26 LOS CURSOS DE CULTURA CATÓLICA
C) LA IGLESIA QUE SUFRE
Both the centaur and the circle arc ruled out oT oxiskoico for 1.01 d % . heeauae hoth^afe univereals. Though on Reid's view of the nature of univer-
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sals it. will turn out to be as misleading to say that Uni versais do not ez'i.ct as to say that they do.) The centaur, hoxfever, is clearly picked out for '
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consideration because anyonerwould accbpt it as an example of a non-existent
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object. Only.a philosopher would ask whether it.was or was not non-existent because it was a universal. The circle is selected as a typical universal azid denied existence on that account; wliiténess would l^ve done instead.
The fact that the Euclidean circle y from the definition, of the line des- ^ - cribing its circumference, ' has no real existence isi not directly under dis- ' ^,
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cussion hère. But the discussion applies to it, as to everything else that is thou^t and does not exist.
. • What does Reid mean when he says that a centaur is the direct object of the
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the conception of a centaur and that there are no centaurs? One would like to be quite sure that Reid liimself knew even vaguely. He goes on as if wliat he had said was perfectly straight forwhrd, as though there..was nothing in it that looked self-contradictory and needed to be explained away. The meaning i he might have had has to be worked out from obscure and conflicting materials. ' .
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Is Reid pi'oviding non-existent.objects of ccmception with a twilight * #
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'subsistence' somewhere between being and nonentity? It is not what you would expect, with his down to earth mind, yèt a touch would bring the more probable ' of two,interpretations of what'he says (or the stronger of two inconsistent
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vie%m that he hold)very close to it. ,
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We shall begin with the less probable iT-terpretation (or the weaicer view). "...my conception of felony is true and just, when it.agrees vith the méània of that word in the laws relating to it, :ahd in adthors who understood the 3aw. The meaning of the word is the thing conceived; and tliat meaning is the
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conception affixed to it by those who best understood the language.", ’ I understQnd what felony is v/hen the meaning. Ï have for the word is the-‘'33
meaning it has in the law and in legal usage. And the meaning it has there, . ' Reid says unmistakably, is "the thing conceived*', that is the, meaning of t.- .,
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'felony* is felony. Since there is nothing that the word "* centaur * applies-'; to, the meaning of the word 'centaur*, at any rate, cannot be what the ; word applies to. We may notice incidentally that this identification of theQ',
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meaning of a word with what^applies to is a crude expression of Reid's , - view, which on other occasions shows itself more subtly, that the word is directly related to the world; that there is no psychological entity, its yy#
'meaning*, floating in between He eliminates the ideas signified by words:'' ; and in turn signifying things, though there is no formal announcement that ideas in yet another of their mediatorial capacities have gone. There is y
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no direct polemic in Reid against the Lockian theory of signification and and no comment on its ^parallel with the Lockian theoxy of perception.
Now .RReid is quite well aware tliat a word may have no ajpplication and. 3 : still have meaning. And it is perhaps not reading too much into, the * felony * 3 passage to find in it vaguely the view that to conceive X (where X is not • an individual) is to understand how the woxd'X* is used by those who,under stand the language thoroughly, the denotative use, where there is one,being part of the total use."^”* (Where Reid identifies meaning with the ‘thing
1. Intellectual Powers, IV, Ch.I, p.,564. ::J
2, Cp. "To conceive the meaning of a general word, and to conceive what It;.##3
signifies, is the same thing." He adds that what is signified is "what is ; common to many individuals". (Intellectual Powers, V, Ch.II, p.393.)
3. In the Philosopl'iical Orations there is a brief hostile reference,to the philosophers who hold "Verba esse non re rum sed Idearura signa", (p,32,)' y 43 3#
4, Professor Woozley drew my attention to so.uething like this as a possible interpretation of Reidi
cori.ceived‘
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doubly ‘careless,) This fits in with scattered hints '. elseuhere; for example:"The meaning, of., other general .wpzd's other than those / of which we are given definitions we collect, .by à kind of induction, Irom'the way in .which we see them used on various occasions by those who under- ‘ ^ island the language". - Onione interpretation of Reid then, to think of things
that do not exist is to know the meaning, of the words that stand for them, and to kno%f' the meaning bf these words is to know how they are used, and bhis , includes knowing that there is nothing they apply to. what becomes of the ' i -principle which Reid regards as axiomatic, the principle that every act of
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conception must have an object? ^
When we are thinking of what does not exist, there is necessarily no ■' object which isethe non-existent thing we are thinking of* And if the
principle will not be satisfied with something else 'instead, it has to be
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given up. All that can be done is to explain the feeling that there must be ' what there canhot be. The demand for an object when,something unreal is
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thought of is. the shadow of the necessity for an object when something real is thought of * The linguistic forms ' thought of a etc., appropriate in the one case, persist inappropriately in the other. The demand cannot be satisfied and.no analysis of the notion of imaginary being or ens rationis can take away all the uneasiness that results from frustration,
It mightibe said that the mind does have objects when we think of non- ~ ; existent things, though not the impossible objects of the demand. It is,, to
widen slightly the application of a remark of Stewart's , words with which our attention is then occupied. The plain man believes that he can think of ■what does not exist and he has a plain way of expressing his disbelief in
something alleged to .exist; he calls it mere:.words. , '
1.' Ihteliectual Rowers, Ch. VI, p.4 % 2,' g i W 5ed. ,111, p T - i æ *
. . Thé questions/hovrever, which Reid had for the ideal objects, proposed as substitutes for non-existent real, objects, are waiting for these word-objects- is. the word .‘•centaur*, half horse and half man? And the plain ;#n can express his disbelief in something by calling it a mere idea. - The only commitment coïïBïioh sense has in the matter is that we can think of what; does, not exist.
Reid's other explanation of what it is. to think of objects that do not . eMst (or the other interpretation of his one explanation) is an inference, from his views on the nature of generality in things, 'Reidview of the nature of gerieiality in things may be summed up by saying that he regards the attributes of a thing as numerically different in each individual but capable
of qualitative identity in any number of individuals. Even if it was an , empirical fact that no attribute in any one thing is exactly the same as any
attribute in another thing, the capacity for repetition is a logical characterLf i; istic of an attribute, and in fact very often different individuals do have
the same attributes, ddiere are many men above six feet .in height and many below it, many poor and many rich, many born in.France and many in England;
many things have many qualities in common. And if . this is what the Schoolmen i. meant, . Reid says, by universals a parte rei , then there'are certainly such
universals. ' .
Then comes one of the places in which talks obscurely
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of the non-existence of universals: the whiteness of this’sheet is one - thing, whiteness is another; the conceptions signified by these two forms of; speech are as differ ent as. the expressions.’ The first signifies an individual quality reallyexisting... the second signifies a general conception, 'which implies no exist-' ence, .but loay be predicated of everything that is white,uand'in the sapie "Sense, On this account, if one should say that the vdiibeness of this sheet is the ■ whiteness of another' sheet, every man perceives this to be absùrd;, but when
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./ . lie;;says both sheets are white, this is true and perfectly 'understood, ’She . Ù '* conception “Of wiirtehess implies no existence; it would remain the same bhoughl#^
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everything in thç^universe that is white were annihilated." ■ : .-y.H ' . 1 -There is another passage. found a few pages, further on which should be in'■ >’ %
front of us; ".. llmiversais have no real existence. When we ascribe existence * '«to"them, it is„.not an existence in time or .place, but existence in some " Î!
individual • subject; and t M s existence means no more but that they are truly. - - % • 1 attributes of such a subject'. Their existence is nothing but predicability, ' -f
or tke capacity,of being.attributed to a subject." (p.407)- ./.gj ' : A minor difficulky, and an ingi'ort&nt feature, in the first passage is the.'..1^
meaning of 'conception'. Reid has, however, warned us near the end of the,
previous chapter that 'conception’ may be used for ’thing conceived’ (tiiing/vy.-'y# when the.word has objective signification, not an idea or notion of a thing), and it is used in this way here. The-stubborn difficulty is vdth the general whiteness which does not imply existence and would remain the same even bhoü^lÇ there was nothing white* Reid’s language suggests that he thought there were ownerless abstractions, like the Platonic ideas, , but non-existent. His reBiarks'X on the Platonic ideas tend to confirm this impression. If Plato iiad denied
existence to his ideas, all would have been well; everything else that he says about them, about their eternity and their other characteristics, would have
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been "level to the human understanding",
The second passage provides something less unintelligible, in spite of the -fact thatKReid seems to change his mind in between sentences as to the sense
in which universals can be said to exist. And the first passage can be inter- ' ,preted consistently with it. There is no whiteness in general existing as
1. Intellectual Powers, V.Ch. Ill, p. 595. ' • ■
quality over and above the vjhite colour of particular things. Whiteness as a universal is the fact that many things are or could be white. And similarly With other universals.
When, therefore, an X is conceived and there are no Xs, the object of the . ^ conception is the fact that there could be an X. (Or perhaps Reid would say the object of the conception is a possible X - not quite something, not quite nothing, but not just the fact that X is possible.) Against this view thé -h Reidi'an questions still echo; Is the fact thai there could be centaurs something which is half horse and* half man? (Are possible centaurs hooved?) The problem f/'- exemplified by the geometer’s circle is not solved. Leaving, however these
considerations aside, the equation of the conception of X with the conception of the fact that X is possible (or with the conception of a possible X)iriâis into infinite regress.
Something should be said here about Reid's account of ‘abstract general conceptions’ in relation to Locke and Berkeley, whom he criticizes, and to Stewart who criticized him. It will emphasize still further Reid’s (and
Stewart’s) rejection of concepts as psychical entities. Against Berkeley Reid insists that we do have ’abstract general conceptions'. Stewart complains that ; Reid is manufacturing mystery where everything- is plain and straightforward, ■ Everyone agrees that we can, for example, reason ‘'concerning a figure considered ,
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merely as triangular" without attending to its particularities. What additional/g light does it throw on the subject to tell us in ”scholastic language" that we are enabled to do so because of the power which the mind has for forming
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’abstract general conceptions'? Stewart, however, has no deep quarrel with Reid's views; the words'abstract general conceptions’ prevented him from seeing
how shallow it was, * .
1. Elements, Vol.II, Ch* II, Sec, II, p.83.
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The words are Locke's but Reid does not use them in Locke's sense; he argues with Berkeley without really disagreeing with him; and he does not
make mistalces that Stewart corrects. For the problem which interested Locke, / Berkeley and Stewart - how we can refer significantly to generality - is not .i*; directly Reid's interest. Of course we refer to generality by general words,rg with or without the assistance of representative members of a class, "General- ization", Reid says in a fragmentary draft of the Intellectual Powers, »* is -, nothing' else in my apprehension than observing some attribute or circumstance i to be common to two or more objects, and givingittoaoname which must of 7/4/ consequence be applicable to all the individuals in which the thing signified by it is found," What Reid is concerned with is the threat to the knowledge ' of real generality in things, lie thinks this threat comes in different ways
from Locke and Berkeley, and he is still preoccupied with the theory of ideas. '-
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Locke and Berkeley, he thinks, have ^ot themselves into positions in which ones6^'' of them can allow us knowledge only of general ideas (which Reid misconstrues. • '
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in Locke to mean images), with no emergence beyond them; and the other can.. ,: allow us knowledge only of particular things (and Berkeley ' s ' things' Reid
insists, imless they are minds, are ideas whidh have supplanted things.
The direct thouljht of a particular thing is a particular conception; of x/kf one of its attributes, separated from the rest, an abstract particular con- ' caption; of such an attribute as actually or potentially common to a number f of individuals, an abstract general conception. Neither a %)articular, nor an ' abstract, nor an abstract general conception, is an idea in Locke's sense. T o . abstract is to consider separately what may or may not be able to exist i 1. Aberdeen IVjBB, 2I31.6