I have tried to
criticize the common prejudice about Wolffian philosophy that he, in
Kant's words, intellectualized appearances. As I have tried to show,
this is a rather exaggerated and even misleading opinion. If
anything, Wolff was Lockean, when it comes to the source of
cognition, and even highly abstract concepts were for Wolff either
phantasms dependent on perceptions or words symbolizing such
phantasms. Instead of intellectualizing appearances, Wolff picked out
a certain subgroup of them as an ideal of cognition, that is,
distinct or analysed perceptions, which could be used as a basis for
demonstrations.
Even if Wolff would
not intellectualize appearances, he appears to fall into a second
failing of many pre-Kantians, namely, he reduces appetetive side of
human mind into its cognitive side. This seems evident from Wolff's
suggestion that all cravings, desires, hopes, volitions etc.
presuppose some cognition. In other words, we could not want anything
to happen, Wolff says, if we could not see what the situation is like
and compare it with some ideal how the situation should be. On top of
this, Wolff defines all forms of enjoyment simply as intuitive
cognition of something as perfect, making even bodily pleasure appear
rather intellectual, like an aesthetic consideration of a statue.
The last problem is
actually easy to solve, when one remembers that Wolffian cognition
need not be highly conceptual. We need not be able make sophisticated
explanations why a taste of sweetness or an orgasm is pleasurable,
but we could just cry out ”Oh my God, yes, this is what I want”
or even utter no comprehensible sounds. Indeed, the word ”intuitive”
tells that this enjoyment does not need any linguistic expression at
all, but is instigated by mere perception. What is important is that
we human beings are, as it were, hardwired to seek for such feelings
of perfection and to avoid respective feelings of imperfection.
Furthermore, we
already know from the study of Wolff's theory of cognition that he
acknowledges a difference in vividness and strength between
sensations and higher intellectual representations. Indeed, a
capacity to at least partially avoid the influence of distracting
sensations was an essential precondition of more intellectual
cognition. Similarly, Wolff can accept that bodily pleasures
captivate us so strongly that it will cloud our reason – and
similarly pain can make us unable to think clearly. Then again, we
also can exercise an ability to become indifferent even to quite
strong bodily pleasures and pains. Thus, although being tortured is
painful, there have been people able to suppress these extreme
feelings, and even if such extreme self-control is rare, all of us
can in some degree endure at least some type of bodily discomfort.
A good question is
whether Wolff is making an artificial restriction by declaring the
appetites for pleasures and aversions of discomfort and pleasure to
be essentially connected to cognitions. After all, appetites and
aversions we are aware of might be just expression of some
unconscious urges. Yet, Wolff is here purposefully restricting
himself on what we can immediately observe of ourselves, while the
explanations for these observations are left for rational psychology.
Thus, Wolff can in empirical psychology point out only that conscious
appetites and aversions are clearly dependent of cognitions. This
still does not preclude the possibility of unconscious activities
causing this whole play of appetites and cognitions.
In Wolffian system,
why we feel positive and negative feelings is ultimately work of God
and meant to be useful. For instance, bodily pleasure should
reward us for benefiting the condition of our body, while bodily
pain should warn us of harming our body. Yet, Wolff points out,
enjoyment is defined only as cognizing something AS perfect, that is,
there remains the possibility that what we enjoy is in truth really
not perfect or even good for us. Taste of sugar sends a pleasurable
feeling, because we require energy that is easily obtainable from
sugar, but eating too much sweets will still be detrimental to our
health. Similarly, pressure on nerves in our teeth will cause
considerable pain as a warning for a possible dental injury, but
similar pain felt in a dentist's chair occurs just as a side effect
of fixing our teeth.
The possibility of
deceptive enjoyments is essentially connected with the confusion of
mere unanalysed sensations. Thus, pleasure or pain is just a murky
feeling of ”Yes!” or ”No!” without any proper indication what
actually is good and bad in the events causing these feelings. A good
question is how we can then recognize enjoyment caused by true
perfection and distinguish it from deceptive positive feelings –
especially as working it out from Wolff's ontological definition of
perfection seems rather difficult. Wolff's suggestion appears to be
that constancy can be used as a relevant criterion – truly perfect
things cause enjoyment that cannot be contradicted by future
knowledge, while deceptive enjoyment could well be just momentary and
fleeting.
Affects, like love
and hope, fall usually to the more confused side of appetites and
aversions – we have tender feelings toward a person and often just
cannot explain why. Wolff presents an intricately detailed account of
affects and defines them twice – first nominally, by explaining
what e.g. love means, and then through its real definition which
tells us how to generate love. As I said earlier when dealing with
Wolffian theory of affects,
the whole system of affects has too much material for a good blog
text, thus, I will skip the topic now also. Hence, next time I shall
move to consider the question of interaction between mind and body.
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