A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

The Contradictions of Experience. All the conceptions of practical life are self-contradictory and are therefore vicious. This applies not only to the conceptions of unreflecting minds, but also to those of scientists and philosophers. To philosophize is nothing else than this: to free our conceptions of their self-contradictions by simplifying and revising them. We think of the world as consisting of things, persons, relations, and laws; but such a view of the world is founded upon the fallacy of thinking an object at the same time as one and as many. This general fallacy takes four specific forms: inherence, change, continuity, and selfhood. For example, it is contradictory to think of a plant as one thing in which many qualities inhere; it is contradictory to think of a plant as the same when it passes through many changes; it is contradictory to think of space as continuous and yet divided into parts; and it is contradictory to think of the self as always the same and yet as a stream of conscious states.[69]

The Argument for Realism. This inherent contradiction in human conceptions had been a matter of observation by philosophers for many centuries, but it had led to many divergent conclusions. The Greek Skeptics had long ago observed it, and had concluded therefore that there is no such thing as reality. To them thought is discredited because the contradictions of thought are insoluble. Truth does not exist. On the other hand Hegel developed his great dialectic system upon the basis of these contradictions. Is thought self-contradictory?Yes. But is thought discredited because it is self-contradictory? By no means. It is the nature of thought to be self-contradictory, and the highest truth is the knowledge of this. So Hegel, instead of rejecting the conception of reality because thought is contradictory, incorporated contradictions into his conception of the Being of the universe. Indeed, he made contradictions the “head of the corner” of his system. Contradiction to Hegel is cosmic law. However, in such a conception Hegel had to give up entirely the principle upon which formal logic was founded. This was the principle that a thing cannot be different from itself. To Hegel the highest truth was exactly the opposite—everything is self-contradictory.

While Herbart agreed with the Skeptics and with Hegel that experience is self-contradictory, he differed from them in the inference which he drew from such contradictions. In acknowledging the contradictions of experience Herbart did not find himself driven to either one of these alternatives. Philosophy did not mean for him skepticism. On the other hand he was repelled by the turn that Hegel had given to logic, and he refused to accept reasoning as a self-contradictory process. He returned to the demands of formal logic and restored the principle of contradiction[70] to the place which it had occupied during the Enlightenment. Herbart took as his fundamental philosophical principle that experiences are not actual when they are self-contradictory.

The self-contradictoriness of experiences shows that they are phenomena and not actualities. It also showsthat they have reality as their ground. Seeming things imply realities as the ground of their qualities; seeming occurrences imply actual relations between the reals. Seeming is just so much an indication of Being. Consistency lies behind phenomena. The existence of appearances must be admitted, but appearances are appearances of something. If nothing existed, nothing would appear to exist; and yet things are not in reality what they appear to be.

Herbart agreed with Kant that we can experience only phenomena. There is also a similarity in the two theories as to the relationship between phenomena and the thing-in-itself. The similarity is, however, only superficial. Kant reasoned from the relativity of phenomena to the synthetic unity of apperception, i. e. to consciousness in general, while the thing-in-itself was to Kant an unknowable and irreducible remainder. To Kant phenomena pointed to consciousness rather than to things-in-themselves. On the other hand, Herbart reasoned from phenomena to the existence of things-in-themselves. Phenomena point to an independent, objective reality rather than to a thinking subject. While in Kant’s doctrine phenomena depend for their existence upon the creative power of consciousness, to Herbart consciousness has no creative power, but itself depends on the existence and independence of a plurality of independent Reals. Even the categories and the forms of space and time are not innate synthetic forms. All are the result of the relationships among independent Reals, which are the spring of all activity and existence. Herbart thus gave to the things-in-themselves all the independent functions that Kant attributed to consciousness.

The Many Reals and Nature Phenomena. We must remove the contradictions of experience, if we would get at a true conception of Reality and the meaning of phenomena. The true way is (1) to posit a plural number of Reals, and (2) to interpret the phenomena as derived from the relation among these Reals.

In the first place, a multiplicity of Reals, and not a single Real, is needed to explain the multiplicity of phenomena. Herbart’s doctrine is therefore a pluralism. He conceives the many Reals to exist, not in phenomenal, but in “intellectual space.” They are not subject to any phenomenal limitations whatsoever; they may occupy one point of space at the same time. Their nature cannot be known, but we can say that they have “absolute position.” They cannot be limited nor negated, and even their plurality does not mean that they limit one another.

In the second place, Herbart assumes a multiplicity of relations. Why do the Reals appear as phenomena? Why should the Reals appear to be the qualities that inhere in things, the continuities of things, and the changes of things? Herbart is not altogether satisfactory in his explanation of this problem. It is the problem of the unity of the manifold, which Kant could explain as due to the synthetic power of consciousness; but such an explanation was precluded from Herbart’s Realism. Herbart speaks of two kinds of relations. There are the actual relations among the Reals. Although the Reals are conceived by Herbart as simple and unchangeable, he also thinks of them as “coming and going in intelligible space.” We can never know what the nature of these actual relations is. The actual relations between two Reals arenot essential to either Real, nor can such relations have their basis in the Reals. All that we can know are the seeming relations among things. These are the relations of phenomenal space—of inherence, continuity, and change. Herbart calls these phenomenal relations “contingent views” (zufallige Ansichten), and looks upon them as having a semi-existence. That is to say, Herbart regards the world of experience as a world of relations which are not the actual relations among Realities, but merely the phenomenal relations, or relations as they appear to us.

The Soul and Mental Phenomena. Each Real has one single function, viz., self-preservation; and inasmuch as the Reals “co-exist,” they mutually disturb each other. The disturbances take the form of inner reactions on the part of the Real in its effort at self-preservation. Prominent among the Reals is the Soul-real. Like all the other Reals, it is unknowable. We have, however, immediate knowledge of its manifestations in its self-preservation among the other Reals. Psychology is the science of the relations which the Soul-real bears to other Reals. From the conflict of the Soul with other Reals, mental phenomena take their rise. Consciousness is, therefore, not the same as the Soul; it is the sum-total of the acts of the Soul in self-preservation. Consciousness is the aggregate mental states, and is not essential to the Soul. Nevertheless, isolated souls do not think; they have no states of consciousness. Consciousness can arise only in a community of Reals.

Our knowledge consists therefore of ideas, which are the results of the disturbance of the Soul-real by other Reals. These ideas live within the Soul, which is merely an indifference point where they are held together. Theideas in turn disturb and inhibit one another, and the description of our mental life is a description of the reciprocal tension of ideas. The tension among the ideas modifies the intensity of each, and consciousness of an idea is proportional to its intensity. An idea is just on the threshold of consciousness when it has the lowest degree of intensity, and is still actual. When it drops below that threshold it is changed into an impulse. The primary ideas are sensations. They are not the images of things, but the primary acts of the Soul in its attempt at self-preservation. All other mental states, like memory, imagination, feeling, and will, are to be described as kinds of tension of the ideas. Feeling and will are kinds of inhibitive tension. The coming of sensations and the interplay of sensations can be reduced to a mechanical law. Therefore, according to Herbart, psychology is the “statics and mechanics of ideas,” and must be treated mathematically.