Jaime Balmes - Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Here again is the distinction between discursive cognition, or by conceptions, and intuitive cognitions; with the former one is said, simply to know , with the latter to see .

80. Kant maintained that while in the present life, we have only sensible intuition; and he considers the possibility of a purely intellectual intuition, whether for our own or for other minds doubtful. But as we have seen elsewhere (ch. IX.) that he does not attribute any value to conceptions separated from intuition, we infer that he is, notwithstanding his long dissertations upon the pure understanding, a confirmed sensist; and that the authors of the Critic of Pure Reason , and of the Treatise on Sensations , differ much less than at first sight might be supposed. If our mind has no other intuition than the sensible, and the conceptions of the pure understanding are, if they do not include some one of these intuitions, nothing but empty forms; if when we abstract these intuitions, there are in the understanding only purely logical functions, which mean nothing, and in no sense deserve to be called cognitions; it follows that there is in our mind nothing but sensations, which may be methodically distributed in conceptions, as if packed away in a kind of hut, where they are registered and preserved. According to this philosopher, the understanding is reduced so low, that Condillac himself might admit it.

81. Indeed, in the system of sensations transformed, the mind is supposed to possess a transforming force, since otherwise, it would be impossible to explain all ideological phenomena by mere sensation, and the very title of the system would be a contradiction. This being so, would any sensistic scruple have prevented Condillac from admitting the synthesis of the imagination , the relations of all sensible intuitions to the unity of apperception , and finally, a variety of logical functions, to classify and compare sensible intuitions? So far is this from being the case, it would seem that the root of all these doctrines might be found in the system of the French philosopher, whose fundamental principles, when summed up, amount to this: that nothing can be seen in the mind besides sensations; but he does not therefore deny it a force capable of transforming, classifying, and generalizing them.

82. Here, then, is another check to the originality of the German philosopher; he has, to combat sensism, said in substance just what, ages before, all the schools repeated; and now when he undertakes to follow a new road to the explanation of the purely intellectual order, he falls into Condillac's system. His empty conceptions, without meaning, without application, beyond the sensible order, amount to no more than what Condillac taught when analyzing the generation of ideas, and showing how they flowed from sensations by means of successive transformations. Could there be any difficulty, it would be concerning words, not things: no sensist ought to hesitate accepting whole and entire the Critic of Pure Reason , when once he has seen what applications the German spiritualist makes of his doctrines. It would be very desirable for those who insist that the spiritualism of Kant is decidedly destructive of Condillac's sensism, to weigh well these observations.

83. It is not true that the human mind even in this life has no intuition other than the sensible. There are within us many non-sensible phenomena, of which we are clearly conscious. Reflection, comparison, abstraction, election, and all the acts of the understanding and will, include nothing of the sensible. We should like to know, to what species of sensibility, abstract ideas, and the acts by which we perceive them, belong; these among others: I desire , I do not desire , I choose this , I prefer this to that . Not one of these acts can be presented by sensible intuition; they are facts of an order superior to the sphere of sensibility, and yet we have in our mind a clear and lively consciousness of them; we reflect upon them, make them the object of our studies, distinguish them one from another, and classify them in a thousand different ways. These facts are presented to us immediately; we know them, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore it is false that the intuition of the soul refers to none but sensible phenomena, for it encounters within itself an expanded series of non-sensible phenomena, which are given to it in intuition.

84. It is of no use to say that these internal phenomena are empty forms, and mean nothing, unless referred to a sensible intuition. Whatever they may be, they are something distinct from this same sensible intuition; and we perceive this something, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore, besides sensible intuition, there is another of the purely intellectual order.

The question is not whether these pure conceptions have, or have not, a certain power to enable us to know objects in themselves; but it is simply to ascertain if they do exist, and if they are sensible. That they exist, is certain; consciousness attests this fact, and all ideologists admit it. That they are sensible, cannot be maintained without destroying their nature; and least of all can Kant maintain this, since he has so carefully distinguished between sensible intuition and these conceptions.

85. This sea of non-sensible phenomena, which we experience within us, is like a mirror wherein the depths of the intellectual world are reflected. Minds, it is true, are not presented immediately to our perception, and to know them we need a discursive process; but we shall, upon careful examination, find in this intuition of our inward phenomena the representation, imperfect though it be, of what is verified in intelligences of a superior order. Thus we have in a certain mode idea-images, since there can be no better image of one thought than another thought, nor of one act of the will than another act of the will. Thus we know minds distinct from our own, by a kind of mediate, not immediate, intuition, in so far as they are presented to our consciousness as the image in a mirror.

86. The communication of minds by means of speech and other natural or conventional signs, is a fact of experience intimately connected with all intellectual, moral, and physical necessities. When a mind is put into communication with another, the cognition it has of what passes in the other is not by mere general conceptions, but by a kind of intuition, which although mediate, does not therefore fail to be true. The thought, or affection of another communicated to our mind by means of speech, excites in us a thought, or affection, similar to that of the mind communicating them. We do, then, not only know, but see , in our own consciousness, the consciousness of another; and so perfect is at times the likeness, that we anticipate all that he is about to tell us, and unroll within ourselves the same series of phenomena that are verified in the mind of him with whom we are in communication. It happens thus when we say: "I understand perfectly what N. thinks, what he wants, what he is trying to express."

87. This observation seems to us of great service to place beyond all doubt that there are in our mind, independently of the sensible order, conceptions, not empty, but referable to a determinate object. The cognition of the phenomena of the purely intellectual order, transmitted to us by means of speech, or other signs, does not destroy the character of the intuition, since we here find all the necessary conditions assembled; internal representation, and its relation to a determinate object affecting us.