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Lotze's Outlines of Philosophy - METAPHYSIC
Lotze's Outlines of Philosophy - METAPHYSIC
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)
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An excerpt from the:
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. Our every-day apprehension of the World is pervaded throughout with suppositions concerning an inner coherency of its phenomena, which is in no wise immediately perceived by us, and yet is regarded as needing no explanation and as necessary. Thus, for example, even the most common apprehension of the world is impossible without articulating the content of our perceptions in such a manner that we assume 'Things' as the supports and centres of its phenomena and events, and all kinds of ' reciprocal actions' as being interchanged between them. Neither those things, however, nor these actions, are immediate objects of perception. In the same manner are both a theoretic apprehension and a practical treatment of the world inconceivable without the supposition of a causal connection of that which has actual existence.
All these and other suppositions we have become accustomed to in life with the feeling of their necessity, but without availing ourselves of a clear knowledge of their precise meaning and of the grounds and limits of their validity. There are therefore never wanting occasions where doubts at once arise in us concerning their validity. Thus in the consideration of human transactions, the new conception of freedom stands opposed to the ' causal nexus' previously deemed of universal applicability. Thus on consideration of the soul, the conception of ' Thing' seems to be in general inept to designate the permanent subject of its changeable phenomena.
These contradictions, in which the extra-scientific form of representation is involved, and to which the particular sciences also lead, — in so far as the axioms which some one of them follows in its domain run counter to those which another of them leaves undisputed in its domain, — make us sensible of the necessity for a universal science, which takes as the objects of its investigation those conceptions and propositions that, in ordinary life and in the particular sciences, are employed as principles of investigation.
This science is Metaphysic.
THE CATEGORIES OF KANT.
§ 2. The two questions that lie nearest at hand would accordingly be. How can we get possession of those suppositions completely, in order to have in collective form that total content of our reason which is necessary to thought? and, then: How can we demonstrate that these suppositions have any validity, or what validity they have?
As to the former question, it is well known that Aristotle first directed attention to those most general conceptions which are expressed concerning everything actual (the ' Categories'); but without conducting his search for them according to any principle, or giving any security that his enumeration of their series was complete. In more recent times, Kant attempted to make good this deficiency: Every act of cognition, he held, takes place by combination of ideas, whose form is that of logical judgment. If now it is sought to discover the different suppositions which we make about possible or necessary combinations of ' Things,' then there is only need to collect all the essentially different forms of the logical judgment, and it will thereupon be found that a special model of combination has been followed in each, according to which subject and predicate are thought of as cohering. For example: the categorical judgment ("gold is yellow") simply combines subject and predicate as thing and attribute; and this relation between thing and attribute is one of those suppositions which we make concerning the coherency of things. The hypothetical judgment (" if gold is heated, it melts ") unites the predicate to the subject, not absolutely but conditionally; and the thought which lies herein, — namely, that of a combination of changeable phenomena according to a law of conditionating, is a second of those universal suppositions. Kant expresses them both by the brief titles of the categories of ' substantiality and of causality.'
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An excerpt from the:
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. Our every-day apprehension of the World is pervaded throughout with suppositions concerning an inner coherency of its phenomena, which is in no wise immediately perceived by us, and yet is regarded as needing no explanation and as necessary. Thus, for example, even the most common apprehension of the world is impossible without articulating the content of our perceptions in such a manner that we assume 'Things' as the supports and centres of its phenomena and events, and all kinds of ' reciprocal actions' as being interchanged between them. Neither those things, however, nor these actions, are immediate objects of perception. In the same manner are both a theoretic apprehension and a practical treatment of the world inconceivable without the supposition of a causal connection of that which has actual existence.
All these and other suppositions we have become accustomed to in life with the feeling of their necessity, but without availing ourselves of a clear knowledge of their precise meaning and of the grounds and limits of their validity. There are therefore never wanting occasions where doubts at once arise in us concerning their validity. Thus in the consideration of human transactions, the new conception of freedom stands opposed to the ' causal nexus' previously deemed of universal applicability. Thus on consideration of the soul, the conception of ' Thing' seems to be in general inept to designate the permanent subject of its changeable phenomena.
These contradictions, in which the extra-scientific form of representation is involved, and to which the particular sciences also lead, — in so far as the axioms which some one of them follows in its domain run counter to those which another of them leaves undisputed in its domain, — make us sensible of the necessity for a universal science, which takes as the objects of its investigation those conceptions and propositions that, in ordinary life and in the particular sciences, are employed as principles of investigation.
This science is Metaphysic.
THE CATEGORIES OF KANT.
§ 2. The two questions that lie nearest at hand would accordingly be. How can we get possession of those suppositions completely, in order to have in collective form that total content of our reason which is necessary to thought? and, then: How can we demonstrate that these suppositions have any validity, or what validity they have?
As to the former question, it is well known that Aristotle first directed attention to those most general conceptions which are expressed concerning everything actual (the ' Categories'); but without conducting his search for them according to any principle, or giving any security that his enumeration of their series was complete. In more recent times, Kant attempted to make good this deficiency: Every act of cognition, he held, takes place by combination of ideas, whose form is that of logical judgment. If now it is sought to discover the different suppositions which we make about possible or necessary combinations of ' Things,' then there is only need to collect all the essentially different forms of the logical judgment, and it will thereupon be found that a special model of combination has been followed in each, according to which subject and predicate are thought of as cohering. For example: the categorical judgment ("gold is yellow") simply combines subject and predicate as thing and attribute; and this relation between thing and attribute is one of those suppositions which we make concerning the coherency of things. The hypothetical judgment (" if gold is heated, it melts ") unites the predicate to the subject, not absolutely but conditionally; and the thought which lies herein, — namely, that of a combination of changeable phenomena according to a law of conditionating, is a second of those universal suppositions. Kant expresses them both by the brief titles of the categories of ' substantiality and of causality.'
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