If coexistence as such is to be set over against coherence as such, as
the non-logical against the logical, then, since our whole spatial
universe is one of collocation, and since thought in this universe can
never get farther than substituting one collocation for another, the
whole realm of space-experience is condemned off-hand and in perpetuity
to anti-rationality. But, in truth, coincidence as over against
coherence, conjunction as over against connection, is just _suspected_
coherence, one which is under the fire of active inquiry. The
distinction is one which arises only within the grasp of the logical or
reflective function.
3. This brings us explicitly to the fact that there is no such thing as
either coincidence or coherence in terms of the elements or meanings
contained in any couple or pair of ideas taken by itself. It is only
when they are co-factors in a situation or function which includes more
than either the "coincident" or the "coherent" and more than the
arithmetical sum of the two, that thought's activity can be evoked.
Lotze is continually in this dilemma: Thought either shapes its own
material or else just accepts it. In the first case (since Lotze cannot
rid himself of the presumption that thought must have a fixed ready-made
antecedent) its activity can only alter this stuff and thus lead the
mind farther away from reality. But if thought just accepts its
material, how can there be any distinctive aim or activity of thought at
all? As we have seen, Lotze endeavors to escape this dilemma by
supposing that, while thought receives its material, it yet checks it
up: it eliminates certain portions of it and reinstates others, plus the
stamp and seal of its own validity.
Lotze objects most strenuously to the notion that thought awaits its
subject-matter with certain ready-made modes of apprehension. This
notion would raise the insoluble question of how thought contrives to
bring the matter of each impression under that particular form which is
appropriate to it (Vol. I, p. 24). But he has not really avoided the
difficulty. How does thought know which of the combinations are merely
coincident and which are merely coherent? How does it know which to
eliminate as irrelevant and which to confirm as grounded? Either this
evaluation is an imposition of its own, or else gets its cue and clue
from the subject-matter. Now, if the coincident and the coherent taken
in and of themselves are competent to give this direction, they are
already practically labeled. The further work of thought is one of
supererogation. It has at most barely to note and seal the material
combinations that are already there. Such a view clearly renders
thought's work as unnecessary in form as it is futile in force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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