The Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati

§ 511, n.). "Reflection adds light and perception to human knowledge. Hence, while philosophic science has, on the one hand, the disadvantage of being very liable to error, it has, on the other, the advantage of being furnished with a light and a perception immensely superior to those of popular knowing, if it arrives at truth. Reflection . . . is moved by instinct and by will, but we may say simply by will, because this always co-operates, at least, in the way of habits or negatively. Hence the will, right or wrong, guides reflection to error or to truth" (Ibid., vol. iii. § 1373; cf. Logic, §§ 998, 999).

Perception infallible. Reflection may be rendered so by Logic.

70.

In demonstrating that we have an infallible faculty of perception, we have disposed of the sceptics. In reflection, indeed, there is the possibility of error, inasmuch as it is veracious or mendacious according to the use we make of it; but Logic was invented for the very purpose of showing us how to use it, so that it might lead us to truth, and show us how to recognize and avoid error.

The place of Logic in a system of science is shown in the following passage:-"As being, which is the term of intelligences, has three modes-reality, intelligibility, and morality [see § 166], so also the intelligent subject has three modes of uniting itself to being. It may unite itself as a real with a real, as an intelligent with an intelligible, or as a being endowed with will with an object willed. . The real union forms the subject of a Physiology of the soul, which is a part of Anthropology. The spiritual union forms the subject of the Moral and Eudæmonistic Sciences. The union of the intelligent with the intelligible is the subject of Ideology and Logic. Ideology treats of the

union of the human spirit with intelligible being under the forms of idea and concept, and hence deals with the nature of idea and concept. And since there is a first idea, which is being itself in its ideal form, Ideology shows where evidence, and hence, where the supreme criterion, lies. Hence in Ideology is contained the germ of Logic, which teaches in what way the human spirit, in possession of the idea, may still more closely unite itself with intelligible being, that is, with truth, by means of the development of that being, and how it may avoid errors on the way" (Logic, § 1099). "The mediator, so to speak, between pure and applied science is Logic" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1464; cf. above, under § 52).

71.

always in

the voluntary.

Reflection

Re- does not, but dentally,

save acci

produce

error.

Let us observe here that error always depends Error is upon the will, and is, for that reason, never product of the mere faculties of cognition. flection never gives birth to error of itself, always because we make it say what it does not say. Indeed, the original objects of reflection are perceptions, which, as we saw, cannot contain error. This first reflection merely tells us what is contained in one or more perceptions; it merely analyzes and recomposes. But if the reflection said that the perceptions contained what they did not contain, it would not then, properly speaking, be reflection, since it would not reflect upon perceptions; it would be another power simulating reflection-it would be a liar saying that reflection asserted what it did not assert. This liar is, of course, ourselves. We have the faculty of affirming what reason does not tell us. This is the

The faculty of conviction does not always depend, as it should, on that of reasoning. Hence

error.

Various

causes which produce conviction in spite of reasoning.

Error, though always voluntary, is not always culpable.

faculty of persuasion, which must be clearly distinguished from the faculty of reasoning. Reasoning is and ought to be a means of persuasion. But persuasion is likewise formed independently of it. We often have an inner persuasion that there is reasoning when there is not-that reasoning says something which it does not say. Our persuasion, assent and judgment are not always due to reason, but sometimes to instinct, habit, prejudice, affection, passion. Thus error insinuates itself into rational beings, not because they are rational (if they were purely rational, they would be incapable of error), but because, besides the faculty of reason, they have the faculty of judging arbitrarily. For this reason, we say that it is the nature of error to be voluntary. It does not follow from this that error is always sinful or culpable; it does, however, always partake of the moral characteristics of the causes which produced it.

On the nature of persuasion, see under § 5. Error Rosmini defines as "a reflection in which the understanding, turning back upon what it has cognized, voluntarily denies its assent to the same, and inwardly affirms that it has learnt something else than what it actually has learnt" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1285). He elsewhere calls it "a consequence which does not result from the premises" (Ibid., § 1293). "The occasional causes of error," he says, "are two: first, the similarity which the false has to the true; and, second, the inclination of the will to give assent to that which resembles the truth, because it suits the inclination itself" (Ibid., § 1290).

72.

It is the province of Logic to enumerate the Three occasions and causes of error, and to show

kinds of

how remedies against

sources.

they may be avoided. It is clear that, in order error, corresponding to avoid culpable errors, we must have recourse to its three to moral preventives; we must heal the disordered will, when it leads the faculty of conviction astray to its own culpable ends. The physical causes of error, morbid instincts, disorder of imagination, etc., must be removed by physical remedies. Lastly, if error proceeds from precipitancy or imprudence, we must meet it by prudential measures, by logical rules precisely expressed.

73.

Logic does not content itself with merely Sophistic. indicating the various ways in which the causes of error may be removed, but likewise shows how errors may be detected and corrected after they are committed. The characteristics of error are very numerous. One class of these is to be found in the verbal expression of reasoning, and the branch of Logic which points out such symptoms of error is called Sophistic [σοφιστική].

"Sophisms," says Rosmini, "are apparent arguments. They imitate the form of argumentation; but, by erring in some essential part of it, they fail to draw any cogent or true conclusion. . . . Sophisms are divisible into three classes: first, those which have their foundation in the

falsity of the matter, that is, of the propositions which form the premises of the syllogism; second, those which sin against the form of the syllogism; and, third, those whose falsity results not so much from the particular argumentation as from the intent of the dispute" (Logic, § 710). Rosmini devotes a section of his Logic to a consideration of the various forms of sophism, Book ii. sect. iii. pp. 281-304 His definition of Sophistic corresponds closely with that given by Aristotle: “Εστι γὰρ ἡ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη σοφία οὖσα δ ̓ οὔ, καὶ ὁ σοφιστὴς χρηματιστὴς ἀπὸ φαινομένης σοφίας ἀλλ ̓ οὐκ οὔσης" (Top., ix. 1 ; 165a, 21 sqq.).

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