The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
Facts are always single, concrete, and individual. Every fact is a
_hic_ and _nunc_. It is in a special place, and it is as it is, at a
certain time. It is definite and of a particular kind. Yet a truth,
although representing certain objects or their relations, is never
a concrete object, nor is it a _hic_ and a _nunc_. It possesses a
generality applicable to all instances wherever and whenever the
objects in their particular relation appear represented in that truth.
Truth accordingly possesses as it were an ubiquity; it is omnipresent
and eternal.
Truth in one sense is objective; it represents objects or their
relations conceived in their objectivity, in their independence of
the subject. This means that the representation of certain objective
states will under like conditions agree with the experiences of all
subjects—i. e., of all feeling beings having the same channels of
information.
Truth in another sense is subjective. Truth exists in thinking subjects
only. Truth affirms that certain subjective representations of the
objective world can be relied upon, that they are deduced from facts
and agree with facts. Based upon past experience, they can be used as
guides for future experience. If there were no subjective beings, no
feeling and comprehending minds, there would be no truth. Facts in
themselves, whether they are or are not represented in the mind of a
feeling and thinking subject, are real, yet representations alone,
supposing they agree with facts, are true.
* * * * *
#The problem of the origin of mind.#
Mind, or the representation of facts in feeling substance, is the
creation of a new and a spiritual realm above the facts of material
existence. By spiritual we understand feelings that are representative;
and we say that it is a new creation because it does not exist in the
isolated facts of the world. It is formed under special conditions.
It rises from certain combinations of facts; being built upon those
facts which produce in their co-operation the subjective state of
feeling. The activity of mind if methodically disciplined is called
science. Science attempts to make the mental representations correct:
it is the search for truth. The object of all the sciences and of
philosophy is to systematise knowledge, i. e., all the innumerable
data of experience, so that we can understand and survey the facts of
reality in their harmonious interconnection. The most important problem
of philosophy has always been the problem of the origin of mind; for we
are anxious to comprehend how it is possible that feeling can spring
up in a universe of not-feeling objects, and that thinking beings can
originate in a world of not-thinking elements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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