in his _Principia Philosophiae_ (i. 32), published three years after
the Meditations, and in a work also written three years later: Notae
in Programma quoddam, sub finem Anni 1647 in Belgio editum, cum
hoc Titulo: Explicatio mentis humanae sive animae rationalis, ubi
explicatur quid sit, et quid esse possit.” Particularly might the
passage in the _Principles_ lead to the opinion that Descartes must
have changed his view, and it is astonishing that Windelband has not
appealed to this passage rather than to that in the Meditations. We
read here:--Ordines _modi cognitandi_ quos in nobis experimur, _ad
duos generales_ referri possunt; quorum unus est, _perceptio sive
operatio intellectus_; alius vero _volitio sive operatio voluntatis_.
Nam sentire, imaginari, et pure intellegere, sunt tantum diversi modi
percipiendi; _ut et cupere, aversari, affirmare, negare, dubitare,
sunt diversi modi volendi_.
At first sight this passage appears to be so clearly in contradiction
to the one in the third Meditation that, as we have said, it is
scarcely possible to avoid the supposition that Descartes had meantime
rejected his thesis as to the three fundamental classes of psychical
phenomena, so shunning Scylla only to plunge into Charybdis; avoiding
the old mistake of confusing the judgment with the idea (Vorstellung),
he would now seem to confound it with the will. But a more attentive
examination of all the circumstances will suffice to exonerate
Descartes from such a charge, and this on the following grounds: (1)
There is not the slightest sign that Descartes was ever conscious of
having become untrue to the view expressed in the Meditations. (2)
Further, in the year 1647 (three years after the publication of the
Meditations and shortly before writing the Notae to his Programma) the
Meditations appeared in a translation revised by Descartes himself,
where, remarkably enough, not the slightest alteration is to be
found in the decisive passage in the third Meditation. “Entre mes
pensées,” it reads, “quelques unes sont commes les images des choses,
et c’est à celles-là scules que convient proprement le nom d’idée....
D’autres, outre cela ont quelques autres formes; ... et de ce genre de
pensées _les unes sont appelées volontés ou affections, et les autres
jugements_.” (3) In the _Principles_ itself he says directly after
(i. No. 42) that all our errors depend upon our will (a voluntate
pendere); but so far is he from regarding the “error” as an act of
volition, that he says there is no one who errs voluntarily (nemo est
qui velit falli). Still clearer is it that he does not regard the
judgment like the desires and dislikes as inner activities of the will
itself, but only as a product of the will, since he at once adds:
sed longe aliud est velle falli quam velle assentiri iis, in quibus
contingit errorem reperiri,” etc. He does not say of the will that it
desires, affirms, assents, but that it wills the assent; so also, not
that it _is_ true but that it desires the truth (veritatis assequendae
cupiditas ... _efficit_, ut ... judicium ferant).
As to Descartes’ real view, therefore, there can be no doubt; his
doctrine has not in this respect suffered the slightest change.
It only remains, therefore, to come to an understanding of his
obviously variable modes of expression, and this is, I believe,
solved incontrovertibly in the following manner. Descartes, while
regarding will and judgment as two classes differing fundamentally,
none the less finds that in contradistinction to the first fundamental
class--that of ideas--these have something in common. In the third
Meditation he designates (cf. the above passage) as the common element
the fact that although essentially based upon an idea, in both alike
there is contained a further special form. In the fourth Meditation
a further common character appears, i.e. that the will decides
concerning them; not only can it determine and suspend its own acts,
but also those of the judgment. It is this common character which he
was bound to regard as especially, indeed all important, in the first
part of the _Principles_, xxix.-xlii. Accordingly, he classes them, in
opposition to the ideas (which he calls operationes intellectus) under
the term operationes voluntatis. In the Notae to the Programma he
calls them distinctly in the same sense, “determinationes voluntatis.”
“Ego enim, cum viderem, praeter perceptionem, quae praerequiritur
ut judicemus, opus esse affirmatione vel negatione ad formam
judicii constituendam, _nobisque saepe esse liberum ut cohibeamus
assensionem_, etiamsi rem percipiamus, ipsum actum judicandi, qui non
nisi in assensu, hoc est in affirmatione vel negatione consistit, non
retuli ad perceptionem intellectus sed ad determinationem voluntatis.”
He does not even hesitate in the _Principles_ to term both these two
classes of _modi cogitandi_, “_modi volendi_” the context seeming
sufficiently to indicate that he means only to express thereby the
fact that they fall within the domain of the will.
In further support of this explanation we may compare the scholastic
terminology into which Descartes as a young man was initiated. It was
customary to denote under the term _actus voluntatis_ not merely the
movement of the will itself but also the act performed in obedience
to the will. In accordance with this custom, the _actus voluntatis_
fell into two classes; the _actus elicitus voluntatis_ and the _actus
imperatus voluntatis_. In a similar manner Descartes groups the class
which, according to him, was only possible as an _actus imperatus_ of
the will along with his _actus elicitus_. There is here, therefore, no
question of a common fundamental character of the intentional relation.
Clear as all this is to those who carefully attach due weight to
the various moments, it would yet appear that Spinoza (probably
misled rather by the passage in the _Principles_ than by that cited
by Windelband), anticipates Windelband in this misunderstanding of
the Cartesian doctrine. In his _Ethics_, ii. prop. 49, he actually,
and in the most real sense, regards the _affirmatio_ and _negatio_
as “_volitiones mentis_,” and by a further confusion, comes finally
to obliterate the distinction between the two classes _ideae_ and
_voluntates_. “_Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt_” his thesis
now reads, so overthrowing not only the three-fold classification of
Descartes, but also the old Aristotelian dual classification. Spinoza
has here, as usual, done nothing else than corrupt the teaching of his
great master.
[22] (_p. 13_). I do not mean to say that the classification is,
universally recognized to-day. It would not even be possible to regard
as certain the Principle of Contradiction if in order to do so we
were to await universal assent. In the present instance it is not
difficult to understand that old, deeply-rooted prejudices cannot all
at once be banished. But that even under such circumstances it has not
been possible to urge a single important objection affords the best
confirmation of our doctrine.
Some, as for instance, Windelband--while giving up the attempt at
including judgment and idea (Vorstellung) in _one_ fundamental class,
on the other hand believe it possible to subsume judgment under
feeling, thus falling back into the error which Hume committed earlier
in his inquiry into the nature of belief. According to these writers,
to affirm implies an act of approval, an appreciation on the part of
the feelings, while denial is an act of disapproval, a feeling of
repugnance.
Despite a certain analogy the confusion is hard to understand. There
are people who recognize both the goodness of God and the wickedness
of the devil, the being of Ormuzd and the being of Ahriman, with an
equal degree of conviction, and yet, while prizing the nature of the
one above all else, they feel themselves absolutely repelled by that
of the other. Since we love knowledge and hate error it is, of course,
proper that those _judgments_ we hold to be right (and this is true
of all those judgments which we ourselves make) are for this very
reason dear to us, i.e. we estimate them in some way or other through
feeling. But who on this account would be misled into regarding the
judgments themselves which are loved as acts of loving?. The confusion
would be almost as gross as if we should fail to distinguish wife and
child, money and possessions, from the activity which is directed
towards these, inasmuch they are the objects of affection. Cf. also
what has been said (note 21) with regard to Windelband, where,
misunderstanding Descartes, he ascribes to him the same teaching;
further, note 26 (on the unity of the idea of the good) as well as
what is urged by Sigwart in the note (in part much to the point) on
Windelband (_Logic_, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 156 seq.). To those who,
despite all that has been said, still wish further arguments for the
distinction between the second and third fundamental classes, I may,
perhaps, be allowed to refer them, by anticipation, to my _Descriptive
Psychology_, which I have alluded to in the preface as an almost
completed work, and which will appear if not as a continuation, yet
still as a further development of my _Psychology from the Empirical
Standpoint_.
As against Windelband, I here add the following observations:
1. It is false and a serious oversight, as he himself will be
convinced on reading again in my _Psychology_, vol. i. p. 262, when
he (p. 172) makes me assert, and that too as a quotation from my own
work, that “love and hate” is not an appropriate term for the third
fundamental class.
2. It is false, and a quite unjustifiable supposition when (p. 178)
he ascribes to me the opinion that the classification of judgments
according to quality is the only essential classification belonging
to the act of judgment itself. I believe exactly the contrary. I
regard, for example (of course in opposition to Windelband), the
distinction between assertorical and apodictic judgments (cf. here
note 27, p. 83), as also the distinction between self-evident and
blind judgments as belonging and highly essential, to the act of
judgment itself. Other differences, again, especially the distinction
between simple and compound acts of judgment, I might mention. For
it is not every compound judgment that can be resolved into quite
simple elements, and something similar takes place also in the case
of certain notions, a fact known to Aristotle. What is red?--Red
colour. What is colour?--The quality of colour. The difference, it is
seen, contains in both cases the notion of the genus. The separating
of the one logical element from the other is only possible from the
one side. A similar one-sided capacity to separate appears also in
certain compound judgments. J. S. Mill is, therefore, quite wrong when
he (_Deductive and Inductive Logic_, vol. i. chap. iv. section 3),
regards as ridiculous the old classification of judgments into simple
and compound, and thinks that the procedure in such a case is exactly
as if one should wish to divide horses into single horses and teams
of horses; otherwise the same argument would hold good against the
classification of conceptions into simple and compound.
3. It is false, though an error which finds almost universal
acceptance, and one from which I myself at the time of writing the
first volume of my _Psychology_ was not yet free, that the so-called
degree of conviction consists in a degree of intensity of the
judgment which can be brought into analogy with the intensity of
pleasure and pain. Had Windelband charged me with _this_ error I
would have acknowledged the complete justice of the charge. Instead
of this he finds fault with me because I recognize intensity with
regard to the judgment, only in a sense analogous, and not identical
to that in the case of feeling, and because I assert the impossibility
of comparing in respect of magnitude, the supposed intensity of the
belief and the real intensity of feeling. Here we have one of the
results of his improved theory of judgment!
If the degree of conviction of my belief that 2 + 1 = 3 were one of
intensity how powerful would this be! And if the said belief were to
be identified, as by Windelband (p. 186), with feeling, not merely
regarded as analogous to feeling, how destructive to our nervous
system would the violence of such a shock to the feelings prove! Every
physician would be compelled to warn the public against the study
of mathematics as calculated to destroy health. (Cf. with regard to
this so-called degree of conviction the view of Henry Newman in his
interesting work: _An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent_--a work
scarcely noticed in Germany.)
4. When Windelband (p. 183) wonders how I can regard the word “is” in
such propositions as “God is,” “A man is” (ein Mensch ist), “A lack
is” (ein Mangel ist), “A possibility is,” “A truth is,” (i.e. There is
a truth), etc., as having the same meaning and finds it extraordinary
(184, note 1) in the author of _Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des
Seienden nach Aristoteles_ that he should fail to recognize the
manifold significance of “to be,” I can only reply that he who in
this view does not perceive the simple consequence of my theory of
the judgment can hardly have understood this doctrine. With regard to
Aristotle it never occurs to him, while dividing the “ὄν” in the sense
of reality into various categories, and into an “ ὂν ὲνεργεία and ὂν
δυνάμει”, to do the same with the “ἔστιν” transforming what is the
expression of an idea into that of a judgment and the “ὂν ὡς ἀληθές”
as he calls it. This could only be done by those who, like Herbart
and many others after him, did not know how to hold apart the notion
of being in the sense of absolute position and being in the sense of
reality (cf. the following note).
5. I have just said that there exist simple and compound judgments,
and that many a compound judgment is not, without a residue,
resolvable into simple judgments. Special attention must be paid to
this in seeking to convert judgments otherwise expressed into the
existential form. It is self-evident that only simple judgments, i.e.
such as are, strictly speaking, without parts, are so convertible. I
may therefore be excused for not thinking it necessary to emphasize
this expressly in my _Psychology_. If this restriction hold good
universally it is, of course, valid also of the categorical form.
In the propositions categorical in form, which the formal logicians
have denoted by the signs A.E.I. and O. they wish to express strictly
simple judgments. These are therefore one and all convertible into
the existential form (cf. my _Psychology_, vol. i. p. 283). The same,
however, will not hold good when propositions categorical in form
contain in consequence of an ambiguity of expression (cf. p. 120, note
to Appendix) a plurality of judgments. In such a case the existential
form may certainly be the expression of a simple judgment equivalent
to the compound one, but cannot be the expression of the judgment
itself.
This is a point which Windelband ought to have considered in examining
(p. 184) the proposition: “The rose is a flower” with respect to its
convertibility into an existential proposition. He is quite right
in protesting against its conversion into the proposition: “There
is no rose which is not a flower,” but he is not equally right in
ascribing this conversion to me. Neither in the passage cited by him
nor elsewhere have I made such a conversion, and I consider it just as
false as that attempted by Windelband and all such as may be attempted
by anybody else. The judgment here expressed in the proposition is
made up of two judgments of which one is the recognition of the
subject (whether it be that thereby is meant “rose” in the ordinary
sense, or “what is called rose,” “what is understood by rose”), and
this, as we have just said, is not always the case where a proposition
is given of the form: All A is B.
Unfortunately Land also has overlooked this, the only one among
my critics who has succeeded in comprehending, in their necessary
connection with the principle, what Windelband has termed the
“mysterious” hints which I have thrown out towards the reform of
elementary logic, and in deducing them correctly from it. (Cf. Land,
“On a supposed improvement in Formal Logic” in the papers of the _Kgl.
Niederländischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1876.)
I conclude with a curiosity recently furnished by Steinthal in his
_Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie_ (chap. xviii. p. 175). I there
read with astonishment: “Brentano’s confusion in completely severing
judgments from idea and thoughts (!) and grouping the judgments as
acts of recognition or rejection, with love and hate (!!) is instantly
removed if such (?) a judgment, as an aesthetic judgment is termed
“Beurteilen” (!). Probably Steinthal has never once glanced into my
_Psychology_, and has only read Windelband’s statement concerning it;
this, however, so hastily that I hope he will not be ungrateful at my
sending his lines to Windelband for correction.
[23] (_p. 14_). Miklosich, _Subjectlose Sätze_, second edition,
Vienna, 1883.
In order to make the reader familiar with the contents of this
valuable little book a notice written at the time for the _Vienna
Evening Post_ may prove useful. Through an oversight it was printed
as a feuilleton in the Vienna newspaper. As no one certainly would
look for it there, I will include it here by way of an appendix.
Meantime, Sigwart’s monograph, _The Impersonalia_ has appeared, in
which he opposes Miklosich. Marty has submitted this, as well as
(shortly before) the corresponding section in Sigwart’s _Logic_ to a
telling criticism in the _Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche
Philosopie_, with regard to which criticism Sigwart, though without
any reasonable ground, has shown himself highly indignant. “Il se
fache,” the French say, “donc il a tort.” That Sigwart’s theory in
its essential points has not succeeded, even Steinthal really allows,
though in his _Zeitschrift_ (chap. xviii. p. 172 seq.) he burns thick
clouds of incense to the writer of the monograph, and even in his
preface to the fourth edition of his _Origin of Language_ applauds
a form of conduct which every true friend of that deserving man
(Sigwart) must regret. After the high praise awarded to him at the
outset, one feels somewhat disappointed finally by the criticism.
Steinthal rejects (pp. 177-180) Sigwart’s theory on its grammatical
side. There would only remain therefore as really successful Sigwart’s
psychological theory. But the psychological portion is not that
concerning which Steinthal’s estimate is authoritative; for in that
case, one would be bound to take seriously the following remark: “In
the proposition: “Da bückt sich’s hinunter mit liebendem Blick” (a
line from Schiller’s _Diver_), it is obvious that everybody must think
of the king’s daughter, but it is not she which stands before me but
a subjectless “sich hinunter-bücken,” and now I have all the more
fellow-feeling for her. According to my (Steinthal’s) psychology, I
should say the idea of the king’s daughter “fluctuates” (schwingt) but
does not enter into consciousness.” This calls for something more than
the old saying: _Sapienti sat_.
I
The psychological theory of Sigwart shows itself in all its weakness
when he seeks to give an account of the notion of “_existence_.” It
has been already recognized by Aristotle, that this notion is gained
by reflection upon the affirmative judgment. But Sigwart, like most
modern logicians, neglects to make use of this hint. Instead of saying
that to the existent belongs everything of which the affirmative
judgment is true, he becomes repeatedly, and once more in the second
edition of his logic (pp. 88-95) involved in diffuse discussions upon
the notion of being and upon existential propositions, which cannot
in any way conduce to clearness, seeing that they move in false
directions.
“To be,” according to Sigwart, expresses a relation (pp. 88, 95);
if it be asked: What kind of a relation? the answer would, at first
sight (92), appear to be, a relation to me as thinking. But no; the
existential proposition asserts just this: “that the existing also
exists, apart from its relation to me and to another thinking being.”
It cannot, therefore, be “a relation to me as thinking.” But what
other relation can be meant? Not until p. 94 is this brought out more
clearly. The relation ought to mean (of course he adds “zunächst”,
provisionally) the agreement (“identity” ib.) of the thing represented
with a possible impression (“einem Wahrnehmbaren” ib. “something which
may be perceived by me,” ib. p. 90).
Now it will be immediately recognized that this notion of existence is
too narrow; for it might very well be asserted that much exists which
it is not possible to perceive, e.g. a past and a future, an empty
space, and any sort of deficiency, a possibility or impossibility,
etc., etc. It is therefore not surprising that Sigwart himself seeks
to widen the notion. But he does this in a manner which I find it
difficult to understand. At first sight he appears to say in order
that something may exist it is not necessary that it can be perceived
by me; it is enough if it can be perceived by anybody. Or what else
can be meant when Sigwart, after what has just been said, that
existence was the agreement of the thing represented with a possible
impression, thus continues: “That which exists stands not merely _in
this relation_ to me but to all other existing beings?” It cannot
surely mean that Sigwart is inclined to ascribe to every existing
being the capacity to receive every impression. It may be he only
wishes to say that everything which exists stands to every other
existing being in the relation of existence, and then it might be
concluded from what immediately follows that this rather meaningless
definition is intended to express that existence is the capacity to
act or to be acted upon. (“What exists ... stands in causal relations
to the rest of the world”; similar also is p. 91, note: the existent
is something which “can exercise effects upon me and others.”)
Finally, however, there is some ground for thinking Sigwart would
say: what exists is that which can be perceived or can be inferred
as perceivable, for he adds: “hence (on account of this causal
relation) from what is _perceivable_ also an existence which is merely
_inferred_ may be asserted.”
That all this is equally to be rejected it is not difficult to
recognize.
For (1) To “infer” the existence of something does not mean so much as
“to infer that it is capable of being perceived.” If, for example, the
existence of atoms and of empty spaces could be assured by inference,
we should still be very far from proving their perceptibility either
to ourselves or to some other being. If any one were to conclude the
existence of God while giving up the attempt “to give vividness” to
the thought by anthropomorphic means, he would not on this account
believe that God must be perceptible to one of his creatures or even
that he is the object of his own perception.
2. From this point of view it would be absurd for any one to say: “I
am convinced that there is much the existence of which can neither be
perceived at any time or even inferred by anybody.” For that would
mean: “I am convinced that much can be perceived or can be inferred
to be capable of perception which yet can never be perceived or
inferred.” Who does not recognize here how far Sigwart has strayed
from the true notion of existence!
3. Should Sigwart wish in this passage to widen the notion of
existence to such a degree as to think that existence is that which
can either be perceived or inferred from some perceivable object, or
again, stands in some sort of causal relation to what is perceivable,
it might be replied--if indeed such a monstrous notion of existence
still require refutation--that even this notion is still too narrow.
If, for example, I say: It may be that an empty space exists but
this can never with certainty be known by any one, I thereby confess
that existence may perhaps belong to empty space; but I deny most
definitely that it is perceptible, or that it is to be inferred from
that which is perceptible. In regard to relations of cause and effect
on the other hand, it is of course impossible that empty space (which
is certainly no thing) can stand in such a relation to anything
perceivable. We should thus once again arrive at an absurd meaning in
interpretation of an assertion in no way absurd.