[MD] Thumbin' a ride with John, Paul, Bob & Filmer

[Ant McWatt]

Marsha stated to Ant, March 25th 2013:

 

Hi Ant,



I merely explained to J-A that I did not relate
David Bohm's comment 

with Descartes' cognito ergo sum.  I did relate Bohm's statement to 

naive realism (in the psychological sense).  If you'd like to present a 

post about Northrop's concepts of postulation
versus concepts of 

intuition, and/or Descartes' cognito ergo sum,
please do.  I am sure you

would make it an interesting topic.  

 

Marsha

 

p.s. Bohm comment:

  

"Reality is what we take to be true. 
What we take to be true is what we

believe.  What we believe is based upon
our perceptions.  What we perceive

depends upon what we look for.  What we
look for depends on what we think.

What we think depends on what we perceive. 
What we perceive determines

what we believe.  What we believe
determines what we take to be true.  What

we take to be true is our reality."
  
(Mathieu Ricard & Trinh Xuan
Thuan, 'The Quantum and the Lotus: 

           A Journey to the Frontiers
Where Science and Buddhism Meet', p.121) 





===========
Ant replies:
 


Marsha,



That circular quote from Bohm is rather clever though I don't it's meant for an
intellectual context other than maybe showing the limitations of words and
their ability to describe reality.  



Regarding Descartes, I've already analysed his "Meditations" book and
his "cogito ego sum" at considerable length in the Pirsig PhD.  However, I’ll let Northrop remind us why
Descartes used his particular methodology (of doubting) in the first place:

 

“Descartes' answer to our question concerning the
method to be used in initiating 

inquiry is now clear. One's procedure is purely
rationalistic. One intellectually doubts everything which can possibly be
doubted and then, from the indubitable minimum 

which remains, one deduces the remainder of one's
knowledge.” 

 

“The reasons for Descartes' prescriptions are easy
to understand. All his traditional knowledge except that in mathematics had failed
him. We need hardly wonder, therefore, that he began with doubting. The one
branch of his traditional knowledge which did stand up was mathematics. Its method is
the deductive one of formal logic rather than the empirical procedure of the natural
sciences. Hence Descartes' confidence in deductive reasoning.”  (Northrop, “The Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”, 1947, Chapter 1)

 

I'll always correct any philosophological statement
that I encounter about the "cogito ego sum" but for me it's analogous
to the Beatles' rendition of "Help!". 
I've just been in contact with these cultural icons too much for one
lifetime (just too static, too boring if you like)!  Northrop is a little bit different.  Especially as the Anglo-American tradition of
philosophy has largely overlooked him, there’s a lot more productive work
involved in looking at what he was trying to say.  He's analogous to looking at those early
rockers (Chuck “Ding-a-ling” Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Coasters, Carl
Perkins, B-B-B-Buddy Holly and Little “You love me and I do too” Richard) when working
out the musical heritage of the Fabs. 
And, just like Northrop, these 1950s rockers excel at the
"particular groove" they're in. 
Pirsig and the Fabs are more eclectic - use far wider palettes, tools and
influences.  And though they both make
use of traditional genres (which they are at least competent in doing), it’s
how they put these genres “on their heads” for their own artistic purposes
which is where they particularly excel; they are/were very Dynamic at certain
times.  (That’s why Dustin Dallman at the
recent MSU Chautauqua called Bob, an anti-philosopher AND an anti-novelist.
Likewise, this is why Ian McDonald (“Revolution in the Head” 1994, p.264-69) describes
“I Am The Walrus” as anti-establishment (in the broad sense of this word).  Not only do the lyrics of “I Am The Walrus” see
the sanity in insanity; the backing music treats the traditional motifs of
Classical music in an equally unorthodox way. 
As McDonald notes: a “mind bending ‘Through the Looking Glass’ harmonic
structure built round a perpetually ascending/descending M.C. Escher staircase
of all the natural major chords.”)  In
other words, to paraphrase Kant, we become engaged in a free play of the
imagination (whether we like it or not).   



Returning to Northrop, in ZMM (and elsewhere) he is not only mentioned as a
major philosophical influence on Pirsig but it's made clear that romantic
quality and classic quality are the same "riffs" (so to speak) as Northrop's
concepts by intuition and concepts by postulation. And, to a certain limit,
this way of looking at static patterns is useful because (as you have seen
recently in one of my MD posts) it blocks giving “ontological certainty” to various
concepts by postulation; especially from the SOM philosophology you often find
in the average Anglo-American philosophy department. 

 

However, if you look at Northrop’s terminology, he
just doesn’t stop at concepts by intuition and concepts by postulation; being
the conceptual diamond cutter he is - he wants precision so – like Pirsig’s fat
man in the fridge; he goes on and on and on – similar to his own “undifferentiated
aesthetic continuum” – and lumbers his two primary concepts with intellectual lead
weight by dividing them into further sub-concepts and sub-sub concepts (such
concepts by sensation, concepts by introspection and concepts by inspection).  This is why Pirsig thinks Northrop never
caught on.  Analogous to the objections to
metaphysics of Pirsig’s mystic (in LILA); these sub-concepts of Northrop ironically
took him further away from the mystical Dynamic edge that he was trying so hard
to illustrate so precisely; rather than getting
closer to it.  

 

Anyway, just so you can see for yourself; I have
pasted the relevant section about all these sub-concepts of Northrop’s below
(from Chapter 5 of the “The Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”). It’s good
anyway to have the explanation of these at hand but it’s certainly not light
reading.  (If do you brave it and read
through it all; note especially the philosophers that Northrop’s references in
these paragraphs such as Plato, Aristotle, Newton, David Hume, Berkeley, Bradley,
Whitehead, William James and Einstein – the
familiar puzzle pieces of ZMM, LILA and, of course, my PhD.  All Western philosophers too; no East Asian
ones)  

 

Best wishes,

 

Ant


 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


NORTHROP'S CONCEPTS BY INTUITION AND CONCEPTS BY POSTULATION
 

A theory of any kind, whether scientific or
philosophic, is a body of propositions, and a body of propositions is a set of concepts.
Concepts fall into different types according to the different sources of their
meaning. Consequently, the designation of the different possible major types of
concepts should provide a technical terminology with the generality sufficient
to include within itself as a special case any possible scientific or philosophical
theory. 

 

A concept is a term to which a meaning has been
assigned. There are two major ways in which this assignment can be made. The
otherwise meaningless term may be associated denotatively with some datum or set of
data which is given immediately, or it may have its meaning proposed for it
theoretically by the postulates of the deductive theory in which it occurs. We
shall call these two basic types concepts by intuition and concepts by
postulation respectively. 

 

It is hoped that the terms "intuition"
and "postulation" will guide the reader to the precise meanings intended. Since our aim, however,
is to provide a technical terminology, it is important that this be not left to
chance; hence, the following definitions: 

 

A concept by intuition is one which denotes, and
the complete meaning of which is given by, something which is immediately
apprehended. 

 

"Blue" in the sense of the sensed color
is a concept by intuition. It is to be emphasized that in our terminology
"intuition" refers to the direct opposite of what is given as a hunch; it is used to denote what is
directly apprehended purely inductively. Were we concerned only with the West it might be
better to call this type of concept a "concept by induction" rather than a
"concept by intuition." Since we are concerned with the Orient as
well, the latter terminology has advantages. Even so, the reader must keep our restricted use of the concept
as prescribed in the above definition continuously in mind. 

 

A concept by postulation is one the meaning of
which in whole or part is designated by the postulates of the deductive theory
in which it occurs. Any concept which can be defined in terms of such concepts
we shall also call a concept by postulation. "Blue" in the sense of
the number of a wavelength in electromagnetic theory is a concept by postulation.


 

A deductive theory is a set of propositions which
fall into two groups called postulates and theorems, such that the postulates
formally imply the theorems by means of the logical relation of formal implication.
Given the postulates, the theorems can be proved. 

 

In considering any theory, proof must not be
confused with truth. Proof is a relation between propositions, i.e., between those
which are postulates and those which are theorems; whereas truth is a relation
between propositions and immediately apprehended fact. The former is a purely
formal relation which it is the business of pure mathematics and formal logic
to define; the latter is an empirical relation which it is the task of empirical
science and empirical logic to designate. 

 

The relation of proof, defined by the formal
logical relation of formal implication, is quite independent of the truth or falsity of the
propositions it relates. The proofs of the theorems in Euclid's Elements hold
irrespective of the empirical question of truth-value, concerning whether
Euclidean geometry is that of the space of our actual universe. Newton's proof
that the propositions in his Principia follow necessarily on logical grounds
from the fundamental axioms of his mechanics is just as valid today as it was before
the truth of this mechanics was brought into question by the Michelson-Morley experiment
and Einstein's analysis. Hence, when the postulates of a deductive theory are
defined as those propositions of the theory which are taken as unproved and
used to prove the theorems, this must not be confused with the quite
independent question of the truth or falsity of the postulates. 

 

If what is meant by a postulate and a deductive
theory is clear, one is prepared to 

understand a concept by postulation. Our definition
tells us that such a concept is one the meaning of which in whole or part is
designated by the postulates of the deductive theory in which it occurs. In
other words the meaning which such a concept has is that which it gains by
virtue of the properties or relations assigned to it by the postulate or set of
postulates within which it is a member term. It means what the postulates
prescribe it to mean. 

 

When it is recalled that the proof of the theorems
in a deductive theory can be carried through regardless of knowledge concerning
the truth of either the theorems or the postulates, and when to this is added the fact
that propositions can be proposed as postulates, in the construction of a deductive
theory, irrespective of whether there is anything denotatively given in immediate
apprehension which is identical with what the propositions propose, then it becomes evident that
concepts which gain their meaning from such postulates may have meanings neither
derived from, nor directly referable to anything which is immediately apprehended. Such is
the technical meaning of a concept by postulation. 

 

Concepts by postulation are especially important in
the Western world. No serious attempt at a precise designation of the major
difference between Western and Eastern philosophical systems can neglect them. This
importance exhibits itself tin three places: (a) Science, (b) Philosophy, and
(c) Common-sense Beliefs. These merit consideration in turn. 

 

In modern science the first use of concepts by
postulation and the first clear distinction between them and concepts by intuition
was made by the man who formulated modern physics deductively—Sir Isaac Newton.
At the beginning of his Principia, Newton wrote, 

 

"I. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of
itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and
by another name is called duration: 

relative, apparent, and common time, is some
sensible and external (whether accurate or 

unequable) measure of duration by the means of
motion.... 

 

"II. Absolute space, in its own nature,
without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is
some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces; which our senses determine by
its position to bodies;...,' 

 

In the more precise language of our technical
terminology, what Newton is saying in his distinction between "mathematical"
and "sensed" space is that there are two different types of concepts for which the one term
"space" is used. There is "space" in the sense of
"mathematical space" which is a concept by postulation, and there is
"space" in the sense of "sensed" or immediately apprehended
space, which is a concept by intuition. These two concepts must not be
confused, he notes, if "certain prejudices" are to be avoided. In the
deductive theory of physics it is always space, time or motion in the sense of
the proposed concept by postulation that is used. Put more concretely, this
entails that if one wants to know what Newtonian physics means by a
"physical object," one does not immediately apprehend the colored
shapes of the table or chair of common sense; instead, one examines the
postulates of Newton's Principia. Newton means by a physical object the kind of
entity having the properties and behavior which his three laws of motion prescribe.


 

Between "physical object" in this
postulationally prescribed meaning and "physical object" in the sense
of a concept by intuition there is all the difference in the world. From "physical
object" in the latter sense nothing whatever can be deduced. As flume
showed, the relation between one immediately apprehended factor and another is
external and contingent. Newton's Principia demonstrates, however, that i from
"physical object" in the sense of his concept by postulation, of
which is given by the "Axioms" of his mechanics, all the dozens upon dozens
of propositions making up the major portion of his treatise can be deduced as necessary
consequences. Among these deduced or proved propositions can be found Kepler's
three laws of planetary motion and all the important empiricially verified laws
of the entire science of dynamics. 

 

Recently, Albert Einstein has replaced Newton's
postulates for mechanics with a different set. But in Albert Einstein's theory the
same distinction exists between postulated time which flows "equably" and
sensed time which flows non-uniformly. Thus contemporary as well as traditional modern physics
distinguishes between concepts by intuition and concepts by postulation and
formulates its theory in terms of the latter. 

 

The presence of concepts by postulation shows more
obviously perhaps in the case of the scientific concept of the electron, which was
given precise meaning in the postulates of the generalized electromagnetic
theory of Lorentz, several years before the existence of an entity possessing
the proper- I ties designated by Lorentz's postulates was found experimentally
by J. J. Thomson. Clearly, in this case, the concept was given a meaning postulationally
before any denotatively given source for its meaning was known. Moreover, an
electron is too small to be immediately apprehended. Its diameter is such, relative
to the wave-length of light, that observation of it is not merely practically,
but also theoretically, impossible. 

 

This makes us aware of a second significance of
concepts by postulation. It is by means of them that science is able to
introduce unobservable entities and relations into its theory and to predict
the existence of scientific objects theoretically which are confirmed
experimentally only later, and even then only indirectly. 

 

Were there only concepts by intuition our
scientific or philosophical theories could refer to nothing but the immediately apprehended.
Our conception of the nature of things would be exhausted with the crude limits of
our sense awareness and powers of immediate apprehension, and all Western scientific
and philosophical knowledge would have the inexpressible ineffability which attaches
to everything given with immediacy. 

 

It is not an accident that the most distinguished
Western philosophers from Democritus, Plato and Aristotle through Albertus
Magnus, Descartes, Leibnitz and Kant to Russell and Whitehead were
mathematicians, physicists or biologists before they were philosophers. The verified science of a culture
cannot use concepts referring to factors other than what is immediately
apprehended without the effect upon epistemology and metaphysics becoming
evident and inescapable. In fact, metaphysics, when unambiguously defined, is
the thesis that there are concepts by postulation as well as concepts by
intuition; positivism, conversely, is the thesis that there are only concepts
by intuition. Curiously enough, it is not to the science of the West, but to
the philosophy and religion of the East, that one must go if one wants to
observe what happens when positivism is taken seriously. 

 

Concepts by postulation were first introduced into
Western philosophy by Democritus because of the need for them in Greek physics
and mathematics. Plato merely continued what Democritus had initiated, analyzing
the unobservable atoms of the Democritean theory into the intuitively given
continuum which provided their "matter" and the ideal mathematical ratio which determined
their geometrical form. Democritus' and Plato's distinction between the "sense
world" and the "real world" is an example of our distinction
between what is given to immediate apprehension as denoted by concepts by
intuition and what is proposed by deductive scientific and philosophical theory as designated by concepts by postulation. 

 

Aristotle, on the other hand, because of the
breakdown of the postulates of the Democritean and Platonic theories in Greek
mathematics, due to their incapacity to validate the Eudoxian method of exhaustion, and
because of his concern with biology, was forced to reject all postulated
scientific objects such as the physical atoms of Democritus or the
stereometrical atoms of Plato, and to admit into science and philosophy only
concepts by intuition. To such concepts, the content of which is given
empirically, Aristotle did, however, add a postulated immortality, due to their
logical character. This led him to deny any "bifurcation" between the
real as given to the senses in observation and the real as comprehended
postulationally in deductive theory; the former, when grasped in its logical
character, exhausts reality. In his attack upon the "bifurcation" of
traditional and contemporary modern science, Alfred North Whitehead has
returned recently to this Aristotelian thesis. 

 

Contemporary students have tended to go astray in
their interpretation of Plato and Aristotle because, of the failure to |
distinguish between concepts by postulation and concepts by intuition, not
noting that "idea" for Plato is a pure concept by postulation, whereas
for Aristotle it is in part a concept by intuition. The distinction in Plato's philosophy
between "sensibles," "mathematicals" and "ideas,"
to which Aristotle refers in the first book of the Metaphysics and which has
been shown to possess specific scientific content in the mathematical and
astronomical theories of Plato's day, also turns around our distinction between
concepts by intuition and concepts by postulation. A "sensible" is a concept
by intuition the meaning of which is given by immediate apprehension through sense
awareness. "Mathematicals" and "ideas" (i.e., ratios), on
the other hand, are concepts by postulation. The clarification of the
distinction between "mathematicals" and "ideas" must await
the further development, in the sequel, of our technical terminology for
comparative philosophy, and in particular the classification of the different
possible types of concepts by postulation. 

 

When this is done, it will become evident also that
a certain qualification must be placed upon the designation of the Aristotelian and
Whiteheadian theories of science and philosophy as ones which use only concepts
by intuition. This would be the case in the Aristotelian system were the
"sensibles" taken only in their purely psychological character by the
"passive intellect"; the moment, however, that one takes them in
their logical character as a "positive form," as one does in the
transition from the "passive" to the "active intellect,"
then a slight element by postulation has been introduced. The change is not
that one rejects denotatively given concepts by intuition from one's scientific
theory, replacing them by purely theoretically designated concepts by
postulation as do Democritus, Plato and the modern physicists, but that,
retaining and using only concepts by intuition, one postulates for their
intuitively given meanings a logical status and resultant immortal persistence
beyond the brief spans during which they are actually sensed. In other words,
one accepts only concepts by intuition and treats them, to use the language of
Alfred North Whitehead, as "eternal objects." What is meant is
something given only by immediate apprehension. To this immediately apprehended
content which is transitory as sensed, there is added by postulation merely an
immortal logical status and subsistence. It is precisely this slight element of
postulation added to pure concepts by intuition which distinguishes obviously
metaphysical theories like Aristotle's and Alfred North Whitehead's from
positivism. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that Whiteheadian
"eternal objects" and Aristotelian "forms" are quite
different from Plato's "ideas." An Aristotelian "idea,"
like a Whiteheadian "eternal object," is a Platonic
"sensible" given an immortal persistence by postulation. A Platonic
"idea," on the other hand, is not even in part a
"sensible"; "ideas" and "sensibles" are totally
different things. Plato agrees with the positivists and the philosophers of the
East that "sensibles" are nominalistic and purely transitory. This is
precisely why he says that the sense world is a world of becoming and not a
world of being. It is only by giving up concepts by intuition (i.e., Platonic
"sensibles") and formulating one's scientific and philosophical
theory completely in terms of concepts by postulation (i.e., Platonic
"ideas") that one can find the invariants obeying the principle of
being which give "genuine knowledge" according to Plato. 

 

Aristotle's and Alfred North Whitehead's formation
of "ideas" by giving "sensibles" an eternal status is a necessary consequence of
their rejection of "bifurcation." Having repudiated all scientific
objects or factors whose conservation is guaranteed by postulation, no meaning
can be provided for the laws of science which hold, even when the scientist is not
observing, except by smuggling into the transitory data of sense awareness an immortal
persistence which they do not possess. 

 

Plato forms "ideas" by rejecting concepts
by intuition entirely in the formulation of the deductive theory of his science and philosophy
and by using only concepts by 

postulation. Moreover, these concepts by
postulation are given such meanings by the 

postulates of the deductive theory in which they
occur that they designate nothing either sensible or imaginable. In the Sixth
Book of the Republic, when describing the passage of dialectic from the
"mathematicals" in the hypotheses of the sciences to the "ideas,"
Plato asserts that one "makes no use of images" (510). It is not that
one gives "sensibles" or "images" a logical immortal
status; one does not use them at all. A Platonic "idea," with respect
to its content as well as its immortality, is a quite different kind of
concept. 

 

But it is not merely Democritean and Platonic Greek
philosophy and modern science which use concepts by postulation. This is
true even of Western beliefs of common sense. Berkeley and Hume have shown, as
was demonstrated in Chapter III, that even our most ordinary beliefs, such as
the supposition that there are public physical objects, or minds other than
one's own, involve much more than mere observation or immediate apprehension
can give. These beliefs, like the verified theories of modern science, are proposed
by postulation and confirmed only indirectly by observation; they are not given
completely, or guaranteed, by direct inspection alone. The errors in our
perceptual judgments demonstrate this. 

 

This presence of concepts by postulation in even
the layman's ordinary beliefs is obscured by the fact that the postulates in
question have been verified through their deductive consequences so many times in our daily
experience that we have come to regard their trustworthiness as almost as secure as
our belief in immediately apprehended factors such as colors and sounds. Also
the inference has by child training been conditioned as a habit so that it
happens automatically without a conscious effort. 

 

When one passes from common-sense objects to the
more deductively fertile and adequate postulated objects of science the amount
of meaning introduced into Western theory by postulation increases, and what is meant
diverges more and more from the meanings provided by concepts by intuition which
restrict themselves completely to the immediately apprehended. This will be made clear in
Chapter VIII. 

 

We can postulate entities or structures which we
can imagine but cannot sense, and we can postulate factors which we can neither sense
nor imagine. A concept by postulation which designates the former we shall term
a concept by imagination, one which designates the latter a concept by
intellection. 

 

Centaurs, the atoms of Democritus, the Platonic
regular solids of Book XIII of Euclid, and the atomic models of Neils Bohr's and
Rutherford's classical atomic physics are examples of concepts by postulation which are
concepts by imagination. The many-dimensional structures of mathematical physics in
those cases in which the dimensions are greater in number than three, are
examples of concepts by postulation which are concepts by intellection. One
cannot imagine more than three dimensions, yet by the use of concepts by
postulation mathematical physicists have no difficulty in defining a space of any
number of dimensions. The ratio ("idea") which defines the respect in
which two similar geometrical figures ("mathematicals") in Platonic
mathematics are identical, considered apart from the two sensed or imagined
figures of different sizes in which the identical ratio is analogically
represented, is another example. Thus, the Platonic distinction between
"mathematicals" and "ideas" is, when unambiguously
expressed in our technical terminology, the difference between a concept by
postulation which is a concept by imagination and a concept by postulation
which is a concept by intellection. The deductive theories of the physics of
the nineteenth century which required imaginable physical models used concepts
by imagination. The deductive theories of contemporary physics which can only
be expressed mathematically dispense with concepts by imagination and use only
concepts by intellection. 

 

Concepts by imagination and concepts by
intellection each fall likewise into two groups, which we shall term pluralistic and
monistic. Monistic concepts designate a single all-embracing factor;
pluralistic concepts designate many externally related factors. 

 

The kinetic atomic theory of Democritus or the
kinetic theory of heat and gases of classical modern particle physics are
examples of a pluralistic concept by imagination. The ether substance of a pre-relativistic
field physics is an instance of a monistic concept by imagination. The four
primitive ratios of the four atomic triangles of the Platonic mathematics
exemplify a pluralistic concept by intellection. Albert Einstein's tensor
equation for gravitation, which designates the invariant metrical properties of
four-dimensional space-time, illustrates a monistic concept by intellection. 

 

In addition to concepts by imagination and concepts
by intellection, there is a third 

major type of concept by postulation which our
consideration of common-sense beliefs has indicated. Not merely atoms and
tensor equations represent postulated factors, but 

ordinary external objects and other people's minds
do also. Concepts designating those 

common-sense objects we shall term concepts by
perception. Tables, chairs and the 

ordinary objects and persons of social discourse
are examples. In designating such concepts as concepts by perception it is
important to distinguish "perception" in this usage from immediate
apprehension. As Berkeley and Hume have shown, and as we have previously indicated,
"perceptual objects" are not immediately apprehended factors; they
are postulates of common sense so thoroughly and frequently and unconsciously
verified through their deductive consequences that only the critical realize
them to be postulated rather than immediately apprehended. 

 

Concepts by perception also fall into two groups,
pluralistic and monistic. The many physical objects and people of ordinary
discourse exemplify pluralistic concepts by 

perception. The single, publicly perceived space
within which these pluralistic perceptual objects are located is an example of
a monistic concept by perception. 

 

Our consideration of the difference between Plato's
"ideas," which are concepts by 

postulation that are concepts by intellection, and
Aristotle's "ideas' or Whiteheadian 

"eternal objects," which are concepts by
intuition for which an immortal logical status has been postulated, indicates
the possibility of a fourth, borderline type of concept by postulation. We
shall call this fourth type logical concepts by intuition. They are concepts whose
content is given by immediate apprehension and whose immortal persistence is proposed
by postulation. 

 

There are also pluralistic and monistic logical
concepts by intuition. "Hot," in the 

sense of the immediately apprehended sensation
functioning as a "form by privation" in 

the physics of Aristotle and Whiteheadian
"eternal objects" in their relation of 

disjunction to each other are examples of the
pluralistic case. The "Unmoved Mover" of 

Aristotle's theology, in which the pluralistic
forms are treated as a hierarchical unity is a monistic example. 

 

The following classification of Concepts by
Postulation results: 

 

I Concepts by Intellection = Concepts by
postulation designating factors which can be 

neither imagined nor sensed. 

 

(a) Monistic. e.g., The space-time continuum of
Einstein's field physics. 


(b) Pluralistic. e.g., Plato's atomic ratios. 

 

II Concepts by Imagination = Concepts by
postulation designating factors which can be 

imagined but cannot be sensed. 

 

(a) Monistic. e.g., The ether concept of classical
pre-relativistic field physics. 

(b) Pluralistic. e.g., The atoms and molecules of
classic particle physics. 

 

III Concepts by Perception = Concepts by
postulation designating factors which are in 

part sensed and in part imagined. 

 

(a) Monistic. e.g., The public space of daily life.


(b) Pluralistic. e.g., Other persons, tables,
chairs, and the spherical moon with its 

back side which we do no' see as well as its
presented side which we do see. 

 

IV Logical Concepts by Intuition = Concepts
designating factors, the content of which is given through the senses or by mere
abstraction from the totality of sense awareness, and whose logical
universality and immortality are given by postulation. 

 

(a) Monistic. e.g., The "Unmoved Mover"
in Aristotle's metaphysics. 

(b) Pluralistic. e.g., Whitehead's "eternal
objects," Santayana's "essences," or 

Aristotle's "ideas." 

 

Since logical concepts by intuition are concepts by
postulation merely so far as their 

immortality is concerned and are concepts by
intuition with respect to their content, they provide a natural transition from
the one generic type of concept to the other. 

 

Since concepts by intuition gain their entire
meaning from the immediately apprehended, it is necessary to consider its
general character and the factors it contains in order to designate the
possible types of such concepts. 

 

We must start with the all-embracing immediacy from
which any theory, Eastern or Western, takes its inception. This immediacy
exhibits itself as a continuum or field which is differentiated. It would seem that all
people could agree on this as a correct designation of what one immediately apprehends,
however differently they might analyze it as inquiry proceeds. It will be well to
have a name for this all-embracing, initial, immediately apprehended fact with
which any attempt to arrive at a description of experience must begin. We have
called it the differentiated aesthetic continuum. The 

word "continuum" is used to denote the
fact that what we immediately apprehend is an 

all- embracing field. The: word
"differentiated" is chosen to indicate that within this field there
occur factors in one part different from those in another. We immediately 

apprehend a field which is white here and blue
there. The adjective "aesthetic" is added to insure that it is the
qualitatively ineffable, emotionally moving continuum of colors, sounds and
feelings which the artist presents in its immediacy, not the logically defined
continuum of mathematical physics which is a concept by postulation, that is
indicated. Also only what Prall termed the "aesthetic surface"
considered in and for itself is immediately apprehended; the common-sense external
object which the aesthetic object sometimes symbolizes is a concept by postulation,
not a concept by intuition. This initial, complex, denotatively given fact considered
in its totality with nothing neglected is what we mean by the concept of the differentiated
aesthetic continuum. It is not to be confused with the field concept of field physics
or the public space of common-sense perceptual objects, both of which, as we
have previously indicated, are monistic concepts by postulation. 

 

Since the differentiated aesthetic continuum with
all its aesthetic and emotive immediacy includes everything that is immediately
apprehended, all other concepts by intuition derive from it by abstraction. By
"abstraction" we mean, throughout this chapter, the consideration of certain immediately
apprehended factors apart from their immediately apprehended context; we do not mean the
"abstract" in the sense of the postulated. It has been noted already that the
differentiated aesthetic continuum contains two abstractable factors. There is (a) the
field or continuum apart from the differentiations within it or the definite
properties which characterize it, and there are (b) the differentiations or
definite properties apart from the continuum which runs through them and
embraces them. The former, (a), we shall call the indefinite or
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, the latter, (b), since they are many in
number, the differentiations. 

 

We arrive, therefore, at three major possible
concepts by intuition. They are: 

 

I The Concept of the Differentiated Aesthetic
Continuum 

 

II The Concept of the Indefinite or
Undifferentiated Aesthetic Continuum, 

 

III The Concepts of the Differentiations. These,
for reasons indicated later, we shall also term Concepts by Inspection. 

 

It follows from the designations given above that
the following relations hold: 

 

I = II with III; 

 

II = I without III; 

 

III = I without II. 

 

It is important to note that these relations do not
define the meanings of these three concepts in the manner in which the
postulates of a deductive theory prescribe the meaning of the concepts by
postulation within the postulates. Concepts I, II, and III are concepts by
intuition. Hence, the reader, to get their meaning, must find what they denote
in immediate apprehension. Even then the full meaning can be gained only by 

contemplating what is apprehended. 

 

The most difficult of these three concepts for the
Westerner to appreciate is the 

second. This happens because of the influence of
Berkeley and Hume. They insisted that 

all concepts are concepts by intuition but tended
to regard the continuum as nothing but an aggregation of secondary and tertiary
qualities. That this is false, an examination of what one immediately
apprehends will indicate. We directly inspect not merely the white and the
noise but also these in a field. The field is as immediately given as any
specific quality, whether secondary or tertiary, within it. Moreover, most of
the directly experienced field is vague and indefinite. Only at what William
James termed its center is there specificity and definiteness. Thus it is
evident that the indefinite, indeterminate, aesthetic continuum is as
immediately apprehended as are the specific differentiations within it. Hence,
the concept of the indefinite or undifferentiated continuum, gained by abstraction
from the differentiated aesthetic continuum, is a concept by intuition, not a concept
by postulation. 

 

The concepts by intuition which are concepts of the
differentiations fall into two groups. The differentiations which one immediately
apprehends may be given (a) through the senses or (b) introspectively. The
former we shall call concepts by sensation, the latter concepts by
introspection. "Blue," in the sense of the immediately sensed color, is
a concept by sensation. "Wants," which Chapter XIII will show to be
the basic entities in the Austrian theory of economic science, and the images
of phantasy are examples of concepts by introspection. We shall also call
concepts by sensation or concepts by introspection, following C. I. Lewis,
"concepts by inspection." Concepts by inspection are, in this
technical terminology, identical with concepts of the differentiations. The
latter terminology is better in reminding us that sense data and tertiary
qualities have no existence apart from the aesthetic continuum or field within
which they appear and from which they are abstracted. C. I. Lewis's terminology
is better in providing a single concept for designating either concepts by
sensation or concepts by introspection. We shall use whichever terminology is
more suggestive at the time. No confusion will result provided the reader
remembers that concepts of the differentiations and concepts by inspection denote,
and hence mean, since they are concepts by intuition, precisely the same thing.


 

George P. Conger has called attention to an
additional concept by intuition which 

is obtainable from the differentiated aesthetic
continuum by abstraction. It is a specific inspected quality in the aesthetic
continuum with all other differentiations, but not the continuum itself,
neglected. Such a concept by intuition we shall term a field concept by inspection.
A philosophy which takes this type of concept as basic and sufficient will be positivistic
in that it admits only concepts by intuition but will differ from most modern Western
positivism by holding a monistic rather than a pluralistic theory of the immediately
apprehended. In this connection the philosophy of Bradley is suggestive, as is
also Gestalt psychology. 

 

We arrive at the following classification of the
major possible concepts by intuition: 

 

I The Concept of the Differentiated Aesthetic
Continuum = The totality of the 

immediately apprehended with nothing abstracted
away. 

 

II The Concept of the Indeterminate or
Undifferentiated Aesthetic Continuum 

=The immediately apprehended continuum apart from
all differentiations.

 

III The Concepts of the Differentiations = Concepts
by Inspection = Atomic 

Concepts by Inspection = The specific inspected
qualities or differentiations 

considered apart from the continuum. 

(a) Concepts by Sensation = III given through the
senses. 

(b) Concepts by Introspection = III given
introspectively. 

 

IV Field Concepts by Inspection = any instance of
III considered as inseparable from II. 

 

This completes the classification of the different
possible types of concepts from 

which any scientific or philosophical theory may be
constructed. Since it exhausts the 

major possible ways of providing terms with
meanings, our technical terminology for 

comparative philosophy may be regarded as provided.
(The End!)



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