Reading Notes: June 13th, 2022

“The whole distinction between a subjective and an objective factor in experience loses most of its significance with the abolition, now effected by Psychology, of the vicious Kantian distinction between the “given” in perception and the “work of the mind.” When once we have recognized that the “given” itself is constituted by the moment of selective attention, it becomes impossible any longer to distinguish it as an objective factor in knowledge from the subjective structure subsequently raised upon it.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 242) 

“We cannot insist too strongly upon the point that the space and time of which we think in our science as containing the entire physical order, are not space and time as directly known in sense-perception….Perceptual Space and Time…are (I) limited. The space we actually behold…is always terminated by a horizon which has a more or less well-defined outline; the “specious present,” or portion of duration of which we can be at any time aware at once as an immediately presented content, has…a fairly well-defined span. Whatever lies outside this “span of attention” belongs either to the no longer presented past or to the not yet presented future….Of course, in either case the limits of the actually presented space or time are not absolutely defined. To right and left of the line of vision the visible horizon gradually fades off into the indistinctly presented “margin of consciousness;” the “sensible present” shades away gradually at either end into the past and the future. Yet, though thus not absolutely defined, sensible space and time are never boundless. (II) Perceptual space and time are both internally sensibly continuous or unbroken. Concentrate your attention on any lesser part of the actually seen expanse, and you at once find that, it is itself an expanse with all the characteristics of the wider expanse in which it forms a part. Space as actually seen is not an aggregate of minima visibilia or perceptual points in which no lesser parts can be discriminated; so long as space is visually or tactually perceived at all, it is perceived as containing lesser parts which, on attending to them, are found to repeat the characteristics of the larger space. So, any part of the “specious present” to which special attention can be directed, turns out itself to be a sensible duration.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 243-244) 

“On investigating the character of our actual perception of space and time, it appears to contain two aspects, which we may call the quantitative and the qualitative. On the one hand, whenever we perceive space we perceive a certain magnitude of extension, whenever we perceive time we perceive a longer or shorter lapse of duration. Different spaces and different times can be quantitatively compared in respect of the bigness of the extension or the duration comprised in them. On the other hand, the percept of space or time is not one of mere extension or duration. It has a very different qualitative aspect. We perceive along with the magnitude of the extension the form of its outline. This perception of spatial form depends in the last resort upon perception of the direction assumed by the bounding line or lines. Similar, in dealing with only one dimension of perceived space, we never perceive length (a spatial magnitude) apart from the perception of direction (a spatial quality). The same is true of the perception of time. The lapses of duration we immediately perceive have all their special direction-quality; the “specious present,” is essentially a simultaneously presented succession, i.e. a transition from before to after. It must be added that, in perceptual space and time, the directions thus perceived have a unique relation to the perceiving subject, and are thus all qualitatively distinct and irreversible. Direction in space is estimated as right, left, up, down, etc., by reference to axes through the center of the percipient’s body at right angles to each other, and is thus for any given moment of experience uniquely and unambiguously determined. Direction in time is similarly estimated with reference to the actual content of the “focus of consciousness.” What is actually focal is “now,” what is ceasing to be focal is “past,” what is just coming to be local is “future” in its direction.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 244-245) 

“This is perhaps the most fundamental and important peculiarity of the space and time of actual perception. All directions in them are unambiguously determined by reference to the here and now of the immediate experience of an individual subject. As a consequence, every individual subject has his own special perceptual space and time…the space and time system of each individual’s perception is composed of directions radiating out from his unique here and now, and is therefore individual to himself….Now means for me the content which occupies the center of attentive interest. As attention is concentrated on the different stages in the realization of an interest, this centre shifts; what was marginal becomes central….Successive attention to lesser parts of a presented extension or a presented lapse reveals within each lesser part the same structure which belongs to the whole, and thus establishes the sensible continuity of space and time.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 244-247) 

“Actual perceived space and time are indeed never empty, but always filled with a content of “secondary” qualities. In other words, they are always one aspect of a larger whole of fact. Extension is never perceived apart from some further visual or tactual quality of the extended, temporal lapse never perceived without some change in presented content, however slight. But in constructing the conceptual space and time system, we abstract altogether from this qualitative aspect; we think solely of the variety of positions and directions in time and space without taking any account of the further qualitative differences with which they are accompanied in concrete experience. Thus, we come by the notion of empty space and an empty time as mere systems of positions into which various contents may subsequently be put. Strictly speaking, the notion of an empty space or an empty time is unmeaning, as the simple experiment of thinking of their existence is sufficient to show. We cannot in thought successfully separate the spatial and temporal aspects of experience from the rest of the whole to which they belong and take them as subsisting by themselves, any more than we can take timbre as subsisting apart from musical pitch or colour-tone from saturation.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 249) 

“Conceptual space and time are…unlimited and indefinitely divisible. Though it does not seem inevitable that they should be continuous, we appear to be unable to attach any positive meaning to the notion of their discontinuity, and…we have a valid positive ground for taking them as continuous. But space and time are thus resolved…into continuous infinite series of which the terms are spatial and temporal positions or points. Unlike the parts of perceptual space and time, these conceptual terms are not themselves spaces or times, as they contain no internal multiplicity of structure. Conceptual space and time are thus not wholes or aggregates of parts, but systems of relations between terms which possess no quantitative character. Between any two terms of the spatial, or again of the temporal, series there is one unique relation, which is completely determined by the assignment of the terms, their distance. In the temporal series, which has only one dimension, you can only pass from any one given term to any other through a series of intermediate terms which is once and for all determined when the initial and final terms are given, hence nothing is required beyond the terms themselves to fix their distance. The spatial series is multidimensional, i.e. you can pass from any one term in it to any second by an indefinite variety of routes through intermediate terms, but it is still true that there is one and only one such route which is completely determined when the terms in question are known, namely the straight line passing through both. This straight line constitutes the unique distance of the two points from each other….It must be carefully noted that distance as thus defined is not properly a quantitative relation, and involves no notion of magnitude, but only of relative place in a series….Thus the genuine concept of which those of space and time are species is not that of magnitude of quantity, but of serial order.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 250-251) 

“Further, and this is a point of fundamental difference between conceptual space and time, and the spaces and times of immediate perception, any one position in either order, taken by itself, is qualitatively indistinguishable from any other. All points in space, all moments of time, are alike, or, as it is also phrased, conceptual space and time are homogenous throughout. It is not until you take at least two terms of the spatial or temporal series and consider the relation they determine, that distinction becomes possible. This homogeneity of conceptual space and time is an inevitable consequence of the abstraction from the immediate feelings of the individual subject of experience involved, in their construction. In our actual perception of spatial and temporal extension, that part of perceived space and time which stands in direct unity with immediate feeling is qualitatively distinguished as the here and now from all the rest, and thus does not depend upon the specification of a second spatial or temporal position for its recognizability. Here is where I am, now is this felt present. And similarly, every other part of the actually presented space and time gets a unique qualitative character from its special relation to this here and now; it is right or left, behind or in front, before or after. When we abstract altogether from the unique relation with individual experience which thus makes the here and now of perception…every position alike becomes the mere possibility of a here or a now, and as such mere possibilities the various positions are indistinguishable.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 251) 

“An apparently inevitable consequence of the homogeneity of conceptual space and time is the relativity of spatial and temporal position. As we have seen, positions in conceptual space and time are not distinguishable until you take them in pairs. In other words, to fix one position in space or one date you have to give its relation to another position or date, and similarly to fix this you must specify a third, and so on indefinitely. To say where A is means to say how you get to it from B, and B again is only known by the way it is reached from C, and so on without end. Logically, this is a simple consequence of the nature of space and time as conceptually analyzed into endless series. To specify any term in the series you must give the unique relation it bears to some other term, its logical distance. And, in a series which has neither first nor last term, this second term cannot be defined except by its logical stance from a third. In actual perception this difficulty is avoided, owing to the fact that immediate feeling gives us the here and now from which all our directions are measured. But in conceptual space or time there is nothing to distinguish any one here which we may take as our “origin of coordinates,” or any one now which we take as our present from any other, and hence the endless regress is inevitable.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 251-252) 

“For Reality…must be a complete individual whole, with the ground of all its differentiations within itself.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 255) 

“Space and time must be externally boundless and internally indefinitely divisible, and yet again cannot be either….Space and time must be boundless because all spatial and temporal existence means spatial and temporal relation to a second term, itself similarly related to a third term. For precisely the same reason both must be indefinitely divisible. Yet again, they can be neither, since only the individual exists, and within such an interminable network of relations between terms which are nothing but the supporters of these relations there is no principle of individual structure. Thus, the Kantian antinomies are a simple consequence of the old difficulty about quality and relation. Space and time must be mere relations, and the terms of those relations therefore qualitatively indistinguishable; again, since they are relations they cannot be relations between nothings or, what is the same thing, between terms with no individual character.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 259-260) 

“On the one hand, the application of the categories of Mechanics to the whole of Reality leads inevitably to the indefinite regress. On the other, in their legitimate application to a lesser part of existence they are all demonstrably relative, that is, they always appear as one aspect of a fact which has other aspects, and without these other aspects would have no meaning…For the successful application of the mechanical view to the physical order, we need to treat that order as consisting of the changing configurations of a whole of qualitatively homogenous related parts. Any departure from this point of view would involve the recognition of differences which cannot be treated as merely quantitative, as mere subjects for calculation and prediction, and would thus necessitate the introduction of a non-mechanical factor into our interpretation of the universe. The mechanical view, fully carried out, thus involves the conception of the universe as a system extended and ordered in space and time, and capable of spatial and temporal change, but manifesting a quantitative identity throughout its changes. In the actual constructions of physical science this quantitative identity is represented principally by the principles of the Conservation of Mass and the Conservation of Energy. Both these latter principles are thus, in their general form, neither axioms of knowledge nor verifiable empirical facts, but a part of the general mechanical postulate.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 288-289) 

“Spatial and temporal direction and position…are always relative, position and direction being only definable with respect to other positions and directions arbitrarily selected to serve as standards of reference, and…involve the indefinite regress….The same is true of the other fundamental concepts of the mechanical scheme, mass and energy. Taking the two separately, we may deal first of all with the notion of mass. The mass of a material system is often loosely spoken of as its “quantity of matter,” but requires, for the purposes of logical analysis, a more precise definition. Such a definition may be given in the following way. In order to explain what is meant by the constancy of the mass of a body, it is necessary to consider the mutual relations of at least three different bodies, which we will call A, B, and C. It is found that, at a given distance, in the presence of A, C receives an acceleration m, and in the presence of B a second acceleration n; then the mass of A is said to stand to that of B in the ratio m/n, which is the ration of the accelerations which they respectively produce on C, and this ratio is constant, whatever body we choose for C. Hence, if we arbitrarily take B as our unit for the measurement of mass, the mass of A as determined by the foregoing experiment will be represented by the number m. By the principle of the Conservation of Mass is meant the doctrine that the ration m/n as above determined does not alter with the lapse of time….If we merely desired to fix the sense of the term mass without introducing the concept of constant mass, we might of course consider two bodies only, A and B. Then the ratio ((Mass of B)/(Mass of A)) = ((Acceleration of A in presence of B)/(Acceleration of B in presence of A))….That is, the ratio between the accelerations produced by any pair of bodies or a third body is constant and independent of this third body itself.” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 289-290) 

“Herein lies the final answer to Materialism: it consists in showing in detail what was asserted at the outset (§16), viz., that Materialism is a hysteron proteron, a putting of the cart before the horse, which may be rectified by just inverting the connection between Matter and Consciousness. Matter is not that which produces consciousness, but that which limits it, and confines its intensity within certain limits; material organization does not construct consciousness out of arrangements of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits.” (Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, 19) 

“Among all the errors of the human mind it has always seemed to me the strangest that it could come to doubt its own existence, of which alone it has direct experience, or to take it at second-hand as the product of an external Nature which we know only indirectly, only by means of the knowledge of the very mind to which we would fain deny existence.” (Lotze, Microcosmus, Bk. II, Ch. V, §8)