History as individual judgment — The individual element and histori cal sources: relics and narrative — The intuitive faculty in historical research — The intuitive faculty in historical exposi tion. Resemblance of history and art. Difference between history and art — The predicate or logical element in history — Vain attempts to eliminate it — Extension of historical predicates beyond the limits of mere existence — Asserted unsurmountable variance in judging and presenting historical facts and con sequent demand for a history without judgment — Restriction of variance, and exclusion of apparent variances — Overcoming of variances by means of deep study of the concepts — Subjec tivity and objectivity in history: their meaning — Historical judgments of value, and normal or neutral values. Critique — Various legitimate meanings of protests against historical sub jectivity — The demand for a theory of historical factors — Im possibility of dividing history according to its intuitive and reflective elements — Empiricity of the division of the historical process into four stages — Divisions founded upon the historical object — Logical division according to the forms of the spirit — The empirical division of the representative material — Empirical concepts in history; and the false theory as to the function they fulfil there — Hence also the claim to reduce history to a natural science; and the thesis of the practical character of history — Distinction between historical facts and non-historical facts; and its empirical value — The professional prejudice and theory of the practical character of history.
CONTENTS xxvii IV PAGE IDENTITY OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY...310 Necessity of the historical element in philosophy — Historical quality of the culture required of the philosopher — Apparent objections — Communication of philosophy as changing of philosophy — Perpetuity of this changing — The overcoming and continuous progress of philosophy — Meaning of the eternity of philosophy — The concept of spontaneous, ingenuous, innate philosophy, etc.; and its meaning — Philosophy as criticism and polemic — Identity of philosophy and history — Didactic divisions, and other reasons for the apparent duality — Note.
THE NATURAL SCIENCES 330 The natural sciences as empirical concepts, and their practical nature — Elimination of an equivocation concerning this practical character — Impossibility of unifying them in one concept — Impossibility of introducing into them rigorous divisions — Laws in the natural sciences, and so-called prevision — Empirical character of naturalistic laws — The postulate of the uniformity of nature, and its meaning — Pretended impossibility of excep tions to natural laws — Nature and its various meanings. Nature as passivity and negativity — Nature as practical activity — Nature in its gnoseological significance, as naturalistic or empirical method — The illusions of materialists and dualists — Nature as empirical distinction of an inferior reality in respect to a superior reality — The naturalistic method, and the natural sciences as extending to superior not less than to inferior reality — Claim for such extension, and effective existence of what is claimed— Historical foundation of the natural sciences — The question whether history be foundation or crown of thought — Naturalists as historical investigators — Prejudices as to non- historicity of nature — Philosophic foundation of the natural sciences, and effect of philosophy upon them — Effect of natural sciences upon philosophy, and errors in conceiving such relation — Reason of these errors. Naturalistic philosophy — Philosophy as the destroyer of naturalistic philosophy, but not of the natural sciences. Autonomy of these.
xxviii CONTENTS VI PAGE MATHEMATICS AND THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCE OF Idea of a mathematical science of nature — Various definitions of mathematics — Mathematical procedure — Apriority of mathe matical principles — Contradictoriness of the a priori principles. They are not thinkable, and not intuitive — Identification of mathematics with abstract pseudoconcepts — The ultimate end of mathematics: to enumerate, and, therefore, to aid the determination of the single. Its place — Particular questions concerning mathematics — Rigour of mathematics and rigour of philosophy — Loves and hates between the two forms — Impossibility of reducing the empirical sciences to the mathe matical; and the empirical limits of the mathematical science of nature — Decreasing utility of mathematics in the loftiest spheres of the real.
VII THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES...378 ) Theory of the forms of knowledge and doctrine of the categories — Problem of classification of the sciences; its empirical nature — Falsely philosophic character that it assumes — Coincidence of that problem with the search for the categories, when under stood with philosophic rigour — Forms of knowledge and literary- didactic forms — Prejudices derived from the latter — Methodical prologues to scholastic manuals, their impotence — Capricious multiplication of the sciences — The sciences and professional prejudices.
THIRD PART THE FORMS OF ERROR AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH I ERROR AND ITS NECESSARY FORMS...391 Error as negativity; impossibility of a special treatment of errors — Positive and existing errors — Positive errors as practical acts — CONTENTS xxix PAGE Practical acts and not practical errors — Economically practical acts, not morally practical acts — Doctrine of error, and doctrine of necessary forms of error — Logical nature of all theoretical errors — History of errors and phenomenology of error — Deduc tion of the forms of logical errors. Forms deduced from the concept of the concept, and forms deduced from the other concepts — Errors derived from errors — Professionality and nationality of errors.
II II yEsTHETiciSM, EMPIRICISM AND MATHEMATICISM. 406 Definition of these forms — /Estheticism — Empiricism — Positivism, the philosophy founded upon the sciences, inductive metaphysic — Empiricism and facts — Bankruptcy of Empiricism: dualism, agnosticism, spiritualism and superstition — Evolutionistic posi tivism and rationalistic positivism — Mathematicism — Symbolical mathematics — Mathematics as a form of demonstration of philosophy — Errors of mathematical philosophy — Dualism, agnosticism and superstition of mathematicism.
Ill THE PHILOSOPHISM 420 Rupture of the unity of the a priori synthesis— Philosophism, logicism or panlogicism — Philosophy of history — Contradictions in its assumptions — Philosophy of history and false analogies — Distinction between Philosophy of history and books so entitled — Merits of these, philosophic and historical— Philosophy of nature— Its substantial identity with Philosophy of history — Contradictions of Philosophy of nature — Books entitled Philosophy of nature— Contemporary seekings for a Philosophy of nature and their various meanings.
IV THE MYTHOLOGISM 438 Rupture of the unity of the a priori synthesis. The mythologism — Essence of myth — Problems relating to theory of myth — Myth and religion — Identity of the two spiritual forms — Religion and philosophy — Conversion of errors, the one into the other — Conversion of the mythologism into philosophism (theology) and of the philosophism into the mythologism (mythology of nature, historical apocalypses, etc. ) —Scepsis.
xxx CONTENTS v PAGE DUALISM, SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM...449 Dualism — Scepsis and scepticism — Mystery — Critique of affirmations of mystery in philosophy — Agnosticism as a particular form of scepticism — Mysticism — Errors in other parts of philosophy — Conversion of these errors into one another and into logical errors.
VI THE ORDER OF ERRORS AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH 462 Necessary character of the forms of errors. Their definite number — Their logical order — Examples of this order in various parts of philosophy — Erring spirit and spirit of search— Immanence of error in truth — Erroneous distinction between possession of and search for truth — Search for truth in the practical sense of preparation for thought; the series of errors — Transfiguration of error into tentative or hypothesis in the search so understood — Distinction between error as error and error as hypothesis — Immanence of the tentative in error itself as error — Individuals and error — Duplicate aspect of errors — Ultimate form of error: the methodological error or hypotheticism.
VII THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ERROR AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 479 Inseparability of phenomenology of error from the philosophical system — The eternal course and recurrence of errors — Returns to anterior philosophies; and their meaning — False idea of a history of philosophy as history of the successive appearance of the categories and of errors in time — Philosophism case in point of this false view, as is the formula concerning the identity of philosophy and history of philosophy — Distinction between this false idea of a history of philosophy, and the books which take it as their title or programme — Exact formula: identity of philosophy and history — History of philosophy and philosophic progress — The truth of all philosophies; and criticism of eclecticism — Researches for authors and precursors of truths; reason for the antinomies which they exhibit.
CONTENTS xxxi VIII PAGE " DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIAE "...493 Logic and defence of Philosophy — Utility of Philosophy and the Philosophy of the practical — Consolation of philosophy, as joy of thought and in the true. Impossibility of a pleasure arising from falsity and illusion — Critique of the concept of a sad truth — Examples: Philosophical criticism and the concepts of God and Immortality — Consolatory virtue, pertaining to all spiritual activities — Sorrow and elevation of sorrow.
FOURTH PART HISTORICAL RETROSPECT I HISTORY OF LOGIC AND HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 503 Reality, Thought and Logic— Relation of these three terms — Inexist- ence of a general philosophy outside particular philosophic sciences; and, in consequence, of a general History of philo sophy outside the histories of particular philosophic sciences — Histories of particular philosophies and literary value of such division — History of Logic in its particular sense — Works dealing with history of Logic.
II THEORY OF THE CONCEPT...512 Question as to the "father of Logic" — Socrates, Plato, Aristotle — Enquiries as to the nature of the concept in Greece. Question of transcendency and immanence — Controversies in Plato con cerning the various forms of the concept — Philosophic, empirical and abstract concepts in Aristotle. Philosophy, physics, mathe matics — Universals of the " always " and those of " for the most part " — Logical controversies in the Middle Ages — Nominalism and realism — Nominalism, mysticism and coincidence of opposites — Renaissance and mysticism — Bacon — Ideal of exact science and Cartesian philosophy — Adversaries of Cartesianism xxxii CONTENTS PAGE — Vico — Empiristic logic and its dissolution. Locke, Berkeley and Hume — Exact science and Kant. Concept of the category — Limits of science, and Jacobi — Positive elements in Kantian scepticism — The synthesis a priori — Inward contradiction in Kant. Romantic principle and classic execution — Progress since Kant: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel — Logic of Hegel. The concrete concept or Idea — Identity of Hegelian Idea and Kantian synthesis a priori — The Idea and the antinomies. The dialectic — Lacunae and errors in Hegelian Logic. Their con sequences — Contemporaries of Hegel: Herbart, Schleiermacher and others — Posterior positivism and psychologicism — Eclectics. Lotze — New gnoseology of the sciences. Economic theory of scientific concept. Avenarius, Mach — Rickert — Bergson and the new French philosophy — Le Roy, and others — Reattach- ment to romantic ideas, and progress upon them — Philosophy of pure experience, of intuition, of action, etc.: and its insuffi ciency — The theory of values.
Ill THEORY OF THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT...561 Secular neglect of theory relating to history — Ideas upon history in Grseco-Roman world — Theory of history in mediaeval and modern philosophy — Writers on historical art in the sixteenth century — Writers on method — Theory of history and G. B. Vico — Anti-historicism of eighteenth century, and Kant — Hidden historical value of synthesis a priori — Theory of history in Hegel — W. von Humboldt — F. Brentano — Controversies as to the nature of history — Rickert; Xenopol. History as science of individual— History as art — Other controversies relating to history.
IV THEORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THOUGHT AND WORD AND FORMALIST LOGIC...583 Relation between history of Logic and history of Philosophy of language — Logical formalism. Indian logic free of it — Aristotelian Logic and formalism— Later formalism— Rebellions against Aristotelian Logic— Opposition by humanists and its motives — Opposition of naturalism — Simplicatory elaboration in eighteenth century. Kant — Refutation of formal Logic. Hegel; Schleiermacher — Its partial persistence, owing to in sufficient ideas as to language — Formal Logic in Herbart, in CONTENTS xxxiii PAGE Schopenhauer, in Hamilton — More recent theories — Mathe matical Logic — Inexact idea of language among mathematicians and intuitionists.
CONCERNING THIS LOGIC...603 Traditional character of this Logic and its connection with Logic of philosophic concept — Its innovations — I. Exclusion of empirical and abstract concepts — II. Atheoretic character of second, and autonomy of empirical and mathematical sciences — III. Con cept as unity of distinctions — IV. Identity of concept with indi vidual judgment and of philosophy with history — V. Impossi bility of defining thought by means of verbal forms, and refuta tion of formal Logic — Conclusion.
FIRST PART THE PURE CONCEPT, THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT, AND THE A PRIORI LOGI CAL SYNTHESIS B FIRST SECTION THE PURE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDO- CONCEPTS I AFFIRMATION OF THE CONCEPT PRESUPPOSED in the logical activity, which is the Thought and .. sensation.
subject of this treatise, are representations or intuitions. If man had no representations, he would not think; were he not an imaginative spirit, he would not be a logical spirit. It is generally admitted that thought refers back to sensation, as its antecedent; and this doctrine we have no difficulty in making our own, pro vided it be given a double meaning. That is to say, in the first place, sensation must be conceived as something active and cognitive, or as a cogni tive act; and not as something formless and passive, or active only with the activity of life, and not with that of contemplation. And, in the second place, sensation must be taken in its 3 4 LOGIC PART purity, without any logical reflection and elabora tion; as simple sensation, that is to say, and not as perception, which (as will be seen in the proper place), so far from being implied, in itself implies logical activity. With this double explana tion, sensation, active, cognitive and unreflective, becomes synonymous with representation and in tuition; and certainly this is not the place to discuss the use of these synonyms, though there are excellent reasons of practical convenience pointing to the preference of the terms which we have adopted.
At all events, the important thing is to bear clearly in mind, that(the logical activity, or thought, arises upon the many-coloured pageant of repre- J&- sentations, intuitions, or sensations, whichever we may call them; and by means of these, at every moment the cognitive spirit absorbs within itself the course of reality, bestowing upon it theoretic form, j Thought and Another presupposition is often introduced by language.
logicians: that of language; since it seems clear that, if man does not speak, he does not think. This presupposition also we accept, adding to it, however, a corollary, together with certain elucidations. The elucidations are: in the first place, that language must be taken in its genuine THE PURE CONCEPT 5 and complete reality; that is to say, it must not be arbitrarily restricted to certain of its manifesta tions, such as the vocal and articulate; nor be changed and falsified into a body of abstractions, such as the classes of Grammar or the words of the Vocabulary, conceived as these are in the fashion of a machine, which man sets in motion when he speaks. And, in the second place, by language is to be understood, not the whole body of discourses, taken all together and in confusion, into which (as will be seen in its place) logical elements enter; but only that determinate aspect of these discourses, in virtue of which they are properly called language. A deep-rooted error, which springs directly from the failure to make this distinction, is that of believing language to be constituted of logical elements; adducing as a proof of this that even in the smallest discourse are to be found the words this, that, to be, to do, and the like, that is, logical concepts. But these concepts are by no means really to be found in every expression; and, even where they are to be found, the possibility of extracting them is no proof that they exhaust language. So true is this that those who cherish this conviction are afterwards obliged to leave over as a residue of their analysis, elements which they consider to 6 LOGIC PART be illogical and which they call emphatic, comple mentary, colorative, or musical: a residue in which is concealed true language, which escapes that abstract analysis. Finally, the corollary is that if the concept of language is thus rectified, the presupposition made for Logic regarding language is not a new presupposition, but is identical with that already made, when representations or in tuitions were discussed. In truth, language in the strict sense, as we understand it, is equivalent to expression; and expression is identical with representation, since it is inconceivable that there should be a representation, which should not be expressed in some way, or an expression which should represent nothing, or be meaningless. The one would fail to be representation, and the other would not even be expression; that is to say, both must be and are, one and the same. intuition and What is 3. TG3.1 presupposition of the logical language as...presupposi- activity, is, for that very reason, not a presuppositions.
tion in Philosophy, which cannot admit pre suppositions and must think and demonstrate all the concepts that it posits. But it may con veniently be allowed as a presupposition for that part of Philosophy, which we are now under taking to treat, namely Logic; and the existence of the representative or intuitive form of know- THE PURE CONCEPT 7 THE PURE CONCEPT 7 ledge be taken for granted. After all, scepticism could not formulate more than two objections to this position: either the negation of knowing in general; or the negation of that form of knowing which we presuppose. Now, the first would be an instance of absolute scepticism; and we may be allowed to dispense with exhibiting yet again the old, but ever effective argument against absolute scepticism which may be found in the mouths of all students at the university, even of the boys in the higher elementary classes (and this dispens ation may more readily be granted, seeing that we shall unfortunately be obliged to record many obvious truths of Philosophy in the course of our exposition). But we do not mean by this declara tion that we shall evade our obligation to show the genesis and the profound reasons for this same scepticism, when we are led to do so by the order of our exposition. The second objec tion implies the negation of the intuitive activity as original and autonomous, and its resolution into empirical, hedonistic, intellectualist, or other doctrines. But we have already, in the preceding volume,1 directed our efforts towards making the intuitive activity immune against such doctrines, 1 See the first volume of this Philosophy as Science of the Spirit; ^Esthetic as Science of Expression.
8 LOGIC PART that is to say, towards demonstrating the autonomy of fancy and establishing an Esthetic. So that, in this way, the presupposition which we now allow to stand has here its pedagogic justification, since it resolves itself into a reference to things said elsewhere.
scepticism as Facing, therefore, without more ado, the problem of Logic, the first obstacle to be removed will not be absolute scepticism nor scepticism concerning the intuitive form; but a new and more circumscribed scepticism, which does not question the two first theses, indeed relies upon them, and negates neither knowledge nor intuition, but logical knowledge itself. Logical knowledge is something beyond simple representation. The latter is individuality and multiplicity; the former the universality of individuality, the unity of multiplicity; the one is intuition, the other concept. To know logically is to know the universal or concept. The negation of logic is the affirmation that there is no other knowledge than repre sentative (or sense knowledge, as it is called), and that universal or conceptual knowledge does not exist. Beyond simple representation, there is nothing knowable.
Were this so, the treatise which we are preparing to develop would have no subject- THE PURE CONCEPT 9 matter whatever, and would here cease, since it is impossible to seek out the nature of what does not exist, that is, of the concept, or how it operates in relation to the other forms of the Spirit. But that this is not so, and that the con cept really exists and operates and gives rise to problems,, undoubtedly results from the negation itself, pronounced by that form of scepticism which we will call logical, and which is, indeed, the only negation conceivable upon this point. Thus, we can speedily reassure ourselves as to the fate of our undertaking; or, if it be preferred, we must at once abandon the hope which we conjured up before ourselves, and resign ourselves to the labour of constructing a Logic; a labour which logical scepticism, by restricting us to the sole form of representation, had, as it seems, the good intention of sparing us.
Logical scepticism, in fact, can assume three its three forms. forms. It may affirm simply that representative knowledge is the whole and that unity or universality, whose existence we have postulated, are words without meaning. Or it may affirm that the demand for unity is justified, but that it is satisfied only by the non-cognitive forms of the Spirit. Or, finally, it may affirm that the demand is certainly satisfied by these non-cognitive forms, io LOGIC PART but only in so far as they react upon the cog nitive, that is to say, upon the one admitted form of the cognitive, namely, the representative. It is clear that there is no other possibility beyond these three, either that of being satisfied with representative knowledge; or of being satisfied with something non-cognitive; or of combining these two forms. In the first case, we have the theory of astketicism (which could also be correctly called sensationalism, if this did not happen to be an inconvenient term, by reason of the misunderstanding which might easily spring from it); in the second, the theory of mysticism; in the third, that of empiricism or arbitrarism.
According to sestheticism, in order to under stand the real, it is not necessary to think by means of concepts, to universalize, to reason, or to be logical. It suffices to pass from one spectacle to another; and the sum of these, increased to infinity, is the truth which we seek, and which we must refrain from transcending, lest we fall into the void. The sub specie aeterni would be just like that mirror of water which deceived the avidity of the dog of Phaedrus, and made it leave the real for the illusory food. For the cold and fruitless quest of the logician there is substituted the rich and moving contemplation i THE PURE CONCEPT n of the artist. Truth lies in works of speech, of colour, of line, and not at all in the vain babblings of philosophy. Let us sing, let us paint, and not compel our minds to spasmodic and sterile efforts.
The aestheticist's attitude may be considered as that of the spirit, which comes out of itself and disperses itself among things, while keeping itself above and aloof from them, contemplating, but not immersing itself in them. Mysticism is not satisfied with this, feeling that no repose is ever accorded to the spirit which abandons itself to this orgy, this breathless adventure of infinitely various spectacles, and that the intimate meaning of them all escapes the aestheticist. It is true that there is no logical knowledge, that the concept is sterile, but the claim for unity is legitimate, and demands to be, and is, satisfied. But in what way is it satisfied? Art speaks, and its speech, however beautiful, does not content us; it paints, and its colours, however attractive, deceive us. In order to find the inmost meaning of life, we must seek, not the light, but the shade, not speech, but silence. In silence, reality raises its head and shows its countenance; or, better, it • shows us nothing, but fills us with itself, and gives us the sense of its very being. The unity and vsticism.
12 LOGIC PART universality that we desire are found in action, in the practical form of the Spirit: in the heart, which palpitates, loves, and wills. Knowledge is knowledge of the single, it is representation; the eternal is not a matter of knowledge, but of intimate and ineffable experience.
Empiricism. If the sceptics of logico-aesthctic type are