THE MEANING OF THE PSYCHICAL
Note: A full understanding of the following theses requires familiarity with the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea, and in particular, an understanding of its theory of modalities. Nevertheless, this article is instructive for all in that it shows how one can argue a number of central issues in contemporary psychology by using a particular system of philosophy. I have structured the article in the form of a number of theses.
1When discussing the meaning kernel (zinkern) of a modality, it is important to realize that we are not talking about a characteristic of certain entities in reality such as animals and human beings, but about ‘a way of being’ of the whole of reality in which all entities function. All created entities function psychically, or function (subjectively or objectively) in the psychic modality.
2When delimiting the psychical modality, it is important to note that it has sphere sovereignty (i.e. it refers to a set of lawfulnesses that cannot be reduced to the lawfulness of any other modality), and that it has sphereuniversality. (That is: the meaning kernels of all other modalities are, and the order in which they occur in creation isanalogically reflected in the psychical modality). Only the meaning kernel of the psychical itself is originally present in the psychical modality.
3The irreducibility of the psychical modality is structurally guaranteed by the place it occupies in the modal coherence of creation, and by its meaning kernel.
4Something can only function asthe meaning kernel of the psychical modality when it
a)adequately explains all the phenomena currently under investigation in psychology (i.e. when we can demonstrate that all these phenomena are at bottom nothing but variations of the meaning kernel), or when it
b)serves to relegate those phenomena which it cannot subsume under its general heading to other modalities, thus, when we can demonstrate that certain phenomena, which now are unsuccessfully seen asillustrations of the meaning kernel of the psychical, are really better explained by the meaning kernel of another modality.
5The meaning kernel of the psychical modality is Affekt. Whatever else psychical phenomena are, they are always affektive phenomena. I have chosen the German word “Affekt” to denote the precise content of the psychical meaning kernel. We define Affekt as, ‘the subjective capacity of some created entities tobe affected by... (“aangedaan door”:
Dutch), and the objective capacity of all created entities to affect psychical subjects. The term denotes that capacity and only that capacity. Any further qualification of affektive phenomena must be seen assecondary to their meaning kernel, and due to analogous anticipations or retrocipations of the psychical modality in other modalities. Affekt, for example, must not be equated to emotionality or feeling only. The term also means to include the meaning kernel of sensation, motivation, and condition-ability.
6Biotic functioning is foundational for subjective affektive existence. All post-biotic phenomena are affektive subjects unless their meaning content can be better explained by the meaning kernel of a higher modality. Usually, subjective, affektive functioning also requires the presence of a central nervous system, and/or an autonomic nervous system, and/or senseorgans. For example, whether, the functioning of amoebasand the tropism of plants are to be considered subjective, affektive phenomena, must be determined by detailed investigation. In any case, they appear to be limiting cases, which in no way ought to determine the general rule.
7Attention, perception, and awareness are not psychological, but respectively analytical, formativeand lingual phenomena. Generally speaking, the proper qualification of these phenomena requires some form of action on the part of the subject. This requirement is, per definition, lacking in psychical phenomena, which all have the characteristic of “undergoing”, and “being done unto...”. Psychical phenomena “happen to” psychical subjects. (This, parenthetically, is also why the problem of freedom and determinism is, of all the sciences, most hotly debated in psychology). One might argue that sensitivity as the active form of affektivity implies some form of action on the part of the subject. If this is so, then sensitivity denotes the action of being passive, of receiving, of being open/vulnerable to... thus, the ability to be affected by.
8Attention is inherently selective. It is impossible to be affected by all psychical objects (stimuli), (potentially) present in one’s environment at any given time (in the same manner or to the same degree). In its simplest form, ‘to attend’ means to allow oneself to be affected by some stimuli and not by others. Such action requires logical discrimination of at least the kind that says “This, but not that”. The psychical counterpart of attention, which also founds attention, is conditionability. In the latter, the state of the environment or of the subject, rather than the action of the subject, determines what will actually affect the subject. In attention, the subject uses his senses as tentacles to scan the world. In conditionability, the senses and/or the world determine what of the world or the senses will affect the subject.
9Ever since the rise of Gestalt Psychology, it is generally accepted that the meaning kernel of perception is “Gestaltation”, or forming. It is an active process that forms analytically discriminated psychically affektive material (usually called “sensations”) into percepts in accordance with a relatively free design or project. It is this freely forming character of perception that is especially emphasized in so called “social perception”, to indicate that people in different cultures and with differing personality makeups, perceive the world in different ways. Perceptual phenomena are, therefore, most often seen aspersonal or cultural phenomena. It is this personal or socio-cultural characteristic that distinguishesperception from sensation. As the Asch experiments have shown, this distinction even holds for so-called “physical perception”. Depending on their “field dependency”, in accordance with group pressure, subjects can be made to perceive the length of lines in a physically distorted fashion. It is interesting to note that the problem which subjects must overcome in such experiments is the undeniable evidence of their own senses,hence of sensation. The effects of sensory qualities occur outside the activity of our will. We cannot help but see green asgreen, red as red, etc.
10 We can be affected by, we can attend to, and we can perceive respectively psychical, analytical, and historical objects without awareness. These do not occur unconsciously but subconsciously because they are potentially available to awareness. As biofeedback experiments have shown, so are even such biotic phenomena as our vegetative functioning, which hitherto were thought to be principally unavailable toawareness because they normallyoccur automatically, thus without thought. Awareness is an intrinsically lingual phenomenon because it requires symbolic activity on the part of a lingual subject. Awareness is representational in character, it is necessarily always about reality. Without the lingual activity of a subject who reflects on, and thus “duplicates” reality in symbols asimagined reality, no awareness of reality is possible.
11W. Ouweneel (De Psychische Modaliteit by Geestverwanten van Dooyeweerd. Reformational Forum, vol.11, no.2, 1955, pp.13—32; and Hart en Ziel, Buyten en Schipperheyn, 1984, pp.19—29), correctly sees that perception and emotion/feeling are not reducible to one modality. In my view, however, his argument that this necessitates the splitting of the psychical modality or aspect, into a perceptive and a sensitive aspect or modality, is incorrect, since perception is not at all psychically but rather historially (better term techno-formatively: Seerveldt) qualified. He is also incorrect when he implies that perception precedes emotion/feeling in modal time because techno-formative (or historial) subjects, (such as humanbeings and [certain?] animals), do not perceive, (or form perceptual gestalts), until such time as when they are(emotionally) affected by them.
12For the sakeof terminological clarity, it must be noted that for Ouweneel, emotions/feelings are (inner) activities. For me, they are passivities. For him, perception is passive (a being informed by the ‘external’ world). For me, it is active (a forming by us of our world, [and also a forming by us of ourselves!]).
13Ouweneel struggles with an inner-outer problematics. He inherits these problematics from (particularly European) psychology itself, and to some extent from Reformed thought as well, (which according to Fernhout, Olthuis and DeGraaf is monarchian in character. Thus Kuyper, Bavinck, and Waterink stress the ego, and Dooyeweerd, the heart as a central core, inside human beings). An inner-outer problematics drives us to speak about “something” hidden, unobservable ‘in’ human beings, about which per definition nothing can be said until it becomes observable and, therefore, no longer hidden or ‘inner’. This formulation also leads to a homunculus theory of human nature. One tries to explain all ‘outer’ observable phenomena in terms of this hidden, unobservable, indescribable “thing”.
14Ouweneel also struggles with an active-passive problematics, perhaps under the influence of the ‘Nativism—Empiricism’ debate in psychology. The context of this debate is the relation of human beings to their environment or world. Empiricism states that,with respect tothe environment, human beings are passive andthe environment active. In this view, human beings are determined by their environment (cf. Locke’s associationism, Dewey’s functionalism, Watson’s behaviorism). This is a mechanistic view. Nativism states that human beings are active with respect to their environment, human beings form their environment (cf. Kant, Gestalt Psychology, Existentialistic Phenomenology, Humanistic Psychology). It is a teleological view.
Fact is thatboth human beings and their environment areboth active and both passive. Moreover, human beings form themselves and aredetermined by themselves, quite apart from the (influence of the) environment. Thoughts determine feelings, feelings determine thoughts, both determine actions, and actions determine both thought and feeling. Human beings areboth active and passive to themselves. The same can be saidfor the environment, apart from human beings.
With respectto perception, Gestalt Psychology takes a middle position vis a vis Empiricism and Nativism. This school of psychology holds that perceptual subjects form (the sense data of) the environment into Gestalts, -- but in accordance with gestalt (or form) qualities inherent in the environment. Gestalt Psychology is a form of perceptual interactionism.
There is an essential difference between sensation (gewaar-wording) and perception (waar- neming), that has to do with the active-passive distinction. Therefore, perception cannot be a psychical phenomenon. Ouweneel ‘sdesignation of sensory sensation (zintuigelijke gewaar wording) asperceptive is a misnomer.
15Ouweneel correctly states (Forum, p.19 contra Coetsee) that we can distinguish a sensitive and a perceptive moment in drives. But, he fails to see that a drive moment can also be distinguished in sensitive and perceptive phenomena. Thus, his argument that drives are essentially either perceptive or sensitive phenomena does not hold. A drive is not a sensation or a perception or anemotion.
16 I propose that we include sensation, motivation (drive), and emotion/feeling in the psychical modality as meaning moments surrounding the meaning kernel of affekt. I prefer to speak of sensory affekts (sensation), drive affekt (motivation), and mood affekt (emotion). These respectively inform our lives, activate our lives, and colour our lives. Sensory affekt is an anticipation on the analytical, drive affekt a retrocipation to the kinematic, and mood affekt a retrocipation to the physical aspect. Other meaning moments may also be distinguished in this manner.
17 In mapping out the psychical modality, we must not let ourselves be sidetracked by such secondary distinctions as human being vs. animal, or normative vs. natural. Dooyeweerd characterized these distinctions as modal distinctions. This has hadthe unfortunate effect of saddling psychology with having to determine the difference between people and animal. It has also placed the psychical in the awkward position of being the boundary between the normative, and the natural modes of being. I propose that we declare all aspects potentially both normative and natural, and that we declare human beings as well asanimals potentially capable of functioning subjectively in all modalities. The number of modalities a given animal species genuinely functions in (subjectively), can be determined empirically. This rids Christian psychology from having to demonstrate that animal intelligence or socializing is not “really” that, but something less than that. The essential distinction between human beings and animals then becomes that human beings function in all aspects both naturally and normatively, whereas animals can only function naturally.
18 With reference to the ‘truth functions’ of motivation, emotion, and sensation, psychologists qua scientists are not competent to determine the right motives by which human beings should live, or the evil and the good that should make man sad or glad, or the correctness of the states of affairs that should determine us when we sense the world (e.g. the environment post-fall can lead us astray). All these are primarily religious, rather than scientific questions. All psychology can do is determine the manner in which all these affect us, rightly or wrongly. (We cannot scientifically, infallibly determine what “ought to be” from what "is").