paired categories are the most general
*structural* elements of being. As structural elements they
have content, and there are composite relations among them (A23b).
Hartmann organizes the various pairs into two groups of six pairs,
without claiming that the list of paired oppositions is exhaustive.
The first group includes principle-*concretum*,
structure-modus, form-matter, inner-outer, determination-dependence,
quality-quantity; the second group includes unity-manifoldness,
harmony-conflict, opposition-dimension, discreteness-continuity,
substratum-relation, element-complex. There is no intrinsic order
among the pairs (A24a). It is apparent that some of these are easier
to grasp than others. To provide a sample of Hartmann's
analysis, we now briefly describe two of the pairs,
principle-*concretum* and element-complex (for more details see
Werkmeister 1990, Poli 2011a, and A sections).



*Principle-Concretum**:* *Concretum* for Hartmann
is what is determinate, that in which categories are embedded as their
determinations. The *concretum* is not limited to real
entities, but includes ideal ones as well. Furthermore, the
*concretum* for Hartmann is not to be understood as limited to
the individual instances of a principle because there can be different
levels of *concreta*. For instance, strata categories are
*concreta* with respect to general categories. In this case,
both the *concretum* and its principles are categories. Real
categories contain all the universal determinations of their
*concreta*; they contain what is needed for the structure of
the *concreta*. A complete system of categories--not the
incomplete one we are able to grasp--completely determines its
*concreta* (A4a). As natural laws exist only in the real
processes of nature and are nothing outside of them, so real
categories exist only as structural relations within the real world
and are nothing in themselves (A16c). The principle-*concretum*
form of determination is only one among a variety of types of
determination, and in no way is it the most relevant in the real
world. In fact, each real level has its own specific types of
determination, such as the specific linear nexus (causal, final, etc.)
that unifies the phases of the processes that unfold within and
between *concreta*. In sum, principles are that through which
the *concretum* is (partially) grasped. They are the
*archai* of the *concretum*, the condition of its
possibility or that on which the *concretum* rests. They have
unconstrained validity for all the *concreta* that fall within
their range (A27c).



*Element-complex*: Complexes are relational entities. In
*Philosophy of Nature*, Hartmann explains that he prefers the
term "complex" (*Gefuge*) to the "worn
out" (*verbrauchten*) term "system" (N38c).
The elements of a complex are its members, not substrata, and elements
are determined by the complex of which they are members (A25c).
Complexes have their own type of determination, and in each case the
determination extends across the complex's elements and
transforms them. A complex of elements is always a complex of
relations and determinations. Elements are essentially determined by
the positions they occupy within the complex's total series of
relations (A33a). This explains why elements have functions within the
complex. Within a complex, what matters are not the elements, but the
relations that they maintain among themselves and with the complex. An
irregularly shaped stone, a grain of sand, a puddle, a mountain are
not independent complexes, but fragments and parts of larger
formations that come into existence before them and within which they
exist as subordinate moments (A33c). All natural complexes are
complexes of forces and processes, but physical complexes and
organisms are different. The inside of the complex of processes that
constitutes an organism is the capacity of the complex to maintain its
working conditions--what Hartmann calls the self-determination of
the organism (A34c), while a physical complex maintains its dynamic
stability through equilibrium with its exterior.



Readers might have noted that while the principle-concretum pair seems
to cover some of the terrain of the old distinction between essence
and existence, it does not entirely coincide with it. Hartmann
rejected those terms in favor of a more accurate distinction between
*Sosein* ("being-such-and-such-a-way") and
*Dasein* as "ways of being." *Dasein* and
*Sosein* can be approximately understood as existence and
determination. Both real and ideal entities have both *Sosein*
and *Dasein*. Mathematical entities and values
"exist" in an atemporal way, for example, and have their
own determinations. While the general is a dominant category in the
ideal sphere and a subordinate category in the sphere of the real,
individuality is a category of the sphere of real being only. In the
realm of ideal being there is no individual. Ultimately, what
rigorously distinguishes the real from the ideal spheres themselves
are the different "intermodal relations" of necessity,
possibility, and actuality in each. In *Possibility and
Actuality*, a book which still awaits close scrutiny by
researchers, Hartmann argues for some of his most startling
claims.



Rejecting the Aristotelian notion of "partial possibility"
on which most conceptions of possibility are based, Hartmann embraces
a "Megarian" conception of "real possibility."
Hartmann examines the differences between "real
possibility" and "essential [or ideal] possibility,"
"real necessity" and "essential [or ideal]
necessity," among others, and argues that paradoxically the
possible, the actual, and the necessary coincide in the real world
(Hartmann 2017 [1937]; PA16b-c). In other words, the real world is
fully determinate, and whatever is possible is possible within the
bounds of the actual world. (Peruzzi 2001 considers the relation
between Hartmann's view of modality and "possible
worlds" semantics.)



The ways of being *Sosein* and *Dasein* are also in a
sense relative, or positional. Hartmann presents their positional
alternation this way: the *Dasein* of a tree is the
*Sosein* of a forest (OLF19a); i.e., without the existing tree
the content of the forest would be different. Similarly, the
*Dasein* of the branch is the *Sosein* of the tree, the
*Dasein* of the leaf is the *Sosein* of the branch, and
the *Dasein* of the vein is the *Sosein* of the leaf.
Things can be inverted, too: the *Sosein* of the leaf is the
*Dasein* of the vein; the *Sosein* of the branch is the
*Dasein* of the leaf, etc. The *Dasein*-*Sosein*
series has two limits: towards the first, original *Dasein* and
towards the last *Sosein*, the *Sosein* of the whole of
reality. The mainstream interpretation of *Dasein* and
*Sosein**,* or existence and essence, as entirely
separate aspects of being, depends on epistemological acts of
isolation. Only when aspects are separated do independent substances
and dependent qualities appear, and it is for this reason that it
seems that qualities do not have any *Dasein* and,
complementarily, that their bearers have no *Sosein* (OLF20c).
This is just one of the novel and transformative findings in
Hartmann's ontological analysis that overcomes difficulties with
the traditional contrast between essence and existence.


### 5.2 Strata



These are only some of the fundamental categories and articulations
that structure the real world. It is not just the theory of
categories, but the theory of strata ("levels of reality")
that distinguishes Hartmann's ontology. Like everything else,
strata of reality are characterized by their categories. By
definition, the categories characterizing strata of reality are not
general, in the sense that they do not pertain to reality in its
entirety, but only to specific domains of real being. On the other
hand, fundamental categories are the most general and simple
categories, and for this reason they are contained in the special
categories of all of the strata (A21b). Strata are the true
structuring framework of the real world. While the latter has unity,
its unity is the unity of neither a principle nor a center. The unity
of the real world is instead provided by the structure and order of
the strata (A52a).



Four main strata of reality are distinguished by Hartmann: the
inanimate, the biological, the psychological or mental, and the
spiritual. This last includes all historical realities (history,
language, customs, law, art, etc.). The underlying observation is that
the structure and the laws of history and other spiritual processes
are different from the structure and laws of, say, inanimate beings,
but the former are not in any way less real than the latter (A20a).
The same applies to the other strata as well: biological and
psychological processes are as real as any other process, and they
have their own specific groups of categories. Ontology must be
pluralistic.



One of the most intriguing aspects of Hartmann's theory of
strata is the question of what kinds of relation connect the strata to
each other. Two general relations seem to govern strata relations, and
these are further specified by the "categorial laws." The
two basic relations between strata are termed relations of
superformation (*Uberformung*) and superposition
(*Uberbauung*) (A51f). Consider the superformation between
molecules and cells, i.e., between the physical and the biological
levels of reality. It accounts for the fact that even if organisms are
unquestionably more complex than mechanisms, the behavior of organisms
is in conformity with laws of mechanics (A51b). At the same time,
mechanical regularities are superformed by being incorporated into
organic ones. The relation between the psychological and spiritual
levels is different, because they are characterized by an interruption
in the categorial series and by the onset of a new categorial
coherence. The relations between the biological and the psychological
stratum, on the one hand, and the relation between the psychological
and the spiritual stratum, on the other, are both relations of
superposition. The group of categories embedded in psychological
entities is different from the group of categories embedded in
biological entities. Similarly, the group of categories embedded in
spiritual entities is different from the group of categories embedded
in psychological entities.



Hartmann specifies analytically the laws that govern the various
levels of reality and their connection (for a short introduction see
NW; for a summary of the laws, see Poli 2011a and Peterson 2012). The
*laws of validity* concern the scope of the validity of
categorial principles (A43a), and the *laws of coherence*
concern the holistic character of each stratum (A45b). If we take a
simple organism as object of inquiry, for example, biological
categories rather than physical or mental ones are primarily valid,
and these saturate the organism with specifically organological forms
of determination, no more (such as teleology) and no less (such as
physical causality). Moreover, if we claim that metabolism belongs to
a proper understanding of the organism, then aspects of every other
category of organic life are entailed in it as well, codetermining and
ingredient in it. With these two sets of principles, he has covered
the internal coherence and determination within a stratum. These laws
together imply a degree of incommensurability of categorial domains to
one another, but given the all-pervasiveness of the fundamental
categories, this substantive incommensurability is never total.
Relations between different strata are captured in the last two sets
of structural laws.



The *laws of stratification* can be summed up in four key
terms: recurrence, modification, novelty, and distance. Some lower
categories recur in higher strata as partial aspects of higher
categories, and every recurring category is modified in its
recurrence. Whenever a lower element is taken into the higher it is
affected by its new place in relation to others in the new stratum.
These two principles constitute a vertical interconnectedness of the
strata. While the categories of causality and substance, for example,
appear to us initially in discussion of physical things, they recur
modified in the domain of the organic. Because categories are not
simples but complexes of factors, some of those factors may remain
stable while others are modified, constituting the recurrence of the
same but non-identical category. These recurrences have to be shown in
each case, and one of the tasks of categorial analysis is tracing the
modifications of a single category throughout the strata. Next, every
stratum contains is own unique and novel categories that are not
present in the lower stratum, nor are they a sum of them. Finally,
recurrence, modification, and novelty imply that there is not a
continuous series of levels, but gaps or incisions between them. The
last two laws of novelty and distance are what give the impression of
the ontological irreducibility of the strata (A50b). For instance,
while the category of metabolism in the organic may necessarily
incorporate some aspects of linear causal process, it is itself a
distinctive kind of process that is irreducible to them. Thus,
recurrence and novelty respectively reflect the aspects of continuity
and discontinuity among the strata. Categorial novelty inserts an
incision or cut into the apparent continuum of categories, creating a
distance or gap between strata. The *laws of dependence* can
also be summed up in four terms: strength, indifference, matter, and
freedom. The "fundamental categorial law" of strength says
that the lower categories on which higher strata depend are conditions
or fundaments, while the higher are weaker. The lower are indifferent
to whether anything higher builds on them or not, since their vocation
is not to serve the higher. As "matter," the lower
categories, if incorporated into higher levels, constrain what the
higher may do with them but do not determine it. Lastly, the higher
always has leeway despite its weakness and dependence on the lower
(A55d). Laws of dependence help to characterize superposition
relations. They organize the order of the strata, so that the
spiritual level is founded on the psychological level, which in its
turn is founded on the biological one. Conversely, the biological
level is the bearer of the psychological level and the latter is the
bearer of the spiritual level.


### 5.3 Special Categories



After covering the modal categories that allow us to distinguish
between ideal and real spheres in PA, and exhaustively covering
fundamental categories and categorial laws in A, Hartmann covers the
special categories of the two lower strata in N. Hartmann had already
worked out a number of special categories belonging to the higher
strata in earlier work, including the *Ethics* and the
*Problem of Spiritual Being*. *Philosophy of Nature*
examines the ontological dimensions and categories of the
cosmological, physical, and biological sciences of his day. Paul
Feyerabend, while otherwise critical of Hartmann, praises Hartmann for
developing a coherent "philosophy of process" in this book
(Feyerabend 1963, 101). In it, Hartmann declares that
"mathematical physics deals with reality qua measurable, not
with reality as such" (N24), and further develops his complex
systems conception of living things. Hartmann's work in these
areas was influential for scientists like Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989)
and Ludwig Bertalanffy (1901-1972), who explicitly refer to him.
I'll summarize the special categories of the strata here before
closing with a few open questions about specific aspects of
Hartmann's ontology.



The lowest stratum of material or physical reality includes, for
example, the categories of corporeality, space, time, process,
substance, causality, reciprocity, and dynamic structure and
equilibrium (N1-44). Next, organic beings embody a peculiar organic
structure defined in terms of adaptability, purposiveness, metabolism
or self-regulation, self-restoration, reproductive fitness, and
hereditary constancy and variation (N45-64). In agreement with Scheler
and the work of many ethologists (Scheler 2009 [1928]), it is widely
recognized that many types of animals possess a mental life. This
psychological or mental stratum includes awareness, unconscious
processes, pleasure and pain, conditioned learning, habit, associative
memory, communication, emotional response, problem-solving
intelligence, and the categories of rigid social relations (NW). The
stratum of spiritual capacities includes the power of conceptual
thought, knowledge acquisition, ideal relations, moral evaluation and
values, symbolic communication, teleological reasoning, personality,
and all of the categories of the complex and variable social
relationships evinced by humanity. Historical reality and culture, or
objective and objectivated spirit, form the immediate context for a
characteristically human existence (NW; P). Human beings are the most
vulnerable entities, the most conditioned and dependent; but they have
knowledge, they can consciously adapt, and they can use other entities
for their own purposes (A56b, d, 60a; ELO). The strata laws described
above specify why none of these strata is explanatorily reducible to
another.



In recent literature, a number of questions have arisen about
Hartmann's theory of stratification. One concerns the borderline
between psychological and spiritual strata. Hartmann himself
acknowledges that the distinction between the psychological and the
spiritual levels is problematic. Hartmann vacillates as to the
delimitations of what is properly psychological. He assigns language,
consciousness, and foresight alternatively to the psychological level
or to the personal level of the spirit. He even claims that the same
acts of consciousness pertain to both psychic and spiritual being and
that only an exact clarification of the phenomenon of mental acts may
solve the *aporia*. Some authors have attempted to clarify
these relations (Scognamiglio 2011), while others have pointed out
that the overall architecture of the theory of strata of reality, or
the relations among the biological, the psychological and spiritual
levels, may need to be revised. Put briefly, if the psychological
level ends up including what psychology and cognitive sciences
acknowledge as psychological phenomena, the dividing line between the
psychological and the spiritual levels should be located elsewhere,
and what Hartmann calls personal spirit will become the higher layer
of the psychological level. The reorganization suggested enables
construction of an entirely different architecture of the three
levels, one that passes from a strictly linear organization (one level
after the other) to a non-linear, "triangular"
architecture, which would be a major departure from Hartmann's
original framework (Poli 2001; for other proposals, see Kleineberg
2016, Dziadkowiec 2011).



Another question regarding stratification that even Hartmann faced
during his lifetime was how this stratified scheme bears on the
question of emergence (or "supervenience"). Hartmann
himself explicitly refused to present an emergentist theory, and
characteristically, he left the question whether an
"evolutionary" account of the emergence of strata could be
provided entirely open (NW10). Consequently, it has been argued that
attempts to treat Hartmann's ontology as emergentist are flawed
by their conflation of the granular or hierarchical series of
entities, as in a mereological hierarchy, with the series of strata
themselves (Dahlstrom 2012; Peterson 2016).


## 6. Conclusion: What is Philosophy?



As mentioned above, Hartmann's philosophical style presented a
strong contrast with that of his peers. Philosophy for Hartmann was a
critical, systematic, analytical investigation into the fundamental
problems of existence. It meant rejecting ready-made standpoints,
ungrounded speculation, system-building, and extreme, improbable
conclusions. He claimed that "the prerequisite of systematic
thinking is the purity of the philosophical ethos," which is
"perseverance in investigation, patient waiting, capacity to
remain suspended in uncertainty," the "genuine dianoetic
virtue of the philosopher" (S 5-6). Utilizing the methods of
phenomenology and aporetics before passing to theory, critical
ontology is the desideratum for systematic philosophy (S 51).
Philosophy is not about committing to a single monolithic standpoint
or theory and looking at every human problem through its narrow lens.
It is not system-building speculative idealism (German Idealism), an
epistemology of the sciences (positivism), logical idealism (Marburg
Neo-Kantianism), transcendental phenomenology (Husserl), universal
hermeneutic phenomenological ontology (early Heidegger), theory of
worldviews (Dilthey), philosophy of life (Bergson), or metaphysical
personalism (Scheler). All of these theoretical standpoints invariably
commit the chief fallacy, identified by Hartmann, of attempting to use
one set of categories to explain the entirety of the real world
(Peterson 2012). Hartmann's articulated and robust categorial
ontology leaves room for the fantastic diversity and abundance of the
world, provides a satisfying nonanthropocentric humanist account of
the place of humankind in the cosmos, and has even inspired a recent
comprehensive approach to environmental philosophy (Peterson 2020).
There is much to be learned from Hartmann's work, and this
article only scratches the surface.