Studia humanistyczne nr 8
Maxwell Cathy Zamek
Graśźyna Plebanek Nielegalne zwić zki
Wells Herbert George Niew
Roszel Renee Czar jemioly
Clarin, Leopoldo Alas La Regenta I
Cox Connie Para prawie doskonaśÂa
McMaster Bujold, Lois MV7, Cetaganda
Cartland Barbara Ognista krew
Falkensee Margarete von Noce BśÂćÂkitnego AniośÂa
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states are the proper efficient cause of acts of perception. The
point he has in mind is more provocatively expressed in the fol-
lowing passage: When I look upon the wall of my room, the wall
does not act at all, nor is capable of acting; the perceiving it is an
act or operation in me (EIP II, iv [254b]).9
8
More radically yet: No man can show it to be impossible to the Supreme Being to have
given us the power of perceiving external objects without such organs. We have reason
to believe, that when we put off these bodies, and all the organs belonging to them, our
perceptive powers shall rather be improved than destroyed or impaired. We have reason
to believe, that the Supreme Being perceives everything in a much more perfect manner
than we do, without bodily organs. We have reason to believe that there are other created
beings endowed with powers of perception more perfect and more extensive than ours,
without any such organs as we find necessary. We ought not, therefore, to conclude, that
such bodily organs are, in their own nature [italics added] necessary to perception; but
rather, that, by the will of God, our power of perceiving external objects is limited and
circumscribed by our organs of sense. . . . (EIP II, i [246a b]). Of course, it s also by
virtue of the will of God that there is such a substance as water. But the point is that God
cannot create a substance which is water that does not expand when freezing; it s of the
nature of water to expand when freezing. By contrast, God can create beings with a
human nature in which the hook-ups of physiology to the mind are different from how
they are in fact.
9
Cf. EIP II, xiv [301a b]: An object, in being perceived, does not act at all. I perceive
the walls of the room where I sit; but they are perfectly inactive, and therefore act not
upon the mind.
The Opening Attack 55
Two points, actually, are being made in this last passage: that a
wall neither acts nor is capable of acting; and that perceiving is
an act of the perceiver. Let me save the latter point for later, and
say a few things here about the former.
What s coming to the surface here is Reid s occasionalism.
Reid s attack on the Way of Ideas, as completely failing to explain
what it set out to explain, does not depend on this occasionalism;
the issue of what, if anything, is capable of exercising causal effi-
cacy plays no role in his charge that the Way of Ideas doesn t
explain what it set out to explain. Nonetheless, a glance at his
thought on the matter will explain how he himself was thinking
of the laws of nature to which he does make reference in his
attack.
We have to begin with Reid s understanding of what he calls
active power. Reid remarks that he does not think it possible to
give an informative definition of the concept of power that he has
in mind. One can say, quite rightly, that The exertion of active
power [is what] we call action. Likewise one can say, quite rightly,
that That which produces a change by the exertion of its power
[is what] we call the cause of that change; and the change pro-
duced, the effect of that cause (EAP I, i [515a]). But it s most
unlikely that anyone who lacked the concept of active power
before these things were said would have acquired it from the
saying of these things.
Reid s inability to offer a definition is no great misfortune,
however. For everybody already possesses the concept in question;
a definition isn t necessary. What s relevant is some observations
that may lead us to attend to the conception we [already] have of
[active power] in our own minds (EAP I, i [512b]).
The concept of power Reid wishes us to attend to is the concept
used when we say such things as these: I had it in my power to
turn my thoughts to Reid s claims about causal efficacy. I do not
have it in my power to run the mile in a minute. I have it in my
power to raise my arm and scratch my nose. The sort of power
to which these sentences refer is the capacity to bring something
about, to cause it to happen when causing it to happen is up to
the agent. What lies behind that last clause is the fact that, to use
Reid s words, power to produce an effect [pre]supposes power
not to produce it: otherwise it is not power but necessity, which
is incompatible with power taken in the strict sense (letter to
56 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
James Gregory of June 14, 1765 [65b]).10 If I have it in my power
to raise my hand, I have it in my power not to do so as well. By
contrast, though the piece of chalk falls when I release it, it does
not have it in its power to fall, since my releasing it necessitates its [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
