Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

55. The German philosopher seems to have perceived the weak point in his reasoning, and therefore he tries to give the psychological argument in such terms as to show a transition from the ideal order to the real, keeping out of sight the point which unites things so distant. His language is purely ideological: "Every thing, the representation of which is the absolute substance of our judgments, and which cannot serve as a determination of any thing else, is a substance." Observe that he defines substance by the representation and the incapacity of serving as a determination of any thing else; that is, by purely ideological or dialectic attributes. The form which he employs in the second edition suffers from the same defect. "That which cannot be thought otherwise than as subject, does not exist otherwise than as subject, and is, therefore, substance." Why does he not tell us that the substance here spoken of is a permanent being, in which the modifications are realized, but which remains identical with itself? Why does he speak only of representation, of thought, of the determination or predicate? Because it helped his purpose to present the argument as a sophism in which there is a transition from one order to another entirely different order; because it was for his interest to give an obscure form, so that he could make the following observations: – "In the major, a being is spoken of which can be thought under any view in general, and consequently, also, as it is given in the intuition. But, in the minor, the same being is spoken of in so far as it is regarded as subject, in relation only to thought and the unity of consciousness, but not at the same time in relation to the intuition by which the unity is given to the thought as its object. Consequently the conclusion follows only by a fallacy, per sophisma figuræ dictionis." And in a note he says: "Thought is taken in the two premises in an entirely different sense; in the major, as belonging to an object in general, and such, consequently, as it may be given in the intuition; but in the minor only as it is in relation to the consciousness of self, where it is not thought in any object, but is merely represented in relation to itself, as subject, as the form of the thought. In the first case, a thing is spoken of which can only be thought as subject; but, in the second, thought is spoken of, not things, since abstraction is made of all objects; and in the thought the me always serves as subject of the consciousness; hence the conclusion which follows is not, that I cannot exist otherwise than as subject, but only, that I cannot make use of myself in the thought of my existence, otherwise than as subject of the judgment, which is an identical proposition, revealing absolutely nothing concerning the manner of my existence.45 It makes one indignant to see a man attempt, by such a confusion of ideas and of words, to rob the human mind of its existence; for it amounts to the same thing, to deny that it is a substance. It makes one indignant to see a philosopher pretend, by such an absurd confusion, to attack one of the clearest, most evident, and most irresistible arguments which can be presented to human reason. I thought yesterday, I think to-day: in all the variety of my situations, I find myself the same and not another; this reality, which remains identical in the midst of diversity, I call my soul; therefore my soul is a permanent reality, the subject of modifications; therefore it is a substance. Can any thing be clearer?"

56. Psychology does, it is true, make use of the general idea of substance in proving the substantiality of the soul: but it appeals to a fact of experience, to the testimony of consciousness, in order to apply this idea to the present case. What does Kant mean when he pretends to have demonstrated that the conception of a thing which can exist of itself as subject, but not as mere attribute, does not involve any objective reality? When he speaks of subject, does he mean a real subject, the subject of modifications? Then the soul is a subject; but we do not say that it is a subject only; we conceive its reality under this aspect without, therefore, denying that it has other characters: on the contrary, we expressly acknowledge that it is an active principle, which implies something more that the mere subject of modifications, for this last is a passive, rather than an active, quality. If by subject Kant understands the logical subject, we deny that this is exclusively the character of the soul in such a way that it cannot logically be the attribute or predicate of a proposition.

57. "The conception of a thing," says Kant, "which can exist as its own subject, but not as a mere predicate, draws with it no objective reality; that is, one cannot know whether any object corresponds to it, since one cannot conceive the possibility of such a manner of existing, consequently there is absolutely no cognition. In order that it may indicate under the denomination of substance, an object which may be given, in order that it may be a cognition, a constant intuition must be placed at the foundation, as the indispensable condition of the objective reality of a conception, namely, that by which alone the object is given. But we have nothing constant in the internal intuition, for the me is only the consciousness of my thought; if, therefore, we confine ourselves to the thought alone, the necessary condition of the application of the conception of substance, that is, of a subject subsisting in itself as thinking being."46

No argument could be more common-place and sophistical. Kant does not admit the substantiality of the soul, because we cannot take the substance itself and present it in sensible intuition; but then he ought not to speak of pure intellectual conceptions of logical functions, or of ideas; for all these are things which are out of the order of sensibility, and therefore cannot be given us in the sensible intuition. Yet they really exist as internal phenomena, as subjective facts, of which Kant is continually talking, and to which he devotes the greater part of his Critic of Pure Reason. Will it, perchance, be said that the pure idea of relation means nothing, because we cannot present an abstract relation in sensible intuition? Will it be said that the principles from which proceed the phenomena of attraction, affinity, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, light, and all that charms or astonishes us in nature, – will it be said that they do not exist, that they are not permanent things, but empty words, because we cannot represent them in sensible intuition? Such a manner of arguing is unworthy of a philosopher. It might be excusable in an uneducated person, accustomed only to the phenomena of sensibility, who had never descended to the depths of the soul in the sphere of pure intelligence, – such a person might be pardoned if, when we speak of a spirit, a cause, or a substance, he should ask, what is it? and require us to show the insensible under a sensible form: but one who pretends to excel all philosophers, ancient or modern, one who from the inaccessible height of his wisdom looks down with such sovereign contempt on all the arguments which were before regarded as conclusive, ought to produce some other title of his superiority than merely saying: one cannot conceive the possibility of such a manner of existing: we have no internal intuition of this permanent thing which you speak of; the me is only the consciousness of my thought. What then! is any thing more necessary in order to prove what we propose, than this consciousness. Is not this consciousness one amid the variety of our thoughts? Is there not a point connecting yesterday's, to-day's, and to-morrow's thought? Different and contradictory as they are, do they not all belong to the same thing, to this thing which we call the me, and which authorizes us to say: I who think to-day, am the same who thought yesterday, and who will think to-morrow? Can any reasoning be clearer or more convincing than affirming the real permanence which we perceive in the internal testimony of our consciousness? I do not see my substance, you may say, I have no intuition of it; I only perceive my consciousness. What more do you want? This consciousness which you experience, which is one amid multiplicity, identical amid distinction, constant amid variety, and permanent in the midst of the succession of the phenomena which appear and disappear; this consciousness, which is no one of your individual thoughts, which endures while they pass away, not to return; this consciousness presents to you the substantiality of your soul, it presents it in a certain manner in intuition, not in the intuition of sensations, but in the intuition of the internal sense, as a thing affecting you deeply, and the presence of which you cannot doubt, as you do not doubt the pleasure or pain in the act by which you experience it.

58. In attacking the psychological for the substantiality of the soul, Kant supposes that those who make use of it, attempt to prove the substantiality of the soul by starting from the pure and simple category of substance. This mistake might have occasioned the form in which Kant presents this argument; but we have seen that, whether intentionally or not, this form is arranged in the best manner for affording weak points for the attacks of the philosopher. Open any treatise on psychology and you will find that although the general idea of substance is employed, it is only made use of after it has been legitimated by a fact of experience; it is not inferred from the pure category of substance that the soul is a substance; but only after we have established the idea of substance as a general type, we scrutinize the depth of consciousness to see if there is any thing there to which this type may apply. This is what has been done in the preceding paragraphs, and if Kant had wished to be more exact in his account of the opinions of his adversaries, he would not have said that the first argument of rational psychology only gives a light, which is pretended to be true, when it presents the constant logical subject of the thought, as the cognition of the real subject of the inherence. "Far from its being possible," he says, "to infer these properties from the pure and simple category of a substance, on the contrary, the permanence of a given object cannot be taken as a principle, except by starting from experience, when we wish to apply to it the empirically general conception of a substance." The philosopher is right: the properties of the pure and simple category of a substance cannot take us out of the ideal order, unless we rest on a fact of experience; but he forgets a part of the psychological argument when he adds that in the present case we have not placed at the foundation any experience, and that we have only drawn our conclusions from the conception of the relation of every thought to the me as the common subject with which this thought is connected. The experience exists in this very consciousness of the relation of all thoughts to the me; in this point with which they are all connected; the relation to the me is not possible if the me is not something; thoughts cannot be connected in the me if the me is a pure nothing. "Referring the thought to the me," Kant goes on to say, "we cannot establish this permanence by a certain observation; because, although the me is found at the bottom of every thought, besides that there is no intuition to distinguish it from every other perceptible object, it is connected with this representation." It is true that we do not perceive the permanent me in the same manner that we do the objects of the other intuitions; but we perceive it by the internal sense, by that presence, of which we cannot doubt, and which, as Kant himself confesses, makes us refer all thoughts to the me as to a common subject which connects them.

59. "It may be observed," he says, "that this representation (that of the me) is constantly reproduced in every thought; but not that it is a fixed and permanent intuition in which variable thoughts succeed each other." There is an evident contradiction in this passage. The representation of the me is constantly reproduced in every thought: but the me either means nothing, or it means something identical with itself; for if the me which thinks to-day is not the me which thought yesterday, the word me means something very different from what all the world understands by it; therefore, if the representation of the me returns in every thought, the me is the same in every thought; therefore the me is fixed and permanent, and consequently the me is a substance in which all variable thoughts succeed.

60. I cannot see any answer to this argument, founded on Kant's own words when establishing a phenomenon, the existence of which he was unable to place in doubt, namely, the presence of the me in every thought. This is not the place to examine the philosophical questions on the uninterruptedness of consciousness, or whether there is any time in which the soul does not think, and is not conscious of itself. Many philosophers believe there is such an interruption; and they rest their opinion on our experience when asleep, and our not recollecting what happens to us in that state; but Leibnitz thinks that thought is never entirely extinguished, that there is never an absolute pause of consciousness, that our thought is a light which sheds but little lustre at times, but which never goes entirely out. Whichever of these opinions be the true one, the permanence of the substance of the soul is beyond a doubt; and it is worthy of remark that the interruption of thought and of consciousness, far from favoring those who oppose the permanence of the soul, confounds them in a most conclusive manner. For if it is impossible to conceive, without supposing something permanent, how different phenomena, continued in an uninterrupted series, are connected in consciousness; it is still more inconceivable how they can be connected, if we suppose this series to be interrupted, and a certain space of time to intervene between the existence of the connected phenomena.

61. Let A, B, C, D be thoughts which are continued without any interval of time between them, and Q the consciousness through which they pass; if this Q is not something, it is impossible to conceive how the terms of the series can be connected, and, how, notwithstanding their difference and diversity, there is found at the bottom of them all something constant and identical, which we call the me, and by virtue of which we can say: I, who think D, am the same who thought C, and B, and A.

But if the consciousness is interrupted, if some hours have passed between C and D, during which there was no thought, no consciousness, it is still more inconceivable how at the bottom of the thought me there is found the same me which was in the thought C; it is still more inconceivable, because in thinking D we may say: I, who think D, am the same who thought C, and who have been for a certain time deprived of thought. Without something permanent, something which lasts during the succession, how explain this connection? Are we, perchance, speaking of unknown facts? Is not this our daily experience on awaking? If this is not conclusive, let us deny consciousness, let us deny reason; but let us not waste time in talking philosophy.

CHAPTER X.

KANT'S OPINION OF THE ARGUMENT WHICH HE CALLS PARALOGISM OF PERSONALITY

62. Kant attacks the argument founded on the testimony of consciousness in a particular manner in the examination of what he calls the Paralogism of Personality. He gives the argument in this form; "Whatever has the consciousness of its numerical identity at different times is, by this fact alone, a person; this is verified of the soul; therefore soul is a person." Kant uses the word person in a very incorrect sense: it not only means an intelligent substance, but one that is the complete principle of its actions, independently of all connection with any other substance, or a union with a supposition. At any rate, the German philosopher understands here by person an intelligent substance; and in this sense he proposes to combat the argument proving the personality of the soul.

63. "If I wish," he says, "to know by experience the numerical identity of any external object, I apply my attention to that which is constant in the phenomenon, to which all the rest is referred, as a determination to its subject; and I observe the identity of the subject at the time in which the determination changes. I am an object of the internal sense, and time is only the form of this sense; I therefore refer all my successive determinations, and each one of them in particular, to that which is numerically identical, in all time, that is, in the form of the internal intuition of myself. Hence the personality of the soul ought only to be deduced or concluded as a proposition perfectly identical with consciousness in time; consequently, this proposition is valid a priori, because it does not really announce any thing else than that in all the time in which I am conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as a thing, which is a part of my unity. This is the same as to say: All this time is in me as individual unity, or rather, I am in all this time with numerical identity."

It would have been desirable if Kant had shown why the internal sense of the numerical identity may be expressed by the proposition; all this time is in me as an individual unity, or in this other; in all the time in which I am conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as a thing, which is a part of my unity. It is true that the numerical unity is perceived in the diversity of time; but it is not true that we are conscious of time as a thing which is a part of us. He is treating of the consciousness of self, as it is found in the greatest part of mankind, who, far from considering time as a thing which is a part of themselves, regard it as a sort of vague extension or succession in which they and all that is variable exist.

It is well known that philosophers themselves dispute on the true nature of time; and that it is the form of the internal sense is an opinion of Kant's, which is not accepted by many others, and which, as I have shown,47 he explains badly and proves still worse, although he pretends to have raised his theory to the height of an incontestible doctrine. Whether time is an internal or an external form, whether, even, it is an illusion or a reality, we perceive our numerical identity in its succession; therefore when the German philosopher bases himself on his theory of time, in order to attack the solidity of the argument of consciousness, he rests on a supposition which we are not required to admit, and what is more, he explains this sentiment of identity in terms which no one ever used before him. If he wishes to make time enter into the sentiment of numerical identity, he might say: I find myself in all this time in a numerical identity, or: all this time has passed over me as over an individual unit; but not that we are conscious of time as a thing which is a part of ourselves. If we look to consciousness, we should rather be inclined to believe that time is a sort of successive extension, in which we live, and by which our existence is measured.

64. "The identity of the person," continues Kant, "must inevitably be found in my consciousness; but if I regard myself from the point of view of another (as the object of his external intuition) this other observer conceives me only in time; for, in the apperception, time is not strictly represented except within me; therefore he will not conclude my objective permanence from the me, which he admits, and which accompanies all representations in all time in my consciousness, and in a perfect identity. The time in which the observer places me not being the same which is found in my own sensibility, but that which accompanies his intuition, it follows that the identity which is necessarily joined to my consciousness, is not joined to his, that is, to the external intuition of my subject." It is difficult to understand precisely what Kant means in this passage, and it seems very doubtful whether he understood it himself; however, let us see what can be deduced from it against the permanence of the soul.

The German philosopher admits that the identity of the person is inevitably found in our consciousness; that is, the me finds itself numerically identical in the diversity of time. It is also true that a strange observer conceives the me only in time, that is, if one man reflects on the soul of another man, he conceives it only in time. But this does not show why Kant says that the observer would not infer from this the objective permanence of the soul observed. What would happen would be this. If the man who reflects on the soul of another man believes that same passes in the soul of this man which he perceives within himself, he will infer that the other soul is permanent, for the same reason that he affirms the permanence of his own soul. It is true that as he cannot enter into the consciousness of the other, he can only know it by external marks; but if he is convinced that these marks are sufficient to denote a series of phenomena of consciousness similar to those which he experiences in himself, he will infer that the soul which he observes is as permanent as his own. What does Kant mean then, when he says that the identity which is necessarily connected with my consciousness, is not connected with that of the observer? Who ever doubted this truth? Who ever supposed that the perception of the identity in relation to one's own consciousness is not very different from that which relates to another's? Our own identity is revealed to us by immediate consciousness; the identity of another is shown to us by a series of external phenomena which lead us by reasoning and analogy to the conviction that outside of us there are beings similar to ourselves.

65. "The identity of the consciousness of myself at different times," Kant goes on to say, "is only a formal condition of my thoughts and their connection; but it does not prove the numerical identity of my subject, in which, notwithstanding the logical identity of the me, such a change may take place, as to render it impossible to preserve the identity of this me, which does not prevent our always attributing to it the identical me, which me may still preserve in another state, and even in the metamorphosis of the subject, the thought of the previous subject, and transmit to it all that comes afterwards." This is precisely what Kant ought to have explained; because the phenomenon of the sentiment of identity in the midst of continual variety, is what irresistibly inclines us to believe that the me is something permanent. It is not true that we have only the topical identity of the me, for we are not speaking of the subject of a proposition, but of a real subject, experienced, perceived in the depth of our consciousness.

Kant imagines that he can explain this sentiment of identity with great simplicity. I will try to express his strange opinion in an intelligible manner. Let A, B, C, D, E, … be instants of time, and let a, b, c, d, e, … be thoughts or any other internal phenomena, corresponding to them. At the instant A, the thought a exists. At the instant B, the thought b succeeds. At the instant B, the soul which existed at the instant A, no longer exists. The soul at the instant B, is something entirely new; it is not a but b. The same is true of all the rest. But how, you will say, is it possible for the soul at all these instants to believe itself the same? It is very simple: the subject a transmits the thought to the subject b; b transmits its own and a's to c. Nothing remains identical; but the consciousness of the identity always lasts. Does not such an hypothesis seem truly wonderful and philosophical? What could be imagined clearer and more satisfactory?