"Aichill a' caoineadh bàs Phatrocluis" le Gavin Hamilton c 1762
§ 4 - DÌ-SGAOILEADH IDÈALAN AN T-SAIDHEINS AGUS NA PEARSANTACHD LEIS A' CHRITÌG SHICEÒLAICH.
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§ 4 - THE DISSOLUTION OF THE IDEALS OF SCIENCE AND OF PERSONALITY BY THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC CRITIQUE
In HUME the creative function has actually been transferred from mathematical to psychological thought. In the latter he thought he had found his Archimedean point which needs "nulla re extra mentem ad existendum".
HUME'S criticism of the concept substance and his interpretation of naïve experience.
In the rationalistic metaphysics both the ideal of science and that of personality had been founded on a concept of substance. It is against this metaphysical concept that HUME, on the basis of his new psychological view of the science-ideal, now directs his penetrating criticism.
As his starting point he took the belief of naïve experience in the existence of things in the external world — things which have a continuing reality independent of our consciousness. We shall later show in detail that his interpretation of naïve experience is a falsification of the latter by the realistic "Abbild-theorie" (image-theory). Generally speaking, contemporary Humanistic epistemology has still not gone beyond this false conception of naïve experience. HUME at least does not intend to impute to the naïve experience of reality a theory concerning the relationship between consciousness and reality. He observes that the faith of naïve man in the existence of a reality which is independent of our consciousness cannot rest upon a theory. It must rather be explained in terms of a natural impulse of human feeling (1).
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(1) Treatise I, Part IV, Seet. 1 (pag. 474/5): "Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel;"
"...belief is more properly an act of the sensitive part than of tbe cogitative part of our nature." Treatise I, Part. IV, Sect. I (pag. 475). From this it is clearly evident, that HUME reduces the modal function of faith to that of feeling.
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HUME thinks naïve man does not distinguish between his "impressions" and the "things in the external world", he identifies the latter with the former.
It was philosophy that originated the distinction between the reality of sensory impressions, which are real only in appearance, and the true reality of "things in themselves", the reality of the "substances". On theoretical grounds it rejected the misunderstood naïve conception of the external world.
HUME deemed this philosophical view to be false and dogmatic. In contradistinction to scepticism and the false mathematical metaphysics, he wished to give an account of naïve experience by explaining it in terms of the psychical laws of association inherent in human nature.
Although this interpretation is basically erroneous, and must undoubtedly falsify naïve experience in a functionalistic way, yet, in the face of the rationalistic metaphysics of the mathematical ideal of science, it affords us the important critical point of view, that naïve experience is no theory of reality (2).
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(2) Cf. especially Treatise I, Part IV, Sect. II (p. 483) : "And indeed, whatever convincing arguments philosophers may fancy they can produce to establish the belief of objects independent of the mind, 'tis obvious these arguments are known but to very few, and that 'tis not by them, that children, peasants, and the greatest part of mankind are induc'd to attribute objects to some impressions, and deny them to others. Accordingly we find, that all the conclusions, which the vulgar form on this head, are directly contrary to those, which are confirm'd by philosophy." These remarks are excellent!
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HUME starts from his psychological basic denominator for all the modal aspects of meaning. In our impressions there is not a single one which gives us a ground to form any concept of a constant "thing in itself", which would be independent of our consciousness (3).
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(3) Treatise I, Part IV, Sect. II (p. 479) : "To begin with the senses, 'tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu'd existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms..."
"That our senses offer not their impressions, as the images of something distinct, or independent, and external is evident; because they convey to us nothing but a single perception, and never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond. A single perception can never produce the Idea of a double existence, but by some interference either of the reason or imagination."
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Nothing is given in experience but the multiplicity of the sensory impressions which continually arise and fade away.
Like BERKELEY, HUME abandoned the distinction, still made by LOCKE, between the primary qualities (extension, motion, solidity) which belong to the things themselves, and the secondary qualities (colour, sound, odour, taste, heat, etc.) which have only a subjective character (4).
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(4) Ibid., p. 482: "Now 'tis evident, that, whatever may be our philosophical opinion, colours, sounds, heat and cold, as far as appears to the senses, exist after the same manner with motion and solidity!"
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But while BERKELEY could seek an explanation for the belief in an external world in his metaphysical conception of God, this escape was not open to HUME. The positivistic psychologism of the latter had no room for a metaphysical theology.
There is nothing to be found in our impressions which gives us any right to assume that the "primary qualities", independent of our consciousness, belong to things of the external world. The belief in the "Ding an sich" can only be explained in terms of the natural laws of the imaginative faculty. The "natural associations" are here active and they rest upon the temporal succession of Ideas. They necessarily lead fantasy beyond that which is given. They lead metaphysics to its false concept of substance.
The task of true philosophy is to indicate the impressions which furnish naïve experience ("common sense") with a basis for its belief in the independent world of things. HUME supposes that in this way he has explained the origin of the false concept of substance. Metaphysical philosophy actually did nothing else but relate the natural associations to a false concept. So HUME wishes to show that his philosophy is in agreement with naïve experience ("the vulgar view"), while, in contrast, metaphysics has from this very experience drawn a false concept of substance.
He supposes that there are two characteristic relations to be indicated in our impressions, namely the constancy and the coherence of impressions, which actually give the foundation for the naïve faith in the existence of an independent world of things. Constancy indicates a temporarily continuous uniformity or resemblance in specific impressions in spite of their fluctual character in temporal succession.
The trees, mountains, and houses, which I see before me at the moment, have always appeared to me in the same resemblance of impressions. Once I have turned my head or closed my eyes, no longer retaining them in my field of vision, I see them before me immediately afterward, without the least alteration, when I again hold them in view (5).
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(5) Treatise, Part IV, Sect. II (p. 484).
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But this first relation of my sensory impressions is not yet enough to establish the belief in a constant empirical reality of things. If it were to be decisive, this faith would be bound to the unchangeability of impressions. There arises a problem, however, from the fact that naïve experience accepts the constant reality of things in spite of all changes in their properties and mutual relations.
Therefore, only in conjunction with the law of their coherence can the constancy of impressions supply a sufficient foundation for the belief in the constant reality of things. It is a law of association, namely that of the contiguity or coherence of impressions
in time, through which we fill up by our imagination the impressions, actually given in a gradual discontinuity, so that they become a constant and continuous reality of things. The imagination (not logical thought) leaps, as it were, over the gaps in the temporal sequence of sensory impressions and fuses together the successive similar impressions, so that they become identical and continuously existing things.
The creative function of imagination and the way in which the creation-motive of the Humanistic ideal of science is transmitted to psychological thought.
This fusion of impressions is executed (by a natural necessity) through the influence of relations. It is executed through the relations of resemblance and coherence between impressions. The imaginative faculty follows the separate impressions, and on the basis of the resemblance between them passes from the one to the other. Thereby, it creates a continuous bond between the impressions, and this bond has been incorrectly interpreted by metaphysics as being a substantial connection within the things themselves.
We speak of an identical thing, whereas actually the only data that we have, are similar impressions, separated in time, but united by associational relations.
So the creative function is shifted in HUME's theory from mathematical to psychological thought. At every point he attempts to give a purely psychological explanation of our naïve experience of reality, by means of the laws of association ruling our sensory impressions. The sensory aspect of this experience is absolutized in a psychologistic way (6).
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(6) Translator's Note: As we shall see in more detail in Vol. III naïve experience is characterized by total structures of individuality, which are never to be explained in terms of tbe association of separate sensory impressions. D. H. F.
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He rejected the attempt, undertaken by the metaphysics of the mathematical science-ideal, to construct a noumenal world of things out of "creative" mathematical thought.
Mathematical rationalism had sought to defend the foundations of the science-ideal against the consequences of the postulate of continuity by means of the doctrine of innate Ideas. The latter is rejected by HUME in a much more radical way than by LOCKE. In his entire analysis of "human nature" HUME was primarily concerned with the vindication of the absolute sovereignty of psychological thought. In favour of the latter he abandoned all the dogmas of the mathematical ideal of science. And I would especially call attention to the fact that he desired to explain the claims to logical exactness of the supposed creative mathematical thought in terms of the same psychological principle which he had employed in the construction of the world of things of naïve experience, namely, the creative function of fantasy: "I have already observ'd in examining the foundation of mathematics", so he writes in this context, "that the imagination, when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue, even when its object fails it, and like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse. This I have assign'd for the reason why after considering several loose standards of equality, and correcting them by each other, we proceed to imagine so correct and exact a standard of that relation, as is not liable to the least error or variation. The same principle makes us easily entertain this opinion of the continu'd existence of body. Objects have a certain coherence even as they appear to our senses; but this coherence is much greater and more uniform, if we suppose the objects to have a continu'd existence; and as the mind is once in the train of observing a uniformity among objects, it naturally continues, till it renders the uniformity as complete as possible" (7).
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(7) Treatise, Part IV, Sect. II, p. 487/8.
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In other words, psychical imagination or fantasy is the creator of the world of things of naïve experience. It is also the origin of the claims of mathematical thought to exactness. However, this is true only in appearance.
For it is sovereign psychological thought by which HUME wishes to account for this situation of things, and which is placed as such above the "creative" fantasy. It is the "creative" power of this thought which is imputed to the faculty of imagination, since the latter is not able to isolate itself in a theoretical way. So it is actually psychological thought that is elevated by HUME to the position of ἀρχή, origin and lawgiver of the cosmos of experience.
The fact that he failed to account for this transcendental Idea of origin, the fact that he degraded logical thought itself to a dependent image of sensory fantasy only proves that HUME had not yet arrived at a transcendental critical self-reflexion.
The laws of association of his psychological ideal of science serve indeed the same purpose as the mathematical lex continui in LEIBNIZ. In an analogous manner HUME employed them as an ὑπόθεσις, as the foundation of the reality of experience. Only the basic denominator of the science-ideal was changed. In HUME, too, constant reality is resolved into a process which conforms to fixed laws. But in him this process is a psychological one.
HUME destroys the metaphysical foundation of rationalist ideal of personality.
Unlike BERKELEY, HUME did not restrict his radical criticism of the concept of substance to the concept of the material substance of nature. He extended it to the metaphysical concept of a spiritual substance in which the rationalist ideal of personality sought its sole foundation. In a really superb critical manner HUME demonstrated that (from the standpoint of immanence-philosophy) the whole conflict between materialism and idealism is only a conflict between "brothers of the same house". The idealists called SPINOZA an atheist, because he did not accept a soul-substance. HUME correctly observed that both of these standpoints are rooted in the same metaphysical principle. Consequently, if one calls SPINOZA an atheist, then with equal reason one must label the idealistic metaphysics of the immortal soul as atheistic. The idealists arrive at their metaphysical theory of the immateriality, simplicity, and immortality of the soul by the same sort of rational speculations: "It appears, then, that to whatever side we turn, the same difficulties follow us, and that we cannot advance one step towards establishing the simplicity and immateriality of the soul, without preparing the way for a dangerous and irrecoverable atheism" (8).
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(8) Treatise I, Part IV, Sect. V (p. 527).
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HUME arrived at this conclusion on the basis of his psychologistic standpoint, according to which the universe of our experience is in the final analysis resolved into impressions, and into Ideas which are derived from them. From this standpoint the opposition between idealism and materialism must, in the nature of the case, be a relative one.
HUME had brought the different modal aspects of temporal reality under a psychological basic denominator. Therefore, in keeping with his honest critique, he must also reject the soul-substance. In DESCARTES and LEIBNIZ the ego, the personality, was identified with mathematical thought and was hypostatized as a thinking substance. Seeking after the origin of this concept HUME states that the ego is not itself an impression, because it is always conceived of as something to which are related all impressions and ideas (9).
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(9) "self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference." Treatise I, Part IV, Sect. VI (p. 533).
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The "ego" is in truth nothing more than a collective concept of the different series of Ideas which are ordered constantly in accordance with the laws of association. HUME observes: "Nowhere in my experience do I encounter myself apart from an Idea and I can never perceive anything other than Ideas." There is in the soul no single faculty which in time remains unchangeably the same: "The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations" (10).
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(10) Treatise I, Part. IV, Sect. VI (p. 534).
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But, even this comparison of the mind with the theatre of our "perceptions" is misleading. For the mind itself consists of nothing other than "perceptions".
Even the illusion, which, in spite of everything, ever causes "the ego" to appear to us as a constant and self-sufficient entity, must be explained in terms of the associational law of the resemblance and coherence of impressions. Because the contents of the Ideas of a particular moment are only imperceptibly different from those of the following moment, our imagination easily passes over from the one phase of our "spiritual existence" to the following.
This continuity in the associational process causes the illusion of an absolutely identical and singular personality or "selfhood": "From thence it evidently follows, that identity is nothing really belonging to those different perceptions, and uniting them together; but is merely a quality, which we attribute to them because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we reflect upon them" (11). (I am italicizing).
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(11) Ibid., p. 540.
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The radical self-dissolution of the ideals of science and of personality in HUME'S philosophy.
In a truly radical manner, the psychological science-ideal has here conquered the ideal of personality by destroying its supposed metaphysical foundation. In his psychological method HUME could no longer find a way back to the "free and sovereign" personality.
The ideal of science had in fact no other foundation for the „sovereign personality" than the metaphysical concept of substance. In HUME'S philosophy, however, even the science-ideal in its claim to conceive "nature" in the sense of "the outer world", dissolves itself in a really radical manner. This is evident from the famous critique of the principle of causality, which received its clearest formulation in the Enquiry. We shall see that in this critique HUME not only undermined the foundations of mathematical physics, but at the same time those of his own associationism in which the science-ideal had acquired its psychological turn.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 3/§4 pp 289-296)
