Part 6

Other disputes, far enough apart in significance and nature, concerning the nature of the concept, acquire a more precise meaning when referred to our subdivision of pseudoconcepts into _empirical_ or _representative,_ and _abstract._ Thereby we can understand why it has been asked if the concepts are _concrete_ or _abstract, general_ or _universal, contingent_ or _necessary, approximate_ or _rigorous;_ if they are obtained _a posteriori_ or _a priori,_ by _induction_ or _deduction,_ by _synthesis_ or _analysis,_ and so on. This series of disputes likewise cannot be settled, save by admitting that both contending parties are right and wrong, and demonstrating that pseudoconcepts (which are alone here in discussion) are constructed by analysis, and by deduction are _a priori,_ and have the characters of abstractness, rigorousness, universality and necessity, if it be a question of _abstract_ pseudoconcepts, that is to say, of empty fictions, outside experience; while, on the other hand, they are constructed by synthesis, and by induction are _a posteriori,_ and have the characters of concreteness, approximation, mere generality and contingency, if they be empirical or _representative_ pseudoconcepts, that is to say, groups of representations, which do not go beyond representation and experience. Indeed, from this last point of view, no error was made in denying any difference between the (representative) _concept_ and the _general representation._ It is false that this latter is the result of psychical mechanism or association, and the former of psychical purpose, because there is nothing mechanical in the spirit; and the general representation, if it is a product of the spirit, is as teleological as the other, indeed is absolutely one with the other. It obeys, like it, the law of _economy,_ or, as we have shown, the practical ends of convenience and utility.

[Sidenote: _Crossing of the various disputes._]

But these last disputes have crossed with that which we first examined between realism and nominalism, and have sometimes taken on the same meaning. This must be kept in mind, to serve as a guide in the dense forest. Is the concept _a priori_ or _a posteriori,_ universal or general, necessary or contingent? These questions and others like them were sometimes understood as equivalent to the question: is it real or nominal, truth or fiction?

[Sidenote: _Other logical disputes._]

Certain problems of Logic, not yet solved in a satisfactory manner, arise from the failure to make clear the confusion between concepts and pseudoconcepts, and between empirical and abstract concepts. Is it or is it not true that every concept must have an individual representation, taken from its own sphere, as a necessary _support_? Are concepts of _things_ possible, or is there a special concept corresponding to every thing? Is a concept of the _individual_ possible? These three questions may be answered in the affirmative, in the negative, and in the affirmative-negative, according as they are referred to the empirical concept, the abstract concept, or the pure concept.

[Sidenote: _The representative accompaniment of the concept._]

For, if we consider the first question, we must resolutely deny that the abstract concept has any need of a particular representation as its necessary support. The geometric triangle, as such, is neither white nor black, nor of any given size; if the representation of a particular triangle unites itself to it, geometry discards it. But we must just as resolutely affirm than an empirical or representative concept has always an image to support it; the concept of a cat needs the image of a cat, and every book on zoology is accompanied with illustrations. The image may be varied, but never suppressed; and it may be varied only within certain limits, because, if these be exceeded, the concept itself loses its form and is dissipated. Thus, for the concept of the cat, we could frame a representation of a white or black or red cat, or a small or big one; but if scarlet colour or the size of an elephant be attributed to the cat, which serves as symbol of the fiction, the concept must be changed. That concept has at its command the images of cats, upon which it has been formed, which, as we know, are always finite in number. Finally, with reference to the pure concept, it must be said that every image and no image is in turn a symbol of it; as every blade of grass (as Vanini said) represents God, and a number of images, however great it be, does not suffice to represent Him.

[Sidenote: _The concept of the thing and the concept of the individual._]

In like manner, as regards the second question, it must be answered that the empirical concept is nothing but a concept of things, or a grouping of a certain number of things beneath one or other of them, which functions as a type; that the abstract concept is by definition, the not-thing, incapable of representation; and that the pure concept is a concept of every thing and of no thing. And as regards the third, we must answer that the abstract concept is altogether repugnant to individuality; the pure concept alights upon every individual, only to leave it again, and in so far as it thinks all individual things, it renders them all, in a certain way, concepts, and in so far as it surpasses them, it denies them as such; while the empirical concept can be the _concept of the individual._ Because if in reality, the individual be the situation of the universal spirit at a determinate instant, empirically considered the individual becomes something isolated, cut off from the rest and shut up in itself, so that it is possible to attribute to it a certain constancy in relation to the occurrences of the life it lives; so that that life assumes almost the position of the individual determinations of a concept. Socrates is the life of Socrates, inseparable from all the life of the time in which he developed; but empirically and usefully we can construct the concept of a Socrates a controversialist, an educator, endowed with imperturbable calm, of which the Socrates who ate and drank and wore clothes, and lived during such and such occurrences, is the incarnation. Thus we can form pseudoconcepts of individuals as well as of things, or, to express it in terms that are the fashion, we can form _Platonic ideas_ of them.

[Sidenote: _Reasons, laws, and causes._]

It is also well to note that to adduce the _reasons,_ the _laws,_ the _causes_ of things and of reality, is equivalent to establishing concepts, and since the word "concepts" has been applied in turn to pure and to empirical and abstract concepts, laws and causes have been alternately described as truths and as fictions. It belongs to the discussion of terminology to remark that in general the word "reason" has been used only for researches into pure and abstract concepts, "cause" for empirical concepts, and "laws" almost equally for all three, but perhaps a little more for empirical and abstract than for pure concepts. But to the confusion of these three forms of spiritual products is to be attributed the fact that there have been discussions, as, for instance, whether there be _concepts of laws_ in addition to concepts of things, the issue of which was at bottom the desire to ascertain whether there exist abstract and pure concepts, in addition to empirical concepts.

[Sidenote: _Intellect and Reason._]

The profound diversity of the concepts and of the pseudoconcepts suggested (at the time when it was customary to represent the forms or grades of the spirit as faculties) the distinction between two logical faculties, which were called _Intellect_ (or, also, _abstract_ Intellect), and _Reason._ The first of these formed what we now call pseudoconcepts; the second, pure concepts.

[Sidenote: _The abstract intellect and its practical nature._]

But the proper character of neither of the two faculties was realized by those who postulated them; they fell into the error, which we have already had occasion to criticize, of conceiving the Intellect as a form of knowledge, which either lives in the false, or is limited to preparing the material for the superior faculty, to which it supplies a first imperfect sketch of the concept. But the faculty required for this should be, not of a theoretical nature, but of a practical. It is a terminological question of slight interest, whether the name "Intellect" should be retained for the production of pseudoconcepts, or whether the purely theoretic meaning, which it first had, should be restored to it, and it should thus be made synonymous with "Reason." It can only be observed that it will be very difficult to remove henceforth from "Intellect," from "intellectual formations," and from "intellectualism," the suspicion and discredit cast upon them by the great philosophic history of the first half of the nineteenth century; so much so, that only where a rather popular style is employed, can Intellect and Reason be used promiscuously.

With greater truth, Reason was considered as unifying what the Intellect had divided, and therefore as unifying abstraction and concreteness, deduction and induction, analysis and synthesis. With greater truth, although complete exactness would have demanded here, not so much that to Reason should be given the power of unifying what has been unduly divided, as that to the Intellect, that is to say, to the practical faculty, should be given the power of dividing extrinsically what for Reason is never divided: a power which the Intellect, as a practical faculty, possesses and exercises, not in a pathological, but in a physiological way.

[Sidenote: _The synthesis of theoretic and practical, and the intellectual intuition._]

The incomplete survey of the so-called Intellect, the theoretic character of which was preserved, though in a depreciatory sense, issued in the result that finally to Reason itself was attributed a character, no longer theoretic, or rather, _more than theoretic._ Knowledge, presenting itself in the form of Intellect, seemed inadequate to truth; to attain to which there intervened Reason, or speculative procedure, the _synthesis of theory and practice,_ a knowledge which is action, and an action which is knowledge. Sometimes, Reason itself, thus transfigured, seemed insufficient, owing to the presence of ratiocinative processes, which came to it from the Intellect, and were absorbed by it; and the supreme faculty of truth was conceived, not as logical reasoning, but as intuition; an intuition differing from the purely artistic and revealing the genuine truth, an organ of the absolute, _intellectual Intuition._ It was urged against intellectual intuition that it created irresponsibility in the field of truth, and made lawful every individual caprice. But a similar objection could be brought against Reason, which is superior to knowledge, and is the synthesis of theory and practice: while, on the other hand, it cannot be denied, both of intellectual Intuition and of Reason, that on the whole they affirmed or tended to affirm _the rights of the pure Concept,_ as opposed to empirical and abstract concepts.

[Sidenote: _Uniqueness of thought._]

For our part, we have no need to lower the cognitive activity beneath the level of truth, by attributing to it an intellectualiste and arbitrary function; nor, on the other hand (in order to supplement knowledge and intellect thus pauperized), to exalt Reason above itself. Thought (call it Intellect, or Reason, or what you will) is always thought; and it always thinks with pure concepts, never with pseudoconcepts. And since there is not another thought beneath thought, so there is not another thought superior to it. The difficulties which led to these conclusions have been completely explained, when we have distinguished concepts from pseudoconcepts, and demonstrated the heterogeneity which exists between these two forms of spiritual products.

V

CRITIQUE OF THE DIVISIONS OF THE CONCEPTS AND THEORY OF DISTINCTION AND DEFINITION

[Sidenote: _The pseudoconcepts, not a subdivision of the concept._]

Precisely because they are heterogeneous formations, pure concepts and pseudoconcepts do not constitute divisions of the generic concept of the concept. To assume that they did, would be a horrible confusion of terms, not far different (to use Spinoza's example) from that of the division of the dog into _animal_ dog and _constellation_ dog; though poets used at one time to talk of the celestial dog also, as "barking and biting," when the sun implacably burned the fields.

[Sidenote: _Obscurity, clearness and distinction, not subdivisions of the concept._]

And seeing that our point of view is philosophic, we can take no account of another division of the concept, which had great fame and authority in the past: that into _obscure, confused, clear_ and _distinct_ concepts and the like, or of the degrees of _perfection_ to which the concept attains. Such a division can retain at the most but an empirical and approximate value, and under this aspect it will be difficult altogether to renounce it in ordinary discourse; but it has no logical and philosophic value whatever. The concept is what is truly concept, the perfect concept, not at all the encumbered or wandering tendency toward it. Yet that division had great historical importance. By means of it, indeed, the attempt was made to differentiate the concept, under the name of _clear_ and _distinct_ thought, from the intuition, which was _clear_ but _confused_ thought, and both of these from sensation, impression, or emotion, which was called _obscure._ This was attempted, but without success; the problem was set but not solved; for the solution was only attained when it was seen that, in this case, it was not a question of three degrees of thought, as absolute logic claimed, but of three forms of the spirit: of thought or _distinction,_ of intuition _ox clearness_; and of the practical activity, _obscurity_ or _naturality._

[Sidenote: _Non-existence of subdivisions of the concept as a logic at form._]

Logically, the concept does not give rise to distinctions, for there are not several forms of concept, but one only. This is a perfectly analogous result in Logic to that which we reached in Æsthetic, when we established the uniqueness of intuition or expression, and the non-existence of special modes or classes of expressions (except in the empirical sense, in which we can always establish as many classes as we wish). In distinguishing the forms of the spirit, the two principal forms, theoretic and practical, having been divided, and the theoretic having been subdivided into intuition and concept, there is no place for a further subdivision of the theoretic forms, since intuition and concept are each of them indivisible forms. The reason for this indivisibility cannot be clearly understood, save by the complete development of the Philosophy of the spirit; and it is only to be remarked here in passing, that the division of intuition and concept has as its foundation the distinction between individual and universal. And since in this distinction there is no _medium quid_ nor an _ulterius,_ a third or fourth intermediate form, so there is no subdivision; since we pass from the concept of individuality to single individuality, which is not a concept, and from the concept of the concept to the single act of thought, which is no longer the simple definition of logical thinking, but effective logical thinking itself.

[Sidenote: _The distinctions of the concept not logical, but real._]

Since all subdivision of the logical form of the concept has been excluded, the multiplicity of concepts can be referred only to the variety of the objects, which are thought in the logical form of the concept. The concept of _goodness_ is not that of _beauty_; or rather, both are logically the same thing, since both are logical form; but the aspect of reality designated by the first is not the same aspect of reality as is designated by the second.

[Sidenote: _Multiplicity of the concepts, and the logical difficulty arising therefrom. Necessity of overcoming it._]

But here arises the difficulty. How can it be that since in the concept we deal with reality, in its universal aspect, we yet obtain so many various forms of reality, that is, so many distinct concepts (for example, passion, will, morality, imagination, thought, and so on), so many _universals,_ whereas the concept should give us _the universal._ If this variety were not overcome or capable of being overcome by the concept, we should have to conclude that the true universal is not attainable by thought, and to return to scepticism, or at least to that peculiar form of logical scepticism which makes the consciousness of unity an act of the inner life, which cannot be stated in terms of logic; that is, mysticism. The distinction of the concepts, one from another, in the absence of unity, is separation and atomism; and it would certainly not be worth while getting out of the multiplicity of representations if we were then to fall into that of the concepts. For this, no less than the other, would issue in a _progressus ad infinitum,_ for who would ever be able to affirm that the concepts which were discovered and enumerated were all the concepts? If they be ten, why should they not be, if better observed, twenty, a hundred, or fifty thousand? Why, indeed, should they not be just as numerous as the representations, that is to say, infinite? Spinoza, who counted, without mediating between them, two attributes of substance, thought and extension, admitted, with perfect coherence, that two are known to us, but that the attributes of Substance must in reality be considered infinite in number.

[Sidenote: _Impossibility of eliminating it._]

The concept, then, demands that this multiplicity be denied; and we can affirm that the real is one, because the concept, by means of which alone we know it, is one; the content is one, because the form of thought is one. But in accepting this claim, we run into another difficulty. If we jettison distinction, the unity that we attain is an empty unity, deprived of organic character, a whole without parts, a simple _beyond_ the representations, and therefore inexpressible so that we should return to mysticism by another route. A whole is a whole, only because and in so far as it has parts, indeed _is_ parts; an organism is such, because it has and is organs and functions; a unity is thinkable only in so far as it has distinctions in itself, and is the unity of the distinctions. Unity without distinction is as repugnant to thought as distinction without unity.

[Sidenote: _Unify as distinction._]

It follows, therefore, that both terms are reciprocally indispensable, and that the distinctions of the concept are not the negation of the concept, nor something outside the concept, but the concept itself, understood in its truth; the _one-distinct;_ one, only because distinct, and distinct only because one. Unity and distinction are correlative and therefore inseparable.

[Sidenote: _Inadequateness of the numerical concept of multiplicity._]

The distinct concepts, constituting in their distinction unity, cannot, above all, be infinite in number, for in that case they would be equivalent to the representations. Not indeed that they are finite in number, as if they were all alike equally arranged upon one and the same plane, and capable of being placed in any other sort of order, without alteration in their being. The _Beautiful,_ the _True,_ the _Useful,_ the _Good,_ are not the first steps in a numerical series, nor do they permit themselves to be arranged at pleasure, so that we may place the beautiful after the true, or the good before the useful, or the useful before the true, and so on. They have a necessary order, and mutually imply one another; and from this we learn that they are not to be described as finite in number, since number is altogether incapable of expressing such a relation. To count implies having objects separate from one another before us; and here, on the contrary, we have terms that are distinct, but inseparable, of which the second is not only second, but, in a certain sense, also first, and the first not only first, but, in a certain way, also second. We cannot dispense with numbers, when treating of these concepts of the spirit, owing to their convenience for handling the subject; hence we talk, for example, of the _ten_ categories, or of the _three_ terms of the concept, or of the _four_ forms of the spirit. But in this case the numbers are mere _symbols_; and we must beware of understanding the objects which they enumerate, as though they were ten sheep, three oxen, and four cows.

[Sidenote: _Relation of the distinct concepts as ideal history._]

This relation of the distinct concepts in the unity which they constitute, can be compared to the spectacle of life, in which every fact is in relation with all other facts, and the fact which comes after is certainly different from that which precedes, but is also the same; since the consequent fact contains in itself the preceding, as, in a certain sense, the preceding virtually contained the consequent, and was what it was, just because it possessed the power of producing the consequent. This is called _history_; and therefore (continuing to develop the comparison) the relation of the concepts, which are distinct in the unity of the concept, can be called and has been called _ideal history_; and the logical theory of such ideal history has been regarded as the theory of the _degrees of the concept,_ just as real history is conceived as a series of _degrees of civilization._ And since the theory of the degrees of the concept is the theory of its distinction, and its distinction is not different from its unity, it is clear that this theory can be separated from the general doctrine of the concept with which it is substantially one, only with a view to greater facility of exposition.

[Sidenote: _Distinction between ideal and real history._]

Metaphors and comparisons are metaphors and comparisons and (like all forms of language) their effectiveness for the purposes of dissertation is accompanied, as we know, by the danger of misunderstanding. In order to avoid this, without at the same time renouncing the convenience of such modes of expression, it will be well to insist that the historical series, where the distinct concepts appear connected, is _ideal,_ and therefore outside space and time, and eternal; so that it would be erroneous to conceive that in any smallest fragment of reality, or in any most fugitive instant of it, one degree is found without the other, the first without the second, or the first and the second without the third. Here too, we must allow for the exigencies of exposition, whereby, sometimes, when we intend to emphasize the distinction, we are led to speak of the relation of one degree to another, as if they were distinct existences; as if the practical man really existed side by side with the theoretic man, or the poet side by side with the philosopher, or as if the work of Art stood separate from the labour of reflection, and so on. But if a particular historical fact can in a certain sense be considered as essentially distinct in time and space, the grades of the concept are not existentially, temporally, and spatially distinct.

[Sidenote: _Ideal and abstract distinction._]