Does it Make Any Sense to Talk About “Reality as a Whole”
Since Bradley sustains the primacy of the immediate experience in the detriment of any kind of judgment upon perceiving the reality, we can already infer that he would oppose that reality can be perceived as a whole, since many objects that form the subjects of judgments would not be included. But what is to be doubted is his categorical claim that reality is not shaped through the reference to judgments.
Let us then proceed with analyzing Bradley’s stream of thought and get some more insight in the axiomatic system that he builds to define reality in his works.
Bradley’s focus is on judgment. He affirms that judgment in the strict sense is prepositional. Thus, it bears truth-values, being capable of determining whether a proposition is true or false. This will prove of extreme importance in refuting Bradley later. Further, judgment involves ideas. Interestingly, these ideas are symbols that refer through the suspending of their own mental existence and characteristics identifying themselves only with one element which they are symbols of. Therefore, these ideas are in close connection with the immediate experience, since the true value of the idea is to be taken from the immediate experience, leaving aside the general objects that they might be symbols of.
This is again of a great importance for later in the essay, because of the nuances in which judgment is to be interpreted together with its role in outlining reality. Judgments must then be true or false, but the truth or falsehood cannot lie in itself.
We can see from now the question that will arise and which will give rise to interpretations. Judgments are built on ideas, and ideas take their meaning from immediate experiences. Now, is judgment a greater part of immediate experience (since it involves it and uses it further) or is immediate experience the only way to reality since it is “pure” (even though gives a more limited reality)?
The first definition of the real given by Bradley as “that which is individual”, would entitle us to affirm that judgment would give rise to reality.
Bradley now comes and enforces his definitions, inclining the balance towards the immediate experience. Indeed, he says that the possibility of truth that is to be filtered in order to form a judgment is an effect of reality. Still, to what extent he is right is discussable. Further, he affirms that truth exists in the world of ideas, raising confusion and ambivalence even more. Now we see his former definition of the judgment expanded and the involvement of ideas is just true for simple judgments, where an idea refers to what is given.
Apart from this judgment there are analytical judgments of sense, as in assertion about that which one presently perceives or feels- at least some aspect of it. Next, we have the synthetic judgment of sense in affirmations concerning time and space. Finally we have judgments about realities, which are never sensible events in time and space- claims referring to abstractions like the soul, claims that cannot be tested in an experimental-like way, nor deduced in such a way.
We are then provided with a definition as immediate experience:’ the real is that which I come in immediate contact, and the content of any part of time, any section of the continuous flow change, is present to me even if I directly encounter it’. Shortly, it is something that is being given, something that covers the whole specter of attention, of reason, of living at a certain point. It provides reality precisely because it is something that does not necessitate judgment.
If we agree with Bradley in that in which he affirms that reality can be achieved to a great extent through immediate experience, it is not true that some sort of reality- at times the same reality in a given particular case- can be achieved through judgment. And judgment in such cases must not necessarily be considered a more complicated way of achieving the same reality, because -why not admit it- judgment is an important process characteristic to people and it can be at times easier to outline a reality after judging something than voicing the immediate experience. This is one of the flaws of immediate experience. It does portray a reality at any time, but one must take its time in voicing it. Why then, not admit that reality can be outlined through judgment as well?
Bradley argues that universal judgments always have a conditional character. In order to refer to the real, this conditional character must be tested to see how it behaves in a particular immediate experience. Thus judgment only reveals a latent quality of the disposition of the real, not the real itself. But Bradley has previously affirmed that judgments rely on truth criteria. So then, we can assert for certain if a situation is real or not. There cannot be an infinity number of realities at the same time. A judgment not only provides the answer for the particular reality, but also shows the infinite number of possibilities which might exist adjacently or in similar situations, but do not. And the fact that they do not exist in this particular situation is tested by the truth criteria
What is then Bradley’s problem? Of course, had he agreed that judgments do play an important role in outlining reality, he would have had to take special care of judgments resulting in claims such as “soul is a substance”. He preferred to exclude categorically the role of judgments in shaping a reality, and praise the value of immediate experience. It is somehow understandable, that no matter how one would argue only one of these two can be found responsible for the creation of reality. As stated in the beginning, the value should be put either on the importance of immediate experience as giving birth to a reality that is absolute and independent, even if only temporary; or on the judgment which makes use of this immediate experience and takes it further in providing the solution in a particular case but reserving solutions for other situations. But if one would go with the latter, he would make the claim that affirmations involving God and spirit are realities, which obviously is fallacious. In order to make claims about a system, one should know it completely; it should know all its axioms.
But when it comes to God and spiritual life, one cannot claim to fully understand God since simply by its definition God contains humans on their whole and even their preoccupation with spirituality. It is simply proved by G
Tags: bradley, falsehood, free your mind, matrix, no spoon, philosophy, Reality, reality as a whole, truth