Essays in Radical Intuition

In the first essay in Essays in Radical Empiricism, “Does Consciousness Exist?” William James argues that there is no such thing as consciousness. His argument is clear, cogent, and logical. I’m sure if anyone wanted to take the time to convert his points into syllogisms they would find it fairly straightforward to convert is 19^th Century prose into outline form, something I admit, I have little interest in tackling.

At the end of the chapter, he addresses what he expects will be the strongest opposition, that, that others will say, “our consciousness itself intuitively contradicts you” (37-38). At that point he deserts his logic to reply, “I, too, have my intuitions and I must obey them (37-38).

In other words, he admits at the end that his logic isn’t his means of establishing the certainty of his claim, but simply supporting it. In 21^st Century terms, he has become the blonde (of either gender; I’m fine with being a melaninist, but not a sexist) sitting in the back of the class who raises their hand and says, “Everyone has their own opinion. Why get so bent out of shape about it?” His argument is no stronger than this: I have my opinion and you have yours. And thus, the question as he presents it has nothing to do with empiricism at all, but with “How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?”

It strikes me that, while intuitions can be productive, even creative, obeying intuitions may be the most dangerous move a philosopher can make. 

James, William, Fredson Bowers, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis. Essays in radical empiricism. Vol. 3. Harvard University Press, 1976.

“But a last cry of non possumus will probably go up from many readers. “All very pretty as a piece of ingenuity,” they will say, “but our consciousness itself intuitively contradicts you. We, for our part, know that we are conscious. We feel our thought, flowing as a life within us, in absolute contrast with the objects which it so unremittingly escorts. We can not be faithless to this immediate intuition. The dualism is a fundamental datum: Let no man join what God has put asunder.”
My reply to this is my last word, and I greatly grieve that to many it will sound materialistic. I can not help that, however, for I, too, have my intuitions and I must obey them. Let the case be what it may in others, I am as confident as I am of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking (which I recognize emphatically as a phenomenon) is only a careless name for what, when scrutinized, reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my breathing. The ‘I think’ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‘I breathe’ which actually does accompany them. There are other internal facts besides breathing (intracephalic muscular adjustments, etc., of which I have said a word in my larger Psychology), and these increase the assets of ‘consciousness,’ so far as the latter is subject to immediate perception; but breath, which was ever the original of ‘spirit,’ breath moving outwards, between the glottis and the nostrils, is, I am persuaded, the essence out of which philosophers have constructed the entity known to them as consciousness. That entity is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts in the concrete are made of the same stuff as things are.

Utilitarianism Sucks

Here's John Stewart Mill's Defense of Utilitarianism; about as succinct a paragraph as you could expect from a Nineteenth Century Philosopher:

"Utility is often summarily stigmatised as an immoral doctrine by giving it the name of Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular use of that term to contrast it with Principle. But the Expedient, in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices the interests of his country to keep himself in place. When it means anything better than this, it means that which is expedient for some immediate object, some temporary purpose, but which violates a rule whose observance is expedient in a much higher degree."

He gives us several possible definitions of expedient:

Expedient1 "that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself, as when a minister sacrifices the interests of his country to keep himself in place." 

Expedient2  "that which is expedient for some immediate object, some temporary purpose."

Expedient3 "a rule whose observance is expedient to a much higher degree."

Of course, as I suspect Mill knew, the differences between these expediences is a matter of interpretation. And, there are always three interpretations or more, that of the agent, that of the observer, and the "rule" which itself may be subject to interpretation.

"Mental Objects"

In Essays on Radical Empiricism William James writes about “mental objects,” which he describes as objects that are not physical world objects, but which have a claim to being “real world” objects as opposed to concepts. A concept may have interpretations or theoretical extensions go past being theories of that object and question whether one interpretation can lay claim to the term “real” or whether another interpretation has a better claim. In James “mental objects” have no measurable, perceptible physical presence, but can lay claim to real. Two examples he gives are 1+1=2 and “white.” What is interesting about these examples is that they can be descriptions of a real but they are not the real itself. 

I admit that without an, as yet, fully articulated defense, I see God as a mental object. As a mental object, God is more than a concept. We can give descriptions of God just as we can give descriptions of white, and those descriptions are concepts. White or God is not. Interestingly enough, James’s other example doesn’t work the same way. I’m thinking my way through this. In 1+1= 2, I have to think that the formula itself is a mental object. However, the 1 and the 2 are concepts; they may, though do not necessarily, represent physical objects. Thus, mental objects often, though do not necessarily, have physical extensions. If they do not, what is their claim to being real? Do they need to make that claim?

Those questions are critical when we think of God as a mental object. However, those questions outline our inadequacies, not those of God. I have to admit I rather like how Spinoza handles those questions, and question how Shopenhauer, who in, The World as Will and Idea, seems comfortable distinguishing between what is and what is not in fairly certain tones.

Reference Chapter 4 of Essays on Radical Empiricism, particularly “The Thing and its Relations” as well as “How Two Minds Can Know One Thing,” where he seems to be arguing against anything such as abstracts.

Chapter 6

“But matters of fact are not our only stock in trade. RELATIONS AMONG PURELY MENTAL IDEAS form another sphere where true and false beliefs obtain, and here the beliefs are absolute, or unconditional. When they are true they bear the name either of definitions or of principles. It is either a principle or a definition that 1 and 1 make 2, that 2 and 1 make 3, and so on; that white differs less from gray than it does from black; that when the cause begins to act the effect also commences. Such propositions hold of all possible 'ones,' of all conceivable 'whites' and 'grays' and 'causes.' The objects here are mental objects. Their relations are perceptually obvious at a glance, and no sense-verification is necessary. Moreover, once true, always true, of those same mental objects. Truth here has an 'eternal' character. If you can find a concrete thing anywhere that is 'one' or 'white' or 'gray,' or an 'effect,' then your principles will everlastingly apply to it. It is but a case of ascertaining the kind, and then applying the law of its kind to the particular object. You are sure to get truth if you can but name the kind rightly, for your mental relations hold good of everything of that kind without exception. If you then, nevertheless, failed to get truth concretely, you would say that you had classed your real objects wrongly. 

“In this realm of mental relations, truth again is an affair of leading. We relate one abstract idea with another, framing in the end great systems of logical and mathematical truth, under the respective terms of which the sensible facts of experience eventually arrange themselves, so that our eternal truths hold good of realities also. This marriage of fact and theory is endlessly fertile. What we say is here already true in advance of special verification, IF WE HAVE SUBSUMED OUR OBJECTS RIGHTLY. Our ready-made ideal framework for all sorts of possible objects follows from the very structure of our thinking. We can no more play fast and loose with these abstract relations than we can do so with our sense-experiences. They coerce us; we must treat them consistently, whether or not we like the results. The rules of addition apply to our debts as rigorously as to our assets. The hundredth decimal of pi, the ratio of the circumference to its diameter, is predetermined ideally now, tho no one may have computed it. If we should ever need the figure in our dealings with an actual circle we should need to have it given rightly, calculated by the usual rules; for it is the same kind of truth that those rules elsewhere calculate.”