Hegel's Philosophy of Mind — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Hegel · en
The suggestion of mathematical method has been taken up by subsequent
inquirers (as it was pursued even before Herbart’s time), but not in the
sense he meant. Experimentation has now taken a prominent place in
psychology. But in proportion as it has done so, psychology has lost its
native character, and thrown itself into the arms of physiology. What
Herbart calculated were actions and reactions of idea-forces: what the
modern experimental school proposes to measure are to a large extent the
velocities of certain physiological processes, the numerical specification
of certain facts. Such ascertainments are unquestionably useful; as
numerical precision is in other departments. But, taken in themselves,
they do not carry us one bit further on the way to science. As
experiments, further,—to note a point discussed elsewhere(34)—their value
depends on the point of view, on the theory which has led to them, on the
value of the general scheme for which they are intended to provide a
special new determination. In many cases they serve to give a vivid
reality to what was veiled under a general phrase. The truth looks so much
more real when it is put in figures: as the size of a huge tree when set
against a rock; or as when Milton bodies out his fallen angel by setting
forth the ratio between his spear and the tallest Norway pine. But until
the general relationship between soul and body is more clearly formulated,
such statistics will have but a value of curiosity.
(iii.) The Faculty-Psychology and its Critics.
What Herbart (as well as Hegel) finds perpetual ground for objecting to is
the talk about mental faculties. This objection is part of a general
characteristic of all the higher philosophy; and the recurrence of it
gives an illustration of how hard it is for any class of men to see
themselves as others see them. If there be anything the vulgar believe to
be true of philosophy, it is that it deals in distant and abstruse
generalities, that it neglects the shades of individuality and reality,
and launches out into unsubstantial general ideas. But it would be easy to
gather from the great thinkers an anthology of passages in which they hold
it forth as the great work of philosophy to rescue our conceptions from
the indefiniteness and generality of popular conception, and to give them
real, as opposed to a merely nominal, individuality.