Fragmentary Notes §46—§47

§46

Objects “appear” and manifest themselves perspectivally; however, an Object’s various “appearance-patterns” do not themselves “appear” or manifest themselves perspectivally, rather they are the “appearings” of the Object. Fleeting and transitory, an “appearance-pattern” is ideal—it is essentially incomplete and fragmentary. It passes beyond itself and strives for completion and stability in what lies beyond itself.

§47

In referring to myself as “I”, I consciously determine myself as a being of which I am conscious; I posit myself as knowing, and knowing myself as such—thus, I establish myself as an identity of Subject and Object. As Object, I am enveloped within my own knowledge; as Subject, I am the enveloping.

A Question Concerning Schopenhauer’s Conception of the Principium Individuationis

“Basically, Schopenhauer holds that the multiplicity that we see is something constructed by our cognition. My question is this: Fair enough—multiplicity as we experience it is a product of our cognition. But how can we rule out that in the “Thing-in-itself” there’s some non-cognitive process that individuates things?”

This is an interesting question. I’ll try to clarify Schopenhauer’s (sometimes inconsistent) views on the issue and provide what I think would be his answer to your question.

For Schopenhauer, all “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” are features made possible by the principium individuations; and this, Schopenhauer maintained, was Space-Time. Thus, the categories or determinations of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” all, in some way or another, invoke Space-Time. Now, Space-Time, as Schopenhauer points out, has its being (i.e., “realizes” or “manifests” itself) in and through its “operations” as spatio-temporal relations (or spatio-temporal “relatings”) holding good of, and within, Substance (i.e., “matter” and its affections—or “causality”). Thus, the principium individuationis has its being only through Substance. Indeed, this principle has no being apart from its manifestation, and this manifestation just is the differentiating of Substance.

  

Schopenhauer held to an idiosyncratic form of an empiricist criterion of meaning—which explains why he believed that the predicates of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” could only be sensibly ascribed to Substance (i.e., “matter”).

 

Now, Schopenhauer maintained that Substance (i.e., “matter”) is a function (or correlate) of the Understanding—just as much as the Understanding is a function (or correlate) of Substance. This correlativity entails that Space-Time (i.e., the principium individuationis) is inextricably tied to the Understanding: the two stand and fall together, and the predicates of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” cannot be sensibly ascribed to anything that was not itself a mode or modification of matter—the sensible correlative of the Understanding (i.e., cognition). 

Furthermore, since Schopenhauer reserves the features of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” for Substance (which itself has no being apart from Space-Time), he would reject the notion that “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” is a “One” or a “Unity.” Indeed, Schopenhauer mentions (in some place, I can’t remember where exactly) that “oneness” or “unity” cannot be predicated of “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” in any but a metaphorical sense. “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” is the ground of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity.” If anything, “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” ought to be grasped as a “one-in-many” and as a “unity-in-multiplicity” (expressions which Schopenhauer would likely find objectionable because of its “Hegelian” tones).

Physiological Subjectivism

This article is a critique of what I call “physiological subjectivism.” Physiological subjectivists maintain, in some form or another, the following positions: (i) Subjects only perceive elements contained in a set E (e.g., set E being the set of possible and actual “representations,” “appearances,” sensa, or percepta) and (ii) Subjects (namely neuroscientists and physiologists) have empirical evidence of Subjects’ nervous systems “producing,” “causing” (or causally determining), “shaping,” or  “filtering” all of the “representations,” “appearances,” sensa, or percepta perceived by Subjects. The following passages are excellent illustrations of physiological subjectivism:

“We never perceive the objects of the external world immediately, rather we perceive only the effects of these objects upon our nervous apparatus, and this has been so from the first moment of our life. By what means then have we been brought from the world of the sensations of our nerves to the world of reality? Obviously only through an inference; we must posit the presence of external objects as causes of our nervous excitation; for there can be no effect without a cause.” (Helmholtz, Philosophische Vorträge, 115-116) 

“All facts, every observation of a flower, or an insect, the discovery of the world, or the detection of the characteristics of man, what else are they but relations of objects to our senses? If a rotifer has but one eye consisting of a cornea only, will it not receive other pictures of objects than the spider, which exhibits in addition lenses and vitreous bodies? And accordingly the knowledge of the insect, the knowledge of the effects of the outer world is different in the case of the insect and in the case of man. Above the knowledge of these relations to the instruments of his apprehension neither man nor God can raise himself....Thus then we know everything in relation to ourselves; we know what the sun looks like to us, how the flower smells to man, how the vibrations of the air affect the human ear. This has been called a limited knowledge, a human knowledge conditioned by the senses, a knowledge that merely observes the tree as it is to us. That is very little, it has been said; we must know how the tree is in itself, that we may not longer delude ourselves that it is as it appears to us….But where then is this tree in itself that we are looking for? Does not all knowledge presuppose someone that knowledge, and consequently a relation between the object and the observer? The observer may be an insect, a man, or, if there are such things, an angel. If the two things exist, the tree and the man, it is just as necessary for the tree as for the man that it stands to him in a relation that manifests itself by the impression upon his eye. Without relation to the eye into which it sends its rays there is no tree. It is simply by this relation that the tree is in itself….All existence is an existence by means of qualities. But there is no quality that does not exist simply through a relation….Steel is hard as opposed to soft butter, ice is only cold to the warm hand, trees only green to the healthy eye.” (Jacob Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 15-19)  

“It is natural to suppose that what the physiologist sees is in the brain he is observing. But if we are speaking of physical space, what the physiologist sees is in his own brain.” (Russell, An Outline of Philosophy, 146) 

“What you see when you look at a brain through a microscope is part of your private world….What I maintain is that we can witness or observe what goes on in our own heads, and that we cannot witness or observe anything else at all.” (Russell, My Philosophical Development, 18-19) 

“The whole of my perceptual world is...in my head and occupies a volume smaller than my head.” (Russell, The Analysis of Matter, 145) 

“The whole of a man’s visual space is, for physics, inside his head....All our percepts are in our head.” (Russell, The Analysis of Matter, 253)  

“We do not know much about the contents of any part of the world except our own heads.....Whoever accepts the causal theory of perception is compelled to conclude that percepts are in our heads....It follows from this that what the physiologist sees when he examines a brain is in the physiologist, not in the brain he is examining.” (Russell, The Analysis of Matter, 319) 

“The object of sense must be within my nervous system in order to be sensible...it is the nervous system itself sensibly affected. The hot felt is the tactile nerves heated, the white seen is the optic nerves so coloured….The sensible object then is…an effect in the nervous system.” (Case, Physical Realism, 22)

“What do we see when we look at a table? First and foremost, a lighted region containing some air, lit by rays coming partly from the direction of the table, partly from other sources; then the further boundaries of this region, surfaces of objects, including part of the surface of the table….And where is colour according to this scheme? Somewhere in the eye, as anyone who cares to strike his eye will discover….Thus what is directly apprehended is a modification of a sense organ, and its apprehension is a further modification of the nervous system...” (Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, 176-178) 

“Whether beautiful or ugly or just conveniently at hand, the world of experience is produced by the man who experiences it. This is not the attitude of a skeptic, only of a psychologist. There certainly is a real world of trees and people and cars and even books, and it has a great deal to do with our experiences of these objects. However, we have no direct, immediate access to the world, nor to any of its properties. The ancient theory of eidola, which supposed that faint copies of objects can enter the mind directly, must be rejected. Whatever we know about reality has been mediated, not only by the organs of sense but by complex systems which interpret and reinterpret sensory information. Physically, this page is an array of small mounds of ink, lying in certain positions on the more highly reflective surface of the paper. It is this physical page which Koffka (1935) and others would have called the “distal stimulus,” and from which the reader is hopefully acquiring some information. But the sensory input is not the page itself; it is a pattern of light rays, originating in the sun or in some artificial source, that are reflected from the page and happen to reach the eye. Suitably focused by the lens and other ocular apparatus, the rays fall on the sensitive retina, where they can initiate the neural processes that eventually lead to seeing and reading and remembering. These patterns of light at the retina are the so-called “proximal stimuli.” They are not the least bit like eidola. One-sided in their perspective, shifting radically several times each second, unique and novel at every moment, the proximal stimuli bear little resemblance to either the real object that gave rise to them or to the object of experience that the perceiver will construct as a result….Our knowledge of the world must be somehow developed from the stimulus input; the theory of eidola is false.” (Neisser, Cognitive Psychology, 3-5) 

“A percept is the creation of a given neuronal system...” (Moutoussis, The Machine Behind the Stage: A Neurobiological Approach toward Theoretical Issues of Sensory Perception, 2) 

“A person’s entire life experience—everyone, everything, every experience he or she has ever known—exists to that person only as a function of his or her brain’s activity....Neurologist and Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles wrote that the natural world contains no color, sound, textures, patterns, beauty, or scent. Thus, color, brightness, smell, and sound are...created by complicated brain circuits.” (Martinez-Conde and Macknik, Entry on “Nonveridical Perception” in The Encyclopedia of Perception, Vol. I, 637-642) 

“Bitterness or sweetness are, like colors, creations of the nervous system. An analogous situation exists for smell.” (Goldstein, Entry on “The Private Nature of Perceptual Experience” in The Encyclopedia of Perception, Vol. I, 829)

And so, in the words of James Ward, “into the man’s head the whole world goes, including the head itself.” The following argument of mine is a demonstration of the self-undermining character of physiological subjectivism; indeed, we may say that the physiological subjectivist must answer the following question in the negative: “Is the truth of this theory consistent with the fact that I know it to be true?” (Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, 90).

P1) If a Subject is committed to the position that (i) Subjects only perceive elements contained in set E, and (ii) Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to the position that B is not an element contained in set E.

If a Subject is committed to the position that (i) all elements contained in set E are “produced,” “caused,” “shaped,” or “filtered” by B, and (ii) B is an element contained in set E, then said Subject would be committed to the position that B—an element contained in set E—was “produced,” “caused,” “shaped,” or “filtered” by B. However, such a position is contradictory; for, B cannot be “self-produced,” “self-caused,” “self-shaped,” or “self-filtered.” Therefore, if a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then he is committed to the position that B is not an element contained in set E.

P2) If a Subject is committed to the position that B is not an element contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B.

If a Subject is committed to the position that (i) Subjects only perceive elements contained in set E, and (ii) B is not an element contained in set E, it follows that he is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B. For, if he were committed to the position that Subjects can—in principle—perceive B, then he would be committed to the contradictory position that B both is, and is not, an element contained in set E. Therefore, if a Subject is committed to the position that B is not an element contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B.

P3) If a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects have never perceived B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E.

If a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B, then it immediately follows that he is also committed to the position that Subjects have never perceived B engaging in any form of activity, let alone perceive B “producing,” “causing,” or “shaping” all elements contained in set E. Indeed, if he were committed to the position that Subjects can—in principle—perceive B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then he would be committed to the position that B is an element contained in set E. However, if he is committed to the position that B is an element contained in set E, then he would be committed to the position that B was “self-produced,” “self-caused,” “self-shaped,” or “self-filtered”—and such a position is self-contradictory. Therefore, if a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects have never perceived B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E.

P4) If a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects have never perceived B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E.

Empirical evidence consists in evidence that one can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell; indeed, empirical evidence is perceptible evidence. However, if a Subject is committed to the position that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B, and that Subjects cannot—in principle—perceive B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then it follows that said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E.

C1) Therefore, if a Subject is committed to the position that (i) Subjects only perceive elements contained in set E and (ii) Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to the position that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E. [From P1—P4]

P5) But the position that (ii) Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, and the position that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, contradict each other.

This is should be obvious. If it is true that Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then it is false that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all all elements contained in set E; and if it is true that Subjects do not have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then it is false that Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E.

C2) Therefore, if a Subject is committed to the position that (i) Subjects only perceive elements contained in set E and (ii) Subjects have empirical evidence of B “producing,” “causing,” “shaping,” or “filtering” all elements contained in set E, then said Subject is committed to a contradiction. [From C1—P5]

In fact, we can make a parallel argument against certain forms of Materialism that claim support from physiology:

All parts of Nature are “produced” by my body.

How could they not be? After all, according to Materialism, my percepta (i.e., what I perceive) are states and affections of my nervous system.

My body is itself a part of Nature.

How could it not be? After all, my body and its internal organs and nerves are themselves perceptible; for, if they could not be perceived, then they would be nothing to me at all. Indeed, if my body was not perceptible, then what empirical grounds would Materialism have for asserting that what I perceive depends upon my nervous system? We are thus left with the following absurdity:

All parts of Nature are “produced” by a “self-producing” part of Nature.

If you are interested in learning more about the general argument which my post expounds upon, please confer Chapter 22, “Nature,” in F.H. Bradley’s 1893 magnum opus, Appearance and Reality and Chapter IV, “The Physiology of the Sense Organs and the World as Representation,” in Volume III of F.A. Lange’s excellent work, The History of Materialism.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Qualities

It is frequently maintained that the secondary and tertiary qualities that appear to saturate the world of Experience are nothing more than residual excrescences supervening on the “extended.” This view gains its support by an appeal to the relativity of the world’s apparent qualitative characteristics in contrast to the alleged constancy and permanence of the world’s quantitative determinations. This is the view of Materialism. The Materialist places the “real” nature and essence of the world in the latter species of characteristics, whilst relegating the former to the realm of “unreality” and “appearance.”

Materialism proceeds in the following way:

The colors, textures, odors, sounds, temperatures, and tastes—all of which being qualities that we perceive objects as having—fluctuate and change in relation to the states of our sense organs and nervous systems. However, these Objects would have incompatible characteristics at the same time if all the colors, textures, odors, sounds, temperatures, and tastes that we perceived them as having were actual properties of said objects. Therefore, it follows, on pain of contradiction, that objects do not possess the colors, textures, odors, sounds, temperatures, and tastes which we perceive them as having (i.e., secondary, and tertiary qualities)—rather, they only “appear” to have them. Indeed, objects are really destitute of color,  texture,  odor, sound, warmth, roughness, smoothness, taste, and so on; they are neither painful nor pleasant, neither small nor large, neither swift nor slow.

However, if secondary and tertiary qualities neither inhere in, nor in any way constitute the “real” nature of objects, then what are these wandering “adjectives” really qualifying? After all, I find myself immersed in a presentational-continuum of secondary and tertiary qualities and, qualities qua qualities must be the “real” qualities of some “substantive”—they cannot be “adjectives” that “really” have themselves as their own “substantives.”

Furthermore, the objects of our dreams feel smooth or rough, they are seen as red or blue, we may feel that they resist our effort and will, they may be felt as heavy or light, we find them as being pleasant or unpleasant, they are taken to be agreeable or disagreeable, etc. However, it is clear that these dream-objects do not enter into those relations with my sense organs that objects of my waking-life must enter into for their “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities to come into being. Indeed, the “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities that I perceive dream-objects as having must really qualify them. For, when I dream, I may touch the smooth surface of an apple, taste its sweetness, observe its rounded shape and color; however, said apple would not in any way be impinging upon those “real” sense organs of my waking-life. On the other hand, if I am asleep under an apple tree, an apple (i.e., an apple existing in the world that I encounter in my waking-life) may fall from the tree and impinge upon my sense organs, but such an impingement would not result in said apple suddenly possessing an “apparent” redness, “apparent” smoothness, “apparent” roundness, etc., either for me, or for anyone else.

Suppose the Materialist suggests that these “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities latently “slumber” within our nervous systems, and that whenever we perceive objects (both in our dream-life and waking-life) it is actually our nervous systems that possess the “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities that we perceive the objects in our dream-life and waking-life as having. This cannot be the case. After all, according to the Materialist, our nervous systems are themselves objects, and neither secondary qualities nor tertiary qualities either inhere in, or in any way constitute them. Let’s illustrate the dilemma that would ensue. Take, for instance, a sense organ, such as an eye. For the Materialist, an eye, E1, like any other object, does not possess qualities (neither secondary nor tertiary), but only “appears” to possess qualities when it enters into a special relation with either (i) a mirror—itself an object, or (ii) another eye, E2—itself being another object. However, since (i) and (ii) are both objects, the Materialist is forced to maintain that neither (i) nor (ii) possess qualities—they only “appear” to possess qualities when they enter into special relations with either E1—itself an object, or another eye, E3—itself being another object. So too is the case for our nervous systems. A part of a nervous system, N1, is itself an object, so N1 does not possess qualities—it only “appears” to possess qualities when it enters into a special relation with another part of itself (or another nervous system), N2, which is itself destitute of qualities, and only “appears” to possess qualities when it enters into a special relation with either N1 or another part of itself (or another nervous system), N3; and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.  

Now, we saw that the Materialist condemns secondary qualities and tertiary qualities to the realm of “appearance” on the basis of their alleged impermanence and relativity to our sense organs and nervous systems. The Materialist then goes on to place the “reality” of the objects—i.e., their “inherent” properties—in spatial and quantitative characteristics. For, according to the Materialist, the extended and quantitative is unwavering in its permanence—it is the reliable, and palpable kernel of every object, irrespective of our nervous systems, our sense organs, and our Experience. The Materialist maintains that he arrives at this result by means of argument and empirical evidence. However, is their line of reasoning even valid? There are several objections which can be made against it.

Every object that we distinguish and isolate within the sphere of Experience is always presented to us as indissolubly infused with “apparent” primary qualities, “apparent” secondary qualities, and “apparent” tertiary qualities. Examples of the latter two kinds of “apparent” qualities include redness, hardness, smoothness, roundedness, and fragrance; painfulness, pleasantness, bitterness, calmness, soothing, tranquility, and so on. And it is clear that none of these “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities have any “real,” independent being apart from Experience. Now, while it is indeed the case that an object’s “apparent” tertiary qualities are abstractly distinguishable from its “apparent” secondary qualities and “apparent” primary qualities, it is an invalid and fallacious move to go on to say that because it’s “apparent” primary qualities, “apparent” secondary qualities, and “apparent” tertiary qualities are distinguishable in thought, they are therefore separate, independent, and externally related existences in Reality. For example, if, within condition X, it is the case that a, b, and c always accompany each other, it is obviously fallacious to infer from this that without condition X, it would still be the case that a, b, and c would accompany each other just as they did when condition X obtained; and, further, it would also be fallacious to infer that without condition X or c or b, it would still be the case that a would continue to exist in the same manner as it did when condition X obtained and when both b and c were present.

Again, is extension really a property of any object? Extension manifests itself to us only in sight and touch; however, on the Materialist’s view, this extension (i.e., extension-as-seen, extension-as-felt) is none other than an object’s “apparent” extension—and apart from the object’s entrance into certain relations with our sense organs and nervous system, this “apparent” extension doesn’t exist. But, based upon the facts that we have hitherto considered, how can the Materialist validly infer that the “apparent” spatial characteristics—which come to us as inseparably one with “apparent” secondary and “apparent” tertiary qualities—be properties inherent in objects? After all, we have no miraculous a priori intuition of objects as being “really” extended.

On the one hand, it is clear that the “apparent” extension of objects cannot itself be the “real” extension that the Materialist claims. This can be demonstrated in the following way. Whenever we go to sight and touch, we are met with a presentational-continuum of secondary qualities infused with primary qualities. In sight, we encounter “outspreaded” color—differentiated into diverse hues, varying in brightness and intensity; and, in touch, we discover sensations of texture and resistance—exhibiting a certain degree of hardness, smoothness, warmth. These primary and secondary qualities beheld in sight and touch are always infused with tertiary qualities. And, as we have seen above, the Materialist holds that neither secondary nor tertiary qualities are properties of objects. Furthermore, since an object’s “apparent” extension is always infused with “apparent” redness, “apparent” hardness, “apparent” smoothness, “apparent” roundedness, “apparent” pleasantness, “apparent” calmness, etc., the Materialist cannot take this “apparent” extension as something “real” and independently of this “fusion”—on pain of committing a fallacious inference. As we said above: 

If, within condition X, it is the case that a, b, and c always accompany each other, it is obviously fallacious to infer from this that without condition X, it would still be the case that a, b, and c would accompany each other just as they did when condition X obtained; and, further, it would also be fallacious to infer that without condition X or c or b, it would still be the case that a would continue to exist in the same manner as it did when condition X obtained and when both b and c were present.

On the other hand, since the Materialist holds that the “apparent” qualities of objects depend for their existence upon said objects entering into special relations with our sense organs, it immediately follows that the “apparent” spatial characteristics of objects likewise depend for their existence upon said objects entering into special relations with our sense organs. In fact, the Materialist commits himself to the “real” properties of objects being sheltered behind a veil of “appearances”—the “real” properties remaining forever “unbeheld” by us. For, if the “real” spatial characteristics of objects were themselves the object’s “apparent” spatial characteristics, then objects’ “real” spatial characteristics would depend for their existence upon the aforementioned objects entering into special relations with our sense organs—said organs (themselves being objects) having their “real” spatial characteristics only upon their entrance into special relations with other sense organs, and so on, ad infinitum. Furthermore, it is fallacious to infer from an object’s “apparent” spatial characteristics to said object “really” possessing spatial characteristics. Therefore, in order for the Materialist to solidify a foundation for his theory, he must find an object which not merely “appears” to possess spatial characteristics, but “really” does possess spatial characteristics. However, such an endeavor is impossible on the Materialist’s own theory.

As we said above, according to the Materialist’s own theory, the “apparent” qualitative and “apparent” spatial characteristics of objects all depend for their existence upon said objects’ entrance into certain special relations with our sense organs, A. However, this prompts another question. We are forced to ask the Materialist whether or not our sense organs, A, (i.e., the ground of objects’ “apparent” qualitative and “apparent” spatial characteristics) are themselves spatially extended. The Materialist now encounters a dilemma. If he says yes, then he must hold that the real spatial characteristics of any object are identical to its “apparent” spatial characteristics—for, as we have seen above, it is fallacious to infer from an object’s “apparent” spatial characteristics to said object “really” possessing spatial characteristics. Since the Materialist is forced to concede that the real spatial characteristics of any object are identical to its “apparent” spatial characteristics, he lands into a deeper inconsistency. Our sense organs, A, are themselves objects (and, according to the Materialist, really have spatial characteristics), and so A’s real spatial characteristics (i.e., its “apparent” spatial characteristics) have no existence apart from A entering into special relations with our sense organs, B. However, if A’s real spatial characteristics have no existence apart from A’s entrance into a special relation with our sense organs, B, we must ask whether or not B (i.e., those sense organs which are the ground of A’s real spatial characteristics) really has spatial characteristics. We soon find that B, like all other objects, suffers the same fate as A. Since our sense organs, B, are themselves objects, the Materialist is forced to say that B’s real spatial characteristics have no existence apart from B’s entrance into special relations with our sense organs, C, and so on, ad infinitum.

In short, the Materialist must say, and yet cannot say, that objects really have spatial characteristics. On the one hand, if the Materialist says that objects really have spatial characteristics, then he could only do so by venturing into inconsistency by an invalid inference based upon the “apparent” qualitative and “apparent” spatial characteristics of objects that he himself has condemned as not being properties of objects. On the other hand, if the Materialist maintains that the real spatial characteristics of any object are identical to its “apparent” spatial characteristics, then he lands into a vicious regress.