The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
What does “twice two makes four” mean? Two means 1 + 1, and twice two
means 1 + 1 plus 1 + 1. This sum is called “four”; and what we call
five is 4 + 1. To maintain that the operation 2 × 2 might produce the
result 5, is to admit conditions which have been excluded. Pure forms
are not like animals which multiply; they are and remain such as they
have been posited. When we put two amœbas into a glass and then add two
other amœbas, it is quite possible that in the mean time one of the first
set has divided into two. In that case we would have five amœbas. But
the operation 2 × 2 cannot breed any additional units, so as to produce
a greater number than the sum of 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. Nor can we let any of
these units disappear into naught, so as to produce the result 3, without
committing some inconsistency in our thought-operations, for the products
of our thought-operations are rigid and must remain such as they have
been posited. They are not animals blessed with fertility but pure forms
and nothing but pure forms.
How could Mr. John Stuart Mill overlook so palpable a contrast as
that between formal knowledge and sense-experience? He was apparently
prejudiced against the term “a priori,” which as we freely confess is a
very poor and inadequate expression. Mr. Mill himself states the cause of
his prejudice in his autobiography. He says:
“There is not any idea, feeling, or power, in the human mind,
which, in order to account for it, requires that its origin
should be referred to any other source than experience.”
Mr. Mill was justly exasperated against anything _a priori_, for in his
time, it had become customary among certain philosophers to classify all
pet superstitions which could not be proved by experience as _a priori_.
Mr. Mill continues:
“Whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy
of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external
to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness,
independently of observation and experience, is, I am
persuaded, in these times the great intellectual support of
false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory
every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which
the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the
obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into
its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never
was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated
prejudices.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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