Balmes begins by taking it for granted that the whole, as a
whole, is incapable of making a judgement. He continues: "The unity of
consciousness is opposed to the division of the soul. When we think,
there is a subject which knows everything that it thinks, and this is
impossible if parts be attributed to it. Of the thought that is in A, B
and C will know nothing, and so in the other cases respectively. There
will not, therefore, be _one_ consciousness of the whole thought: each
part will have its special consciousness, and there will be within us as
many thinking beings as there are parts." The begging of the question
continues; it is assumed without any proof that a whole, as a whole,
cannot perceive as a unit. Balmes then proceeds to ask if these parts A,
B, and C are simple or compound, and repeats his argument until he
arrives at the conclusion that the thinking subject must be a part which
is not a whole--that is, simple. The argument is based, as will be seen,
upon the unity of apperception and of judgement. Subsequently he
endeavours to refute the hypothesis of a communication of the parts
among themselves.
Balmes--and with him the _a priori_ spiritualists who seek to
rationalize faith in the immortality of the soul--ignore the only
rational explanation, which is that apperception and judgement are a
resultant, that perceptions or ideas themselves are components which
agree.
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