The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

1 Here and later on, when referring to absoluteness, the reader will find my epistemological point of view changed to a certain extent, as compared with the epistemological chapters of my Naturbegriffe und Natururteile (1904). 2 I fully agree with those of Kant's critics who maintain that Kant himselj regarded his "transcendental deduction" as sufficient to refute "psycho logism." But it is another question whether Kant was right to think so. It seems to me that the ultra-psychological foundation of the categories can only be demonstrated by the argument in the text and not by means of Kant's transcendental deduction, and that absolute objectivity can only be introduced by a certain other argument that will interest us in the last part of this book. Absolute objectivity is quite certainly unattainable by means of Kant's "deduction"; the Bewusstsein uberhaupt is nothing but "my" fiction.

categorical properties implies necessity, which itself is a constituent of the system created by these " properties," and to conceive the Ego as the bearer of properties — to say nothing of the term " innate " properties, very much out of place here — would be to apply to the Ego the category of substance-inherence, which also forms part of the categorical system. Thus, in order to explain what categories are, psychologism uses certain of the categories themselves ! The Ego as a " substance " is the result of my categorical reasoning, and " being forced " has an intelligible meaning only on the basis of the categorical system itself ! Therefore my establishing the categories, at any rate, cannot be founded upon psychology.1

But what are we to do in the face of this enormous difficulty ? An Irreducible Kind of " Experience " the Foundation of Categories All that the categorical system allows me to say about the Given is logically prior to ordinary experience and therefore not ordinary experience itself. But what about my discovery, or rather my becoming conscious of the categorical system itself ? The discovery of this system is quite certainly not " experience " in the ordinary meaning of the word, not " experience " in the sense of inference, but is it not experience in a certain most general sense ? Is it not the becoming consciously convinced of a certain something ?

1 What about "other" subjects? Compare the next section (/3) with regard to this strange problem, which cannot be discussed here at greater length. Kant founded his Tafel der Kategorien upon the different possible forms of judgments ; judgments being regarded, so to say, as objectified reasoning. Was it not a certain kind of " experience " to become convinced that these forms of judgments were possible ? And would it not be a certain kind of " experience " to discover by intro spective analysis immediately what kinds of elemental concepts and relations pertaining to Givenness are quite inevitable to my mind ?

Thus, I think, we may be permitted to say in a very neutral form that the categorical system is revealed to me by immediate analytical " experience " of an absolutely irreducible kind. This sort of " experience " simply states, " The categories are valid as they are," and at the same time expresses the conviction that all science, including psychology, rests upon the categories, and that even such concepts as " Ego," " Subject and Object," " Keality," form part of the categorical system. We shall soon have a good opportunity of verifying what we have learned, in a special case.

The categories are established in the conscious stream of immediate Givenness — in the irreducible form of "experience" just described — but once acquired they are capable of directing the conscious subject, systematising in this way all further truly empirical ordinary experience ; for we only understand the Given as far as it is formulated categorically. Thus categories become axiomatic. Indeed, all concepts and propositions in science, so far as they are based upon the categorical system, ought to be called axioms ; the word

" postulate " being reserved for certain suppositions with regard to contingent constellation in Givenness, as will be shown by analysis later on. Categories may also be said to create scientific themes, whether these themes may be solved easily or with difficulty or never. The theory of matter is a good instance of a categorical theme that is, so to speak, half-solved. It will be important for our future discussion to keep well in mind that the existence of categorical themes and their solution are two absolutely different things. But the very nature of the categories implies the confidence that this solution is not impossible.

Now the further question arises : Is there any relation discoverable among the single constituents of the categorical system ? In other words : is this system a real " system," is it one whole ? Kant himself did not make any attempt to show that only these kinds of categories can exist and no others. His " deduction " only proves the general fact of their being founded upon the various forms of judgment and their being pre-requisites of ordinary experience. Hegel's system of the categories, on the other hand, founded upon his dialectical method, does not guarantee completeness and does not clearly separate primordial and derived categorical concepts.1 But, no doubt, it will be the chief task of the philosophy of the future to establish a rational system of the categories in the place of the mere aggregative systematics of the present day.

1 The same is true of the categorical systems of Hartmann and Cohen, and of many others of minor importance. We now shall study the theory of the categorical system with special regard to our bio-philosophical purpose. Our task does not require a complete analysis of this system — however desirable it might be — but will be accomplished by the discussion of two main classes, the categories of relation and of " modality " in the terminology of Kant.1

Let us begin with a few words about one category of the latter class, which seems to us to stand at the head of all : necessity or univocal determination, which has been shortly discussed from a narrower point of view on a former occasion. All that " is," " is " of necessity, whether immediately or mediately derived from other necessities. This axiom, expressed in the concept of " function " in its widest, say in its metamathematical meaning and connected in some way with the logical principle of identity, embraces all others. Therefore it is much wider than the axioms of substanceinherence, causality, and so on, in short, than any axiomatic statement with regard to any special kind of relation.

Vitalism, in what form soever it appears, must be subject to it, as we know already, and need not repeat here. But necessity only relates to Givenness. We here reach a very important point, already mentioned in a more general 1 We do not mean to say that we agree with Kant's system of the categories ; in the first place, we are far from allowing that his four main groups are co-ordinated with one another. But to open up here the problem of the categories as such would complicate our special theme in an un necessary manner.

form, when we were dealing with the character of the categories. My " thinking necessity " cannot be regarded as " necessary," and therefore, as we have said, the categorical system cannot be founded upon ordinary psychology — it cannot be " founded " at all, it simply " is." A very strange antinomy meets us here : my " thinking " as a conscious act is not subject to necessity but creates necessity, but your thinking and, strange to say, my own " having thought " are elements of phenomenological Givenness to myself and may even be a very real element in Nature, in the form of a book, for instance. My " having thought " and your thinking are therefore necessarily and univocally determined with respect to my " thinking." Is therefore my " thinking," are any of my " actings," qita actual and present actings, free ? On a previous occasion we maintained that the psychoid cannot be regarded as " free " in its manifesta tions, because it is an element of Nature ; we were dealing then with the psychoids of others. At present I am deal ing with myself, not even with my psychoid but with my " thinking."

Of course, this is not the place to discuss at full length the philosophical problem of problems, and therefore I only say that, in my opinion, we may speak of the " freedom " of my thinking or of any of my mental acts in a negative sense, in the sense of non-necessity. But our reason is unable to conceive anything positive under this expression. For we are so obliged to conceive under the form of necessity that, as we have said, even my " having thought," as soon as it belongs to the past, must perforce be looked upon as

necessitated. We regard it perforce as if the natural equivalent of my Ego, my psychoid, had contained the sufficient reason for it, though, it is true, we only know about this reason after its manifestation. And this holds for all manifestations of psychoids in " others " : it is always post factum that we know about the reason of any of their manifestations ; we simply throw back the accomplished fact upon a " faculty " of the psychoid and then say it is " necessitated " by a something that was by no means known to us before. There can be no doubt that our reason is limited in this way.1

Freedom thus escapes analysis altogether,2 for " analysis " would mean subjection to necessity. Our proper and final conception of vitalism will be based upon a study of the categories of relation, and thus 1 I refer to Bergson's profound reflections on "libertt." I doubt whether he has solved the problem. "Intuition" is not a legitimate solution. As he says himself, we are all born Platonists ! Even the "elan vital" must be conceived categorically if clearly conceived.

2 In no other field may the antinomy of the concept of necessity be better understood than in the field of morality. I know that my past actions have been univocally determined, and yet I feel free whilst acting and may judge about my past actions that they "ought not to have been " ; in short, I feel responsible. And I make other people responsible for their actions in spite of ray knowing that their actions were necessitated. It is true, with regard to others, " pardoning " on account of inevitability is generally regarded as a sign of a high moral level, and thus the antinomy may seem to be solved here. But is pardoning myself an act of morality ?

Almost all moral philosophers have searched for a solution of this antinomy on metaphysical grounds. No other solutions indeed seem possible. Personally we must confess that the solution offered by Schopenhauer appears to us better than any other. To a certain extent — but only with regard to the starting-point — this "solution" is identical with the Kantian one. we enter upon the chief part of our whole bio-philosophical system. We have learnt in a former chapter of these lectures that entelechy, though not a substance in the proper mean ing of the word as used in the inorganic sciences, resembles " substance " in so far as it endures in spite of changes ; and we have also learnt that eutelechy, though it is not causality in the proper meaning of the word, resembles causality in so far as it determines changes in nature with univocal necessity. We may say that entelechy is causality and substance, but that it is also something more, that entelechy implies causality and substance, just as causality implies substance because it cannot be thought of without a bearer that endures in spite of all change.

What then " is " entelechy categorically ? There seems no place left for it, at least in the categorical system of Kant, where so-called "interaction," " Wechselwirkung " in German, takes the third and last place among the Introspective Psychology and the Categories of Substance and Causality In the first place, let us study a little more intimately the way in which the categories of causality and substance come to consciousness and acquire their bearing on science.

Categories, we know, render " experience " possible with regard to all that is given except themselves, they being " experienced " immediately and irreducibly during our becoming conscious of Givenness. Categories, in other words, create nature so far as the latter is a cosmos instead of a chaos ; the cosmos is systematised in science. Categories are brought to consciousness by only a limited amount of acquaintance with Givenness, but, as soon as they are brought to consciousness, they direct consciousness in all future experience of Givenness : the systematisation of nature by means of categories thus becomes a " problem."

It is by psychological introspective experience that categories are, though not created, yet most immediately awaked. The category of substance is brought to conscious ness in this immediate way by experiencing the permanence of the Ego during the change of the consecutive conscious states ; the category of causality becomes conscious, whenever I feel that I move bodies in nature by the movement of parts of my body, which is a body in nature itself.

By mere analogy at first the categories of substance and of causality are applied to the relations of bodies in nature among one another, without relation to my body ; psychological self-experience thus being the connecting link between the categories and objective nature. One body pushes the other, so it is said, because it is in possession of a moving " force," just as " I " am in possession of such a " force." It is only by degrees that categories become applied to external nature directly; in other words, that they are strictly conceived as " categories." Theoretical mechanics in fact has to a great extent freed itself from the physiological so-called " anthropomorphic " connexion between the categories and external Givenness.

The category of substance thus became the foundation of all theories of matter, the category of causality became the foundation of dynamics in any of its forms, whether classical or electro-dynamical. And the category of causality, as we have said, must be formulated here in such a way as to imply substantiality in a certain sense — though it is more than substantiality.1 Inorganic events can thus claim to be " understood " by means of the categories of substance and causality, the word " understand " being used here in a sense higher than the merely psychological.

Are there no categorical means of understanding vitalism in the same way as mechanics or energetics were under stood ? Would our analytical discussions about vitalism and entelecliy Jiave been possible at all if there were no such categorical means? The question itself, in fact, seems to offer us a key to its solution. It seems to me that we encounter here a very grave defect in the categorical system of Kant. To put it shortly : among the categories of relation the place of his " Gemeinschaft " or " Wechselwirkung," which only is a sort of commentary on causality, has to be taken by a quite different kind of category, and this new category must be such as to allow of the scientific analysis of life. It is true, in the Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Kant most fully discussed the concept of " teleology," but he did not regard it as a category, but only as of a certain " regulative," not of any " constitutive " importance. That this is wrong will be demonstrated by showing what is right. Kant was too much a Cartesian with respect to our problems. Eduard von Hartmann, as far as I know, is the only philosopher

1 Once more we repeat that "energy" is not substance, but only a standard of measurement of causality (see p. 162). The substance that exhibits causality would be the ultimate units of matter. who most decidedly established " finality " as the third real category of relation. But we shall develop our views without reference to the discussion and terminology of this author.1 Unlike causality, " teleology," considered purely as a kind of description, never relates to single phenomena in nature as such, but always applies to the spatial or temporal combination of phenomena in its specificity. We ask " for what purpose ? " whenever we see anything happen that bears on the realisation of a certain typically combined whole, " typical " either on account of any kind of symmetry or on account of its existence in indefinite exemplars. We ask this question — in particular the simple uneducated man asks it — because we know that there does exist at least one elemental combining factor, manifesting itself with regard to nature — our own will. But what does this mean except that our experience with regard to this one factor has awaked a certain category which now seeks for further application, just as did the categories of substance and causality, which at first belonged to intro spective psychology exclusively ? It is very interesting to note in this connexion that among primitive peoples and in the child the new category, here in question, plays a far greater rcA)le than causality : all facts in nature which relate to any kind of constellation being conceived as due to

1 When this chapter was already definitively written I learnt from the Logik der reinen Erkenntnis of Cohen that this author regards the concepts "purpose" and "individual" as true categories. But he does not draw the conclusions, it seems to me, that ought to be drawn from such a state ment, and his theory of the Organic, therefore, does not go beyond a sort of Kantianism : mechanical causality remains the ultimate effective and con stitutive principle of nature, the two organic categories he introduces do not serve to formulate natural agents of a new and special class.

elemental principles of willing, or rather as facts forming parts of some constellation that is foreseen. In this way nature becomes "animated." Later on causality over shadows the new category — at least in so-called science. But can it ever overshadow it in practical life ? Does the materialist really regard his parents and friends and children as mechanical systems ? But if there is the way open for a new category carrying in itself its proper intellectual theme, why not formulate as strictly as possible the real science of this category ?

In our last lecture, whilst analysing my own acting immediately, we formulated scientifically facts which every human being knows : we showed how the new category is awaked to consciousness by introspective psychology. And in our so-called indirect proofs of vitalism we discovered certain types of constellations of natural phenomena which needed the application of a new category of relation, besides substance and causality, if they were to be under stood at all.

What did we actually do in our discussion of the differentiation of the harmonious -equipotential system ? We formulated the problem like a mathematical equation, and by discussing the precise nature of the problem we found the solution. A certain " unknown," our " E" was introduced as if it was found already, and then we showed by analysis what this unknown might stand for and what it might not. It was found to be irreducible, autonomous, and not an aggregate of extensities. These were all negations, and could only be negations in the realm of the categories of substance and causality, as the necessary relations between changes in spatial nature.

Negations now become affirmations after psychological introspective self -analysis has awaked a new category. Entelechy now becomes a positive concept, created as the manifestation of the new category that was wanted. We now " understand " entelechy. The ultimate results of our indirect proofs of vitalism — though they are by no means superseded by the " new category " — acquire their proper intelligible meaning only at the moment when the founda tion of entelechy upon a special category of its own is appreciated.

In truth, we have worked already on the theme established by the new category without knowing it quite consciously. We studied the question whether a certain new category came into action in this special field of nature or not. But that implied the semi-conscious conception of the new category. Otherwise it would have been im possible for the whole problem about the mechanical or non-mechanical character of life to have been formulated at all ! I venture to say that the mechanists also march under the banner of the new category which they deny. They know a certain manifestation of it from themselves, and then ask : " Is the category also at work elsewhere ? " They would not like to find it elsewhere, but that they regard it as a possibility is shown by the very fact that they discuss it, which otherwise would be meaningless.