Phenomenology

“ If, then, we would establish a true science of man, there is no other course open to us than this, to abandon, in the first instance, every consideration of "the human mind," whether it be an hypothesis and a reality, together with all its phenomena, and then to confine our attention closely and devoutly to the examination of the great and anomalous fact of human consciousness. ”

“ Book II discusses the proper methods and data of philosophy in the light of modern science. The one indisputable fact and basis of philosophy is the reality of the Self. Rejecting epistemological and psychological methods because they fail to take account of the historical development of the mind, we find three methods left: (1) the physical or pseudo-metaphysical, which attempts to extend the method of the physical sciences to the solution of ultimate questions; (2) the abstract metaphysical, which attempts to state the whole truth of all reality in terms of thought abstractions ”

“ What is the precise effect of our argument on the subject of the human mind? Its precise effect and bearing is to turn us to the study of fact—of a clear and a peculiar fact—from the contemplation of an object which is either an hypothesis, or else no object at all (not even an hypothesis but a contradiction) , or else an irrelevant object of research, and one which cannot by any conceivability contain the fact which it is our business to investigate. ”

“ What do our conclusions indicate and demand with reference to philosophy itself? For the philosophy which reaches such conclusions regarding knowledge and mind must apply them, sincerely and whole-heartedly, to its idea of its own nature. For philosophy claims to be one form or mode of knowing. If, then, the conclusion is reached that knowing is a way of employing empirical occurrences with respect to increasing power to direct the consequences which flow from things, the application of the conclusion must be made to philosophy itself. ”

“ Now my purpose just here is not to define the methods and the tests that are used in any special science, but to point out the most fundamental conceptions to which this way of taking the world leads us, so long as we try to abstract it from any more deliberately creative fashion of viewing things. It is plain that in this way we can hope for no final view of the whole truth of things. ”

“ By organizing the ‘common sense’ which embodies the first class of inferences, we build up the physical sciences; that is to say, all those sciences which deal with the physical, material, or phenomenal universe, whether animate or inanimate. And so by organizing the common sense which embodies the second class of inferences, we build up various sciences of mind. The description and classification of feelings, the facts of their association with each other, and of their simultaneity with phenomena of nerve-action,—all this belongs to psychology, which may be historical and comparative. ”

“ So far we have looked at our intellectual endowment from the standpoint of ordinary common-sense experience. Let us now consider the philosophical theory based on this view, which explains the nature of knowledge by showing its purpose. The intellect not only selects, but in selecting transforms the reality. It presents us with knowledge that indeed corresponds with reality, for it is essentially a view of reality, but also in selecting it marks out divisions, and gives to reality a form that is determined by practical interest. ”

“ Such a provisional body of propositions about states of mind, and about the cognitions which they enjoy, is what I mean by Psychology considered as a natural science. On any ulterior theory of matter, mind, and knowledge, the facts and laws of Psychology thus understood will have their value. If critics find that this natural-science point of view cuts things too arbitrarily short, they must not blame the book which confines itself to that point of view; rather must they go on themselves to complete it by their deeper thought. Incomplete statements are often practically necessary. ”

“ Metaphysical science is usually divided into two branches; of which one examines the objects known, the other the human mind, that is the organ of knowledge. (7) When Psychology has finished its study of the structure and functions of the mind, it supplies the means for drawing inferences in reply to a question which admits of a twofold aspect, viz. which of the mental faculties,—sense, reason, feeling, furnishes the origin of knowledge; and which is the supreme test of truth? These two questions form the subjective or Psychological branch of Metaphysics. ”

“ The notion of science—the notion therefore with which we start—which, for the very reason that it is initial, implies a separation between the thought which is our object, and the subject philosophising which is, as it were, external to the former, must be grasped and comprehended by the science itself. This is in short the one single aim, action, and goal of philosophy—to arrive at the notion of its notion, and thus secure its return and its satisfaction. ”

“ We, therefore, tore philosophy away from the analogy of physics, and in direct violation of their procedure we made her contemplate a fact which she herself created, and contributed to her object, a fact which she did not find there—the fact, namely, that an act of philosophizing was taking place. But the consideration of this fact or act brought us to perceive the identity between consciousness and philosophy, and then the perception of this identity led us at once to note the truly practical character of philosophy. ”

“ I believe that the realization of the complexity of a material unit, and its analysis into constituents analogous to sensations, is of the utmost importance to philosophy, and vital for any understanding of the relations between mind and matter, between our perceptions and the world which they perceive. ”

“ Yet, wonderful, or even absurd, as it may seem, notwithstanding the absolute simplicity of the mind itself, and consequently of all its feelings or momentary states,—the Science of Mind is, in its most important respects, a source of analysis, or of a process which I have said to be virtually the same as analysis ”

“ While, on the other hand, if in the world of thought there be the same relative difference between the real and the apparent which prevails in the natural universe, a science, the science of metaphysics, will be required to bring before us the facts of our own real thinking, and to correct and displace the facts of our own mere apparent thinking. ”

“ For the mode of philosophizing, exemplified in the foregoing instances, assumes no less than that the proper way of arriving at knowledge of nature, is to study nature itself subjectively; to apply our observation and analysis not to the facts, but to the common notions entertained of the facts. ”

“ But there is implied in the conception of such a theory such a location of the process of thought in the process of reality as will222 give it an import both in the meaning of things and in the individual's thinking. We have the beginning of such a doctrine in the conception of a functional value of consciousness in the conduct of living forms, and the development of reflective thought out of such a consciousness which puts it within the act and gives it the function of preparation where adjustment is necessary. ”

“ But, inasmuch as our observation must not be put forth vaguely or at random, but must be directed by some principle of method, the question comes to be, In what way are the true facts of man's being to be sought for and obtained? There is a science called the "science of the human mind," the object of which is to collect and systematise the phenomena of man's moral and intellectual nature. ”

“ Every phenomenon or so-called 'fact' has an infinity of aspects or properties, as we have seen, amongst which the fool, or man with little sagacity, will inevitably go astray. But no matter for this point now. The first thing is to have seen that every possible case of reasoning involves the extraction of a particular partial aspect of the phenomena thought about, and that whilst Empirical Thought simply associates phenomena in their entirety, Reasoned Thought couples them by the conscious use of this extract. ”

“ THE Phenomena of Thought have long appeared to be divisible into two great classes; which were distinguished by the names, the one of the Intellectual, the other of the Active, Powers of the Human Mind. In the phenomena which compose the first of those classes, and which we have now pretty completely surveyed, the sensations and ideas are considered merely as existing. ”

“ The two great preoccupations of modern philosophy now lie clearly before us. The study of mind divides into psychology, or the study of mental functionings as considered in themselves and in their mutual relations, and into epistemology, or the theory of the knowledge of a common objective world. In other words, there is the study of the cogitations, quâ passions of the mind, and their study quâ leading to an inspection (intuition) of an objective world. ”

“ This, and nothing more than this, is what the claim of the Science of Knowledge to a validity outside of itself and for actual consciousness in life, is to signify, and in this manner, the claim to such validity is based, like the whole science, upon the same immediate contemplation. ”

“ In the course of our analysis of the intellectual phenomena, we shall have frequent opportunities of remarking the influence, which errors with respect to these mere phenomena of mind must have had, on the contemporary systems of general physics, and on the spirit of the prevailing plans of inquiry. ”

“ It is not surprising that these various indications of something like a capacity for thought should be of universal interest, but it also has a deeper meaning, which it is the office of science and philosophy to explore, and which relates to the profound and mysterious problem of "mind in nature." ”

“ Whoever wearies of Platonic or of Scholastic subtleties, must recognize, if he knows how to read the meaning of current science, that the notion of Possible Being, or of Being whose reality lies in its validity, or in its value as making assertions about it true, is, as I said at the last time, the favorite type of reality in the writings of a great number of the recent philosophical expositors of the meaning of natural science. ”

“ Again, in the multiplied reflex action of the mind upon itself and its own judgments and conceptions, there may be some imperfections in the analysis or critical examination of the component parts of the idea, in the synthesis or construction of these component parts into an ideal formula, and in the language by which verbal expression is given to the conceptions of the mind. What is to be aimed at is, to obtain intellectual conceptions which are clear and adequate to the idea, and a verbal expression which is also clear and adequate to the mental conception. ”

“ If we refer to phenomena of sense perception as forces of matter in general, then this generalized matter is nothing but an abstract conception. But if we mean by the term sense perception the various concrete substances, then the general element which embraces the differences of things and pervades and controls them is force producing concrete effects. And whether we say matter or force, the mental which science is studying, not with its hands, but with its brain, the so-called essence, nature, cause, ideal, superior or spiritual, is the generality comprising the special things. ”

“ This book, assuming that thoughts and feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon contends that psychology when she has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain, can go no farther—can go no farther, that is, as a natural science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical. All attempts to explain our phenomenally given thoughts as products of deeper-lying entities (whether the latter be named 'Soul,' 'Transcendental Ego,' 'Ideas,' or 'Elementary Units of Consciousness') are metaphysical. ”

“ But in time, the philosopher attains a state of mind in which his mental picture of nature spontaneously represents to him all the phenomena with which the new theory is concerned, in the exact light in which the theory regards them: all images or conceptions derived from any other theory, or from the confused view of the facts which is anterior to any theory, having entirely disappeared from his mind. The mode of representing facts which results from the theory, has now become, to his faculties, the only natural mode of conceiving them. ”

“ And yet notwithstanding though these things exist only in the mind, they are not therefore mere figments of the understanding: for if the subjects of all scientifical theorems were nothing but figments, then all truth and knowledge that is built upon them would 257 be a mere fictitious thing; and if truth itself, and the intellectual nature be fictitious things, then what can be real or solid in the world? ”

“ But this method is not confined to the interpretation of Nature; it is the common law of advance in all knowledge. Mental science must now begin with the related facts of biology and psychology, in order to rise by clear analysis to the laws of thought or will. ”

“ Such a view avoids the incurable difficulties and contradictions involved in the theory of the reality of extended material substance, or in any theory, indeed, which asserts the reality—as presented—of the sensible presentation. Physical Reality thus conceived is consistently thinkable as co-existent with the thing-in-itself—be it ultimately Intelligence or Volition—of which our cognitive and conative existence is a manifestation. ”