10 Philosophical stage (Philosophical spiritual animals). For an evolutionary stage after rational spiritual animals to be inevitable, three conditions must be satisfied: (1) there must be a higher level of neurological organization than at the rational spiritual stage, (2) such a higher level must be functional in the sense of opening up an entire range of new powers to control relevant conditions that can evolve gradually over a long period of time, and (3) it must be possible for it to be tried out as a radical random variation on evolving structures under conditions in which it will be naturally selected for its power.

It is relatively easy, as it was at the previous stage, to see that the first two conditions are satisfied, for it can be known by reflecting on this ontological argument. The higher level of neurological organization is evident in the linguistic representation used to state it, and the function of philosophy can be seen in how all the arguments of rational level culture are incorporated in its explanation of the wholeness of the world, even if the plight of epistemological philosophy makes it doubtful that philosophy has a function.

This does not, however, resolve doubts about the inevitability of the philosophical stage, because ontological philosophy is hardly within the range of random variations tried out in arguments of rational spiritual animals. Such an ontological argument is possible only after epistemological philosophy has evolved, and thus, in order to show the inevitability of the philosophical stage, I will first show how epistemological philosophy is functional and, then, how it is possible, that is, how epistemological philosophy comes within the range of random variations in rational level culture as a result of a series of stages of social evolution. That will put us in a position to trace the career of epistemological philosophy and show how it makes the evolution of ontological philosophy inevitable.

The function of the philosophical level of neurological organization. “Philosophy,” or, literally, the love of wisdom, is the name usually given to arguments that depend on a higher level of neurological organization than those ordinarily exchanged in rational spiritual animals, for it is recognized that philosophy aspires to make reason fundamentally more powerful in discovering the good and the true. But philosophy is not usually explained as a higher level of organization in the arguments being exchanged as culture.

Ontological philosophy. In order to make this explanation of philosophy clear, I will use ontological philosophy to illustrate the nature and function of the philosophical level of neurological organization and then show how epistemological philosophy has a similar nature and function. That will leave us with the task of showing how epistemological philosophy and ontological philosophy are possible in the relevant sense.

Nature of the philosophical level of neurological organization. Though the ontological cause of the philosophical stage must be, according to reproductive causation, a yet higher level of neurological organization, the higher level is more readily seen in the structure of the linguistic representations it generates.

Just as the linguistic level of neurological organization was evident in the grammatical structure of natural sentences, and the reflective level was evident in the grammatical structure of psychological sentences, so the philosophical level of neurological organization can be seen in the structure of the arguments that are exchanged by members of philosophical spiritual animals. By contrast to the arguments exchanged at the rational spiritual stage, philosophical arguments have a two-step structure: they establish a foundation, and then they use that foundation to show that certain truths hold necessarily, that is, prior to ordinary arguments (of the rational spiritual stage).

In the case of ontological philosophy, the first step is an inference to spatiomaterialism as the best ontological explanation of the world, and the second step uses that ontology as a foundation for showing what holds necessarily of the world. That is, it entails ontologically necessary truths. Necessary truths require a higher level of part-whole complexity in the structure of arguments, because they hold prior to arguments at the reflective level, that is, the arguments of empirical science and ordinary moral reasoning.

Since spatiomaterialism entails necessary truths, ontological philosophy can show the validity of arguments that are characteristic of the rational stage and even the truth of some of their conclusions. It shows, for example, the validity of efficient-cause explanations in natural science and the truth of mathematics.

Furthermore, given that space and matter have natures that explain ontologically the truth of the basic laws of physics, the necessary truths of ontological philosophy include an explanation of biological and cultural evolution, and thus, ontological philosophy also shows the truth of conclusions about what is good and explains the validity of other kinds of arguments, such as rational explanations of the behavior (and beliefs) of subjective animals and the empirical method (that is, inferences to the best efficient-cause or rational-cause explanation).

The two-step argument illustrated by ontological philosophy may be said to have a higher level of forensic organization than arguments of rational level culture, because the higher level of part-whole complexity in the linguistic representations comes from the structure of the argument being made.

It indicates, in any case, a higher level of neurological organization in the brains of the rational beings exchanging such arguments, for as we have seen, linguistic representations also have a nonverbal side. Verbal behavior represents the structure of activity in the imagination of the speaker, that is, in his thinking, and since the verbal behavior of an ontological philosopher requires a higher level of part-whole complexity in linguistic schemata than at the rational spiritual stage, philosophers have what might be called “philosophical imagination.”

Ontological philosophy is, however, only one example of this higher level of forensic organization and philosophical imagination. There is another way of doing philosophy. that is epistemological philosophy, and as we shall see, epistemological philosophy plays an essential role in making ontological philosophy possible.

Functionality of the philosophical level of neurological organization. Ontological philosophy can also be used to show how such a higher level of forensic organization makes reason more powerful.

If we assume that knowing the true is a source of power for rational beings, we can see in an indirect way how the philosophical level of neurological organization can be functional, because ontological philosophy involves new form of imagination. At each level of neurological evolution after telesensory animals, the faculty of imagination has made it possible to represent a new aspect of the world, by giving subjects the capacity to see something actual (or imagined) against the background what is possible, and that is true of the philosophical level as well.

Spatial imagination enabled subjects to see the actual spatial relations of objects against the background of what is possible by motion.

Structural imagination enabled subjects to see the actual geometrical structures of objects in space against the background what is possible by manipulation.

Naturalistic imagination enabled subjects to see the actual states of objects in space against the background of what is possible by efficient causation.

Rational imagination enabled subjects to see the actual psychological states of subjects against the background what is possible by rational causation (that is, ordinary reasoning).

Likewise, philosophical imagination, as illustrated by ontological philosophy, enables subjects to see what is actual against the background of what is possible by ontological causation (that is, what is compatible with the ontologically necessary truths that follow from spatiomaterialism).

The functionality of the philosophical level of neurological organization can also be seen by comparison with the rational spiritual stage that precedes it. As we have seen, three dichotomies put a cap on cultural evolution at the rational spiritual stage, but these arguments are all united by this ontological explanation of evolutionary change and how its overall course leads to rational beings like us.

Ontological philosophy overcomes the dichotomy between theoretical and practical reason, because by explaining the good as what makes a contribution to the natural perfection that ontological philosophy implies is the direction of evolutionary change, it shows how the good is related to the true.

It overcomes the dichotomy between reflective and naturalistic understanding by explaining reason as the new kind of behavior guidance system that evolves at the reflective stage. Linguistic brains already have naturalistic understanding, or the capacity to understand efficient causes in nature, and the efficient causes of behavior (and beliefs) in subjective animals are understood as reason when the use of psychological sentences evolve, for that enables one subject to use his behavior guiding processes to simulate the reasoning of others. In both kinds of understanding, truth is explained as a correspondence between representations in the brain and aspects of the world. It is just that the representations and aspects are different in each case.

And it overcomes the dichotomy between individual and spiritual self interest, because its explanation of the evolution of spiritual animals shows how the natural perfection of both the individuals and the spiritual animal as a whole are related. Moral rules limiting the pursuit of self interest and rules of justice limiting the pursuit of spiritual interest are the balance between the good of contributing to each.

The most direct way of seeing that the philosophical level of neurological organization is functional, however, is by its implications for practical reason. The basic way that reason makes animals powerful is by guiding their behavior to control relevant conditions, and since, in rational animals, such guidance comes from discovering the good, the success of ontological philosophy in explaining the nature of goodness illustrates how philosophy can be functional. Knowing the nature of goodness, not only do we understand why things are good, but we can also tell which things are good.

We will, however, put off using this ontological explanation of the nature of goodness to determine what it is good for rational beings to purse until we have seen that all the stages leading up to ontological philosophy inevitable. See What ought to be.

Possibility of the philosophical level of neurological organization. Though the possibility of the philosophical level of neurological organization is entailed by its actual existence, that does not show that it is possible in the relevant way. What must be shown is that it is possible for a higher level of forensic organization to be tried out as a random variation on the arguments of the kind that evolve at the rational spiritual stage and tried out under conditions in which it will eventually be naturally selected for its greater power. The latter is not shown by the actual existence of ontological philosophy (which we know because we understand this argument), because it might be just a gigantic accident, or a message from some extraterrestrial intelligent beings.

There is, however, no reason to doubt that a higher level of neurological organization is possible because of limitations in the mechanism of embryological development (the multicellular biological behavior guidance system which constructs the nervous system). No genetic changes are necessary, because it is just a higher level of forensic organization in the arguments being exchanged within a spiritual animal and that can be tried out by cultural evolution alone.

Arguments with a higher level of neurological organization than rational level culture can be constructed and understood by brains with a faculty of rational imagination, because they are just arguments made from a higher foundation showing that certain truths hold necessarily (and explaining the validity of ordinary arguments). That does not require a higher level of grammatical structure, because the difference between a philosophy’s foundation and its necessary truths is described using linguistic representations on the level of natural and psychological sentences. Or if you will, talk about “philosophical foundations,” “necessary truths” and the like are a new kind of grammatical marker, one that is used explicitly to organize other sentences in a two-step argument of the kind suggested above. All it requires is a more complex linguistic behavioral schemata in the prefrontal neocortex, where behavioral schemata are stored for use by the behavior generator.

The philosophical level of forensic organization involves, therefore, a kind of level of neurological organization that can be tried out by a random variation on the arguments that are evolving in culture at the rational spiritual stage. It is just a way of uniting all the arguments of rational level culture that is basically different from religion (the way used in rational level culture). When such a philosophical linguistic act is tried out in one brain, it is possible for other brains to acquire the schema, so that they can generate the philosophical argument for themselves (because the behavioral schema can evolve in their brains by reinforcement selection, that is, by internalizing the linguistic structures being exchanged). And if it increases the coherence of their worldview, it will be rationally selected and, thereby, evolve in the culture of a spiritual animal.

Thus, philosophical imagination can evolve by rational selection within a spiritual animal (though cultural evolution is always backed up by the natural selection of the spiritual animals involved). Since only rational imagination is needed to learn philosophical arguments, the brain can acquire the higher level of neurological organization from the culture, without further biological evolution (except possibly increased efficiency in exercising powers that have already evolved, or what is called “intelligence”).

All that is required for the philosophical level of neurological organization to evolve, therefore, is that a linguistic representation with a higher level of forensic  organization be tried out as a random variation on the arguments that are being exchanged at the rational spiritual stage and that it be functional in the sense that it makes the worldviews of rational subjects more coherent. (Furthermore, the philosophical spiritual animal must be at least as powerful as it was before, if not more powerful.) Given what we know about rational spiritual animals, however, that may see quite doubtful. There are two kinds of reasons.

First, in order for a higher level of forensic organization to evolve, the first level arguments of rational culture must approach, at least, natural perfection for arguments of their kind. In discussing the dichotomies of rational culture, we simply assumed that cultural evolution had reached natural perfection for such arguments, because what was relevant were the limitations that would be encountered even at that point. But any such cultural evolution would take a long period of time spanning many generation. Cultural evolution is sustained by spiritual animals, but it requires a spiritual animal that fosters the exchange of arguments, provides enough member with the leisure to argue at length about matter far removed from immediate practical needs, and in which writing has evolved to preserve a record of the exchange of arguments from one generation to the next. None of those conditions are likely to hold in nomadic bands.

Second, even if such conditions were to obtain, it would not make ontological philosophy possible, at least, not completely enough for it to be convincing. Ontological philosophy also depends on modern science, if only because there would be no way of tracing the course of evolution without physics, molecular biology and neurophysiology. And without the capacity to explain evolution and to trace it overall course, there would be no explanation of the nature of goodness, no explanation of the difference between naturalistic and reflective understanding, and no explanation of the validity of rational-cause explanations.

Physics depends on the use of mathematics, because it infers to the best efficient cause explanation by making quantitatively precise predictions about the world. And mathematics is not enough by itself, because molecular mechanisms cannot be understood without the technology to experiment on the micro level processes. Judging from history, therefore, natural science also seems to depend on an economic system, like capitalism, which sponsors it by exploiting the technology that science makes possible and thereby evolving the technology that science itself needs to test its theories empirically.

Since neither mathematics nor capitalism can evolve at the rational spiritual stage, its naturalistic explanations inevitably lag far behind modern science. Thus, it may seem that at the rational spiritual stage, the only way of knitting all the arguments of culture together is religion, or the explanation of the world by appealing to the reasons that motivate gods or immaterial spirits. But that is just a myth, not a higher level of forensic organization.

Another stage of evolution is nevertheless inevitable, because there is something that makes it inevitable that cultural evolution at the rational spiritual stage will approach nature perfection and there is an easier way of constructing an argument with a higher level of forensic organization than ontological philosophy. 

Rational level culture does eventually evolve far enough to approach natural perfection for arguments of its kind, because there are, in addition to stages of cultural evolution, stages of social evolution. There are higher levels of part-whole complexity in social structure, and since each makes spiritual animals more powerful in winning wars, there is a series of stages of social evolution that leads from nomadic bands of rational subjects to civilizations. Since civilization is able to foster and sustain the exchange of arguments over sufficiently long periods of time, there are inevitably rational spiritual animals rational in which culture eventually approaches natural perfection for arguments of its kind.

In such civilized societies, it is possible for a higher level of forensic organization to be tried out as a random variation on arguments evolving in rational level culture and be rationally selected for its coherence, because there is an easier way to construct such an argument. That is epistemological philosophy. 

Though this second level of forensic organization is unable to defend itself against skeptics in the end, it brings enough coherence to the worldviews of rational beings for epistemological philosophy to be rationally selected and philosophical level culture to evolve. Thus, it is possible for mathematical arguments to evolve and for capitalism to evolve, providing the conditions under which modern science can discover the truth about the micro structure of the natural world. That makes it possible for a form of ontological philosophy that can explain the validity of all the kinds of arguments of rational level culture to be tried out as a random variation on the arguments of philosophical level culture.

Epistemological philosophy. From the beginning of this ontological philosophical argument, I have occasionally digressed to take epistemological philosophy into account by suggesting its critique of epistemological philosophy. But at this point, epistemological philosophy turns up as part of the argument itself, as the first convincing attempt to construct an argument with a higher level of forensic organization, and so I must explain how it is also a philosophical level of neurological organization that is functional, even though it is basically different from ontological philosophy.

Epistemological philosophy, like ontological philosophy, involves an argument with a higher level of part-whole complexity from those of the rational spiritual stage. It also makes a two-step argument, by first establishing a foundation from which to support arguments about what is necessarily true. But instead of taking as its higher level foundation an ontological explanation of the world, it uses a theory about the nature of reason.

Already at the rational stage, there is a way of organizing arguments as parts of larger arguments, for as we have seen, principles evolve which state a reason for some kind of conclusion about what to do or what to believe covering an entire range of similar situations. But epistemological philosophy is not merely the discovery of a more general principle to be used as premise in a first level argument. Rather, it introduces a new kind of reason, which supports the arguments of rational level culture. The first step of epistemological philosophy is, therefore, to defend a theory about the nature of reason based on reflection, and the second step is to use it to explain the validity the ordinary, first-level arguments of rational culture.

By “reflective understanding,” I mean the use of the faculty of rational imagination to explain how rational subjects draw conclusions about what to do or what to believe by the reasons that cause them, that is, the understanding of rational causation. That is how epistemological philosophers use rational imagination to reflect on how we know.

But it should be distinguished from the implicit role of rational imagination in talk about reasons and conclusions in general, in which the subject who has the psychological state is anonymous. The latter is part of naturalistic understanding, at least, at the rational spiritual stage, because natural scientists talk about the reasons for their conclusions, for example, when inferring to the best efficient-cause explanation of some observed phenomenon. It is also part of reflective understanding, because psychologists and social scientists also talk about the reasons for their conclusions, for example, in inferring to the best rational-cause explanation of someone’s behavior. But in reflective understanding, the conclusions themselves are also about reasons as psychological states that occur in subjects, for they are explanations of the beliefs or behavior of subjective animals.

Reflective understanding is the foundation for the theories about the nature of reason that are used as the foundation for epistemological philosophy. Indeed, it is usually reflective understanding of one’s own cognitive processes, or self-reflection, that provides the foundation for epistemological philosophy. To make this distinction explicit, I will continue to use “reflective understanding” (or “subjectivistic understanding”) to refer to the way of explaining the beliefs and behavior of subjective animals, and reserve the term, “reason,” for the more general, implicit use of rational imagination in talking about the reasons for conclusions (as in stating arguments explicitly) regardless of the subject matter of those conclusions.

Reflective understanding makes various theories about the nature of reason possible, as we shall see when we trace the career of epistemological philosophy, but in each case, the theory about the nature of reason entails the validity of (most) arguments of rational level culture. That is, it either justifies the truth of their conclusions, by showing how such arguments lead to the discovery of the true, the good and the beautiful, or entails conclusions directly, as the necessary truths of epistemological philosophy. Both implications are parts of the second step of its two step-argument.

As we have seen, dichotomies inherent in the arguments accumulated as rational level culture inevitably show up as gradual cultural evolution approaches natural perfection for arguments of their kind. Rational subjects feel the need for an argument to overcome them and unify their understanding of the world, though they may not realize that what they are looking for is a higher level argument.

The three inevitable dichotomies divide arguments into at least four clusters, and no principle of the kind that evolves at the rational stage enables reason to integrate and unify all the arguments by which it knows about the world into a single argument, at least, not into one that can stand up under rational scrutiny.

From our ontological vantage, the inevitable limitations in the power of reason at the rational spiritual stage are obvious, because we have seen why there are unbridgeable dichotomies among the arguments accumulated as rational level culture. Those dichotomies are inherent in the nature of reason as the behavior guidance system that evolves at the rational spiritual stage, and as long as the only way of integrating and unifying the arguments accumulated as culture is by the evolution of more general principles of the same kind, there is no obvious solution — except traditional religion.

Religion is a way of papering over these dichotomies at the rational spiritual stage. But the underlying limitation can still be felt by those versed in the arguments accumulated as rational culture. To them, it will be obvious that, given how religion attempts to explain everything in the world as part of a single system (and, thus, to unite all the arguments of rational level culture and), different religions would work just as well. Religions all attempt to explain everything by appeal to gods or spirits in some way, that is, by using a rational explanation of the behavior of some nonhuman being to explain the natural world (including why there are human beings and the nature of the good they are pursuing). But when a religion is seen against the background of other possible religions, there is no reason to prefer one religion over the others, because none stands out as inherently more coherent (though, of course, less cosmopolitan thinkers will prefer their own religion simply because of its familiarity). With no way to choose among religions, those who sense the lack of unity about rational culture have a motive to look elsewhere.

The three dichotomies are, however, only the most obvious limitation on the evolution of arguments at the rational stage. Rational culture is also limited in other ways, most obviously to us, in natural science, that is, in the explanation of efficient causes in nature. Though the naturalistic understanding afforded by their culture may include a highly evolved technology for extracting resources from nature, protecting themselves from hazards, and fighting wars, reflective subjects are still very much at the mercy of natural forces they do not fully understand. Religious explanations of natural phenomena do not give them the power they seek, and that is another motive for looking for a new kind of argument.

Under the right conditions, as we shall see, it is possible for a random variation on the arguments of rational culture to try epistemology as a way of organizing the arguments of rational culture at a higher forensic level.

Epistemological philosophy starts its higher level argument by reflecting on how the subject knows the true, the good and the beautiful. That is the first step of its two step argument. It offers a theory about the nature of reason and how it is situated in the world in order that can explain why the arguments of rational level culture are valid. That second step would overcome the dichotomies that limit rational level culture (as well as the inadequacies of natural science) by showing how all the various arguments accumulated as rational culture are various parts of a single argument about the nature of reason.

The difference between epistemological and ontological philosophy comes, therefore, from the difference between reflective understanding and naturalistic understanding (or the dichotomy among arguments of rational culture that comes from the two, basically different kinds of causes that are represented explicitly as causes in the faculty of rational imagination). Instead of starting with reason’s naturalistic understanding of the natural world and using a theory about the nature of substance to offer a deeper explanation of its efficient causes, as ontological philosophy does, epistemological philosophy starts with reason’s reflective understanding of individual subjects (and the social world) and uses a theory about the nature of reason to offer a deeper explanation of rational causes.

That is, by describing a “cause” that explains the nature of all kinds of reasons at work in the arguments of rational culture, epistemological philosophy proposes to show how reason is able to know everything that can be known, including the natural world. This second order argument justifies first level arguments about the true, the good, and the beautiful, and what follows directly from it are necessary truths, because they are truths that can be known prior to making first level arguments of any kind.

Epistemological and ontological philosophy overcome the dichotomy between naturalistic and reflective understanding from opposite directions, because they use opposite kinds of understanding in the first step of their two step argument to formulate a theory about a deeper cause of everything knowable by rational beings.

To be sure, ontological philosophy also has a theory about the nature of reason that explains the validity of all the (valid) first level arguments of rational culture. But it defends that theory by first explaining the validity of the efficient-cause explanations of natural science, as a form of rational level culture, on the basis of a theory about the nature of the substances that constitute the natural world. (Indeed, prior to explaining the nature of reason, ontological philosophy has already explained two of the dichotomies, the difference between the true and the good and the difference between the individual and spiritual interest.)

Thus, ontological philosophy explains why natural science is true in a way that can also explain why there is such a thing as science in the world, whereas epistemological philosophy explains why there is such a thing as science in a way that also explains why natural science is true.

Epistemological philosophy is credible enough to sustain a long period of cultural evolution, and as we shall see, it does increase the power of reason to discover the true, the good and the beautiful. For example, it fosters the evolution of mathematics and, thus, makes modern science possible. It also provides a culture in which capitalism can evolve, and capitalism sponsors the evolution of modern science.

Epistemological philosophy does not ultimately succeed, however, in explaining the validity of all the arguments of rational level culture, because it encounters problems it cannot solve. Its theory about the nature of reason ultimately involves a dualism of some kind that undermines its justification of rational level culture and leads to skepticism about the philosophical theory itself.

The problems of epistemological philosophy are especially intractable, as we shall see, because of how subjectivistic understanding fits together with the nature of consciousness. Since epistemological philosophy constructs its theory about the nature of reason on the basis of what is known about reason by reflection (that is, on reflective understanding), its theories of reason all ultimately depend on taking certain representations that occur in rational imagination as basic and, thus, beyond doubt. Those representations have a phenomenal appearance for the subject, because the rational subjects who understand epistemological arguments have brains that generate photons whose intrinsic natures mirror activity throughout the cerebrum. Since the content of the representations in their brains on which they are reflective is mirrored in those phenomenal properties (the intrinsic natures of the photons continually generated by the active brain), it is easy to assume that those phenomenal properties are a form of intuition in which objects are known simply because of how they are present to the subject. Thus, epistemological philosophy takes reason to depend on intuitions of some kind, and the problems to which intuition-based theories of reason lead give rise to new theories about the kinds of objects of which consciousness is the intuition.

Consciousness plays a role in making epistemological philosophy plausible, but that does not mean that phenomenal properties are the cause of anything that happens. It is rather that consciousness either makes it easy to overlook the difference between consciousness and what really exists (that is, naïve realism), so that what makes it easy for epistemological philosophy to seem to unite all the arguments of rational level culture is leaving a basic aspect of the actual world out, or else it recognizes the difference and faces the intractable problem of mind-body dualism. (See Change: Global regularities: Reproductive causation: Revolutionary change: Subjective stage (6): Unity of mind.)

Even though epistemological philosophy does not ultimately succeed in doing what it tried to do, it also shows how the philosophical level of neurological organization is functional, in the sense of opening up an entire new range of powers to control relevant conditions. Thus, if it can be shown that epistemological philosophy will eventually be tried out as a random variation at the rational spiritual stage, we can already see how ontological philosophy can turn out to be inevitable.

The possibility of ontological philosophy. Epistemological philosophy plays, however, an essential  role in the evolution of ontological philosophy, because it provides the conditions under which a random variation trying it out will be rationally selected for its greater power to serve the interests of reason.

Though epistemological philosophy can serve as a model for the higher level of forensic organization of philosophical arguments, that is not its only contribution to the evolution of ontological philosophy, if it helps at all.

Such a model of philosophical argument is not necessary, because when the need for a nonreligious way of fitting together all the arguments of rational culture is first felt, the simplest and most obvious way of trying to unify them is to formulate an ontological argument. Naturalistic understanding seems more complete and coherent than reflective understanding, and the religious explanations they are trying to avoid are the most obvious way of using reflective understanding.

Indeed, that is how philosophy evolved in Western culture. The validity of ontological-cause explanation was first recognized by the Pre-Socratic philosophers in ancient Greece, and as we shall see, their attempts to infer to the best ontological-cause explanation even led to the discovery of spatiomaterialism. The ancient atomists discovered that the best explanation of basic aspects of the natural world, including change, requires two opposite kinds of substances, atoms and the void. Thus, they discovered necessary truths about change and could explain some of the most basic efficient-cause explanations are true.

But without natural science, atomism could not explain the nature of reason ontologically. Thus, it could not explain everything about the world well enough to overcome the dichotomies of culture at the rational spiritual stage and show the validity of its arguments. That requires a deeper understanding of the nature of matter, molecular biology and neurophysiology, because it depends on deriving the reproductive global regularities and tracing the inevitable stages that define the overall course of evolution.

On the contrary, ontological philosophy was the model for epistemological philosophy. Pre-Socratic philosophy inspired ancient Greek confidence the in the power of reason to explain everything in the world, and as we shall see, that led to Plato’s attempt to use an epistemological foundation to show the validity of ordinary arguments about what to believe and what to do.

It might even be argued that, far from being a model for ontological philosophy, epistemological philosophy has discouraged ontological philosophy. Philosophy has come to be so closely identified with epistemological philosophy that any argument about the validity of arguments whose foundation is not a theory about the nature of reason (which relies on intuition in some way) does not seem to be a philosophical argument at all. Since there seems to be other way of doing philosophy at all, the failure of epistemological philosophy seems to be the failure of philosophy as such, which leads to the relativism discussed in the introduction. (See the Inside-Out Encyclopedia.)

The necessary contribution that epistemological philosophy makes to the evolution of ontological philosophy is, as I have suggested, natural science. Besides establishing a culture in which there is enough respect for reason to give a hearing to the arguments of individuals who are dissenting from what people generally think they know, it provides at least to essential ingredients for the evolution of natural science: mathematics and a capitalist economic system.

Epistemological philosophy fostered the evolution of mathematical arguments, because mathematics was the prime example of its deeper understanding. Without mathematics, physics would not have been able to discover the quantitatively precise laws by which it sees beneath the surface of perceptual appearances to the nature of matter. And without physics, the rest of modern natural science would not be possible.

Epistemological philosophy also provided the resources that natural science needs to evolve, by making the evolution of capitalism possible. It convinced rational subjects that morality has a rational foundation and that they are responsible for doing what is good, and that fostered the evolution of institutions that can be rationally justified and that treat individuals as autonomous agents.

Ontological philosophy is a different way of doing philosophy from epistemological philosophy. As the Pre-Socratics saw, it is possible to start with naturalistic understanding and formulate a theory about the kinds of substances constituting the world and to use that as a foundation for proving necessary truths, such as mathematics and the principles of local motion and local action, and for explaining the validity of ordinary arguments, such as the efficient cause explanations of natural science. However, given what is known by contemporary natural science about the nature of matter, evolution, molecular biology and neurophysiology, it is also possible to explain evolutionary change ontologically and to trace the stages of the overall course of evolution that lead to the existence of beings like us.

Ontological philosophy also unites all the arguments of rational-level culture as parts of a single argument. Though that includes overcoming the three dichotomies of rational level culture, ontological philosophy does it in a basically different way. The dichotomies are not overcome by its theory about the nature of reason, but rather by explaining how the stages of evolution lead up to reason. Indeed, its explanation of the nature of reason is what shows that the three dichotomies are inevitable in rational level culture.

The dichotomy between theoretical and practical reason derives from the nature of the multicellular animal behavior guidance system. The animal system of representation (and forms of intuition based on it) are the foundation of the correspondence involved in truth, and it also discovers the good, because the goal selection system use those animal representations to guides behavior to goals that contribute to the natural perfection of animals of its kind.

The dichotomy between individual and spiritual self interest derives from the nature of spiritual animals, for it is an evolutionary stage at which living organisms are imposing natural selection on themselves at two different levels of biological organization at once, the individual level and the social level. The natural perfection toward which gradual change proceeds in spiritual animals involves a balance between the good of the individual and the spiritual animal, and that is what rational level culture discovers as moral arguments evolve (involving, as we have seen, limits on both individual self interest and spiritual self interest).

The dichotomy between naturalistic and reflective understanding derives from the nature of the new behavior guidance system that evolves at the rational spiritual stage. The power of reason to guide behavior comes from the evolution of arguments by rational selection, and that mechanism depends on the capacity for reflection that evolves in linguistic brains (with naturalistic understanding) as they acquire the use of psychological sentences. Thus, reflective understanding of subjective behavior is implicit in the nature of reason. This is the only dichotomy that depends simply on the nature of reason, rather than on how the essential nature of reason is determined by the nature of the stages leading up to it.

Thus, instead of trying to overcome the dichotomies by explaining how reason is whole, it is possible to bridge the gaps between clusters of arguments in rational culture by first explaining how the world itself is whole. The wholeness of the world is explained ontologically, that is, by showing how everything that exists in the world is constituted by substances. That is what the Pre-Socratics tried to do, and the reason that such an obvious kind of argument can prove necessary truths that are not already recognized is, as we have seen, that natural science does not recognize space as a substance. The wholeness of space is itself an ontological cause of the wholeness of the world, and by taking it into account and showing how the world is constituted by two opposite kinds of basic substances, everything in the world can be explained in a more complete way. As we have seen, that has many profound implications.

Natural science entails an ontology, as we have seen, but since it infers only to the best efficient-cause explanations, not to the best ontological-cause explanation as well, physics gets along without recognizing that space is a substance. It is a consequence of the empirical method of science (though the oversight may be reinforced by the skepticism to which epistemological philosophy had led). In any case, since spatiomaterialism can explain ontologically why the basic laws of physics are true, ontological philosophy can assimilate the conclusions of natural science, and thus, it is in a position to show how the course of evolution is inevitable in a spatiomaterial world like ours. By tracing the inevitable stages of evolution, it not only overcomes, but shows the inevitability of the dichotomies of rational level culture. Since the stage at which reason evolves determines its essential nature, ontological philosophy has an explanation of the nature of reason that is able to explain the validity of all the kinds of arguments used at the rational spiritual stage, including not only natural science but also psychology and social science, albeit in a different and deeper way than epistemological philosophy.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the truths about the course of evolution are ontologically necessary only if this is a spatiomaterial world in which matter and space have a nature that can explain the truth of the basic laws of physics and give the universe the kind of large scale structure it has. Since some aspects of those laws are contingent, relative to spatiomaterialism itself, what ontological philosophy has proved about the inevitability of the course of evolution are only conditional ontologically necessary truths. But assuming that space and matter have such a nature, the stages of evolution are inevitable, because as we have seen, the reproductive global regularity about revolutionary change is among those truths. New evolutionary stages are inevitable when higher levels of part-whole complexity in evolving structures are both functional and possible. Thus, the same deeper cause that explains why the efficient cause explanations of naturalistic understanding (and natural science) are true also explain the existence and nature of the rational beings who know the true, the good and the beautiful.

In order to be a complete explanation of the world, however, ontological philosophy must also explain epistemological philosophy. We shall see in the next section what makes the evolution of epistemological philosophy inevitable, and we shall trace how the gradual evolution of epistemological philosophy leads to ontological philosophy. But beings like us would not understand fully what makes epistemological philosophy so plausible and its problems so intractable, unless ontological philosophy also explained the nature of consciousness. Consciousness is what makes it so easy to take for granted that reason is based on some sort of intuition.

All that ontological philosophy needs to explain the nature of phenomenal properties is its assumption about the basic nature of substance, for they are explained as the intrinsic natures of bits of matter (whether or not space is a substance). But since bits of matter do coincide with substantival space, there is a form of matter that can explain the complex phenomenal properties of conscious rational beings like us. Active brains are continually generating photons whose extrinsic natures suggest that activity throughout the cerebrum must somehow be registered in the intrinsic natures, and thus, it can explain the peculiar unity of mind that gives the representations in rational imagination an appearance to the rational subject.

Thus, even though ontological philosophy entails is a form of epiphenomenalism about phenomenal properties, which denies that phenomenal properties are efficient causes of what happens, it can identify the role that consciousness plays in the mistake about the nature of reason that lies at the foundation of epistemological philosophy. Phenomenal appearances are not intuitions of objects, at least, not of the kind that epistemological philosophy needs for its theories about the nature of reason, but just the intrinsic natures of certain bits of matter generated by the brain. It is the faculty of imagination built into the brain that makes knowledge of the world possible.

In sum, epistemological philosophy plays an essential role in making ontological philosophy possible. It is a phase in the gradual evolution of arguments at the philosophical spiritual stage that leads ultimately to ontological philosophy and eventually to the natural perfection of philosophical level culture. It is part of a change that would occur on any planet where life evolves at all in a spatiomaterial world like ours.

The philosophical stage is the final stage in this series of stages in the evolution of spiritual animals, because when it is complete, there is no way for a yet higher level of forensic organization (a higher level of part-whole complexity about linguistic structures) to increase the power of reason in any basic way. Reason is a behavior guidance system, and since it will know, at the end of the philosophical spiritual stage, how the world is whole and it will have followed out its implications, including the entire course of evolution, it will already know everything about the world that can be known by reason (except for contingent truths), including everything about the nature of goodness and beauty. Philosophical reason will already do everything that a behavior guidance system can do to control relevant conditions in a spatiomaterial world like ours.

Thus, we might even that the very function of philosophy is to explain the wholeness of the world in the complete way as ontological philosophy does. Knowledge of that wholeness is the wisdom that philosophy loves, though it has not been able to describe it in this way. When rational beings know how the world is whole, they have a new way of knowing what is true, good and beautiful, because there are necessary truths about them, including a justification of the validity of (most) first level arguments, based on perception and desire, by which contingent truths are known.

That is not to say that there are no further stages of evolution. There are many series of stages of evolution, and what we have been following out is merely the series that leads up to rational being like us. We have not considered the stages in the evolution of plants or other minor series of stages that may occur within the stages identified here. And philosophical spiritual animal may go through evolutionary stages of other kinds, such as those involving economic production, the use of technology, and inhabiting the rest of the solar system. What comes after ontological philosophy is discussed in the final three chapters on What ought to exist.