Apr 18 2009
Rosmini’s Sketch of His Own Philosophy: Article 7
7. Formation of Determinate Ideas.
As regards the determination of the ideas of being (Which is itself the indeterminate ide), we shall easily discover their origin by the following considerations.
Let us suppose that man is possessed of the idea of being, that is to say, that he knows what being or existence is, we see at once how the idea may be exchanged for the sensation. Because when we experience sensations we may say to ourselves, this is a being limited and determined by the sensation.
Because when we experience sensations we may say to ourselves, this is a being limited and determined by sensation. For example, when I see a star I may say mentally, this is a luminous being, and the like.
The senasations, therefore, furnish me with the first determinations of being, so that when I think of a luminous being acting upon my organ of sight, I no longer think of indeterminate being only, but of a being with the determination of luminosity of a certain degree of luminous intensity, of a determinate shape and size, ect. All these qualities make the idea determinate, and are all furnished by the senses. But it does not follow that these determinations of the idea are sensations themselves. This we shall see if we distinguish the different operations which take place in the formation of these perceptions.
In fact, when on beholding a star we say to ourselves, this is a luminous being, we pronounce an affirmation or judgment. We have already shown the distinction between cognitions by affirmation and simple ideas. But we have said also that the first of these depend on the latter, so that we can not affirm the subsistence of an object, unless we first have the idea of it. Therefore, in the judgment by which we affirm the star as present before our eyes, and which we term perception of the star, the idea of it is already contained. We have then to perform another mental operation by isolating the idea from all the other elements of the perception. This operation is termed universalization, and it is thus performed:
When I perceive the star, my thought is bound up with a particular and sensible object. But I can free it from this by abstracting entirely from the thought of the actual subsistence of the star, retaining the image of it in my mind, and considering it as a possible star, as type and exemplar of all such stars, indefinite as to their number, which might be realized by creative power. Now the possible star is a pure determinate idea.
This determinate is no longer the sensation; for this is real not possible, yet it is true that the sensation was the occasion of my discovering it. It was discovered by my intelligence, by considering as possible that which my sensation gave me as real. And this my intelligence was well able to do, if we suppose it to know what possible being is. But the possible star is universal, that is to say it may be realized an indefinite number of times, and this operation of our intelligence is, therefore, termed universalization.
By universalization, therefore, we form the ideas which are completely determined; by abstraction we form those which are determined only to a certain extent, but are otherwise undetermined. Thus, supposing that, besides abstracting from the subsistence of the star, I abstract also from its isze and form, its degree of luminosity, and other accidents, which remain before my mind? I have still the idea of star, but this idea is abstract or generic, equally applicable to a star of the first, second, or third magnitude. This idea, then, is partly determinate, because the idea of the star could not be confounded with the idea of anything else; but it is also in part indeterminate, because it does not apply more to one star than to another.
If then the human mind is possessed of the idea of possible being, there is no difficulty in finding how it gets the determinations which, as it were, clothe, limit, and transform it into all the other ideas. These determinations are occasioned and materially furnished by the sensations, and afterwards formed into ideas by means of the twofold operations above described-namely, universalization and abstraction.
