Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 1
SECTION I.
THE EPISTEMOLOGY, OR THEORY OF KNOWING
PROPOSITION I.
THE PRIMARY LAW OR CONDITION OF ALL KNOWLEDGE.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
1. Self or the "me" is the common centre, the continually known rallying-point, in which all our cognitions meet and agree. It is the ens unum, et semper cognitum, in omnibus notitiis. Its apprehension is essential to the existence of our, and of all, knowledge. And thus Proposition I. forms an explicit answer to the question laid down in the Introduction (§ 85) as the first question of philosophy: What is the one feature present in all our knowledge,—the common point in which all our cognitions unite and agree,—the element in which they are identical? The ego is this feature, point, or element: it is the common centre which is at all times known, and in which all our cognitions, however diverse they may be in other respects, are known as uniting and agreeing; and besides the ego, or oneself, there is no other identical quality in our cognitions—as any one may convince himself upon reflection. He will find that he cannot lay his finger upon anything except himself, and say—This article of cognition I must know along with whatever I know.
It expresses the most general and essential law of all knowledge.2. The apprehension of oneself by oneself is the most general and essential circumstance on which knowledge depends, because, unless this law be complied with, no intellectual apprehension of any kind is possible; and wherever it is complied with, some kind of knowledge is necessary. Each of the subsequent propositions (with the exception of the last of the epistemology) gives expression to a necessary law of knowledge; but this first proposition lays down the fundamental necessity to which all intelligence is subject in the acquisition of knowledge. It states the primary canon in the code of reason from which all the other necessary laws are derivations.
3. The condition of knowledge here set forth is not an operation which is performed once for all, and then dispensed with, while we proceed to the cognition of other things. Neither is it an operation which is ever entirely intermitted, even when our It declares that self-consciousness is never entirely suspended when the mind knows anythingattention appears to be exclusively occupied with matters quite distinct from ourselves. The knowledge of self is the running accompaniment to all our knowledge. It is through and along with this knowledge that all other knowledge is taken in.
Objection that self-consciousness seems at times to be extinct.4. An objection may be raised to this proposition on the ground that it is contradicted by experience. It may be said that when we are plunged in the active pursuits of life, or engaged in the contemplation of natural objects, we frequently pass hours, it may be days, without ever thinking of ourselves. This objection seems to militate against the truth of our first proposition. How is it to be obviated?
Objection obviated. Proposition explained.5. If the proposition maintained, that our attention was at all times clearly and forcibly directed upon ourselves, or that the me was constantly a prominent object of our regard, the objection would be fatal to its pretensions. The proposition would be at once disproved by an appeal to experience; for it is certain that during the greater part of our time we take but little heed of ourselves. But a man may take very little note, without taking absolutely no note of himself. The proposition merely asserts that a man (or any other intelligence) is never altogether incognisant, is never totally oblivious, of himself even when his attention is most engaged with other matters. However far it may be carried, the forgetfulness of self is only partial and apparent; it is never real and total. There is always a latent reference of one's perceptions and thoughts to oneself as the person who experiences them, which proves that, however deeply we may be engrossed with the objects before us, we are never stripped entirely of the consciousness of ourselves. And this is all that our proposition contends for. There is a calm unobtrusive current of self-consciousness flowing on in company with all our knowledge, and during every moment of our waking existence; and this self-consciousness is the ground or condition of all our other consciousness. Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts of our attention may be always devoted to the thing or business we have in hand: it is sufficient for our argument if it be admitted that the thousandth part, or even a smaller fraction, of it is perpetually directed upon ourselves.
Our apparent inattention to self accounted for by the principle of familiarity6. But how is our apparent self-oblivion to be explained? If it is not to be accounted for on the supposition that we ever drop entirely out of our own observation, we must be prepared to explain it on some other principle. And so we are. This oversight, which in many cases is all but complete, may be accounted for in the most satisfactory manner by means of a principle of our nature which may be termed the law of familiarity, the effect of which law is well expressed in the old adage, "Familiarity breeds neglect." Whatever we are extremely intimate with, we are very apt to overlook; and precisely in proportion to the novelty or triteness of any event are the degrees of our attention called forth and exercised. We are enchained by the comparatively rare,—we are indifferent towards the comparatively frequent. That which is strange rivets our intellectual gaze,—that to which we are accustomed passes by almost unheeded. No influence has a greater effect than use and wont in dimming the eye of attention, and in blunting the edge of curiosity. This truth might be illustrated to an unlimited extent. It is sufficient for the present purpose to remark, that each of us is more familiar, and is therefore less occupied, with himself than he is with any other object that can be brought under his consideration. We are constantly present to ourselves,—hence we scarcely notice ourselves. We scarcely remark the condition of our knowledge, so unremittingly do we obey it. Indeed, in our ordinary moods we seem to slip entirely out of our own thoughts. This is the inevitable consequence of our close familiarity, our continual intimacy, our unbroken acquaintance with ourselves. But we never do slip entirely out of our own thoughts. However slender the threads may be which hold a man before his own consciousness, they are never completely broken through.
Also by the consideration that the ego is no object of sensible experience.7. There is this consideration, also, to be taken into account, that the part of our knowledge which consists of things of sense always naturally attracts our attention much more forcibly than that part of it which is apprehended by intellect merely. But that which we call "I" is the object of intellect alone. We are never objects of sense to ourselves. A man can see and touch his body, but he cannot see and touch himself. This is not the place to offer any observations on the nature of the thinking principle. The assertion that it either is, or is not, immaterial, must at present be avoided, as dogmatic, hypothetical, and premature—indeed, as altogether inconsistent with the purpose and business of the epistemology. But this much may be affirmed, that, when the cognisance of self is laid down as the condition of all knowledge, this of course does not mean that certain objects of sense (external things, to wit) are apprehended through certain other objects of sense (our own bodies, namely), for such a statement would be altogether futile. It would leave the question precisely where it found it; for we should still have to ask, On what condition are these other objects of sense apprehended? To say that the things of sense are made known to us by means of the things of sense, does not advance us one step on the high-road to truth. The me, therefore, whether it be material or not—a point on which, at present, we offer no opinion—is certainly not our own bodies, in so far as these are, or may be made, objects of sense;[1] and not being an object of sensible, but only of intellectual experience, and our attention being naturally held captive by the things of sense, it is not surprising that these latter should cause us to attend but slightly to ourselves in our ordinary moods, and in the common transactions of life. Thus the slight degree of notice which we usually take of ourselves is sufficiently explained,—without its being necessary to resort to the hypothesis that the oversight is ever total,—by means of these two circumstances—the operation of the law of familiarity, and the fact that the ego is no object of sensible experience.
A theory of self-consciousness at variance with Prop. I. refuted.8. A theory of self-consciousness, opposed to the doctrine advanced in our first proposition, has been sometimes advocated. It reduces this operation to a species of reminiscence: it affirms that we are first cognisant of various sensible impressions, and are not conscious of ourselves until we reflect upon them afterwards. But this doctrine involves a contradiction; for it supposes us to recollect certain impressions to have been ours, after they have been experienced, which we did not know to be ours when they were experienced. A man cannot remember what never happened. If the impressions were not known to be ours at the time, they could not subsequently be remembered to have been ours, because their recollection would imply that we remembered an antecedent connection between ourselves and them; which connection, however, had no place in our former experience, inasmuch as this theory declares that no self was in the first instance apprehended;—therefore, if the impressions are recognised on reflection to have been ours, they must originally have been known to be ours. In other words, we must have been conscious of self at the time when the impressions were made.
Importance of Prop. I. as foundation of the whole system.9. Looked at in itself, or as an isolated truth, our first proposition is of no importance; but viewed as the foundation of the whole system, and as the single staple on which all the truths subsequently to be advanced depend, it cannot be too strongly insisted on, or too fully elucidated. Everything hinges on the stability which can be given to this proposition—on the acceptance it may meet with. If it falls, the system entirely fails; if it stands, the system entirely succeeds. It is to be hoped that the reader will not be stopped or discouraged by the apparent truism which it involves. He may think that, if the main truth which this philosophy has to tell him is, that all his cognitions and perceptions are known by him to be his own, he will have very little to thank it for. Let him go on, and see what follows. Meanwhile, considering the great weight which this proposition has to bear, we may be excused for bestowing a few more words on its enforcement.
It is not refuted but rather confirmed by experience.10. If this first proposition is not very clearly confirmed by experience, it is at any rate not refuted by that authority. No one, by any effort of the mind, can ever apprehend a thing to the entire exclusion of himself. A man cannot wittingly leave himself altogether out of his account, and proceed to the consideration of the objects by which he is surrounded. On the contrary, he will find that, nolens volens, he carries himself consciously along with him, faint though the consciousness may be, in all the scenes through which he passes, and in all the operations in which he is engaged. He will find that, when he is cognisant of perceptions, he is always cognisant of them as his. But this cognisance is equivalent to self-consciousness, and therefore it is reasonable to conclude that our proposition is not only not overthrown, but, moreover, that it is corroborated by experience.
Its best evidence is reason, which fixes it as a necessary truth or axiom.11. But it is Reason alone which can give to this proposition the certainty and extension which are required to render it a sure foundation for all that is to follow. Experience can only establish it as a limited matter of fact; and this is not sufficient for the purposes of our subsequent demonstrations. It must be established as a necessary truth of reason—as a law binding on intelligence universally—as a conception, the opposite of which is a contradiction and an absurdity. Strictly speaking, the proposition cannot be demonstrated, because, being itself the absolute starting-point, it cannot be deduced from any antecedent data; but it may be explained in such a way as to leave no doubt as to its axiomatic character. It claims all the stringency of a geometrical axiom, and its claims, it is conceived, are irresistible. If it were possible for an intelligence to receive knowledge at any one time without knowing that it was his knowledge, it would be possible for him to do this at all times. So that an intelligent being might be endowed with knowledge without once, during the whole term of his existence, knowing that he possessed it. Is there not a contradiction involved in that supposition? But if that supposition be a contradiction, it is equally contradictory to suppose that an intelligence can be conscious of his knowledge, at any single moment, without being conscious of it as his. A man has knowledge, and is cognisant of perceptions only when he brings them home to himself. If he were not aware that they were his, he could not be aware of them at all. Can I know without knowing that it is I who know? No, truly. But if a man, in knowing anything, must always know that he knows it, he must always be self-conscious. And therefore reason establishes our first proposition as a necessary truth—as an axiom, the denial of which involves a contradiction, or is, in plain words, nonsense.
First counter-proposition.12. Every metaphysical truth is faced by an opposite error which has its origin in ordinary thinking, and which it is the business of speculation to supplant. It will conduce, therefore, to the elucidation of our first proposition, if, following the plan laid down in the Introduction (§ 47), we place alongside of it the counter-proposition which it is designed to overthrow. First counter-proposition: "To constitute knowledge, all that is required is that there should be something to be known, and an intelligence to know it, and that the two should be present to each other. It is not necessary that this intelligence should be cognisant of itself at the same time."
It embodies the result of ordinary thinking and of popular psychology.13. This counter-proposition gives expression to the condition of knowledge, as laid down by ordinary thinking; and, it may be added, as laid down by our whole popular psychology. To constitute knowledge, there must be a subject or mind to know, and an object or thing to be known: let the two, subject and object (as they are frequently called, and as we shall frequently call them), be brought together, and knowledge is the result. This is the whole amount both of the common opinion and of the psychological doctrine as to the origin of knowledge. The statement does not expressly deny that the subject must always know itself, in order to be cognisant of the object. It neither denies nor admits this in express terms; and, therefore, it is not easy to grapple with the ambiguity which it involves. But it certainly leans more to the side of denial than to the side of affirmation. The ordinary psychological doctrine seems to be, that the subject, or mind, is at times cognisant of itself to the exclusion of the object, and is at times cognisant of the object to the exclusion of itself, and again is at times cognisant both of itself and the object at once. Its general position is, beyond a doubt, me rely this, that to constitute knowledge there must be an intelligent subject, and something for this intelligent subject to know—not that this intelligence must in every act of knowledge be cognisant of itself. But this doctrine is equivalent to the counter-proposition just advanced, because it declares that the cognisance of self is not necessarily the condition and concomitant of all knowledge.
It is generally the starting-point of psychology, as Prop. I. is the starting-point of metaphysics.14. It is, however, rather from the conclusions reached by our popular psychology, than from any express statement it contains, that we may gather that its starting-point is our first counter-proposition. Supposing it to start from a denial of our first proposition, its subsequent conclusions are legitimately reached, as will appear in the sequel. Supposing it to start from the admission of our first proposition, its illogical procedure would be altogether unparalleled. In justice, therefore, to our common psychology, we must suppose that it is rounded on our first counter-proposition, which, however, is the embodiment of a contradictory inadvertency of thought, by which all its subsequent proceedings are rendered untrue. The divarication of the two systems—our popular psychology on the one hand, founded on this counter-proposition, and exhibiting the erroneous results of ordinary thinking; and our strict metaphysics on the other hand, based on Proposition I., and presenting the results of the pure speculative reason—will begin to grow apparent in our second proposition.
A mark of distinction between the propositions and the counter-propositions15. To mark strongly the opposition between the propositions and the counter-propositions, it may be stated that the propositions declare what we do think, the counter-propositions declare what we think we think, but do not think: in other words, the propositions represent our real thinking, the counter-propositions our apparent thinking. For example, the first counter-proposition affirms that we can know things without knowing ourselves; but we only apparently do this—we only think that we know them without obeying the condition specified: in other words, we think, or rather think that we think, a contradiction; for it is impossible really to think a contradiction. The proposition states what we really think and know as the condition of all our knowledge.
Prop. I. has some affinity to Pythagorean doctrine of numbers.16. This first proposition expresses the principal law by which the unintelligible is converted into the intelligible. Let self be apprehended, and everything becomes (potentially) apprehensible or intelligible: let self be unapprehended, and everything remains necessarily inapprehensible or unintelligible. Considered under this point of view, the nearest approach made to this proposition in ancient times was probably the Pythagorean speculation respecting number as the ground of all conceivability. In nature, per se, there is neither unity nor plurality—nothing is one thing, and nothing is many things; because there cannot be one thing unless by a mental synthesis of many things or parts; and there cannot be many things or parts unless each of them is one thing: in other words, in nature, per se, there is nothing but absolute inconceivability. If she can place before us "thing," she cannot place before us a or one thing. So said Pythagoras. According to him, it is intelligence alone which contributes a to "thing"—gives unity, not certainly to plurality (for to suppose plurality is to suppose unity already given), but to that which is neither one nor many; and thus converts the unintelligible into the intelligible—the world of nonsense into the world of intellect.
Misunderstanding as to Pythagorean doctrine17. This doctrine has been strangely misunderstood. Its expositors have usually thought that: things are already numbered by nature either as one or many, and that all that Pythagoras taught was that we re-number them when they come before us; as if such a truism as that could ever have fallen from the lips of a great thinker; as if such a common-place was even entitled to the name of an opinion. A theory which professes to explain how things become intelligible must surely not suppose that they are intelligible before they become so. If a man undertakes to explain how water becomes ice, he must surely not suppose that it already is ice. He must date from some anterior condition of the water—its fluidity, for instance. Yet the Pythagorean theory of number as the ground of all intelligibility, is usually represented in this absurd light. Number, by which "thing" becomes intelligible, either as one or many, is believed to be admitted by this theory to be cleaving to "thing" even in its unintelligible state. Were this so, the thing would not be unintelligible, and there would be no explanation of the conversion of the incogitable (the anoetic) into the cogitable (the noetic), the very point which the theory professes to explicate. The theory may be imperfect; but it is one of the profoundest speculations of antiquity. The modern interpretation has emptied it of all significance.
Prop. I. a higher generalisation of the Pythagorean law.18. The law laid down in Proposition I. is merely a higher generalisation and clearer expression of the Pythagorean law of number. Whatever is to be known must be known as one, or as many, or as both; but whatever is to be known can be made one only by being referred to one self; and whatever is to be known can be made many only when each of the plurals has been made one by being referred to one self; and whatever is to be known can be made both one and many only by the same process being gone through,—that is to say, its unity and its plurality can only be effected by its reduction to the unity of self.
Anticipations of Prop. I. by the philosophers of Germany.19. Passing over at present all intermediate approximations, we find anticipations of this first proposition in the writings of the philosophers of Germany. It puts in no claim to novelty, however novel may be the uses to which these Institutes apply it. Kant had glimpses of the truth; but his remarks are confused in the extreme in regard to what he calls the unity (analytic and synthetic) of consciousness. This is one of the few places in his works from which no meaning can be extracted. In his hands the principle answered no purpose at all. It died in the act of being born, and was buried under a mass of subordinate considerations before it can be said to have even breathed. Fichte got hold of it, and lost it—got hold of it, and lost it again, through a series of eight or ten different publications, in which the truth slips through his fingers when it seems just on the point of being turned to some account. Schelling promised magnificent operations in the heyday of his youth, on a basis very similar to that laid down in this first proposition. But the world has been waiting for the fulfilment of these promises,—for the fruits of that exuberant blossom,—during a period of more than fifty years. May its hopes be one day realised! No man is fitter, if he would but take the pains, than this octogenarian seer, to show that Speculation is not all one "barren heath."[2] Hegel,—but who has ever yet uttered one intelligible word about Hegel? Not any of his countrymen,—not any foreigner,—seldom even himself. With peaks, here and there, more lucent than the sun, his intervals are filled with a sea of darkness, unnavigable by the aid of any compass, and an atmosphere, or rather vacuum, in which no human intellect can breathe. Hegel had better not be meddled with just at present. It is impossible to say to what extent this proposition coincides, or does not coincide, with his opinions; for whatever truth there may be in Hegel, it is certain that his meaning cannot be wrung from him by any amount of mere reading, any more than the whisky which is in bread—so at least we have been informed—can be extracted by squeezing the loaf into a tumbler. He requires to be distilled, as all philosophers do, more or less—but Hegel to an extent which is unparalleled. A much less intellectual effort would be required to find out the truth for oneself than to understand his exposition of it. Hegel's faults, however, and those of his predecessors subsequent to Kant, lie, certainly, not in the matter, but only in the manner of their compositions. Admirable in the substance and spirit and direction of their speculations, they are painfully deficient in the accomplishment of intelligible speech, and inhumanly negligent of all the arts by which alone the processes and results of philosophical research can be recommended to the attention of mankind.