Appearance and Reality/Chapter XI
CHAPTER XI.
PHENOMENALISM.
Our attempts, so far, to reduce the world’s diverse contents to unity have ended in failure. Any sort of group which we could find, whether a thing or a self, proved unable to stand criticism. And, since it seems that what appears must somewhere certainly be one, and since this unity is not to be discovered in phenomena, the reality threatens to migrate to another world than ours. We have been driven near to the separation of appearance and reality; we already perhaps contemplate their localization in two different hemispheres—the one unknown to us and real, and the other known and mere appearance. But, before we take this step, I will say a few words on a proposed alternative, stating this entirely in my own way and so as to suit my own convenience.
“Why,” it may be said, “should we trouble ourselves to seek for a unity? Why do things not go on very well as they are? We really want no substance or activity, or anything else of the kind. For phenomena and their laws are all that science requires.” Such a view maybe called Phenomenalism. It is superficial at its best, and it is held of course with varying degrees of intelligence. In its most consistent form, I suppose, it takes its phenomena as feelings or sensations. These with their relations are the elements; and the laws somewhere and somehow come into this view. And against its opponents Phenomenalism would urge, What else exists? “Show me anything real,” it would argue, “and I will show you mere presentation; more is not to be discovered, and really more is meaningless. Things and selves are not unities in any sense whatever, except as given collections or arrangements of such presented elements. What appears is, as a matter of fact, grouped in such and such manners. And then, of course, there are the laws. When we have certain things given, then certain other things are given too; or we know that certain other occurrences will or may take place. There is hence nothing but events, appearances which happen, and the ways which these appearances have of happening. And how, in the name of science, can any one want any more?”
The last question suggests a very obvious criticism. The view either makes a claim to take account of all the facts, or it makes no such claim. In the latter case there is at once an end of its pretensions. But in the former case it has to meet this fatal objection. All the ways of thinking which introduce an unity into things, into the world or the self—and there clearly is a good deal of such thinking on hand—are of course illusory. But, none the less, they are facts entirely undeniable. And Phenomenalism is invited to take some account of these facts, and to explain how on its principles their existence is possible. How, for example, with only such elements and their laws, is the theory of Phenomenalism itself a possible fact? The theory seems a unity which, if it were true, would be impossible. And an objection of this sort has a very wide range, and applies to a considerable area of appearance. But I am not going to ask how Phenomenalism is prepared to reply. I will simply say that this one objection, to those who understand, makes an end of the business. And if there ever has been so much as an attempt to meet this fairly, it has escaped my notice. We may be sure beforehand that such an effort must be wholly futile. Thus, without our entering into any criticism on the positive doctrine, a mere reference to what it must admit, and yet blindly ignores, is a sufficient refutation. But I will add a few remarks on the inconsistencies of that which it offers us.
What it states, in the first place, as to its elements and their relations, is unintelligible. In actual fact, wherever you get it, these distinctions appear and seem even to be necessary. At least I have no notion of the way in which they could be dispensed with. But if so, there is here at once a diversity in unity; we have somehow together, perhaps, several elements and some relations; and what is the meaning of “together,” when once distinctions have been separated? And then what sort of things are relations? Can you have elements which are free from them even internally? And are relations themselves not given elements, another kind of phenomena? But, if so, what is the relation between the first kind and the second (Cf. Chapter iii.)? Or, if that question ends in sheer nonsense, who is responsible for the nonsense? Consider, for instance, any fact of sense, it does not matter what; and let Phenomenalism attempt to state clearly what it means by its elements and relations; let it tell us whether these two sides are in relation with one another, or, if not that, what else is the case. But I will pass to another point.
An obvious question arises as to events past and future. If these, and their relations to the present, are not to be real and in some sense to exist—then difficulties arise into which I will not enter. But, if past and future (or either of them) are in any sense real, then, in the first place, the unity of this series will be something inexplicable. And, in the second place, a reality, not presented and not given (and even the past is surely not given), was precisely that against which Phenomenalism set its face. This is another inconsistency. Let us go on to consider the question as to identity. This Phenomenalism should deny, because identity is a real union of the diverse. But change is not to be denied, for obviously it must be there when something happens. Now, if there is change, there is by consequence something which changes. But if it changes, it is the same throughout a diversity. It is, in other words, a real unity, a concrete universal. Take, for example, the fact of motion; evidently here something alters its place. Hence a variety of places, whatever that means—in any case a variety—must be predicated of one something. If so, we have at once on our hands the One and the Many, and otherwise our theory declines to deal with ordinary fact.
In brief, identity—being that which the doctrine excluded—is essential to its being. And now how far is this to go? Is the series of phenomena, with its differences, one series? If it is not one, why treat it as if it were so? If it is one, then here indeed is a unity which gives us pause. Again, are the elements ever permanent and remaining identical from one time to another? But, whether they are or are not identical, how are facts to be explained? Suppose, in the first place, that we do have identical elements, surviving amid change and the play of variety. Here are metaphysical reals, raising the old questions we have been discussing through this Book. But perhaps nothing is really permanent except the laws. The problem of change is given up, and we fall back upon our laws, persisting and appearing in successions of fleeting elements. If so, phenomena seem now to have become temporal illustrations of laws.
And it is perhaps time to ask a question concerning the nature of these last-mentioned creatures. Are they permanent real essences, visible from time to time in their fleeting illustrations? If so, once more Phenomenalism has adored blindly what it rejected. And, of course, the relations of these essences—the one to the other, and each to the phenomena which in some way seem its adjectives—take us back to those difficulties which proved too hard for us. But I presume that the reality of the laws must be denied, or denied, that is, not quite, but with a reservation. The laws are hypothetical; they are in themselves but possibilities, and actual only when found in real presentation. Apart from this, and as mere laws, they are connections between terms which do not exist; and, if so, as connections, they are not strictly anything actual. In short, just as the elements were nothing outside of presentation, so again, outside of presentation, the laws really are nothing. And in presentation then—what is either side, the elements or the laws, but an unreal and quite indefensible thought? It seems that we can say of them only that we do not know what they are; and all that we can be certain of is this, that they are not what we know, namely, given phenomena.
And here we may end. The view has started with mere presentation. It, of course, is forced to transcend this, and it has done so ignorantly and blindly. A little criticism has driven it back, and has left it with a universe, which must either be distinctions within one presentation, or else mere nonsense. And then these distinctions themselves are quite indefensible. If you admit them, you have to deal with the metaphysical problem of the Many in One; and you cannot admit them, because clearly they are not given and presented, but at least more or less made. And what it must come to is that Phenomenalism ends in this dilemma. It must either keep to the moment’s presentation, and must leave there the presented entirely as it is given—and, if so, then surely there could be no more science; or it must “become transcendent” (as the phrase goes), and launch out into a sea of more preposterous inconsistencies than are perhaps to be found in any other attempt at metaphysics. As a working point of view, directed and confined to the ascertainment of some special branch of truth, Phenomenalism is of course useful and is indeed quite necessary. And the metaphysician who attacks it when following its own business, is likely to fare badly. But when Phenomenalism loses its head and, becoming blatant, steps forward as a theory of first principles, then it is really not respectable. The best that can be said of its pretensions is that they are ridiculous.