Franklin Merrell Wolff:Commentary on Aphorism 5 Con.w/oObject

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5.. Outside of Consciousness-without-an-object nothing is.

 

Within the widely current realistic and naturalistic thought, both

naive and critical, there is a deeply imbedded habit of viewing

objects as existing quite independently of consciousness. From this

perspective, objects are viewed as self-existent things. But this is

a hypothetical construction, in the invidious sense, for the simple

reason that it is incapable of verification, either through

experience or as a necessity of thought. For verification necessarily

implies the presence of consciousness, and so the, so-called,

independent thing is reduced to the status of an object in dependent

relationship to consciousness, at the moment of verification. There

is no necessity, such as a logical necessity, that requires the

predication of the existence of things quite independent of

consciousness, in every sense, in order to account for the arising of

objects. For objects arise and vanish with respect to a state of

consciousness, and merely cease to be traceable beyond the borders of

that state, for that state alone. Their continued existence for

another state beyond those borders is not only in principle possible,

but is verifiable through the use of the appropriate means. Though

logic and the principle of causal connection may require that the

arising of objects shall not be completely de novo, it is not

necessary to predicate existence of things, totally independent of

consciousness, in order to satisfy this requirement.

Objects, for the state of waking consciousness, vanish upon going to

sleep, and an entirely different state or system of objects is

realized. But though the system of objects that may be realized in

the dream state is quite different, the analysis of dreams has often

shown a connection between some of these objects and the contents of

the waking state. Some dreams reveal a continuity of objects from

past waking states, while others are prophetic with respect to

objects experienced in future waking states. Here we have an instance

of a widely experienced movement of consciousness from state to state

with objects traceable in quite different systems of objects. These

two examples of specific states, admittedly, are insufficient to

trace the whole genetic and disintegrative history of objects. But

they do afford empiric demonstration of the possibility of

consciousness to shift from state to state, and thus render

conceivable, in principle, the broader application of this

possibility. Thus, again, there is no logical or epistemological need

to predicate the existence of things apart from consciousness.

The aphorism goes further than barely to affirm that the predication

of the existence of things, outside consciousness in every sense, is

unnecessary. It asserts, categorically that " Outside of Consciousness-

without-an-object nothing is. " This may be viewed as simply implying

a primary definition of " something. " Thus " something " is that which

is an object in consciousness in some sense. Actually, no meaning

attaches to the notion of " something " in any other sense. Such a

notion is useless, as well as unnecessary. To say " outside of

consciousness in every sense there exists thus and so " is just to

produce a meaningless collection of words, like the classical

combination, " the barren woman's son. "

 

posted April 3,2006..........bob