J. P. Gordy

“ A complete explanation of the activities of the soul cannot be given — he would surely say — until we know, not only what the soul is, but the conditions under which it acts. While Professor Ladd and the metaphysicians are telling us what the soul is, how shall we learn the conditions under which it acts, save by a study of the relations between brain-processes and mental states? Surely metaphysics and natural-science psychology have no right to regard each other as rivals. Possibly Professor Ladd is right when he says that natural-science psychology cannot solve her problem. ”

“ Nothing whatever so long as it remains, from the point of view of our thought, a purely metaphysical being. Only as it becomes more, only as it transcends itself and becomes represented in consciousness, only as the identity that is out of consciousness projects its shadow, so to speak, across consciousness, can it furnish the foundation for a belief to conscious beings.
We cannot, therefore, throw upon Professor James the responsibility of finding in consciousness the data for our belief in personal identity if we do not accept his natural-science conception of psychology. ”

“ He maintains that all the facts of which we are conscious at any moment form an undivided mental state. As a natural-science psychologist, he gives no explanation of it. Looking simply at the facts, raising no question as to their metaphysical basis, he contends that they form one whole, else they would not be known to each other. The unity of consciousness upon which the Transcendentalists rightly lay such stress, is a unity of consciousness — not a unity of unconsciousness — not a unity of the transcendental ground of consciousness. ”

“ Because the physical sciences make no use whatever of their metaphysical assumptions. Whatever the metaphysical creed of the student of physical science, whether he be Berkleyan, Lotzian, Spencerian, Positivist, or Natural Realist, is a matter of absolute indifference to physical science. Physical science deals only with phenomena — makes no use of their metaphysical ground or condition. But that is precisely what Professor Ladd wants psychology to do. He insists that we have as good a right to say that the mind thinks as that the brain acts. ”

“ Moreover, if Professor Ladd is right, the best way to prove it is to treat psychology as a natural science precisely in the sense in which Professor James conceives it. The first condition not only of solving a problem, but of proving that it is insoluble is to clearly conceive it. As Professor James puts it in his shorter work, "To work an hypothesis for all it is worth is the real and often the only way to prove its insufficiency." ”

“ According to Professor James — and I think Professor Ladd would agree with him — the first one, "how thoughts can know objects in a world," is a question that psychology has nothing to do with: that is the business of the Theory of Knowledge. ”

“ But how thoughts can know 'objects in a world,' and in what respect the psychologist's knowledge of this world differs from the knowledge of the objects in this world, by his thoughts; and how the knowledge of the psychologist is going to be identified by himself with the knowledge of the objects by the psychologist's thought; — we find it difficult to understand as a matter of cerebral psychology." Are any of these questions more difficult to answer from Professor James's point of view than from Professor Ladd's? ”

“ But psychology is not only not a natural science now, it can never become one. "The attempt to establish psychology as a natural science upon such an extremely tenuous and cloudy foundation as our present or prospective knowledge of cerebral 'explosions' and 'overlappings' is doomed to failure from the very beginning." How does Professor Ladd know? ”

“ From the point of view we have now reached it ought to be unnecessary to show that Professor Ladd has completely misapprehended Professor James's suggestion that we "'pool' our mysteries into one great mystery, the mystery that brain-processes occasion knowledge at all." It is admitted by all parties that brain-processes occasion some kinds of conscious action. ”

“ How has he been able to measure the possibilities of the human mind? And, supposing he is right, has the limit of human achievement in this direction been already reached? If not, it would seem worth while for investigators to prosecute their inquiries in this field a little longer. ”

“ Either the Transcendental Being, or Pure Ego, or Spiritual Substance is represented in consciousness or it is not. If it is not, we need not take any account of it in describing the facts of consciousness. When we ask: How are states of consciousness possible? ”