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 PHENOMENALISM

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PHENOMENALISM

explanation advanced bv Hume, of the origin of tlio idea of siibstanep by ha})it. 'I'hesp three stejjs form a SMiui'iici' ill till' dt'Vt'lopiiu'iit of McaUsm. Fourth, to the I'ositivism, for wliioli this i)aved the way, as expressed by Comte and Mill. The \arious schools of thought that maj- be grouped under Phenomenalism: plain Kmpiricism, jis taught by Hume; Agnosticism, as advanced by Spencer and Huxley; Positivism, represented by Comte, l.ittrv, Taine, and Mill; all share in the misim<lerstanding initiated by Descartes with regard to the nature of substance as put forward by the School. The Criticism of Kant may well be included with them, as hmiting the object of human knowleilge to experience, or phenomenal appearance — although some knowledge as to the noumenon is reached by way of the postulates of the practical reason — the three ideas, soul, world, God. So also may be included the neo-critical movement of Renou- vier.

It is important that this misunderstanding should be cleared up. Scholasticism indeed maintains that we have a direct but confused and implicit intuition of substance. We grasp the reality of "something that can exist by itself". "Every perception is a substance, and even,' part of a perception is a cUstinct suKstance" (Hume, "Treatise", I, part 4, sect. 5). Thus far the Empiricist agrees with the Scholastic. But upon analysis and reflection, the latter main- tains, the distinction between substance and accident emerges. What at first appeared to exist in itself, is seen to exist in something else. That something else is then perceived to be substance; and what before was taken for it, is seen to be accident or phenomenon. Further, as against the criticism of Locke, it is to be remarked that Scholastic philosophy does not claim for the intelligence a direct experience of the specific nature of substance. On the contrary, it relies entirely upon induction to establish such nature. To the objection that induction gives us no knowledge other than of the phenomenal, it answers that we know at least this of the specific substance — that it is the subject of certain observed modifications and the cause of certain observed effects. One further point that is interesting in this connexion is the unfortunate attribution of inertia to substance. Paulsen writes that the soul is not inert as is the atom, thereby sharing the opinion of Wundt. This idea of substance as an inert substrate is also traceable to the Cartesian philosophy, which is thus upon two counts the parent of Phenomenalism. It is hardly necessary to point out that .Scholasticism does not regard either the soul or the material atom as inert, except by a mental abstraction which is practised upon the idea of nature (as immanent activity) to reach the simple conception of "that which is capable of existing in itself" (see Substance).

(2) The second form of Phenomenalism may be found in the doctrine of Fichte and of the school that develops his ideas; as well as in certain tenden- cies and developments of the system of thought known as Pragmatism (q. v.). With Fichte, the thing- in-itself of Kant disappears as the ground of expe- rience, and its place is taken by consciousness deter- mining itself. That things are and are known implies a double series, real and ideal, for which Dogmatism is incajiable of accounting. There is nothing else, as a ground, than a "being posited" by consciousness. But consciousness is aware of itself, knowing its acti\nty, and the nature of this activity. In this conception the real — the functions of consciousness — is paralleled by the ideal — knowledge of these functions. Tlie thing-in-itself is no longer necessary to explain the possibility of knowledge, which here becomes the explanation of the original relation of consciousness to itself. The object has no existence, save for the subject. Fichte's philosophy has much influenced later thought in Germany as elsewhere.

The attempt made by Schelling to avoid the contra- diction between his doctrine and that of Kant resulted in a form of idealistic Phenomenalism (developed further by Novalis and von Schlegel), and ultimately inaneo-Spinozaistic Pantheism. Hegel's Idealism isa logical, or metaphysical, one, in which the only real- ity (spirit) "becomes" in a procc'^.'-fdrin of dialectic. In the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of Absolute mind, the return to consciousMiss takes the form of phenomena, as spirit becoming apparent to itself. With Schopenhauer, who begins his "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" with these words: " 'The world is my iilea': — this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows ..." it would seem that a transition from ideali-stic Phenomenalisiii to modern "scientific" Realism is in progress.

Pragmatism is the most recent form of Empiricism, and as such belongs to the first form of Phenomenal- ism noticed above; but its psychologic attitude, and the subjectivist developments it displays, make it perhaps more fitting to mention it here. For the sys- tem as a whole the truth of reality rests upon the subjective feeling of certainty (see Epistemology). The answers given as to why this should be are because of (1) an a priori constitution of mind, of transcendental order and for all individuals; (2) utility, coherence, or vital experience (James, Leroy, Schiller); or (3) an act of the will (Ribot). The first two accounts of the psychological fact of certainty insensibly give place to the third, which is the last word of psychological Subjectivism, except one: and that one is the theory of Solipsism. It will be ob- served that this line of development is one of an elaboration of a voluntaristic form of PhenomenaUsm. Where Schiller (Studies in Humanism) writes that the basis of fact accepted by Pragmatism depends upon its "acceptance" ; " that it (acceptance') is fatal to the chimera of a 'fact' for us existing quite independently of our 'will' ", and James (Pragmatism) "Why may they (our acts) not be the actual . . . growing-places ... of the world — why not be the workshop of being where we catch fact in the making, so that nowhere may the world grow any other kind of waj' than this? " Solipsism goes but one step further in declaring that there is no absolute Ego nor absolute non- Ego. There is no more than the individual conscious- ness (cf. von Schubert Soldern). Admitting the prin- ciples, an escape from such a conclusion is difficult. The pure ex-perience of Avenarius, the reine Erfahrung for you and for me, is theoretic and inevident. Indeed Humanism itself, as advanced by Schiller, seems to be but a kind of SoUpsism. The data of thought are immanent, and we only organize them; but Schiller gives no indication of their origin; indeed he says it is absurd to ask wlience the given of thought derives. ■ The whole modern school of Immanence (q. v.) be- longs to the development of this form of Phenome- nahsm.

St. Thom.^s, Opera (Parma. 1854). especially the De veritnlf. Avenarius, Phitosophie als Denken, etc. Prolegomena tut eijier Krilik der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig, 1878) ; Behqbon, Bssai stir let donnUs immMiales de la conscience (Paris, 1889) ; Berkeley, W'orks, ed. Phaser (Oxford. 1901); Bradley, Appearance and Reality (London, 1893) : Catch, Subjectivism and Solipsism in Dublin Review (July, 1903) ; Comte. Cours de philosophic positive (Paris, 1830-42); Descartes. (Euvres, published by CotJsm (Paris, 1824-6); Fichte, Sdmmtliche Werke (Berlin); Hume, Philosophical Works, ed. Gheen and Grose (London, 1878); Huxley, Hume, A Biography (London, 1878); James, Prag- matism (London, 1907); Kant, Werke, ed. Rosenkranz and .ScHDBERT (Leipzig. 1838-40); Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London. 1881); McCosH, Agnosticism of Hume and Huxley (London, 1884) ; James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, with notes by J. S. Mill (London, 18fi9); J. S. Mill. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (London. 1889); Renouyier, Bssais de critique gSn^ale (Paris. 18.54-64); RiBOT, Essai sur Vimagination creatrire (Paris. 1900); Schiller, Studies in Humanism (Lon- don, 1907): VON .Schubert Soldern, Ueber Transcendenz des Objects und Subjects (Leipzig, 1882); Idem, Grumllagen einer Erkenntnisstheologie (Leipzig, 1884): Windelband, Hist, oj Phil., IT. Tufts (New York, 1907).

Francis Avelino.