The Mind and the Brain: Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le CorpsBinet, Alfred
Philosophy
The Mind and the Brain: Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps
Binet, Alfred
Mind and body
2. There follows a second proposition, barely distinct from the
previous one. There should be nothing else in objects but that which
we perceive, and that of which we have consciousness should be, in the
fullest possible acceptation of the words, the measure of what is.
Consequently there should be no need to seek, under the object
perceived, another and larger reality, a source from which might flow
wider knowledge than that we at present possess. This is as disputable
as the preceding affirmation, and for the same reasons.
3. The third proposition is the heart of the idealist thesis. It is
sometimes presented as a deduction from the foregoing, but it is
nevertheless thoroughly distinct from it, and the preceding
affirmations might legitimately be accepted and this new one rejected.
This proposition may be expressed thus: _Everything that is perceived
is psychical._
It is not only idealists who subscribe to this opinion, however, and
we have seen, when dealing with the definition of matter, that it is
widely spread. We understand by it that the objects we perceive exist
in the consciousness, are of the consciousness, and are constituted
by ideas; the whole world is nothing but idea and representation; and,
since our mind is taken to be of a psychical nature, the result is
that everything, absolutely everything, the person who knows and the
thing known, are all psychical. This is panpsychism. Flournoy, on this
point, says, with a charm coloured by irony: "We henceforth experience
a sweet family feeling, we find ourselves, so to speak, _at home_ in
the midst of this universe ..."[45] We have demonstrated above that
the unity here attained is purely verbal, since we cannot succeed in
suppressing the essential differences of things.
4. Now comes an affirmation on the genesis of things. After having
admitted that the object is an idea of the mind, one of its
manifestations, or one of its moods, the idealists go so far as to say
that the consciousness is the generating power of ideas, and,
consequently, the generating cause of the universe. It is thought
which creates the world. That is the final conclusion.
I indicated, beforehand, in the chapters on the definition of
sensation and on the distinction between the consciousness and the
object, the reasons which lead me to reject the premises of idealism.
It will be sufficient to offer here a criticism on its last
conclusion: "It is the mind that creates the world."
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