APPEARANCE AND REALITY by F H BRADLEY

Author:F H BRADLEY
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-83209-6
Publisher: Routledge

CHAPTER XXIV.

DEGREES OF TRUTH AND REALITY.

IN our last chapter we reached the question of degrees in Truth and Reality, and we must now endeavour to make clear what is contained in that idea.1 An attempt to do this, thoroughly and in detail, would carry us too far. To show how the world, physical and spiritual, realizes by various stages and degrees the one absolute principle, would involve a system of metaphysics. And such a system I am not undertaking to construct. I am endeavouring merely to get a sound general view of Reality, and to defend it against a number of difficulties and objections. But, for this, it is essential to explain and to justify the predicates of higher and lower. While dealing with this point, I shall develope further the position which we have already assigned to Thought (Chapters xv. and xvi.).

The Absolute, considered as such, has of course no degrees; for it is perfect, and there can be no more or less in perfection (Chapter xx.). Such predicates belong to, and have a meaning only in the world of appearance. We may be reminded, indeed, that the same absoluteness seems also possessed by existence in time. For a thing either may have a place there, or may have none, but it cannot inhabit any interval between presence and absence. This view would assume that existence in time is Reality; and in practice, and for some purposes, that is admissible. But, besides being false, the assumption tends naturally to pass beyond itself. For, if a thing may not exist less or more, it must certainly more or less occupy existence. It may usurp ground by its direct presence, but again, further, by its influence and relative importance. Thus we should find it difficult, in the end, to say exactly what we understand by “having” existence. We should even find a paradox in the assertion, that everything alike has existence to precisely the same degree.

But here, in metaphysics, we have long ago passed beyond this one-sided point of view. On one hand the series of temporal facts has been perceived to consist in ideal construction. It is ideal, not indeed wholly (Chapter xxiii.), but still essentially. And such a series is but appearance; it is not absolute, but relative; and, like all other appearance, it admits the distinction of more and less. On the other hand, we have seen that truth, which again itself is appearance, both unconsciously and deliberately diverges from this rude essay. And, without considering further the exploded claim set up by temporal fact, we may deal generally with the question of degrees in reality and truth.

We have already perceived the main nature of the process of thinking.1 Thought essentially consists in the separation of the “what” from the “that.” It may be said to accept this dissolution as its effective principle. Thus it renounces all attempt to make fact, and it confines itself to content. But by embracing this separation, and by urging this independent development to its extreme, thought indirectly endeavours to restore the broken whole.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.