Reading Notes: December 1st, 2021

“G.F. Stout…has furnished, apparently without fully realizing it, what may be regarded either as a reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that consciousness is a purely external relation, so far as the object is concerned, or else as the antithesis to the thesis that consciousness is a relation, leading of necessity to the synthetic judgment that consciousness is a productive activity….If consciousness is a mere external relation of one existent object to another, so that the object of consciousness is necessarily existent independent of consciousness, then we cannot think of anything which does not exist independently of our thinking of it. But this is absurd; wherefore consciousness cannot be a mere external relation, so far as the object is concerned; it must be to some extent a productive activity, so that it can be a relation to that which depends upon itself (consciousness) for its existence.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 265-266) 

“Before turning to the various conflicting views of consciousness advanced by the six “collaborating” neo-realists, we must notice the doctrines of McGilvary and Boodin. McGilvary begins promisingly by distinguishing between “subjective objects” of consciousness (e.g. pleasure), which exist only when there is awareness of them, and other objects of consciousness, which may be called “objective objects.” There is a sensum and there is a sentire (awareness), he continues, and even though the sentire may be the effect of a physiological process, still the sensum may be the same as the sensibile which initiated the physiological process on which the sentire depends. Now it is just here, we would contend, that McGilvary fatally fails to make an absolutely essential distinction. To maintain that the sensum and the sensible are numerically the same is doubtless essential to the vindication of a genuine acquaintance with physical reality in perception; but to assume that sensum and sensible can be numerically one, only if they are in all respects qualitatively identical, is to “fall into temptation and a snare”; it is this dogmatic “short cut” which is “the root of all (the neo-realistic) evil,” and McGilvary, having erred at this point, in company with many others, has “pierced himself through with many (epistemological) sorrows”.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 277-278) 

“It becomes immediately necessary to regard consciousness as “diaphanous” and, strictly speaking, undefinable; and that without the idealistic excuse, that it is the summum genus of all reality. It is asserted, to be sure, that consciousness of a thing is a “relation between objects,” “a unique togetherness of the thing with other things.” But, while it may be admitted—and the thing admitted is an important truth—that in the event of consciousness there is a unique togetherness of things, it is still doubtful at least whether it is that unique togetherness which is the consciousness, or whether it is not merely a necessary consequence of consciousness. And then, that blessed word “unique” is here simply a device by means of which one is enabled to give a formal definition where the possibility of a real definition has been cut off. To say that consciousness is a unique togetherness is at best to define by means of the proximate genus, leaving the differentia of the species blank, offering as excuse at the same time the more than doubtful assertion that no intelligible differentia exists. McGilvary does say, it must be admitted, that the togetherness is an experiential one, a being felt together or experienced together; but this is to supply the defect in the definition by virtually introducing into the predicate of the definition the term to be defined.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 278) 

“And now, finally, we turn to look for and examine the doctrine of the six collaborating neo-realists concerning consciousness. But here again it is disappointing, and especially so in view of the collaboration, to find that instead of a doctrine, we have doctrines. Among the articles of their common creed the six have not found it possible to include a definition of consciousness. The mutual relation of their views on the subject is interesting, however. There is a fair measure of agreement between Marvin, and Holt in his earlier writings, on the one hand, and among Spaulding, Pitkin, Perry, and Holt in a very recent publication, on the other; but Montague sets forth in this connection, as before, a doctrine radically different from that of any of the others.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 279) 

“This [cross-section] view [of consciousness] of Holt and Marvin is the consequence of working out the implications of a rather superficial interpretation of the reported experience that when we introspect we find only things in their relations. It is assumed that because conscious ness is not revealed to us as another element alongside of the objects of the environment of which we are conscious, it must be either dismissed as non-existent, or else identified with the objects that are revealed, the only insistence being that it is as revealed that they are consciousness. The appearance of dogmatism is toned down by the slipping in of the ambiguous term, “psychic realm,” as mediating between “objects,” or “field of consciousness,” on the one side, and “consciousness” on the other. At this point the new realism makes liberal use of the very convenient fallacy of equivocation. But it is probably vain to expect to produce a sense of logical guilt in the mind of one who can proclaim as an epistemological gospel the doctrine that his own consciousness (being conscious) of a group of objects is neither more nor less than that group of objects, as responded to by his physical organism.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 281) 

“Perry’s definition of consciousness is interesting as being the result of an explicit attempt to combine the points of view of introspection (or what the neo-realist calls introspection) and external observation of mind in nature and society….In spite of Perry’s precautions, he has not succeeded in corralling consciousness in his definition. Indeed, he himself admits that all he can discover by what he calls introspection is a “manifold of fragments of the other-than-mind.” And it is a notorious fact that external observation also reveals only movements of the bodily complex in relation to its environment, in other words, again nothing but “other-than-mind.” Indeed in many cases the external observer knows not whether to interpret the behavior which he sees, as accompanied by consciousness or not. In adding together the results of the two methods, Perry has succeeded in “rounding up” all the important associates of consciousness, but consciousness itself is not to be found in the aggregation; other-than-mind added to other-than-mind does not give other than other-than-mind.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 283-284) 

“In concluding this investigation of the neo-realistic doctrines of consciousness, it may be instructive briefly to compare and contrast the results arrived at by the English and American schools. In each of the largely separate developments of thought there is discoverable something of the nature of a dialectical process. The English new realists, reacting against the extreme idealistic philosophies which made consciousness the only and all-inclusive Being, took up the question as to just what existent consciousness is, if it is true that it is only an existent among other existent things. The answer was soon forthcoming that it is not an existent at all, unless it is a relation between existents, in particular a relation between a really existent subject and a world of really existent objects. But when the question was raised as to just what relation consciousness is, difficulties and diversities of opinion began to appear….Turning to the American movement we find a parallel but strangely different phenomenon. Here too, in reaction against extreme idealistic views, the problem emerged as to what consciousness is, if we cannot say that it is the all-embracing reality….The chief difference between the American and English schools at this point, however, is that while the English realists have contended that consciousness is a relation between a psychical or mental subject and physical objects, the Americans have generally maintained that it is a relation between or among physical objects….Indeed, in the above exposition and discussion of the American neo-realistic doctrine of consciousness it has been shown, we think, that its dialectic has been leading it with resistless logic to a thoroughgoing self-refutation.” (Macintosh, The Problem of Knowledge, 289-291)