Philosophy has
dealt so much heavily especially in the quest for truth that it has become a
perpetual question and for that it remains a perpetual search because the truth
is far yet from revealing or it has revealed and we are left not sufficed by it
or it has been tainted by all of these prejudices we all have. The primary
concern of which is in the attaining of truth in order to satisfy man’s nature
that for Aristotle is his tendency to know. “Man desires to know” as what the
Philosopher has said and by that man still does so, until he came to the point
in time he became fascinated with everything around him that he desires to know
everything, but there is a dilemma knowing that in achieving ends there is this
process that follows or is behind in every achievement of ends that is needed.
We cannot discount the fact that knowing is a process and truth or knowledge is
the end of which and that it is this something good in knowing that makes man
desire for it. But again, the end does not instantly appear. Hegel made clear
that “the truth is the whole” and the whole cannot be without the whole itself.
The whole itself comprises the aim, the process and the end and for him
philosophy is organic because it is always in movement towards a certain end.
The movement cannot be discounted as part of the whole, the same with knowing.
Knowing is not just on the achievement of the end which is truth, but also the
process that precedes. For there is a tandem that cannot be broken between the
process and the outcome, and that the outcome is a result of the fulfilment of
the process and the process “sometimes” determines the end itself. Science is
an evidence that man desires to formulate that infallible means in knowing so
that he can see the world clearly and by the end of which be of satisfaction
either by domination or by the sake of knowledge. But the lens sometimes gave a
different outlook on the things viewed by it. Even the senses themselves are
the lens to which we can know the world, but even of which, it remains a
question whether we could really trust it or not. Because even in the presence
of which it is utterly questionable whether what we know really is. So man
endeavoured all throughout history to refine and come up with an ultimate lens
wherein truth is clear, that what we can sense and think of is without blemish
and the utter cry of knowing the thing in-themselves be fulfilled at last.
There has been a
history of such undertaking as can be seen from the Ancient western to the
post-modern times that the quest for truth undergoes some paradigm shifts because
of some lapses made by the formulation of the means in the arrival of it.
Epistemology is that branch of philosophy which tackles such and such history
is made because of some discontent with the project of the Ancients or lapses
that needs improvement. The modern period is the concrete example in philosophy
wherein such undertaking of the refinement of Epistemological questions is
evident especially in the great divide between the Rationalist and the
Empiricists regarding the preference of what tool is there for use in order to
arrive at Descartes’ first move on the question about certitude and the arrival
of such. Until the peak and to the end of modernity it is but a continuation of
Descartes project and the like of Kant wanted to nail the final piece in order
to resolve ultimately any insufficiencies regarding the question in knowing.
But many of which are still discontented by the utter scepticism he came up
especially in the incapability of man to know the thing in-itself. Therefore
the likes of Hegel has to salvage science’s aim in knowing and that is to the
thing it-itself and claimed in the end that ‘what is real is rational” but
still is insufficient to answer the lapse of finding the tool for the
acquisition of truth and until Husserl made the effort to restore the prestige
of science at the end by coming up with phenomenology which is but a spelling
out of the intent previous to him that is Kant and maybe Hegel especially in
the dealing with the phenomenon.
The aim of this
paper is whether to know if the idea of the phantasm initiated by Aristotle in
his Ideogenesis is already what the modern calls the phenomenon. Because
philosophy is the unfolding of truth and that maybe the truth about the
phantasm is already in the phantasm itself but explained further in the idea of
the phenomenon. Maybe the phantasm is already sufficient to explain the claims
of the modern about the phenomenon and maybe it was just an accident in time
that the original Greek experience of phantasm has been dissolved in time and
is destroyed by translations that wherein it has left it hanging or incomplete
or insufficient and that the project of the moderns was to reinstate the
experience of this phantasm in the new language they call phenomenon. Because
in my own undertakings I have found out similarities that are undeniable that
the both ideas are complementary or maybe in the end is just the same. This is
a paper to compare and to contrast both ideas in the different lenses of the
people who popularly mentions about them, for all we have known, that yes,
philosophy is an unfolding, and that the idea of the phantasm is unfolding and
is evidently shown in the manifestation of the idea of the phenomenon. Not only
a comparison, but also a contrast because there might be some differences of
which that made the modern philosophers think that Aristotle’s project was
insufficient. Maybe insufficient because Aristotle failed to speak about it or
making it known through language or is left as an implication. Unlike how
abundant in language is the modern people that they exhaustively explicate more
of these implications left unsaid, although Aristotle maybe one of the
outspoken philosophers; he could have also had left some stones left unturned
and the moderns were those who spoke of it. Maybe at the end of this paper it
may show that the insufficiency of the idea of the phantasm was more of a
failure to explain and made manifest through language rather than a blunt
erroneous concept that is totally subject for disposal. The fact that this will
be compared and contrasted goes to show that there is the connection of both
but was lost in time and the only outcome of which is that they became so
different due to what was forgotten in between these ideas.
The Phenomenon
Kant:
Phenomenon is first
exhaustively explicated by Immanuel Kant knowingly that it is a part to the
problem referring to knowledge. His Critique of Pure Reason is an enormous
project in dealing with certain limits in human knowledge especially when there
was prior to him to great divide after the project of Descartes dealing on the
method into the arriving to certitude whether be it in the form of Rationalism
which uses the supremacy of Reason and its tool which is logic wherein the
certitude is achieved by its sole use. The opposite of which is Empiricism
wherein it challenges the assumption set upon by logic, by use of empirical
validation, the prioritizing of the senses in the method in achieving certitude
even if the only certitude they can be sure of is the scepticism they gain in
such method. The great divide led to a huge problem in the method of attaining
certitude because there has been a radical inclination to either two faculties
that assists in the formation of it. Whether it be of reason or logic which
ultimately leads to dogmatism, or such tendencies to claim even without
empirical value, the result is that such is without base even in the obvious
aspect of the reality of the world. Also the same problem in empiricism wherein
there is this great dependence on sensuality which although acknowledges the
real world but the world as changing, contingent and therefore there is no room
for absolutizing claims that will make reason take hold for use. Because it is
always the constant that will be the object of reason wherein if it does not
change therefore the use of it will be permanent and if it is changing
therefore use is also changing and therefore adjustment is always on the go.
The problems of
dogmatism and of scepticism is prevalent wherein it has to be addressed and
that Immanuel Kant came and to synthesize the problems herewith. In his
Critique of Pure Reason he stated that:
“Our reason has
this peculiar fate, that with reference to once class of its knowledge it is
always troubled by questions which it cannot ignore because they spring from
the very nature of reason and which cannot be answered because they transcend
the powers of human reason.”[1]
Wherein reason
has a dilemma that it has its tendencies to know things that are even out of
the grasp of sensation and common logic. For Kant categorized the two sources
of knowledge namely from sensation and of the intellect wherein both are
verifiable when both are in tandem and the dilemma of which is that there is
the tendency of reason to create something purely our of its own and that is
the problem posed in the quotation above, because there is that part of reason
wherein it is purely reason that creates knowledge which is outside the bounds
of experience. The tendency of reason to create something purely out of its
own. And the question is that whether if it is reliable upon because it is not
anymore true to what Kant says
“Thoughts without contents are empty
and intuition without concepts are blind.”[2]
that there
should be a meeting between the two sources of knowledge to from something
which is certain that as what the quote goes that there is nothing that results
out from the sole function of one source alone i.e. thought and content must go
in tandem. But again the proposition set by that mysterious tendency of pure
reason to create something out of its own is set upon by as how he states that
“Although all our knowledge begins
from experience there can be no doubt, but it does not necessarily follows that
it arises from experience.”[3]
that in Kant
there is the tendency of again of pure reason to arise and that knowledge is
not juts limited in the union between the two sources of experience and of
intellect but that also there is this pure reason that creates knowledge out of
its own that is it does not arise from experience but merely begins from it.
Going back to
the meeting of the sources which is an attempt to unite the conflicting
dichotomy from Descartes’ project Kant was certain that in order to have
certitude is that there is the meeting of both sources in order attain such
certitude. Kant then inserts something as what he calls the phenomenon wherein
he clearly defines that it is in contrary to the “noumenon” wherein that is
which the mysterious element of an object wherewith we cannot know of because
there is no such thing as that thing in-itself that hides behind the object as
what the others prior to Modernity believes especially of the Greek concept of
essence wherein it is what is underlying beneath the object that gave it its
definition. The Greeks believed before that essence has the priority or the
prestige it must have over the materiality of an object. For the prevalent
thought of that time was that of prioritizing of the ideas rather than the concrete matter
which is the object of experience. Plato made that distinction between matter and
soul wherein again the soul is important because it what makes an object “is”.
But Aristotle came and gave a certain equalizing to the severance set by Plato,
but such equality fall short during the age of Christianity wherein the spiritual
has the prominence over than that of the body. Therefore the value of
materiality and even of the senses was diminished because of such postulating
of a perfect world outside this-world.
Such tradition
has led to the devaluation of the actuality of the existing object which is its
materiality, which is from experience. That is why the very first move was to
reinstate the value of the senses by the empiricists and then Kant made a
synthesis out of divide. That there is such a primacy given to sensation again
as how Aristotle did it once, wherein knowledge is impossible without both,
there has to be that meeting of the two sources. Since the “noumenon” cannot be
known therefore there the phenomenon is this knowledge we have on an object, a
combined sensuality and intellectuality.
“For experience
possesses its unity from a synthetical unity which understanding, originally
and from itself, imparts to the synthesis of the imagination in relation to
apperception, and in a priori relation to and agreement with which phenomena,
as data for possible cognition must stand.”[4]
As how the quote
goes that experience is a union of the actual object and of the concept that
corresponds. The stress is laid to the union of what is sensed and of the
concept or category that is already in the mind, that there is no separation
between the two and when taken separately, there is no certainty in knowledge
that can come up with it. If there is such a sole reliance to understanding it
is surmountable to a dream that has no real or concrete existence. As Kant
would say
“Without this
[experience] they possess no objective validity but a mere play of imagination
or of understanding with images or notions.”[5]
In which again
it is true to the plea of “thoughts without contents are empty and intuitions
without concepts are blind”. Wherein there should be that unity both in terms
of sense and rationality. The phenomenon then is this which we can only know of
for Kant, because the phenomenon is this joint concept and experience that is
certain and beyond that which is the “noumenon” is that we cannot know of.
Therefore Kant emphasizes the unity of sensibility and of understanding which
both were treated independent from one another prior to him. Kant rendered a
synthetical response coming from the divide.
Hegel:
Hegel’s book undoubtedly the so
called the Phenomenology of the Spirit is one of the most monumental books that
has ever been made and in the title itself it is already leading to the point
of which wherein there is such the acknowledgement of the phenomenon. The
phenomenon of which the eventual play of what he calls the “spirit”. Wherein
this spirit is this what is continually unfolding itself towards its
actualization. Hegel although has specific definitions for any of his
terminologies but in the long run, he defines it for temporal understanding
purposes and then in the end he will by his method unites everything into unity
and that is the Absolute. So this event of the spirit that is moving towards
the Absolute is the phenomenon Hegel is ascribing in his whole book. Therefore
the whole book itself is a description of how Hegel experiences or thought of
the Spirit to be. It is the Phenomenology of the Spirit and therefore
everything therein is the phenomenon of the spirit. How then this phenomenon is
used in Hegel? Hegel has his description of philosophy with which it “moves
essentially in the element of universality, which includes within in itself the
particular. . . “[6]
wherein there is the stress of the particularity in
the element of universality. Particularity refers to the specifics that is
carried within a universal notion, even in logic itself, it is made known that
the particular having in itself the word part is a part of something and that
is to some universality that is beheld. The universal here refers to that which
is one, or again from the word “uni” and the one carries within it the many to
which where everything is consummated at. To speak of the particular is to
speak of the manifestations of the laden universal and that for Hegel is the
whole book as he ascribes it to be. Even from the simple overview given by the
table of content that it explicitly shows the manifestations of this Spirit he
is referring to and that every parcel or topic is the manifestation of the
Spirit or as to say particularities. From consciousness to reason, to reason to
nature, nature to dialectics, dialectics to spirit, spirit to history then to
art and so on; it is therefore the exposition of these particularities that
made up the wholeness of Spirit or even to what the mystical idea of the
Absolute represents. Therefore these particularities of the spirit are the
phenomenon of the spirit, the very manifestations of spirit, the tangible
aspects of spirit wherein we can experience them e.g. consciousness and
history. When Hegel refers to the phenomena therefore he is referring to the
things that we can experience in Spirit, because to speak of spirit alone is to
be too abstract wherein it is but an empty concept, but to laden Spirit with
its manifestations improves the understanding of such seeming empty universal
at first. Wherein the objectivity of knowing the spirit is from the lens of its
particularities and that is to be true to the creed of Hegel’s statement of the
“universality, which includes in itself the particular”. Therefore there such
this word as “concrete” wherein it supports to Hegel’s gesture of making Spirit
knowable due to tangible things that we can experience and simply those are its
manifestations. Therefore what we can know of is the combination of a universal
having within it the particulars, and idea which has in it the correspondence
to experience.
Again to be
Greek in thought that objectivity is something as what they call as “essence”
as related or is even synonymous with “substance” that which hides underneath
and that the essence is this idea or the abstract of an a thing and their plea
for objectivity is that knowing that which hides underneath meaning it has to
be ripped of from the particularities it is masked. But for Hegel and even
already in Kant, there can be no discounting of that which is particular, not
like the trend prior to them that anything that is of matter is given less
priority over that which is ideal and is of the soul. In the case the paradigm
has been shifted and that objectivity is nothing more than the experience of
the “concrete” object, not anymore that which hides underneath. There is
already the interference of the subject and or the major role of the subject to
be part of the knowing process not like the prior wherein the priority or the
focus was more and even solely to the object itself. Therefore there is the
highlight of the role of the subject and that role of the subject is to
experience the object and the subject also has a say on the object not as how
the trend previously is that which is that the object can speak for itself,
that “Hegel carries subjectivism to an extreme by proclaiming the most
subjective to be the most objective”.[7] That the subjectivity has now become the
spokesperson of the object wherein there is no longer purely as what the
ancient’s deem of objective as really objective but now the knowing of the
object based on the subject, the subject’s tool in knowing which is experience.
Therefore the phenomenon is the subject’s endeavour with objects, because it is
the subject experiencing the aforementioned objects in the table of contents.
“The subjective spirit refers to the inner workings of the human mind.”[8]
And that “Absolute is Spirit and that this Spirit finds its manifestation in
the minds of individuals; in the social institutions of family, civil society
and the state, and finally, in art, religion, and philosophy.”[9]
The phenomenon of spirit is its manifestations and to continue the phenomenon
is made possible due to the knower and plus the knower experiencing the
manifestations of the Spirit.
Therefore
although phenomena is not elaborated point blank in clear description, but the
method and how the philosophy of Hegel goes, is that there is the such usage of
phenomena as the appearances of anything and to the title of the book,
Phenomenology of Spirit is the account of the appearances of the Spirit.
Husserl:
Edmund Husserl
made it a task to express in language the method of arriving at the phenomenon
as what he calls “phenomenology” wherein it practically is a manifesto in
arriving into a kind of knowledge to which the Kantian “phenomenon” is
accordingly ascribed. The method he is speaking at aims at the product which is
the phenomenon itself. As coming from his creed follows the likes of Heidegger
in proclaiming a phenomenological analysis of being so as with Sartre and how
their philosophy goes starts usually from the common experience they both have
regarding with being although they talk about it as something purely abstract
but the understanding of which is from their subjective point of view, or their
phenomenological analysis of being. Following the process of which in the
inquiry of the meaning of being follows also the inquiry of the meaning of the
self and wherein to be true to the creed even the “Being and Time” is not a
showcase of revealing answers to the perennial question of “Who Am I?” to
everyone but to be phenomenological about it, it only reveals and dawns upon
Heidegger and thus him alone, wherein it is his answer to himself, and to ask
about it is to ask which is closest and that which is the self, therefore
“Being and Time” is a display of Heidegger’s method and the answer to himself
which we may also relate to ourselves in the phenomenological inquiry of
ourselves. But then again, only the self can answer because only the self is
the one owning the very tool of experience which is exclusive to one’s own
understanding and the authenticity of the experience is solely be validated by
the one experiencing, not by any other.
Husserl has this conception of the
phenomena that which is occurring in any fields of study preferably to the
sciences. Knowing that in each science has its own phenomena to assess and that
every phenomena is the appearance of every aim desired by each science.
“Other sciences,
long known, also concern phenomena. Thus we hear that psychology is designated
as a science of psychical ‘appearances’ or phenomena and the natural science is
designated as a science of physical ‘appearances’ or phenomena; likewise on
occasion historical phenomena are spoken of in the science of history, cultural
phenomena in the science of culture; and something similar is true of all other
sciences of realities.”[10]
Husserl has this
contention that phenomena is taken to be that of the appearance as how he deems
it to be especially to the relevance of use it has in different fields of
science. Phenomena have become so varied due to the different aims it is
injected into. And the method of phenomenology has been conceived as a
“substratum of empirical psychology, as a sphere comprising ‘immanental’
descriptions of psychical mental processes, a sphere comprising descriptions
that – so the immanence in question is understood - are strictly confined
within the bounds of internal experience”.[11]
Phenomenology is the method and the experience that is undergoing in the mental
aspect, the immanence therewith due to its internality and psychological in
fact that it is mental and also has the room for the usage of intentionality or
of consciousness being conscious of an object always, and that it is the
experience of the mind tackling an object. The experience of mind in capturing
an object and to fast forward the process, especially into the insertion of the
“Epoche” or of bracketing prejudices in order to arrive at a certitude but
still the certitude in reference to a subject without biases, but still in
relevance to a subject, still has the attachment of experience even in the
internal sense.
Phantasm
Aristotle:
“All men by nature desire to know.”[12]
As for Aristotle, it is the desire of man to know because there is such in
knowledge that satisfies man, or even in his example afterwards of taking
delight in sight and the following senses. Since man is a rational animal, then
he takes pride in the usage of his reason and that reason is aimed at knowing
or is driven towards knowledge for knowledge bears something of a benefit, a
touch of delight wherein man is pulled into. Therefore knowledge has a profound
status and importance in man especially that it is what all men desires and
Aristotle made clear the method in gaining into knowledge and that gaining
knowledge is the activity of the soul in which the portion in his book that
explicates the means in arriving at knowledge or the so called ideas is in De
Anima or translated as The Soul. It is in this book that the famous Ideogenesis
is explicated as the soul’s activity.
Ideogenesis is
the process of which ideas are generated wherein from the word itself the
genesis of ideas speaks of the origin of ideas. In Aristotle’s De Anima, he
explicates the process of the method wherein it is how one achieves knowledge.
The method starts when from the very basic which is gaining something from
experience since Aristotle once said that “nothing goes into the mind without
passing through the senses”[13]
and for that the senses is the first part in the process. But he categorizes
the senses into two namely the external and the internal. The external senses
are sight to which object is colour, hearing to which object is sound, smell to
which object is scent, touch to which object is texture and taste to which
object is flavour. From these five external senses with their corresponding
objects they are in a manner disoriented or divided because each of the
external senses are onto its own. Then comes the function of the internal
senses to which they assemble each different data gathered from the external
senses into a unity of such senses. Wherein common sense is that which makes
all the different objects of the external senses conjoined, next is the reproductive imagination wherein it
replicates the conjoined objects of senses, next is the creative imagination
wherein it assimilates or alters some things in the sensed object as a whole into
something quite different, next is sense memory wherein it is where the object
is stored for remembering and lastly the aestimative sense wherein it
calculates in terms of dimensions and the like of the object.
After the five external senses and
the internal senses is abstraction that will give rise to the idea but before
being abstracted, there is the phantasm. “As sight is the most highly developed
sense, the name phantasia (imagination) has been formed from phaos (light)
because it is not possible to see without light.”[14]
The so called phantasm coming from phantasia originally is named coming from
the derivative of “phaos” which means light wherein it has to be in a
receptacle of light in order for it to be seen. Primordially it has to be seen,
literally to be seen by the eyes, carried over the thought of actually sensing
the things. But the phantasia is still yet a step lower to the idea for the
idea is the abstract therefore the essence, already transcended the matter
within it. But for the phantasm, it still has that tinge of particularity
because it is still the realm of experience wherein it is not the essence yet,
but the mixture of the idea beneath and the particular experience of that
object.
Phantasm and Phenomenon:
Since Aristotle introduced the
ideogenesis and it was that starting point I say when philosophy focused so
much in the realm of the abstraction especially that much of it was highlighted
after him, especially the Christian thinkers who gave importance to the soul or
the idea rather than the body, a sense of transcendentalism to the result of
the denial of the materiality of the object. Much was laid stress in the soul
and thus the philosophy afterwards thrived so much on ideas, but not until when
the call of experience has been laid stress again and that we failed to
attribute the very initial phases before the idea arises. The tendency is that
we tend to neglect or to dump the former phases because of the coveted end
which is more important, and really to recall is that the idea cannot be
without the phase of experience able to be in contact with a particular object.
Phantasm and Phenomenon may have
quite a difference in how the word goes but originally, they both came from the
Greek word “phaos” which means light. Wherein these are the products of light touching
the object making them known to the subject or these are the light wherein they
shine unto us the truth of the object rather than the abstract idea of it. The truth is that which is seen and the play
of light is to shun away darkness so that things can be seen. The other
similarity of which is that they both have the touch of experience being so
close to them as for the phenomenon being so particular to an object with all
of its phenomenological descriptions and to the phantasm wherein it is already
a step further into becoming an idea but before that it is already an entity
mixed with sense experience, therefore still particular to the object itself
before it was elevated into an idea. In the sense Aristotle already has the
content of the so called phenomenon but was just forgotten over a long period
of devotion to the idea or to the spirit and not anymore to the body. But not
until the empiricists came and shed light back too experience and elevated once
again its role in the contribution to knowledge and not only as a disposable
means towards the idea but the idea has now been questioned whether there is
such or what we can speak off already is just our summation of what we have
seen and actually the idea cannot be known, or the thing in-itself cannot be
really known. All that can be known is what we sensed something to be, wherein
it a mixture direct experience and the categories of the mind that revealed the
object as plainly as it is in its particularity.
Therefore there is just the revival
of the Aristotelian creed in the statement of the phantasm throughout a long
history of being focused more onto the idea than of the tangible experience
which they dubbed erroneous, but it is one tool that makes the difference of it
all and its one what we’ve got the most, the closest to us and which started
our very knowledge of things.
[1] Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure
Reason. Trans by Max Muller. New York: Penguin Classics. 2007. p. xxii.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans by J.M.D.
Meiklejohn. New York: Collier. 1905. p. 238.
[5] Ibid. p. 240.
[6] Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans by. A.V.
Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1962. p. 1.
[7]
Friedrich, Carl. The Philosophy of
Hegel. New York: Modern Library. 1953. p. xxv.
[8] Samuel Stumpf & James
Fieser. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A
History of Philosophy 8th Edition. Boston: Mc. GrawHill. 2008.
p. 303
[9] Ibid. p. 303.
[10] Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology
and to a Phenomenological Philosophy.Trans
by. F. Kersten. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1983. p. xvii
[11] Ibid. p. xviii.
[12] Metaphysics. p.243
[14] Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by. Richard McKeon. New York:
Random House.1941. p. 589
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