completeness theoretically but not actually attainable—except as a hope that the human mind will successively approximate the mind of God (the universal seat of logic). This, admittedly, is an infinite task. But the attempt is justifiable as a wordly search—a progressive capacity to explain the world’s unity and latent perfectibility—and so, correct its behavior.
Empiricism, in contrast, finds reality in the organization of sensory experience, but variously locates that reality in the nature of perceiving, or—a dangerous move—in the object itself, independent of any given perception. This leads to a disjunction wherein the world has qualities that are not (perhaps cannot be) perceived, and other qualities that are dependent on (perhaps donated by) perception. How then, can we “know” the world?
I suggest that the opposing members in these contrasting schools of philosophy often find surprising agreement in the doctines of their antagonists. This depends largely on what one takes as the prime issues of disagreement and what other (sometimes compatible) beliefs are not, at a given time, seen as important. Philosophers have a plethora of belief objects that elude specification—especially those that are peripheral to their major theses: Those philosophers concerned with, e.g., value, soul, totality—will not focus on, e.g., sense data, empirical proof, linguistic accuracy. These peripheral issues, if seriously attended to by both sides, might go a ways toward developing a “unified” theory (on some modest level) of reality and its perception—but remember, this is still war!
My point is that reciprocities between these views, while not easily forthcoming, are needed for a larger intelligibility (if such is what we want). The undecidables in each school—the fact-value points of impasse—require language and curiosity from both sides for mutual accomodation. This is a salient point in my dissatisfaction with “mind-brain,” “body-soul”—and other such dichotomies.
To briefly show this, I offer some examples from philosophers who have been traditionally assigned to the opposing schools noted here:
Rene Descartes, a Rationalist, argues that examining the coherence between ideas in the mind can be transformed into a correspondence theory between mental perceptions and the actuality of the world: If perceptions are not misleading—if no evil demon can totally deceive us (the irrefutability of “cogito ergo sum”) then the world actually is as we experience it. Taking this further, Decartes holds that while sensory perception is not misleading, it is always incomplete in regard to the immensity of its (universal) subject. This incompleteness however, comes to light through an examination of mental function—that we can contrast the limitations of our knowledge of the world with our held idea of perfection—God’s knowledge of totality. Required here, however, is the further belief that mind is up to veridical self-examination—that it knows it knows (the evil demon notwithstanding) that, as a thinking thing, it is not deceived that it thinks, and accordingly, that it exists. Such belief is based on the equating of a humanly conceived perfection (the reality of “clear and distinct ideas”) with the actuality of God’s and the world’s existence.
Descartes’ observation—that our having the idea of unlimited perfection even when in all other respects we remain imperfect, must have its source in a perfect being—and therefore may be taken as a proof of God’s existence. But this suggests a regress—from a (hypothetically) enabling God back to a created mind that mirrors Him—and then forward—to that mind’s (God-given) capacity for such mirroring as a guarantee of God’s existence. Given that God’s perfection is incompatible with deceit, the argument continues into its wordly consequence—the verifiability of actual existence.
Both the idea of perfection and, thus, of God—are based on a logical (mental) coherence between them—for neither is a sense datum. Descartes, however, justifies this further reach between the idea of perfection and other ideas—those of actuality and their subject—the physical world, within one theory. But this second pairing is between (mental) ideas and (sensate) experiences, and so requires, not coherence, but a theory of correspondence (as in mind-brain). Descartes does not see a tension between these uses; the intersection between speculative and empirical thinking is not a problem for his philosophy. Further, he does not posit a first, unifying idea through which the pairing above (if he would admit it as such) could be derived. Some later critics—notably Kierkegaard—consider the “Cogito Ergo Sum” to be a tautology: There is nothing, i.e., added to the “I am” by the “I think”—hence, no “therefore.” Here again, a more fundamental proposition is needed to give a prior credence to the “I” which occurs in both parts of the equation. But Descartes does not give us this.
John Locke, an empiricist, begins—not with mind, but with sense perceptions which he calls “simple ideas.” They are simple because of their limitations—in time, place, and scope. These ideas are the bases upon which our knowledge is built. The process requires an examination of these ideas to ascertain their origins. One set of ideas is determined by sensory experience which can be imputed to the characteristics of the objects “themselves,” e.g., density, measurement, position. This echo’s the Platonic notion of the underlying reality of such qualities: They are the qualities whose accuracy can be verified by rational agreement bolstered by mathematics—the enduring “form” of the object—which exists (as Plato has it) in “that place beyond the heavens.”
Then there are other qualities that cannot be so measured—but derive their reality from the emotional subjectivities of mind—the unruly steed (as in the Phaedrus) which feasts on the changing grasses of desire and pleasure. These (lesser) qualities are experiences of, e.g., taste, smell, color. They are the romantic ideals, rescued periodically through history as being more “personal” (therefore subjectively more true) experiences—than their rivals of form and measurement.
This distinction—between “primary” and “secondary qualities,” or as Locke sometimes put it, between “simple and complex ideas”—purports to tell us which of our perceptions are indubitably generated by things in the world, and which are “given” to things by the changing character of our perceptions. The distinction results in a dualistic theory in which knowledge is attained by different, although (for Locke) complementary ways—through the physical experiencing and measuring of sensory imput and the mental structuring, or embellishing, of such imput. Locke shares with Descartes the virtue of not finding difficulties in presenting this duality as a coherent theoretical analogue of the real world. Yet the distinction between these types is a basis of his theory, and it founders in the difficulty (which Hume later attacked) that both sets of ideas are based on a single perception—and to so separate them would lead to separate but equally absurd conclusions—that the world exists without perceivers, or that the world is formed entirely through our perceptions.
As with Descartes then, another—independent—judgment seems called for which determines, for any such idea, whether its origins are in world or mind, and how it can be brought together with its antagonist. This, in effect, would also constitutes a tri-partite theory—of which a non-derivable member (unmoved mover, perhaps) provides a prior justification that underlies the contrasting pair—and enables a theory through which we can envision the actuality of a single world—even as our perceptions of it are dualistic. But Locke—as with Desccartes—does not give us this.
Unlike Descartes, however, Locke does not base his religious beliefs upon his philosophy. He accepts the new testament as a reasonable way to approach the questions that empirical analysis cannot encompass: creation, immortality, sin, obligation, and the like. Locke’s main concern with religion is that each belief remain tolerant of other forms of belief so that all, without interference or coercion, may ponder the limits of (holistic) reason—and enjoy the possibilities and uses of (partial) understanding. This is another of his virtues.
The next philosophers I compare are Benedictus Spinoza and G. W. Leibniz. Both these philosophers are typically identified as Rationalists, but the differences between their theories, notwithstanding, are as fundamental as
