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.”
