LOGIC, ETHICS AND THE EGO
David Hume is well known to have abolished the conception of the ego by
seeing in it only a bundle of different perceptions in continual ebb and
flow. However completely Hume thought himself to have compromised the
ego, at least he explained his view relatively moderately. He proposed
to say nothing about a few metaphysicians who appeared to rejoice in
another kind of ego; for himself he was quite certain that he had none,
and he dared to suppose that the majority of mankind, leaving the few
peculiar metaphysicians out of the question, were, like himself, mere
bundles. So the polite man expressed himself. In the next chapter I
shall show how his irony recoils on himself. That his view became so
famous depends partly on the over-estimation in which Hume is held and
which is largely due to Kant. Hume was a most distinguished empirical
psychologist, but he cannot be regarded as a genius, the popular view
notwithstanding. It is not very much to be the first of English
philosophers, but Hume has not even a claim to that position. I do not
think that Kant would have given so much praise to Hume if he had been
fully acquainted with all Hume’s work and not merely with the “Enquiry,”
as he certainly rejected the position of Spinoza, according to which men
were not “substances,” but merely accidents.
Lichtenberg, who took the field against the ego later than Hume, was
still bolder. He is the philosopher of impersonality, and calmly
corrects the conversational “I think” into an actual “it thinks”; he
regards the ego as a creation of the grammarian. In this Hume had
anticipated him, inasmuch as he also had declared, at the end of his
analysis, all disputes as to the identity of the person to be merely a
battle of words.
E. Mach has recently represented the universe as a coherent mass, and
the egos as points in which the coherent mass has greater consistency.
The only realities are the perceptions, which are connected in one
individual strongly, but which are weaker in another individual who is
thus differentiated from the first.
The contents of the perceptions are the realities, and they persist
externally to the worthless personal recollections. The ego is not a
real but only a practical entity and cannot be isolated, and, therefore,
the idea of individual immortality must be rejected. None the less the
idea of an ego is not wholly to be rejected; here and there, as, for
instance, in Darwin’s struggle for existence, it appears to have some
validity.
It is extraordinary how an investigator who has accomplished so much,
not only as a historian of his special branch and as a critic of ideas,
but who is also fully equipped with knowledge of biology, should have
paid no heed to the fact that every organic being is indivisible from
the first, and is not composed of anything like atoms, monads, &c. The
first distinctive mark of the living as opposed to inorganic matter is
that the former is always differentiated into dissimilar, mutually
dependent parts, and is not homogeneous like a crystal. And so it should
have been borne in mind that it was at least possible that
individuation, the fact that organic beings are not united, like Siamese
twins, would prove to have importance in psychical matters, and the ego,
therefore, was more than Mach’s idea of it as a mere waiting-hall of
perceptions.
It may be that there exists a psychical correlation even amongst
animals. Everything that an animal feels and perceives has a different
“note” or “colour” in every individual. This individual quality is not
only characteristic of the class, genus, species, race, and family, but
also is different in every individual of the same family, &c. The
idioplasm is the physiological equivalent of this specific individual
quality of the sensations and perceptions, and there are reasons
analogous with those in favour of the supposition of an idioplasm for
the supposition of an individual character amongst animals. The
sportsman who has to do with dogs, the trainer with horses, and the
keeper with animals will readily admit the existence of this
individuality as a constant element. It is clear that we have to do here
with something more than a mere rendezvous of perceptions.
But even if this psychical analogue of the idioplasm were proved to
exist in the case of animals, it could not be ranked with the
intelligible character, the existence of which in any living creature
except man cannot be maintained. The intelligible character of men,
their individuation, has the same relation to empirical character that
memory has to the simple power of recognition. And finally we come to
identity, by which the structure, form, law, and cosmos persist even
through the change of contents. The considerations from which is drawn
the proof of the existence in man of such a noumenal, trans-empirical
subject must now be stated briefly. They come from logic and ethics.
Logic deals with the true significance of the principle of identity
(also with that of contradiction; the exact relation of these two, and
the various modes of stating it are controversial matters outside the
present subject). The proposition A = A is axiomatic and self-evident.
It is the primitive measure of truth for all other propositions; however
much we may think over it we must return to this fundamental
proposition. It is the principle of the distinction between truth and
error; and he who regards it as meaningless tautology, as was the case
with Hegel and many of the later empiricists (this being not the only
surprising point of contact between two schools apparently so different)
is right in a fashion, but has misunderstood the nature of the
proposition. A = A, the principle of all truth, cannot itself be a
special truth. He who finds the proposition of identity or that of
non-identity meaningless does so by his own fault. He must have expected
to find in these propositions special ideas, a source of positive
knowledge. But they are not in themselves knowledge, separate acts of
thought, but the common standard for all acts of thought. And so they
cannot be compared with other acts of thought. The rule of the process
of thought must be outside thought. The proposition of identity does not
add to our knowledge; it does not increase but rather founds a kingdom.
The proposition of identity is either meaningless or means everything.
Upon what do the propositions of identity and of non-identity depend?
The common view is that they are judgments. Sigwart, for instance, who
has recently discussed the matter, puts it as follows: The two judgments
A is B and A is not B cannot be true at the same time because the
judgment “An unlearned man is learned” would involve a contradiction
because the predicate “learned” is affirmed of a subject of which the
judgment has been made implicitly that he is unlearned, so that in
reality two judgments are made, X is learned and X is unlearned. The
“psychologismus” of this method of argument is plain. It has recourse to
a temporary judgment preceding the formation of the conception
“unlearned man.” The proposition, however, A is not A claims validity
quite apart from the past, present, or future existence of other
judgments. It depends on the conception “unlearned man.” It makes the
conception more certain by excluding contradictory instances.
This, then, gives us the true function of the principles of identity and
non-identity. They are materials for conceptions.
This function concerns only logical conceptions, but not what have been
called psychological conceptions. The conception is always represented
psychologically by a generalisation; and this presentation in a certain
fashion is included in the conception. The generalisation represents the
conception psychologically, but is not identical with it. It can, so to
speak, be richer (as when I think of a triangle) or it can be poorer
(the conception of a lion contains more than my generalisation of
lions). The logical conception is the plumb-line which the attention
tries to follow; it is the goal and pole-star of the psychological
generalisation.
Pure logical thought cannot occur in the case of men; it would be an
attribute of deity. A human being must always think partly
psychologically because he possesses not only reason but also senses,
and his thought cannot free itself from temporal experiences but must
remain bound by them. Logic, however, is the supreme standard by which
the individual can test his own psychological ideas and those of others.
When two men are discussing anything it is the conception and not the
varying individual presentations of it that they aim at. The conception,
then, is the standard of value for the individual presentations. The
mode in which the psychological generalisation comes into existence is
quite independent of the conception and has no significance in respect
to it. The logical character which invests the conception with dignity
and power is not derived from experience, for experience can give only
vague and wavering generalisations. Absolute constancy and absolute
coherence which cannot come from experience are the essence of the
conception of that power concealed in the depths of the human mind whose
handiwork we try hard but in vain to see in nature. Conceptions are the
only true realities, and the conception is not in nature; it is the rule
of the essence not of the actual existence.
When I enunciate the proposition A = A, the meaning of the proposition
is not that a special individual A of experience or of thought is like
itself. The judgment of identity does not depend on the existence of an
A. It means only that if an A exists, or even if it does not exist, then
A = A. Something is posited, the existence of A = A whether or no A
itself exists. It cannot be the result of experience, as Mill supposed,
for it is independent of the existence of A. But an existence has been
posited; it is not the existence of the object; it must be the existence
of the subject. The reality of the existence is not in the first A or
the second A, but in the simultaneous identity of the two. And so the
proposition A = A is no other than the proposition “I am.”
From the psychological point of view, the real meaning of the
proposition of identity is not so difficult to interpret. It is clear
that to be able to say A = A, to establish the permanence of the
conception through the changes of experience, there must be something
unchangeable, and this can be only the subject. Were I part of the
stream of change I could not verify that the A had remained unchanged,
had remained itself. Were I part of the change, I could not recognise
the change. Fichte was right when he stated that the existence of the
ego was to be found concealed in pure logic, inasmuch as the ego is the
condition of intelligible existence.
The logical axioms are the principle of all truth. These posit an
existence towards which all cognition serves. Logic is a law which must
be obeyed, and man realises himself only in so far as he is logical. He
finds himself in cognition.
All error must be felt to be crime. And so man must not err. He _must_
find the truth, and so he can find it. The duty of cognition involves
the possibility of cognition, the freedom of thought, and the hope of
ascertaining truth. In the fact that logic is the condition of the mind
lies the proof that thought is free and can reach its goal.
I can treat ethics briefly and in another fashion, inasmuch as what I
have to say is founded on Kant’s moral philosophy. The deepest, the
intelligible, part of the nature of man is that part which does not take
refuge in causality, but which chooses in freedom the good or the bad.
This is manifest in consciousness of sin and in repentance. No one has
attempted to explain these facts otherwise; and no one allows himself to
be persuaded that he must commit this or that act. In the shall there
lies the possibility of the can. The causal determining factors, the
lower motives that act upon him, he is fully aware of, but he remains
conscious of an intelligible ego free to act in a different way from
other egos.
Truth, purity, faithfulness, uprightness, with reference to oneself;
these give the only conceivable ethics. Duty is only duty to oneself,
duty of the empirical ego to the intelligible ego. These appear in the
form of two imperatives that will always put to shame every kind of
psychologismus--the logical law and the moral law. The internal
direction, the categorical imperatives of logic and morality which
dominate all the codes of social utilitarianism are factors that no
empiricism can explain. All empiricism and scepticism, positivism and
relativism, instinctively feel that their principal difficulties lie in
logic and ethics. And so perpetually renewed and fruitless efforts are
made to explain this inward discipline empirically and psychologically.
Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty
to oneself. They celebrate their union by the highest service of truth,
which is overshadowed in the one case by error, in the other by untruth.
All ethics are possible only by the laws of logic, and logic is no more
than the ethical side of law. Not only virtue, but also insight, not
only sanctity but also wisdom, are the duties and tasks of mankind.
Through the union of these alone comes perfection.
Ethics, however, the laws of which are postulates, cannot be made the
basis of a logical proof of existence. Ethics are not logical in the
same sense that logic is ethical. Logic proves the absolute actual
existence of the ego; ethics control the form which the actuality
assumes. Ethics dominate logic and make logic part of their contents.
In thinking of the famous passage in the “Critique of Practical Reason,”
where Kant introduces man as a part of the intelligible cosmos, it may
be asked how Kant assured himself that the moral law was inherent in
personality. The answer Kant gave was simply that no other and no nobler
origin could be found for it. He goes no further than to say that the
categorical imperative is the law of the noumenon, belonging to it and
inherent in it from the beginning. That, however, is the nature of
ethics. Ethics make it possible for the intelligible ego to act free
from the shackles of empiricism, and so through ethics, the existence of
whose possibilities logic assures us, is able to become actual in all
its purity.
There remains a most important point in which the Kantian system is
often misunderstood. It reveals itself plainly in every case of
wrong-doing.
Duty is only towards oneself; Kant must have realised this in his
earlier days when first he felt an impulse to lie. Except for a few
indications in Nietzsche, and in Stirner, and a few others, Ibsen alone
seems to have grasped the principle of the Kantian ethics (notably in
“Brand” and “Peer Gynt”). The following two quotations also give the
Kantian view in a general way:
First Hebbel’s epigram, “Lies and Truth.”
“Which do you pay dearer for, lies or the truth? The former costs you
yourself, the latter at most your happiness.”
Next, the well-known words of Sleika from the “Westöstlichen Diwan”:
All sorts go to make a world,
The crowd and the rogue and the hero;
But the highest fortune of earth’s children
Is always in their own personality.
It matters little how a man lives
If only he is true to himself;
It matters nothing what a man may lose
If he remains what he really is.
It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and
they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to
justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at
least the mental side of it), to some one else, whether it be the
personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human
being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the
social law.
Kant was permeated with his conviction, as is conspicuous in the
minutest details of his chosen life-work, that man was responsible only
to himself, to such an extent that he regarded this side of his theory
as self-evident and least likely to be disputed. This silence of Kant
has brought about a misunderstanding of his ethics--the only ethics
tenable from the psychologically introspective standpoint, the only
system according to which the insistent strong inner voice of the one is
to be heard through the noise of the many.
I gather from a passage in his “Anthropology” that even in the case of
Kant some incident in his actual earthly life preceded the “formation of
his character.” The birth of the Kantian ethics, the noblest event in
the history of the world, was the moment when for the first time the
dazzling awful conception came to him, “I am responsible only to myself;
I must follow none other; I must not forget myself even in my work; I am
alone; I am free; I am lord of myself.”
“Two things fill my mind with ever renewed wonder and awe the more often
and the deeper I dwell on them--the starry vault above me and the moral
law within me. I must not look on them both as veiled in mystery or
think that their majesty places them beyond me. I see them before me,
and they are part of the consciousness of my existence. The first arises
from my position in the outer world of the senses, and links me with the
immeasurable space in which worlds and worlds and systems and systems,
although in immeasurable time, have their ebbs and flows, their
beginnings and ends. The second arises from my invisible self, my
personality, and places me in a world that has true infinity, but which
is evident only to the reason and with which I recognise myself as being
bound, not accidentally as in the other case but in a universal and
necessary union. On the one hand, the consciousness of an endless series
of worlds destroys my sense of importance, making me only one of the
animal creatures which must return its substance again to the planet
(that, too, being no more than a point in space) from whence it came,
after having been in some unknown way endowed with life for a brief
space. The second point of view enhances my importance, makes me an
intelligence, infinite and unconditioned through my personality, the
moral law in which separates me from the animals and from the world of
sense, removes me from the limits of time and space, and links me with
infinity.”
The secret of the critique of practical reason is that man is alone in
the world, in tremendous eternal isolation.
He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far
removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his
necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone.
Thus he becomes one and all; he has the law in him, and so he himself is
the law, and no mere changing caprice. The desire is in him to be only
the law, to be the law that is himself, without afterthought or
forethought. This is the awful conclusion, he has no longer the sense
that there can be duty for him. Nothing is superior to him, to the
isolated absolute unity. But there are no alternatives for him; he must
respond to his own categorical imperatives, absolutely, impartially.
“Freedom,” he cries (for instance, Wagner, or Schopenhauer), “rest,
peace from the enemy; peace, not this endless striving”; and he is
terrified. Even in this wish for freedom there is cowardice; in the
ignominious lament there is desertion as if he were too small for the
fight. What is the use of it all, he cries to the universe; and is at
once ashamed, for he is demanding happiness, and that his own burden
should rest on other shoulders. Kant’s lonely man does not dance or
laugh; he neither brawls nor makes merry; he feels no need to make a
noise, because the universe is so silent around him. To acquiesce in his
loneliness is the splendid supremacy of the Kantian.