The Philosophy of Freedom Study Group
The World as Percept
4-11) PHENOMENALISM (Virgo)
[27] As long as one stops here everything seems to fit beautifully. But we must go over the whole thing again from the beginning. Hitherto I have been dealing with something -- the external percept -- of which, from my naïve standpoint, I have had until now a totally wrong conception. I thought that the percept, just as I perceive it, had objective existence. But now I observe that it disappears together with my mental picture, that it is only a modification of my inner state of soul. Have I, then, any right at all to start from it in my arguments? Can I say of it that it acts on my soul? I must henceforth treat the table, of which formerly I believed that it acted on me and produced a mental picture of itself in me, as itself a mental picture. But from this it follows logically that my sense organs and the processes in them are also merely subjective. I have no right to speak of a real eye but only of my mental picture of the eye. Exactly the same is true of the nerve paths, and the brain process, and no less of the process in the soul itself, through which things are supposed to be built up out of the chaos of manifold sensations. If, assuming the truth of the first circle of argumentation, I run through the steps of my act of cognition once more, the latter reveals itself as a tissue of mental pictures which, as such, cannot act on one another. I cannot say that my mental picture of the object acts on my mental picture of the eye, and that from this interaction my mental picture of color results. Nor is it necessary that I should say this. For as soon as I see clearly that my sense organs and their activity, my nerve and soul processes, can also be known to me only through perception, the train of thought which I have outlined reveals itself in its full absurdity. It is quite true that I can have no percept without the corresponding sense organ. But just as little can I be aware of a sense organ without perception. From the percept of a table I can pass to the eye which sees it, or the nerves in the skin which touch it, but what takes place in these I can, in turn, learn only from perception. And then I soon notice that there is no trace of similarity between the process which takes place in the eye and the color which I perceive. I cannot eliminate my color percept by pointing to the process which takes place in the eye during this perception. No more can I rediscover the color in the nerve or brain processes. I only add new percepts, localized within the organism, to the first percept, which the naïve man localizes outside his organism. I merely pass from one percept to another.
[28] Moreover there is a gap in the whole argument. I can follow the processes in my organism up to those in my brain, even though my assumptions become more and more hypothetical as I approach the central processes of the brain. The path of external observation ceases with the process in my brain, more particularly with the process which I should observe if I could deal with the brain using the instruments and methods of physics and chemistry. The path of inner observation begins with the sensation, and continues up to the building of things out of the material of sensation. At the point of transition from brain process to sensation, the path of observation is interrupted.
[29] The way of thinking here described, known as critical idealism, in contrast to the standpoint of naïve consciousness known as naïve realism, makes the mistake of characterizing the one percept as mental picture while taking the other in the very same sense as does the naïve realism which it apparently refutes. It wants to prove that percepts have the character of mental pictures by naïvely accepting the percepts connected with one's own organism as objectively valid facts; and over and above this, it fails to see that it confuses two spheres of observation, between which it can find no connection.
| Topic: External percept is mental picture Naïve standpoint: The external percept, just as I perceive it, has objective existence.
 Moreover there is a gap in the whole argument.
 Match-up Quiz |
4-12) SENSATIONALISM (Leo)
[30] Critical idealism can refute naïve realism only by itself assuming, in naïve realistic fashion, that one's own organism has objective existence. As soon as the critical idealist realizes that the percepts connected with his own organism are exactly of the same nature as those which naïve realism assumes to have objective existence, he can no longer use those percepts as a safe foundation for his theory. He would have to regard even his own subjective organization as a mere complex of mental pictures. But this removes the possibility of regarding the content of the perceived world as a product of our spiritual organization. One would have to assume that the mental picture "color" was only a modification of the mental picture "eye". So called critical idealism cannot be proved without borrowing from naïve realism. Naive realism can be refuted only if, in another sphere, its own assumptions are accepted without proof as being valid.
[31] This much, then, is certain: Investigation within the world of percepts cannot establish critical idealism, and consequently, cannot strip percepts of their objective character.
[32] Still less can the principle "the perceived world is my mental picture" be claimed as obvious and needing no proof. Schopenhauer begins his chief work with the words:
The world is my mental picture -- this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and cognizes, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical discretion. It then becomes clear and certain to him that he knows no sun and no earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as mental picture, that is, only in relation to something else, to the one who pictures it, which is he himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this one, for it is the expression of that form of all possible and thinkable experience which is more universal than all others, than time, space, or causality, for all these presuppose it . This whole theory is wrecked by the fact, already mentioned, that the eye and the hand are percepts no less than the sun and the earth. Using Schopenhauer's expressions in his own sense, we could reply: My eye that sees the sun, my hand that feels the earth, are my mental pictures just as much as the sun and the earth themselves. That with this the whole theory cancels itself, is clear without further argument. For only my real eye and my real hand could have the mental pictures "sun" and "earth" as modifications of themselves; the mental pictures "eye" and "hand" cannot have them. Yet it is only of these mental pictures that critical idealism is allowed to speak.
[33] Critical idealism is totally unfitted to form an opinion about the relationship between percept and mental picture. It cannot begin to make the distinction, mentioned above, between what happens to the percept in the process of perception and what must be inherent in it prior to perception. We must, therefore, tackle this problem in another way.
| Topic: Mental Picture is modification of real eye and real hand Investigation within the world of percepts can neither prove critical idealism, nor strip percepts of their objective character. Still less can the proposition "the perceived world is my mental picture" be claimed as obvious. Schopenhauer: Using Schopenhauer's expressions in his own sense, we could reply: My eye that sees the sun, my hand that feels the earth, are my mental pictures just as much as the sun and the earth themselves. That with this the whole theory cancels itself, is clear without further argument. For only my real eye and my real hand could have the mental pictures "sun" and "earth" as modifications of themselves; the mental pictures "eye" and "hand" cannot have them. Match-up Quiz |
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What Is Phenomenalism?
"Phenomenalism" is a concept that sometimes gives me trouble because I continually confuse it with "Sensationalism." But in Section 4.11 the correlation between the text and Steiner's definition of Phenomenalism in Human and Cosmic Thought is crystal clear.
"One can say: “Certainly I believe in the world that is spread out around me, but I do not maintain any right to claim that this world is the real one. I can say of it only that it ‘appears’ to me. I have no right to say more about it.‿ There you have again a difference. One can say of the world that is spread out around us. “This is the real world,‿ but one can also say, “I am clear that there is a world which appears to me; I cannot speak of anything more. I am not saying that this world of colors and sounds, which arises only because certain processes in my eyes present themselves to me as colors, while processes in my ears present themselves to me as sounds—I am not saying that this world is the true world. It is a world of phenomena. This is the outlook called Phenomenalism." (Human and Cosmic Thought)
Liberation
I always experience this part of the book as a kind of victory, an inner triumph. Just contrast how these two passages feel, for example:
1. My knowledge of the world is limited - it is derived from mental pictures which are only modifications of my own body. I can never know the real world, neither can any other human being (Critical Idealism etc.).
2. There are no limits to knowledge (Chapter 7 of PoF, of course! Jumping ahead a bit I know..).
I have just been reading "Life After Life", which was published in the seventies, and describes people's near-death experiences as related to the author, Raymond Moody. Many of you will have read it or heard about it at one time or another, I think. One interesting thing about this book, among many others, is the fact that people having these experiences almost universally felt they had to keep quiet about them because when they tried to tell anyone people thought they were crazy.
I connect this to the feeling, which I think is difficult to overcome in our day and age, that our individual knowledge is limited and incomplete and that in fact our whole being is limited by the fact that our physical existence will come to an end at some point. Anyone who does not speak and think in accordance with this (unexpressed) world view is at risk of being considered insane.
While Steiner does not of course prove life after death in any sense in PoF, he certainly leaves the door wide open for a way of thinking and being in the world which includes it.
Another interesting point from "Life After Life" is that again as many of you will know a common near-death experience is being approached by a wise, powerful and loving being of light. Many of the stories related in the book tell of how people felt a strong urge as a result of this to become better in two ways: to become more loving and understanding (I expected that one!) and to continue to gather knowledge (which surprised me) - some even felt compelled to return to earthy life just to complete their university/college courses! So if there are no limits to knowledge and a long time to learn what we need to we may as well get started learning a bit more now.
Here to Learn
Hi, Tim
The bit about returning to learn more is a surprise! I guess that means that there's the idea floating around in me that higher spiritual beings look down their noses at earthly learning.
I too find liberation at the end of this chapter, and not only because it's a difficult chapter and I'm glad to reach the end of it. Somewhere in PoF (and I can't find it right now) Steiner says that the point is not to defeat Critical Idealism in others, but in ourselves. One step toward this is to realize that its argument is built on stairs of sand.
It is in the addition to
It is in the addition to chapter 5.
The view I have outlined here may be regarded as one to which man is at first quite naturally driven when he begins to reflect upon his relation to the world. He then finds himself caught in a system of thoughts which dissolves for him as fast as he frames it. The thought formation is such that it requires something more than mere theoretical refutation. We have to live through it in order to understand the aberration into which it leads us and thence to find the way out. It must figure in any discussion of the relation of man to the world, not for the sake of refuting others whom one believes to be holding mistaken views about this relation, but because it is necessary to understand the confusion to which every first effort at reflection about such a relation is apt to lead. One needs to arrive at just that insight which will enable one to refute oneself with respect to these first reflections. This is the point of view from which the arguments of the preceding chapter are put forward.
and later:
One only avoids the confusion into which one falls through the critical attitude based on this naïve standpoint, if one notices that, inside everything we can experience by means of perceiving, be it within ourselves or outside in the world, there is something which cannot suffer the fate of having a mental picture interpose itself between the process and the person observing it. This something is thinking.
Thanks, Tom
Yes, that's the part. I know I have to refute myself!
He says we should
He says we should "understand the confusion" of our first reflections about our relationship to the world. Perhaps I should post that at the top of the web site, "Please Understand Our Confusion"
Liberation!
If I try to think like a Phenomenalist, I suspend judgment and open myself to percepts. My mental pictures become less of a determining factor in my experience of the world, insofar as I can set them to one side. I can see more of the world if I'm not selectively editing what I see to make sure it fits in with my mental pictures.
And all percepts, in this system, are valid as percepts. It wouldn't be right to grant more validity to one set of percepts as percepts, than to another: my percepts of the world must have equal validity as my percepts of myself, or they both must have no validity.
I wonder if the Phenomenalist view isn't especially gifted for being able to find what's wrong with our ordinary judgments as we go about our daily life? For, as Kristina writes in Right Judgment One: Don't Judge, "Judgment as we experience it today is often hasty and often deadly." She defines judgment as "pulling an issue apart and putting it back together again so that it is understood as fully as possible." That's exactly what Steiner does in this section of Chapter Four. He pulls the argument for Critical Idealism apart and looks at it in various ways: as a series of mental pictures acting impossibly on each other, as an unfair weighing of one type of percept over another, and as two separate paths with an unbridgeable gap between them.
He doesn't completely demolish the argument yet, or put anything in its place, but he does show us its mistakes.
It does appear
It does appear that this perspective could be described as phenomenal in nature; one is taking the appearance of each chain in the process involved in coming upon a given thing as though it were valid to speak of them separately and then put them all together and call that the process. Percepts are certainly illusive in their nature; otherwise I wouldn't ever ask of a given percept, “what is that?” It's the conceptual counterpart that is necessary to give meaning to the perceived thing--”oh, it's a cup.” The phenomenal approach does not take this bringing meaning to the perceived thing into account, it accepts it all as given and the all that is given is questionable from its point of view, as to whether it is real, or not. So it's easy to mix things up. This phenomenal approach lives in this illusive character of the percept, which is valid enough, but it is not appropriate to then step outside of this subjective-illusive point of view and then declare that one of the percepts in the observational chain is an objectively real thing, the eye. Then one removes oneself from the phenomenal point of view. Not that this phenomenal point of view is going to resolve anything, other than to say, percepts are of themselves incomplete—potentially illusory.
It seems to me that the two sections quickly morph into one another, as the sensationalists want to remove all the conceptual aspects to knowing something from the discussion, but this puts them into an absurd position. RS is only showing that this argument where we say the eye, the organism, is real, but all else is a subjective chimera doesn't work. We still don't know what is the character of the percept (real, objective, subjective, none of the above). Their argument mixes perspectives without realizing that it is doing so—calling one percept naively a real thing as it generally is assumed to be—the organism, and all other percepts representations or mental images. But, as RS points out, the Critical Idealists (CIs), who are the ones playing with these various perspectives, have only the right (according to their own argument) to refer to all percepts as mental images, not just the ones they want to, in order to make their declaration work that, “all we can know are our mental images,” our own subjectively generated sensations. But we're still needing to get a handle on what a percept is. After all, it hasn't been shown that the CIs are wrong, just that their argument regarding the subjective (non-real) nature of percepts is wrong—invalid.
As a format question: what day of the week shifts us to the next series of study sections?
Monday
The new study page comes up Mondays. If you are moving ahead you of course don't need to wait for the weekly study but can post ahead. Right now the study pages go through most of Chapter 5. I will be adding more study pages soon in the forum on the way to completing the book.
Hi, Gerald
Just wanted you to know that I'm thinking about what you have written here. It helps me to see the points of view and the sections in a different light, and I'm grateful! I'm kind of a slow thinker so I can only respond to a few points now. I have a very hard time keeping the Phenomenalist and the Sensationalist points of view clear here. It would be more interesting to be able to do this, but so far it's not happening. I try to think as a Phenomenalist, and your description of that is very good: "one is taking the appearance of each chain in the process involved in coming upon a given thing as though it were valid to speak of them separately and then put them all together and call that the process." So what's being perceived as individual links in a chain are the parts of the CI argument, is that what you mean?
I try to think like a Sensationalist, who thinks that even the Phenomenalist is adding way too much to the experience. Now this should lead to an even greater fragmentation, but does it? The CI argument is demolished here. Not only does the logical argument fail, but also the assertion (put in Schopenhauer's mouth) that "the world is my mental picture" needs no proof because it's a matter of direct experience.
The placement of the points of view is such that these last two always somehow lead into the next chapter.
I'll try to think about all this as I go about my farm day!
Sensationalism?
Gerald, you wrote, "Percepts are certainly illusive in their nature; otherwise I wouldn't ever ask of a given percept, “what is that?” It's the conceptual counterpart that is necessary to give meaning to the perceived thing--”oh, it's a cup.” The phenomenal approach does not take this bringing meaning to the perceived thing into account, it accepts it all as given and the all that is given is questionable from its point of view, as to whether it is real, or not. So it's easy to mix things up."
I'm confused --isn't bringing meaning to the perceived thing also a phenomenon like any other? I'd think that the Sensationalist would be more inclined to disallow meaning.
When I read what Schopenhauer wrote, and then what Steiner says about it, I get the sense of living in a world made up entirely of sensations and percepts, one succeeding another, like a river that never stops and forms itself into such things as "eye" and "sun." Perhaps that is the true nature of percepts. No answers and no meaning can be found there, not until thinking comes in.
Hello Lori: I too find it
Hello Lori: I too find it challenging to enter into these perspectives of phenomenalism and sensationalism. This particular approach is new to me for studying the Philosophy... However, I appreciate the challenge, but in working with it all I may not be as clear as I would like. As far as I can tell, a Critical Idealist who lived in the phenomenal perspective, would regard percepts in a rather naive manner and therefore find the percepts as being unreliable, in that they are modifications of one's organism. The whole process of perceiving a given thing does not actually take place in the manner the phenomenalist argument would put forward. We observe, then ponder, and then come upon the concept of what it is we're perceiving, or perhaps live for quite a while simply in the question of what the given percept is. Reality already has both, percept and concept merged together, our given nature requires of us to bring the conceptual aspect of reality back to the perceived aspect of it, in order to know reality. The CI phenomenalist chain is an artificial construct that is suppose to convince us that the percept is brought about by our organization--the electro-magnetic spectrum meeting our eye that results eventually in our sensing color. By this argument color does not actually exist in the world, only in our subjective nature. The sensationalists, from my understanding, attempt to completely remove the conceptual component from the percept, but if you really did that, you wouldn't have any way of knowing it even was a percept. If no concepts were to meet our percepts then we would live in an experience of color in which we are entirely blind to the color, sound, etc. Because it is through our thinking that we are able to organize the various perceptions into color, sound, etc. So the senstionalist puts themself into an absurd position in that the chain of events leading to the conclusion that percepts are a subjective construct is no where observable or identifiable, and yet, they are still willing to naively declare that some percepts, our eye, for example, is objectively real, and it is this objective reality that is able to modify the electro-magnetic field that eventually results in our subjective experience of color. But you can't willy-nilly pick out percepts you want to become more than mental images and keep all the rest as merely thought abstractions--mental images. This is why the whole argument falls like a house of cards. CIs have not proven by argument that percepts have no objective reality but we still do not know from our reading and working through all of this with Rudolf Steiner exactly what the nature of a percept is. I hope this attempt to be clearer is in fact just that.
Gerald, do you think these
Gerald, do you think these kinds of people we are talking about here really exist? Wouldn't they be insane if they did?
Steiner said the 12 points of view actually exist. So I keep thinking there must be something more down-to-earth about all this, if I could just find it. Maybe his point here is that the Phenomenalist-Empiricist and the Sensationalist-Empiricist viewpoints are completely untenable.
Anyhow, the main point is just to grasp to the best of our ability the failure of the CI proof and, as you have pointed out, the fact that this doesn't mean that CI isn't true, but only that its proof doesn't hold up. And also, that any philosopher who tries to say that it doesn't need a proof because it's so obvious, is also wrong.
Though I'm not so sure we haven't seen what the nature of a percept is by working through this chapter. It's true, we haven't had it laid out and defined, but we've certainly been prepared for the definition to make sense when it finally comes. Next chapter, I think?
Thanks for being interested in all this!
L