Between Freedom and Necessity: Félix Ravaisson on Habit and the Moral Life

Abstract

This paper examines Félix Ravaisson's account of habit, as presented in his 1838 essay Of Habit, and considers its significance in the context of moral practice. This discussion is set in an historical context by drawing attention to the different evaluations of habit in Aristotelian and Kantian philosophies, and it is argued that Kant's hostility to habit is based on the dichotomy between mind and body, and freedom and necessity, that pervades his thought. Ravaisson argues that the phenomenon of habit challenges these dualisms, and at least in this respect anticipates the discussions of habit in the work of twentieth-century phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur.

The paper outlines Ravaisson's account of habit in general, showing how his analysis of the “double law” of habit develops from the work of Maine de Biran, and highlighting the way in which Ravaisson offers a new and original philosophical interpretation of the phenomena of habit. Whereas Maine de Biran remains within a dualistic framework, and finds that habit is problematic within this framework, Ravaisson uses habit to demonstrate continuity between mind and body, will and nature. Then the focus is narrowed to consider how this analysis of habit is applied to a specifically moral context, and how it illuminates traditional Aristotelian theories of virtue. The paper ends by considering several practical consequences of the foregoing discussion of habit and the moral life.

Notes

1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, Ch. 1.

2. Kant, I. [1798] (1974) Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. M. Gregor (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), pp. 148–49.

3. Kant, I. [1797] (1996) The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), ms. 6: 409. See also 6: 407: “An aptitude (habitus) is a facility in acting and a subjective perfection of choice.—But not every such facility is a free aptitude (habitus libertatis); for if it is a habit (assuetudo), that is, a uniformity in action that has become a necessity through frequent repetition, it is not one that proceeds from freedom, and therefore not a moral aptitude.”

4. Merleau-Ponty, M. [1945] (1994) The Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith (London: Routledge), p. 142.

5. For discussion of the role of habit in Aristotle's ethics, see Burnyeat, M.F. (1980) “Aristotle on learning to be good” in: A. Oksenberg Rorty (Ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, pp. 69–92 (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press); Garver, E. “Aristotle's metaphysics of morals”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 27, January 1989, pp. 7–28; and Joe Sachs’ Preface and Introduction to his translation of Aristotle (2002) Nicomachean Ethics (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing), pp. vii-xvii.

6. See Aristotle, On the Soul, 417a23-b2. On Aristotle's concept of hexis, see Garver, “Aristotle's metaphysics of morals”; and Rodrigo, P. “La dynamique de l'hexis chez Aristote”, Alter no. 12/2004 (Paris: Vrin), pp. 11–25.

7. The concept of repetition is not itself problematised in Ravaisson's text, and he often presents “continuity or repetition” as alternative—and, implicitly, equivalent—sources of habit. Like earlier philosophers of habit, he takes repetition for granted, ignoring the crucial question of the possibility of repetition: what is repeated? what counts as “the same”? This question was raised, albeit obscurely, by S⊘ren Kierkegaard just four or five years after the publication of De l'habitude: in both Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est and Repetition (1843) the Danish philosopher notes the impossibility of repetition in both empirical reality (which is characterised by infinite variation) and in ideality (an atemporal realm of abstract identity). Kierkegaard argues that the possibility of repetition is “the most interior problem” and must be located “within the individual”—within subjective consciousness, conceived as the intersection or synthesis of ideality and empirical actuality—where “it is not a question of the repetition of something external but of the repetition of his freedom”. See Kierkegaard, S. [1843] (1983) Repetition, trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 304; also pp. 274–75. Subsequently, philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl and Gilles Deleuze have engaged extensively with this problem of repetition; for Ravaisson's influence on later French thought, see Janicaud, D. (1997) Ravaisson et la métaphysique, 2^éme édition (Paris: Vrin); for a short overview, see Marin, C. (2004) ‘L’être et l'habitude dans la philosophie française contemporaine’ in Alter 12, pp. 149–72. The issue requires sustained discussion and cannot be explored adequately within the confines of the present paper, where I follow Ravaisson in focusing on other aspects of the question of habit.

8. Ravaisson was responding to early modern scientific theories, as well as to philosophical discussions of habit; see Cazeneuve, J. (1958) La philosophie médicale de Ravaisson (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France).

9. Hume, D. [1739–1740] (1978) A Treatise on Human Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 424. For a discussion of Butler's account of habit and its influence on Hume, see Wright, J. (1995) “Hume and Butler on habit and moral character” in: M.A. Stewart and J.P. Wright (Eds.), Hume and Hume's Connexions, pp. 105–18 (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press).

10. See, for example, Hume, D. [1748] (1975) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 43.

11. See Bichat, X. [1800] (1809) Physiological Researches on Life and Death, trans. T. Watkins (Philadelphia, PA: Smith and Maxwell), pp. 34–40.

12. Jacques Derrida comments that Ravaisson “derives his axioms from Maine de Biran”, but does not appear to recognise the originality of Ravaisson's interpretation of his predecessor's analysis. See Derrida, J. (2005) On Touching, trans. C. Irizarry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), p. 155.

13. Ravaisson, F. [1838] (2008) Of Habit, trans. C. Carlisle and M. Sinclair (London: Continuum), p. 49.

14. See ibid., p. 121.

15. de Biran, P.M. [1803] (1970) The Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking, trans. M. Donaldson Boehm (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), p. 219.

16. Ibid., pp. 87–88.

17. Ibid., pp. 54–56.

18. Ibid., pp. 68–69.

19. See ibid., p. 70: “When this tendency passes from the virtual to the actual, as a result of renewed external stimulation, the individual wills and executes the same movement.”

20. See ibid., p. 108.

21. Ibid., p. 104.

22. Ibid., pp. 49; 100–01.

23. Ibid., p. 226.

24. This claim can be traced back to Xavier Bichat: see his Physiological Researches on Life and Death, pp. 35–37.

25. See Ravaisson, F. (1835) “Jugement de Schelling sur la philosophie de M. Cousin, et sur l’état de la philosophie francaise et de la philosophie allemande en générale”, in Révue germanique, III, 10, pp. 3–24.

26. Schelling, F.W.J. (1856–61) Sämmtliche Werke (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta), vol. XI, p. 328.

27. See Rodrigo, “La dynamique de l’hexis chez Aristote”, p. 25. See also Marion, J-L. (1975) Sur l'ontologie grise de Descartes. Science cartésienne et savoir aristotélicien dans les Regulae (Paris: Vrin), Ch. 1.

28. Ravaisson, Of Habit, pp. 53–55.

29. Malabou, C. (2008) What Should We Do with Our Brain?, trans. S. Rand (New York: Fordham University Press), p. 30. In this text Malabou argues that the neuro-scientific concept of plasticity takes us “between determination and freedom”—see especially Ch. 1.

30. See Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 27. This dynamic conception of inertia has more in common with Spinoza's conatus than with Newton's mechanistic theory. Leibniz argues, contra Newton, that a body has “in itself … a tendency to persevere in what sequences of changes it has begun”; see (1998) “Nature itself: or, the Inherent Force or Activity of Created Things”, p. 217, in: R. Woolhouse and R. Francks (Eds.), Philosophical Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press). For a discussion of Leibniz's influence on Ravaisson, see the Editors’ Introduction and Commentary in Of Habit, pp. 13–14; 79–81.

31. See Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 51.

32. Ibid., p. 51.

33. Ibid., p. 55.

34. Ibid., p. 57.

35. Ibid., p. 55.

36. Ibid., p. 55–7.

37. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, p. 44.

38. Butler, J. [1736] (1857) Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (London: Bell and Daldy), p. 108.

39. Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 69.

40. L.A. Kosman offers an excellent discussion of this aspect of Aristotle's ethics in “Being properly affected: Virtues and feelings in Aristotle's ethics” in: A. Rorty (Ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, pp. 103–16 (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press).

41. Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 69.

42. Ibid., p. 71.

43. The notion of prevenient grace can be traced back to Augustine, who distinguishes between the “prevenient grace” that brings a person to the point of conversion; the “operative grace” that accomplishes the liberation from sin that occurs at the moment of conversion; and the “co-operative grace” that, following conversion, assists the liberated will's pursuit of spiritual growth. Prevenient grace precedes the will and enables it, in spite of its sinful condition, to choose to seek salvation and to submit to God.

44. This term is used, disparagingly, by Derrida to describe Ravaisson's thought; see On Touching, p. 156.

45. See the Editors’ Introduction to Of Habit, pp. 15–17; and the Editors’ Commentary, pp. 112–14.

46. On receptivity, see Of Habit, pp. 31, 35–37; on resistance, see pp. 43–45, 61. Just as Ravaisson conceives passivity as both receptivity and resistance, so he conceives activity as both spontaneity and force.

47. The distinction between receptivity and resistance lies at the heart of the concept of plasticity, which is employed in current neuro-scientific theory; See Malabou, What Should We Do With Our Brain?, p. 5. In clarifying the distinction between plasticity and flexibility, Malabou accentuates the political significance of the former, which denotes a capacity for resistance as well as for the reception of form. The scientific sources for her conception of plasticity include LeDoux, J. (2002) Synaptic Self (New York: Viking) and Ameisen, J-C. (1999) La sculpture du vivant: Le Suicide cellulaire ou la mort créatrice (Paris: Seuil).

48. Augustine, Confessions, Book VIII, Section 5.

49. Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 57.

50. Kierkegaard, S. (1967–78) Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong (Bloomington, IN and London: Indiana University Press), vol. II, 1260.

51. Ravaisson, Of Habit, p. 63.

52. Ibid., p. 63.

53. Beckett, S. (1965) Proust (London: John Calder), pp. 18–19.

54. Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, pp. 28–9.

55. Kierkegaard, S. [1847] (1995) Works of Love, trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 36.