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In the Beginning Was the Act a Historical And Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Liesbet De Kock In the Beginning was the Act A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Hermann von Helmholtz's Psychology of the Object Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in de wijsbegeerte 2014 Der Denker stellt sich in den grossen Zusammenhang der Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte: den dem “Philosophieren auf eigene Faust”, bei dem jedes Individuum nur in einem persönlichen zufälligen Reflex die Antwort auf die Rätsel des Seins zu finden sucht, soll ein Ende gemacht werden. […] Jeder Gedanke, jedes echte Grundmotiv des Philosophierens steht mit der Gesamtheit der übrigen in einer ideellen Gemeinschaft: und diese Gemeinschaft der Ideen ist es, die auch der geschichtlichen Betrachtung erst Sinn und Leben verleiht - Ernst Cassirer (1912), p. 252. Promotor Prof. Dr. Gertrudis Van de Vijver Copromotor Prof. Dr. Steffen Ducheyne iii Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS V PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 CHAPTER 1 4 INTRODUCTION: THE POETRY OF PERCEPTION 4 1.1 Hermann von Helmholtz: General Introduction 4 1.1.1 Selective Biography 4 1.1.2 Helmholtz and the Problem of the Object 7 1.2 The Poetry of Perception: Helmholtz’s Faust 11 1.2.1 The Realm of the Mothers: Faust in the Dark Gallery 14 1.2.2 The Symbolic Relation to the World: Chorus Mysticus 20 1.2.3 What was There in the Beginning? The First Study Room Scene 24 1.3 General Aim and Strategy 28 1.3.1 Main Research Question 28 1.3.2 The Problem of the Object: Interpretive Framework 29 1.3.2.1 Helmholtz and Empiricism: The Problem of Psychological Construction 30 1.3.2.2 Helmholtz and Kant: The A priori Structure of Understanding 32 1.3.2.3 Helmholtz and Fichte: The Problem of Differentiation 35 CHAPTER 2 39 HELMHOLTZ’S PHYSIOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE GENESIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF THE OBJECT 39 2.1 Introduction 39 2.2 Hermann von Helmholtz and Johannes Peter Müller 40 v 2.3 Helmholtz’s Physiological Reductionism: Anti-Vitalism 42 2.4 Goethe, Purkinje, Müller and the Primacy of Subjective Perception. 50 2.5 Müller’s ‘Epistemological Scandal’: The Law of Specific Nerve Energies 54 2.6 Helmholtz’s Physiological Epistemology 62 2.7 (The Sense and Nonsense of) Physiological Neo-Kantianism 67 2.8 Helmholtz’s Anti-Reductionism: The Autonomy of Psychology 71 2.9 Summary and Conclusion 75 CHAPTER 3 77 EMPIRICISM AND THE OBJECT: FROM HUME TO HELMHOLTZ 77 3.1 Introduction 77 3.1.1 Preliminary Clarifications: Empiricism and the Mind 78 3.1.2 Helmholtz, Empiricism and Pure Psychology 81 3.1.3 Overview of the chapter 84 3.2 Hume’s New Scene of Thought 84 3.2.1 Hume’s Conception of the Problem of the Object in the Treatise 88 3.2.2 The Associative Genesis of the Belief in Thinghood 89 3.3 Hume’s Labyrinth: The Aporetic Corners of the Science of Human Nature 94 3.3.1.1 Hume’s Quasi-Observational Strategy 97 3.3.1.2 Hume’s Labyrinth: Broader Implications 100 3.4 The Genesis of the Object: Empiricism versus Common-Sense 105 3.5 John Stuart Mill’s Return to Hume’s Perspective 109 3.5.1 Mill’s psychological theory of the belief in the external world 113 3.5.1.1 The Inadequacy of the Introspective Method 113 3.5.1.2 The Metaphysical Audacity of Intuitionism 113 3.5.1.3 The Redundancy of the Intuitionist Hypothesis 114 3.5.2 Back into the Labyrinth: Mill and the Self 117 3.6 Helmholtz’s Empiricism 120 3.6.1 The Object and Psychological Construction 120 3.6.2 Overcoming the Labyrinth: Helmholtz’s Intellectual Leap 127 3.6.2.1 Helmholtz and the Specificity of the Geisteswissenschaften 127 3.6.2.2 Helmholtz and the German idealist tradition 129 3.7 Summary and Conclusion 131 vi CHAPTER 4 134 HELMHOLTZ’S INTELLECTUAL LEAP (I): TOWARDS A CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING OF EXPERIENCE 134 4.1 Introduction 134 4.2 Kant on Hume’s Labyrinth 135 4.3 Kant’s Analysis of Experience: Preliminary Remarks 138 4.4 Kant’s Doctrines of Synthesis and Apperception 142 4.4.1 The Necessary Connection: Synthesis 144 4.4.2 The Unity of Experience: Kant’s I think 147 4.5 Kant and the I think: Discussion 151 4.5.1 Patricia Kitcher’s Construction of ‘Kant’s Problem’ 155 4.5.2 Manfred Frank’s Construction of ‘Kant’s problem’ 157 4.5.3 Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Construction of ‘Kant’s Problem’ 159 4.6 Helmholtz’s Kant: Towards a Critical Analysis of Experience 161 4.6.1 Perceptual Comprehensibility: Founding the Signaling Function of the Sign-Sensation 164 4.6.2 Helmholtz’s Kantianism: Critical Reflections 167 4.6.2.1 The Evolution in Helmholtz’s Understanding of the Causal Law 167 4.6.2.2 Helmholtz’s Psychological Interpretation of ‘Subjective Necessity’ 171 4.6.2.3 Helmholtz, Schopenhauer and Intuition 174 4.6.3 Helmholtz’s Space 179 4.7 Summary and Conclusion 188 CHAPTER 5 190 HELMHOLTZ’S INTELLECTUAL LEAP (II): IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE ACT 190 5.1 Introduction 190 5.2 Helmholtz and Post-Kantian Idealism: Preliminary Remarks 192 5.3 Fichte’s metacritique of Experience 193 5.3.1 Fichte’s Ego-Doctrine as a Philosophy of Difference 198 5.3.2 Fichte and the Striving Subject 202 5.3.3 Fichte’s Facts of Consciousness: The Phenomenology of Perception 207 5.4 Interludium: From the Pure Ego to the Articulated Leib 210 5.5 Helmholtz and Fichte? Possible Objections 216 5.5.1 Scientific Psychology and Post-Kantian Idealism 217 5.5.2 Helmholtz’s Anti-Metaphysical Stance and Fichte’s Absolute Ego 219 vii 5.6 Helmholtz’s Fichte: In the Beginning was the Act 219 5.6.1 Helmholtz’s Philosophy of Agency 223 5.6.1.1 Agency and Deterministic Causality 224 5.6.1.2 The Will’s Impulse as a Mental Act 226 5.6.1.3 Acting and Moving: The Primacy of the Act 226 5.6.2 Helmholtz’s Physiology of Agency 230 5.6.3 After Helmholtz: The Two Williams Debate 233 5.7 Summary and Conclusion 235 SUMMARY AND GENERAL CONCLUSION 238 BIBLIOGRAPHY 249 viii Preface and Acknowledgements To perceive and represent objects seems to be as ordinary as eating, sleeping or breathing. Yet, one only needs to take note of the vast amount of literature that has been produced on the subject to realize that the ordinary does not always coincide with the self-evident. The ground and genesis of objective experience is, and always has been, at the center of philosophical attention, and gives rise to fierce debate up to this day. Perception indeed seems to be a kind of ―everyday wonder‖, as Liebmann once noted, and the multi-dimensional nature of the phenomenon only adds to its complexity.1 Addressing the problem of object experience inevitably involves a consideration of metaphysical, epistemological, psychological and physiological issues. This was, at least, Hermann von Helmholtz‖s stance on the matter. Although trained as a physician and physiologist, Helmholtz seemed to be very well aware that one does not simply produce a science of perception without also producing philosophy, and conversely, that reflections on the nature of the epistemological subject-object relation, the metaphysical status of the object, and the nature of the mind, play a crucial role in the creation of scientific paradigms of perception. Helmholtz‖s adherence to empiricism and transcendentalism in attempting to account for object experience has fascinated philosophers ever since the publication of his work. Classical apples of discord in this regard pertain to the extent of Helmholtz‖s allegiance to the transcendental tradition, his (alleged) naturalization of the Kantian categories, and the theoretical soundness of his empirico-transcendentalism. Most of these investigations, however, tend to focus primarily on Helmholtz‖s epistemology and his philosophy of science, and much less on the way in which his idiosyncratic philosophical perspective was determined by his psychological concerns. As the 1 Liebmann (1869), p. V. 1 problem of the psychogenesis of object representation in experience has always been at the core of Helmholtz‖s research interests, an exploration of this perspective is certainly worthwhile. Therefore, this dissertation takes the problem of the object, and more particularly the problem of object experience and objectification as a point of departure. The main aim of this analysis is to grasp the systematic purport of Helmholtz‖s empirico- transcendentalism in addressing the ―everyday wonder‖ of the constitution of reality. To that end, Helmholtz‖s theorizing will be interpreted against the background of modern philosophical accounts of experience, and their mutual relation. The choice for this perspective was motivated first and foremost by a concern with the internal consistency and dynamics of Helmholtz‖s psychological theory. Notwithstanding the great number of excellent studies and interpretations of Helmholtz‖s work, the question concerning the systematic connection between all the different philosophical perspectives entangled in his psychology remains open. It is common knowledge that Helmholtz was a self-professed empiricist, who also relied on Kant and Fichte‖s work in articulating his psychological theory of objectification. But what is the glue that holds all these different perspectives together, and what could be the motive for holding such a complex philosophical position in addressing the psychological problem of perception and objectification specifically? I sought to answer these questions by means of a historical investigation into subsequent accounts of objectification in modern philosophy. I soon realized that the historical progression from (Hume‖s) empiricism, over (Kantian) critique, to (Fichte‖s) metacritique – as it is internally regulated by an increasing concern for the structure and organization of the representing subject – provides an excellent framework for the interpretation of the systematic nature and purport of the different levels of analysis in Helmholtz‖s theorizing.
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