Number 96 : April 1999 |
Belonging to this SIG has been educational. Prompted by my membership to extend my acquaintance with philosophical arguments, I have discovered that the conclusion that I came to in my first ever contribution (C87/5) was anticipated some 200 years ago by Hegel ! I hope, with the help of my fellow members, to drag my thinking into the 20th century, just about in time for the 21st.
Now I am aware that philosophical theories that attempt to account for life, the universe and everything are considered jejune in certain circles, but I have not yet got past the point at which it seems to me that (1) a great deal in human life can be understood in terms of the existential dilemma that faces an organism in which reflexive awareness has developed (2) this dilemma can be characterised as that of 'the subject rendered object due to its subjection to bodily existence' and (3) beneath this dichotomy lies a continuum, a category of relation, in which relation is prior to its supposed terms, or either of them.
Something very similar to this last point seems to have been developed by Hegel. The matter is summarised very neatly in The Vocabulary of Philosophy by William Flemming, D.D. (London 1876 - no copyright problem here I trust : Flemming was dead by this date, and in any case he is quoting from a work cited as Lewes, Biograph. Hist. of Phil., vol.iv., p209):
"I see a tree. The common psychologists tell me that there are three things implied in this one fact of vision, viz. : a tree, an image of that tree, and a mind which apprehends that image. Fichte tells me that it is I alone who exist. The tree and the image of it are one thing, and that is a modification of my mind. This is subjective idealism. Schelling tells me that both the tree and my ego (or self) are existences equally real or ideal; but they are nothing less than manifestations of the absolute, the infinite, or unconditional. This is objective idealism. But Hegel tells me that all these explanations are false. The only thing really existing (in this one fact of vision) is the idea, the relation. The ego and the tree are but two terms of the relation, and owe their reality to it. This is absolute idealism. According to this there is neither mind not matter, heaven nor earth, God nor man. The only real existences are certain ideas or relations. Everything else that has name or being derives its name and being from its constituting one or other of the two related terms, subject and object; but the only thing that is true or real is the identity of their contradiction, that is, the relation itself."
My contention is that it is reflexive awareness, arising within this "identity", that gives rise to that "contradiction".
With reference to Stef Gula's criticism of my phrase "the fact of reflexive awareness" i.e. "is reflexive awareness actually a fact any more than "soul", "spirit", "free-will" or whatever other label one cares to hang on the thing?" (C95/34), I would reply that, in so far as a fact is something that can be demonstrated, reflexive awareness, unlike the soul etc., is a fact. Any reader who watched the final instalment of the recent BBC2 series 'Animal Minds' will have seen an example of such a demonstration.
Hegel's philosophy, in the above quote, is classified as a development of idealism. Now the original contention of idealism (as developed by Bishop Berkeley) is esse is percipi: to be is to be perceived. The opposite of this is, of course, realism (that the objects of perception exist independently of the mind), and it seems that, early in the present century, there was a reaction against the idealism that had dominated philosophical thought during the previous hundred years. Among the chief of these realist philosophers was G.E.Moore, and one of his arguments against the idealist position went something like this:
Berkeley refers to sensations as 'ideas', thus begging the question as to their mental status. However, consider any act of perception e.g. 'the sensation of blue'. This statement can be analysed as consisting of a subject ('sensation') and a predicate ('blue'). Now, if the predicate exists in the mind in the same way as the subject, it must either (1) exist in the mind in the same way as the subject or (2) exist in the mind in a different way. (*Note). If (1) then the predicate would not only be indistinguishable from the subject (there would be no 'blue' apart from the sensation of it) but there would be confusion among different predicates e.g. the subject would bear the same relation to the predicate 'blue' as the predicate 'blue' would bear to the predicate 'green'. But neither 'blue', nor 'the sensation of blue' are, in our experience, 'green'. Therefore, the predicate cannot exist in the mind in the same way as the subject. If (2) then we would be subjectively aware of the subject and predicate as distinct entities: there would be both 'blue' and the sensation of it in our minds, but this is not the case. Therefore 'blue' does not exist in the mind in either way, and, according to Moore, any given act of perception is necessarily of something exterior to the mind.
*Note : This statement seems verbally to contradict the first part of the sentence; I’m not clear on the import of the italics, either; but both are as written in Michael's typescript;. Ed.
The above quotation from The Vocabulary of Philosophy treats 'idea' and 'relation' as equivalent terms. If Moore's argument is correct (and if I have understood it correctly) then 'idea' can be eliminated. But consider 'the sensation of blue' from a different angle. Let us take the statement 'I see blue' (or 'I have the sensation of blue'). Here we have a subject ('I') and an object ('blue' or 'the sensation of blue'). Now, how are subject and object to be distinguished? Of course, 'I' and 'blue' are different words with different definitions, but in the act of perception in question, what distinction is there between them? It seems to me that, in the final analysis, 'I' reduces to 'that which sees the blue' and 'blue' to 'that which is seen by myself'. In other words, 'see' is the hub of a tautology. Around that hub, 'I' and 'blue' are established by contradistinction. 'See' is the relation. In Hegelian terms, it is, in the case in question, 'the only real existence'.
It seems to me that the situation is a bit like one or other of those impossible figures such as are found in the graphic work of the artist M.C.Escher. e.g. a staircase that forms an ever-ascending loop. From our reflexively aware point of view, we are faced with the impossibility of accounting for how a mind or mental substance or process (subject) can relate to a physical substance or process (object), just as the staircase seems impossible. Now a three-dimensional model can be made of that staircase, but the illusion only applies from one point of view. So it is with mind and matter, but with this difference: that the staircase is not in fact continuous from any other perspective, whereas the physical and the mental are. Yet, since mind and matter, subject and object, exist by contradistinction, neither can be reduced to the other.
Michael Nisbet
Michael : this was a thought provoking article, and I wish I’d found the time to think it over more carefully. The comments that follow may have missed the point. I agree with you, contra Stef, that reflexive awareness, however complex and little understood, is a fact if anything is. I don’t think it necessarily implies the existence of the dubious metaphysical entities that are open to exception. You lost me with your suggestion of a tautological relationship between "I" and "blue". The right-now perception of blue is a tiny bit of what it means to be me, but not a significant element unless I’m a monomaniacal blue-perceiver. I’m also not convinced that "blue", as a sensation, is objective. Finally, how does your Escher analogy work ? The Escher staircase appears to hang together as a whole because we concentrate on the individual bits, which don’t really fit in a wider context. Ambiguity in the local context is exposed when we take a wider view. The unity of the picture as a whole is an illusion. However, we can see no unity between matter and mind, illusory or otherwise. I do, though, think the Escher staircase is a promising metaphor for our world-pictures, which only cohere in bits.
Theo