Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 19
PROPOSITION XIX.
WHAT THE RELATIVE IN COGNITION IS.
DEMONSTRATION.
The demonstration is a mere reiteration of demonstration XV.; the word "relative" being substituted for the word "phenomenal." Each of the items specified in Prop. XIX. is the relative in cognition, because each of them can be known only along with its correlative. Thus, objects can be known only in relation to some correlative subject—matter can be known only in relation to some correlative "me." The ego can be known only in relation to some correlative—i.e. in relation to the non-ego (some thing or thought). Each of these, therefore, taken singulatim, is the relative in cognition.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Why the items mentioned in the proposition can be known only as the relative.1. It is obvious that the items here mentioned are the relative in cognition, because each of them can be known or conceived, only when its correlative or counterpart is also known or conceived,—and not because our faculties are incompetent to the apprehension of something absolute; that is, of something known out of relation to everything else. Psychology, however, thinks differently, and hence the following counter-proposition arises. It is a mere repetition, in somewhat different language, of counter-proposition XV.
Nineteenth counter-proposition.2. Nineteenth Counter-proposition.—"The articles specified in the proposition are the relative in cognition, not because each of them can be known only along with its correlative, but because man's faculties are competent to apprehend only what is relative, and cannot expand to the comprehension of anything absolute."
3. But what would happen if we could apprehend Its fallacy shown.only the relative? This would happen, that we should be able to apprehend the relative out of relation to the correlative, and the correlative out of relation to the relative. But this supposition is absurd, because it is equivalent to supposing that we can apprehend something as relative, without having any cognisance of that which it is related to. We can know objects only in relation to ourselves; and we can know ourselves only in relation to objects (some thing or thought); but we cannot know only the relative, because this would imply that we could apprehend each factor by itself and out of relation to the other,—and this we know to be impossible. These considerations may be sufficient to unmask the contradiction involved in this counter-proposition, and to refute the psychological averment that we can know only the relative. The psychological fallacy consists in the supposition that the relative and correlative, taken together or collectively, constitute the mere relative. We shall see immediately that they constitute the Absolute.