My Version of F.H. Bradley’s “Body–Nature” Antinomy

The physical theorist declares that the qualities and characteristics presented as belonging to a natural object—its “what,” as experienced—are conditioned by and dependent upon the material body of a percipient organism. The theorist invokes the physical constitution of an independently existing body to explain why the object is experienced with these qualities and characteristics—professing both to know this account of his to be true and to possess a warrant for it. And so, the physical theorist goes on to say that the qualities and characteristics that he perceives his body and his surrounding environment as having—i.e., the “what” of his body (as experienced by him) and the “what” of his surrounding environment (as experienced by him)—are conditioned by and dependent upon an independently existing physical body—namely, that which he calls “his body.”

Now, it’s important to keep in mind that every perceived “somewhat”—e.g., a natural object—is identified, distinguished, and referred to through the determinate qualities and characteristics under which it is presented. And this equally applies to the body itself. The physical theorist does not first identify an independently existing physical body and then discover that this body conditions the qualities of his surrounding environment; he identifies his body as one perceived “somewhat” through the qualities under which it is experienced. He identifies objects in his surrounding environment in the same way and distinguishes his body from them through the same qualitative field. Therefore, if the qualities and characteristics under which the body and the surrounding objects are experienced are conditioned by and dependent upon the independently existing body, the physical theorist’s identification of the body already depends upon the qualities whose dependence upon that body he is asserting. To explain the experienced qualities as the products of a relation between an independently existing physical body and an independently existing physical environment, the physical theorist would have to identify both relata and their relation independently of the qualities that the relation is supposed to explain, yet the body, the environment, and the relation between them are all identified through those qualities. The theorist must therefore presuppose the independent determination of the body in order to explain the qualities, while relying upon those same qualities to identify and determine the body. The theorist’s account thus contains a vicious circle: it invokes the body to explain the experienced “what,” although the body itself has been identified through that very “what.” And this is only one of many contradictions that the physical theorist encounters.

A fundamental contradiction arises: At one point in time the physical theorist had no conception of bodies, the environment, etc.; or even of “appearance.” Moreover, (I) on the one hand, that which, prior to the development of his theory, he learned to identify as his body (and which he continues to denote by the expression “my body” even during and after the construction of his theory) would—as a necessary consequence of his later theory (a consequence whose disregard would render his commitments inconsistent, given the conjunction of his account and his professed knowledge of its truth)—fail to perform the explanatory office of the body in his theory’s explanation. It would fail because, if his theory were true, that which the theorist (having entered the world as an infant) first perceived as his body and later learned to denote by the expression “my body,” could only have been an appearance: a perceived “somewhat” identified through qualities and characteristics conditioned by and dependent upon a body. Since the body is itself among the perceived “somewhats,” the body as first perceived could not already have been the independently determinate body required by the explanation. Yet the theorist cannot—on pain of inconsistency—invoke the aforementioned “body” (i.e., something which, ex hypothesi, his own theory would designate as an appearance) to perform the explanatory office of the independently existing body in his theory’s explanation. (II) On the other hand, the content of the theorist’s explanation, as well as his very construction of it, depends upon his continuing—without consciously recognizing the consequence of his own theory—to take for granted that that which he learned to identify as his body (and which he denotes by the expression “my body”) is already an independently existing physical body and therefore performs the explanatory office of the body in his theory’s explanation. In constructing his theory, he must treat the body as an independently existing physical entity in order to explain the experienced qualities; yet his identification of that entity has already been made through those qualities. And so, as a consequence, we find the theorist’s account oscillating between inconsistent commitments. That which the theorist learned to identify as his body (and which he has denoted by the expression “my body” ever since) must therefore, according to the requirements of his explanation, be—and yet, according to the consequences of his theory, cannot be—that allegedly independently existing physical entity whose constitution figures in his explanation. The physical theorist could avoid such a contradiction only if he possessed, a priori, knowledge—both as an infant and throughout his development, including during and after the construction of his theory—of which aspects of the “what” of that which he came to call “my body” disclosed its allegedly independent physical constitution. Such knowledge would have to provide a principle for distinguishing the aspects of the experienced “what” that disclose the independent physical body from those aspects that are conditioned by and dependent upon the relation between that body and the surrounding environment—not to mention relations between that body and its own organs of sense. [Note: In this context, by a priori knowledge, I mean knowledge in the form of true propositions—e.g., propositions about “his” independently existing physical body—whose content and acquisition by the theorist were in no way already “infected” by his perceptual experience without his already being aware of that “infection”]. Unless the physical theorist possessed such knowledge, he would be unable, given the consequences of his own theory’s being true, to “distill” from that experienced “what” anything that could, without inconsistency or vicious circularity, function as the explanatory body in the account he professes to know to be true and for which he professes to possess a warrant. However, since the physical theorist does not possess such a priori knowledge, it follows that the contradiction remains: That which the physical theorist learned to identify as his body (and which he has denoted by the expression “my body” ever since) must therefore, according to the requirements of his explanation, be—and yet, according to the consequences of his explanation, cannot be—that allegedly independently existing physical entity whose constitution figures in his explanation. Q.E.D.