Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 2/Proposition 8
PROPOSITION VIII.
THE OBJECT OF ALL IGNORANCE.
DEMONSTRATION.
There can be an ignorance only of the knowable (Prop. III. Agnoiology). But the only knowable is the union of the objective and subjective—the synthesis of the universal and particular—the concretion of the ego and the non-ego. (Props. I. II. III. VI. and IX. Epistemology). Therefore there can be an ignorance only of the objective and subjective in union, only of the synthesis of the universal and particular, only of the concretion of the ego and the non-ego; in other words, the object of all ignorance is, of necessity, some-object-plus-some-subject.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Relation of this proposition to Prop. II of the epistemology.1. Just as Proposition II. of the epistemology fixes what the object of all possible knowledge is, so this proposition fixes what the object of all possible ignorance is; and, moreover, just as the object of all knowledge is determined by a reference to the law of all knowledge laid down in Proposition I. of the epistemology, so the object of all ignorance is determined by a reference to the law of all ignorance given out in the third of the agnoiology. Once concede (and how can the concession be evaded?) that a self or subject must be known along with all that is known, and subject plus object becomes of necessity the only possible object of cognition—the only knowable: once concede (and how can the concession be evaded?) that there can be an ignorance only of the knowable, and object plus subject becomes of necessity the only possible object of ignorance—the only ignorable—if so barbarous a word be permissible. Thus the main purpose of this section of the science is attained, which was to demonstrate the coincidence of the result of the agnoiology with the result of the epistemology, or to show that the only object of all knowledge is also the only object of all ignorance. (See Introduction, § 60.)
The object of ignorance is neither nothing nor the contradictory. 2. Novel, and somewhat startling, as this doctrine may seem, it will be found, on reflection, to be the only one which is consistent with the dictates of an enlightened common sense; and the more it is scrutinised, the truer and the more impregnable will it appear. If we are ignorant at all (and who will question our ignorance?) we must be ignorant of something; and this something is not nothing, nor is it the contradictory. That is admitted on all hands. But every attempt to fix the object of our ignorance as anything but object + subject must have the effect of fixing it either as nothing, or as the contradictory. Let it be fixed as things per se, or as thoughts per se—that is, without any subject; but things or thoughts, without any subject, are the contradictory, inasmuch as they are the absolutely unknowable and inconceivable. Therefore, unless we can be ignorant of the contradictory (a supposition which is itself contradictory, and in the highest degree absurd), we cannot be ignorant of things per se, or of thoughts per se. Again, let it be fixed as subject per se, as the ego with no thing or thought present to it. But the subject per se is equally contradictory with object per se. It cannot be known on any terms by any intelligence; and, therefore, unless we entertain the absurd supposition that we can be ignorant of the contradictory, we cannot be ignorant of the subject, or ego, or mind, per se. Again, let the object of our ignorance be fixed as nothing. But who was ever so foolish as to maintain that we were ignorant of nothing? By the very terms of the research, in which our ignorance is admitted, we confess ourselves to be ignorant of something. And therefore, since this something cannot be things by themselves, or the non-ego per se, and cannot be the mind by itself, or the ego per se, and moreover cannot be nothing, it must be the synthesis of things and some mind—the non-ego plus some ego—in short, some-object-plus-some-subject. If any other alternative is left which the object of our ignorance may be, this system will be glad to learn what that alternative is.
It is believed that this doctrine is new. 3. It is scarcely credible that, at this time of day, any philosophical opinion should be absolutely original, or that any philosophical truth, of which no previous hint exists in any quarter, should now, for the first time, be brought to light. Nevertheless, the doctrine now under consideration is believed to be altogether new. If it is not so, the present writer will be ready to surrender it to any prior claimant who may be pointed out, and to give honour to whom honour is due. But meanwhile, this system may be permitted to hold possession of it as its own peculiar discovery—a circumstance which is mentioned, because those who may favour these Institutes with their attention, may perhaps have some inclination to know wherein, more particularly, their originality is supposed to consist. They claim to have announced for the first time the true law of ignorance, and to have deduced from it its consequences.
What has caused this doctrine to be missed. 4. If this doctrine of ignorance has been missed by previous inquirers, the cause of the oversight is to be found in the inaccuracy of their observations in regard to the object of all knowledge. Until this had been fixed as consisting necessarily of an objective and a subjective element no theory determining demonstrably the object of all ignorance was possible. But we have seen throughout the epistemology, how loose, wavering, inexact erroneous, and indeed contradictory, the opinions of philosophers in general, and of psychologists in particular, have been in regard to the object of knowledge; and hence it is not surprising that their opinions should have been equally confused, or rather more confused and unsettled, in regard to the object of ignorance. Many previous approximations, indeed, have been made to the true theory of knowledge. It has been seen, more than once, that the unity of object and subject is the only possible object of cognition. But this doctrine, not having been worked through all its phases, or followed out into all its consequences, remained, as has been said, a mere approximation to the truth. It was left very far in arrear; and hence the true doctrine of ignorance, which depends entirely on the perfecting of that antecedent speculation, has never shown itself until now.
Another circumstance which has caused it to be missed.5. Another cause of the omission is to be found in the circumstance that philosophers hitherto have been satisfied with making our ignorance a theme for moral declamation, instead of making it a subject for metaphysical inquiry. Its quantity has distracted their attention from its quality. "Heu, quantum est quod nescimus!" exclaim they pathetically. "What an immensity of ignorance is ours!" True; but these whinings will never teach us what ignorance is, what its law is, and what its object is: and this alone is what we, as searchers after truth, are interested in finding out. To tell us how much a thing is, will never teach us what it is, as our psychologists, moralising on the boundlessness of human ignorance, seem to suppose. "What does this cheese consist of?" says a customer to his grocer. "Consist of!" answers the man—"consist of; why, it weighs twenty pounds to a hair, and that is what it consists of." Our psychologists are that grocer. We ask them what ignorance is, and what we are ignorant of? and they reply that, while our knowledge is as mere dust in the balance, our ignorance is so great that it might ballast the whole British navy. This, as has been said, is to mistake a question as to quality, for a question as to quantity—rather a serious error for a philosopher to fall into.
In fixing the object of ignorance this proposition does not deny its magnitude.6. It must not be supposed that this proposition by which the limits of our ignorance are marked out, and its object defined and demonstrated, has any tendency to question the extent, or to deny the magnitude of our ignorance. It rather doubles it. This circumscription leaves to our ignorance "ample room and verge enough"—as will be apparent immediately. Its effect merely is to prevent us from thinking or talking absurdly about ignorance. In pointing out the object of all ignorance, it fixes merely the bounding extremes, the standard factors, the supporting uprights, as they may be termed, which limit ignorance, properly so called, to its own entire object, and prevent it both from slipping over upon nonsensical half-objects, and from being confounded with that inevitable nescience of the contradictory which is the prime characteristic of reason, but which it is extremely apt to be mistaken for, unless due precaution be observed to guard against so portentous an inadvertency.
How far the object of ignorance is definable, and how far it is not definable.7. Further, it must be borne in mind that this proposition does not profess to define the object of all ignorance in terms more definite than the general statement that it must always be a thing or a thought of some kind or other in union with an intelligent mind. It must be this, because this synthesis alone can be known. The system, however, is very far from professing to declare what the unknown things or thoughts may be, or what the powers of the unknown subject may be, or what the special nature of the unknown synthesis may be which subsists between it and its objects. All these may be, and indeed are (except in our own individual cases), points of which we are profoundly ignorant, and about which we cannot speak with any degree of certainty. So that lying between the two extremes which bound the object of our ignorance—a subject on the one hand, and objects on the other—there is scope for an infinitude of unknown details. We are ignorant of the particular element which is in synthesis with the universal subject, we are ignorant of the special capacities of the universal subject, we are ignorant of the nature of the synthesis. In a word, all that can be definitely and demonstrably fixed as the object of all ignorance is, as has been said, that it is some subject, or ego, in union with some object, or non-ego. The particular element of cognition—the non-ego—is contingent, variable, indefinite, and inexhaustible (see Prop. VI. Epistem., Obs. 2), a fortiori the particular element of ignorance—the non-ego—is contingent, variable, indefinite, and inexhaustible, and therefore not to be condescended upon.
The advantage of discriminating the necessary from the contingent laws of knowledge. 8. The advantage of discriminating the necessary from the contingent conditions of knowledge effected in the twenty-second proposition of the Epistemology now becomes apparent. The object of our ignorance must be a subject plus some object. But the subject comprised in this synthesis need not know things in the ways in which we know them, but may be cognisant of them in ways totally different, and the objects comprised in this synthesis may be altogether different from the objects of which we are cognisant. All that is fixed by reason as necessary is, that the object of which we are ignorant should be objects plus a subject; because any other object than this is contradictory, as has been shown, again and again, on necessary grounds of reason. But had this analysis not been effected, the important conclusion referred to could not have been reached. If the discrimination had not been made—in other words, if the necessary laws had been reduced to a level with the contingent laws—objects per se, or without any subject, would have been fixed as the object of our ignorance; in which case materialism would have triumphed, and all the higher interests of man, in behalf of which of man, in behalf of which speculation so zealously contends, would have been placed in jeopardy: reasoning at least could have done nothing towards their extrication and security. Again, if the contingent laws had been elevated to a level with the necessary laws, the only possible object of our ignorance would have been a subject apprehending things exactly as we apprehend them. This would have been the only possible object of ignorance, because, in the circumstances supposed, it would have been the only possible object of knowledge; in which case the sophism of Protagoras would have been verified, that man is the measure of the universe. Our ontology would have been anthropomorphical and revolting. But the accomplishment of the analysis referred to, extricates the system from this dilemma. By distinguishing the necessary from the contingent laws of cognition, we were able to obtain demonstrably in the epistemology a mind, or self or subject plus some objects (though what objects it is impossible to say—this being the particular, variable, and inexhaustible element of cognition) as the only possible object of all knowledge; and in like manner, this distinction enables us to obtain demonstrably in the agnoiology a mind, or self; or subject plus some objects (though what objects it is impossible to say—this being the particular, variable, and inexhaustible element of ignorance) as the only possible object of all ignorance. The system is thus advancing in strength towards the position where ontology lies intrenched; it is drawing closer and closer its lines of circumvallation around the encampment of Absolute Existence, and has already driven in its outposts.
This system is more humble in its pretensions than other systems. 9. From these remarks it will be seen, that this doctrine, so far from denying our ignorance, rather represents it as double. In fixing the object of ignorance as non-contradictory—in other words, in insisting (and in proving) that whenever we are ignorant of an object we must also be ignorant of a subject—this system teaches that we are ignorant of an intelligible, that is, not-nonsensical, whole; whereas ordinary thinking and psychology teach that we are ignorant of an unintelligible and nonsensical half (objects per se). It is true that the system, in concluding that there can be no ignorance of the contradictory, limits or abridges our ignorance in that particular direction. But, as has been said, it extends it in another direction, by showing that, in so far as we are ignorant, our ignorance must have for its object not merely one of the factors or elements of cognition, but must have for its object both of them,—the universal no less than the particular element, the subjective no less than the objective factor. Whenever we suppose that we can be ignorant of either of these without being ignorant of the other, we suppose that we can be ignorant of the contradictory,—an opinion which every one who reflects upon its absurdity will be inclined forthwith to abandon. Hence it is submitted that these Institutes are more humble in their pretensions, and acknowledge more fully the extent of man's ignorance, than any of those systems which lay claim ostentatiously to the virtue of humility, and talk about the infinite particulars which lie beyond our cognisance, without considering very critically what they are saying.
Eighth counter-proposition.10. Eighth Counter-proposition.—"The object of all ignorance, whatever it may be, need not be more than what is usually regarded as the object. It need not be the synthesis of the particular and the universal; but it may be, and it is, mere particular things by themselves. It need not consist of a subjective and an objective element—but it may consist of the objective element merely, or of the subjective element merely; in other words, a subject without any object, or objects without any subject, may be the object of our ignorance."
The grounds on which it rests are false.11. To give stability to this counter-proposition, either of two points would require to be made good,—either, first, that objects without any subject or self can be known, and that self or the subject without any object can be known; or, secondly, that there can be an ignorance of what cannot possibly be known. If either of these points could be established, the counter-proposition would stand firm, and Proposition VIII. would be overthrown. But it is conceived that both of these positions have been thoroughly subverted in the course of these discussions, and directly opposite conclusions demonstratively reached; and therefore this Counter-proposition must just submit quietly to go the way of all its brethren.
Illustration of the difference between the speculative and the ordinary view in regard to the object of gnorance.12. The following illustration will throw additional light on the difference between the doctrine here advocated in regard to the object of our ignorance and the opinion maintained by ordinary thinking. In our ordinary moods we conceive that objects without any subject are, to a large extent the objects of our ignorance; and we hold this opinion, because, in our ordinary moods, we suppose that objects without any subject are, to some extent the objects of our knowledge. But in our ordinary moods we never fall into the absurdity of supposing that jects without any ob are the objects of our ignorance. If a man were told that jects without ob were what he was ignorant of, he would have some reason to complain that he was being made a fool of. He always conceives himself to be ignorant of what is expressed by the whole word "object" and not of what is expressed by any one of its syllables. In the same way these Institutes would be stultified if they were to admit that objects without a subject could be the objects of our ignorance, because object plus-subject is their whole word for the mind—just as object is the whole word for the mind, in the estimation of popular thinking. "Object plus subject" is to speculation precisely what "object" is to ordinary thinking; and hence, just as ordinary thinking always supposes that objects of one kind or another are the only objects either of our knowledge or of our ignorance, and would be outraged by the statement that a mere part or syllable of this word could express either what we know, or what we are ignorant of—so speculative thinking maintains, and calls upon people to understand, that objects-plus-a-subject are the only objects either of our knowledge or of our ignorance, and is equally outraged by the supposition that any of the syllables of this entire and indivisible mental word can give a true or intelligible expression either to what we know or to what we are ignorant of. The want of accordance between language and thought—or, otherwise expressed, the fact that thought is not susceptible of being divided or split down into fractions to such an extent as words appear to divide it into, and consequently the necessity of guarding against the supposition that the division of words has a corresponding analysis of thoughts—might furnish a theme for much interesting discussion; but this is a topic which cannot be pursued at present.
The substantial and absolute ignorance.13. As a corollary of this proposition, it follows that object + subject is the only substantial and absolute in ignorance, just as this synthesis is the only substantial and absolute in cognition. It is, however, unnecessary to enunciate this truth in a distinct and separate proposition; suffice it to say, that the mere factors of this synthesis cannot either of them be the substantial and absolute in ignorance, because there can be no knowledge of them apart from each other; and there can be no ignorance of what there can be no knowledge of. Hence, the only absolute and substantial reality of which we can be ignorant is a subject in union with objects of some kind or other.
The main result of the agnoiology shortly stated.14. The short summing up is this—a summary which refers in part to the epistemology. The ordinary thinker—that is, every man in his habitual and unphilosophical moods—supposes, first, that he can know less than he can really know; hence he supposes that mere objects can be known. Secondly, he supposes that he can think of less than can be known; hence he supposes that mere objects can be conceived. Thirdly, he supposes that he can be ignorant of less than can be known; hence he supposes that mere objects are what he can be ignorant of. The first and second of these inadvertencies are corrected in the epistemology. It is there shown that we cannot know less than we can really know, and that, therefore, mere objects cannot be known, but only objects along with oneself or the subject; further, that we cannot think of less than can be known; and that therefore, mere objects cannot be conceived, but only objects along with some self or subject. The main business of the agnoiology has been to correct the third inadvertency, and to show that we cannot be ignorant of less than can be known, and that therefore, mere objects cannot be what we are ignorant of; but only objects along with some self or subject. From these considerations it is obvious that philosophers have erred, not, as is usually supposed, in consequence of striving to know more than they are competent to know, but in consequence of striving to know less than they are permitted to know by the laws and limits of intelligence; and further, that they have gone astray, not, as is usually supposed, in consequence of denying our ignorance to be as great as it really is, but in consequence of maintaining that our ignorance is not so great as it really is—in other words, in consequence of maintaining that we are ignorant of less than it is possible for any intelligence to be ignorant of.
Concluding remark.15. In conclusion, and in reference to what is said in the first proposition of the agnoiology (Obs. 6.), this remark has to be added, that all the counter-propositions would have stood their ground, and the propositions would consequently have been overthrown, if a first and second counter-proposition could have been laid down and proved. Let it be assumed as Counter-proposition I. that ignorance is no imperfection or defect, and a ground would be secured for a second counter-proposition denying that ignorance is possibly remediable; because ignorance is remediable only on the ground that it is a defect. This basis, if it could be conceded, would establish all the other counter-propositions as true; for if ignorance is not a defect, and is not remediable, there may, indeed there must, be an ignorance of what cannot possibly be known. Hence Proposition III. would fall. Again, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, there might, and must, be an ignorance of objects per se, and of material things per se: Propositions IV. and V. would fall. Again, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, Proposition VI. would fall; because, in these circumstances, there might be an ignorance of the particular without the universal element of cognition, or of the universal without the particular element. Again, Proposition VII. would fall for the same reason. Further, the same concession would effect the destruction of Proposition VIII.; because, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, object-plus-subject would no longer be the only possible object of ignorance. In short, the overthrow of the whole agnoiology would be the consequence of the denial of the proposition which asserts that ignorance is a defect or imperfection. But inasmuch as this denial is absurd and demonstratively false, it is conceived that the theory is in no danger of being subverted on that or on any other ground. For the satisfaction, however, of those who may refuse to embrace this new theory of ignorance, the logical data on which their opposition must be grounded have been considerately supplied.