Chapter 5

'Fourth class' —
Erroneous systems which confused the nature of the human soul with God

120. The preceding philosophers whom we have examined posited the essence of the soul in ideas and deified it because the ancients had not succeeded in distinguishing between God and the idea. Granted the divine characteristics of the idea, and its confusion with the soul, it did in fact follow spontaneously that each soul was a deity. These philosophers, therefore, have their place both in the third and fourth class of erroneous systems about the nature of the soul.

121. The original error of this kind of system lies in the confusion between intelligible ens, the object of the intelligence, and the intelligence or mind which intuits the object. This is subjectivism, which declares the thought-object to be a modification of thought. This is Galluppi's error, the commonest error of modern days. Indeed, it is a universal error, and the sad legacy of sensism. It is true that subjectivists who reduce the object, the idea, truth to an accidental or substantial element of the soul do not all deduce equally the frightful consequences which this system enfolds. Many of these philosophers lacked the penetration to see these consequences; others, terrified by the consequences, went only halfway or, as a result of inconsequential trivialities, refused to uphold such conclusions. But when Protestantism began to philosophise, it fearlessly deduced every consequence, right to the very last in Germany; religion vanished, rationalism remained.

122. The subjectivism of the Alexandrian Platonists relative to the intellective soul is sufficiently outlined in the following passage from Porphyry: If the mind is many things, and the one must precede the many, the mind is not the principle of all things. But that the mind is many things is clear from this: it perceives things which are many; it does not perceive the one, and nothing beyond the one. If the mind itself, therefore, is the same as those things, and those things are many, the mind also will be many things.

He then proves that the mind is the same as the things it perceives because, independently of sense and imagination, it considers them in itself. But these things (exterior things or likenesses pertaining to phantasy) are grasped in such a way that neither potency (sense or phantasy) looks at the thing in itself, but accepts it either as subject to or not subject to sense. The mind is not like this, but looks to itself; if it stops considering its own functions, it understands nothing. Hence, as sense and what is sensed is posited, so the mind and what it understands is posited. But while sense perceives by going out of itself (what it senses is posited in matter), the mind perceives by looking at itself and not going out of itself. - Consequently, the mind has to be joined to the things which it understands. If these things are referred to the mind, and the mind considers them in itself, it will perceive, and perceive through itself and, looking at itself, will at the same time perceive those things as well. Many things, however, enter the intellect because the mind considers not the one, but the many. Consequently, the mind itself is the many. But because the one precedes the many, the one has to precede the mind.(178)

123. I want to emphasise in this teaching only the confusion between the mind and what it conceives; I want to draw attention to the reason given for concluding that the things conceived by the mind, and the mind itself, are the same. The entire reason for such a thesis, so opposed to common sense, is reduced to this: 'The things perceived by sense are external and hence not sense; the things perceived by the mind are internal, and hence are the mind which, therefore, perceives them when it considers itself. If it ceases to consider its own functions, it understands nothing.' Anyone who observes quietly and carefully what actually occurs within themselves will find such reasoning altogether insubsistent and empty. Indeed:

124. 1. The fact that the object of the mind is internal does not means that it is the mind. If this were so, we would have to prove that nothing internal exists except the mind; we would have to prove that it was absurd for one incorporeal thing to in-exist in another incorporeal thing. This has not been proved, nor can be proved.

125. 2. The word 'internal' applied to the object of the mind is unsuitable because it signifies a relationship of place between body and body. The object of the mind, however, is properly speaking neither inside nor outside any body. It does not occupy any place in space and is altogether devoid of local relationships.

126. 3. If by internal we mean 'united with the mind', I grant that objects intuited or perceived by the mind are united with the mind according to their fashion. But 'being united with the mind' expresses a totally different concept from that of 'being confused or identified with the mind.'

127. 4. Moreover, if in speaking of something internal we mean something united, it is not true that the term of sense is external. In fact, it cannot be felt or perceived unless it is united with the sentient principle. This principle, in feeling or perceiving, does not posit an act by which it distinguishes the term from itself; it does not feel or perceive anything except its own term and itself in the term with which it forms a single feeling. The object of the mind, on the contrary, is united with the mind in such a way that the mind cannot intuit or perceive the object except as object, which is not simply distinct from itself, but opposed to itself, the subject. The illusion leading people to believe that sense perceives objects distinct from itself or, as our philosophers say, external to itself, arises because:

I. Bodies different from our own are external to our own. But the sensory organs which pertain to our own body are confused with the sentient principle which is the soul. Because these bodies are external to our sensory organs, the bodies are said to be external to the sentient principle which is not body. We need to reflect: a) that before feeling external bodies, we feel our own body, the immediate term of sense, with the subjective, fundamental feeling; b) that we do not feel external bodies unless they are united with our own through the action they exercise on our own body. This action has its proper seat in our own body, not in external bodies. It is therefore immediately united with the sentient principle as our own subjective body is united with it.

II. It arises again from the phenomenon of sight, through which we perceive distant bodies with sense, and from the phenomena of active motion, through which we draw near to distant bodies. But the theory of these phenomena, which was unknown at the time of the Alexandrians, has already been explained by me through recourse to a) the unlimited space which is the immediate term of the fundamental feeling; b) the association of sensations and the judgments which are mixed in human beings.(179)

128. 5. If we consider that the mind as well as sense perceives bodies external to our own, the argument loses even the appearance of truth. It is in fact the mind, and the mind alone, which can think distant things; the sense perceives those things which are present and united with itself only in a relationship of sensility. If however we are dealing with purely ideal, possible or spiritual beings, these are not in any place, as I said. Consequently they are neither external or internal, distant or near (cf. 119, 125).

129. 6. As we know, finding the object united with, or better, present to the mind does not logically and necessarily require the mind to be identified with the object, and therefore to be the object. But in this case, good philosophical method requires careful observation to discover if the fact comes about. Having verified the fact, good method will not want to destroy it by reasoning to the contrary — as the logical axiom has it: Contra factum non est argumentum [we cannot argue against facts]. The fact to be verified, therefore, is this: 'Does the mind, when thinking a real or possible mountain, plant or brute animal, believe that it is thinking itself and consequently believes itself to be this real or possible mountain, plant, brute animal?' No one in his senses will say 'Yes' to this.

Only philosophers, who want to be the masters of the human mind (perhaps to possess a mind different from that of human beings) say or conclude: 'We cannot deny that when the mind thinks a real or possible mountain, plant, brute animal, it believes it thinks things different from itself and of an altogether different nature. However it deceives itself. It never thinks anything except itself; it never thinks anything except its own modifications, its own functions.'

I would say to these philosophers: 'If the mind which believes it thinks a real or possible mountain, plant, brute animal, and not itself, nevertheless thinks itself, as you say, it must at least be granted that it does not know that it is thinking itself, precisely because it believes that it is thinking something entirely different, things which are immensely different from itself. But in this case, it thinks itself without knowing that it does so. The thought of itself therefore is an unconscious thought. In fact, however, it knows it thinks things and is conscious of thinking them altogether different from itself, whether it deceives itself or not in this knowledge or consciousness it has of its own thought. But surely no one can be conscious of thinking something without actually thinking it? If you know that you think or are conscious of thinking the devil, isn't it obviously impossible for you to believe, or know, or be conscious of truly thinking the devil without having any idea of the devil? Or do you seriously think that, without making any affirmation, you affirm the devil, or persuade yourselves that the devil is a real being?

If therefore your mind believes, knows, is conscious of conceiving and thinking the devil, it truly thinks him and thinks him as something different from itself. But if you now want to persuade yourselves of self-deception when you think the devil as something different from yourselves, and want to affirm that you are in fact thinking only yourselves instead, you are simply persuading yourselves that you are the devil. You yourselves, in one of your schools, have said this in affirming "the devil is a modification or function of your soul".'

It is utterly clear, therefore, that the pretended argument with which subjectivists confuse the objects of the intelligence with the intelligence itself, is a ridiculous paralogism, a rash sophism, used by these philosophers to contradict the most obvious facts of nature and to destroy the consciousness of mankind. With their pretended reasoning, they claim to destroy the authority of reasoning and the witnesses of intellective consciousness which lies at the base of every reasoning. This error is the perpetual labyrinth in which philosophy finds itself. I am besides myself with wonder when I think that before 1827, no philosopher who embarked on this kind of argument could fully disentangle himself from this spider's web. But I thought I should again speak at length about what I have already said so many times.(180) It gives me real pain to see that SUBJECTIVISM, rooted in the sophistry I have mentioned, is still UNIVERSAL in this Italy of ours. This is the source of all the disasters and monstrous errors which deform and degrade philosophy - errors which, as I have said, have been unfolded and developed logically to their ultimate conclusions.

130. The last of these errors, the most mature fruit of subjectivism, as I have already hinted, is the deification of the soul, man-worship, psychological pantheism. I want to offer a brief history of this opprobrium which is such a disgrace to science, or rather to proud, devilish ignorance. I want to indicate the steps by which this horror has descended into hell where it writhes in torment. The original, primal error, from which all others proceed, is the abuse, already mentioned, of the words 'internal' and 'external', 'inside' and 'outside', which have been transferred from body to soul. Hence the principle: 'The soul can know nothing OUTSIDE itself.' We need to see how this error has moved serpent-like to poison philosophy, which cannot be healed until it has totally purged itself and cast out the powerful enemy provoking its mortal agony.

131. I. BERKELEY. According to Berkeley, our knowledge of bodies is reduced to sensations; sensations are only modifications of the soul; bodies therefore are nothing more than modifications of the soul itself. This is aesthetic idealism. — The errors of this kind of reasoning are:

1. Sensism, an error which eliminates thought. In fact, if we admit thought, that is, if we admit that the body is perceived by the intelligence as an ens distinct from ourselves, it always remains true, whatever sensations may be, that the concept of body is totally different from the concept of modifications of the soul. The object of the former concept, universally expressed by the word body, cannot be confused with the concept proper to modifications of the soul.

2. Teaching about imperfect, defective feeling. — Locke's sensism, followed by Berkeley, accepts only acquired sensations with which extrasubjective bodies are perceived. It knows nothing of the fundamental feeling with which the subjective body is perceived. Moreover, this system does not distinguish between the sentient, simple principle and the term of the extended feeling. It cannot, therefore, be aware of the duality essential to every corporeal feeling. If it had known this duality, and that the soul is only the sentient principle, sensations would not have been defined as mere modifications of the soul. On the contrary, the system would have recognised that in every corporeal feeling, in every subject, there is a substance, different from the soul itself, which acts in its own way in the soul. The term of the soul was not, however, distinguished from the soul. The former was reduced to the latter, the term was identified with and made a mere modification of the principle.

132. II. HUME. Granted Locke's sensism, which reduced ideas to sensations and subjective feelings, and granted that sensations are mere modifications of the soul, Hume went on to deduce that ideas, and the principles of reason contained in ideas, are only modifications of the soul which have no power to prove the existence of anything outside the soul, such as the existence of bodies, of God, and so on. — Rational idealism.

The errors generating this system are always the same, but now produce another consequence. Berkeley, by confining himself to bodies but admitting the existence of God and spirits, was not coherent with his own principle. Hume, who went much further in his adherence to the error, had to combat another truth, that is, 'the difference and opposition between the object of the mind and the mind which intuits the object.' He had to close his eyes to the following, obviously factual truth: 'When the mind thinks a possible object, for example a tower that could be built, it thinks neither itself nor a modification of self. On the contrary, it thinks something which by nature is different from and opposed to its own nature and to the nature of its own modifications. This object which it thinks is not, however, nothing because nothing is not a possible tower.'

133. III. REID. Reid was terrified of such absurd, harmful consequences. He wanted to return to common sense by recognising fully that when we think bodies, or ideas, or principles of reason, we do not believe that we think about ourselves or our own modifications. Nor in fact do we think ourselves. But Reid was unable to reply directly to the paralogism serving as a basis for these errors which states: 'The soul cannot go outside itself and consequently cannot think anything except itself and what takes place in itself.' Reid, instead of untying the knot, cut it by affirming: 'The soul truly perceives and thinks things different from itself, but does this as a result of certain primal, instinctive laws proper to its own nature.' - Realistic subjectivism. This teaching admitted the fact attested by common sense: the soul thinks things different from itself. However, it was unsatisfactory because it failed to answer the opposite fundamental sophism which, indeed, it confirmed.

In fact:
1. The subjective, instinctive laws introduced by Reid were arbitrary and devoid of proof.
2. The laws and instinct which, according to Reid, moved human nature to think external things, were blind, because different from reason, and consequently unable to provide any demonstration of their own veracity and authority in witnessing to things different from the soul. Their witness, therefore, could be illusory. And that is what they are, from the moment that human beings abandoned reason to trust in another guide which was explicitly declared not to be reason.
3. Finally, if we think things different from self as a result of instinctive laws of our own nature, these very things must be considered as productions of human nature. The objects of thought come, therefore, from human beings who can no longer assure themselves of any other provenance of things given them to be perceived.

134. IV. KANT. These observations were noted by Kant and used by him in conceiving his own system. He admitted Reid's laws and subjective instincts, and upheld the teaching of Berkeley and Hume, using Reid's instinctive laws to explain the teaching of Berkeley and Hume. According to Kant, it was undeniable that the soul cannot go out of itself and must therefore know everything in itself. At the same time, he could not deny that according to common sense we know things different from ourselves. This belief must therefore be a necessary effect of the subjective laws indicated by Reid, although they had no efficacy in proving the truthful existence of things different from the soul. Kant believed that the only way open to philosophy in its movement to perfection along this path was to determine the quality of these subjective laws. They were to be designated by an accurate enumeration and analysis of the objects which human beings admitted through them. This is the source of Kant's teaching about forms, schemata and antinomies. — Critique (rational idealism reduced to a system).

The errors which gave rise to Kant's critique are those I have described. Kant, who was unable to confute them, used his considerable intelligence to systematise them. Such errors increased in power precisely because he reduced them to a body of which all the organs were differentiated. Kant's sole addition was that the existence of any ens different from the human intelligence could not be demonstrated by the human intelligence. This does not mean that there were no such entia, but that their existence could neither be demonstrated nor denied.

135. V. REINHOLD. — In England, Reid had endeavoured to disassociate philosophy from the harmful consequences of the systems of Berkeley and Hume. However, he could not eliminate the sophism which served as their foundation. In the same way, Reinhold in Germany undertook to eliminate the harmful consequences of criticism. Like the Scot, he began by imprudently agreeing with Kant's fatal premisses. He then reasoned more or less as follows: 'The subject represents objects to itself. Now granted this undeniable faculty of representation, let us analyse it to see what it includes. The representative faculty presupposes three concepts: 1. the representing subject; 2. the object represented; 3. the representation itself. Self-consciousness is my witness to all this. If representation exists, which is not denied, the object represented and the representing subject must also exist as its conditions.' — System of representation.

But granted admission and non-confrontation of the original, primal error, it was easy to reply that all these distinctions were phenomenal and produced by the laws which the subject obeys in its activity. This was recognised later by Reinhold himself. He accepted that his reasoning, if it were to have any force, presupposed the truth of the object which he was endeavouring to demonstrate. At this point, he abandoned reason in despair, hoping to find a better guide in Jacobi's faith, which is similar to that of the Scottish philosophers. The errors generating Reinhold's system were the preceding mistakes with the addition of one of his own, professed indeed by his predecessors but used by Reinhold as the foundation of his system.

This error consists in believing that intelligence perceives objects solely through representation, understood as a portrait of objects. If this were true, subjectivism and scepticism could never be rejected. No representation can of itself make known objects unless we know what it represents and unless it represents them faithfully. This, however, cannot be known except by confronting the representation with the represented objects. To do this, we have to know the objects represented. This, however, is the very problem we are endeavouring to explain. How are objects known? Can we be assured of their existence by some infallible witness different from the soul when, at the same time, we are asking whether it is possible to know something different from the soul? The truth is that objects, whether they are ideal or real (felt), are immediately present to the intelligence because ens is the proper and immediate term of the intellective soul.(181)

136. VI. FICHTE. — Reinhold's endeavour fared no better, therefore, than Reid's. Unimpeded, subjectivism followed its fatal course. Fichte, like his predecessors, admitted the original, primal sophism as a most efficacious argument. In other words, the soul can know only itself. At the same time, he rejected Kant's possibility of entia distinct from the soul. This was, in fact, a non-sequitur. If everything conceived mentally by us is the result of subjective forms, nothing else remains, because the human intelligence is extended in some way to everything, to the finite as well as to the infinite. Fichte, therefore, set up a perfectly coherent system of subjectivism.

Let us sum up everything done before him. People began by asking how human beings know things different from themselves. Philosophy had inherited an extremely specious prejudice from its elders, that is, human beings know things by means of representation. The English idealists had shown that this was impossible and concluded that we know nothing different from ourselves. They then passed logically from not knowing anything to denying the existence of such things. The Scots had said that this paradox could not be maintained because it goes directly against the authority of the whole human race. Kant thought that the Scots were right. His own approach was that entia different from the soul could not be denied, but could only be produced by the soul. Kant changed the Scot's cognitive instincts to productive instincts. Reinhold in turn had only good will with which to countermand the critique of pure reason. Kant's work consisted in distinguishing, classifying and accurately describing all instincts, or subjective laws, or forms, as he called them, of the spirit — things which the spirit used to compose its own cognitions, its own objects. All that remained was to distinguish, classify and describe the summary objects themselves which the spirit, as a result of the wonderful activity attributed to it entirely gratuitously by Kant, produced for itself. This was the work undertaken by Fichte.

Kant had described and anatomised the potency which the spirit has of producing objects for itself; Fichte considered the act of this potency and the objects themselves produced by it. The ego which Kant had posited as the bond of all representations, and which Reinhold had made synonymous with consciousness, became for Fichte the first act of everything knowable and of all things. This was an immense step which drove subjectivism to its ultimate development and revealed the mouth of the abyss into which such a system necessarily led its followers. The ego, if it is the first act of everything knowable, and of all things, is the Creator, it is God. And this was indeed the step to which subjectivism was impelled by the fearful logic of Fichte. It was unavoidable, granted the precedents we have described. Let us see how the philosopher of Upper Lasatia set his new creator to work on the production of everything knowable and of the universe.

137. Fichte began with the proposition: the ego posits itself. This is the first act. If the phrase the ego posits itself were used to signify only the first immanent act of the ego, there would be no difficulty. In so far as everything carries out the act by which it is, it posits itself in some way. The passage from not being to being can be considered as a kind of path along which the thing in question comes to possess its nature, a path which is followed irrespective of succession in time, with a single act which can, however, be mentally discerned as passing through different grades from the imperfect to the perfect.

This is how the Scholastics themselves conceived motion to existence. But Fichte does not explain his proposition in this way. He requires the ego to posit itself by affirming: 'I am I'. This way of explaining how the ego posits itself is clearly absurd.

1. It is absurd because the intelligent principle, when it has pronounced the monosyllable I, undoubtedly exists without having to add am I. Consequently, the ego would posit, through that proposition, an ego which has already been posited. It expresses, therefore, the act with which the ego reflects on itself, not the act by which the ego exists. This first error explains why, in such systems, consciousness, the work of reflection, always accompanies the ego — which is obviously false because the ego does not always have actual consciousness of itself.

2. I said that the intelligent principle, when it has pronounced the monosyllable I without any addition, cannot not exist. But this is not sufficient. Could the ego pronounce itself, that is, carry out an act, unless it existed previously? No one carries out acts before existing. Consequently, pronouncing I presupposes an existence anterior to the ego. In Fichte's sense, therefore, the ego does not posit itself.

138. The reason why this philosopher enunciates such absurdities with the first word in his philosophy is this: he took into consideration only the completely formed ego as it is in adult feeling without analysing its concept, and without realising that this concept was the work of reflection. As Fichte took it, the concept contains not only the human soul, but the soul as developed and in possession of self-consciousness. However, anterior to this soul as self-conscious, the same soul is essentially principle and rational individual, as I have shown in Psychology (cf. EHS, 61-81). The state of the human being prior to consciousness is a constant difficulty for those who undertake philosophy. Nevertheless, human nature as such has to be sought in this state. Consciousness is acquired; it is not natural to human beings.

139. Moreover, according to Fichte, the ego in pronouncing I am I has posited the first of its objects, that is, itself. The truth is, however, that the ego has not posited itself with this act, but simply knows itself reflectively. Its existence does not depend on the act with which the soul knows itself because this cognition already presupposes the presence of the soul as object of the cognition. Let us see how Fichte makes the ego pronounce the second of its summary objects. According to Fichte, the ego carries out another act with which it says: 'I am not the NON-EGO.' This is well said. It distinguishes the ego from everything which is not itself. This act, however, is still only an act of knowledge; it does not produce anything. It is rather an act which distinguishes two things, the ego and the non-ego, which could not be distinguished if they were not. Cognition supposes prior to itself the (possible or real) existence of what is known. Yet this extremely evident truth escapes our biased philosopher. He gratuitously supposes that knowing and distinguishing means 'producing'. The second object produced by the ego in our philosopher's presupposition is, therefore, all that is not the ego. He rightly uses the negative word NON-EGO to embrace this object.

140. We come now to the production of the third object. The ego carries out a third act by pronouncing, 'The ego and the non-ego are in the ego.' If it were true that the ego is nothing more than the production of the act with which the ego knows itself, and if it were also true that the non-ego is nothing more than the production of the act with which the non-ego is known, it would be true that the ego and non-ego are reduced to cognitive acts in the ego. But if, on the contrary, it is true that no one can know and pronounce himself as existing unless he first exists independently of this act, and if it is equally true that the non-ego cannot be known or pronounced as existing unless it also first exists in the same way, it is evidently true that ego and non-ego are not in the ego. Only the acts with which such entia are perceived are present in the ego, and present as accidents. The concepts of these entia are also present in the ego but in another way, that is, not as accidents of the ego but as its objects, distinct from it by nature. Fichte, therefore, is in constant confusion between the cognition and the existence of things. He repeats the ancient error of Parmenides: (*).

But isn't it true that nothing exists for me unless I know it? This is so, but if I know something I also know that the thing exists independently from the act with which I know it. The concept of knowledge necessarily involves the concept of an entity which logically is knowable prior to that act. I cannot, therefore, know something unless I also know that it is independent of my knowledge. Otherwise, I would pronounce a contradictory proposition by stating that I know something which exists only through the act with which I know it, and exists, therefore, posterior to that act (in the logical order). At this point it is necessary either to deny the principle of contradiction or identity on which Fichte's system is founded, or to confess that logically the existence of what is knowable precedes human knowledge, and that human knowledge and existence are therefore not identified. Indeed, they are distinguished in such a way that knowledge is no longer possible without such a distinction.

141. To understand better how many paralogisms are involved in this system, let us examine once more what I have granted (reluctantly) up to the present. I have conceded that ego and non-ego, if simply acts of knowledge and known concepts, can as Fichte claims be found together with the ego. My concession, however, was over-generous. Strictly speaking, I should not have granted it. Fichte, in his proposition, changes the meaning of the word ego. When he says that ego and non-ego are contained in the ego, he understands the contained ego and non-ego as two concepts formed by the act of knowledge. But he takes the containing ego not as a concept already produced, but as common sense demands, that is, as a real ens, an intelligence, in which concepts are present. His proposition has no meaning apart from this. If the containing ego is understood as the mere concept of the ego, we are faced with the absurdity that the concept of the ego is in the concept of the ego. These are not two things, but one and the same.

It is even more absurd to say that the concept of the non-ego is in the concept of the ego. One concept excludes the other by its very affirmation. Fichte, therefore, mixes and confuses his speculative ego, produced by himself, with the real ego in which dwells the cognition of himself. But admitting a real ego anterior to the concept and reflex ego implies the destruction of the system he wishes to establish, and with which he proposes to reduce everything to ideas and concepts.
Fichte's confusion in attributing meanings to the word ego enables him to conclude that the ego equates with the non-ego in so far as they are found in the same ego of which they are equally productions. They are rooted, therefore, and merged in the same primal act of the ego.

142. The supreme objects of what is knowable and of the universe are therefore three: the ego which posits itself, the ego which posits the non-ego, the ego which equates ego and non-ego.
1. In these three objects, however, the meaning of the word ego is constantly changing, as I said, because the ego as producing cannot be the ego as produced. Producing and produced are opposite concepts. The ego in which ego and non-ego equate cannot be the same as the ego which constitutes a term of the equation; that which contains two terms cannot be one of them.

143. 2. If the ego produces the non-ego, it produces that which is not the ego. It produces an entity different from itself and either goes out of itself through its activity or, without leaving itself, produces an entity which is not itself. It is perfectly clear that ego and non-ego are opposites and cannot indicate the same thing without violating the principle of contradiction. 'Yes' and 'no' can never be said in the same sense. But if the ego produces an entity different from itself, the famous sophism on which the whole of transcendental idealism is founded disintegrates. In this case the ego can go out of itself with its own acts and create something different from and opposite to itself, whatever that may be.(182)

144. 3. The ego and non-ego can never be truly equated unless the meaning of such expressions is changed. As they stand, they are contrary; one excludes the other. Taken in the same sense they can never produce an equation. They can be compared but not equated. Fichte, therefore, abuses the word 'equate'. To understand this, we need to consider how he explains his claimed equation. According to him, the ego posits a divisible non-ego in opposition to the divisible ego. But placing one thing in opposition to another is not to equate, but to deny equation.

He adds that this equation contains two propositions: 1. the ego posits the non-ego as limited by the ego; 2. the ego posits itself as limited by the non-ego. But in this proposition, nothing is equated with anything else because the limitation which one thing places on another is not equivalent to equating with the other. This is an abuse of the word 'equation'. Moreover, the ego as limiting is not taken in the same sense as the ego as limited; the ego as divisible is not taken in the same sense as the ego as undivided. A kind of game is played with the various reflections which the intelligent principle makes upon things different from itself. Instead of considering every reflection as a different act of the same intelligent principle, Fichte wants each of them to produce a different ego which is related to the preceding ego as limiting, limited, containing, contained, producing, produced. Here Fichte is imitating the Greek sophists.

In fact, granted Fichte's ignorance that an intelligent ens is anterior to its own act of self-consciousness, and that he begins erroneously with the intelligent ens as the result of the act with which it acquires self-consciousness (a consciousness which can be repeated as many times as there are reflections) the same egos are inevitably repeated, and can be taken at one moment for the ego itself, and at another for different egos according to the exigencies of an undertaking which Fichte has chosen to express in paralogisms.

145. 4. Again, this whole system lacks sufficient reason. It provides no answer to the following questions.

a) Why does the ego posit itself rather than not posit itself? What moves the ego to posit itself? And to posit itself at one time rather than another? As we know, every person's consciousness has indeed begun at a given moment. Why is the number of egos positing themselves this rather than that number? We know that the number of egos is indeed finite; it could be and is increased daily as new human beings are born. Or must you maintain that only your own ego exists (which would be coherent with excluding everything outside it)? In this case, you would be philosophising for yourself alone.

b) Why does the ego posit the non-ego rather than not posit it? As I said, the word non-ego expresses the world and all things different from the ego in a negative way that is, it declares that these things are not the ego, but does not say what they are. But not every ego posits (if I may repeat the same phrase) an equal non-ego. Certain people know more than others about the world and things different from themselves. Hence the ego of the former group posits a different non-ego (more or less abundant) than the ego of the second group. What sufficient reason is assigned for explaining why an ego must posit a non-ego determined in one way rather than another?

c) What reason exists for explaining why the ego wants to limit itself by producing the non-ego? What reason do you offer for explaining why the ego wants to divide itself in two, into the non-ego and the ego, as you say.

Fichte's system does not provide, nor can it provide, any sufficient reason for all the acts which the ego is made to perform. If, however, there were such a reason for determining the ego to all the acts which it is made to perform, this reason would have to be different from and superior to the ego. It would, in fact, be imposed upon the ego. Thus, it would eliminate Fichte's whole system which consists in eliminating everything outside the ego. Fichte's system, therefore, is a system without reason, a system dependent upon blind chance. It not only does not explain knowledge, but posits that the world may exist and act without cause. In this way, intelligence is suppressed; all that remains is the most capricious, absurd fatalism.

Notes

(178) Cf. Stobaeus, Ecl. Phys., bk. 1, c. 11. This explains the mind posited by the Platonists, the result of many minds, and agrees with what I said about the 'elements' of Empedocles.

(179) AMS, 164-174, 180, 192-196, 211, 246.

(180) Cf. AMS, 242-244.

(181) We can certainly say that the idea represents the real thing, but only in the sense that the idea is the intelligibility of the thing, not its true representation.

(182) To make the error more seductive, the world and everything different from the ego was expressed by a negative: NON-EGO. The claim was that the egoconceives the world by denying itself. But the conception of the world contains as much a positive element as the conception of the ego. The world cannot be perceived simply by denying the ego; a positive affirmation is necessary. But the system of transcendental idealism, unable to explain such an affirmation, forgets it.