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T W O A c t i o n The recovery of metaphysics and the illustration of its pertinence to liberal democracy begin with the concept of action. For while the reasons for the split between the contemplative life and the active life can be described in many ways, perhaps the most critical formulation addresses the misunderstanding of the import of action. Whether grasped in terms of the sort of noble futility that the Greeks ascribed to human deeds, interpreted according to the pragmatic model of problem solving, or understood on the physical model of causality, our predominant conceptions of action have enforced a division between theory and practice. Action is transient, particular, and insubstantial; it shares nothing in common with the permanence, universality, and reality captured in the Eleatic ideal. Miller’s interest is linking practical authority (a concern of the political life) with ontology (a concern of the contemplative life). In order to have ontological import, action must be an idea—that is, play a constitutional role in experience (PH 181). The allusion to Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel is intentional. The constitutional is synonymous with structure (MP 19:10), and categories born of action are themselves elements of structure (DP 62). Developing this basic understanding, Miller uses the term constitutional in two distinct senses. First the constitutional is understood as the necessary. An idea can be said to be constitutional in the sense that it is “a control, not just an episode,” form and not data (PL 495). Without action there is no definition, no identity, no difference; lacking action there is nothing. This sense of constitutionality will guide the discussion in sections 2.1 through 2.3. The constitutional is also understood as a constructive element, as in the gerund constituting. This sense of constitutionality will be developed in section 2.4 via an exploration of the causal efficacy of action. Beginning with action in the form of words and deeds, however, does not represent a claim that act is absolutely prior to symbol, history, or democracy in the metaphysics Miller is articulating. Indeed even as it is appropriate to refer to his thought as a philosophy of the act, Miller describes his own work as a “historical idealism ” whose novelty resides in its uncompromising insistence that the idealist 39 tradition be revised so as to give history categorical status (AH 240; see chapter 4). It is also a philosophy established on the midworld and the attendant claim regarding the centrality of the symbol to any understanding of ontology. It is finally considered a metaphysics of democracy. But what is history but the tale of the conscious apprehension and fateful consequences of free actions? What is the symbol but the vehicle and embodiment of the act? And what is democracy but the institutionalization of the efficacy of action? Action, symbol, history, and democracy implicate one another in such a way that no one aspect can be given strict priority. There remain principled reasons for beginning with action, as well as for describing Miller’s philosophy as fundamentally a “philosophy of the act.” It amounts to an assertion of the importance of the first-person standpoint.1 This is the key to the reestablishment of the active life and the authority of persons as authors of unique and history-making deeds. Furthermore, action provides the key to some persistent ontological, epistemological, and political difficulties, and prevents them from remaining unproductive problems. It is fair to say, along with Stephen Tyman, that action is the “knot” of Miller’s thought and thus deserves pride of place (1993, p. 66).§2.1 DISCLOSURE OF ACTION The shift from the cognitive to the active register is suspect in the context of a philosophic tradition that has been skeptical about the act and its historical categories . It is thus important to address the problematic status of action: How is action possible? How and where does it appear? What are its consequences? Before addressing these questions in earnest in section 2.2, the possibilities and limitations of this inquiry must be established. What sort of clarity can one expect from such an investigation? Miller warns against carrying a philosophical analysis into every facet of experience because, as he comments, “where any and all statements are to be defended one becomes defenseless” (MP 25:20). Indeed what can be termed the problems approach to philosophy has serious limitations . Foremost among these deficiencies is the one to which Miller’s statement alludes...

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