Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 15
PROPOSITION XV.
WHAT THE PHENOMENAL IN COGNITION IS.
DEMONSTRATION.
Objects, whatever they may be, can be known only along with self or the subject (by Prop. I.); matter in all its varieties can be known only along with self or the subject (by Prop. I.); thoughts or mental states whatsoever can be known only along with self or the subject (by Prop. I.); the universal can be known only along with the particular (by Prop. VI.); the particular can be known only along with the universal (by Prop. VI.) The ego, or mind, or subject, or oneself; can be known only along with some thing or thought or determinate condition of one kind or another (by Prop. IX.) Therefore all these, conformably to the definition of phenomenon, are the phenomenal in cognition.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
A peculiarity in the counter-proposition.1. In this case the counter-proposition is somewhat peculiar. In expression it is coincident with the proposition, but in meaning it is diametrically opposed to it. Psychology holds that we are cognisant only of the phenomenal, because our faculties are inadequate to reach the substantial. Hence it holds that we are cognisant of the things enumerated in the proposition only as phenomena. The proposition, on the other hand, holds that we are cognisant of these things as phenomena, not because we are incompetent to apprehend the substantial (see Props. XVI., XVII.), but because we can be cognisant of each of them only along with something else—that is, can be cognisant of each part only along with its counterpart. So that the error of psychology does not lie in the affirmation that we are cognisant of material, or other, objects only as phenomena, or of ourselves only as a phenomenon (the proposition affirms the same); but it lies in the attribution of this cognisance to a wrong cause—namely, to the peculiar structure of our faculties, which is supposed to debar us from any better species of knowledge; whereas the truth is, that our incompetency to apprehend each of these things otherwise than as phenomenal, lies in the necessary and universal structure of reason, considered simply as such; for intelligence, of whatever order it may be, must apprehend merely as phenomenal that which it can apprehend only in union with something else—this being the very definition of phenomenon, that it is that which can be known only along with something else. Therefore, to bring out fully the error involved in the counter-proposition, it must be expressed in the following terms, stated as briefly as possible:—
Fifteenth counter-proposition.2. Fifteenth counter-proposition.—"Objects, material or otherwise—thoughts or mental states whatsoever—the ego, or mind—all these are the phenomenal in cognition, not because each of them can be known only as part of a completed synthesis, but because our faculties are limited to the comprehension of mere phenomena, and can hold no converse with the substantial."
This counter-proposition involves a contradiction.3. This counter-proposition is not only erroneous; it is contradictory. It contradicts the only conception of phenomenon which it is possible to form, and to which expression has been given in the definition. The counter-proposition declares that each and all of the things specified in the proposition are known only as phenomenal. But nothing can be known only as phenomenal; because (by Definition) the phenomenal is that which can be known only along with something else; and therefore to suppose a thing to be known only as phenomenal would be to suppose it known both with, and without, something else being known along with it, which of course is contradictory. What the parts of cognition enumerated in the proposition are, when known in their synthetic totality, is declared in Proposition XVII.; the intervening proposition (XVI.) being required to show that there is a substantial in cognition.