Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 14
PROPOSITION XIV.
THE PHENOMENAL IN COGNITION.
DEMONSTRATION.
The first premise fixes the definition of phenomenon. "Whatever can be known or conceived only when something else is known or conceived along with it, is a phenomenon, or the phenomenal." But whatever can only be so known or conceived, cannot be known or conceived by itself. Therefore there is no mere phenomenal in cognition; in other words, the phenomenal by itself is absolutely unknowable and inconceivable.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Fourteenth counter-proposition.1. Fourteenth counter-proposition.—"There is nothing but the phenomenal in cognition; in other words, the phenomenal alone is knowable and conceivable by us."
A good rule for reaching truth on metaphysical topics.2. It must have occurred to the reader before now, that the best way of attaining to correct opinions on most metaphysical subjects, is by finding out what has been said on any given point by the psychologists, and then by saying the very opposite. In such cases we are sure to be right in at least ninety-nine instances out of a hundred. Indeed, no better recipe than this can be prescribed for those who are desirous of compassing the truth. The case before us is a striking exemplification of the infallibility of this rule, which is established by all the other positions laid down in these Institutes, although, in most instances, not quite so obtrusively. This counter-proposition gives expression to one of those hereditary commonplaces, which the science of the human mind has an especial pleasure in parading; the opinion, to wit, that our faculties are competent to deal only with the phenomenal—that is, the unsubstantial and unreal. What cause this dogma may be due to—whether to a mock humility, or to an inexactitude of thinking, or to both—is not worth inquiring, for it is manifestly false and contradictory.
The psychological trifling with truth ought to be put a stop to.3. This merely may be said, that psychology has been permitted to indulge in this solemn species of trifling a great deal too long, and that it is high time it should be put a stop to. Why suppose that the wrong side of things is turned invariably towards us; and that all that we can know is not worth knowing, while all worth knowing is hidden impenetrably from our comprehension? This morbid supposition is not humility—it is either laziness or stupidity trying to look respectable in the garb of a mock modesty; or else it is scepticism assuming the airs of superior wisdom; or else it is timidity pretending to be caution; or else it is hypocrisy endeavouring to curry favour with the Governor of the universe, by disparaging the faculties which He has endowed us with. Whatever it is, it ought no longer to be endured. Our intellectual tether is sufficiently short without any misdirected psychological curtailing. The agnoiology will show that we are quite weak and ignorant enough without affecting to be still more ignorant and weak.
The main object of this and the three following propositions.4. The restoration of the important philosophical terms "phenomenon" and "substance" to their true and original significations, by supplying (inter alia) the only definitions which afford any conception of them, is the main object of this and the three following propositions. In connection with no metaphysical words, whether considered in themselves or in their history, does greater confusion and incorrectness of thought prevail; and therefore, if speculative science is ever to acquire solidity and exactitude, it is essential that this mistiness and error should be removed.