61. Julius Duboc - Groundwork for a Unified Theorie from the Standpoint of Determinism

Leipzig 1892

As in Duboc's other writings, this one also contains a large number of excellent views on individual areas of life and science. Anyone who makes claims that go into the depths of science and that go beyond the standpoint of modern rationalist enlightenment will derive little satisfaction from this book. What an educated man, without being a philosopher, thinks about philosophical problems is interesting to hear here and there in conversation; systematically processed into a book, it has the character of platitude and triviality. Arbitrary reasoning is by no means philosophy. Sentences such as this: "If, in the sense of ethical mechanics, one considers only the mental apparatus of movement, then every moment which, acting in man, drives and determines him in his actions and behavior, falls under the general heading of drives or instincts" (5.49) say nothing at all about the essence of the matter under consideration. But because the author has a sound power of observation, he arrives at insights that are remarkable even from inadequate principles. These include his views on the character of the sensations of pleasure and displeasure and their relation to moral action. The drive as such is not originally concerned with bringing about a pleasurable sensation, but with restoring the inner equilibrium of man that has been lost in a certain area (8.55). "In that a sensation of pleasure springs from the activity of the instinct, which can then be imagined as such, becomes an imagination (a sensation of pleasure), this imagination is based on the instinct preceding it or its activity. In this respect, "the idea of pleasure does not first awaken the drive", if by awakening we understand something like calling into being. On the other hand, the idea of pleasure, once it has become independent, can very well awaken the drive, or stimulate it, spur it on, arouse it" (p.109f.). The drive that goes to its activity is thus the first; that it has pleasure in its wake is the second. This realization is of the utmost importance, for it shows that life does not initially aim at pleasure, but at the restoration of its disturbed equilibrium. Only the experience that a certain pleasure is connected with the activity of a certain instinct then leads to the search for this pleasure itself and to make use of the satisfaction of the instinct for this purpose. If this law is also extended to the moral instincts, it is directed against the eudaemonistic ethics, which claims that the goal of human will is pleasure. The truth is that pleasure is only a necessary consequence of the fulfillment of our will. The attempts to clarify these concepts in the chapter "Drive and Pleasure" (pp.102-163) are very interesting, and it is only a pity that the author is unable to raise them above the level of subjective ideas.