The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867Various
Philosophy
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
But how is it with the “Thesis” to that Antinomy, “The world _has_ a
beginning in time?” Kant proves this apagogically by showing the
absurdity of an “infinite series already elapsed.” That our author did
not escape the contradiction has already been shown in our remarks upon
the “indestructibility of matter.” While he was treating of the
unknowable it was his special province to prove that self-existence is
unthinkable. (P. 31): He says it means “existence without a beginning,”
and “to conceive existence through infinite past time, implies the
conception of infinite past time, which is an impossibility.” Thus we
have the Thesis of the Antinomy supported in his doctrine of the
“unknowable,” and the antithesis of the same proved in the doctrine of
the knowable.
We shall next find him involved with Kant’s Third Antinomy.
The doctrine of the correlation is stated in the following passages:
(P. 280): “Those modes of the unknowable, which we call motion, heat,
light, chemical affinity, etc., are alike transformable into each other,
and into those modes of the unknowable which we distinguish as
sensation, emotion, thought: these, in their turns, being directly or
indirectly re-transformable into the original shapes. That no idea or
feeling arises, save as a result of some physical force expended in
producing it, is fast becoming a common-place of science; and whoever
duly weighs the evidence, will see that nothing but an overwhelming bias
in favor of a preconceived theory can explain its non-acceptance. How
this metamorphosis takes place—how a force existing as motion, heat, or
light, can become a mode of consciousness—how it is possible for aërial
vibrations to generate the sensation we call sound, or for the forces
liberated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise to emotion—these
are mysteries which it is impossible to fathom.” (P. 284): “Each
manifestation of force can be interpreted only as the effect of some
antecedent force; no matter whether it be an inorganic action, an animal
movement, a thought, or a feeling. Either this must be conceded, or else
it must be asserted that our successive states of consciousness are
self-created.” “Either mental energies as well as bodily ones are
quantitatively correlated to certain energies expended in their
production, and to certain other energies they initiate; or else nothing
must become something and something, nothing. Since persistence of
force, being a _datum_ of consciousness, cannot be denied, its
unavoidable corollary must be accepted.”
On p. 294 he supports the doctrine that “motion takes the direction of
the least resistance,” mentally as well as physically.
Here are some of the inferences to be drawn from the passages quoted:
1. Every act is determined from without, and hence does not belong to
the subject in which it manifests itself.
2. To change the course of a force, is to make another direction “that
of the least resistance,” or to remove or diminish a resistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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