A Question Concerning Bernard Lonergan’s “Questions for Intelligence” and “Questions for Reflection”

According to Bernard Lonergan, “questions fall into two main classes. There are “questions for reflection,” and they may be met by answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. There are “questions for intelligence,” and they may not be met by answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.” (Lonergan, Insight, 271-272) A “question for intelligence” asks ‘What?’, ‘Why?’, ‘How?’, and ‘What for?’. A “question for reflection” asks “whether our answers to the previous type of question are true or false, certain or only probable.” (Lonergan, Reality, Myth, Symbol, 1) With this distinction in mind, we can proceed by asking whether the following question is itself a “question for reflection” or a “question for intelligence”:

“Is the answer to this question, ‘No’?”

The above question is a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question, and so it appears to be a “question for reflection” and not a “question for intelligence.” Indeed, as Lonergan says, it is incoherent to answer a “question for intelligence” with a mere ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. By contrast, “questions for reflection” are those questions which are met by answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Indeed, “questions for reflection” can only be answered with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; they involve phrases like, “Is it so?” and “Is it probably so?”. However, if we declare the question, “Is the answer to this question, ‘No’?” to be a “question for reflection,” we find that it cannot be met by answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’—on pain of contradiction—and this contradicts our assertion that such a question is a “question for reflection.” We can illustrate this by examining the question in detail: 

“Is the answer to this question, ‘No’?”

If the answer to the question is ‘Yes’, then the answer to the question is ‘No’. But if the answer to the question is ‘No’, then the answer to the question is ‘Yes’. Since the question, “Is the answer to this question, ‘No’?”, cannot be met by ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ without contradiction, it follows that it is not a “question for reflection.” If it is objected that a question cannot refer to itself, we can reply that there are many questions that refer to themselves and are perfectly meaningful. Take, for example, the following question.

“Is the answer to this question, ‘Yes’?”

The above question is a “question for reflection” that not only references itself, but also can be answered without contradiction—it can be met by a simple ‘Yes’. We can also illustrate the same paradox that we outlined above by invoking two distinct questions rather than just one:

“Is the answer to the following question, ‘No’?”

“Is the answer to the preceding question, ‘Yes’?”

Let’s label the top question with the letter, A, and let’s label the bottom question with the letter, B. On the one hand, if the answer to A is ‘Yes’, then the answer to B must be ‘No’; however, if the answer to B is ‘No’, then the answer to A must be ‘No’—and this contradicts the original answer to A as being ‘Yes’. On the other hand, if the answer to A is ‘No’, then the answer to B must be ‘Yes’; however, if the answer to B is ‘Yes’, then the answer to A must be ‘Yes’—and this contradicts the original answer to A as being ‘No’. If it is objected that A and B are not “questions for reflection” at all since each has its meaning only in relation to the other, we can provide an instance of two more questions: 

“Is the answer to the following question, ‘Yes?”

“Is the answer to the preceding question, ‘Yes’?”

The above questions have their respective meanings only in relation to the other and can be answered without contradiction—both can be met by a simple ‘Yes’.

Reading Notes: October 16th, 2024

“Reason is to be examined, but how? It is to be rationally examined, to be known; this is, however, only possible by means of rational thought; it is impossible in any other way, and consequently a demand is made which cancels itself. If we are not to begin philosophical speculation without having attained rationally to a knowledge of reason, no beginning can be made at all, for in getting to know anything in the philosophical sense, we comprehend it rationally; we are, it seems, to give up attempting this, since the very thing we have to do is first of all to know reason. This is just the demand which was made by that Gascon who would not go into the water until he could swim. It is impossible to make any preliminary examination of rational activity without being rational.” (Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 53)

“I form ideas, I have perceptions, and here there is a certain definite content, as, for instance, this house, and so on. They are my perceptions, they present themselves to me. I could not, however, present them to myself if I did not grasp this particular content in myself, and if I had not posited it in a simple, ideal manner in myself. Ideality means that this definite external existence, these conditions of space, of time, and matter, this separateness of parts, is done away with in something higher; in that I know this external existence, these forms of it are not ideas which are mutually exclusive, but are comprehended, grasped together in me in a simple manner.” (Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 84)

“What was there before this time?—[in] the other of time (not another time, but eternity, the thought of time)? In this, the question [itself] is suspended (aufgehoben), since it refers to another time. But in this way, eternity itself is in time, it is a “before” of time. Thus it is itself a past, it was, was absolutely, is no longer. Time is the pure concept—the intuited (angeschaute) empty self in its movement, like space in its rest. Before there is a filled time, time is nothing. Its fulfilment is that which is actual, returned into itself out of empty time. Its view of itself is what time is—the nonobjective. But if we speak of [a time] “before” the world, of time without something to fill it, [we already have] the thought of time, thinking itself, reflected in itself. It is necessary to go beyond this time, every period – but into the thought of time. The former [i.e., speaking about what was “before” the world] is the bad infinity, that never arrives at the thought from which it goes forward.” (Hegel, The Philosophy of Spirit, Pt. III, C.)

“Earlier, Hegel establishes that a being is determinate in not being another. Thus, it appears to have its being for another. But Hegel goes on to contrast this sort of finite being, which is merely the negation of another, to one which possesses its determinate character in virtue of its internal self-differentiation. In other words, rather than being what it is merely in contrast to others, it is what it is in virtue of contrasts (or distinctions) within itself. Being-for-self is ‘the infinite determinacy that contains distinction within itself as sublated’….In being-for-self, Hegel is anticipating…the Concept, or concrete universal—or, more simply, the whole: a being which is absolute because it subsumes all finite determinations within itself, and thus does not derive its being from its opposition to anything outside itself.” (Magee, The Hegel Dictionary, 46-47)

Reading Notes: October 14th, 2024

“The animating life of Spirit brings us first into contact with the free infinity capable within its own external and determinate existence of remaining constant to the inner principle of unity, and, in the act of expression, still reflected back upon its ideal substance. To Spirit consequently is it alone permitted to impress the hall-mark of its infinity and free self-recurrence on its external expression, even though by such expression it enters the realm of narrow boundaries. At the same time we may observe that Spirit, too, is only free and infinite in so far as it truly apprehends its universality, and deliberately posits for itself and accepts those ends which are adequate to its own notion.” (Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, Vol. I, 211)

“To the ordinary consciousness of everyday life the object of perception, no doubt, breaks away from mind, as though our thought stood in opposition to Nature, which receives from us a validity equal at least to the consciousness which perceives it. But in this way of looking at Nature and the conscious subject as two neighbors set over against one another in territories equally self-subsistent it is only the finite and limited mind, not that which it is as an infinite substance and in its notional truth, which is apprehended. Nature is not thus to be set over against absolute Mind, either as conjoint with a sphere of the Real of equal worth, or as an independent boundary thereto. Rather the aspect which Nature appears to hold in this respect is that which mind or spirit itself sets up, and of which it becomes the product as a Nature in which limit and boundary are themselves determining constituents. In fact, Mind in its absolute or infinite substance can only be apprehended as this free activity, which is manifested in self-development through differentiation. This object, this other, through which such differentiation proceeds, is regarded in such opposition as Nature, but as the object of intelligence it is quite as much indebted to Mind for the free gift and fulness of its own essential substance. We must therefore conceive Nature as herself containing in potency the absolute Idea. She is that Idea in apparent shape, which mind, in its synthetic power, posits as the object opposed to self. She is so far a product, a creation. The truth of Nature therefore is simply the determination by mind of its own substance, its ideality and power of determination, through a process which no doubt begins with a separation of itself into two factors which apparently negate each other, but which, by the very activity of such negation and separation, passes beyond the contradiction it implies to a unity which heals the fracture. Instead of finding ourselves opposed to a limit and a barrier we have a totality in which the parts which opposed each other are fused together by the free universality of mind. This ideality, in other words this infinite power of determination, is that which constitutes the profound notion of Mind’s subjectivity.” (Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, Vol. I, 126-127)

“Mind grasps its finiteness as the negation of its own essential substance, and is aware of its infinity. And this essential truth of the finite mind is the absolute Mind or Spirit. In this form of self-consciousness mind is merely actualized as absolute negativity. The elements of finitude which it confronts is apprehended as such and annulled. In this, the highest sphere of its activity, mind becomes the object of volition. The Absolute itself becomes the object of mind. Spirit, as self-consciousness, differentiates itself as the knowing subject from the absolute Spirit as the object of knowledge. Mind in this latter sense, in contradistinction from mind which has not overcome the conditions of finite perception, may therefore be defined as a finite mind in possession of the principle of differentiation from its true object. In the higher and more speculative consideration of truth, however, it is the absolute mind itself, which, in order to unfold explicitly, the knowledge of itself, essentially becomes a principle of differentiation to itself, and thereby posits the finitude of mind, within which it becomes for itself absolute object of the knowledge of itself.” (Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, Vol. I, 128-129)

“In the emotional life the Soul finds its true expression as Soul. For soul the mere juxtaposition of limbs have no real truth, and in the presence of its subjective ideality the purely spatial multiplicity of external configuration ceases to exist. Such a manifold, with its unique differentiations, its organic articulation of parts is no doubt presupposed; but when and in so far as the soul expresses itself through such in feeling the more inward unity ever-present to life asserts itself equally as the dissolution of all absolute independence between physical parts, which reveal now not merely their materia, but also that wave of animation which fuses all in their soul.” (Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, Vol. I, 174-175)

“We must, indeed, think of [Experience] as having life in itself and therefore as differentiating itself from itself; but this differentiation is held within the limit of its unity, it is a separation of movements which are separated only as they are united.” (Caird, Metaphysic, 87)

The Structure of Experience and the Beauty of Leibniz’s Mill

“[Leibniz’s Mill] is an instance of the phenomenological fallacy—the idea that if minds are brains, the brain would have to have the properties perceived.” (Digital Gnosis)

Unfortunately, this is a mistake. Leibniz, for all his faults and shortcomings, did not fall prey to the “phenomenological fallacy” when he penned §17 of The Monadology. To understand why he did not commit this fallacy—if it even is a “fallacy”—it would be helpful to go into what the “phenomenological fallacy” actually is. One commits the “phenomenological fallacy if they attribute the characteristics of an Experience’s “content” to the Experience itself. (e.g., Supposing that the “sensation of redness” is what is “red” or the “perception of blueness” is what is “blue”). The “phenomenological fallacy” was introduced by U.T. Place as a “cheap and easy” way of discrediting conceptions of Experience other than his own.

“The “phenomenological fallacy” is the mistake of supposing that when the subject describes his experience, when he describes how things look, sound, smell, taste, or feel to him, he is describing the literal properties of objects and events on a peculiar sort of internal cinema or television screen, usually referred to in the modern psychological literature as the “phenomenal field”. If we assume, for example, that when a subject reports a green after-image he is asserting the occurrence inside himself of an object which is literally green, it is clear that we have on our hands an entity for which there is no place in the world of physics….The phenomenological fallacy…depends on the mistaken assumption that because our ability to describe things in our environment depends on our consciousness of them, our descriptions of things are primarily descriptions of our conscious experience and only secondarily, indirectly and inferentially descriptions of the objects and events in our environments.” (Place, Is Consciousness a Brain Process?, 49) 

Now, let’s move on to the question of Leibniz’s Mill itself. If we turn to §17 of The Monadology, we are greeted with the following eloquent passage:

“It must be confessed, however, that Perception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another, but never would he find anything to explain Perception. It is accordingly in the simple substance, and not in the composite nor in a machine that the Perception is to be sought. Furthermore, there is nothing besides perceptions and their changes to be found in the simple substance. And it is in these alone that all the internal activities of the simple substances can consist.” (Leibniz, The Monadology, §17)

To better understand Leibniz’s Mill, let’s consult the previous sections of The Monadology where Leibniz emphasizes the fact that the “self-differentiated” structure of Experience (i.e., “perception”) is a “multiplicity-in-unity”—it is “internally-differentiated.”

“Now besides this principle of change there must also be in the Monad a manifoldness which changes. This manifoldness constitutes, so to speak, the specific nature and the variety of the simple substances….This manifoldness must involve multiplicity in the unity or in that which is simple….The passing condition which involves and represents a multiplicity in the unity, or in the simple substance, is nothing else than what is called Perception….We, ourselves, experience a multiplicity in a simple substance, when we find that the most trifling thought of which we are conscious involves a variety in the object.” (Leibniz, The Monadology, §12-§16)

Before continuing, it is necessary to sketch the nature of Experience and Matter. Now, there is an important likeness between Experience and Matter: both are “self-differentiated.” However, there are distinctive characteristics peculiar to Experience and Matter’s respective “self-differentiations.” Experience must be conceived as a particular unity-of-the-manifold. Indeed, as F.H. Bradley once put it, Experience is “a unity of the manifold in which the externality of the manifold has utterly ceased.” Experience is exhaustively self-differentiated “into-itself” (i.e.., “Partes intra partes”), whereas Matter is exhaustively self-differentiated “out-of-itself” (i.e.., “Partes extra partes”). Hegel elegantly presents a concise illustration of this in his Introduction to the Philosophy of History:

“The nature of Spirit [i.e., Experience] may be understood by a glance at its direct opposite—Matter. As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom….Matter possesses gravity in virtue of its tendency toward a central point. It is essentially composite; consisting of parts that exclude each other. It seeks its Unity; and therefore exhibits itself as self-destructive, as verging toward its opposite [an indivisible point]. If it could attain this, it would be Matter no longer, it would have perished. It strives after the realization of its Idea; for in Unity it exists ideally. Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as that which has its center in itself. It has not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in and with itself. Matter has its essence out of itself; Spirit is self-contained existence….This self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness—consciousness of one’s own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self-consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially.” (Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, 18)

Echoing Hegel, the British Idealist philosopher Edward Caird writes:

“We must, indeed, think of [Experience] as having life in itself and therefore as differentiating itself from itself; but this differentiation is held within the limit of its unity, it is a separation of movements which are separated only as they are united.” (Caird, Metaphysic, 434)

And again, we find a similar theme in Giovanni Gentile’s work:

“But by [inward] we do not mean to point to a specific part of space outside of which there would be another part….The inward is nothing but the negation of the outward; but it is not the negation of the specific difference by which, for instance, the space outside a circle is distinguished from the space inside it; rather it is the negation also of the proximate genus within a given space which may indifferently be called inside or outside, depending on whether the observer places himself inside or outside the circumference. Since in space all things are mutually external, everything can be reduced to a sum of parts or points alongside one another; there is nothing but the multiplicity of elements, every one of which is outside all the others. The externality, which is negated [in our consciousness of it], is not a relative but an absolute externality; and that which negates it is not a relative but an absolute inwardness. Within this absolute inwardness, which is characteristic of thought…everything becomes internal, that is to say everything which, from a spatial point of view, seemed outside us, intrinsically external by the multiplicity of its elements alongside one another. Even space reveals itself as the form of a certain level of experience. This form is proper to the spirit and intrinsic in it: hence the possibility of [our being conscious of] not only our bodies and all their organs, but everything that surrounds our bodies, from the nearest to the most remote, everything in heaven or in earth, real or imaginary. Everything is inward, where the foundation of everything lies. If that foundation is denied, all will inevitably collapse.“ (Gentile, The Philosophy of Art, 56-57)

Whereas Experience “has its center in itself,” Matter has its center “out of itself.” For, Matter is exhausted by the reciprocal exclusion and repulsion of its composite parts. All parts of Matter exemplify nothing other than flatness, out-spreadedness, and side-by-sidedness. Matter is never at home with itself; indeed, Matter is neither “transparent-to-itself,” nor does it return “into-itself” or “into-its-parts.” Matter is “opaque-to-itself.” Indeed, Matter is “simple” in all of its dimensions: the entirety of its character is determined by what lies “outside” it. 

Gyrating patterns of physical particles are, therefore, in toto, pervaded by a self-othering “side-by-sidedness.” Indeed, these events quâ “material happenings” (i.e., processes that “outspread” and “diffuse” themselves across an extended, spatio-temporal manifold) are what they are only insofar as their “unfoldings” are repulsions “out-of-themselves”—no one of these “repulsions” either being, or having, a “moment of return” (i.e., a differentiation or phase wherein there is an “overreaching,” “including,” or “enveloping” of the distinction between “itself” and its “other” within “itself”). For any such “material happening”—regardless of its peculiar kind or character—there is neither an “interpenetration,” nor a “mutual-inclusion,” of its manifold differentiations or phases; on the contrary, we only find its differentiations or phases “withdrawing-towards-Others” (i.e., “passing-out-of-themselves” at the expense of their own self-identity). However, these “Others”—the “beyonds” towards which the differentiations or phases of a “material happening” seek to “withdraw”—are themselves repulsions “out-of-themselves”—prolonging the monotony ad infinitum. 

The only spatial “representation” that might help us illustrate (pictorially) the “Partes intra partes” character of Experience would be a torus undergoing “hyperspace rotation” (i.e., rotating in a poloidal direction). Such a torus would be simultaneously “rotating-out-of-itself” and “rotating-into-itself, “moving-away-from-itself” and “moving-into-itself,” and “diffusing-itself-out-of-itself” and “infusing-itself-into-itself.” It is important to note that it is impossible for a physical object to undergo “hyperspace rotation” in a three-dimensional space without tearing itself apart. Here is an animation that I found which just so happens to represent what I have in mind:

Now, in order to grasp how the nature of Experience is “analogous” to a torus engaging in “hyperspace rotation,” we ought to replace the “spatial language” used in our illustration with expressions that best represent different modes of “differentiation.” Thus, we should understand Experience in its “Unity” as having been represented by the torus as a whole. Now, as mentioned above, Experience is exhaustively self-differentiated. We should understand Experience’s “exhaustive self-differentiation” (or Experience in its “Manyness”) as having been represented by the torus “rotating-out-of-itself.” However, Experience is not a mere “Many;” on the contrary, it is also a “One.” Thus, Experience is not merely “exhaustively self-differentiated,” rather Experience is exhaustively self-differentiated to, through, and for, itself (i.e., A manner or mode of differentiation that is a “differentiation-into-self”). We should understand Experience’s “exhaustive self-differentiation to, through, and for, itself” as having been represented by the torus “rotating-into-itself.”

We are thus able to see how Experience transcends, includes, and manifests itself as a Unity of Oneness and Manyness. Indeed, Experience simultaneously transcends and includes within itself, and expresses itself as, both Subject and Object. For, Subjectivity is Experience-in-its-Manyness “flowing” or “converging” into Experience-in-its-Unity. Objectivity is Experience-in-its-Unity “diffusing” or “differentiating-itself-out-of-itself” through Manyness. By “differentiating-itself-out-of-itself,” Experience manifests itself as Objectivity. In doing so, Experience’s manifold “differentiations-out-of-self” (i.e., Experience-in-its-Objectivity) flow or converge “inward” to, through, and for Experience-in-its-Subjectivity (i.e., the Subject). H.H. Joachim beautifully captures this “toroidal” character of Experience in the following illustration:

“[In self-consciousness] “I” am for myself a centre from which radiate, or a focus in which converge, certain rays of immediate consciousness….For all my experiences…are “immediately for me,” are “appropriations” of my inward spirituality: and thus considered they are rays streaming from, and converging into, the centre or focus which is myself….If “I” am a centre, my centrality is also its own circumference: and if I am a “focus,” the “focus” is one with the rays which it focuses.” (Joachim, Some Preliminary Considerations on Self-Identity, 53)

With that being said, I’ll conclude this brief essay by presenting my own adaptation of Leibniz’s Mill:

If we were to take infinitely many coplanar geometrical figures of various determinable shapes and sizes, and have them expand, contract, and move about for an infinite time, we can rest assured that no transformation, redistribution, pattern, or collision of said figures will ever yield a new figure with “cubical content”—a figure that not only exhibits a new dimension, but also envelops those aforementioned plane geometrical figures. Indeed, all qualitative changes and transformations in those figures—and patterns thereof—will always be determinate manifestations of a generic character—or determinable—that had hitherto manifested itself in another determinate form. If, after an infinite time, a change in the arrangement of those coplanar geometrical figures resulted in the manifestation of a new figure exhibiting “cubical content” and enveloping those aforementioned coplanar geometrical figures that gave rise to it, then said manifestation would be the manifestation of a new determinable that was itself “inclusive of” the former determinable, without itself being “included under it” as a determinate manifestation of said determinable. Such an incoherent and disparate breach of continuity is paralleled in the idea that—at some point in time—Experience was “birthed” by transformations and redistributions in Matter.

Far from being an instance of the “phenomenological fallacy,” Leibniz’s Mill is an illustration of the fact that qualitative changes and alterations in the structure and arrangement of material objects (e.g., changes consisting in transformations such as dilations, expansions, translations, rotations, reflections, etc.) cannot account for what would be the manifestation of a new determinable (hitherto unmanifested) that (1) exhibits an “internally-differentiated” structure, and (2) is “inclusive of” the material objects that are alleged to have given rise to it. This new determinable would be none other than Experience.

Reading Notes: October 7th, 2024

“When we compare [Dr. George Galloway’s The Philosophy of Religion] with those of the previous generation; with Martineau or the Cairds, for example, we become conscious of a change of spirit. It might be expressed by saying that the philosophy of religion has become more objective. The whole problem is not now comprised in the development of a speculative theory of religion; the philosopher feels himself compelled to approach the central problem of validity through an independent study of the empirical data. Thus Dr. Galloway devotes at least half his book to the discussion of the historical development of religion and the psychology of the religious consciousness. This increased “objectivity” undoubtedly involves a certain loss of artistic unity, and it also makes very large demands on the learning of a writer; as Dr. Galloway modestly remarks, “it is too much to expect that the religious philosopher can personally traverse this broad territory and make himself acquainted with all its various features.” Yet this new attitude has obvious compensations from the point of view of the reader; we may learn with confidence facts and tendencies from a writer whose philosophical opinions may be unacceptable….When Dr. Galloway comes to work out his view of the universe we find clear indications that he has felt the influence of the reaction against Absolutism. With William James he protests against the “Block Universe;” with the New Realists he denies that Idealism can explain the concrete facts of experience. I think that he does not always do justice to the views of Absolute Idealism; probably Mr. Bradley’s recent volume of essays was published too late to be made use of.” (Matthews, Review of George Galloways “The Philosophy of Religion” (1914), 116-118)

“The external world is the object that acts on man’s organs of sense, and in the internal sense-centres of the cortex of the brain these impressions are subjectively transformed into presentations. The thought-centres, or association centres, of the cortex (whether or no one distinguishes them from the sense-centres) are the real organs of the mind that unite these presentations into conclusions. The two methods of forming these conclusions—induction and deduction, the formation of arguments and concepts, thought and consciousness—make up together the cerebral function we call reason.” (Haeckel, The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, 4)

“Among the censures which the academic metaphysicians, especially in Germany, have passed on my Riddle of the Universe, the heaviest is perhaps the charge that I know nothing whatever about the theory of knowledge. The charge is correct to this extent, that I do not understand the current dualistic theory of knowledge which is based on Kant’s metaphysics; I cannot understand how their introspective psychological methods—disdaining all physiological, histological, or phylogenetic foundations can satisfy the demands of “pure reason.” My monistic theory of knowledge is assuredly very different from this. It is firmly and thoroughly based on the splendid advances of modern physiology, histology, and phylogeny—on the remarkable results of these empirical sciences in the last forty years, which are entirely ignored by the prevailing system of metaphysics.” (Haeckel, The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, 11-12)

“As an old medical maxim runs, Pathologia physiologiam illustrat—the science of disease throws light on the sound organism.” (Haeckel, The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, 40)

Reading Notes: October 3rd, 2024

“What is implied in [the unity of mind]? It is clear that whatever else it implies, it at least involves the interconnexion of different cognitions, feelings, and conations with each other as entering into a complex unity of an altogether unique kind….[At] any rate, there is a complex mental life—a mind-complex….We must then analyze the mind-complex, so as to determine wherein its unity consists, and what is and is not included in the unity of the manifold. We have first to note that there are two sides to our mental life, distinct though inseparable, which are broadly distinguishable as (1) knowledge of objects, and (2) interest in them. In discussing the unity of the mind-complex, it is necessary for the sake of clearness to deal first with cognitive unity and then with unity of interest. (For reasons which will appear as we proceed, it would be impossible to reverse this order).” (Stout, God & Nature, 264-265)

“What is the unity of knowledge?....Unity of knowledge is identical with knowledge of unity. [Unity of knowledge] is actual or potentially present if and so far as items in any way diverse are or can be known or thought of as in any way connected or related, or as partial features or aspects of any kind of whole….If such relations [between diverse items] are not actually known or thought of, yet, in so far as it is possible that they may be so, the cognitive unity is potential. On the other hand, where distinct items are severally apprehended but without any cognisance, actual or potential, of relation between them, there is no cognitive unity….[This analysis must be expanded to] account for cognitive unity, actual or potential, as coextensive with the unity of the individual “I” or “self”….We have, then, still to account for cognitive unity as necessarily pervading and connecting, potentially or actually, all stages and phases in the life-history of an individual [mind-complex]….We can do this only in one way. There must be for the knowing individual [mind-complex], one all-inclusive object, comprehending all other objects—whether particular or universal, actual, possible or impossible—as its partial and essentially incomplete features and aspects. It follows that whatever else the individual knows he must in some measure and degree, however rudimentary, be cognisant of the universe in its unity. But how? In very different ways and degrees, varying with the special conditions of individual existence and stages of mental development; different for us…and for the cat watching a mouse-hole. Yet the cat’s knowledge, just as much as ours, presupposes the unity of the universe; otherwise it could never go beyond the content of its own immediate experience, and could not even know this.” (Stout, God & Nature, 265-267)

“Cognitive unity includes not only what is commonly called knowledge, but also what is commonly called ignorance. This would be impossible if the ignorance consisted in the absolute absence of all cognitive relation between the [mind-complex] and what it is ignorant of. But this is not so. We may indeed, by straining the use of language, say that a stone is absolutely ignorant in this sense. It is so because it is also incapable of knowledge. The stone does not know what is happening at the center of the earth; neither do I. But the stone’s ignorance, if we may use the word at all, is essentially different from mine. What I say that I am ignorant of, I at least know as being unknown to me, and as connected with what I do know. In this sense my ignorance has an object, and the stone’s has none. In this sense it is equally true to say that the stone is ignorant of everything, and that it is ignorant of nothing. But if I said that I was ignorant of nothing, I could only mean that I know everything. Now we have seen that the cognitive unity of the individual [mind-complex], as pervading, potentially or actually, all phases of his life-history, implies the unity of the universe as the form of all his knowledge. But if this be so, all ignorance on the part of an individual knower must be of the relative type, and not at all comparable with the nescience of a stone. He must at least refer to what he is ignorant of as belonging to the domain of the unknown, and as connected with what he otherwise knows. Thus his cognitive unity will include both his knowledge and his ignorance.” (Stout, God & Nature, 267-268)

“[The fact that cognitive unity includes knowledge and ignorance becomes] plain enough when we consider the mental attitude of questioning or inquiring, of seeking to know what we do not know already. When we raise a question, we do not, indeed, know what the answer is. None the less, in the very act of questioning, we define what it is that we are ignorant of. We define it as related in a more or less determinate way to what is presupposed in the question itself. What is thus presupposed is apprehended as essentially incomplete, and the answer is apprehended as what is required to complete it. But if knowledge of the unknown, as such, is implied in the ignorance which takes shape in actual questions, it must also be implied in the ignorance which does not. It is implied in the mere possibility of asking questions, so far as this depends on the nature of the object, and not on the subjective interest or other special conditions of individual existence. There must be a field for inquiry offered to the cognitive subject—a field apprehended as unknown, an object therefore of relative and not absolute ignorance. But what we know and what, in this relative sense, we do not know, constitute together one universe of being, which is the correlate and counterpart of the unity of knowledge….The unity of knowledge is essential to the unity and identity of every cognitive individual….[and] consists throughout in apprehension of relation and connexion, it embraces the field of what we call ignorance, and is essentially correlated with the unity of the universe.” (Stout, God & Nature, 268-271)