"Since being is the first principle of all human knowledge, it is a fortiori the first principle of metaphysics (313). — tim wood

I'm not so sure this first principle is true. Being may be foundational, but not in terms of epistemology. One might say, it just IS. In a sense it defies epistemological questions.

This was the essay that lead me to read Gilson’s book in the first place - Why Gilson? Why Now?, Dr. Peter Redpath. He identifies Descartes as the root of many ills in modern culture. You might find it a useful footnote.

Apropos of which:

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

If every order of reality is defined by its own essence, and every individual is possessed of its own existence, to encompass the universality of being within the essence of this or that being is to destroy the very object of metaphysics; but to ascribe to the essence of this or that being the universality of being itself, is to stretch a particular science beyond its natural limits and to make it a caricature of metaphysics. [Thus] all the failures of metaphysics should be traced to the fact, that the first principle of human knowledge has been either overlooked or misused by the metaphysicians (316). — tim wood

Well. Being, being being, is no being; or to put it another way,no being can be being, because being is being. While it may be true that beings be, by being they are not being. Thus we avoid caricature.

The Socratic argument would be wondering when the sparse defense against certain propositions suddenly became an attempt to rule over others.
Maybe that did happen. But arguing for that idea doesn't illuminate the original defense.

The Socratic argument would be wondering when the sparse defense against certain propositions suddenly became an attempt to rule over others.
Maybe that did happen. But arguing for that idea doesn't illuminate the original defense. — Valentinus

I don't know what this means.

Don't you mean exactly in terms of epistemology? It may be that it's difficult to say what being is, but that is no relief from a duty to try to say what it means. I'm willing to take the lazy way and accept it as fundamental - foundational, as you say - but that would be precisely in epistemology.

Think about all the nonsense, pseudo-philosophy, pseudo-metaphysics that goes on about topics in which the being of the topic has neither been established nor defined, nor in many cases even made explicit.

Don't you mean exactly in terms of epistemology? It may be that it's difficult to say what being is, but that is no relief from a duty to try to say what it means. I'm willing to take the lazy way and accept it as fundamental - foundational, as you say - but that would be precisely in epistemology. — tim wood

No, I think that there are things that are so foundational that they support all that comes after. Especially when it comes to epistemological constructs, which are based on the language of knowing. For example, "I don't know that I have hands," I just have them, it's a belief that is fundamental to our reality. It's like the pieces and the board of the game of chess, one might say the pieces and the board are foundational to the game. One cannot have the game without the board and the pieces. One cannot have epistemological language-games without there being first something foundational, and I believe that our background reality gives us such a foundation.

The nature of being, as you seem to propose, is that it falls under the construct of epistemology, as, for example, a first principle of knowledge. My thinking is that there is something so fundamental that it defies our epistemological constructs, it's not a matter of knowing, but a matter of what's fundamental, foundational, or bedrock to all that is, including what it means to have knowledge.

"Being" is our shuttlecock of the moment. If we cannot simply affirm that, what can we affirm? And lacking that affirmation, what else can reason arise from?

As to arguments of the existence of God, it's not the existence that's in question, but the nature of that existence. You're correct, arguments fail - not because of any mystery about being, but because being is a criterium that God cannot meet without qualification. What qualification? That the being of God is only found in faith and not out of it.

"Being" is our shuttlecock of the moment. If we cannot simply affirm that, what can we affirm? And lacking that affirmation, what else can reason arise from? — tim wood

I edited out that comment about arguments for the existence of God because I didn't want to get into that can or worms right now.

Reason arises out of the language of reason, we reason from one proposition to another, that's what we do in logic. However, as I've already stated, there are beliefs that have nothing to do with the language of reason. These beliefs are shown in our actions, they have nothing to do with the logic of reason. We show these beliefs everyday in our actions. I open a door, I sit in a chair, I pick things up, all of these actions show certain fundamental beliefs. I don't justify them, no more than I need to justify my belief that I'm sitting at my computer typing, again, they are part of the background of our reality. I believe that being or the thing that is fundamental to reality itself, I refer to as consciousness, is such a foundational or fundamental thing.

Pardon me, that was obscure.
I meant to say that Socrates of the Republic agrees with Gilson. While different theories are advanced and universals proposed in the dialogue, they can be understood as means to defend against the attack made by Thrasymachus who claimed that the just is to do what is for the advantage of the stronger. The work needed to seek the order that can answer that challenge is never complete.

Schrödinger's cat agrees with you and doesn't understand what the fuss is all about.

One cannot have the game without the board and the pieces. One cannot have epistemological language-games without there being first something foundational, and I believe that our background reality gives us such a foundation. — Sam26

Yes. I've heard different phrases for this 'background,' but the most important thing IMV is to just become aware of it. It recedes. It's so close that we overlook it.

Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us.

I agree, and this seems related to a particular interpretation of what it means for something to be.

It may be that it's difficult to say what being is, but that is no relief from a duty to try to say what it means...Think about all the nonsense, pseudo-philosophy, pseudo-metaphysics that goes on about topics in which the being of the topic has neither been established nor defined, nor in many cases even made explicit. — tim wood

Indeed. And maybe it can't be defined, but that recognizing the difficultly is itself a protection against pseudo-philosophy and its artificial/shallow problems. Of course talk about being can itself degenerate into a tedious language game.

Reason arises out of the language of reason, we reason from one proposition to another, that's what we do in logic. However, as I've already stated, there are beliefs that have nothing to do with the language of reason. These beliefs are shown in our actions, they have nothing to do with the logic of reason. We show these beliefs everyday in our actions. I open a door, I sit in a chair, I pick things up, all of these actions show certain fundamental beliefs. I don't justify them, no more than I need to justify my belief that I'm sitting at my computer typing, again, they are part of the background of our reality. I believe that being or the thing that is fundamental to reality itself, I refer to as consciousness, is such a foundational or fundamental thing. — Sam26

Right. The understanding of being an ego or a self is a kind of 'blurry' given. We know how to use words like 'I' and 'mind' in particular contexts. But this tempts philosophers to treat them like devices with a fixed nature about which we can be 'scientific.'

And then lots of to-me-silly philosophy (like insincere, radical skepticism) depends on the receding background without realizing it, lost as it is in a sort of mechanical play with concepts divorced from use. The LCD of Wittgenstein and Heidegger seems to be a critique of traditional approaches that are fundamentally misguided if the intent is to make sense of the human situation.

The LCD of Wittgenstein and Heidegger seems to be a critique of traditional approaches that are fundamentally misguided if the intent is to make sense of the human situation. — macrosoft

The ambiguity light is flashing. Is it the traditional approaches that are misguided?

Yes, though not all traditional approaches. Both had various heroes within the tradition.

From my own perspective, this is misguidedness-in-retrospect relative to personal 'spiritual' goals. Re-approaching discussion with a holistic conception reveals lots of discussion as irrelevant, confused, or both. Again, in the light of making sense of life or existence as a whole, which includes making sense of others' sense-making, in order to be a better person as a whole.

Discussions are revealed as irrelevant when they are revealed as arguments about difference that make no living difference. Grammar preferences, attachment to this or that particular favored use of a word. This is a perspective that obsesses over the 'trees,' ignoring the forest. For me philosophy is an extreme form of thinking in terms of the forest. It attempts to grasp existence as a whole. But in its obsession with a kind of scientific certainty, it needs language to behave like math, like a set of atomic meanings with which one can prove things. The real is understood as the output of an argument machine, which spits it out in little truth nuggets. Even the highest human capacities (religion, art, science in its roots) are understood 'mechanically,' and not in their living connectedness. And yet this living connectedness is our basic experience in non-theoretical life. So the atomic approach is an inherited pose which is applied uncritically.

The confusion is not really separate from the irrelevance. If we stubborn expect words to correspond to fixed, independent meanings, then again and again one philosopher will recontextualize the words of another so that the first philosopher's system breaks down. Concepts are ripped out of the fullness of the concept system in a particular way for a particular purpose, and this never exhausts their meaning. When the argument machine outputs little atomic truths, it has to do so in terms of fragile, stipulative, idiosyncratic narrowings of use. When the naked result is brought back to the tribe, it released back into the wild. Divorced from the 'computation' that engendered them and the idiosyncratic understanding of the terms involved, the theses are merely suggestive meaning-sludge.

At its worst, philosophy becomes a mere sport (clever, small -hearted verbal combat.) A great example is common on youtube. '[Public Intellectual] DESTROYS [Cardboard villain type.]' The intention is not to include and perhaps transcend the other (a mirroring that extends) but rather to vanquish and resist the other, which is to say a willful ignorance of what the other may be 'on to,' albiet in terms that violate the listener's grammar preferences. In short, an obsession with the 'right' terminology to the neglect of 'feeling one's way into' another's 'global' perspective looks almost like the opposite of philosophy as a sincere quest for understanding and wisdom.