[II]
THE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDOCONCEPTS
Concepts and conceptual fictions.
By distinguishing the concept from representations, we have recognized the legitimate sphere of representation, and have assigned to it in the system of spirit the place of an antecedent and more elementary form of knowledge. By distinguishing the concept from states of the soul, from efforts of the will, from action, it is intended also to recognize the legitimacy of the practical form, although we are not here able to enlarge upon its relations with the cognitive form.[1] But by distinguishing the concept from fictions, it would almost seem that in their case we have not explicitly admitted any legitimate province, that, indeed, we have implicitly denied it, since we have adopted for them a designation which in itself sounds almost like a condemnation. This point must be made clear; because it would be impossible to go further with the treatment of Logic, if we left doubtful and insecure, that is, not sufficiently distinguished, one of the terms, from which the concept must be distinguished. What are conceptual fictions? Are they false and arbitrary concepts, morally reprehensible? Or are they spiritual products, which aid and contribute to the life of the spirit? Are they avoidable evils, or necessary functions?
The pure concept as ultra- and omnirepresentative.
A true and proper concept, precisely because it is not representation, cannot have for content any single representative element, or have reference to any particular representation, or group of representations; but on the other hand, precisely because it is universal in relation to the individuality of the representations, it must refer at the same time to all and to each. Take as an example any concept of universal character, be it of quality, of development, of beauty, or of final cause. Can we conceive that a piece of reality, given us in representation, however ample it may be (let it even be granted that it embraces ages and ages of history, in all the complexity of the latter, and millenniums and millenniums of cosmic life), exhausts in itself quality or development, beauty or final cause, in such a way that we can affirm an equivalence between those concepts and that representative content? On the other hand, if we examine the smallest fragment of representable life, can we ever conceive that, however small and atomic it be, there is lacking to it quality and development, beauty and final cause? Certainly, it may be and has been affirmed, that things are not quality, but pure quantity; that they do not develop, but remain changeless and motionless; that the criterion of beauty is the arbitrary extension which we make to cosmic reality of some of our narrow individual and historical experiences and sentiments; and that final cause is an anthropomorphic conception, since not "end" but "cause" is the law of the real, not teleology but mechanism and determinism. Philosophy has been and is still engrossed in such disputes; and we do not here present them as definitely solved, nor do we intend to base ourselves upon determinate conceptions in the choice of our examples. The point is, that if the theses which we have just mentioned as opposed to the first, were true, they would furnish, in every case, true and proper concepts, superior to every representative determination, and embracing in themselves all representations, that is to say, every possible experience; and our conception of the concept would not thereby be changed, but indeed confirmed. Final cause or mechanism, development or motionless being, beauty or individual pleasure, would always, in so far as they are concepts, be posited as ultrarepresentative and at the same time omnirepresentative. Even if, as often happens, both the opposed concepts were accepted for the same problem, for example, final cause and mechanism, or development and unmoved substance, it is never intended simply to apply either of them to single groups of representations, but to make them elements and component parts of all reality. Thus, every reality would be, on one side, end, and on the other, cause; on one side, motionless, on the other, changeable; man would have in himself something of the mechanical and something of the teleological; nature would be matter, but urged forward by a first cause which was non-material, that is, spiritual and final, or at least unknown—and so on. When it is demonstrated of a concept that it has been suggested by contingent facts, by this very fact we eliminate it from the series of true concepts, and substitute for it another concept, which is given as truly universal. Or again, we suppress it without substituting another for it, that is to say, we reduce the number of true and proper concepts. Such a reduction is a progress of thought, but it is a progress which can never be extended to the abolition of all concepts, because one, at least, will always remain ineliminable; that of thought, which thinks the abolition; and this concept will be ultra- and omnirepresentative.
Conceptual fictions as representative without universality,
Fictional concepts or conceptual fictions are something altogether different. In these, either the content is furnished by a group of representations, even by a single representation, so that they are not ultrarepresentative; or there is no representable content, so that they are not omnirepresentative. Examples of the first type are afforded by the concepts of house, cat, rose; of the second, those of triangle, or of free motion. If we think of the house, we refer to an artificial structure of stone or masonry or wood, or iron or straw, where beings, whom we call men, are wont to abide for some hours, or for entire days and entire years. Now, however great may be the number of objects denoted by that concept, it is always a finite number; there was a time when man did not exist, when, therefore, neither did his house; and there was another time when man existed without his house, living in caverns and under the open sky. Of course, undoubtedly, we shall be able to extend the concept of house, so as to include also the places inhabited by animals; but it will never be possible to follow with absolute clearness the distinction between artificial and natural (the act of inhabiting itself makes the place more or less artificial, by changing, for instance, the temperature); or between the animals which are inhabitants and the non-animals, which nevertheless are inhabitants, such as plants, which, as well as animals, often seek a roof; admitting that certain plants and animals have other plants and animals as their houses. Hence, in view of the impossibility of a clear and universal distinctive character, it is advisable to have recourse at once to enumeration and to give the name house to certain particular objects, which, however numerous they are, are also finite in number, and which, with the enumeration complete, or capable of completion, exclude other objects from themselves. If it is desired to prevent this exclusion, no other course remains than that of understanding by house any mode of life between different beings; but in that case, the conceptual fiction becomes changed into a universal, lacking particular representations, applicable alike to a house and to any other manifestation of the real. The same may be said of the cat and of the rose, since it is evident that cats and roses have appeared on the earth at a definite time and will disappear at another, and that while they endure, they can be looked upon as something fixed and precise, only when we have regard to some particular group of cats and of roses, indeed to one particular cat or rose at a definite moment of its existence (a gray cat or a black cat, a cat or a kitten; a white rose or a red rose, flowering or withered, etc.), elevated into a symbol and representative of the others. There is not, and there cannot be, a rigorous characteristic, which should avail to distinguish the cat from other animals, or the rose from other flowers, or indeed a cat from other cats and a rose from another rose. These and other fictional concepts are, therefore, representative, but not ultrarepresentative; they contain some objects or fragments of reality, they do not contain it all.