Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy
Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy, Spanish
Perhaps it may be said that by the very analysis of the example,
we have prepared the way for the triumph of the adversaries of the
simplicity of the soul; because after arbitrary suppositions we
have at last come to a simple effect inherent in a simple thing,
and produced by the concurrence of various agents; but if we look
closer to it, we shall find that this pretended triumph was never
farther from being realized than it is in the last result to which we
are led by the analysis of the forces. For, in order to arrive at a
simple result produced by the concurrence of various forces, we also
require a simple point in which this result is concentrated. Then, and
precisely because we have arrived at this simplicity, we can abstract
the component forces, and consider the result as a simple effect,
produced by a simple force, and inherent in a simple subject, which
is the indivisible point, to which we consider the force as applied.
Therefore, continuing the comparison, we ought to say that, whatever
may be the number of the agents concurring in the production of the
thought, this thought must reside in a simple subject, and in that
case the simplicity of the soul is admitted. It is true that we should
then suppose a certain number of agents acting on the soul in order
to produce the thought; but the thought once produced, the soul alone
would be the thinking subject, just as the indivisible point is the
only one which unites the action of the component forces.
Thus all that our adversaries would have gained would be the burden of
the ridiculous invention of the concurrence of agents, and be forced
notwithstanding, to admit a simple thinking substance, which is all
that we proposed to demonstrate.
87. Kant pretends that it is impossible to deduce from experience
the necessary unity of the thinking subject, as the condition of the
possibility of all thought, because experience reveals no necessity,
and the conception of absolute unity belongs to an order different
from that which we are here considering. It is certain that experience
alone does not reveal any necessity; for it is limited to particular,
contingent facts, and does not reach the universal reason of objects;
but this is not true of experience regarded objectively, or in relation
to the cognition of the general reasons of things; for although
this cognition, considered subjectively as an individual act, is a
contingent fact, still inasmuch as it exists it represents a true
necessity in certain objects; unless we wish to renounce the certainty
of all the sciences, mathematics included.
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