Elements of metaphysics

by A. E. Taylor

§ 2. We may now approach the problem of the degree of reality which belongs to the self. We have to ask, how far is the conception of self applicable to the individual experiences which in our Second Book we identified as the contents of the system of real existence? Is the infinite individual experience properly to be called a self? Again, is every finite experience a self? And how must we take finite selves, if they are real, to be related to each other? Lastly, perhaps, we might be called on in this connection to face the question how far an individual finite self is more than a temporary feature in the system of existence. Our conclusions on all these points were no doubt in principle decided by the discussions of our Second Book, but it is desirable to make some of them more explicit than was possible there.

First, then, I think it is clear that the infinite experience or “Absolute” cannot properly be called a self. This is immediately apparent if our view as to the essential implications of self-feeling be accepted. We have urged that self is only apprehended as such in contrast to a simultaneously apprehended not-self. And the not-self, we have seen, is composed of all the discordant elements of experience, so far as their discord has not been overcome. It was for this reason that we held the self to be indissolubly bound up with that experience of the world as a process in time, with a “no longer” and “not yet,” which is the universal characteristic of finitude. It must follow that an experience which contains no discordant elements, in their character as unresolved discords, is not characterised by the contrast-effect which is the foundation of selfhood. An experience which contains the whole of Reality as a perfectly harmonious whole can apprehend nothing as outside or opposed to itself, and for that very reason cannot be qualified by what we know as the sense of self.

To put the same thing in another way, “self” as we have seen, is essentially an ideal, and an ideal which is apprehended as contrasted with the present actuality. Hence only beings who are aware of themselves as in process of becoming more fully harmonious in their life of feeling and purpose than they at present are, can be aware of themselves as selves. Self and imperfection are inseparable, and any being which knows nothing of the opposition between the ideal and the actual, the ought and the is, must also know nothing of the feeling of self. Or in yet a third form of words, only creatures whose life is in time—and therefore only finite creatures—can be selves, since the time-experience is an integral constituent of selfhood.

One objection which might be brought against this inference is sufficiently ingenious to deserve special examination. It may be urged that though the experience of imperfection and thwarted purpose are conditions without which we in particular could not come to the apprehension of self, they do not remain as ingredients in the experience of selfhood when once it has been developed. Hence, it might be said, the “Absolute” may conceivably have the experience without having to acquire it through these conditions. In general principle, no doubt this line of argument is sound enough. It is perfectly true that the special conditions through which we come to have experience of a certain quality cannot, without investigation, be taken as everywhere indispensable for that experience. E.g., even if it were proved that the pessimists are right in saying that we never experience pleasure except as a contrast with previous pain, it would still not follow that the pleasure, as felt, is the mere rebound from the pain, and has no further positive quality of its own, and it would then still be an open question whether other beings might not experience the pleasure without the antecedent pain. But the principle does not seem applicable to the case now under consideration, since it is our contention that the contrast of the discordant factor with the rest of the experience to which it belongs is not simply an antecedent condition, but is in fact the central core of the actual apprehension of self. It is not simply that we do not, if our previous analysis has been correct, have the feeling of self except in cases where such a contrast is present, but that the feeling of self is the feeling of the contrast. Hence our result seems untouched by the undoubtedly sound general principle to which we have referred.

That our conclusion is so frequently opposed by philosophers who adopt a generally idealistic position, is, I believe, to be accounted for by the prevalence of the belief that experience, as such, is essentially characterised by consciousness of self. To experience at all, it is commonly thought, is to be aware of one’s self as in relation to an environment of the not-self. Hence to deny that the absolute Reality is a self is often thought to be equivalent to denying that it is an experience at all and this, from the idealistic point of view, would mean to deny that it is real. But if our previous analysis was sound, it is not even true of human experience as such that it is everywhere conditioned by the felt contrast of self with not-self. From the point of view of that analysis, the contrast only exists where there is felt discord between experience as a whole and some of its constituents. The conception of our experience as essentially marked by a sense of self, must therefore rest upon our intellectual reconstruction effected by the transparent fiction of ascribing to every experience features which analysis detects only in special cases and under special conditions. Hence it is quite possible for us to unite the affirmation that all real existence ultimately forms a single experience-system, with the denial that that system is qualified by the contrast-effect we know as the sense of self. How, indeed, should that outside which there is nothing to afford the contrast, so distinguish itself from a purely imaginary other?[^[192]]

§ 3. If the Absolute is not a self, a fortiori it is manifest that it cannot be a “Person.” Exactly how much is intended when the “personality” of the Absolute, or indeed of anything else, is affirmed, it would not be easy to determine. A “self” does not seem to be necessarily a “person,” since those philosophers who hold that there is no reality but that of selves, while admitting that the lower animals are selves, do not usually call them persons. But it is hard to say how much more is included in personality than in selfhood. If we bear in mind that personality is, in its origin, a legal conception, and that it is usually ascribed only to human beings, or to such superhuman intelligences as are held capable of associating on terms of mutual obligation with human beings, we may perhaps suggest the following definition. A person is a being capable of being the subject of the specific obligations attaching to a specific position in human society. And it becomes manifest that, if this is so, personality is, as Mr. Bradley has said, finite or meaningless.

For a society of persons is essentially one of ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι, social peers, with purposes mutually complementary though not identical, and standing in need of each other’s aid for the realisation of those purposes. Only those beings are personal for me whose aims and purposes are included along with mine in some wider and more harmonious system, and to whom I therefore am bound by ties of reciprocal obligation. But it is clear that, to ask whether the wider system which is thus the foundation of our mutual rights and duties as persons, is itself a person, would be ridiculous. Thus, e.g., there would be no sense in asking whether “human society”—the foundation of our moral personality—is itself a person. You might, in fact, as reasonably ask whether it can be sued for trespass or assessed under schedule D for Income Tax.

Still more manifestly is this true of the Absolute which includes within it all the (conceivably infinitely numerous) groups of mutually recognising persons, and all those other forms of experience which we cannot properly call personal. Between the whole system and its component elements there can be no such relation of mutual supplementation and completion as is the essence of genuine personality. If the system, as a whole, may be said to supplement and correct our defects and shortcomings, we cannot be said, in any way, to supplement it; the Absolute and I are emphatically not, in any true sense, ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι, and the relation between us cannot therefore be thought of as personal. All this is so obvious, that, as I take it, the personality of the Absolute or whole of existence would find no defenders but for the gratuitous assumption that whatever is an individual experience or spiritual unity must be personal. This, as far as I can see, is to assume that such an individual must have an external environment of other experience-subjects of the same degree of harmonious and comprehensive individuality. And for this assumption I can, speaking for myself, see no ground whatever.[^[193]]

§ 4. If we cannot, then, properly say that the Absolute, or the Universe,—or whatever may be our chosen name for the infinite individual which is the whole of existence,—is a self or person, can we say that the finite individuals which compose it are one and all selves, and that the Absolute is therefore a society of selves? Our answer to this question must depend, I think, upon two considerations,—(a) the amount of continuity we regard as essential to a self, and (b) the kind of unity we attribute to a society.

(a) If we regard any and every degree of felt teleological continuity as sufficient to constitute a self, it is clear that we shall be compelled to say that selves, and selves only, are the material of which reality is composed. For we have already agreed that Reality is exclusively composed of psychical fact, and that all psychical facts are satisfactions of some form of subjective interest or craving, and consequently that every psychical fact comprised in the whole system of existence must form part of the experience of a finite individual subject. Hence, if every such subject, whatever its degree of individuality, is to be called a self, there will be no facts which are not included somewhere in the life of one or more selves. On the other hand, if we prefer, as I have done myself, to regard some degree of intellectual development, sufficient for the recognition of certain permanent interests as those of the self, as essential to selfhood, we shall probably conclude that the self is an individual of a relatively high type, and that there are consequently experiences of so imperfect a degree of teleological continuity as not to merit the title of selves.