THE NATURE OF EGO

G. R. MALIK

“The operation of thought which is essentially symbolic in character,” says Iqbal, “veils the true nature of life, and can only picture it as a kind of universal current flowing through all things. The result of an intellectual view of life, therefore, is pantheistic”[1] These remarks, largely gone unnoticed, indeed lay the foundation of the philosophy of Self, by bringing to light the basic fallacy immanent in Pantheistic Philosophies. These latter philosophies are led to the universal all-inclusive, one, indivisible consciousness by virtue of the inherent nature of thought. Since thought issues in unity of the judgement, they infer unity of consciousness. Again, as the thought works out its end through symbols, which are in essence, general, it results in deindividualization. It does not see concrete individual entities, without symbolizing them, and as it symbolizes, life becomes a general divested of all individuals. Consequently, the thinking activity easily goes to the delusion that one universal life is flowing through the particular evidences (centres) of life. The individuals are nothing but bubbles in the universal life stream.

This illusion influences Bergson, and forces him to represent reality as one “vital force” going on. The same fallacy plays with Hegel, and the latter seeks out his philosophical system in the idea of dialectic of the universal spirit. Iqbal corrects this tendency of universalization by appeal to immediate experience. He says “We have a first hand knowledge of the appreciative aspect of life from within. Intuition reveals life as a centralizing ego.”[2]

This observation serves a dual purpose: one the clarification of the nature of intuition as opposed to thought, the other, bringing forth the nature of life.

Intuition is that probing which does not proceed by universalization and as a consequence does not fail to disclose the true character of concrete things. Intuition reveals that every living entity converges upon an ego-hood. It is an experience from within, while thought is `sight' from without. At this point, Iqbal does not imply that ego is something 'inward'; his appeal to self-experience is simply a method of demonstration of the existence of one's own self, in opposition to the theory that oneself is merely a bubble in a universal stream of life. Every individual, on the testing of immediate experience, is a profound ego, with a life of his own, existing in himself, in an existing world.

I

All 'egos' are not of the same level of reality.

“From the psychological point of view, one thing appears to me to be certain,” says Iqbal, “Only that is, strictly speaking, real which is directly conscious of its own reality. The degree of reality varies with the degree of egohood.”[3] Iqbal is obviously embarking here on the theory of the Hierarchy of Being. Every thinker who deals with ontological problem tries to give a systematic account of the chain of being, and advances a theory of the positions of different entities in the scale of reality. Iqbal's criterion of the station of a thing in the total scheme of being is the note of ego-hood resonant in its composition. On this issue, Iqbal revives the tradition of the Ishraqui philosophy. He uses the same criterion, which Shahabuddin Suharwardi formulated in his 'Heirarchy of reality' in which 'Light' (Nur)[4] means self-conscious existence. Light is being and existence, its absence darkness is not being and nothingness. All the beings are in a hierarchy of reality from light to darkness. The being that is conscious of itself is really existent in itself. If a being is unconscious, that is devoid of light, it is simply obscurity, nothingness, at the lowest grade of reality. Between the supreme light and obscurity, there are various grades of light (i.e., of self-consciousness) which determine the orders of existence in the total scheme of reality. Each order represents a level of reality and is object of love of the entities at the lower order of existence. All the orders, in their gradation, represent in the word of Iqbal 'rising note of egohood.”[5]

Displaying of self is customary with the ego.

In every particle lies hidden the power of ego.

The structure of existence is of the signs of Ego.

 Whatever you behold is of the secrets of Ego.[6]

Shahabuddin Suharwardi, however, does not give an adequate account of the nature of light (egohood). He is busy with broad categories of the chain of being.

lqbal, however, concentrates on the problem of the life of ego, its discernible features unique to itself, in which no other thing may intrude.

II

“The nature of ego is such that”, Iqbal remarks, “in spite of its capacity to respond to other egos, it is self-centred and possesses a private circuit of individuality excluding all egos other than himself” (     ). These words mark off the point of departure of the Philosophy of Self from the Ishraqui Philosophy. To Shahabuddin Suharwardi, the contemplating being must dissolve itself in the contemplation of the higher ego. Consequently, in his metaphysics, the Light, which is diffused in all directions, returns to itself, dissolving all the grades of being in the Light of Lights. In opposition to this dissolution and return, Iqbal develops his own ideas of Elevation and Ascension.

What is Ascension? Only a search for a Witness.

Who may finally confirm thy reality—

A witness whose confirmation alone makes thee eternal.

No one can stand unshaken in HIS Presence;

And he who can, verily, he is pure gold.

Art thou a mere particle of dust?

Tighten the Knot of thy ego;

 And hold fast to thy tiny being!

How glorious to burnish one's ego

And to test its lustre in the presence of the sun!

Re-chisel, then, thine ancient frame;

And build up a new being.

Such being is real being;

or else thy ego is a mere ring of smoke.”

Iqbal ends his Lectures on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought on these above lines from the Jawid Nama.

Every ego is required to dissolve his own frame of being, he has to shape and reshape his own personality, prepare a new and more intensive frame of being of himself. This is the nature of Ascension. He is not to surrender his individuality, but has to make it firmer, more deepened and intensified. This is an endless career.[7] In this alone consists its reality as an ego.[8]

III

Human ego occupies a special position in Iqbal's Philosophy of Self.[9] “The purpose underlying the revolution of time is that thy ego should reveal itself to thee”.[10]

This is an address to Man, which tells him, what he is to be. “Endowed with the power to imagine a better world the ego in him (in man) aspires, in the interests of a unique and comprehensive individuality, to exploit all the various environments on which he may be called upon to operate during the course of an endless career.”[11] The ego is therefore in a state of tension.

Rafiuddin elaborates these points. He uses the term of “consciousness” for the “ego” and says, “Consciousness in creating the universe anew from moment to moment for the sake of its own self expression is continuously breaking through its own resistance and outgrowing itself.[12]

Here in the analysis of the life of ego, the notion of time enters. The intensive magnitude of ego lives in pure duration. M. M. Sharif remarks, “It is a genuine creative movement, the course of which is not already predetermined.[13] The life of ego does not tread a preordained earth. It lives by perpetual creation. Its essence is movement. “Its life consists in movement from appreciation to efficiency from intuition to intellect, from pure duration to serial time which can be measured by day and night. Serial time is born of this movement.”[14] Thus, ego does not exist in serial time. By its ever new activity it produces the serial time itself. Its own essence is identical with pure duration. “To exist in pure duration is to be a self.”[15] This is real Time. “To real time or pure duration the distinction of past, present and future does not apply. In flow the past rolls into the present”.[16]

Thus human self so far as it is a distinct individuality lives in its pure duration, perpetual movement and creativity, creating its own serial time. Its real life is change without succession. According to Iqbal human self is immense dynamism. It lives by constant creation, negate the present forms of existence, and out of himself generates new forms. He is change and activity, struggle and tension.

But, contemporary sciences and studies about man, a close examination must convincingly demonstrate, are in deep antagonism with this notion of self that creativity and activism are not imposed on the life of self from some external condition, they are intrinsic to the nucleus of its every existence. The contemporary psychology is such that it cannot assimilate this truth for its frames of reference are sharply in conflict with the true nature of dynamism. This, this science of psychology is the greatest impediments to the proper appreciation of the phenomenon of self, and cannot therefore help us to understand the secrets of the human existence.

Analysis of this psychology leads us to the conclusion that it is rooted in an ideology whose source lies in the Greek world view. According to the Greeks, activity is impossible without some deficiency. Consequently the perfect being does not move; he is unmoved mover. But, according to the theory of Khudi, movement and doing is the very substance of being and reality, hence the conflict between the Western theories and the philosophy of self. The so-called dynamic theories of today are offshoots of this Greek legacy, and presuppose the impossibility of activity without some goal, which in turn is considered unimaginable without some disharmony in the state of a living being. Consequently, work, doing, or movement, in them, is a symptom of some want; and as soon as the want is over, the activity ceases to exist.

This notion of movement is ingrained in the Western culture and flourishes in the development of the theories of man, social sciences and humanities. Consequently, we find Psychologism, Actionism, or Hoemostatis as frame of reference of the contemporary psycho-social sciences. These frames of reference are nothing more than different hues of the same Greek legacy.

IV

We may well start with Psychologism. It is based on the generalization of the Psychic Principle as the foundation of arts, religion, morals, social sciences, and a comprehensive view about man, his origin and destiny.

Psychologism represents an image of the life of the self, that it is but a stream of wants, and its activity continuously aims at the fulfilment of these wants. All wishes, purposes and ideals, have their origin in the nature of Psyche which underlies the phenomena of self and are reducible to this principle of dynamism, which may be articulated in the “Motive-Action” conceptual system for investigation into the nature of man.

Universal application of this principle on all the aspects of human life is Psychologism. It is not less than a world-view.

There is no doubt that the reality of self may also be visualized in terms of goals, motives, actions and purposes. But these concepts in the philosophy of self are not representations of wants, scarcities, poverty, imbalance, etc. in the structure of self. They represent something concretely positive, the very activistic and creative nature of the self. The s ignificant difference may be noted by that in formic-Psychology, Psycho-analysis, Holism, the psychology of Verstehend, moreover, in social behaviourism of Mead and Cooley there are extensions of various degrees of the ideology of Psychologism in the field of personality. Accordingly, the goals are not expressions of the creative, ever new aspects of the self but that of the tensions and disturbances that the ego tries to overcome by the goals it seeks.

McDougal's psychology is the first systematic account of modern Psychologism. He defines the basic unit of human personality, as a discrete action pattern which issues from a motive, results in co-ordinated muscular movement and finally terminates at the goal. The goal is anything whose achievement leads to the satisfaction of the want hidden in a motive. According to McDougal the basic `goal directed' action pattern is unlearned. As human organism is endowed with a set of instincts, out of this set various combinations of these instinctive behavioural units, intricate order of activities, personality traits and social systems are emerged.

This theory, in its fabric, is a generalization of want — controlled behaviour so as to cover all sorts of responses and acts of the living organisms and is meant to serve as a systematic basis for the necessary frames of reference in terms of which any other humanistic science may raise its theoretical structure. McDougal's system by grounding itself in a fixed set of instincts is rigid and inelastic, while change in behaviour-patterns is an observed phenomenon. Consequently, only the want or motive segment or the element of drive survives out of McDougal's Programme of the reconstruction of the human sciences, most in lines with that portion of James's 'Principles of Psychology' which deal with the stream of consciousness, which according to him is homogeneous, yet splits up into different pieces of events under the determinations of the organic needs, so much so that the discrete contours of reality are not more than projections of our interests. McDougal's thesis had to undergo heated debates and bitter discussions about the list of instincts. As a result R. B. Catell[17], E. C.Tolman, M. A. Murray, A. H. Maslon[18], S. S. Tomkins [19] and others prepared their own lists of basic motives.

The initial drives or unlearned motives, with their origin in organic disequillbria, attach themselves to those (possible) to-ordinates of actions which may terminate at their satisfaction. Those satisfactory co-ordinates of activity gained in the learning process become habits of the organism on frequent repetition. This is the quintessence of the contemporary theory of Psychologism. The basic drives along with the successful behavioural complexes give rise to a secondary order of needs and their complex coordinates and patterns which finally lead to the integration and consolidation of the total action system into the personality system.

V

Thus, the entire personality is approached as a system of habit to serve the motive system (comprised of basic drive, secondary needs, and higher purposes) of the organism. It was the general academic air during the first four decades of the twentieth century and as a result many theories of human nature were developed on this model.

Oppenheimer conceived the law of decreasing satisfaction as the central principle of psychological behaviour.[20]

Ratzenhofer propounded that the Primeval Force (Urkraft) expresses itself in the form of inherent interests which become particularized in the procreative interest, the physiological interest, the individual interest, the social interest and the transcendental interest. This theory of interest, to him, is the constitutive law of the social and personality formations. [21]

From this schema issued the theory of understanding. Thus, Bernard Notcutt remarks, “the distinctive point of view of biology concerns the efficacy of the system for maintaining life. The distinctive point of view of psychology concerns the meaning of the act for the person. Its interpretation is in terms of people's motives and values and in general of the life stage”[22].

In our times, Psychologism has received the most powerful impetus from the Freudian movement, according to which, every event is of symbolic nature. Its meaning may be sought by reducing it to the motives of the erotogenic zones. Religion and Morals are sublimated expressions of the genital stage and the oedepus situation. Berkley's philosophy too is a product of some conflict going back to the anal stage.[23]

Thus, Psychologism which assumes the forms of Romanticism, of Psycho-analysis and of Hormic Psychology considers the observable events as phenomenal in character, and symbolic in nature. The meanings of the presentations it implies, must be sought by referring them back to some secret imbalance developing into a motive.

Psychologism, thus, tends towards taking the overt behaviour as mere appearance; and claims to catch hold of the deeper strata of life by locating the tension which is behind the guise and semblance of the overt activity. With this programme in view, the observer completes the observable action of the organism by pouring some motive into it. Thus the motive, in actual practice, is a projection, or an inference, or a mental construct of the observer.

This is the inevitable consequence of the psychologistic line of approach that its Model classifies the personality system into three subsystems:‑

1.          The motivational substratum

2.          The action patterns.

3.          The organization of goals.

It deduces the latter two sub-systems from the 1st sub-systems.

These allegations need be overcome. Current improvements upon Psychologism in the form of Actionism claim to do that.

VI

Actionism is a slightly different ideology; it places the data of action in the focus of study. Consequently; it adopts the 'action frame of reference' in relative isolation from other components of the personality system.

Actionism has developed out of the inescapable drawbacks inherent in the outright psychologistic model of approach. Only very recently, it has become the basis of a new science called 'Praxeology'.

Praxeological Research includes not only human personality, but also culture in its scope of study. Its basic axioms are as follows:—

1.       “The theme of Praxeology is action as such.[24]

2.       “We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action.[25]

3.       “Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfaction        the incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness”.[26]

V

Action is a process in the actor-situation, which has motivational significance to the individual actor, or in the case of a collectivity, its component individuals.[27]

Thus, 'action' as defined by its upholders is immersed in the 'end-means' or 'motive-instrument' model which is the basis of Psychologism. In fact, Actionism is but another phase of the same outlook with a greater weight on the 'Instrumental' side of the Psychologistic model of reality. The advocates of Actionism point out that Psychology deals with the 'motives' while Praxeology takes the 'means' or 'action' as its object-matter of its study. Personality and society both, it presupposes, are Praxeological orders having a common genesis in the sphere of drives, and motives, which carve out the field of study for psychology. Accordingly, the general theory ofPsychology, articulated on the want satisfaction model is the foundation of the science of personality and society. It may be recalled that Dilthey had a primary concern to develop a structural psychology so that it may become the basis of other human sciences. Now Von Mises, the Praxeologist, develops the thesis of Actionism for that purpose. “The field of our science is human action, not the psychological events which result in an action. It is precisely this which distinguishes the general theory of human action, praxeology, from psychology. The theme of psychology is the internal events that result or can result in a definete action. The theme of Praxeology is action as such”. [28]

Thus, it may be seen that Praxeology consumes all the significant data and leaves out etherial matter for psychology. The existence of such material over and above the 'activities' is but a Faith; every observable datum is a piece of action and as such is referred back to some hidden component. In this manner psychology is deprived of all the objectivity, it could claim.

VI

However, behaviourism considers that the activities themselves are the stuff of psychology. Before the development of the Behaviouristic outlook it was Brentano, who may be rightly considered as the founder of 'Actionism in the science of psychology. It may be recalled that W. Wundt considered 'consciousness' as the subject matter of psychology. Experimental observation and analysis yield according to him `sensations' as elements of consciousness. The sensations, in accordance with the principles of Association define various aspects of the life of mind. Brentano raised objection against this schema or psychology. He pointed out that there is a clear distinction between sensory phenomena (the contents of experience) and the psychical acts (like judging, comparing, combining, deciding, etc.) the contents are the data of physics; the acts are the data of psychological science. To Brentano, the acts are the foundations of mental spiritual world and are the ultimate components of the psychic world given to the science of psychology.[29]

Behaviourism also defines the subject matter of psychology as the study of behaviour, and considers the 'reflexes' as the simple units of behaviour, which in accordance with certain combinatory principles (the laws of conditioning) become integrated in complex patterns of responses.[30]

What the reflexes are and whether the physiological definition is justified or not, these questions are important, but irrelevant to this discussion. The relevant point is, psychology, too, is the science of action and behaviourism considers the “reflexes” as the basic units of actions which define the life of an organism. But as soon as the object-matter is clearly specified, the behaviourists are lost in psychologistic model of construction. Hobbes, the father of all the modern behaviourists, says that the appetite and aversions are the first endeavours of the animal motion.

The most up-to-date attempt towards a behvaiouristic psychology is made by C. Hull, in which he employs the concepts of 'reduction', `successful response', 'reinforcement', 'threshold resistance' etc. These concepts are clearly psychologistic in import. Successful response, according to the Hullian Scheme, results in the reduction of the internal stimulation, and is integrated in the organism's habit structure.[31] Thus, we are forced to have a static concept of the nature of life.

J. S. Brown makes the reduction in anxiety as the principle criterion for the explanation of the psychic activities.[32]

it is said that the goal of the central nervous system is the restoration of the end state. This idea not only shows that the old psychologism is renewed in the concept of the Actionism but also lead us to the concept of the homeo-statis . .an imitation of the mechanistic science.

VII

By definition, a homeostasis is a system which preserves a certain end-state through the operation of a mechanism. The points of the breakdown of the homeostatis are its boundary conditions, which set a limit over the operative mechanisms given in it.[33] A Homeostat is characterized by (1) an equillibrium state and (2) the set of operations tending towards the equillibrium point. This point is strictly definable without reference to any external situation. It is the point of least activity. The surface of the sea is Horizontal; it is in equillibrium which coincides with the state of its calmness. As soon as the system is out of balance, certain operations and mechanisms start which counteract the imbalance; quietness prevails again and the operations cease to exist. Various phenomena of nature exhibit the homeostatic character. There are thermo-stasis, electro-stasis and magnetostasis in the Physical world. All 'states' are covered under the general name of cybernatics. There would have been no movements of the wind on the surface of the earth, but for the formations of the low bar zones, the columns of the wind set in motion to equalise the pressures as the cybernatic operations. The heat engines are also cybernatical. Their movements tend to remove the imbalance introduced by the steam and other motive powers. The Newtonian principle of the equality of the action and reaction is a statement of the static principle in nature. Mechanical operations are homeostatic; the behaviour of the organism is also considered homeostatic, by the new investigators of human nature.[34]

Psychologists, especially the behaviourists employ homeostatic concepts more or less in imitation of the natural sciences. Homeostatic Models have a peculiar appeal, they are helpful in giving a mechanical semblance to the dynamism of life. Propounding the concept of drive, E. C. Tolman says that its identifying aspect is a specific and characteristic consummatory response. Each appetite is set in motion by some peculiar internal metabolic condition. This metabolic change occurs in apparently more or less regular cycles due to combinations of internal and external conditions. And when it is in force the animal is driven until an approximate consummatory object is found.

Freudian Psychology, too, is given to this sort of approach as follows:

(a)        A system in the homeostatic sense is one whose state of least activity, or end-states, coincide with states of affairs readily definable in terms of the system itself.

(b)       A stimulus is a state of affairs which gives rise (in the central nervous system) to activity such as to abolish that state of affairs.

It seems to follow that:

(c)        States of least activity in the central nervous system coincide with states of least stimulation.

From this the conclusion follows that:

(d) The central nervous system is a homeostatic system whose end-state is the state of least stimulation.[35]

The Behaviourist's 'stimulus-response' model is rooted in the general idea of the homeostatic principle. Any state of affairs which causes the imbalance is stimulus; the set of operations which remove it is response of the organism. The equillibrium state of the organism is the state of the least stimulation and hence of least activity. The 'Stimulus' is something foreign to the system--the steam driving the engine, the storms disturbing the oceans, the heat causing low pressures, etc. are external elements. The responses and the state of least activity, (or `steady motion' just as in the case of solar system) are internal to the system. Therefore the adaptation of Psychology to Homeostatic descriptions has a guise of 'mechanical' formalisation. Stimulus belongs to the environment, and response to the organism, and the task of psychology is to discover the functional correlations between the stimulus and responses of the organism. This is behaviourism.

But, it does not eradicate the 'end means' model of thinking. It tries to use, however, a different language in the guise of the homeostasis. This is the peculiar quality of the homeostatic models that they are amenable not only to the language of the Mechanics (i.e. push and pull), but also to the language of Teleology. We can safely give a description of climatology, in terms of the 'end means' model without loss of meanings; we can say that the purpose of the heat is to lower down the pressure which in turn invites the wind to move in its direction. The purpose of the movement of the wind is to maintain its balance This teleological language embodies all that is contained in the language of physics. The maintenance of the end-state is the purpose, the operations of the homeostasis are the means to secure them. Thus if the behaviourists and the Psychoanalysts adopt the 'mechanistic' model they are not free from the old teleological frame of reference merely on that ground. They are deep in the same old Psychologism. This exposition contains a further suggestion: mechanical system may be represented in end-means, 'goal-action' scheme without distortion. If the medieval science was couched in the teleological 'frame of reference' it was not at a loss on that score. Teleology or mechanism are not two distinct ways of the arrangements in the world, they are simply two equivalent ways of description. So long as teleology remains at par with mechanism, there is no harm; but as soon as Teleology assumes the heights of a transcendental principle it ceases to share equivalence with the 'Mechanism' in its essential features.

If the 'purpose' of the wind is something transcendental, a state of affairs which is not contained within its nature, then there is a caes of purposive causality. Here is something which is not mechanistic but irreducibly teleological. But, in a Homeostat the end-state is a part of the nature of the system; it is one of the states of its set-up. The compensating operations are also part of its set-up. In a continuous operation, the terminal point is the end-state. The 'purpose' (the end-state) is not transcendental but immanent, it is not immanent even, it is the last phase of an operation; it is the phase of the least activity. All these points of the operations, including the end-point are at the same level, “only a 'section' of a continuous series is marked out as a purpose, and the rest as 'means' or instruments”. It is this case wherein Mechanism and Teleology are alternate descriptions with the same meanings. Thus current psycho logy, even though it may allow telic concepts, is still a mechanistic science.

The employment of 'end means' model for homeostat represents an unwholesome language construction. There must be some criterion of classifying some events as 'means' and other events as 'ends'. A series of events contain the events of the same type and level within its fold. A mere marking off and labelling it out does not put its parts into two distinct classes. Hence 'end means' and 'purpose-instrument' schemes cannot be valid constructions in the current western psychological theories, they are mere symbolisations without any advantage in a mechanistic system like that of the homeostatis. Consequently, on the sheer basis of the economy of words they may be dropped. Development of psychology from motivation psychology to a homeostatic science is simply a series of refinement in language around the same Psychologism. But the Psychologism as a world view is itself a mechanistic ideology. The state of least activity is its 'ideal' system. Every activity that takes place persists only from one point of least activity to another point of least activity.  Inherently, it believes in restoration of the same old state of the system. On this score, too, it cannot work with the philosophy of Self. All its concepts, from motive to goal, are radically mechanistic. Therefore, they cannot be read as one with the concepts of tension. goal, ideal. etc.. of the philosophy o Self.

Thus, it may be seen that the sort of purposiveness, motivation and activity, all these theoretical bases, i.e., Psychologism, Actionism and Homeostatic model try to assign to the human organism are not truly speaking genuine phenomena of self. They have beginning in disturbances and terminate in calmness. But, according to the Philosophy of Khudi the true life of self is active by itself. Consequently it cannot be articulated in any of these explanatory principles.

A further thing which is notable is this: since these theoretic bases are not capable of genuine representation of life, they often end in airy projections.

On both these grounds there is a need for the reconstruction of human sciences on the basis of Self.
 

Notes and References