MCTAGGART'S THEORY OF THE SELF

John Knox, Jr.

According to J. M. E. McTaggart, all that exists is spiritual, where
spirituality is defined as "the quality of having content, all of which is the
content of one or more selves" (Sect. 381). I In view of the importance which
he thus assigns to selves, one properly expects of McTaggart a clear, certain-
ly a consistent, account of what a self is. Yet the picture one receives re-
mains clouded - clouded mainly by positions which may be contradictory
within themselves, and by what plainly look to be incompatibilities of one
position with another. In this paper, I shall try to clarify, and insofar as
possible to support, McTaggart's doctrine. In part I shall be seeking to
decide which ones, if any, of the seeming contradictions are genuinely
unresolvable. And then, in case no one consistent doctrine can be educed, I
shall ask which one of various alternative positions would be most in har-
mony with McTaggart's system as a whole.
There are two familiar theories of the self with each of which
McTaggart's theory has some affinity. And even though McTaggart's is not
identical with either one, it may be helpful if I state these theories as I
understand them. For their very differences from the theory offered by
McTaggart will prove to be enlightening.
The two theories which I have in mind are the "pure ego" theory on the
one hand and the "bundle" theory on the other. The former is the view that
a self is a continuous, nonphysical particular which stands in the relation of
"having" to a succession of more or less discontinuous experiences - where
this relation of "having" is not, indeed is positively incompatible with, the
relation of inclusion, or of whole to part. The second theory, the so-called
"bundle" theory, is in truth one or the other of two distinct accounts.
On one of these the self is to be conceived as a set of experiences which is
unified by some unanalyzed, perhaps unanalyzable, relation. On this view,
in saying that I have a headache, I assert that a headache is included in the
relational whole which constitutes my "self." Thus, the "having" of an ex-
perience is the inclusion of the experience in the self which "has" it.
According to the bundle theory in its other version, selves are "logical
constructions." This means that the self is not an entity, which means in
turn that one cannot meaningfully say, "There exists an x such that x is a
152 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
self." Equivalently, the word "self' can be defined only contextually, or on-
ly in the process of one's replacing whole sentences which include this word
with whole sentences which do not do so. Now the self is a construction
from experiences. Thus, "I have a headache" is replaceable, on the present
theory, by something on the order of, "A headache is a member of this
series of experiences." But "I" is not to be identified with the series of ex-
periences. And the "having" is not to be viewed as a relation between myself
and the headache, or indeed as a relation at all.
But although there are thus two bundle theories, not just one, it seems to
me to be enough in line with both to say that for the bundle theory, a selfs
experiences are parts of that self. For according to the logical construction
theory, the ontological materials, so to speak, on the basis of which asser-
tions may be made about "selves," are various strings of experiences - the
same strings, in fact, which on the bundle theory of the simpler variety are
the selves to which, as particulars, the assertions refer. And so we may say, I
think, somewhat loosely- but strictly enough for our purposes-that for
the bundle theory a selfs experiences are included in, or are the parts of,
that self.
Certain passages in The Nature of Existence are such as to suggest that
McTaggart has some leaning toward the pure ego theory of the self. For one
thing, the self is held to be a substance (Sect. 381). Now as McTaggart
defines it, a "substance" is "something which has qualities and is related
without being itself either a quality or a relation" (Sect. 67).2 And so a self is
not, for McTaggart, a quality or a relation or (since a sum of qualities is, he
holds, a quality, a sum of relations a relation) a sum of qualities or of rela-
tions. To be sure, the fact that McTaggart considers the self to be a
substance does not imply, what would be false, that he considers it a pure
ego. For in terms of McTaggart's definition of substance, a bundle of ex-
periences - in fact, a mere sum of experiences - will itself be a substance. So
far, then, we have no reason to say that for McTaggart the self is anything
else than just such a bundle. And yet, in accepting the fact that the self is a
substance, and in defending, in Volume I, the existence of substance (chap.
VI) McTaggart gives notice that he regards as unfounded one of the most
common objections to the pure ego theory: namely, that the concept of any
substance or particular as something set over against (even if incapable of
existing without) its qualities and relations is either vacuous or contradic-
tory. And so, McTaggart agrees with the pure ego theorist at kast to the ex-
tent of holding that a self is something distinct from its qualities and rela-
tions.
A further point of agreement is to be found in what McTaggart has to say
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 153
about love. As McTaggart proposes to use the word, love is an intense and
passionate emotion which is felt toward persons, and only toward persons.
Now love may be felt, says McTaggart, because of-Le., as an effect
of-the qualities of its object. But it is never, he holds, felt in respect of
those qualities (Sect. 465). And as is clear from the general discussion, and
in particular from Sect. 468, love is not felt in respect of relations, any more
than it is of qualities. Now a respect is always a general character-which is
to say, a quality or a relation. We must conclude, I think, that according to
McTaggart, love is felt in no respect at all. Rather, it is felt for a certain per-
son simply as that person. It seems evident that no other person, not even
one (if such were possible) exactly similar, would be acceptable instead.
Now there would seem, or at least at first sight there would seem, to be
something most irrational about this fact, were the person, or self, a bundle
of experiences. For it may seem impossible to conceive of there being any
difference between one bundle of experiences and another qualitatively just
like it which might have existed in its place. One might claim, then, that if
the passages about love are accepted, it follows that the person is, after all,
a pure ego. For it may appear that nothing other than a pure ego could, with
qualities and relations ruled out as that with respect to which love is felt,
provide love with a specific object of concern in one person as distinguished
from another.
So some of McTaggart's views point toward, even if they do not entail,
the pure ego theory of the self. But if McTaggart's thinking has, as plainly it
does have, some affinity with the pure ego theory, it has also some af-
finity - indeed, as we shall now see, a stronger affinity - with the theory
that the self is a "bundle."
In the first place, one can wonder whether McTaggart's treatment of love
is altogether consistent with his main doctrine concerning substance and in-
dividuation. Thus McTaggart writes that "substances are not things in
themselves, in the Hegelian sense of the phrase, with an individuality apart
from their qualities. They are individual, but only through and by means of
their qualities ... " (Sect. 416; see also, and mainly, Sect. 95). But in that
case, how is it that I can love a person as an individual, but not in respect of
his qualities, if it is precisely by virtue of his qualities that the person is the
individual he is? It would seem that one or the other of two doctrines will
have to be modified: the doctrine about love on the one hand, or, on the
other, the doctrine that individuality rests entirely on qualitative unique-
ness. The question of which course McTaggart could take with least
sacrifice of consistency will be considered later on.
Further, McTaggart holds explicitly that a selfs perceptions are parts of
154 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
that self. In taking this position, McTaggart at once aligns himself with the
bundle theory and decisively disowns the pure ego theory. According to the
latter, no experience, including a perception, which belongs to a given self is
part of that self. One might devise a modified pure ego theory, according to
which a self would be held to include, but at the same time to be more than,
its experiences in their mutual relations. But with such a theory, too,
McTaggart decisively dissociates himself. A selfs experiences - indeed a
seWs perceptions - form, he holds, a complete set of parts of that self.
What this means, technically, is that any part of a self which is not a percep-
tion must be either a part of a perception or a group of perceptions or a part
of a group of perceptions. (For the concepts of a set of parts, of a group,
and of a part of a group, see chap. XV.) Since a pure ego is none of these
things, there is no room for a pure ego in the McTaggartian self.
In what way or ways, then, does McTaggart's view differ from the bundle
theory? For one thing, on the theory of McTaggart the self is a particular.
For him, therefore, the logical construction version of the bundle theory is a
foreign country. Another difference is as follows. According to the bundle
theorist, what unifies a self is a relation among its experiences. For McTag-
gart, on the other hand, the unifying factor is a quality - a simple, in-
definable quality. As it is originally introduced, this unifying quality is
called "the quality of being a self' (Sect. 382). At other places it is called
"selfness." Although either form of reference seems appropriate, the earlier
has the advantage of making clear the vital point that as that quality which
unifies a self qua self, the quality of being a self belongs to a single self
taken as a whole. Now according to McTaggart, no self can have another
self among its parts (Sects. 401-04). The quality of selfness does not,
therefore, belong either to parts of selves or to groups of selves. So although
McTaggart is in agreement with the bundle theorist that the self has no con-
tent (Sect. 125) which is not the content of one or more experiences, he parts
company wit:1 the latter on the question of the seWs distinctive unity. For
the bundle theorist, the source of unity is a relation among experiences. For
McTaggart, the source of unity is a simple, indefinable quality of the self
taken as a whole.
With respect to its simplicity and indefinability, the quality of being a self
is compared by McTaggart to the quality of redness (Sect. 394). Now as
McTaggart conceives of it, selfness is indeed like redness in these two
respects. But whereas redness can belong to the parts of a red particular,
and perhaps to a group of red particulars, selfness cannot belong to the
parts of a self, or to a group of selves. With respect, then, to its inability to
be dispersed throughout a whole to which it belongs, or to belong to a par-
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 155
ticular which includes such a whole, selfness is more akin to the complex
quality of triangularity. (Even here, there is no perfect analogy. A group of
selves cannot compose a self. Yet a group of triangles may be arranged, at
least roughly, in the form of a triangle.)
McTaggart's theory differs significantly, then, from the theory that the
self is a bundle. And yet, with respect to the grounds on which he cuts
himself off from that theory, McTaggart does not move even a step closer
to a view of the self as a pure ego. For according to such a view, the element
which unifies a seWs experiences is not a quality any more than it is a rela-
tion. It is, instead, a particular. No doubt a single pure ego has the quality
of being a pure ego; if it did not it would not be a pure ego. But according to
the pure ego theorist, the self as a pure ego does not derive either its unity or
its individuality from the universal property of pure egohood. Instead, he
will say, it just has them; its unity and individuality are not derived at all. In
fact the self will be held to be that Hegelian thing in itself which McTaggart
rejects. McTaggart thus chooses to occupy a ground somewhere between
two theories which, materialistic theories aside, have frequently been
thought to exhaust the possibilities.
In a few moments we shall consider whether or not his position is consis-
tent. But first, we should examine the case McTaggart makes for a doctrine
which he shares wholeheartedly with the bundle theorist: the doctrine that a
seWs experiences are parts of that self.
There are two views to be contrasted with McTaggart's. On one, there is
no such thing as a perceptual state, but only a perceptual relation. This is
the only alternative which McTaggart recognizes. The other view, which
McTaggart does not explicitly recognize as a possibility, is that there are
perceptual states (or contents), and that these are experiences had by a self
but not included in it. Since McTaggart does ignore the possibility of a view
of this sort, it would be no surprise should his arguments emerge as being
somewhat less than convincing.
In the first of his three arguments for the view that its perceptions are
parts of a self (for all three of these arguments, see Sect. 412), McTaggart
urges that a self, whose perceptions are, over a given period of time, more
numerous than are those of another, could appropriately be described,
as being "fuller." As a second part of the first argument
McTaggart suggests we can see by contemplating them that our "cogita-
tions, volitions, and emotions" do, taken together, "in some sense exhaust
the self." (McTaggart holds that pleasures and pains, though feelings, are
not emotions. See Sect. 481. So evidently, to be consistent, McTaggart
should have said "feelings," and not "emotions." For certainly he holds that
156 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
pleasures and pains, or what appear to be such in our present experience,
are parts of the self.) But if the metaphor of fullness is appropriate, says
McTaggart, and if its experiences do exhaust a self, then a self's experiences
can be no mere relations, but must instead be parts, indeed a complete set of
parts, of that self. This is the first argument in substance. But will either one
of McTaggart's two claims be granted? The pure ego theorist might
easily-and, in terms of his theory, very plausibly-maintain that what is
"fuller" is the self's total experience or mental content, and that what one
finds to be exhausted is the self's total conscious field, or something of that
sort. That a conscious field is exhausted by the conscious experiences which
fill it is, it would seem, analytic, and hence a fact to be discovered otherwise
than through an act of contemplating those experiences. But the fact that
conscious cogitations, volitions, and emotions (or feelings) together exhaust
one's conscious experiences is, if it is a fact at all, contingent and synthetic.
This, then, may be regarded as the synthetic element in the pure ego
theorist's claim, and not the fact that one's conscious experiences exhaust
one's field of conscious experience.
The second argument we are offered is that knowledge, including percep-
tion, makes a greater direct difference to the knower than it does to the
known - and that this fact can plausibly be accounted for only on the view
that the knowledge is part of the knowing self. C. D. Broad, it seems to me,
fails seriously to weaken the argument regarded as directed against purely
relational theories of perceiving.3 For whereas Broad considers the greater
difference which is in question to be a causal difference, and argues accord-
ingly, the most noticeable actual difference, and the difference McTaggart
surely has in mind, is noncausal, or intrinsic. As McTaggart puts it, "the
direct difference between B who knows C, and B if he did not know C, is
greater than the direct difference between C which is known by B, and C if
it had not been known to B." And it seems evident that the difference of
which McTaggart is thinking is precisely a difference between B in a state of
knowing C and B otherwise than in a state of knowing C, and not a dif-
ference in any effects on B which his knowing of C might have. The real
weakness of McTaggart's argument consists in the ease with which it can be
responded to by the person who holds that knowledge is, besides a relation,
a mental content owned by a self, which mental content is not, however, a
part of that self. All such a person needs to say is that although a person's
knowledge of a certain object does make a greater direct intrinsic difference
to himself than it does to the object known, its doing so is to be explained
entirely by its being a state of his own mind, or a stage in his own mental
history.
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 157
The third and final argument requires little discussion. According to
McTaggart, more philosophers would admit that pleasures and pains are
parts of the self than would admit that perceptions or other cognitions are
such. But in absolute reality, holds McTaggart, what we call pleasures and
pains are pleasurable and painful perceptions (Sect. 426). Thus it follows,
on McTaggart's view, that if pleasures and pains are parts of the self, then
so are certain cognitions, indeed certain perceptions. Plainly this argument
will have no force for any person who does not agree with McTaggart that
pleasures and pains are parts of the self, or who does not share his view that
pleasures and pains are, in absolute reality, qualities of perceptions. A
defender of the position which we have been considering, according to
which pleasures and pains are not parts of the self, would rightly be un-
moved by McTaggart's argument.
I think we may conclude that McTaggart has offered no convincing argu-
ment for the view that perceptions are parts of the self which has them, to
say nothing of the view that a selfs perceptions form a set of parts of that
self. If this is correct, then McTaggart has, just as surely, failed to
demonstrate convincingly a pair of corresponding claims for a seWs ex-
periences in general. So even though McTaggart has himself rejected the
pure ego theory, and could hardly be expected to embrace it as an alter-
native to his own, it is worth noting that his arguments are not, so far, suffi-
cient to show that view to be mistaken. And now we may return to that
aspect of McTaggart's theory in which it differs from the bundle theory no
less than from the pure ego theory. I refer to the doctine that what defines a
substance as a self is its possession of a simple, indefinable quality of
selfness.
My objection to this doctrine is that it faces an impossible dilemma. The
self which we are talking about is a self - one thing of the sort we call a
"self." In what way might the oneness of the self be guaranteed? Perhaps
just by its being individual. Perhaps just by, in other words, its own par-
ticularity. Yet selfness is a universal; it is something which all selves possess
in common. So selfness could not bring about the oneness of the self
through any contribution of particularity. If there is a way in which it could
have this effect, this would have to be by its including a certain set of
boundary conditions or, if not, by its entailing (without including) such a
set. (With McTaggart, I shall take for granted the soundness of the analytic-
synthetic distinction.) Now those conditions which define a given sort of
whole must be complex. And according to McTaggart, any substance,
hence any self, is divisible, hence a whole. Now a simple quality cannot in-
clude any complexity. Certainly the simple quality of selfness does not do
158 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
so. As McTaggart puts the matter, "We can perceive no parts or elements of
which it is composed, any more than we can with the quality of redness.
Like redness, it is simple and indefinable" (Sect. 394). Selfness must,
therefore, entail some complexity if it is to be, necessarily, a quality only of
a single self taken as a whole. But could a quality which was altogether sim-
ple possibly entail complexity of any kind, including the points at which a
substance of a certain species must begin and end?
But second, and what seems decisive, selfness, or the quality of being a
self, is to define a single self. After all it must, therefore, include those
necessarily complex conditions which separate one self from another, and
which distinguish it from any of its parts. And that it should be able to do
this is, it seems, contradictory. How can a quality which is altogether simple
specify within itself a boundary or boundaries? Would not a quality which
did do so have some complexity necessarily correspondent either to the
numerosity of the boundaries or to the organization or structure of the
boundary, if there is only one? It should be noted that as McTaggart
understands a complete defining quality, such a quality is not such that the
boundaries of a defined particular might be specified by criteria conven-
tionally associated with, but not included in, that quality. A merely conven-
tional association would be regarded as inclusion. What McTaggart means
in calling selfness a simple quality is precisely that no multiplicity of
qualities or of relations is connected logically with this quality, apart from
what it might synthetically entail. I suggest, then, that where "1>" is to name
a kind of substance, or a kind of particular, the phrase "the simple quality
of being a 1>" turns out to be self-contradictory. Thus, the phrase "the sim-
ple quality of being a self' is contradictory, and McTaggart's theory of the
self must be rejected.
We are faced, therefore, with the fact that McTaggart's views on the
nature of the self do not compose a single, consistent theory. Instead, they
offer us materials for one or the other of three different theories. One of
these is the theory that the self is a pure ego. Now even though suggestions
of this view are to be found, we have seen, in McTaggart's thought, its ac-
ceptance by McTaggart would not be possible consistently with the
metaphysical system set forth in The Nature of Existence. According to the
proponent of the pure ego theory, a seWs perceptions are not to be
numbered among its parts. But if its perceptions are not parts of the self,
then selves will not be primary parts of the universe, and will not be such
that their parts of parts are related, to infinity, by Determining Cor-
respondence via the relation of a perception to its object. And even though
this last relation would remain, presumably, a relation of Determining Cor-
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 159
respondence, the self as a pure ego would fall outside any known system of
Determining Correspondence, and thus would be saved from the Contradic-
tion of Infinite Divisibility only by the ad hoc hypothesis that its parts were
governed by some Determining Correspondence relation. (The principle
that every substance, including the self, is divisible, and infinitely divisible,
is an essential element in the theory of Determining Correspondence, and
thus in McTaggart's system.) For McTaggart, therefore, the cost of adopt-
ing the pure ego theory would be prohibitive.
It seems that either one of two remaining theories of the self would be a
better choice for McTaggart. First of all, there is the bundle theory, in either
one of its two forms. There are a number of respects in which this theory
and McTaggart's are at odds. McTaggart differs fundamentally from bun-
dle theorists in holding, as we have seen that he does, that a substance is a
self by virtue of a simple quality - not of a relation among the parts of
which the substance is composed. Two further, derivative differences are
the following. First, McTaggart writes that if the bundle theory is true, "we
must no longer say that the self perceives, thinks, or loves, or that it has a
perception of thought or an emotion [sic]. We can only say that the bundle
includes a perception, a thought, or an emotion as one of its parts" (Sect.
388). But according to McTaggart, whereas a mental state is a part of a self,
we may also say that a self has that state. And second, for the bundle
theorists - McTaggart claims this, and I suggest that he is right - mental
states are epistemologically and onto logically prior to the self; for the latter
is, if it is anything, only an interrelated collection of those states. According
to McTaggart, on the other hand, the self as a whole is ontologically prior
to the experiences which compose it (Sect. 253), and can perceive, and does
not merely include, those experiences (Sect. 388, p. 71, footnote 1). These
are serious points of difference. On the whole, though, in adopting the bun-
dle theory McTaggart would do less violence to the fundamentals of his
system than he would in adopting the pure ego theory.
The remaining alternative would be for McTaggart to agree with the bun-
dle theorist that experiences are parts of the self which is said to "have"
them, but to agree with the pure ego theorist that boundaries between
selves, together with the fact that various selves are the particular selves they
are - the fact of their individuality as selves - are determined by no quality
or relation or combination of qualities and relations, but are instead
ultimate. The notion of an ultimate particularity, a particularity which is
not grounded in qualitative uniqueness, is of course mysterious, indeed in
some sense unintelligible. But one is, after all, committed to such a notion
in accepting the pure ego theory, or even in denying the principle of the
160 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
identity of indiscernibles (or in McTaggart's phrase, the principle of the
"Dissimilarity of the Diverse"). A view of the self such as that which I am
proposing for consideration could be called a "substance" view; for selves
are to be distinguished from the totality of their qualities and from their
separate experiences, and furthermore are to possess "an individuality apart
from their qualities," in McTaggart's phrase. But it would not be the pure
ego theory. According to that theory, the self is the inner core which "has"
its experiences, but which does not include them. On the present view, the
self is the experiences - but the experiences as parts of a whole whose unity
and individuality are, as ultimate, not explicable in terms of the fact that the
whole possesses certain universal characteristics.
In accepting the third of the three theories I have mentioned, McTaggart
would, I admit, be forced to renounce the view that individuality rests on
qualities, and to reject as unfounded both the principle of the Dissimilarity
of the Diverse (Sect. 99), and, in turn, the principle that every particular en-
tity must possess what McTaggart calls a "sufficient description" (Sect.
102), i.e., a description which does not include a reference to any already
identified particular, but which serves, nevertheless, to distinguish the given
particular from every other particular. Now this last mentioned principle
would appear to be fundamental to McTaggart's system of metaphysics.
For on it rests - or so it would seem - McTaggart's case for the previously
mentioned Contradiction of Infinite Divisibility, on which supposed con-
tradiction rests, in turn, McTaggart's case for Determining Correspondence
as the one route of escape, for any substance or particular, from that con-
tradiction. But, this principle might possibly turn out to be less integral to
McTaggart's system than it appears to be at first, and than McTaggart
thought it was.
And so I ask: does McTaggart's system depend in the vital way .in which it
seems to do on the principle that every substance, or particular, must have a
sufficient description? If the principle is indeed thus essential to his system,
McTaggart will have no choice but to turn to the bundle theory, despite his
condemnation of it. As a necessary preliminary to a decision on this matter,
we shall have to examine McTaggart's argument, in chap. XXIII" from the
Contradiction of Infinite Divisibility. For it is, I think, as a result of the ap-
parent dependence of this argument on the principle in question that the
system as a whole seems to depend on that principle. Now the argument of
Sects. 182-91, in terms of "presupposition" and "total ultimate presupposi-
tion," seems to me to be paralleled by, and in substance repeated by, the
much briefer and clearer argument of Sects. 192-94, which is in terms of
"adequate descriptions" and "minimum adequate descriptions." It will suf-
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 161
fice, then, if I present and discuss the latter argument and ignore the
former.
By the principle of the Dissimilarity of the Diverse, we know that every
particular possesses a sufficient description. We know, then, that the nature
of any particular includes sufficient descriptions of all of that particular's
parts - even if, as McTaggart claims must be the case, the parts are infinite
in number (Sects. 161-80). Thus, McTaggart writes: " ... It is part of the
nature of A that it has a part with a description which sufficiently describes
B, and a part with a description which sufficiently describes C, and so on
with all the other parts ... " (Sect. 192). We know without further ado,
therefore, that the nature of a particular must necessitate at least by inclu-
sion sufficient descriptions of all of that particular's parts. The question
then arises whether or not some parts of this nature must between
themselves necessitate all of these descriptions, necessitating some of these
not by inclusion, but by synthetic entailment.
With McTaggart, let us use the phrase "adequate description" to stand for
a description which is full enough for a certain purpose, and the phrase
"minimum adequate description" to stand for a description which is full
enough for a certain purpose, and which does not contain any superfluous
. elements - elements which could be subtracted, leaving a description which
would still be adequate to that same purpose. It seems evident that any
description which was full enough for a certain purpose would have as a
part of itself, or would itself be, at least one minimum adequate description
for that purpose. (As McTaggart points out - Sect. 194, footnote 1- a given
adequate description may include more than one minimum adequate
description.) Consider, now, the purpose of providing a description of a
given particular A, this description to include, or in some other way to pro-
vide, a sufficient description of each one of this particular's infinity of
parts. What would constitute a minimum adequate description for this par-
ticular purpose?
A minimum adequate description of A could not include sufficient
descriptions of the members of any two sets of parts, M and N, in the same
series of subdivisions, where we may suppose that M is precedent to N.
(That M is "precedent" to N - or that N is "sequent" to M - means that the
members of N are obtained by dividing, into two or more parts, one or
more of the members of M, and adding these parts to the members of M left
undivided.) That a minimum adequate description of A could not include
such descriptions of A's parts results from the fact that the sufficient
descriptions of the members of N would entail sufficient descriptions of the
members of M as the members of a set-some set-precedent to N. Thus
162 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
the various members of M would be sufficiently describable as particulars
having, or having parts having, such and such sufficient descriptions where
the descriptions were of the various members of N. Since sufficient descrip-
tions of the members of M would, in this way, be rendered superfluous by
sufficient descriptions of the members of N, the former would have to be
omitted as one sought to achieve a minimum adequate description.
The minimum adequate description of A can include, therefore, suffi-
cient descriptions of the members of at most a single set of parts in a given
hierarchy of sets of parts. Now any set of parts will have an infinite number
of sets of parts which are sequent to it. So if P is a set of parts of A (or is A
itself), descriptions of whose members are (or, the description of which is)
included in a minimum adequate description of A, there will be' an infinite
series of sequent sets of parts, descriptions of whose members will be pro-
vided by, but not included in, the minimum adequate description of A. Now
in what way could this infinity of descriptions be provided, since they can-
not be provided by inclusion? Evidently, only by synthetic entailment. So if
we are to avoid a contradiction, then sequent to P there must be an infinite
series of sets of parts, sufficient descriptions of the members of which are
synthetically entailed by, but are not included in, a certain description of A.
And this is McTaggart's conclusion.
Let us ask, now, if McTaggart's argument from the Contradiction of In-
finite Divisibility, and in turn his argument for Determining Cor-
respondence as the one route of escape from that supposed contradiction,
rest in an essential way on the principle that every substance must have a
sufficient description.
4
For, the answer to this question is of central impor-
tance, we have seen, for a determination of what consistent theory of the
self is least discordant with McTaggart's thought as a whole. I want to sug-
gest very briefly that the answer to it is "no."
Suppose McTaggart's principle to be mistaken. If it is, we shall not be
able to say a priori that every particular will possess a description which is
completely general, in the sense that it does not contain a reference to any
particular merely as such, yet which is sufficient to distinguish a given par-
ticular from every other particular in the universe. But we shall be able to
say a priori - for the claim is analytic - that every particular will possess a
description which I shall term "satisfactory": namely, a completely general
description which serves to distinguish a given particular from every other
particular, except for any particular or particulars which may be
qualitatively identical with the given particular. And now, I suggest that we
can state the argument from the Contradiction of Infinite Divisibility in
terms of satisfactory descriptions as easily as we can - as, of course,
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 163
McTaggart states it - in terms of sufficient descriptions.
What would constitute a minimum adequate description of A for the pur-
pose of providing a description which will include, or in some other way
provide, a satisfactory description of each one of A's infinitely many parts?
Such a description could not include satisfactory descriptions of the
members of any two sets of parts, M and N, where Nwas sequent to M. For
suppose that certain descriptions are full enough to distinguish each of the
members of Nfrom every other particular in the universe, except for any ex-
actly resembling particulars. A given member of M will consist of one or
more members of N. So if we have satisfactory descriptions of those
members of N which are involved, we shall be able adequately to describe
the member of M as a particular consisting of particulars whose satisfactory
descriptions are such and such. It might be objected that satisfactory
descriptions of the parts would not ensure a satisfactory description of the
whole, since parts which were exactly similar might be arranged differently
in two wholes, wholes which would not, therefore, be exactly similar to each
other. But if the parts were arranged differently in such a way as to produce
dissimilarity in their wholes, the relational qualities of the parts would not
be the same; thus the parts themselves would not, after all, be exactly
similar qualitatively. I think it is evident, then, that a satisfactory descrip-
tion of the member of M is guaranteed by satisfactory descriptions of this
member's parts. Now the same reasoning will extend, of course, to all the
members of M. Since the satisfactory descriptions of the members of Nthus
render superfluous the satisfactory descriptions of the members of M, we
see that in the search for a minimum adequate description the latter will be
dropped from any description of A which starts out by including descrip-
tions of the members of both sets of parts.
It is thus apparent that a result will be required which is very similar to
that required before. There must be a chain of synthetic entailments run-
ning from A, or, if not, running from a set of parts P for every hierarchy of
sets of parts of A, down through all the infinitely many sequent sets in each
hierarchy. What is different in the present case is that what are entailed will
be satisfactory descriptions as distinguished from sufficient ones. The pres-
ent argument, which I suggest we could substitute for McTaggart's, will not
depend on our assuming the principle that every substance has a sufficient
description. It is at least worth asking, then, whether there is anything in
McTaggart's system which requires that we assume that principle.
Except for the fact that references to satisfactory descriptions would have
to replace references to sufficient descriptions, I cannot see that the system
depends either for its a priori or for its semiempirical results on the necessity
164 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
that every substance should have a sufficient description. It was held by
McTaggart that we needed Determining Correspondence, as originally
defined, in order to escape from the Contradiction of Infinite Divisibility.
But we see, now, that we need something less: namely, an infinite series of
entailments merely of satisfactory descriptions, and not of sufficient ones.
Now such a series is one in which descriptions of an infinity of parts within
parts are entailed by a certain description of a whole to which these parts
belong. Considerations of the same sort, then, as those which force us, if
every particular must have a sufficient description, to Determining Cor-
respondence as McTaggart defines it (Sect. 197) will, in case that principle is
not correct, force us to a modified Determining Correspondence entailing
satisfactory descriptions rather than sufficient ones.
As a sample of McTaggart's semiempirical results, if McTaggart's
arguments for the impossibility of matter are valid as they stand, they will
also be valid if references to sufficient descriptions are replaced by
references to satisfactory ones. For there will be the same difficulties about
the entailment of spatial and of nonspatial qualities down through an in-
finite series. Spirit, however, will be allowed entrance to reality. For the
relation "being a perception or' will still constitute - if it constitutes at
all- a relation of (now modified) Determining Correspondence. An ade-
quate description of B!C in McTaggart's example in Sect. 410 would be, "a
perception by a self which is UVW of a self which is XYZ" - where" UVW'
and "XYZ" are satisfactory descriptions. In connection with that example,
the discussion of the five conditions for Determining Correspondence
would be unaffected, except that references in the first condition and in the
fifth condition to sufficient descriptions would be replaced by references to
satisfactory descriptions.
So, although I cannot possibly undertake here to demonstrate the thesis
rigorously or in detail, I do suggest that descriptions which were merely
satisfactory would suit McTaggart's purposes as effectively as would ones
which were sufficient. If this is right, a crucial obstacle to McTaggart's ac-
cepting a theory of the self as a collection of experiences which" though a
collection, has an individuality apart from its qualities will have been over-
come. (So, also, for that matter, will one obstacle to his accepting the
theory of the self as a pure ego.) With this otherwise important obstacle
removed, the theory that the self is a collection unified by sheer particularity
is, I think, the theory, other than his own inconsistent one, which would
least disrupt McTaggart's system. The choice can be, we have seen, only be-
tween this theory and the bundle theory. And the latter stands in stubborn
opposition to McTaggart's emphasis on the seWs unity and (as implied in his
MCTAGGART'S THEORY 165
sections on love) on its underived individuality. One may consider that this
latter fact is a matter of spirit more than of letter. But where McTaggart and
the self are concerned, the spirit (!) may be more important than the letter.
One may object that sheer particularity is irrational. There certainly is
force in this objection, as I have admitted. I can only say that on grounds
which I have indicated already the objection does not seem to me to be
decisive. Again, one may urge that if anything so irrational as sheer par-
ticularity is to be admitted at all, it must at least be supposed to be attached
to a pure ego. But why should two mysteries be better than one? If we do
not understand sheer particularity, how do we know that it can attach itself
only to pure egos and, perhaps, to individual experiences? To be sure, each
experience is a particular, and as such will possess its own particularity. The
particularity of the collection, therefore, will have to be an additional par-
ticularity; and, indeed - if personal identity is not to be determined by con-
ventional criteria - not merely one derived from the distinct particularities
contributed by the distinct experiences. Yet if particulars are infinitely
divisible, particularity will not, in any case, be understandable in an atomic
way: each experience will be endlessly divisible, and every entity, mental or
physical, will be a "collection." And when we "look inside ourselves" we
might be held to find some ground for saying that the self is an
unanalyzably particular collection of experiences. For even though we do
not, apparently, find either a pure ego behind our experiences or a suitable
relation among them, we do experience ourselves as unitary individuals. In
any case, McTaggart could not, of course, admit the existence of a pure
ego; for it is absolutely basic to his system that a seWs perceptions comprise
a complete set of parts of that self.
Whether or not one agrees with my various conclusions having to do with
McTaggart's theory of selfhood, I hope that the considerations which have
caused me to accept them have been made sufficiently clear. I hope, too,
that I have managed to shed some light on various problems in that theory
and, in the process, on the theory itself.
Drew University
Notes
'Except where indicated otherwise, all references are to J. M. E. McTaggart, The Nature of
166 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
Existence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921; reprinted, 1%8).
2In "An Ontological Idealism" the definition is revised to read that a substance is "that which
has qualities and is related, without being itself either a quality or a relation, or having qualities
or relations among its parts." "An Ontological Idealism," Philosophical Studies (Freeport,
New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1968), p. 275.
'C. D. Broad, Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, Volume II, Part I (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1938), pp. 43-44.
'Broad criticizes these arguments at some length, rejecting them both (Broad, op. cit.,
Volume I). Yet Broad's discussion is, it seems to me, itself of questionable finality. In any case,
a critical appraisal either of these McTaggartian arguments or of Broad's counterarguments
would pass beyond the limits of this paper.