Hume at this point smiles somewhat. But then asked Amy to consider another pojut made elsewhere by their Author. This Author , he said, claimed that Hume’s objection to a supreme understanding was groundless because the alternation was simply impossible. Or more particularly, the problem of whether a things can be said to have a purpose or not itself rests upon how that purpose is understood. The claim being that if that purpose is merely an assumption made in the understanding, as it draws disperate movements into a concept, then that is one thing (and for that Author a thing which is perfectly understandable); The only choice he then offers thought is argue that there is but one substance, a move which he correctly enough argues assumes the unity, and then cannot articulate into the individual modes into which it falls (as accident).: “ do do you say,’ Huem said turniong and looking very carefully at Amy’ This seems the case or not”
Amy thinks a long time, looking off into the distiance as she dopes. Flora sares uncomprehending. Slowly then Amy ansers. She says she thinks things are rather more difficult. Firslty Dshe admits tyat she is lost in this terminology, but says that she will assume thatby understaning their Author means the abilty to draw togther elemenes of the mind intoa certain present reality (hume Ndd somekind of assent). And that his unstanding, whther it involves a dog, some money or even the Mashalsea itself, is then in this remark related to some kind of overarching causaility. Hence the Marshalsea itself is bu a sea of moves, and only becomes the prision fropm a purpose within. ( Again Hume nodds). Then Amy adds, she is not sure about th charateizatino of the alternatie, as she might just be able tothimnk of other ways of understanding that mov, but adds quickly iot is of little consequence. F, for what matters now is whtherthis thesis is an accurate critique of their current postion, and to answer this she says she will need to be tol more about what makes a the ideas, what gives the purposes that their author so wishes were true.
Hume then explains. ‘This Author’,m he argues, has already explained many thing by now. He has argued firstly that a purpose is linked to the hidden dynamics of a things which appear strangely for our own use. He sets this then in the context of a discussion of things unseen. The Greek mathematicians were then able to work out all the dynamics of the parabola, and with it laid the future for Newton himself, and yet did soutterly without being aware of it. The essence of the propsive lies then in the fact that the world (such as gravity) appears there comprehendable to us, and useable for us, to bebe designedly sho, and yet exists utterly in reference to itself, and have a life totally apartys and ubto itself, ven as it is usable for us.
Or tp put it clearly. Tologly arises when two thigs occur. On the one hand one must attribute to a concept an extra dimension of causaility. Having the idea therefoe opens out on production as it were. One that other hand one musta lso have a fully formed concept from which this idea, this causality is singing. The Circle is then lying within the mind (and its comprehension of space), but is then pulled out firstly into a parabola, and then made to apply to gravity or what have you. The key thento this application is the defintion of a space in between intuitions and concepts. A circle then to be subjecto this hought must be givien in intuion, (and so cannot be a merely empty possibility), and yet it is not that giving which realtes in any sense to the purpose itself. On the copntary the purpose both thinks the grounds (by which I know this conccpet is a a circle), biut also allows within thjose grounds the possibility that that circl;e might be caught up into other dimension 9such as gravity), and hold a clue (even as it givies its concept) into the way to theorize about these other worlds.
Here I think our author is closer to me (I mean also to Us) than he might like to pretend. It is our conjecture after all that each idea exists only provisionally. One might then find within the one idea many extra dimensions, as occasion demands. Our difference then lies within the way one understands that linking into what he calls concepts. For me the point was that one needed, because of the nature of intuitions, t always problematize the neat little chains of causality whih arose from them. For me then there was a very real possibility that a dimension within an imagination, within a oept might suddenly, as it is caught up in the external worlds ( I mean givienin intuiton) erupt differently, and be taken off elsewhere. Hence for me a n idea was always subject to a corrosive possibility. The possiblitythe entire idea makes no sense at all 9and could fall about ones ears so to speak). However for thi auhors the possilibty is caught up in the dry realtiy of the concept itself (and therefore occurs after the the formations of possibility). A concept might then be or not be (subject to possibility), and yet at its point of inception, it is valid it thought aright.”
“ oh…” Amy suddenly said, and then apologized. It was not meant to cpome out aloud. The last though had been a little different that what she thought, or, she adds perhaps hoped would have been said. Hme askes, the naturally enough what she had hoped. Amy replies, that their author was going to see the oddness of directions internal to the present, as it grasped soemthign elsde. Hence she was both in and out tof th Marshalsea all the time. The poin was that to grasp inan intuopn another as soething different then maks then entire thought unstable, and shoul do 9if it did not she adds their could be a problem). Their author though she adds clearly cannot be saying this.
Ume, who smiled again while Amy spoke then interups here: “ he certainly doenot be dear. On the contrary h makes the claim thatteologly are purely a matter of humanity. They arethen the order one puts into te world’
: But how’ (this is Flora: ‘ I mean how could you know it this was the case? Mean, adds If the thoughts is ones own alone, and knowonesles or Humanotie or a divinintes, where could you tell. Why ould I matter”
Hume Repleis ‘ this sia goopd point,. Our author argues that it must be the case because iy comes from human reasosn (and therefore issubject to our own knowledge opf ourself –he leaves unaddressed whter that reasosn itself comes from). The problem though he hen faces is how to take this principle fo his an apply it to the real world. That is what exactly in the real world could be said by us, by our ideas to operate according to causalities. Here the answer is no doubt framed by he needs of the concept. He coulfd not say then, as we might that it is defined within interactions and sop every concept is permenatly at risk from its own internal possiblityies). He must rather say the far more problematic remark that each element of the universe is said to be purposive when it is emeshed within a complete causual nexus (with the whole itself giving the concept itself). Hence he seeks to enfold the piossiblities which the concept had opened up. I eman the possibility that each dimension, each susidray oncept is always caught ino things beyond itself. It I now endemic so, and yet is so as it is a part of a whole, whose dimension is only givin across the entire intracaies of its relations, and which can never be purposive beyond this realion”
Amy cannot let this carry on. Aagain she interuupts. She claims that this is pure nonesne as it missed he defintative point of a living creature. Creatures are not, for her, and she adds, sh thinks for Hume as well, merly to be thoiught of interms of their bodies. On the contrary they are closer to being a nexus of perception. Or bttr, she adds, how the hidden spirings of nature, which intracte the indvidual with it mnatural world are caught in allowing something to be alive. One cannot then (sav over the bland question of mortality) separate out a living body from all the rest, and pretend to oneself hat it matter/
Hume interupts again ‘ say rather this is a deteabout the nature of those hidden spirings in which the min is givien. For us, the hidden springs are elements that pitch a mind ino the world (the hidden springs are then ultimately merely one force amongst all the rest possible) For our Author, to the contrary the point lies in having a complete mind…”
“ Oh” inerupts Flora,: Sorry, but also you mean also having a complete body as well, so can only give then one with the other, unlike you two ho argue that neither th body or mind ae either complete (and that perception, and the body as h9dden springs it contains) means that this is the case’ “ Hume Aagain gestures aprovavl, and continues. Here I think itmight be useful to rembme what I saud. I represented three gie distinct alternativesfopr thinking against simple Teleolgoy. It is perfectly possible to behave a our Author does, and assune the world is the creartion of some divine mind (and he was wrong is not allowing m this thought). The problem I had with this thought was not that it was wrong, but trather that it lead one to the lunacy of imposing humanity (and the God made in its image) upon the world. Think of a creater, and its mind then by all means and yet not confuse that mind with morality or anything to do with humans, our Auhto here is of course attempting to develop a alternative here. He is arguing that nature itself has not purpose save the one I must give it to understand it (which of course I accept one does), and therefore that this division cannot be made. That is one cannot simply separate out the my attribution of the world to a divine mind from my abilty to understand. However, as I have aleady made clear this attribution bothers me hardly at all, as it demnds that one accepts already what he has said about understanding, and its concepts. It rests ultimately therefore or our Authours belief that understanding at once synthsized an accurate and fixed concepts of things external to us, but that it only did so according to rules within usThe Concept is complete, an therefore so must we be. My entire argument rests on almost the opposite move,; namely that a body, and its mind were fundamentally pitched within the world, and this pitching concerns, in the latter case pintuitons (in the former it involves those hidden springs of nature). Each idea is therefore provisio…’
Amy againinterupts. This im she does not apoligize,but says that it cannot be quite a simple as Hue is making out. The point, she then goes on to say, about the perception lies in the fact that it is necessarily conscious. It is not hen that perceptions are simply lying broke in the mind (she adds), but this breaking is caught up within a consciousness, which will always do its best to arrange itself across the lines of fracture (and she might add, but does not, across what is absolutely unbridgible).
The difference then is where the ‘unity’ is For Their Author (Amy says) it is clear that the unity is, it being argued held within the reciporical relations of the body. A Body is then always caught up in its own unity. The Idea makes good the lack of any clear principle arranged across all the process of the body, and allows the concept (the this is a certain animal) he emerge from an apparent diversity of shifting moves). This move is, moreover, she adds fundamentally distinct from the other more, by the same author, who of course argued that understanding was tied to consciousness (and what he called the I Think). He places therefore possibility and consciousness in the service of the construction of concepts (that is the drawing of the world of into perceptions). Reserving then for ideas (that is reason in a far fuller sense) the ability to regulate what then goes into the concept (which it of course does at the same time). Th upsot is then that ideasre operating as almost ‘shadow consciousness’, finding within the bodies of others. Pretexts and principles by which those bodies could be thought of as if they were conscious (which appears to me to be the aim of his teologizing).’
‘ Maybe.’ It is Hume who relpiles: ‘ I see your poin. He certainly does need to understand then the body, and ultimately all of nature as if it were an arcetonic mind. His argument being that this is what we must do inorder to understand at all…’
Amy again inteupt. She says that was her point. He needs to makethis move because he has reversed what for her ought to be the order here. That is, she says , the consciousness is for her and hume the product of the process. It goes then without saying that one can infer from this effect varying analogous expereineces. She says, she means, that one can argue that other animals probably have some kind o consciousness of their own (and therefore it is not such a great thing, as she suspects their Author thinks) to argue that they are conscious. Indeed she wonders if she might say that all living things are essentially ‘conscious’ (by which, Flora at least understands here as meaning all elements are defined though their ability to think other in themsevles, and not merely to react to those other: Hence it is Hume at lrast understands, to reflect the postion of th sprining body, which remains whole only in the quake of being sprung). Hnece one can then reasoon effectively consciousness sin animals, and yet the nalogy would become under stain (and yet to a degree be valid) for plants. The problem then being in what sense one can think the same idea for Nature (or cutlrue or whatvere).
Hume here cackles in delight. “ This is my point! He’ Suddenly says: this Authors is clearly taking the consciousness as a model., and then, finding that he cannot in good conscience apply it to animals, and fearing to argue then for different kinds of cosciousness (for that would apply to souls as well), he looks to their bodies, and to the argument that a body, and its shifting causes, its ability to hold within itself its own dimensions: Both in the sense of its own ability to exist, but also the dimensions of what it will become (it own Autopoeisis), allows one to set up an analogy to conciousness in the body itself.
That where my father must be!” Flora interupts’ I mean in those shifting percepctives, those not quite being abl to hold onto what you are. Imean, the point is, that is one sets up the body as ana anaology o consciousness, then the arguments clearly also runs the otherway. The consciousness becomes itself consitistent in its shifting respectives, and reflections. One is caught up otherwise in time, then and conscuious becomes its stooge. Upne is suddenly then I do not know quite where’.
“ Tahtis as maybe Flora, but it is clear hat it is currently becide the point.’ Hume answrs.’ What matters here is that this procedure by our Author rauns, I think contary to whatone should do. Faced with the order of the world, he iks clearly right, one needs complex explainations. And yet the burden of the prove here must surely lie in the complexity of what is requires, an not the explaination. I mean our author understands the need for compleixt, and their presets one with a single extremel complex solution. I preferred to dny that a single explaiantion was simply necessary (not does of course our Auhor deny this, as the point is for him hat everything is merely a hypothesis). The result bein that I give three (but wih I cold have givien more) possible analogies, with each becoming more dsiant fom human consciousness’
Amy here answers that she thinks the Author of whom theuy are speaking might want to say at this point that they were slightly pastiching his position. His argument (as Hume had faithfully recounted Amy says) was that understanding, or better something like understanding was needed to allow one to draw up imaginatio into conepts (and therefore experience is not enough). Reflection therefore needs to inhabit, (and here Amy looks worried at Flora) its temporalities in two differing directions:it therefore needs already to be reaching into itself, and pulling itself differently, even as is given therefore, Amy concludes.
Hue though snorts and pelies, ‘why is then that then a crtisim of my postio prey? Allt he more so if I accept Flora’s arguemen, as I who have been makingit so forughtly to me. Tht is if I accept that causality articualtes times in muddy in them in diverting ways. Hence Arthur the idea did not rest in Flora’s mind by bred in it a monster. Where then we differ fro this Author, and from your Father, is that we feel little complusion to provide an architonic to this muddling. That is for us the muddling is the effect of being within a mind, within a body within a universe; while for him the muddling is the very stuffing of the Soul itself!But that is almpst the point. Once the soul has such astuffing, of he goesto collct other analagaous, and finds theworld fo nature.
For us however there must be quite a differne road. Casaualtieis,as Flor presents then lyer th mind o varying differing complex degrees (if one accepts, as I suppose I might) he idea ah tone can think of a cause which straddles , widely different times. Now The point is that the elements which would be analogous to these times would pull the mind beyond concousness. I herefore present to other version, of possibilities for nature, the Vegatble and the Bloind force universes. Now it is worth stressing here, what conditions these moves, that I what these universes all share is the demand to treat in the external world. The point is then always how does this treatment happen. The eprcoeving mind clearly arranges a world of conscious causes in one way, and he plant and blind force another.
Nature could say be akin to a great vegatabkle, which constantly exteds itself, nd ita body (an hich can then accepts a great deal of change and shiftaing of ballsts and dimensio). The Vegatabe wiorld is then world of slow growing cauasilities, of budding, and inaction which klater appers to take root, and change what it. It I a world also of natural flows, where apparently unrelated elements (for example the evapouratin of water) are taken up by a lving form, and used, and yet the use remains firmly ‘natural’ (it I impossible therefore to say that a plant causes the flow in its vessels, as it is a palnt it certainly does not). Likewise it is a world o misdirecion. Energy from one great source is oddly misapprioate for another, sun becomes sugar , and soul chemicals are directly taken yp into the riots and made likewise. Additionally (and perhaps oen I carrying no the anaoplgy too far) it is also great that the very structure of a plant relies on the flows of the elements which nonetheless reamin external for it. Hence its cells are unflated within water, whici is never simply its own). To be a palnt is thn not akin to a mid. One is not as consciousness surely does (and no boubt does even in a plant) warping the world into recip[orical relations. one the contary almost the point about the plant is that these elements reamin external, and are not simply taken up and subsumed (in any whioch way). A p[alnt (and the mind,or natue as it can be a plant0 is then necessarily pitched into the world, which it can of course partially modify, and yet its life cannot be reduced to hese modification alone. If we are following our authors archtonics. The Mind and the concept were taken togther (and givien an animal reality), as it was across these ordring dimension of recipircally determined causes and effects the concept of an animl could be allowed. Here, the the vegetable, one has a different ser up, in that the causes are no longer ricporically determined relations, but rather juxtapose elements which retian their difference, and must do so,even as one is said to infear with the other. Te concept is then not the point of union (and onr needs no mind, I mean universal consciousness) to suppose this unity or think it allowed. On the country on needs a plant’ subevision’ (which is distinct from prupose) that that takes up elements, as different to it, and allows that difference essentially to matter (or perhaps articulates it differently)
Blind force is of course different ahgain. These forces share with understanding the idea that they are both cause and effect, are both caught up in bein midified, and also thesmevles modify. They pass, at it were (and of course this is a mere imagination, a fancy if you will0 they pass between many assignabl perception, a thnable element in matter, and ae always effects (ad effected) in soe,thing else. It maks jo matter that this though of itself in almost unthinkable (it is certainly unpecievable), as the current debate is not, quite about the thought, bnut also the unthought elements(o better what it isI am perceiving). The Blind force is then the point which is always acting elsewhere , and so the pojnt which is most fitting to be perceived (or better givies he clue to perception itself: it allows as ral that taking, reacting in another which perceptios must be). These lind forces then can make no order of theirwon 9for all their reamin ritical) and yet might at ceratin times, locally at least be arrage in partiocualr orders (one might say bpoies), which comprise certain organs (or better ways to take up their motion). One can therefoe articulate as distinct what is necessarily conjoined in our authors work. He thinks that the riciporical raltinos, and the units in which this realtino I given are one and the same (which it is in the other cases, and is after all the rational position, and one the vegative and mind point start with). These realtino are now thproduct of temproaltieis as it were (and may , but it would need to be demonstrated usually will be so), the the blind forces, the demanding another change dris the process onwards.
For how are we toknow that then entire supposition of this author (and so many) tht order requires an expanation is itself such a problematic one? Maybe order is merely hat many intracieis, many reapting relations create kntotime, at some level. And we, at our levl;, in ou own order look to the spoecific orders surroind us, and blink in follosih wonder, thinking how odd it is. We do not then see either the chaos surrounding such an order, nor yewt the fact hat our order is caught in other chopass (or partialorders), but larger and smaller than ourselves. But this is of course the merest speculation.
What the last point then makes clear enoughis that the achetonic here is one or both order an coas (which both early emerge across the time, even thohgh they ae notof that time), and yet the elemen which the creates the concept reaminsdisitnct (as the blind force). However one needs of course here an additional care, in hinking this force, it is clearly a nonesense to ask (as it is with identity) where it is one or many. It is neither or both. If anything it is of course closest to being many. Each force only makes sense as it is occupied within other dimensions of the ‘whole, is a subversion across these elements: An abilty to thn deide one many, opart of whole is then lot ( picture which dos of couse mirror perception rather well, and even consciousness, and perception give us, but no doubt outrages reason)’
Amy replies,that she does see the sense I ue’s postio. It seems to her that it would add an extra dimension to what their author had asserted. Hume asks hw. Amy looks at Flora who starts off.
‘ What we are saying, I think is that this author gets for us at least something very right. He get the idea that there are differing orders within nature. Hence th patterns in which the body is formed is not quite the same nature as the patterns within nature as a wghole is ormed. The author then ees this, no oubt as a product of both the differing abilty of the archtonic mind, and the diffeing reciporical elelemtns. The world is then full of wholes (which are in that they are wholes of one kind) and thought as recopical relations. The hole, perhaps are then like society itself, heaassertino of one emense ballet upon the world. The contrary position is then the one you are arung, that thei as simply different physical realtieis behind these differing points (and that only one of them as a hole at all). The other elements then simply never form part-whole systems, but rather either pose merely parts (the vegatuv mind0 or a system which is nether part not whole 9blind force). The entire problem becomes then impossible to arbitrate across or between differing whole, one needs rather to revel int hem (and in anoy others on can devise). Hence perhaps (her Fglora looks areully at Amy, as if reading her face, which appear to hume quite blank),the point is tht onc one is dealing with a paereptio as it is in ones body, the wold as Maggie migh say it, one is freed from the Author’s her teology of concept and object, or reality. The world is never about realities, but rather involves constructions and constitutions of elements, whose articulation and construction remains problematic and which while they allow one to navigate iemnsionof the wold, also contain elements of artifice and fancy”.
“ Now I am nt sure exactly what you are saying here’ (This is Hume)’ or better, it seems to me that you ould be conceivably saying one of two thigs. You could be mking an iontological claim as to the nature of artifice and truth. Each such construction is then at once both an acess point on the world, a way to articulate the elements in that world (to understand why it s one understands as one does, and as our Author has it). The alternative argument is the one think I made (although perhaps my dsicintion here wer less clear than could be): That everythin is artifice because everything is perception, and therefore the is nothing special abou any point of the many artifice, save what is givien by habit. It is then Habit which is ture, and the artifices it builds.”
Amy replies that Hue need caution here not to confuse dimension in his won work. I is certainly the cae that every construction of the mind is bounded up error, which it articulates, and augments. Indeed Amy wonders whether this was the real problem. For her at least (but she thinks she doubts Hume could accept this), there would be no neat or easy barruer between elements in the mind that were constructive and elements which pulled the mind in direction it should not go. Her Fther was hen both. Both miser, beggar, and yet in his helping of others (for whatever motive) or his love of her, strangely noble. The deep problem she always faces is the problem that noble thoughts or complex careful readings is certainly not enough to prevent other elements also being strengthened. Artifice is then a very correct terms (and perhaps is fancy), for querying the status of what elemens one finds in ones mind. It demands that truths be constantly re-forged ino habits, into usal practices (themselbes modifying)m, and that those which flot upon the top of the thought, it adtionally values, and then sentances to languish in the mashalasea of the mind: In debt to oher brighter thoughts elsewhere.
Flora adds hre, ‘ the problem with these errors, these debtors whther inPrision or in the Office or in Parliament, is that they never know themselves to be in debt.”
Am contnues. Therefore the point of your work is to allow th mind both a point that it can learn about the world, an reac to it, and yet also a demand that what it does know is always caught up in the game of modifying the world in which it is given. How of course (given the split from simple ideas and impressions) be otherwise? To call idas a fancy is then a reproof’…
“ And yet’ Hume interjects’ there is a real problem here . Or at least our author might have it so. He would argue, no doubt that the concept is needed to understand at all, and the concept can then our be understood through an appeal to reason, in which the conditions by which a concept, a want, is constructed out of a number of disperate and conflicting intuitions”
Againti isFlora who answer: ‘ But we have said this. Or perhaps, (here she strangely looks in Hume’s face, and seems to read things out of his eyes)., one needs so much care here. Your author I his first critique clearly wants to have two things one way ,if you see what I mean. On the on hand he argues that it is impossible to gather impression upon impression into a single intuition unless space and time operated to resolve these impressions: or the other he argues that the concept and the present arise together (=x). Hence the reason why impressions cannot be gathered togter in a single intution (called space or time) in internal to the construction of space and tiem itself! You argument is wso very muh more sublte. St leas that is what my says’
The argument, Amy carries on here, as that he impressions was indeed over and gone (and not like an concept) because it left, in a imple idea, a highly complex artifact (and artificie). It was then opf course spossible to take this artifice (or actually to taken an amalgam of many artifices) and back date them, as it were towards theintuitons into which the turmbles int the mind. Of course one can d so, Amy says. And yet one can also wonder why one should want to behave in such a paradoxical manner.: or better want to account for this manner itself.
Or perhaps, Amy says, looking here almost anxious, one needs to ask of oneself why this author looked to the mind to explain this curious feeding back (and so found my father, mutters Flora again Hume notes). The point I that he wished that the truths of his mind were necessarily true, and was prepared to invent the one circumstance of the min in which this is indeed the case: The particular understandings. In reference to our above discussion, it is of course really no wonder that it this move requires one to suppose the existence of a universal mind (which is nonetheless, not created save in this thought): How else can a truth be guranteed save whn oen supposed that soemthign totally other has thought it first. Our Authors Genius then lies in having this attibutino a part in the human mind itself (and way it knows itself to be human, to be thinkling) rathe than is directly asserting such a mind to be. However we might very well say that the need for truth lies at the root here. The Archtonic mind, is the then rubric which justifies the fee back mechanisms by which an idea has an identity (Amy here involuntarily shudders) bred into it. But perhaps one can make exactly the same ideafor he giant vegatable. Of couse te problem is different. It is no longer the problem of understaning exactly what purpose all these disperate understandings perform (and therefore how they can be conditioned into a single idea). The problem is now one of how each given force, is made to act otherwise ven as I share in its energy. The world in then not the understanding of purpose, but the act of transition, of founding oneself with energy conversion. Each indivial wil lthen not be mysteries dimension within understanding, s much as an ability to itself be criss-crossing those dimension, always partially, and always from inside. The Giant vegatable, in then the thinking of the impossibility of living this to act without challenging that medium in which they are (and which from which at times they are barely distinguished). This is not puropose, in the sense one is not simply asking ‘what goes where’, or even how does this fit into a whole, plant, how can a plant be said to be forming or forcing these ideas. On the contrary, one essentially needs to drop the idea of the plant being simply xternal from the forces it suberts, but also that I has a single simple point of being.
When Amy said this last popint, Hume suddenly started.
Amy looked very shy of an instan, but soiledered on. She saus she means that the entire point form her of a plant seemed to lie in itl ambivalence of form and shape. A single plant cold in different condition be many forms. It could likewise compromise many differing potential individuals (by budding or flowering). It lacks then an immiedate and simple unity of the animals: Its process, it realtion to the enrg into which it is cuahgt is then able to make a single act (saying growing a limb) opn at it were to numerous possible ‘puopses’, and dioffering event and occasion allows. To set oput a root, is also then to op up the possility of becoming a different plant, or being o the waytoa d fifering plant. One cannot thenrefoe dar into a worl of single puriopse (the this does that), as the point is it does many (and might not even lead to the ame paln, either as n individual, or even, as s the caseof a fruit tree, or a lichen for that matter, the same plant). Plants simply are ot then seprated from thesemvles and others in the same way as anaimals are, an cannot be understood simple by purpose.
Here Hume intrputs. ‘ this is intereting, but takes us intot he the land of a hpless metaphysic’.
Amy deiens this. She says that she has not simply sai that the plant exists . he would not calim then that being plant and being a mind were simply tendencies on thisng thesemvles. A ludicrously immodest calim, h thinks. What she emans was that if one follws their autheor one can make the same argument about plants as mind
\.Hume demurs at this point. ‘ Tnere is however a clear differenence, rember the poer of to as if. The point is that an act of understanding immaentently assumes everything to be as in a great mind to understand at all. It is not then ht this umind exists in any other place than the understanding itslf. It is therefore the practicle hypothesis assumed within the mind, within reason, one that we cannot dispense with’
Amy denies again that there is really much difference here. The idea that one is part in the universe, and caught up in the forces of others, which are absolutely distinct, and almost violently so, seems to Amy at least to be just as a realistic truth as anything else, anything understanding might otherwise demand. (Hume acquessess at this point).
Likewise Amy continues a force is not simply ‘there’ a tendency o the world, n yet is a corrallary to understanding the inumerbality of elements which logically mus be pitched inbetween distinct parts. Ay says she means, thepoint fo this blind force lies in its abilty to encompass, without resorting ever to unity. The point of the force then lies in no whole, but rather in the wetching part from any was of thinking the whole:everything of the force is a part. Where of course you and I, and one of your interloquers agree is that the ‘ontological’ status of this force remains undescidable. It oes not have
(or require) a unity its on, and exists then mostly, or perhaps entirely, a hypothesis bred within our minds (even toughno by us). It then takes the element ofth plant life – the though of beign cauht, and turns it into the findamental extraction of the wold itself. A blind force, neither one more many, in which we are a mere element9incldigign our abilty to think), describes then a supreme dimension of being locked ithin a self re-creative world (and does so without the need, as our Author notes, to eve blithely asser that this world has some simplistic truth value of itself own). Hume here looks almost vain Hethen carries; The queion of course in the link between these diemnsino and th world of art. You will remember that in art sees then mind gather extra dimension to itself. in a wok ofart then one lurches across the realm possible thoughts, and feels the very multitidue of possible reaction as a creative force (one thereby allows oneself a greater dimension to ones thinking). Ow what you have said clearlytoches on a disinctino I made when discussing this remark. The Narrative based view of the historian (so vital in most ways), clearly operates within the domain of our authors Archetonic mind. To think a history is to reatea thread o events leading to other events, that was never simply within the world. On grafts therefore a linear time, a passing of the past into the future, which while utterly natural to all the minds thinking this progress was nonetheless not of the world itself. This contrast ith the peots gift, who palces his characers less in a story, ad both up agains thte voilenece fo nature itself, wjere thoughs nd feelings are endlessly pitching the actors anew in a stormy sea of living. Hence the view of the historian is the view or author. The view however of the poet is closer to the world of the vegatvie mind, where nothing is ver smply what it was, orwhat it seems, and the exernal forcoes always policie what one is. What human endeavour mirrior the final dimension, that of lind fore I know not, less it is true philosoph itself, which forver aims to remove umans from the conforts of simply asserting their rights to ideas (either by custom or reason0.
Amy nodd here, but says she thinks they might have dallied long enough.