The Scottish Philosophy [43]
It may be doubted whether we can so {71} absolutely divide, as Aristotle and Hutcheson did, the accompanying ideas from the sensations or perceptions. The sensations and ideas are in every case wrapped up in one concrete cognitive act, while, however, the may come tip in a different t, y concretion in our next experience, and may be separated into elements by an analytic process. I rather think, too, that the perception of extension (as has been shown by Hamilton) is involved in all our sense-perceptions, for we seem to know our organism as in space and localized by every one of the senses. The language about the motions of bodies constituting the of the perceptions in the mind, proceeds upon the inadequate distinction between efficient and occasional cause, drawn by the disciples of Descartes, -- a distinction adopted by Reid as well as Hutcheson. I suspect that it still remains true, that the common division of our external senses is very imperfect, and that it is not easy to arrange our sensations into classes.
In regard to the question started in the next age by Reid, as to whether we perceive by the senses the external object, or an idea of it, it is certain that he accepts the view and the language of the great body of philosophers prior to his time, and he speaks of our perceiving by ideas " as images of something external."
Formal logic has been taught, I believe, in Glasgow University from its establishment in 1451 to this present time. Hutcheson has a "Logical Compendium" which was used as a text-book in Glasgow and elsewhere. In this treatise, after a meagre dissertation on the rise of philosophy, he defines logic as " the art of guiding the mind in the knowledge of things; adding, that it may also be considered a science, and that others define it " the art of discovering and declaring truth." These definitions will be regarded as too loose and vague by the rigid logicians of our time. In treating of the concept, notion, or idea, he represents ideas as being divided into sensations, imaginations, and pure intellections, -- a theory adopted by Gassendi, and favorably received by not a few for an age or two after the time of Descartes and Gassendi, as seeming to reconcile these two eminent men. Hutcheson had previously represented all sensation as external and internal, and declared, with Locke, that all our ideas arise either from the external sense or {72} from reflection. The intellections he defines as " any ideas not reached or comprehended by any bodily sense; " they are chiefly " suggested by the internal sense, and include our actions, passions, judgments, doubts, and the like, and also abstract ideas." There is an incongruous mixture here of the Lockian with an older theory. The ideas derived from reflection, which are all singular and concrete, should not be put in the same class with those abstract and general ideas which are formed by the intellect from the materials got from sensation and reflection, and, we may add, from those furnished by the faculties of the mind in their exercise, such as those we have of the beautiful and the good. This confusion long lingered in the Scottish psychology from which it has scarcely yet been expelled.
Hutcheson represents complex (concrete would be the better phrase) ideas as having comprehension, and universal ideas as having extension; and announces the rule that extension and comprehension stand to each other in a reverse order. He distinguishes between a logical whole, which is a universal in respect of its species, which are spread out in division; and a metaphysical whole, which is the comprehension of a complex idea, and is declared by definition. He distinguishes between noetic and dianoetic judgment, in the former of which the two ideas are compared immediately (), and in the latter by means of a third. The subject, predicate, and copula are said to be in the proposition either expressed or suppressed and involved. He does give the dictum of Aristotle as the regulating principle of reasoning, but derives all the
In regard to the question started in the next age by Reid, as to whether we perceive by the senses the external object, or an idea of it, it is certain that he accepts the view and the language of the great body of philosophers prior to his time, and he speaks of our perceiving by ideas " as images of something external."
Formal logic has been taught, I believe, in Glasgow University from its establishment in 1451 to this present time. Hutcheson has a "Logical Compendium" which was used as a text-book in Glasgow and elsewhere. In this treatise, after a meagre dissertation on the rise of philosophy, he defines logic as " the art of guiding the mind in the knowledge of things; adding, that it may also be considered a science, and that others define it " the art of discovering and declaring truth." These definitions will be regarded as too loose and vague by the rigid logicians of our time. In treating of the concept, notion, or idea, he represents ideas as being divided into sensations, imaginations, and pure intellections, -- a theory adopted by Gassendi, and favorably received by not a few for an age or two after the time of Descartes and Gassendi, as seeming to reconcile these two eminent men. Hutcheson had previously represented all sensation as external and internal, and declared, with Locke, that all our ideas arise either from the external sense or {72} from reflection. The intellections he defines as " any ideas not reached or comprehended by any bodily sense; " they are chiefly " suggested by the internal sense, and include our actions, passions, judgments, doubts, and the like, and also abstract ideas." There is an incongruous mixture here of the Lockian with an older theory. The ideas derived from reflection, which are all singular and concrete, should not be put in the same class with those abstract and general ideas which are formed by the intellect from the materials got from sensation and reflection, and, we may add, from those furnished by the faculties of the mind in their exercise, such as those we have of the beautiful and the good. This confusion long lingered in the Scottish psychology from which it has scarcely yet been expelled.
Hutcheson represents complex (concrete would be the better phrase) ideas as having comprehension, and universal ideas as having extension; and announces the rule that extension and comprehension stand to each other in a reverse order. He distinguishes between a logical whole, which is a universal in respect of its species, which are spread out in division; and a metaphysical whole, which is the comprehension of a complex idea, and is declared by definition. He distinguishes between noetic and dianoetic judgment, in the former of which the two ideas are compared immediately (