Does it make any sense to talk about ‘reality as a whole’?

Bradley’s definition of reality is complex and is built upon the definitions of other key concepts, primarily judgment. Even if Bradley’s position towards reality and the involvement of judgment is shaping it is quite categorical, there are certain elements that could contradict him.

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 Gödel’s Incompletness Theorem that such claims cannot be done with certainty. Gödel showed that within a rigidly logical system such as Russell and Whitehead had developed for arithmetic, propositions can be formulated that are undecidable or undemonstrable within the axioms of the system. That is, within the system, there exist certain clear-cut statements that can neither be proved nor disproved. It is here that the last type of judgments is included.

We here find Bradley in the same situation that Wittgenstein ended up in his search for an infallible system. He could argue for the importance of judgment in outlining the reality (whether partial or total). But, he prefers to go with the immediate experience and give a limited picture of reality.

Coming back to the question of this essay- whether reality can or not be considered as a whole- we cannot but be thrown in the same vicious circle in which we had been dragged since the beginning of our quest.

Reality does not in either cases- with or without the use of judgments in outlining it- act as a whole, and cannot be considered as a whole, since it does not cover the whole spectrum of propositions- propositions which reflect all areas of human thought. It does not act as a whole if we accept the use of judgments, because then we do not cover statements like “soul is a substance”. And it does not either if we rely entirely on immediate experiences since reality gains this very limited spectrum (even if it nevertheless works and is consistent).

Essay written by Ioan Hepes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• F.H. Bradley, Writings on Logic and Metaphysics, Clarendon Press, 1994. ISBN: 019824438X
• F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality Routledge, 2002 ISBN: 0415295912
• Perspectives on Logic and Metaphysics of F.H. Bradley ed. W.J.Mander Thoemmes Press, 1996 ISBN: 1855064332

• Kurt Godel, B. Meltzer, On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, 1992. ISBN: 0486669807