The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments: The Simplicity, Unity, and Identity of Thought and Soul from the Cambridge Platonists to Kant: A Study in the History of an Argument

148 Pages·1974·8.05 MB·English

by  Ben Lazare Mijuskovic (auth.)

THE ACHILLES
OF RATIONALIST ARGUMENTS
ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
Series Minor
13
BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC
THE ACHILLES
OF RATIONALIST ARGUMENTS
THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND
SOUL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS TO KANT:
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF AN ARGUMENT
Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (St. Louis Univ.)
EdItorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); J. Collin-s (St. Louis Univ.); P. Costabe\ (Paris);
A. Crombie (Oxford); I. Dambska (Cracow); H. de la Fontaine-Verwey (Amsterdam);
H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris); T. Gregory (Rome); T. E. Jessop
(Hull); P.O. Kristeller (Columbia Univ.); Elisabeth Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los
Angeles); S. Lindroth (Upsala); J. Orcibal (Paris); I.S. Revaht (Paris); J. Roger
(Paris); H. Rowen (Rutgers Univ., N.Y.); Ch.B. Schmitt (Warburg Inst., London);
G. Sebba (Emory Univ., Atlanta); R. Shackleton (Oxford); J. Tans (Groningen);
G. Tonelli (Binghamton, N.Y.).
THE ACHILLES
OF RATIONALIST ARGUMENTS
THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND
SOUL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS TO KANT:
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF AN ARGUMENT
by
BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC
MARTINUS NIJHOFF /THE HAGUE/1974
«:> 1974 by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof In any form
ISBN·13: 978·90·247·1597·8 e·ISBN·13: 978·94·0 I 0·2037-4
001: 10.1007/978·94·010·2037-4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements VII
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION TOTHEARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY
PRIOR TO THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
CHAPTER II. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE 17TH AND
18TH CENTURIES 19
CHAPTER III. THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE 17TH AND
18TH CENTURIES 58
CHAPTER IV. PERSONAL IDENTITY IN THE 17TH AND 18TH
CENTURIES 93
CHAPTER V. THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT AND ITS POSSIBLE
ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF IDEALISM 119
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the considerable debt lowe
to the scholars who have helped me through the several stages of
revision of the manuscript. The book was originally written as a
dissertation under the direction of Professor Richard H. Popkin,
presently of Washington University in St. Louis. It is to him that
lowe by far the most, both for his intellectual guidance and for his
sympathetic encouragement. I also wish to thank Professor David
Norton of McGill University and Professor Rudolph Makkreel of
Emory University, who have aided me from the beginning of this
study until its completion.
In addition, I should like to gratefully acknowledge my debt to
Professor Paul Dibon for his many valuable suggestions, which afforded
me a final opportunity to further improve the study.
The staff of the following libraries assisted me in securing the
materials for my research: The William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library in Los Angeles, the Henry E. Huntington Library in Pasadena,
California, and the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Permission has kindly been granted by the editors of the Philosophical
Quarterly for the publication of material on Hume and Kant which
has previously appeared in different form in their journal. In this
connection I especially want to thank Professor Les Holborow who
long ago suggested that I amplify my study into a book. Request
for permission to reprint an earlier version of a paper on Descartes
has been obtained from the editor of the Studi Internazionali di
Filosofia, Professor Augusto Guzzo.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS
HISTORY PRIOR TO THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
In the history of ideas, there is an argument that has been used
repeatedly, which has had a major influence in shaping philosophic
discussions. The form of the argument is fairly straightforward: The
essential nature of the soul consists in its power of thinking; thought,
being immaterial, is unextended, i.e., simple (having no parts); and
what is simple is (a) indestructible; (b) a unity; and (c) an identity.
I wish to 'trace' the prevalence and influence of this argument, which
I call the simplicity argument, in the 17th and 18th centuries - from
the Cambridge Platonists to Kant - a time when it becomes crucial
in questions concerning: (1) the immortality of the soul; (2) the
"transcendental" condition necessary for the unity of consciousness
(or the rationalist principle that the soul must be an immaterial
unity in order for consciousness to exist); (3) the necessary and
sufficient condition for the establishment of personal and moral
identity; and (4) its possible use as a sometimes hidden or unconscious
"premise," but sometimes explicit "principle," of certain idealist
epistemological and metaphysical trends. It is not a premise in the
ordinary sense, of course, because it is itself an argument, an inference,
a proof, a demonstration, a mediate process of thought, which proceeds
from a definite premise to various conclusions.
By "trace" (above) I mean that I intend to deal with a representative
number of authors, usually in a chronological order, but also in terms
of their developing points, in order to show the vital role of the
argument. Thus, for instance, at times I abandon the simple temporal
mode of exposition in deference to, say, the interests of a continuity
in the discussion; or in face of what I consider to be a "living"
dialogue between thinkers who are not historically contemporary.
Although I generally attempt to treat an author's view according to
the date of publication of his work, I naturally take the death of
a writer as the tether of his convictions whenever a work appears
posthumously. The main reason for this convenient manner of temporal
2 INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY
exposition is that obviously it is always the case that the historically
non-contemporary, precedent author influenced a later thinker but
never vice versa. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the
thinkers I treat are quite close contemporaries and their various
writings overlap and criss-cross each others' works, difficulties of
dating and determining relevant influences become overwhelming.
For example, I take up the case of a 17th century Cambridge
Platonist, John Smith; but it immediately becomes apparent that it
is uncertain exactly when he wrote, whether it was before or after
Descartes, and whether or not he was aware of Hobbes. Did he
borrow from or follow Descartes; did he react to Hobbes? Since I
have no definite corroborative evidence that Smith's treatise on
immortality was composed with knowledge of Descartes's Meditations,
I discuss Smith before the great Frenchman simply because of Smith's
clearer recognition of the proof, although both men use the argument.
But then I return to the temporal outline and pretty much "argue"
that Smith anticipated his Cambridge colleagues, Henry More and
Ralph Cudworth, by depending on the fact that his works were
published before theirs, although they were both his seniors by a
matter of a few years. And, of course, I am aware of the problems
involved in "arguing" in this fashion. However, any different approach
would be even more arbitrary in such cases, given the present paucity
of factual information concerning the period.
By "trace" I also mean that I indicate the argument's development;
its revolutionary turns; and, most important of all, I discuss four
distinct uses of it. In this regard it is important to note that the
simplicity argument, although distinguishable into a quartet of separable
purposes, nevertheless essentially remains what A. O. Lovejoy desig
nated a "unit-idea."! In other words, the idea itself, or more properly
in this case the argument itself, remains the same. It does not change,
although to be sure there are minor refinements and technical deve
lopments. And if it did substantially undergo major transformations,
it could not be traced. Thus, to borrow an example from Lovejoy
(pp. 4-5), it would be practically impossible to outline a developing
"idea" like the concept of God in Western philosophy, since it would
be extremely difficult to preserve its unity in light of the drastic
changes that the conception of the Deity undergoes in Occidental
thought. The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle has almost nothing in
common with the God of the Sermon on the Mount. This is, of course,
not to deny that one may undertake to delineate the concept in a
historical fashion, but then the "concept" is no longer a "unit-idea";
for it is no longer the same idea which is being pursued but merely
1 The Great Cham of Being (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1965), Chap. I.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY 3
the same term. Unlike the concept of God, however, the simplicity
argument maintains a stable integration in the philosophic thought
of the West.
My purpose then, is to show there is a conceptual continuity of
related problems, which stem from the basic form of the argument
from simplicity, and that this argument has enjoyed, in the history
of ideas, a "life of its own." I am also convinced that one must
appreciate the influence of the argument in order to achieve an
adequate understanding of the 17th and 18th centuries. In support
of my claim, however, I do not think it is necessary to prove direct
lines of influence (although I constantly try to suggest them). Thus,
for example, Richard Aaron warns that it "is ... very dangerous to
argue that since there are parallel passages in two writers belonging
to the same epoch the one must have influenced the other directly."2
For the resemblances between two authors might be explained by
the fact that both men had the same cultural background, used the
same methods, started from the same data, and faced the same
problems. There is a real point in Aaron's warning, but my case does
not rest on arguing points of immediate contact. ·Thus to show that
the links in the chain of continuity I am constructing are weak,
or my historical evidence slender, would not invalidate my claim,
which is that the argument from simplicity is vitally important in
the history of philosophy - and not which writer may have happened
to influence whom. For my purposes, it is sufficient to indicate
the general influence of the argument; and indeed, it is my aim to
show that the simplicity argument was diffusely but pervasively present
in the intellectual atmosphere of the 17th and 18th centuries, and that
it maintained, in the age, a status as impersonal as philosophic
language itself. I myself believe that there is a continuity in the
authors I deal with and I repeatedly try to establish connections
among them; and, I think, it will be difficult in reading passages
from the diverse authors, who are quoted in this work, not to be
convinced that there is an immediate influence; but that at least is
not crucial to my main contention. In certain cases the influence
seems more obvious than in others, as for example, when an author
cites a previous work. But, to give a less evident case, one can,
convincingly argue that since both Ficino and Leibniz translated
the Phaedo, there is a likelihood of the influence of certain Platonic
principles in their case. In other instances, however, the alleged contact
depends on more tenuous circumstantial relations. An important
complication, in ascertaining influences in the 17th and 18th centuries,
lies in the fact that it was not a common literary practice to cite
2 Richard I. Aaron, John Locke (Oxford, 1965), p. 25.
4 INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY
sources3 (except for the Renaissance-oriented Cambridge Platonists),
as it is in our own day. Perhaps this was primarily due to such
factors as the influence of Montaigne's introspective essays; Descartes's
disdain of his predecessors;4 Shaftesbury's reaction to the literary
style of the Cambridge men;5 and by the fact that these men were not,
in the 17th and 18th centuries - with the exception of Wolff and Kant,
who were university professors - scholars trained to attack an individual
rather than an idea. For it was the idea and its influence that was
important, and not who happened to have held it.
I have undertaken this study because it has not been done before.
This in itself, however, would hardly justify the effort if I were not
also convinced that the argument from simplicity has had a major
influence in Western philosophy, and especially in the 17th and 18th
centuries, when its possible various uses are fully exploited and it
finds its clearest expression in the writings of the time. Consequently,
I have concentrated my study in these centuries. For beside problems
dealing with the immortality of the soul and the unity of consciousness,
two topics which are taken up by philosophers prior to the 17th century,
the argument plays a vital role in questions concerning personal
identity and moral responsibility. And finally, I intend to show that
it probably served as one of the ultimate premises of idealist episte
mological and ontological theories; and I do not think one can
understand certain aspects of idealism without understanding the
argument and its role. But these last two uses of the argument are
not explicitly developed until the 17th and 18th centuries.
The value of this study, then, is to distinguish and disentangle
separate lines of thought that have heretofore been confounded and
confused - if even recognized. Hence I deal with the various forms
of the argument in separate chapters even though the same author
may present two or more uses of the argument in the same passages.
My justification for separating the argument into distinct uses is,
of course, that I think this can and should be done in order to clarify
the issues involved. The fact that historically some authors have used
the argument for one thesis and not for another, whereas other
3 For support of this contention, see John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth: An Inter
pretation (Cambridge, 1951), p. 90; N. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Burne
(St. Martin's, 1964), p. 43, 284 n.; and Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (Penguin, 1965),
p. 179.
4 Descartes' aversion to citation no doubt rests in his contempt for what had
preVIOusly (i.e., before him) passed for knowledge; see Philosophical Works of Descartes,
Haldane and Ross, eds. (Dover, 1955), I, pp. 6, 83-84, 144; hereafter cited as HR.
5 See John Passmore, op. cit., pp. 96-97.