Qualitative Thought / Qualitatives Denken E-Book

John Dewey

• Herausgeber: Reclam Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Reclams Universal-Bibliothek
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 137

Beschreibung

In seinem Aufsatz untersucht der amerikanische Pragmatist John Dewey drängende Fragen: Alles, was Menschen erfahren können, ob in Alltag, Kunst oder Wissenschaft, trägt einen qualitativen Charakter. Welche Rolle spielt diese gefühlte, erlebte Dimension der Erfahrung für unser Denken und unsere sprachliche Verständigung über die Welt? Die Ausgabe bietet den englischen Text, eine neue Übersetzung sowie ein Nachwort, das den Gang der Argumentation und die Wirkung des klassischen Aufsatzes bis in die Gegenwart nachzeichnet. Die Reihe »Great Papers Philosophie« bietet • bahnbrechende Aufsätze der Philosophie: Eine zeichengenaue, zitierfähige Wiedergabe des Textes (links das fremdsprachige Original, rechts eine neue Übersetzung). • eine philosophiegeschichtliche Einordnung: Wie dachte man früher über das Problem? Welche Veränderung bewirkte der Aufsatz? Wie denkt man heute darüber? • eine Analyse des Textes bzw. eine Rekonstruktion seiner Argumentationsstruktur, gefolgt von einem Abschnitt über den Autor sowie ein kommentiertes Literaturverzeichnis. E-Book mit Seitenzählung der Originalpaginierung. 

Leseprobe

John Dewey

Qualitative ThoughtQualitatives Denken

Englisch/Deutsch[Great Papers Philosophie]

Aus dem amerikanischen Englisch übersetzt und herausgegeben von Matthias Jung

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Inhalt

Qualitative Thought / Qualitatives Denken

Zu dieser Ausgabe

Anmerkungen

Literaturhinweise

Nachwort

Zum Autor

Das philosophiegeschichtliche Umfeld des Textes

Überblick über den Aufbau des Textes

Analyse und Deutung des Textes

Fortleben des Textes

[5]Qualitative Thought / Qualitatives Denken

[6]Qualitative Thought

The1 world in which we immediately live, that in which we strive, succeed, and are defeated is preeminently a qualitative world. What we act for, suffer, and enjoy are things in their qualitative determinations. This world forms the field of characteristic modes of thinking, characteristic in that thought is definitely regulated by qualitative considerations. Were it not for the double and hence ambiguous sense of the term “common-sense,” it might be said that common-sense thinking, that concerned with action and its consequences, whether undergone in enjoyment or suffering, is qualitative. But since “common-sense” is also used to designate accepted traditions and is appealed to in support of them, it is safe at the outset to refer simply to that thought which has to do with objects involved in the concerns and issues of living.

The2 problem of qualitative objects has influenced metaphysics and epistemology but has not received corresponding attention in logical theory. The propositions significant in physical science are oblivious of qualitative considerations as such; they deal with “primary qualities” in distinction from secondary and tertiary; in actual treatment, moreover, these primary qualities are not qualities but relations. Consider the difference between movement as [8]qualitative alteration, and motion as F = ma; between stress as involving effort and tension, and as force per unit surface; between the red of the blood issuing from a wound, and red as signifying 400 trillion vibrations per time unit. Metaphysics has been concerned with the existential status of qualitative objects as contrasted with those of physical science, while epistemology, having frequently decided that qualities are subjective and physical, has been concerned with their relation in knowing [244] to the properties of “external” objects defined in non-qualitative terms.

But3 a logical problem remains. What is the relation or lack of relations between the two types of propositions, one which refers to objects of physical science and the other to qualitative objects? What, if any, are the distinguishing logical marks of each kind? If it were true that things as things, apart from interaction with an organism, are qualityless, the logical problem would remain. For the truth would concern the mode of production and existence of qualitative things. It is irrelevant to their logical status. Logic can hardly admit that it is concerned only with objects having one special mode of production and existence, and yet claim universality. And it would be fatal to the claims of logic to say that because qualities are psychical — supposing for the moment that they are — therefore logical theory has [10]nothing to do with forms of thought characteristic of qualitative objects. It is even possible that some of the difficulties of metaphysical and epistemological theory about scientific and ordinary objects spring from neglect of a basic logical treatment.

A4 preliminary introduction to the topic may be found in the fact that Aristotelian logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conducive to clearness — a consideration that has a good deal to do with the existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics. A more obviously pertinent consideration is the fact that the interpretation of classic logic treats qualitative determinations as fixed properties of objects, and thus is committed to either an attributive or a classificatory doctrine of the import of propositions. Take the proposition: “The red Indian is stoical.” This is interpreted either as signifying that the Indian in question is characterized by the property of stoicism in addition to that of redness, or that he belongs to the class of stoical objects. The ordinary direct sense of the proposition escapes recognition in either case. For this sense expresses the fact that the indigenous American was permeated throughout by a certain quality, instead [12]of being an object possessing a certain quality along with others. He lived, acted, endured stoically. [245]

If5 one thinks that the difference between the two meanings has no logical import, let him reflect that the whole current subject-predication theory of propositions is affected by the “property” notion, whether the theory speaks in the language of attribution or classification. A subject is “given” – ultimately apart from thinking – and thought adds to what is given a further determination or else assigns it to a ready-made class of things. Neither theory can have any place for the integral development and reconstruction of subject-matter effected by the thought expressed in propositions. In effect it excludes thought from any share in the determination of the subject-matter of knowledge, confining it to setting forth the results (whether conceived as attributive or classificatory) of knowledge already attained in isolation from the method by which it is attained.

Perhaps6, however, the consideration that will appeal to most people is the fact that the neglect of qualitative objects and considerations leaves thought in certain subjects without any logical status and control. In esthetic matters, in morals and politics, the effect of this neglect is either to deny (implicitly at least) that they have logical foundation or else, in order to bring them under received logical categories, to evacuate them of their distinctive meaning – a [14]procedure which produces the myth of the “economic man” and the reduction of esthetics and morals, as far as they can receive any intellectual treatment at all, to quasi-mathematical subjects.

Consider7 for example a picture that is a work of art and not just a chromo or other mode of mechanical product. Its quality is not a property which it possesses in addition to its other properties. It is something which externally demarcates it from other paintings, and which internally pervades, colors, tones, and weights every detail and every relation of the work of art. The same thing is true of the “quality” of a person or of historic events. We follow, with apparently complete understanding, a tale in which a certain quality or character is ascribed to a certain man. But something said causes us to interject, “Oh, you are speaking of Thomas Jones, I supposed you meant John Jones.” Every detail related, every distinction set forth remains just what it was before. Yet the significance, the color and weight, of every detail is altered. For the quality that runs through them all, that gives meaning to each and binds them together, is transformed. [246]

Now8 my point is that unless such underlying and pervasive qualitative determinations are acknowledged in a distinct logical formulation, once or other of two results is bound to follow. Either thought is denied to the [16]subject-matter in question, and the phenomena are attributed to “intuition” or “genius” or “impulse” or “personality” as ultimate and unanalyzable entities; or, worse yet, intellectual analysis is reduced to a mechanical enumeration of isolated items or “properties.” As a matter of fact, such intellectual definiteness and coherence as the subjects and criticisms of esthetic and moral subjects possess is due to their being controlled by the quality of subject-matter as a whole. Consideration of the meaning of regulations by an underlying and pervasive quality is the theme of this article.

What9 is intended may be indicated by drawing a distinction between something called a “situation” and something termed an “object.” By the term situation in this connection is signified the fact that the subject-matter ultimately referred to in existential propositions is a complex existence that is held together in spite of its internal complexity by the fact that it is dominated and characterized throughout by a single quality. By “object” is meant some element in the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is a distinction. The special point made is that the selective determination and relation of objects in thought is controlled by reference to a situation — to that which is constituted by a pervasive and internally integrating quality, so that failure to acknowledge the situation [18]leaves, in the end, the logical force of objects and their relations inexplicable.

Now10 in current logical formulations, the beginning is always made with “objects.” If we take the proposition “the stone is shaly,” the logical import of the proposition is treated as if something called “stone” had complete intellectual import in and of itself and then some property, having equally a fixed content in isolation, “shaly” is attributed to it. No such self-sufficient and self-enclosed entity can possibly lead anywhere nor be led to; connection among such entities is mechanical and arbitrary, not intellectual. Any proposition about “stone” or “shaly” would have to be analytic in the Kantian sense, merely stating part of the content already known to be contained in the meaning of the terms. That a tautological proposition is a proposition only in name is well recognized. In fact, “stone,” “shaly” (or whatever [247] are subject and predicate) are determinations or distinctions instituted within the total subject-matter to which thought refers. When such propositions figure in logical textbooks, the actual subject-matter referred to is some branch of logical theory which is exemplified in the proposition.

This11 larger and inclusive subject-matter is what is meant by the term “situation.” Two further points follow. The situation as such is not and cannot be stated or made explicit. It is taken for granted, “understood,” or implicit in all [20]propositional symbolization. It forms the universe of discourse of whatever is expressly stated or of what appears as a term in a proposition. The situation cannot present itself as an element in a proposition any more than a universe of discourse can appear as a member of discourse within that universe. To call it “implicit” does not signify that it is implied. It is present throughout as that of which whatever is explicitly stated or propounded is a distinction. A quart bowl cannot be held within itself or in any of its contents. It may, however, be contained in another bowl, and similarly what is the “situation” in one proposition may appear as a term in another proposition — that is, in connection with some other situation to which thought now refers.

Secondly12, the situation controls the terms of thought, for they are its distinctions, and applicability to it is the ultimate test of their validity. It is this place of the matter which is suggested by the earlier use of the idea of a pervasive and underlying quality. If the quart container affected the import of everything held within it, there would be a physical analogy, a consideration that may be awkwardly hinted at by the case of a person protesting to a salesman that he has not received a full quart; the deficiency affects everything that he has purchased. A work of art provides an [22]apter illustration. In it, as we have already noted, the quality of the whole permeates, affects, and controls every detail. There are paintings, buildings, novels, arguments, in which an observer notes an inability of the author to sustain a unified attention throughout. The details fall to pieces; they are not distinctions of one subject-matter, because there is no qualitative unity underlying them. Confusion and incoherence are always marks of lack of control by a single pervasive quality. The latter alone enables a person to keep track of what he is doing, saying, hearing, reading, in whatever explicitly appears. The underlying unity of qual-[248]itativeness regulates pertinence or relevancy and force of every distinction and relation; it guides selection and rejection and the manner of utilization of all explicit terms. This quality enables us to keep thinking about one problem without our having constantly to stop to ask ourselves what it is after all that we are thinking about. We are aware of it not by itself but as the background, the thread, and the directive clue in what we do expressly think of. For the latter things are its1 distinctions and relations.

[24]If13 we designate this permeating qualitative unity in psychological language, we say it is felt rather than thought. Then, if we hypostatize it, we call it a feeling. But to term it a feeling is to reverse the actual state of affairs. The existence of unifying qualitativeness in the subject-matter defines the meaning of “feeling.” The notion that “a feeling” designates a ready-made independent psychical entity is a product of a reflection which presupposes the direct presence of quality as such. “Feeling” and “felt” are names for a relation of quality. When, for example, anger exists, it is the pervading tone, color, and quality of persons, things, and circumstances, or of a situation. When angry we are not aware of anger but of these objects in their immediate and unique qualities. In another situation, anger may appear as a distinct term, and analysis may then call it a feeling or emotion. But we have now shifted the universe of discourse, and the validity of the terms of the later one depends upon the existence of the direct quality of the whole in a former one. That is, in saying that something was felt not thought of, we are analyzing in a new situation, having its own immediate quality, the subject-matter of a prior situation; we are making anger an object of analytic examination, not being angry.

When14 it is said that I have a feeling, or impression, or “hunch,” that things are thus and so, what is actually [26]designated is primarily the presence of a dominating quality in a situation as a whole, not just the existence of a feeling as a psychical or psychological fact. To say I have a feeling or impression that so and so is the case is to note that the quality in question is not yet resolved into determinate terms and relations; it marks a conclu-[249]sion without statement of the reasons for it, the grounds upon which it rests. It is the first stage in the development of explicit distinctions. All thought in every subject begins with just such an unanalyzed whole. When the subject-matter is reasonably familiar, relevant distinctions speedily offer themselves, and sheer qualitativeness may not remain long enough to be readily recalled. But it often persists and forms a haunting and engrossing problem. It is a commonplace that a problem stated is well on its way to solution, for statement of the nature of a problem signifies that the underlying quality is being transformed into determinate distinctions of terms and relations or has become an object of articulate thought. But something presents itself as problematic before there is recognition of what the problem is. The problem is had or experienced before it can be stated or set forth; but it is had as an immediate quality of the whole situation. The sense of something problematic, of something perplexing and to be resolved, marks the presence of something pervading all [28]elements and considerations. Thought is the operation by which it is converted into pertinent and coherent terms.

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