wiklund, r.a.- a short introduction to the neofinalist philosophy of raymond ruyer (article-1960)

8/18/2019 Wiklund, R.a.- A Short Introduction to the Neofinalist Philosophy of Raymond Ruyer (Article-1960)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/wiklund-ra-a-short-introduction-to-the-neofinalist-philosophy-of-raymond 1/13

nternational Phenomenological Society

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

A Short Introduction to the Neofinalist Philosophy of Raymond RuyerAuthor(s): Rolf A. WiklundSource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Dec., 1960), pp. 187-198Published by: International Phenomenological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2104322 Accessed: 16-02-2016 22:15 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Wiley, International Phenomenological Society and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research are collaborating with

JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.84.126.209 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 22:15:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/publisher/ips

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2104322

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.jstor.org/


mailto:[email protected]




http://www.jstor.org/stable/2104322

http://www.jstor.org/publisher/ips

http://www.jstor.org/



A SHORT INTRODUCTION

TO

THE NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY

OF

RAYMOND RUYER

Anyone who is averse to the concept

of

a mechanistic universe

will

find a valuable ally

in

Raymond Ruyer of Nancy, France. He began his

philosophical career in

1930

by

setting forth and defending a mechanistic

monism, but later on felt compelled to renounce it, and to evolve a neo

finalist ontology. n La conscience et l corps 1937) Ruyer expounds with

admirable Gallic clarity what he terms l epipMnomenisme retourne:

reality resides in the subjective, and not in the epiphenomena objective.

He has ever since devoted himself to the corroboration of this bold

philosophical claim, and in Neo-finalisme

1952)

he marshals a wealth of

isomorphic facts gleaned from the sciences to demonstrate the cogency

of his metaphysics.

n

Europe, Ruyer is gaining

an

ever-widening philosophical audience,

because his metaphysics is not only remarkably coherent, but also

intensely stimulating. He does not croak

an

existentialist lay of vanity

and despair, but preaches a gospel of tough endeavor, finding everywhere

in nature and in the multifarious doings of man evidence of the essential

purposiveness of life. The following article, briefly resuming the main

tenets of his thought, is an attempt to make Ruyer better known in the

United States, where the basically optimistic bias of his philosophy should

commend

it

to the American temper.

Ruyer foursquarely maintains that meaning and di{ection sens) are

inherent in the inorganic and organic world, and that the activity of

conscious man, firmly rooted in

that

world, is its natural prolongation.

As an irrefutable proof of finalist activity in human affairs Ruyer ad

vances the axiological cogito, the formal contents of which can be enounced

thus: I am seeking a first truth, a rock-bottom certitude, therefore I am

free. Freedom is then the certitude I sought, because the search for know

ledge implies freedom, which is the positive condition of such a search."1

1 Raymond Ruyer,

Neo-finalisme.

Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1952.

P.5.

187






188 PHILOSOPHY AND

PHENOMENOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

This cogito shows how absurd is the claim of the determinist, who

maintains that man

is

fettered by causal chains, and thus incapable

of

purposive activity. Actually, by asserting his claim as a truth and so

implicitly admitting

that

he seeks a

truth

the determinist refutes himself

by the contents that he gives to the cogito. To deny freedom, pretending,

in

so doing, to enounce a verity, that is ultimately to affirm freedom. The

determinist is evidently not pushed into activity a tergo, as he would

maintain, but

rather

initiates an argument to a purpose, and, in the very

act, frees himself of the fetters he purports to prove are there. His activity

is manifestly not purely mechanistic, but essentially axiological, i.e., it

affirms a value; it strives toward a goal.

After having squashed the determinist·, whatever his stripe, with

the

irrefutability

of

the cogito, Ruyer goes on to define a cluster of notions

pertinent to the finalist activity that can serve as contents to that cogito.

The chief notion is precisely that of freedom, synonymous with finalist

activity in that

it

means freedom to set a goal and, conforming to norms, to

work toward its realization. Another notion is that

of

existence, i.e., an

existing center

of

normative acts, which is in its

turn

intimately connected

with yet another important element of finalist activity, namely that of

work,

which must be distinguished from mere mechanical functioning,

however complex.

That

which exists, realizes, i.e., works, or strives toward

a goal.

Further

defining the notions pertinent to finalist activity, Ruyer holds

that

an action, as

it

unfolds itself in a spatiotemporal world of cause and

effect, cannot be understood without reference to its goal. This finality

of

the action gives meaning to all

that

is purely a succession of causes and

effects in it. A European, for instance, who for the first time observes a

game

of

American football is

apt

to see only a meaningless display of

violence, with most

of

the players brought to the ground most of the time,

whereas the American devotee makes sense

of it

all by checking what he

observes against what he knows to be the purpose of the game. Each

action on the'field, senseless in its purely mechanistic aspect, is transmuted

by the finality of the game, surviewing

survolant)

all its different phases,

into a purposive whole.2

Finally,

the

notion of invention is also inseparable from finalist activity.

To

set a goal already involves an effort of invention, and to choose

the

means to

attain

that particular goal is, in a very real sense, to invent them.

Invention means

putting

causes and effects to work, and - as

it

may end

in

success or in failure - eventually implies the notion of

value.

Finalist

2 E. W. F. Tomlin, Living and Knowing Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1955.

P.

150 n

a footnote, Tomlin points

out

that

surview is a neologism.






A SHORT

INTRODUCTION TO

THE NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY 189

activity is successful if

it

realizes a value in conforming to norms. To work

is thus always trying to work, for the realization of a value can only be

approximate, never exact.

Corollary

to

these six notions is the presupposition of

an

extra-spatio

temporal realm of values to

account for finalist activity. All such activity

must be distinguished from mechanical functioning, which is a mere

succession of causes and effects

in

space and time, irreversible, and

incapable of surviewing itself.

s

neither goals nor the means to reach

them

exist ready-made in a strictly linear universe,

but

must be invented

by a center of actualization,3

it

must be admitted

that,

when working

to

achieve a goal, such a center moves

in an

ideal realm in which

it

is possible

to

surview different chains of causes and effects, and

to

manipulate them,

in action, so as

to

shape them into means toward the attainment of a goal

as yet ideal.

Ruyer maintains

that

the concept of absolute surview

survol absolu),

i.e.,

that

a center of actualization moves in a realm of values beyond

space and time, is the key

not

only

to

the problem of consciousness, but

also

to

the problem of life itself. To highlight this concept,

and

to prepare

the way for his central thesis, namely

l epiphenomenisme rewurne,

Ruyer -

in a highly original and convincing chapter of his

Neo-finalisme

- makes

a crucial distinction between the optical and the mental aspect of vision.

f we want to observe a physical surface - a checkered table-top, for

instance, the different checkers of which are all definable

parf,es extra

parf,es

-

we

must place ourselves

so

in space that our retina is, perpen

dicularly,

at

a certain distance from

that

table-top. We must also be in a

third dimension in order to see it. These conditions are valid for

the

physico-physiological or optical aspect of perception. But if

we

shift our

focus of attention from the tangible table-top to our visual sensation per

se -

to

that sensation as a

state

of consciousness - then

we

do

not

have

to

be outside our sensation in order

to

contemplate all the different details

of which it is made up. We do

not

have to imagine a

third

eye or super

retina in its turn perceiving our visual sensation.

There is, then, a fundamental difference between perception, which is

an

organic maneuvering of the eyes subject to optical laws, and visual

sensation as a

state

of consciousness, which is a mental phenomenon

obeying subtler laws.

In

contradistinction

to

the physical surface of the

table-top, the surface of my visual sensation as such is what Ruyer terms

3 R.

Ruyer, op. cit., p. 9.

E.W.

F. Tomlin,

n is

Living and Knowing, calls such

an

existing center

of

normative acts a centre of actualization.






190 PHILOSOPHY

AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

an

absolute surface surface absolue), i.e., it is autoperceptive, and not

relative to any point of view exterior

to

it.

The absolute surface knows itself

wit1wut observing

itself.

f

we

do extrapolate a superretina in its

turn

inspecting the details of

our visual sensation, then infinite regression sets in, and

we

are forced

to

imagine superretinas ad

infinitum

each one observing the sensation of

the preceding one. The only way to check such a regression is to assume

that our visual sensation knows itself by absolute surview, and thus

escapes the conditions of physico-physiological laws.

Ruyer carefully explains

that

the persistent impression of distance

between the conscious" " and the field of vision, causing us to imagine a

superretina, stems from the - quite metaphorical - transformation of

an

absolute surface into a physical one.

f

we want to inspect a detail qf the

absolute surface, we can do so, deliberately, and without moving our eyes

on the physical surface, by shifting our focus of attention from it to

that

detail. But at this moment, we experience the greatest difficulty in not

imagining the " " as exterior to our visual sensation, i.e., at a distance

from it.

f we

cede

to

the persistent impression

that

situates the

" " at

a

distance from our sensation as such, then

we

transform, metaphorically,

the absolute surface into a physical one, thus inducing infinite regression,

and

we find ourselves reduced

to

chasing

an

ever-receding

" ."

s

soon

as

we

tire of inspecting a particular detail of our visual sensation, however,

then

that

detail, no longer the focus of attention by a sustained effort of

the

will, imperceptibly becomes a

part

of the absolute surface

that

knows

itself without observing itself.

Our visual sensation is thus

at

all times self-enjoyment,4 i.e., the

"I"

of

that

sensation is spatially ubiquitous, being simultaneously in the multiple

details of our field of vision. Whereas, in the physical surface the checkers

are all juxtaposed, and so spatially quite separate and distinct; in

the

absolute surface there exists no such separateness:

the

various orders and

relations of the checkers are instantly given in

an

absolute,

not

dis

sociable unity, without therefore being a fusion or a confusion. The

"I"

also possesses temporal ubiquity.

If

in a long sentence, for instance, the

key word is given last, the

"I"

could not grasp

that

sentence as a meaning

ful whole unless capable of transcending the purely temporal succession

of

its

words.

Because we can intuit

an

absolute surface without the aid of a third

dimension, Ruyer also gives volume

to that

surface, and

to

the concept

of absolute surview, referring to its proper scene of action as

that

of

an

absolute domain. Consciousness is evidently such a domain, or a multi-

4

Ibid.

p. 98. The

term

self-enjoyment is

that of

S. Alexander,

and Ruyer

uses

it without therefore subscribing to Alexander's philosophy.






A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE

NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY

191

plicity-in-unity

(unitas multiplex),

giving,

at any

time, its elements as

an

instli.nt, indissoluble whole by virtue of absolute surview. As such a do

main, furthermore, consciousness is what Ruyer terms a forme vraie or

a unified, dynamic form, cognitive in relation to the trans-spatial realm,

where it glimpses values to actualize, and cohesive as to its activity in the

spatiotemporal world, where it strives to hold together in a significant

organization what it has actualized. Thus, consciousness is, simultaneously,

a form, and the force binding that form together.

III

If,

through trepanation,

we

lay bare the occipital lobe of the brain -

that

lobe being the projection area for visual sensation - and observe

it,

even the most careful scrutiny will reveal no sign of its self-perceptive

activity. The percipi of the cortex by an observer does not disclose its

esse i.e., the whole of its reality. Ruyer maintains that only inference,

as over against mere observation, leads us

to

the

esse.

The consciousness that we

intuit

is the reality that appears to an ob

server as the cortex, i.e., as a spatiotemporal structure, or - in Ruyer's

terminology - a

forme-structure.

It is the spatiotemporal disposition of

the cortex, appearing to repose in a purely material equilibrium.

But

the

cortex as living, self-perceptive .tissue escapes mere observation. We seize

its reality by inference - by the combination of observation, which is a

physical act, and of sensation, which is the self-perceptive activity of the

cortex. Observation never gives us more

than

superficial interactions

obeying mechanistic laws, and this explains why the pattern of the light

waves that the cortex emits tells us nothing of it as living tissue. But

inference, which is the way to knowledge, enables us to understand the

interior, primary relations of a structure. Inference, a mental act, permits

us to seize on the quick the otherness of a being.

This leads us to the keystone of Ruyer's philosophical edifice: l epipM-

nomenisme retourne. The Cartesian scission between body and soul is false.

There are

not

two kinds of

matter

- a thinking matter, or mind stuff,

and a material matter different from it. There is only one reality,

namely consciousness or subjectivity, which appears to an observer as a

body or an object.

Toute

la

realite, toute l'efficacite, appa.rtient

au

subjectif. L'objectif

n'est qu'un

epipMnomene, qui,

par

lui-meme, n'est ni reel ni agissant.11

The body is the by-product of the perception of one being by another

being. A

is

perceived by B, in his consciousness, as an object independent

5 Raymond Ruyer, a con8cience et le corp8. Presses Universitaires de France,

Paris,

1950. P.

28.






192 PHILOSOPHY

AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

of him, and B will call what he perceives A's body. A wi 11 also adopt the

same view as regards B, and A will, furthermore, come to consider him

self as a body to which consciousness is appended.

But

this is a reciprocal

illusion of incarnation heightened by the fact

that

we can observe our

selves with our own eyes and touch the various parts of our body with our

own hands. f we were

so

built as to be incapable ofobserving or of touching

ourselves, and

i f

there were no mirrors,

it

would hardly enter into our minds

to

conceive of ourselves as a body

nd

a consciousness somehow affixed

to

it, Buyer thus makes

it

clear that our mode of apprehension - our per

ception - transforms subjectivities into objects, or, more generally, into

spatiotemporal structures.

But

although we may use

the

word

body

corps:

Korper)

both when

we refer

to

a living organism and

to

a piece of a mineral, this does not

mean that we are justified in looking for a subjectivity in any object.

Physical existence denotes a mode

of

relations between elementary

particles, and not a category of beings. A fossil, for instance, was once a

subjectivity, but as a fossil

it

is only an aggregate of molecules bereft of

the particular, interior relations that once made it into a unitary, dynamic

form. n both cases, however, we

may

refer to the fossil as a body. But

we must distinguish between primary beings, which are absolute domains,

and secondary beings, which are aggregates or accumulations of primary

beings.

Primary beings are centers of finalist activity, and they obey the laws

of the absolute domain with its unity surviewing a multiplicity. Secondary

beings, on the other hand, obey statistical laws that express the relations

of mechanistic causalities. Whereas the fossil once constituted a colonial,

hierarchical empire, namely myriad absolute domains interpenetrating

and interacting according to complex laws, the fossil as such is a mere

juxtaposition of absolute domains. We may say

that

the

fossil as a living

being was monadic, but its monads were equipped with a number of doors

and windows that permitted a wide variety of intercommunication. The

fossil as such is still monadic, but the intercommunication is gone. Only a

sort of dumb, mechanical jostling subsists as a mode of relation between

monads.

V

A subjectivity cannot be defined as a substance,

but

rather

as

an

existing center of finalist activity the unity of which surviews a multi

plicity so as to realize a trans-spatial essence or value. s the surviewing

6

Raymond Ruyer,

Neo finalisme.

Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1952.

P.160.






A SHORT

INTRODUCTION

TO THE NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY 193

unity cannot be substantiated, Ruyer - in order to explain the finalist

activity of any subjectivity- affirms that there is a sort of metaphysical

transversal cutting across any absolute domain. The two utmost points

of

that

transversal are, on the one hand,

the

I

of human consciousness,

or the

x

of an organic individuality, and, on the other hand,

what

he

calls

l Ideal

directeur e

l organisation,

or the thematic potential.7

In

other

words, a subjectivity is not only in contact with an m w e l t ~ but is also

tuned in for sustenance and guidance to a trans-spatial or metabiological

realm, which is

that

of essences or

values

of ideas and of mnemonic themes.

Certain isomorphic, psychological facts are hard to explain except by

reference to such an ideal realm.

There is, for instance,

an

undeniable

resemblance

between both two

successive recalls

o

one and the same memory - which are acts of an

individual, psychological memory - and between numerically different

realizations of an invention made independently innumerable times -

which are acts of a specific, organic memory, inventing one man to

resemble another, for example, or one animal to resemble another one of

the same species. Although our individual memories die with us, the

specific memory of man will continue to guide embryos till the end of

time.s But the specific memory of a particular organism, althought

capable of guiding its organic invention for millions of years, is

not

eternal and immortal; the specific memory of the trilobite, for instance,

is dead and gone forever. To explain the gradual emergence of resemblance

satisfactorily, individual memory and organic invention alike must be

viewed, analogously, as tapping a constant, trans-spatial reservoir of

mnemonic themes that never dries up, despite widely scattered and

unlimited spatiotemporal draughts.

For Ruyer, then, the observable organism has, as

it

were, one foot in

the

ideal realm and the other one

in

the spatiotemporal world. The

thematic potential manifests itself in

that

world in three unified, dynamic

forms: the

organic

the psychic, and the spiritual.

In

a living being with no central nervous system, such as the protozoon,

the thematic potential is the organic type itself. The

x

of its individu

ality, i.e.,

that

by virtue of which the protozoon is perpetually bringing

its potential into being as a structure, very nearly coincides with that

potential itself - but not quite, since the protozoon as a living being is

already a colonial, hierarchical empire composed of numerous absolute

domains intimately interpenetrating and interacting.

But,

generally,

w may say that - for the protozoon -

percipi est

esse because

it

is auto-

7 Ibid., p. 105.

In a striking analogy,

Ruyer

likens

the

embryo to a man who is

on the

verge

of

recalling a memory.






194 PHILOSOPHY

AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

perceptive, and this autoperceptiveness constitutes its very being. The

protozoon is primary consciousness as organic form.

En

d autres rermes,

n'y

a

au

fond

qu'un

seul mode

de

conscience:

la

conscience

primaire, forme

en

soi de

tout

organisme

et ne

faisant

qu'un

avec

la

vie.9

Primary consciousness, objectively manifesting itself in a unified, dynamic

form, is coextensive and coterminous with life itself

at

all levels.

As for the higher animals, equipped with a central nervous system

and a brain, their potential is at the

same time the organic type and its

particular Umwelt The

x

of the organic individuality is

at

this level

at

a certain remove from its potential, and

so

the higher animals do not

directly perceive themselves as organic forms,

but

- because they have

evolved a secondary consciousness - realize their potential psychically,

i.e., through instincts, triggered

by

significant sense impressions relevant

to

its specific

Umwelt.

Man s potential is

to

be sought

in

a realm of essences and values com

pletely separated from the organic type. His secondary consciousness,

no longer purely psychic, enables him

to

live in a new dimension of reality.

Man glimpses essences or values as ideas either directly in

th

e trans

spatial realm, by virtue of

the

self-perceptive activity of the cortex, or

indirectly in the structures of

the

spatiotemporal world,

by

virtue of the

sensorial activity of the cortex.

On pourrait comparer une aire sensorielle cerebrale -

ou

pluMt

sa

contrepartie

reelle

et

auto-subjective -

une glace sans

tain

qui,

d'une

part, re9oit les images

physiques des objets observes, et qui,

d'autre part,

reflechit les essences, corres

pondantes

a ces

objets,

du

monde trans-spatial.10

An idea can be said to be an essence apprehended by a consciousness

that

strives to realize

it;

in the

ideal that

essence has become a value

that

dynamically energizes a consciousness. The conscious

I

of a man

does not merely passively contemplate an idea, or - as does the animal -

dumbly submit

to

instincts,

but

strives

to

incarnate

it

in various ways,

to

transfoqn

it

into a significant organization in the spatiotemporal

world. The

I

strives to convert the present - perishable, because subject

to the restrictions of time and space - into a mnemonic theme, deriving

both its meaning

and

its subsistence from

an

essence. Individual memories,

reflecting past encounters with ideas and present attempts

to

realize

them and

to

control them in a significant organization, must hitch rides,

so to speak, with trans-spatial essences

to

subsist for a certain while as

their symbiotic passengers.

The laws of

th

e spatiotemporal world inexorably adulte

rat

e what is

9 R. Ruyer, op. cit. p. 104.

1 Ibid.

p.

132.






A SHORT

INTRODUCTION

TO THE NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY 195

pure. When an immutable essence, occupying the highest level

in

the

trans-spatial realm, is apprehended by the

I

as

an

idea,

and

begins to

be realized in the spatiotemporal world, a hybridization of the actual or

present and the eternal takes place.

For

this reason, a man's life is

but

a

series of axiological endeavors -

Pfeile

der

Sehnsucht nach

dem

andern

Ufer. In his constant reaching for an optimum

that

can never quite be

attained, man himself, as a unified, dynamic form, is spiritual, and

realizes his potential, emerges as a personality to the extent that he

devotes himself to the elaboration of a culture.

Ruyer considers the

atom

as the last traceable subjectivity before

reaching the last domains that are pure activities. The atom is, in

fine, also in formation, only

the

x

of its individuality coincides with its

potential, for the

atom

is what it does. It is bringing itself into being and

maintaining itself as an atom in a constant process of dynamic structur

ation. In the last domains, the surviewed multiplicity disappears, and

w can no longer speak of an absolute domain, for

it

is always a multi

plicity-in-unity, or - more accurately - a multiplicity simultaneously

knowing and surviewing itself. Instead, the last domains may be

described as pure activities, constantly and eternally holding the

universe together.

The vast thematic potential

that

Ruyer refers

to

as the trans-spatial

realm thus acts as a dynamic force charging

not

only the organic world,

in which man is firmly rooted, but also the inorganic world, which he

seeks to manipulate into a significant order. Man's personality disinte

grates wheh he is no longer guided by values, when he

is

no longer axio

logically held together

by

their attraction. He goes to pieces, and

virtually ceases

to

exist. And when we destroy the atom's personality,

its disintegration (usually) rocks the world.

v

f human activity and its various products are finalist - so Ruyer

reasons - then man himself must likewise be the product of purposive

activity. A psycho-biological examination of his ontogenesis would seem

to

corroborate such

an

assumption.

The embryonic surface, when subjected

to

drastic lesions

at an

early

stage

of

its development, does not respond like a surface with geometrico

physical properties.

It

appears instead

that

the embryo is

equipotential:

that any part of it can deputize for the whole. Its responses to lesions are

always corrections or modifications. Now, this equipotentiality must

be the objective manifestation of

an

absolute domain of surview, and the

embryo, from its very

start

in space and time, must be in contact with a

metabiological realm

of

mnemonic themes

that

dominates the visible,






196 PHILOSOPHY

AND

PHENOMENOLOGICA.L RESEARCH

structural transformations that later take place.

No

gaseous vertebrate,

however, has in its turn created the embryo, for the organism, guided by

an organic memory, invents

the

brain before making use of it. The

equipotential embryo must therefore be considered as an organ to build

organs; as the origin of an

internal circuit

of purposive activity culminating

in the adult organism. And if it

partly

functions like a machine, the fact

remains that the organism is a machine that has built itself.

t

must, in

fact, be regarded as

the first of all meaningful creations.

s

the embryo develops, primary consciousness progressively with

draws its activity, and it is replaced by mechanistic assemblages - im

mutable, anatoinical dispositions of tissue - representing a sort of con

gealed or fossilized finality. The mnemonic themes

that

are successively

called on in the course of embryonic development determine irreversible

differentiations, i.e., at a certain moment the rudiments of, say, the liver

will develop into precisely that organ and none other. The theme of an

organ, in congealing into an organ, ceases to be a theme, and becomes

instead an anatoinical structure, functioning more or less like ·a machine.

The dynainism that brought that organ into being'has then completely

discharged itself, yet vestiges of the original self-regulative activity of

primary consciousness still remain in the adult organism, and become

apparent when

it

is confronted with injuries or diseases.

Although the I - part and parcel of our brain - receives no other

messages from primary consciousness

than

those of various instinctive

drives that - while often imperious - are always protopathic, primary

consciousness

must

not

be thought of as vague or psychoid relative to

its

tasks. The development of the embryo being a marvel of subtlety and

precision,

it

is

not

logical

to

assume

that

its self-enjoyment is vaguer

than

the secondary consciousness of the adult,

but rather

that the embryo

possesses a consciousness the

contents

of which differs from

that

of

the

adult. The living tissue of the organism itself, closely related to an

Umwelt

constitutes

the

contents·of primary consciousness, whereas

the

contents

of cerebral consciousness is brought to it by receptors modified by stimuli

exterior to

the

organism. The brain thus determines the

mode

through

which the organism will gain knowledge of the external world, and perinits

that

organism -

by

providing

it

with a wealth of sensorial information -

to overstep the liinitations of self-enjoyment.

Life, then, antedates cerebral consciousness,

but the brain plays an

exclusive

part

in effecting the junction between the organic internal

circuit and the

external circuit

of human activity. f and the electronic

computing machine is aa striking exmple - man's products almost seem

to be autonomous, they remain, in the last analysis, but tools

~ x t n s i o n s

and elaborations of man's organs - and they must be minded by the brain,

which is constantly obliged to link the external circuit of its activity with






A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE

NEOFINALIST PHILOSOPHY

197

the

internal circuit of life itself.

t

is, consequently, along the internal

circuit

that the

Cartesian scission between a domain of mechanistic

causality

and

one of finalist activity takes place, separating massive

anatoinical disposition of tissue from self-perceptive tissue capable of

thematic activity.

n

the brain, what is organic assemblage is separated

from what is reflective consciousness.

Cerebral equipotentiality, i.e., the experimentally proved fact

that

a

part

of the cortex

can

deputize for the whole, must be - as in

the

embryo -

the objective manifestation of

an

absolute domain of surview,

and

the

brain must be in contact with a metabiological realm of themes, not only

directly, as the embryo is,

but

also indirectly, through the spatiotemporal

structures

that

the brain perceives.

La surface corticale . . . ne fonctionne pas comme une surface marerielle avec des

proprieres geometrico-physiques

Par

elle, des themes signifiants se transfor

ment en

schemes d'action (cortex moteur et frontal anterieur) ou inversement,

des

patterns

sensoriels viennent evoquer des significations (cortex posterieur).11

The adult brain is thus

an

organ

that

has remained embryonic, while

the rest of

the

adult organism, having finished its growth, is almost wholly

out of contact with the thematic potential. The brain can justly be

considered as

an

embryo

that

is

not yet

fully grown. The equipotentiality

of the brain makes

it

into a uniquely flexible organ through which in

numerable connections with themes and essences can be established.

With each connection, the brain is transformed into a differentiated organ

-

but

only temporarily, because a cerebral connection is not a circuit

that

is irreversible. Man - in his efforts

to

order the world into a meaningful

organization - passes from one activity

to

another, and

so

constantly

brings new circuits into being as he calls new thematic systems into

action.

Ruyer epigrammatizes

the

substance of his subjective monism thus:

faire et en faisant se faire.

The universe is conceived of as multitudinous

centers

of

actualization forming a fibrous structure in time, with each

fiber always the continuation of previous ones ultimately plunging back

into the very origins of

the

universe in a richly tangled skein of multi

plicity. A pure multiplicity of dynainic agents striving to realize their

potentials is, however, not the substance of the universe,

but it

is probably

analogous to

an

absolute domain.

To achieve his neofinalist philosophy, Ruyer sketches its theology.

f

- he concludes -

we

cannot seize the activity whence issues

that

of our

I ,

it

is because that I is in itself a seizing. That behind our I

which

we

cannot seize must likewise be

that

which cannot be seized

behind the

x

of

any

other subjectivity. This primal activity is God.

11

Ibid.

p. 49.






198 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

He is not only in all the ideals sought

but

also in all the agents seeking

them. God as creativeness - Ruyer calls

Him

ieu ontinue

-

is simul

taneously and indissolubly the supreme Agent and the supreme Ideal.

Our self both originates in God and goes back

to

Him and man is co

creative with God.

UNIVERSITY OF

LAUSANNE

LAUSANNE SWITZERLAND.

ROLF

A

WIKLUND.

wiklund, r.a.- a short introduction to the neofinalist philosophy of raymond ruyer (article-1960)

Documents