Contributions to Philosophy

Abstract

whether the concept atom is to be considered merely auxiliary or not depends upon a metaphysical view of a purely meta- physical problem.It thus seems unjust to apply this term to the atom in so for as it is a product of pure science.But it ultimately makes little difference to us whether this term be employed or not, for it in reality offers no solution to the problem that is essentially bound up in the atomic concept and for the following reason.In the first place it must be pointed out that the con- cept is a necessary one, whatever else way be predicated of it.Science is driven to it with the necessity which reigns in her sphere and it is already implicit in her very starting point.This indeed is to be admitted generally.But what concerns us more is that the concept whether auxiliary or not necessarily includes the characteristic of existence.Now it must in this connection be remembered that we are speaking of the atom only in so far as it is treated by science alone, and we mean to say that the concept thereof as such essentially includes the determination of existence.That this is true must immediately be seen from the fact that to science atoms are ever and always causes.This is certain for if they were not conceived as such they could serve no purpose of hers.It must moreover be observed that they are causes of such effects as can by no endeavor be classified as mere auxiliary concepts.But if the atom is to be concieved as a cause, the concept thereof certainly includes the characteristic of reality, for reality is a necessary determination of the concept cause.*It therefore matters little from our point of view whether the term "mere auxiliary concept" be applied to the atom or not.What concerns us is that it is a necessary concept which essentially includes the determination reality.The second objection to our introductory question comes * By this we do not, of course, mean to answer by one stroke the problem of the metaphysical existence of the atom, for this constitutes the central problem of our whole essay.from a view of the world arising from the theory of knowl- edge.The epistemologist goes out from actual experience to determine the concept of possible experience.Working as he does on the purely conceptual aspect of experience, a tendency arises which, in a case like ours, seldom fails to make itself known ; namely the spontaneous identification on the part of the epistemologist of the actual and possible in so far as they relate to experience.*Or to be more exact, the former concept is taken up into the latter and thus disappears.The fallacy (for such it is) in its fullest form appears in the statement that whatsoever belongs to the concept experience belongs to experience.It is simply the failure to distinguish between the intuitive and conceptual aspects of experience.Now the epistemologist seems to have little difficulty in placing the atom or system of atoms under his concept of experience.Belonging thus to experience in general it would olfer no special problem to metaphysics and she would be no more called upon to treat it than to treat any other object of experience.Now by making use of our former conclusion as to the relation of the determination existence to the atomic concept and by applying the just mentioned fallacy it would not be difficult to defend ourselves in respect to our introductory question concer- ning the relation of metaphysics to the atomic theory.For it would be easy to show, as is immediately apparent, that the atom, although necessarily conceived as existing, is not a member of actual experience and that therefore the above mentioned subsumption of the epistemologist and his deduction therefrom are false.This, as is evident, would suffice to prove that the scientific atom -system does constitute a special problem for metaphysics.We, however, wish to go one step further in the matter in order to show that the original mistake of the epistemologist is his subsumption * Kant did of course make this distinction in his •Postulate des

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