MODELO SCOR – PROCESO DE ABASTECIMIENTO

We know that James had been very critical about the compounding of simple ideas into various complexes. He criticized Locke for combining the simple elements of consciousness, and Hume for treating them as separate independent parts. He also criticised those who believed in the compounding o f mental facts. James thus provided, a physiological explanation as against Hume and Lockes’ metaphysical explanation.

"We cannot mix feelings as such, though we may mix the objects we feel, and from their mixture get new feelings." [Ibid. , p. 157). James suggested an interesting example where he said that at most w e can compare together objects previously presented to us in distinct feelings. But we may find that each object "stubbornly maintaining its separate identity before consciousness, whatever the verdict of the comparison may be." \Ibid., p. 157-58]. The example he gave was that of lemonade, which physically contain both the lemon and the sugar. The taste of the lemonade is such that it cannot be separated into the taste of lemon- sour and sugar-sweet. "These tastes are absent utterly." [ibid., foot note, p. 158|. Similarly, according to James, consciousness is like that of lemonade, without any divisible parts. But a disinterested observer would not agree to this. There is no doubt that lemonade does unravel the feelings of both sour taste and sweet taste. If lemonade can be divisible into the elementary feelings of sweetness and sourness, then consciousness may also be divisible into elementary sensations quite similar to that of Humean explanation of mind.

In 1895, some changes has been observed in Jam es's change in position10 11 but certainly not a thorough change, because in the same footnote (P.. /, p. 158), where James said "absent utterly", he added that "the entirely new taste which is present resembles, it is true, both those taste; but... that resemblance cannot always be held to involve partial identity." But his initial rejection o f compounding consciousness returned when he accepted the idea o f "compound taste". In the essay "The Knowing O f Things T ogether"" James said "the sour and sweet in lemonade are extremely unlike the sour and sweet o f lemon juice and sugar, singly taken, yet like enough for us to "recognise" the "objects" in the compound taste" (ibid., p. 398). James did not stick to his initial commitment that

10. Myers, William James, p. 62. 11. Collected Essays and Reviews.

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mental states are not a compound of smaller parts, and hence cannot be introspectively chopped up into simpler mental elements. This is also clear from his 1884 essay "What is Emotion?", in which James spoke of "immense numbers of parts modified in each emotion." |P. 172|.

With this change of position from the rejection of psychic atomism of Principles, to the later acceptance of introspective simpler elements, James entered metaphysics. When we discuss his theory of pure experience this point will become more clear. As a prelude we may mention that James stated that pure experience is made of simple elements of sensible qualities of browness, of heaviness, or of flatness etc.

2.3.3. The Role O f Consciousness.

The concept of "consciousness" not only played an important role in his psychology, it also occupied a prominent place in his metaphysical discourse. James, a naturalist, accepted Darwinism’s emphasis on the function of consciousness as a power in the struggle of the organism with environment. Moreover he resolved the question of Cartesian dualism by bringing attention to the idea of natural selection and not the a priori existence of "I". The theory of natural selection appealed to James in one special respect, that is, that in every aspect of reality some sort o f activity is taking place. This offers a picture in which there is a continuous flow in everchanging nature. Change is the fundamental characteristics of nature, but this change is continuous with no gaps in it. This philosophy of natural selection and change led James ultimately to discard consciousness as the "first principle". By reducing consciousness to a secondary status, James returned to the notion of "change", "continuity" and "selectivity" in his radical theory of the world of pure experience.

As a metaphysician, James followed the same method o f introspectionism and functionalism which he used for his psychological investigation. In psychology, through the method of introspection, James rejected the Cartesian dualism of mind, arguing that even in introspection one cannot reveal the existence o f a so- called "Ego" or "1". In philosophy James argued in favour of the homogeneity between consciousness and a physical object. Experiences are of same nature and what we call subject and object are simply two different arrangements of the same thing.

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We have noted how James designed his theory of consciousness to disprove certain philosophical positions, including both materialism and idealism in their monistic form. Through each of five characteristics of consciousness, James tried to give a definite shape to his theory of consciousness. His argument in favour of the continuity of consciousness aimed to establish an "open universe" against the concept o f "blocked universe" of the idealistic monists and the absolutists. The idea of "consciousness as a selective agent" was designed to show that consciousness is active and its presence can make a certain difference in the flux of experience. Therefore consciousness is not an epiphenomenon as the materialist thought. Being a positivist and an empiricist and later pragmatist, James waged war against those who ignored the change and continuity in nature.

The question that arises may be put as follows: Has James successfully answered the epiphenomenalists and the dualists? As regards the dualist hypothesis, James had at the beginning made it clear that, since Cartesian dualism and common sense belief regarding mind and matter became synonymous, it was difficult to ignore and reject this only disagreement with Descartes centred on the division o f mind into a thinker and the process of thinking. According to James what we call thinker and the thinking are simply two names of the same activity. But his acceptance of the antithesis of "feeling" and "thought” as a theory o f cognition put him on the same footing as that of Descartes’.

James’s acceptance of dualism in its restricted form was to fulfil his more serious commitment, i.e. to reject the materialist hypothesis of mind as an epiphenomenon. But James fell into a pit of his ow n digging for the materialists. One may accept that James did not reject the materialist hypothesis, totally in explaining the mind and body distinction. He agreed with the materialist that, "the movements of our tongues and pens, the flashing o f our eyes in conversation, are of course events of a material order, and as such their causal antecedents must be exclusively material." \Principles, vol. 1, p. 132). James only denies the mechanical explanation o f consciousness. He noted:

|A ccording to the automaton-theory, each o f the feelings mentioned is only the correlate of som e nerve-movement whose cause lay wholly in a previous nerve-movement. The first nerve- movement called up the second; whatever feeling was attached to the second consequently found itself following upon the feeling that was attached to the first. If, for example, good news was the consciousness correlated with the first movement, then

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joy turned out to be the correlate of consciousness of the second. But all the while the items o f the nerve series were the only ones in causal continuity; the items of the conscious series, however inwardly rational their sequence, were simply juxtaposed. |Ibid.,

p. 133|.

Against this James held that it was simply common sense that "felt pain” not only causes outwards tears but also causes inward events of desire, sorrow or compunction. What we call consciousness o f good-news directly produces the feeling of joy.

The irony is that James’s final description of consciousness turns out to be quite similar to that of materialist description which he had painstakingly rejected. James, impressed about the physiological concept of stimulus and response, described the self in terms of "cephalic" motion:

If we divide all possible physiological acts into adjustments and

executions, the nuclear self would be the adjustments collectively considered; and the less intimate more shifting self, so far as it was active, would be the executions. |Ibid., p. 302|.

Despite his failure we should acknowledge that as a psychologist James had a duty to preserve the importance of the role of consciousness in understanding one’s attitude towards others and the world at large. But as a metaphysician James had an ulterior monistic motive, that is to repudiate the existence of consciousness. With this motive in mind James entered the philosophy of neutral plural facts, an empirically given data. It is "given” in the sense that it is subjectless. It is neutral in the sense that the given data is neither mental nor physical but can figure in both groups without being itself either mental or physical.