13 Nis 2008

Meaning and object in Husserl

From Logical Investigations (1900/1901) to Experience and Judgment (published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names. For example, there are names that have the role of properties that uniquely identify an object. Each of these names express a meaning and designate the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena" and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle", "Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible intuition".

Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group", and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories: meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction, disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called "categorial intuition".

Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and "b>a", two judgments which designate different states of affairs. For Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a reference base.

duration ı Şekletmek

Instead, let us imagine an infinitely small piece of elastic, contracted (büzülmüs), if that were possible, to a mathematical point. Let us draw it out gradually in such a way as to bring out of the point a line which will grow progressively(artarak ilerleyen) longer. Let us fix our attention not on the line as line, but on the action which traces it.(cizgiyi tanımlayan harekete odaklanamk) Let us consider that this action, in spite of its duration, is indivisible( bölünemez) if one supposes that it goes on without stopping; that, if we intercalate(araya birsey soktumuzda yeni bir cizgi olur yeni bir action) a stop in it, we make two actions of it instead of one and that each of these actions will then be the indivisible of which we speak; that it is not the moving act itself which is never indivisible, but the motionless line it lays down beneath it like a track in space. Let us take our mind off the space subtending (karsılık gelmek)the movement and concentrate solely on the movement itself, on the act of tension or extension, in short, on pure mobility. This time we shall have a more exact image of our development in duration.

Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, pages 164 to 165.

Matematiksel bir nokta olarak en son derece küçük, büzülmüş(contracted) elastik bir parça düşünelim. Bu noktadan artarak uzayan bir çizgiyi sökelim. Bu çizgiyi sadece bir çizgi olarak değil, bir hareketin izi olarak düşünmeliyiz ve çizgiyi tanımlayan harekete odaklanmalıyız. Bu hareket sahip olduğu sreye rağmen, bölünemez olur eğer durmadan sürdüğünü ve eğer araya birşey sokarsak yeni bir hareket üretmiş oluruz, varolan izi bölemeyiz, bu bir bölünemez hareket olayı değil fakat mekanda bir iz olarak hareketsiz çizgi altta durmakatadır. Mekandaki varlığına,karşılığına değil, yanlızca hareketin kendisine odaklanalım, gerilim hareketine ya da kısa ve net hareketteki genişlemeye odaklanalım. Bu yolla kesin bir süre kavramının bir imajını elde etmiş oluruz. (Bergson, H.,1946, s: 164 -165)


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Review of The Psychic Factors of Civilization by Lester F. Ward; Social Evolution by Benjamin Kidd; Civilization during the Middle Ages by George B. Adams and History of the Philosophy of History by Robert Flint.

An attempt to state the foundations of a sociology definitely based upon psychological methods and data has an interest for psychologists quite independent of its worth


( 201) for students in the social field. This interest is a double one: it is worth while to see what sort of psychological ideas are used to lay the basis of another science, and it is worth while to note the reaction of their social application upon the ideas themselves—to note, that is, how psychological ideas look when handled by one whose chief interest is in their efficiency to explain the development of social life. Accordingly I shall consider Mr. Ward's work on both sides: how in his essay psychology contributes to sociology, and how sociology in his hands supplies valuable data to the psychologist. And if I am led to the conclusion that Mr. Ward gives back considerably more to the psychologist than he succeeds in borrowing from him, the conclusion only adds to the psychologist's interest in the work, however it may square with Mr. Ward's intention.

There are two questions of paramount interest in sociology: one, the question of the nature of the social forces; the other, the question of their control. As it happens, both of these questions are psychical questions. The force which keeps society moving is a psychical one, the "soul," using the term soul not in a theological or even technical philosophical sense, but in its popular meaning—the feelings taken collectively. The power which gives direction to these forces is also psychical—the intellect. Now, on one hand, according to Mr. Ward, these considerations suffice to overthrow the reigning biological method in sociology, as represented by Spencer, in its theory, and still more as to the practical conclusions (laissez-faire) drawn from it. As to this—save to suggest that possibly Mr. Ward takes Spencer somewhat more seriously than a psychologist would take him, and to regret that the somewhat irritating self-consciousness of Spencer's style should occasionally have infected Mr. Ward's way of putting things—we have nothing to do. We are concerned with his subjective psychology, or account of feeling as psychical motor, and his objective psychology, or intellect as psychical director.

Mr. Ward's psychology of feeling and action is a compound (not a happy one, as I shall try to show) of the old-fashioned psychology of sensation, dating from Locke, and Schopenhauer's theory of will. The crudeness of his account


( 202) of sensation and idea may best be gathered from his own words: "When the end of the finger is placed against any material object two results follow. There is produced a sensation depending upon the nature of the object, and there is conveyed to the mind a notion of the nature of the object" (p. 16). If the sensation is indifferent as to pleasure and pain, attention will be fixed upon the notion conveyed, and abstracted from the sensation. In this case perception occurs. What sort of thing the percept of an object will be independent of the qualitative character of the sensation, Mr. Ward does not try to say: he only tells us that "the sensation and the notion are not one and the same, but two distinct things." This complete dualism (he tells us of the "dual" nature of mind, p. 12) lies at the basis of his conception of feeling as psychical and social force, and intellect as directing power.

While indifferent sensations are neglected for the notion which they convey, the intensive sensations meet a different fate. Pleasure and pain are connected with them, and this fact occasions movement: movement which is definite and purposeful[1] —away from object when there is pain, towards it when pleasure. These acts are the simple impulsive movements. But besides this sensori-motor apparatus, there is an ideo-motor apparatus, which gives rise to rational acts. These acts, Mr. Ward asserts (p. 33) , come as clearly as the sensori-motor within the generic definition of being the result of sensations and away from pain and towards pleasure. This may be true; but how it can be true without a complete reconstruction of his original dualism between the "subjective" sensation and the "objective" idea, I fail to see, the "idea" having been defined as wholly without pleasurable or painful quality.

Desire is the next stage of development, and is "the recorded and remembered pain and pleasure." Since the representative states are much more important in our life than presentative sensations, our whole being becomes a theatre of desires seeking satisfaction, but checked in many ways, so that there results a perpetual striving to obtain


( 203) the objects of satisfaction. From this time on the psychology of will completely supersedes that of sensation: the appetites of hunger and thirst, love, æsthetic and moral cravings, all springs to action, are included under desire, and language is strained to exhibit "all animated nature burning and seething with intensified desires" (pp. 52—53) . We are next told that all desire is a form of pain, while effort aroused by desire is simply to satisfy it, that is, allay the pain. "All the enormous exertions of life are made for the sole purpose of getting rid of the swarm of desires that goad and pursue every living being from birth to death" (p. 55). That a remembered pleasure as well as a remembered pain should be of itself desire, that it should be pain (not simply painful), and that of itself it should know how to terminate itself, and that this termination should be pleasure—all this will probably strike the psychologist as curious enough; but the end is not yet. The satisfaction of desire terminates it, and the subject returns, psychologically, to its previous condition. But this of itself leads to the pessimistic conclusion: the sole spring to action is desire, desire is pain, and the satisfaction of desire is simply the cessation of pain. Yes, replies Mr. Ward, all this would be true if the act of gratifying a desire were absolutely instantaneous (p. 65). But the sensation of gratification is continuous; it takes time; in the higher form of love, indefinite time. "So long as the object is present the pleasure abides" (p. 68). Now I do not intend to question this as a fact; but, again, I do not see how the statement can be true if Mr. Ward's previous psychology be true. All gratification of desire implies the presence of desire; a non-existent desire can hardly be gratified, and all desire is pain. Ergo, as long as there is gratification there is pain—at most a mixed state of pleasure-pain. This is Mr. Ward's only logical conclusion. The object whose permanence gives permanent satisfaction is a visitor from another sphere than that of sheer feeling which forms, with memory, the whole of Mr. Ward's data. The contradiction becomes oppressive when we are further told (p. 74) "that, provided the means of supplying wants can be secured, the greater the number and the higher the rank of such wants, the higher the state of happiness attainable."

While feeling (pleasure) is the result of desire psy-


( 204) -chologically (or for the individual) , function is the result so far as nature is concerned. The satisfaction of the desire to eat builds up the whole system's further structure, and that develops organic function. There is still another result, totally (p. 79) different from either feeling or function. In satisfying desire the individual puts forth action, and this is a condition of building up structure. It is the connecting link between pleasure and function—the consequence of the former, the condition of the latter. The transformations thus wrought constitute material utilities, material civilization. Of these neither the individual nor nature is the beneficiary, but society. Thus there are three distinct ends—function for nature, pleasure for the individual, and action, with its products, for society.

I mention these points for their negative rather than their positive value. All these separations, with the contradictions previously indicated, result logically from the original premises. Let the fundamental thing be conceived as impression resulting from contact with an object, and thought, perception, must be another sort of thing; desire and action can be brought in from passive feeling only by a virtual contradiction, while nature, the individual, and society have independent ends.

For, to begin with the last point, it is simply the insertion of a passive impression between the "object" and the feeling and idea that makes such a break in the respective ends of nature, individual, and society as Mr. Ward introduces. Let once the standpoint of action be taken and there is a continuous process: the sensory ending is a place, not for receiving sensations and starting notions on their road to the mind, but a place (viewed from the standpoint of nature) for transforming the character of motion; the brain represents simply a further development and modification of action, and the final motor discharge (the act proper) the completion of this transformation of action. Whether the discharge is sensori-motor or ideo-motor depends simply upon the intermediate transformation which the original motion undergoes. Now while the psychological description of the process may employ different terms, it cannot involve a different principle. To suppose that feeling starts off action


( 205) attributes a causal power to a bare state of consciousness at which many of the "metaphysicians," before whom Mr. Ward so shudders, would long hesitate. What feeling adds is consciousness of value of action in terms of the individual acting. While this appreciation of value marks a tremendous factor in the development of life, it is altogether too much to suppose that its introduction means the introduction of a new agency: the abdication of "natural" energy (motion) and the substitution for it of a new power-feeling.[2]

Furthermore, there is no reason to make function the "end" of nature: its "end" (like its beginning) is activity, or motion; the structural organization (and the corresponding functioning which goes along with it) being simply the objective manifestation of the transformation of motion. Even from the standpoint of "nature," function (or rather structure, which I take Mr. Ward to mean, since function always is action) is instrumental, not final. Only because Mr. Ward tries to get action out of passive states of feeling (pleasures and pains) does he have to reverse this natural order, and make action the intermediate term between feeling (the individual's end) and function (nature's end). Once adopt the united and continuous standpoint of action, and our three different ends resolve themselves into one—an end which may be termed valuable (felt) functional activity.

It probably is hardly necessary to deal at length with the weakness of Mr. Ward's treatment of original and representative action. The ignoring of impulse, save as representative, or the memory of previous pain and pleasure; the reduction of both ideo-motor and sensori-motor action to response to feelings of pain and pleasure, leaving out of account both the qualitative side of sensation and ideas, and also the connection of sensation (directly) and ideas (indirectly) with impulse; the account of desire as representa-


(206) -tive pleasures, which are suddenly asserted to be a state of pain; the abrupt appearance of permanent objects of satisfaction—all this is its own sufficient commentary.

When, however, we remember that Mr. Ward's original text is the need of relatively less attention to the intellect and more to the motive side of mind, and that his object is to get a basis for social dynamics on the side of its motor powers, we have an instructive object-lesson. All this unsatisfactory and self-contradictory analysis results from the fact that Mr. Ward is so under the spell of an old psychology of sensation that he fails to recognize the radical psychical fact, although just the fact needed to give firm support to his main contentions—I mean impulse, the primary fact, back of which, psychically, we cannot go. Starting with impulsive action, Mr. Ward would have, I think, no difficulty in showing the secondary or mediate position occupied by intellect. In order to secure this, his main purpose, he could well afford to sacrifice both the theory of feelings of pleasure-pain as stimulus to all action, and the old myth of sensation somehow walking from the object over into the mind. He would secure both a consistent psychology and a unification of the ends now attributed to three different existences by a psychology which states the mental life in active terms, those of impulse and its development, instead of in passive terms, mere feelings of pleasure and pain.

It is a pleasure to turn from these somewhat negative results to the other field—the light which Mr. Ward throws upon psychology from the standpoint of sociological evolution. I must omit more than bare reference to Mr. Ward's account of the reaction upon environment resulting from the introduction of specialized psychical phenomena. The points he makes (pp. 84—89) regarding the effects upon vegetable life in the way of the evolution of flowers and fruit, of the appearance of mind (in insect and bird organisms), and concerning the effect upon physical characters, including the brain, of the male animal of the development of sexual appetite in the female, are well worth attention.

But Mr. Ward's main contribution in this direction is in the theory which he propounds regarding the growth of intelligence, and the differentiation of the male and female


( 207) types. It would perhaps hardly be safe to say that there is anything absolutely original in the points urged by Mr. Ward, but I do not know any writer who has made them in so striking and effective a way.

The keyword to the whole evolution of mind is advantage. Gain consists in increased ability to satisfy desire; hence the arousing of direct effort, of that striving which we call brute force. But many desires cannot possibly be satisfied by the primary method of direct effort. When a desire having a certain amount of active vigor at command meets obstacles, the result is that the animal is no longer simply checked; while external motion is arrested internal motility is increased. In this way the animal may continually change its position or point of attack, and thus by an indirect or flank movement finally reach its goal. This advantageous method would be selected and perpetuated until, finally, the power of mental exploration is developed. This incipient power leads up to "intuition," defined as the "power of looking into a complicated set of circumstances, and perceiving t hat movements which are not in obedience to the primary psychic force are those which promise success."

Intelligence is thus indirection—checking the natural, direct action, and taking a circuitous course. This accounts for the touch of moral obliquity attaching to all words naming primitive intellectual traits—shrewdness, cunning, crafty, designing, etc. It also accounts for the large part played by deception in historic social life—military strategy, political diplomacy, and, at present, business shrewdness. It is the legitimate consequence of this stage of mental development. So far as nascent intelligence is directed towards oilier sentient organisms (as it is where the getting of food or avoiding of enemies is concerned), intelligence is egoistic, living at the expense of other organisms. But a further development takes place when it is directed to inanimate objects. Ingenuity is substituted for cunning, and in so far intelligence becomes objective, impersonal, disinterested. When the savage makes a bow and arrow, his ultimate aim, indeed, is still gratification of appetite; but for the time luring his attention must be taken up with a purely objective adjustment—with perception of relations of general utility,


( 208) not of simple personal profit. In this way intelligence gradually, through the mediation of invention, works free from subjection to the demands of personal desire. It sets up its own interest, its own desire, which is comprehension of relations as they are. Scientific discovery and speculative genius are simply farther steps on this same road.

The ordinary biological theory of society does not see beyond the egoistic, exclusive development of intelligence. Its practical conclusions are, therefore, all in the direction of laissez-faire. But a psychological theory must recognize the change in the conditions of evolution wrought by the development of the nonpersonal, objective power of intelligence. True legislation is simply the application in the sphere of social forces of the principle of invention—of objective co-ordination with a view to increase of efficiency, and preventing needless waste and friction. Given a social science and a psychology as far advanced as present physical science, and laissez-faire in society becomes as absurd as would be the refusal to use knowledge of mechanical energy in the direction of steam and electricity. Mr. Ward, however, does not hold that psychology justifies the extreme socialistic conclusion, but rather leaves action a matter of specific conclusion: Let society do as the individual does—do what seems best after detailed study of the relevant facts. This seems good sense, but I doubt if Mr. Ward has duly considered the possibility of this outcome if, as he has previously urged, society has one end, viz., action, and the individual has another, feeling. If this opposition of ends exists, any possible development of intelligence can, it seems to me, only bring the conflict into clearer relief, and bring out definitely the necessity of choosing whichever is considered more important and sacrificing the other. In other words, what is needed is not the substitution of a psychological theory (in terms of individual feeling) for the biological theory (in terms of function), but rather an interpretation of the latter into its psychological equivalents—a theory of consciously organic activity.[3]


(209)

At an early period a differentiation into two main types of intuition occurs: male, whose course we have already followed, and female. Male intuition develops with reference to reaching remote ends; it works out means; it is essentially planning or contriving. It develops new schemes, etc. Female intuition develops with reference to the immediate present; it is a question not of getting food at a distance, against obstacles, but of protecting herself and young against present danger. Female intuition develops, therefore, in the line of ability to "size up" the existing situation; it reads signs: it is essentially interpreting, not projective or contriving. This seems to me the nearest approach yet made to putting the psychology of the sexes on something approaching a scientific basis. When Mr. Ward goes on to argue that the male intelligence is radical, the female conservative, I cannot follow him so unreservedly. It seems to me that both the facts and a legitimate deduction from his own theory justify the conclusion that the male intelligence is radical as to ends, but cautious as to immediate methods to be followed—that is, while entertaining new projects easily, is slow in coming to a conclusion as regards their execution. The peculiar abstractness of the male intelligence results from this combination. The female intelligence, while hesitating in the consideration of radically new ends, is decidedly radical in its adoption of means with reference to ends—its tendency is to take the shortest course, irrespective of precedent. The prevalent theory of the essentially conservative. nature of woman's intelligence seems to me a fiction of the male intelligence, maintained in order to keep this inconvenient radicalism of woman in check.

I cannot conclude without adding that Mr. Ward's book is extremely suggestive—as well for what it does not accomplish as for what it does. Its moral (to my mind) is pointing to a step which the book does not itself take. The


( 210) current theory of mind undoubtedly needs reconstruction from the sociological standpoint; it needs to be interpreted as a fact developing with reference to its social utilities. The biological theory of society needs reconstruction from the standpoint of the recognition of the significance of intellect, emotion, and impulse. Mr. Ward seems to me, when all is said and done, to give a compromise and mixture of the two older standpoints, rather than a rereading of either of them.

Three ideas run through and through Mr. Kidd's book, repeated and intertwined without much regard to the logic of formal presentation, and yet so put each time as not to convey the effect of wearisome reiteration. These ideas are: 1. Progress is always effected through competition and struggle. There is infinite narrow variation, some variations tending slightly below, others slightly above, the existing average standard. There is in these variations no essential tendency to progress. Progress comes only through selection of favorable differentiations, and there is no selection save where there is rivalry and struggle. This biological law (with regard to which Dr. Kidd follows Weismannism in its extreme form) holds of human as of animal history. Its scene of operation is simply transferred to the rivalry of nations and of industrial life.

On this point Mr. Ward and Mr. Kidd seem to me to provide necessary correctives of each other. The positive evolutionary significance of conflict seems hardly to be recognized by Mr. Ward; he seems to think that intellectual progress can now cut loose from the conditions under which it originated, namely, preferential advantage in the struggle for existence. To me it appears as sure a psychological as biological principle that men go on thinking only because of practical friction or strain somewhere, that thinking is essentially the solution of tension. But Mr. Ward is strong where Mr. Kidd appears defective: in the recognition of the part which coherent, organized science can play in minimizing the struggle, and in rendering effective that residuum necessary to maintain progress. The elimination of conflict is, I believe, a hopeless and self-contradictory ideal. Not so the directing of the struggle to reduce waste and to secure its maximum contribution. It is not the sheer amount of con-


( 211) -flict, but the conditions under which it occurs that determine its value. Mr. Kidd seems practically to ignore this possibility of increasing control of conflict, and to leave the individual at its mercy; the individual, according to him, is a tool of the conflict in evolving progress, not the conflict a tool of man.

This brings us to the second point. 2. Progress implies the sacrifice of the individual to the race; the individual has to suffer from the conflict in order that the race may enjoy the benefits of progress. This position of itself offers nothing new; the problem has been felt ever since man became conscious of progress. The contentions between Herder and Kant in Germany, between Malthus and the "perfectionists" in England, represent it. But the use to which Mr. Kidd puts the idea is, so far as I know, original, and marks a mind of scope and daring. As man becomes conscious of the extent to which he is sacrificed to a progress in whose benefits he does not share, and as he gains in rational power, he will squarely propound to himself this problem: Why should I continue to suffer simply for the sake of progress? Go to; let us make the best of the present and eliminate struggle and conflict. And from the standpoint of reason this position is logically justified; there is no rational sanction for progress. This is the psychological basis of socialism, for socialism is simply extreme rationalism applied to the existing conditions of life. It proposes to put a stop to the suffering which struggle inflicts on individuals; though this implies a brake on progress.

3. Where then is the sanction for progress, science, or rational method utterly failing to justify it? In feeling subjectively, or religion objectively. The sociological function of religion is to cultivate in the individual passive resignation to or even active co-operation in his sacrifice to the good of future generations. Only in this way can the universality, historical and psychological, of the religious consciousness be explained. The scientific man in his ignoring of, or attack upon, religion fails to notice this sociological, evolutionary meaning, and indirectly plays into the hands of the socialist.

I have given, I think, a fair account of Mr. Kidd's main intentions; what I have not given is his force of statement


( 212) and his wealth of illustrative material. Any detailed criticism upon such radical and far-reaching propositions is out of the question, but I cannot refrain from two suggestions. If the individual is continually sacrificed to the conditions of progress, where is the progress? Mr. Kidd speaks as if sacrifice to progress and sacrifice to welfare of future humanity were the same (see p. 291). But this cannot be; the benefit which will accrue to the future generations must, when their turn comes, be incidental to the sufferings attendant upon conflict as a condition of further progress. The process never amounts to anything, never has any value, unless it has it both now and then, i.e., all the time. Mr. Kidd seems to me to have fallen into the old pit of a continual progress towards something. This indicates my second suggestion. The antithesis which Mr. Kidd makes between what constitutes the happiness of the individual and the conditions of progress appears to be overdrawn and out of perspective. Overlooking the fact that the sense of contributing to progress is an important, and to many an indispensable, rational ingredient of happiness, what ground is there for the assumption that the individual's rational conception of happiness excludes all-suffering arising from struggle? I do not see that the case stands otherwise for the conditions of happiness (individual welfare) than for the conditions of progress (general welfare). A certain intensity and, so to speak, tautness of activity appear requisite to happiness; and rivalry or struggle, for anything we know, is as constantly necessary to keep us strung up to the proper pitch for happiness as it is to afford the conditions which enable preferential selection (progress) to act.

All this is upon the supposition that Mr. Kidd is justified in his extreme Weismannism of premise. If we suppose that consciously acquired activity, and habits formed under the direction of intelligence, are conserved, the case against his point is much strengthened. While struggle and consequent pain are not eliminated, the vibration is so loaded by established habits as to lessen its range. There is even no need to suppose that the conservation of rationalized activity is direct or through the organism; if the environment is so changed as to set up conditions which stimulate and facilitate


( 213) the formation of like habits on the part of each individual, the same end is reached.

I hope it will not seem an injustice to Professor Adams's lucid and substantial piece of work if, after having called attention to its helpfulness to students of intellectual as well as of political development, I use it to point a moral for psychologists. As giving an adequate and coherent account of the general conditions and movement through the Middle Ages, the book is highly valuable to any one who is trying to understand the philosophy of that period. But from a narrower psychological standpoint the value is, in the main, negative. I mean that it indicates the slight extent to which psychology has as yet penetrated into the sciences which lie nearest to it, the historical. Psychology has not as yet made of itself a generally useful tool; it has not impressed the worker in other fields so that he feels the necessity of keeping his eyes open for the psychical development, the growth in consciousness; nor does it give him much help when he does attempt this. To take one point: Professor Adams recognizes clearly the great significance of the Middle Ages in discovering the individual and bringing him to the light of day (pp. 9',92). But this is treated mainly as an objective change—a change in political status. The extent to which this depended upon a changed psychical attitude, and the part played by the implicit and explicit psychological theory of mediaeval thought—all this does not meet recognition. And yet this seems the key to understanding the outer transformation. Now this, of course, is no reflection upon the historian; he cannot be expected to stop historical investigation in order to make for himself adequate psychological instruments; it is, once more, a warning and a stimulus to the psychologist.

It is hardly necessary to do more than to call attention to Professor Flint's noble beginning of a monumental work. The present volume (of 700 pp.), after an Introduction dealing with Greek and Roman speculation upon history, is devoted to the philosophy of history in France, and we are led to anticipate further volumes upon England, Italy, and Germany. I cannot pretend to have the knowledge required to speak critically of this book; indeed, so wide is its range



Originally published as:

John Dewey. "Review of The Psychic Factors of Civilization by Lester F. Ward; Social Evolution by Benjamin Kidd; Civilization during the Middle Ages by George B. Adams and History of the Philosophy of History by Robert Flint." Pages 200 - 213 in The Early Works of John Dewey 1882 - 1898, Vol. 4 (1893-1894) edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press (1972). Originally published in Psychological Review, I (July 1894), 400-411.

Henri Poincaré. "Non-Euclidean Geometries"

Science and Hypothesis

Chapter 3: Non-Euclidean Geometries

Henri Poincaré

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EVERY conclusion presumes premisses. These premisses are either self-evident and need no demonstration, or can be established only if based on other propositions; and, as we cannot go back in this way to infinity, every deductive science, and geometry in particular, must rest upon a certain number of indemonstrable axioms. All treatises of geometry begin therefore with the enunciation of these axioms. But there is a distinction to be drawn between them. Some of these, for example, "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another," are not propositions in geometry but propositions in analysis. I look upon them as analytical à priori intuitions, and they concern me no further. But I must insist on other axioms which are special to geometry. Of these most treatises explicitly enunciate three :—(1) Only one line can pass through two points; (2) a straight line is the


(36) shortest distance between two points; (3) through one point only one parallel can be drawn to a given straight line. Although we generally dispense with proving the second of these axioms, it would be possible to deduce it from the other two, and from those much more numerous axioms which are implicitly admitted without enunciation, as I shall explain further on. For a long time a proof of the third axiom known as Euclid's postulate was sought in vain. It is impossible to imagine the efforts that have been spent in pursuit of this chimera. Finally, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and almost simultaneously, two scientists, a Russian and a Bulgarian, Lobatschewsky and Bolyai, showed irrefutably that this proof is impossible. They have nearly rid us of inventors of geometries without a postulate, and ever since the Académie des Sciences receives only about one or two new demonstrations a year. But the question was not exhausted, and it was not long before a great step was taken by the celebrated memoir of Riemann, entitled: Ueber die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zum Grunde liegen. This little work has inspired most of the recent treatises to which I shall later on refer, and among which I may mention those of Beltrami and Helmholtz.

The Geometry of Lobatschewsky. — If it were possible to deduce Euclid's postulate from the several axioms, it is evident that by rejecting the postulate and retaining the other axioms we


(37) should be led to contradictory consequences. It would be, therefore, impossible to found on those premisses a coherent geometry. Now, this is precisely what Lobatschewsky has done. He assumes at the outset that several parallels may be drawn through a point to a given straight line, and he retains all the other axioms of Euclid. From these hypotheses he deduces a series of theorems between which it is impossible to find any contradiction, and he constructs a geometry as impeccable in its logic as Euclidean geometry. The theorems are very different, however, from those to which we are accustomed, and at first will be found a little disconcerting. For instance, the sum of the angles of a triangle is always less than two right angles, and the difference between that sum and two right angles is proportional to the area of the triangle. It is impossible to construct a figure similar to a given figure but of different dimensions. If the circumference of a circle be divided into it equal parts, and tangents be drawn at the points of intersection, the is tangents will form a polygon if the radius of the circle is small enough, but if the radius is large enough they will never meet. We need not multiply these examples. Lobatschewsky's propositions have no relation to those of Euclid, but they are none the less logically interconnected.

Riemann's Geometry.—Let us imagine to ourselves a world only peopled with beings of no thickness, and suppose these "infinitely flat"


(38) animals are all in one and the same plane, from which they cannot emerge. Let us further admit that this world is sufficiently distant from other worlds to be withdrawn from their influence, and while we are making these hypotheses it will not cost us much to endow these beings with reasoning power, and to believe them capable of making a geometry. In that case they will certainly attribute to space only two dimensions. But now suppose that these imaginary animals, while remaining without thickness, have the form of a spherical, and not of a plane figure, and are all on the same sphere, from which they cannot escape. What kind of a geometry will they construct ? In the first place, it is clear that they will attribute to space only two dimensions. The straight line to them will be the shortest distance from one point on the sphere to another—that is to say, an arc of a great circle. In a word, their geometry will be spherical geometry. What they will call space will be the sphere on which they are confined, and on which take place all the phenomena with which they are acquainted. Their space will therefore be unbounded, since on a sphere one may always walk forward without ever being brought to a stop, and yet it will be finite; the end will never be found, but the complete tour can be made. Well, Riemann's geometry is spherical geometry extended to three dimensions. To construct it, the German mathematician had first of all to throw overboard, not only Euclid's postulate,


39) but also the first axiom that only one line can pass through two points. On a sphere, through two given points, we can in general draw only one great circle which, as we have just seen, would be to our imaginary beings a straight line. But there was one exception. If the two given points are at the ends of a diameter, an infinite number of great circles can be drawn through them. In the same way, in Riemann's geometry — at least in one of its forms — through two points only one straight line can in general be drawn, but there are exceptional cases in which through two points an infinite number of straight lines can be drawn. So there is a kind of opposition between the geometries of Riemann and Lobatschewsky. For instance, the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles in Euclid's geometry, less than two right angles in that of Lobatschewsky, and greater than two right angles in that of Riemann. The number of parallel lines that can be drawn through a given point to a given line is one in Euclid's geometry, none in Riemann's, and an infinite number in the geometry of Lobatschewsky. Let. us add that Riemann's space is finite, although unbounded in the sense which we have above attached to these words.

Surfaces with Constant Curvature. — One objection, however, remains possible. There is no contradiction between the theorems of Lobatschewsky and Riemann; but however numerous are the other consequences that these geometers have deduced


(40) from their hypotheses, they had to arrest their course before they exhausted them all, for the number would be infinite; and who can say that if they had carried their deductions further they would not have eventually reached some contradiction? This difficulty does not exist for Riemann's geometry, provided it is limited to two dimensions. As we have seen, the twodimensional geometry of Riemann, in fact, does not differ from spherical geometry, which is only a branch of ordinary geometry, and is therefore outside all contradiction. Beltrami, by showing that Lobatschewsky's two-dimensional geometry was only a branch of ordinary geometry, has equally refuted the objection as far as it is concerned. This is the course of his argument: Let us consider any figure whatever on a surface. Imagine this figure to be traced on a flexible and inextensible canvas applied to the surface, in such a way that when the canvas is displaced and deformed the different lines of the figure change their form without changing their length. As a rule, this flexible and inextensible figure cannot be displaced without leaving the surface. But there are certain surfaces for which such a movement would be possible. They are surfaces of constant curvature. If we resume the comparison that we made just now, and imagine beings without thickness living on one of these surfaces, they will regard as possible the motion of a figure all the lines of which remain of a constant length. Such


41) a movement would appear absurd, on the other hand, to animals without thickness living on a surface of variable curvature. These surfaces of constant curvature are of two kinds. The curvature of some is positive, and they may be deformed so as to be applied to a sphere. The geometry of these surfaces is therefore reduced to spherical geometry—namely, Riemann's. The curvature of others is negative. Beltrami has shown that the geometry of these surfaces is identical with that of Lobatschewsky. Thus the two-dimensional geometries of Riemann and Lobatschewsky are connected with Euclidean geometry.

Interpretation of Non-Euclidean Geometries. — Thus vanishes the objection so far as two-dimensional geometries are concerned. It would be easy to extend Beltrami's reasoning to three-dimensional geometries, and minds which do not recoil before space of four dimensions will see no difficulty in it; but such minds are few in number. I prefer, then, to proceed otherwise. Let us consider a certain plane, which I shall call the fundamental plane, and let us construct a kind of dictionary by making a double series of terms written in two columns, and corresponding each to each, just as in ordinary dictionaries the words in two languages which have the same signification correspond to one another:

Space The portion of space situated above the fundamental plane.

42)

Plane Sphere cutting orthogonally the fundamental plane.
Line Circle cutting orthogonally the fundamental plane.
Sphere Sphere
Circle Circle
Angle Angle
Distance between two points Logarithm of the anharmonic ratio of these two points and of the intersection of the fundamental plane with the circle passing through these two points and cutting it orthogonally.
Etc

Let us now take Lobatschewsky's theorems and translate them by the aid of this dictionary, as we would translate a German text with the aid of a German - French dictionary. We shall then obtain the theorems of ordinary geometry. For instance, Lobatschewsky's theorem: "The sum of the angles of a triangle is less than two right angles," may be translated thus: "If a curvilinear triangle has for its sides arcs of circles which if produced would cut orthogonally the fundamental plane, the sum of the angles of this curvilinear triangle will be less than two right angles." Thus, however far the consequences of Lobatschewsky's hypotheses are carried, they will never lead to a


43) contradiction; in fact, if two of Lobatschewsky's theorems were contradictory, the translations of these two theorems made by the aid of our dictionary would be contradictory also. But these translations are theorems of ordinary geometry, and no one doubts that ordinary geometry is exempt from contradiction. Whence is the certainty derived, and how far is it justified? That is a question upon which I cannot enter here, but it is a very interesting question, and I think not insoluble. Nothing, therefore, is left of the objection I formulated above. But this is not all. Lobatschewsky's geometry being susceptible of a concrete interpretation, ceases to be a useless logical exercise, and may be applied. I have no time here to deal with these applications, nor with what Herr Klein and myself have done by using them in the integration of linear equations.

Further, this interpretation is not unique, and several dictionaries may be constructed analogous to that above, which will enable us by a, simple translation to convert Lobatschewsky's theorems into the theorems of ordinary geometry.

Implicit Axioms. — Are the axioms implicitly enunciated in our text-books the only foundation of geometry? We may be assured of the contrary when we see that, when they are abandoned one after another, there are still left standing some propositions which are common to the geometries of Euclid; Lobatschewsky, and Riemann. These propositions must be based on premisses that


(44) geometers admit without enunciation. It is interesting to try and extract them from the classical proofs.

John Stuart Mill asserted' that every definition contains an axiom, because by defining we implicitly affirm the existence of the object defined. That is going rather too far. It is but rarely in mathematics that a definition is given without following it up by the proof of the existence of the object defined, and when this is not done it is generally because the reader can easily supply it; and it must not be forgotten that the word "existence" has not the same meaning when it refers to a mathematical entity as when it refers to a material object.

A mathematical entity exists provided there is no contradiction implied in its definition, either in itself, or with the propositions previously admitted. But if the observation of John Stuart Mill cannot be applied to all definitions, it is none the less true for some of them. A plane is sometimes defined in the following manner: —The plane is a surface such that the line which joins any two points upon it lies wholly on that surface. Now, there is obviously a new axiom concealed in this definition. It is true we might change it, and that would be preferable, but then we should have to enunciate the axiom explicitly. Other definitions may give rise to no less important reflections, such as, for example, that of the equality of two figures: Two


(45) figures are equal when they can be superposed. To superpose them, one of them must be displaced until it coincides with the other. But how must it be displaced? If we asked that question, no doubt we should be told that it ought to be done without deforming it, and as an invariable solid is displaced. The vicious circle would then be evident. As a matter of fact, this definition defines nothing. It has no meaning to a being living in a world in which there are only fluids. If it seems clear to us, it is because we are accustomed to the properties of natural solids which do not much differ from those of the ideal solids, all of whose dimensions are invariable. However, imperfect as it may be, this definition implies an axiom. The possibility of the motion of an invariable figure is not a self-evident truth. At least it is only so in the application to Euclid's postulate, and not as an analytical is priori intuition would be. Moreover, when we study the definitions and the proofs of geometry, we see that we are compelled to admit without proof not only the possibility of this motion, but also some of its properties. This first arises in the definition of the straight line. Many defective definitions have been given, but the true one is that which is understood in all the proofs in which the straight line intervenes. " It may happen that the motion of an invariable figure may be such that all the points of a line belonging to the figure are motionless, while all the points situate outside that line are in motion. Such a


46) line would be called a straight line." We have deliberately in this enunciation separated the definition from the axiom which if implies. Many proofs such as those of the cases of the equality of triangles, of the possibility of drawing a perpendicular from a point to a straight line, assume propositions the enunciations of which are dispensed with, for they necessarily imply that it is possible to move a figure in space in a certain way.

The Fourth Geometry. — Among these explicit axioms there is one which seems to me to deserve some attention, because when we abandon it we can construct a fourth geometry as coherent as those of Euclid, Lobatschewsky, and Riemann. To prove that we can always draw a perpendicular at a point A to a straight line A B, we consider a straight line A C movable about the point A, and initially identical with the fixed straight line A B. We then can make it turn about the point A until it lies in A B produced. Thus we assume two propositions — first, that such a rotation is possible, and then that it may continue until the two lines lie the one in the other produced. If the first point is conceded and the second rejected, we are led to a series of theorems even stranger than those of Lobatschewsky and Riemann, but equally free from contradiction. I shall give only one of these theorems, and I shall not choose the least remarkable of them. A real straight line may be perpendicular to itself:

Lie's Theorem. —The number of axioms implicitly


(47) introduced into classical proofs is greater than necessary, and it would be interesting to reduce them to a minimum. It may be asked, in the first place, if this reduction is possible — if the number of necessary axioms and that of imaginable geometries is not infinite? A theorem due to Sophus Lie is of weighty importance in this discussion. It may be enunciated in the following manner: — Suppose the following premisses are admitted: (1) space has n dimensions; (2) the movement of an invariable figure is possible; (3) p conditions are necessary to determine the position of this figure in space.

The number of geometries compatible with these premisses will be limited. I may even add that if n. is given, a superior limit can be assigned to p. If, therefore, the possibility of the movement is granted, we can only invent a finite and even a rather restricted number of three-dimensional geometries.

Riemann's Geometries. — However, this result seems contradicted by Riemann, for that scientist constructs an infinite number of geometries, and that to which his name is usually attached is only a particular case of them. All depends, he says, on the manner in which the length of a curve is defined. Now, there is an infinite number of ways of defining this length, and each of them may be the starting-point of a new geometry. That is perfectly true, but most of these definitions are incompatible with the movement of a variable figure such as we assume to be possible in Lie's theorem.


(48) These geometries of Riemann, so interesting on various grounds, can never be, therefore, purely analytical, and would not lend themselves to proofs analogous to those of Euclid.

On the Nature of Axioms. — Most mathematicians regard Lobatschewsky's geometry as a mere logical curiosity. Some of them have, however, gone further. If several geometries are possible, they say, is it certain that our geometry is the one that is true ? Experiment no doubt teaches us that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, but this is because the triangles we deal with are too small. According to Lobatschewsky, the difference is proportional to the area of the triangle, and will not this become sensible when we operate on much larger triangles, and when our measurements become more accurate ? Euclid's geometry would thus be a provisory geometry. Now, to discuss this view we must first of all ask ourselves, what is the nature of geometrical axioms ? Are they synthetic à priori intuitions, as Kant affirmed ? They would then be imposed upon us with such a force that we could not conceive of the contrary proposition, nor could we build upon. it a theoretical edifice. There would be no non-Euclidean geometry. To convince ourselves of this, let us take a true synthetic à priori intuition—the following, for instance, which played an important part in the first chapter: If a theorem is true for the number 1, and if it has seen proved that it is true of n + 1, provided it is


(49) true of n, it will be true for all positive integers. Let us next try to get rid of this, and while rejecting this proposition let us construct a false arithmetic analogous to non-Euclidean geometry. We shall not be able to do it. We shall be even tempted at the outset to look upon these intuitions as analytical. Besides, to take up again our fiction of animals without thickness, we can scarcely admit that these beings, if their minds are like ours, would adopt the Euclidean geometry, which would be contradicted by all their experience. Ought we, then, to conclude that the axioms of geometry are experimental truths ? But we do not make experiments on ideal lines or ideal circles; we can only make them on material objects. On what, therefore, would experiments serving as a foundation for geometry be based ? The answer is easy. We have seen above that we constantly reason as if the geometrical figures behaved like solids. What geometry would borrow from experiment would be therefore the properties of these bodies. The properties of light and its propagation in a straight line have also given rise to some of the propositions of geometry, and in particular to those of projective geometry, so that from that point of view one would be tempted to say that metrical geometry is the study of solids, and projective geometry that of light. But a difficulty remains, and is unsurmountable. If geometry were an experimental science, it would not be an exact science. It would be subjected to


50) continual revision. Nay, it would from that day forth be proved to be erroneous, for we know that no rigorously invariable solid exists. The geometrical axioms are therefore neither synthetic à priori intuitions nor experimental facts. They are conventions. Our choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts; but it remains free, and is only limited by the necessity of avoiding every contradiction, and thus it is that postulates may remain rigorously true even when the experimental laws which have determined their adoption are only approximate. In other words, the axioms of geometry (I do not speak of those of arithmetic) are only definitions in disguise. What, then, are we to think of the question: Is Euclidean geometry true? It has no meaning. We might as well ask if the metric system is true, and if the old weights and measures are false; if Cartesian co-ordinates are true and polar coordinates false. One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Now, Euclidean geometry is, and will remain, the most convenient: 1st, because it is the simplest, and it is not so only because of our mental habits or because of the kind of direct intuition that we have of Euclidean space; it is the simplest in itself, just as a polynomial of the first degree is simpler than a polynomial of the second degree; 2nd, because it sufficiently agrees with the properties of natural solids, those bodies which we can compare and measure by means of our senses. Henri Poincaré. "Non-Euclidean Geometries". Chapter 3 in Science and Hypothesis . London: Walter Scott Publishing (1905): 35-50.

9 Nis 2008


THE TWO DECADES BEGINNING IN 1876 saw the appearance of the incandescent lamp, the telephone, hydraulic generators, skyscrapers, electric trolleys, subways, and elevators, as well as cinema, X-rays, and the first automobiles. By 1903 the spectacle of the first mechanically powered airships and then airplanes had shattered the still inviolate(bozulmamıs) horizontally (yatay)of the phenomenological and geopo­litical space of the pre-World War I era. The life-world in Europe and America was being transformed in depth—the unparalleled technical saturation of the hu­man perceptual apparatus through innovations in transport and communications was redefining the body and its relations to the world beyond it. A new order was
whose configuration could be expressed either in terms of a dynamics
of force and a relativism or in the privative terms of nihilism and dissolution.(çözünme) Whatever their ultimate (nihai) convictions(kanaat), the philosophies of Henri Bergson and Ed­mund Husserl may be seen to form one axis of this configuration:

Bergson's for its insistence on the nondiscrete nature of the contents of consciousness and on the systematic dissolution of spatial form in the fluid multiplicity of durée

Bergsonun bilincin içeriğinin bütünsel dogası ve mekansal formun akışın çokluğu ve süre içindeki sistematik çözünme iddiaları

Husserl for its attempt to work out the dynamic of (ap)perception by extending the intentional horizon (perceptual field) to the vector of internal time con­sciousness so that a perceived object (noema)—already defined as partial and contingent(olası ihtimal) in space—was further relativized(göreceli) in a temporal complex of retained (akılda tutmak)and anticipated (tahmin edilen)images.

Husserl algı ve idrak etmedeki dinamikdurumu açıklıyor, kisisel ufuk bir nevi bakış açısı, içsel zamanın biliçteki yeri. obje ondan bize gelen verilerle zaten bizdeki olanlarla olası halleri yeniden sekilleniyor.


The first systematic attempt to express these new principles, however, arose(meydana cıkmak) in the realm of aesthetics, first and most fully in the theoretical program of Italian futurism, yet realized unequivocally only in the work of one of its members, An­tonio Sant'Elia. The movement's founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinette, pub­lished the "Foundation Manifesto" in the Paris daily Le Figaro in February



yeni algı sistemleri bedenin yeniden farklı bicimde yapılandırdı.

8 Nis 2008

The Aleph_ Jorge Luis Borges

What eternity is to time, the Aleph is to space. In eternity, all time-past, present, future- coexists simultaneously. In the Aleph, the sum total of the spatial universe is to be found in a tiny shinning sphere barely over an inch across. (Borges, 1971:189) syf54

The Aleph and other stories1933-1969 kitabında Borgesin alephhikayesi icin yazdıgı yorum.

Aleph icnde yada dısında olmadan kendimizi ve onu konumlandırmadan deneyimledigimiz bir mekan.

Soja nın yorumu
"The Aleph" is an invitation to exuberant adventure as well as a humbling and cautionary tale, an allegory on the infinite complexities of space and time. Attaching its meaning its meanings to Lefebvre's conceptualization of the prodection of space detaonates the scope of spatial knowledge and reinforces the radical openness of what i am trying to convey as Third Space. syf 56

ek var
Reflexive thought and hence philosophy has for a long time accentuated(vurgulamak) dyads(çift). Those of the dry and the humid, the large and the small, the finite and the infinite, as in Greek antiuity. Then those that constituted the Western philosophical paradigm: subject-object, continuity-discontinuity, open-closed, etc. Finally, in the modern era there are the binary oppositions between signifier and signified, knowledge and non-knowledge, center and periphery... But is there ever a relation only between two terms...?One always has three. There is always the Other.(Henri Lefebvre, La Présencé et l'absence, 1980:225and143)
soja cevirisi syf54

Nitelik problemini anlamak için nitelik kavramının nasıl ortaya çıktığı araştırılabilir. Nitelik kavramı beraberinde nicelik kavramını getirir, bu ayrım birçok kavramda karşımıza çıkan ikili düşünce sisteminin bir ürünü olarak görülmektedir. Henri Lefebvre düşünce sistemimize hakim bu ikili düşünme yaklaşımının antik yunana dayandığını savunur. Küçük-büyük, sonlu-sonsuz, nemli-kuru...Bu ikilikler sistemi daha sonra Batı felsefesi paradigmasını oluşturmuştur: özne-nesne, sürekli-süreksiz, açık-kapalı, etc. Nihayetinde modern dünyada ise bu ikilikler karşımıza, gösteren-gösterilen, bilgi-bilgi olmayan (non-knowledge), merkez-öteki gibi kavramlarla çıkar. (Henri Lefebvre, La Présencé et l'absence, 1980:225and143, Çeviren:Edward)
Soja , Third Space syf54)