Fichte's Science of Knowledge/Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX.
THE DEDUCTION OF PERCEPTION AND OTHER MENTAL PROCESSES.

E have now completed the general analysis of the elements that enter into consciousness. It remains to make a more special analysis of the elements and processes that go to make up the concrete states of consciousness, It is important, before entering upon this discussion, to understand precisely what is attempted, and the method by which the results are to be brought about.

Consciousness is taken as a fact. This is given to us by experience. We cannot deduce the fact of consciousness. As Fichte repeatedly says, the impinging upon a limit which makes consciousness possible is something that could not have been foreseen. Consciousness being given, we know that this impinging must have taken place. The manner in which this collision is inferred in order that consciousness may be possible, illustrates the general method which we have to follow. Repeatedly Fichte justifies a result in the body of his argument, by urging that without it the unity of consciousness could not exist. Consciousness is thus his only and absolute datum. We are justified in assuming any faculty or any process which may be seen to be involved in this.

It will be noticed that our proceeding is to be scientific rather than philosophical. By this I do not refer to any accuracy in result—for this is to be determined as we advance—but simply to the nature of the assumptions made. We shall not attempt to show the necessity of these assumptions by any deductive process, based upon the nature of the soul or any fundamental idea. We recognize the fact of consciousness, and ask how we can suppose it to have been produced. I have called the method scientific. It may be illustrated by the course adopted by Darwin for working out and defending his theory of Development by Natural Selection. An animal is found possessing a certain organ; how is this organ produced? Objectors point to the intricate structure, and challenge the naturalist to show how it could possibly be produced by the process of natural selection. The defender of the theory shows how the organ might have been produced. He describes conditions which may have existed; influences that may have been at work; a series of changes that may have taken place. Granting these, we can understand how the structure may have been formed. All this, the objector says, is a matter of supposition; it cannot be proved that these conditions existed, or that this chain of transformations was accomplished. This proof is not needed. We have the result which is beyond question. The naturalist is sure that it has been produced by purely natural causes. He has shown the possibility of conditions which would bring about the end. He is sure that either these or others similar to them must have existed, for a result exists that can be explained only in this way. So Fichte, starting with consciousness as given, seeks to show the process and the powers by which it is produced. He is sure that the content of consciousness is not given by anything outside the mind. He is justified, then, in assuming within the mind anything that is needed to produce consciousness, and to give to it its content.

What has been said is as important in its negative as in its positive aspect. It shows what we are not to expect, as well as what we are to expect. We may miss the evolution of all these processes and conditions out of some principle in which they are involved. We may miss the dialectic movement that has been so striking in much of the discussion which we have followed. It is important, therefore, to know precisely what is to be accomplished.

It should be added that we shall here meet other examples of the mechanical form of presentation which, as we have before seen, sometimes, with Fichte, takes the place of a purely abstract treatment. Our methods and results are thus largely figurative.

I. PERCEPTION.
The materials that we have for developing the special elements of consciousness are the same that we have found at every stage of our discussion. We have the pure activity of the I pressing forth into the infinite. This, as we have seen, impinges upon some sort of limit, and is, in part, reflected back toward its source. Let us suppose this activity to start from A, which may represent the inmost being of the I, and to meet the obstacle at C. It might meet it at a greater or less distance from A, but we will consider it to be at C. From C the portion of the activity which we are considering, is reflected back to A, while a part keeps on its original course. The I is still, in some sense, absolute. Its force cannot be taken from it, nor even can the direction of its activity be permanently disturbed. The activity which is reflected from C to A is reflected back, therefore, from A toward C. Since, however, it is the tendency of the I to reflect upon itself and all its doing, it reflects spontaneously the activity which we have just seen reflected from A to C, back again to A. We may, perhaps, make the discussion of these rather complicated movements more easy by giving special designations to each of the lines of movement that have been enumerated. We will call the first movement of the activity from A to C, a. The first reflected movement from the obstruction at C back to A, we will call c. The reflection from A to C, we will call a$2$; and the second movement back to A, the result of the spontaneous activity of the I, we will call c$2$.

It is obvious that a$2$ will meet c, and will move, therefore, against an opposing tendency. It will keep on its way in spite of c, until it is reflected back to A. This meeting of a$2$ with c forms the great central point of interest. It is here that consciousness begins. The I is unconscious of c, for this movement has taken place simply as a recoil from the obstruction at C. On the other hand, c$2$ is the voluntary act of the I, and is, therefore, present to consciousness. Through it, c will become present to consciousness, but not as if it formed a part of the I. The movement of c is in the direction from externality. It is thus met by a$2$, and since it is, as we have seen, unconscious action, it is regarded as representing the Not-me.

It will thus be noticed that it is not the obstruction at C which is represented under the form of the Not-me. This we have seen before, but the present statement may make it more clear. All the elements contained in consciousness are the various forms of the activity of the I. The system is so far purely idealistic, the only hint of realism being the obstruction at C, which forms, as we have already seen, a vanishing factor in the history of the I. We see also, already, how the idea of the Not-me can have arisen in the mind, the returning activity, c, being mistaken for a foreign presence.

We will now consider more carefully what takes place at the meeting of a$2$ with c.

As we have seen, c is regarded as the Not-me, and a$2$ represents the Me. We have before seen the difficulty that arises when we try to understand how it is possible to conceive of the Me and the Not-me, or of either of them. We saw that neither can be regarded as anything but the antithesis of the other. Neither has, then, any significance apart from the other, and thus neither can be thought of alone. On the other hand, they cannot be thought of together, for they are mutually exclusive. We saw further that the difficulty was removed by the suggestion that the imagination broadens the line of separation in which both meet, in such a way as to make it an object of contemplation. Thus, in this fictitiously broadened line, the two may be regarded as if coexistent, and thus the thought of them is possible. In this statement the Me and the Not-me must not be regarded as extending before the consciousness, side by side, and contemplated by the imagination in the suppositiously broadened boundary line. Each excludes the other. The boundary line is therefore, not like that between two planes, but like that between two moments. One succeeds the other in the consciousness, and all that was said of the limit must be understood applied to the relation of succession.

How shall we understand this succession as taking place? It cannot be once for all, because the Me and the Not-me are apparently permanently together in our consciousness. It cannot be, therefore, merely the single succession of the Me to the Not-me, or the reverse, because this would be once for all, and the permanent result would be lost. It must, then, be a series of mutual successions. One of the elements must constantly give place to the other. This change must take place with the utmost rapidity, otherwise the aspect of permanence would be lost. The result may be compared to the ring of light which is produced by the rapid movement, in a circle, of the glowing point of a rod of heated iron. In the case of the Me and the Not-me, the permanence and coexistence of the two may be called a visual illusion of the same kind.

The active power in this process is the imagination. This vibrates with inconceivable rapidity from the Me to the Not-me, and back again to the Me. This is the primitive function of the imagination. It is the first stage of the process through which the objective world is constructed by it. This function of the imagination is presented by Fichte under various forms. Besides that just given, it is sometimes regarded as marking the relation between the infinite and the finite forms of the I. Especially does it mark the process by which the I advances, through the removal of the limit, which is, however, at once succeeded by another. The imagination takes the limit into itself, sees it as within the I, not without—as belonging to the Me rather than to the Not-me. No sooner is this done than the Not-me, under the form of a limitation, meets it again. This vibration of the imagination, Fichte regards as furnishing the basis for the notion of time; namely, the succession of instants, each being without duration.

We have seen that a$2$, moving toward C, meets c and advances under this opposition until, as c$2$, it is reflected back to A. We have thus two movements in the same direction; namely, c and c$2$. The question meets us, How are these to be distinguished? We have, before, marked lines of activity by their direction; but here the direction of both is the same, and yet each is to be distinguished from the other. Why do they not flow together and become one movement? Let us illustrate the matter in a still more materialistic manner. Suppose that we have two streams of water flowing in the same channel and in the same direction, how will it be possible to discover that we have two currents instead of one, and to distinguish which belongs to each? Let us suppose that one of the currents becomes frozen as soon as it reaches our point of observation, and is carried forward as ice. In this case we could distinguish very easily between the two streams.

Something like this is what, in the thought of Fichte, happens to c. This, proceeding from C, and thus apparently representing the external world, is regarded, as we have seen, as the Not-me; while a$2$ is seen to be purely subjective. The imagination, shaping out of c$2$ the form of objectivity, vibrates, as we have seen, between the Me and the Not-me. Everything is thus changeful and fluctuating. That anything should become permanent, the product of the imagination needs to be discriminated and fixed. The discrimination is the work of the reason; the medium for the fixation is the understanding.

The use of the term, understanding, in this connection seems to be very little in accord with the ordinary definition of it by psychologists; it may, however, be not wholly foreign to the use of the word in common speech. It may represent the common sense that holds fast to the reality of things, regarding the world as a solid fact; and that brings new phenomena into relation with this real world, solidifying and crystallizing all into one permanent whole. The name of the faculty would seem to imply some such meaning as this. It is that which stands under and forms the basis of the world which we create, while we believe that it is a world which we have found.

We have thus indicated the nature of perception. We have seen a$2$ meet c. This is the activity of the I meeting what it regards as the Not-me. The imagination hovers between the two, until this process ceases because the results of the imagination have become fixed in the understanding. Then c$2$, in the form of this solidified result, is borne back to A. Thus we see that c represents the object of perception, while a$2$ and c$2$ represent the conscious elements of perception.

At the meeting of a$2$ and c, we have at first a conflict of activities. These are in equipoise, for, as we have seen, c$2$ is reflected back spontaneously by the I. This collision, in which neither element yields to the other, suggests to the consciousness the element of matter which enters into perception. Matter, according to Fichte, is precisely this equipoise between conflicting forces. This, as well as the results of the productive imagination, is fixed in the understanding. The one, matter, is the fixation of that hovering of the imagination which we have already described as taking place between the Me and the Not-me; while the other is the fixation of the results of its productive activity. Thus is seen the whole work of the imagination in perception. The pause in its vibration, leaving the opposing forces in equipoise, furnishes the basis or material of the objects of perception, while its productive activity gives to them their form.

We have now, even at the cost of some repetition, to make more distinct the manner in which the objects of perception obtain the appearance of externality. All that we have seen has taken place within the mind itself. It is, however, regarded as opening to the thought a world which lies outside of the mind.

To assist in this, we must return to the two forms of the activity of the I. The one is, as we have seen, unlimited; the other is limited, or objective. Both of these belong to the I; the I is one. How, then, shall we find any relation between these two that shall not introduce discord into the I itself? In the act of perception we suppose a pure activity outside the I and opposed to its activity. We have in this the relating element that we need. So far as we regard the activity of the I as not limited by this outer activity, it is pure. So far as we regard it as limited by this outer activity, it is objective. Thus we think of each in relation to this, and the discord between the two is removed. It is c that represents to the mind this outer activity. The whole process of the reflection of c is unconscious. Its results are found by us, and we think that they are produced for us rather than by us. We thus regard them as representing something foreign; and the activity which the)' represent is excluded from the mind. Here, then, something separates itself from the I as if belonging to another world.

By an addition to these various forms of reflection which perhaps were already sufficiently intricate, Fichte supposes a part of the activity of the I to press beyond ('. and not to be reflected except in a philosophic reflection. This suggests a perception that is not perceived, a vague and undefined “somewhat” that, we regard as the Thing-in-itself, and upon which we believe the forms perceived at the meeting point of a$2$ and c to be dependent.

We have seen that the material basis of the objects of perception, the substance of which they consist, represents the mutual neutralization of the activities that we have called c and a$2$ respectively, in regard to which the vibration or hovering of the imagination has ceased, and the result of which is preserved in the understanding. The subjective condition corresponding to this is sensation. This implies something given. In other words, it is accompanied by a feeling of restraint. A sensation is produced necessarily, and we cannot escape from it. It is, however, something within ourselves. It represents, from the inside, the meeting of the opposed activities. It is thus the most general subjective condition of perception, just as matter, that has already been described, may be regarded as the most general objective condition.

We have already found the two forms of the activity of the ego—the absolute or free, on the one side, and the objective or limited, on the other—to enter into all the processes which we have considered. They must be blended in the act of perception. They are, by their very nature, opposed; and yet they must be united by some form of synthesis. The free activity of the I is directed toward itself, the objective toward that which is not itself. The first form of activity is, then, wholly inward and self-affecting; this implies freedom. The other has reference to the external, and implies constraint. Freedom and constraint, then, are to be united. This can only be done by an act through which the inner yields itself freely to the influence of the outer. The relation between this constraint and this freedom is thus illustrated; the spontaneous reflection can only take place on condition of an impinging upon something foreign, but it is not obliged to reflect even under this condition. Thus freedom and necessity are blended in every act of complete and conscious perception.

We thus see that perception consists of a twofold relation of activity and passivity. Both the subject and the object must be both active and passive. So far as the subject is active, the object is passive. So far as the object is active, the subject is passive.

We are here, it should be remarked, taking perception for what it offers itself, involving a real subject and a real object. The object is passive so far as it is an object; it is active so far as it affects the subject. The subject is active so far as attention is turned toward the object, and so far as the object is made, apparently, the bearer of subjective conditions; and passive so far as it is affected by the object.

II. THOUGHT.
We have now to consider further these two, the object and the subject, in their relation to one another. Each of them possesses two activities: the one directed toward itself, by which it is what it is, or by which it maintains itself as it is; the other directed from itself, by which it affects others. Since consciousness is one, all the elements that enter into it must be united by mutual determination; otherwise diversity and discord would be introduced, and the unity of consciousness destroyed. The elements that thus enter into consciousness are the subject and the object, each with its double activity.

The activity of the I which is directed toward itself, is its absolute activity, that by which it affirms itself. The objective activity of the I is determined by the absolute activity, because upon this depend all the activities of the I. On the other hand, in the act of perception the self-affection must be seen to conform to the nature of the object. We have thus the subject rounded into a distinct whole. It goes out from itself and it returns to itself. It is thus self-related as well as related to an object.

The same relation is found to exist between the activity and the passivity of the object. That, too, is found to have a relation to itself—otherwise it would not be an object—and on this depends the activity which brings it into relation with the subject. It affects the subject as what it is.

The subject and the object thus stand over against one another, each a complete whole, and each standing in relation with the other. The process of discrimination which we have thus described is what we know as Thought, It is the primal act of thought, that which is the condition of all other thinking. The perceiver determines himself to think an object. So far as the object is determined through this act of thinking, is the object thought.

We have seen that the object is, by this process of thought, regarded as having a relation to itself; that is, as being a distinct object conforming to the formula, A = A. It thus determines itself to its relation to the subject. It is thus regarded as giving rise to an activity which affects the subject. If there were no passivity in the perceiver, we should have no right to assume the unity of the object, and the activity that proceeds from it; on the other hand, if there were no such activity of the object, there would be no passivity of the subject. The object is thus thought of as the cause of the passivity of the subject; and the passivity of the subject is regarded as the effect of this inner activity of the object. This inner activity of the object is merely something that is thought. It has no other reality. If, therefore, we give to it, as we cannot help doing, an outer substratum, this we call a Noumenon.

III. THE POWER OF JUDGMENT, AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNDERSTANDING.
The object of perception which, as we have seen, is separated from the perceiver and rounded into a distinct whole, must be further discriminated. There must be a definite object of perception. An object becomes thus definite only as it is distinguished from something else. This power of distinction possessed by the subject depends upon a certain freedom of activity. The objective activity of the I is determined by an activity which is more general—which, while it is aimed at an object in general, is aimed at no object in particular. The activity of the subject may thus be directed toward either A or —A. This activity is thus free, either to reflect A, abstracting it from —A, or the reverse. Such an activity hovers between A and —A, just as the imagination hovers, as we have seen, between the Me and the Not-me. Since there must, however, be a distinct object of thought, either A or —A becomes fixed as such. As, however, we have found that the limit between the Me and the Not-me is broadened and preserved in such a manner that the Me and the Not-me may be seen in their relation to one another, so in this case, although A instead of —A, has been made an object of thought; or the reverse, each is still seen in relation to the other. A, for instance, if it is the one chosen, is not seen merely as A, but as A over against —A. On the other hand, while A is thought, —A, from which we have abstracted, is considered over against A as merely thinkable; thus A and —A are blended in a new view, according to which each is determined by the other. This power of blending A and —A in a relationship in which each is determined by the other, and in which the nature of the relation depends upon the fact that one has been selected to be thought, and the other, by abstraction, left as merely thinkable, is called the power of judgment. In other words, an act of judgment always implies a selection—something is affirmed over against something that is denied. Both that which is affirmed and that which is denied are by the very act of affirmation and denial seen in relation to one another. The affirmation and denial are, indeed, only different sides of the same act.

We have now to consider the relation of the power of judgment to the understanding. It will be remembered that the understanding, with Fichte, is that common sense which takes the creations of the imagination as real; in which the Not-me has become fixed in relation to the Me, and which is thus the subjective substratum of the objective world.

From what has been said, it follows that the judgment and the understanding are mutually dependent upon one another. The judgment affirms A or —A in relation to material that is already embodied in the solid world of the understanding. A judgment is represented by a proposition, and the proposition may serve to illustrate the point that is before us at present. The subject of the proposition is something that is accepted as real. We hesitate which predicate to apply to it. This hesitation is what Fichte describes as the hovering or vibrating of the judgment between two possibilities. As soon as the judgment is fairly determined, then the grammatical subject takes, in connection with the predicate that is now associated with it, the place in the world of the understanding which it formerly occupied by itself. We recognize, for instance, the reality of John, but we doubt whether he is an American or an English num. After some hesitation, we settle it that he is an Englishman. Henceforth the Englishman, John, is as real a part of our world as John was before we knew his nationality. It is in this way that the world of the understanding is built up. It is continually becoming enlarged by the results of fresh judgments. On the other hand, the judgment presupposes the world of the understanding. If there were no grammatical subject, there could be no predicate; and the subject exists in that solid world of fact from which we start in our reasoning. Thus without the understanding the judgment would be impossible, and without the judgment there would be no understanding. The two are thus mutually dependent.

IV. THE REASON.
The thinker stands in the same relation to the thinkable, that the perceiver stands in to the perceivable- So far as the thinker considers anything to be thinkable, the thinkable is passive. On the other hand, the thinkable is such by its own nature, and thus the thinker is forced to regard it as such; so far the thinker is passive. We have not found, therefore, any absolute ground of determination. We do not know on which side is the initiative. We still move in a circle. From one element we are driven back to the other. We need to find a point of absolute departure. We need, therefore, to take a step further in order to bring out, in its most simple form, the relation which we are studying.

The power to abstract from any particular object implies the power to abstract from all objects. This power must be perceived, or must in some way be brought to consciousness. The imagination hovers between object and no object. It is fixed to have no object. That is, the imagination, which is regarded as the creator of the objects that fill our consciousness, is wholly suppressed; and this suppression, this non-existence of the imagination, becomes itself the object of a vague consciousness. The dim notion that we have, when for the sake of pure thought we try to abstract from all mingling of the imagination, is something that is not unfamiliar to the thinker. This product must be fixed, like all others, in the understanding. But it is nothing. It is no object, and, therefore, it cannot be thus fixed. This may be illustrated by the vague thought of a relation which is considered without regard to any real or possible members of the relation. There remains, thus, only the bare law of the reason which demands this perfect abstraction a law that can never be perfectly fulfilled, so far as any distinct consciousness is concerned. This power of perfect abstraction is what we mean by reason.

V. THE HIGHEST ACT OF ABSTRACTION, AND THE FINAL RELATION OF THE NOT-ME TO THE I.
When everything else is removed, the I at least remains. We here meet the I and the Not-me in their most abstract relation and contrast. Each is what the other is not. If the I determines only itself, it determines nothing outside itself; if it determines anything outside itself, it does not determine itself. We now see that the I is that which remains after every object has been removed through the power of absolute abstraction; and the Not-me is that from which we abstract in order to reach the Me.

We have thus reached the source of self-consciousness, which, when thus recognized, can never be mistaken. Everything from which I can make abstraction, everything that I can exclude from my thought, is not myself; and I contrast it with myself precisely through this, that I regard it as something that I can exclude from my thought. It is not necessary that all the elements of the Not-me should be together excluded from my thought. At one moment I may exclude A, B still affecting my consciousness; at another moment I may exclude B, A still remaining; through these acts both A and B are as truly shown to belong to the Not-me, and thus to be foreign to myself, as if they had been together excluded by a single mental act. The more any individual can thus separate from himself, the nearer does his empirical consciousness approach pure consciousness. The process begins with the child, who for the first time leaves his cradle, and thereby learns that the cradle is not a part of himself; and the process continues till we reach the position of the transcendental philosopher, who at last faces the problem of thinking the pure self.

The fact that the I is that from which nothing further can be abstracted, is the reason why the I is regarded as a unit.

We have thus the I, representing that from which nothing further can be abstracted; and we have the Not-me, representing all from which it is possible to abstract. These two stand each over against the other. They stand in relation to one another, because the one is the antithesis of the other. One must determine the other; that is, there must be some relation of dependence by which one of the two is bound to the other. This is obvious from the fact that whatever we dwell upon to the exclusion of something else is seen in relation to that which is excluded, and that every affirmation involves such exclusion. This principle holds good in the relation between the Me and the Not-me, even in the extreme result of abstraction which we are here considering. There is seen, even here, to be a relation between the two; and, since relation implies some form of dependence, one of these elements must be dependent upon the other.

This dependence cannot, as was the case in the forms of the relation which we have heretofore studied, be mutual, for each is, by the process of abstraction, separated from the other. They touch only at a single point, namely, that of their antithetical or exclusive relation to one another. There is, therefore, no circle as before. There is dependence, but not mutual dependence. The one that determines the other must remain absolutely undetermined.

If we fix our thought upon the I, to the exclusion of the Not-me, the I will seem to contain all reality. Its opposite is nothing positive; it is merely the Not-me. Thus the Not-me is wholly determined by the I, which is in no respect determined by it. If we make the Not-me our positive element, then the I will be simply its negation. The I will be wholly determined by it. and will not, in any degree, determine it. Thus each is regarded as infinite, according to our point of view. The antithesis which has followed us thus far assumes, then, this form, that if the one is infinite, the other is finite, and the reverse.

This antithesis is, according to Fichte, the source of the antinomies of Kant. These antinomies represent the strife between the reason and the understanding. The world of the understanding is, in one aspect, too large for the reason, and that of the reason too small for the understanding. In other words, the reason represents the I as laying down the law for the universe. The understanding recognizes the universe as rebelling against this law. The reason demands limit, in order that the universe may be a whole, and thus of such a nature that it can conform to its ideal. The understanding, on the other hand, regards the universe as endless, as by no possibility forming a whole, and thus as by no possibility embodying an ideal. In the one case, the universe is infinite; in the other, the I is infinite.

We may find another illustration which is helpful, if not quite so complete as that which we have considered, in the familiar, but always striking, passage of Kant in which he compares the starry heavens above and the moral law within. When he looks upon the heavens, the universe seems to stretch into infinitude, while man and the world upon which he finds himself seem to shrink into nothingness. When, on the other hand, he looks within, and recognizes the sublimity of the moral law, he feels himself to be the member of a spiritual universe, compared with which the physical universe is as nothing.

We may illustrate this principle still further, by the statement of Herbert Spencer, at the close of his First Principles, which has already been referred to in another connection: “Manifestly,” he says, “the establishment of correlation and equivalence between the forces of the outer and the inner worlds, may be used to assimilate either to the other, according as we set out with one or other term.”

When, however, we remember that the I is the absolute determining power, that there is nothing within the bounds of its knowledge that does not exist for it, that the material world exists for it and only in its consciousness, and that from this world of consciousness there is no escape, we see that the dilemma which we have been contemplating can be determined in only one way. We see that the I stands in relation only with itself, and is one with itself. This is a position from which no merely theoretical philosophy can escape. A practical philosophy may bring us into relation with spiritual realms, which transcend our single lives; but whether we use the methods of the theoretical or the practical reason, we are alike freed from any subjection to the material universe, considered only as such.