Essays in Experimental Logic Part 10

In this fact we have, perhaps, the ground of the idealist's disregard of the oft-proffered physical explanation of the difference between the perceptual event and _the_ (so-called) real object. And it is quite possible that some realists who read these lines will feel that in my last paragraphs I have been making a covert argument for idealism. Not so, I repeat; they are an argument for a truly nave realism. The presentative realist, in his appeal to "common-sense" and the "plain man," first sophisticates the umpire and then appeals. He stops a good way short of a genuine navete. The plain man, for a surety, does not regard noises heard, lights seen, etc., as mental existences; but neither does he regard them as things _known_. That they are just things is good enough for him. That they are in relation to mind, or in relation to mind as their "knower," no more occurs to him than that they are mental. By this I mean much more than that the formulae of epistemology are foreign to him; I mean that his att.i.tude to these things _as_ things involves their _not_ being in relation to him as a mind or a knower. He is in the att.i.tude of a liker or hater, a doer or an appreciator. When he takes the att.i.tude of a knower he begins to inquire. Once depart from thorough navete, and subst.i.tute for it the psychological theory that perception is a cognitive presentation to a mind of a causal object, and the first step is taken on the road which ends in an idealistic system.

III

For simplicity's sake, I have written as if my main problem were to show how, in the face of a supposed difficulty, a strictly realistic theory of the perceptual event may be maintained. But my interest is primarily in the facts, and in the theory only because of the facts it formulates. The significance of the facts of the case may, perhaps, be indicated by a consideration which has thus far been ignored. In regarding a perception as a case of knowledge, the presentative realist does more than shove into it a relation to mind which then, naturally and inevitably, becomes the explanation of any differences that exist between its subject-matter and some causal object with which it contrasts. In many cases--very important cases, too, in the physical sciences--the contrasting "real object" becomes known by a logical process, by inference--as the contemporary position of the star is determined by calculations from data, not by perception. This, then, is the situation of the presentative realist: If perception is knowledge of its cause, it stands in unfavorable contrast with another indirect mode of knowledge; _its_ object is less valid than the object of inference. I do not adduce these considerations as showing that the case is hopeless for the presentative realist;[61] I am willing to concede he can find a satisfactory way out. But the difficulty exists; and in existing it calls emphatic attention to a case which is certainly and indisputably a case of knowledge--namely, propositions arrived at through inference, judgments as logical a.s.sertions.

With relation to the unquestionable case of knowledge, the logical or inferential case, perceptions occupy a unique status, one which readily accounts for their being regarded as cases of knowledge, although in themselves they are natural events. (1) They are the sole ultimate data, the sole media, of inference to all natural objects and processes. While we do not, in any intelligible or verifiable sense, know _them_, we know all things that we do know _with_ or _by_ them.

They furnish the only ultimate evidence of the existence and nature of the objects which we infer, and they are the sole ultimate checks and tests of the inferences. The visible light is a necessary part of the evidence on the basis of which we infer the existence, place, and structure of the astronomical star, and some other perception is the verifying check on the value of the inference. Because of this characteristic use of perceptions, the perceptions themselves acquire, by "second intention," a knowledge status. They _become_ objects of minute, accurate, and experimental scrutiny. Since the body of propositions that forms natural science hangs upon them, _for scientific purposes_ their nature _as_ evidence, _as_ signs, entirely overshadows their natural status, that of being simply natural events.

The scientific man, as scientific, cares for perceptions not in themselves, but as they throw light upon the nature of some object reached by evidence. And since every such inference tries to terminate in a further perception (as its test of validity), the value of inferential knowing depends on perception. (2) Independently of science, daily life uses perceptions as signs of other perceptions.

When a perception of a certain kind frequently recurs and is constantly used as evidence of some other impending perceptual event, the function of habit (a natural function, be it noted, not a psychical or epistemological function) often brings it about that the perception loses its original quality in acquiring a sign-value.

Language is, of course, the typical case. Noises, in themselves mere natural events, through habitual use as signs of other natural events become integrated with what they mean. What they stand for is telescoped, as it were, into what they are. This happens also with other natural events, colors, tastes, etc. Thus, _for practical purposes_, many perceptual events are cases of knowledge; that is, they have been _used_ as such so often that the habit of so using them is established or automatic.

In this brief reference to facts that are perfectly familiar, I have tried to suggest three points of crucial importance for a nave realism: first, that inferential or evidential knowledge (that involving logical relation) is in the field as an obvious and undisputed case of knowledge; second, that this function, although embodying the logical relation, is itself a natural and specifically detectable process among natural things--it is not a non-natural or epistemological relation; third, that the _use_, practical and scientific, of perceptual events in the evidential or inferential function is such as to make them _become_ objects of inquiry and limits of knowledge, and to such a degree that this acquired characteristic quite overshadows, in many cases, their primary nature.

If we add to what has been said the fact that, like every natural function, the inferential function turns out better in some cases and worse in others, we get a naturalistic or navely realistic conception of the "_problem_ of knowledge": Control of the conditions of inference--the only type of knowledge detectable in direct existence--so as to guide it toward better conclusions.

IV

I do not flatter myself that I will receive much grat.i.tude from realists for attempting to rescue them from that error of fact which exposes their doctrine to an idealistic interpretation. The superst.i.tion, growing up in a false physics and physiology and perpetuated by psychology, that sensations-perceptions are cases of knowledge, is too ingrained. But--_crede experto_--let them try the experiment of conceiving perceptions as pure natural events, not as cases of awareness or apprehension, and they will be surprised to see how little they miss--save the burden of carrying traditionary problems. Meantime, while philosophic argument, such as this, will do little to change the state of belief regarding perceptions, the development of biology and the refinement of physiology will, in due season, do the work.

In concluding my article, I ought to refer, in order to guard against misapprehension, to a reply that the presentative realist might make to my objection. He might say that while the seen light is a case of knowledge or presentative awareness, it is not a case of knowledge of the star, but simply of the seen light, just as it is. In this case the appeal to the physical explanations of the difference of the seen light from its objective source is quite legitimate. At first sight, such a position seems innocent and tenable. Even if innocent, it would, however, be ungrounded, since there is no evidence of the existence of a knower, and of its relation to the seen light. But further consideration will reveal that there is a most fundamental objection. If the notion of perception as a case of adequate knowledge of its own object-matter be accepted, the knowledge relation is absolutely ubiquitous; it is an all-inclusive net. The "ego-centric predicament" is inevitable. This result of making perception a case of knowing will now occupy us.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] I am indebted to Dr. Bush's article on "Knowledge and Perception," _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. VI, p. 393, and to Professor Woodbridge's article on "Perception and Epistemology" in the _James Memorial Volume_, as well as to his paper on "Sensations," read at the 1910 meeting of the American Philosophical a.s.sociation. Since my point of departure and aim are somewhat different, I make this general acknowledgment in lieu of more specific references.

[59] Plato's use of shadows, of reflections in the water, and other "images" or "imitations" to prove the presence in nature of non-being was, considering the state of physical science in his day, a much more sensible conclusion than the modern use of certain images as proof that the object in perception is a psychical content. Hobbes expressly treats all images as physical, as on the same plane as reflections in the water and echoes; the comparison is his.

[60] It is impossible, in this brief treatment, to forestall every misapprehension and objection. Yet to many the use of the term "seen"

will appear to be an admission that a case of knowledge is involved.

But is smelling a case of knowledge? Or (if the superst.i.tion persists as to smell) is gnawing or poking a case of knowledge? My point, of course, is that "seen" involves a relation to organic activity, not to a knower, or mind.

[61] This is the phase of the matter, of course, which the rationalistic or objective realist, the realist of the type of T. H.

Green, emphasizes. Put in terms of systems, the difficulty is that in escaping the subjectivism latent in treating perception as a case of knowledge, the realist runs into the waiting arms of the objective idealist.

X

EPISTEMOLOGICAL REALISM: THE ALLEGED UBIQUITY OF THE KNOWLEDGE RELATION

I have pointed out that if perception be treated as a case of knowledge, knowledge of every form and kind must be treated as a case of a presentation to a knower. The alleged discipline of epistemology is then inevitable. In common usage, the term "knowledge" tends to be employed eulogistically; its meaning approaches the connotation of the term "science." More loosely, it is used, of course, to designate all beliefs and propositions that are held with a.s.surance, especially with the implication that the a.s.surance is reasonable, or grounded. In its practical sense, it is used as the equivalent of "knowing _how_," of skill or ability involving such acquaintance with things and persons as enables one to antic.i.p.ate how they behave under certain conditions and to take steps accordingly. Such usages of the term are all differential; they all involve definite contrasts--with ungrounded conviction, or with doubt and mere guesswork, or with the inexpertness that accompanies lack of familiarity. In its epistemological use, the term "knowledge" has a blanket value which is absolutely unknown in common life. It covers any and every "presentation" of any and every thing to a knower, to an "awarer," if I may coin a word for the sake of avoiding some of the pitfalls of the term "consciousness." And, I repeat, this indiscriminate use of the term "knowledge," so foreign to science and daily life, is absolutely unavoidable if perception be regarded as, in itself, a mode of knowledge. And then--and only then--the problem of "the possibility, nature, and extent of knowledge _in general_" is also inevitable. I hope I shall not be regarded as offensively pragmatic if I suggest that this undesirable consequence is a good reason for not accepting the premise from which it follows, unless that premise be absolutely forced upon us.

At all events, upon the supposition of the ubiquity of the knowledge relation in respect to a self, presentative realism is compelled to accept the genuineness of the epistemological problem, and thus to convert itself into an epistemological realism, getting one more step away from both nave and naturalistic realism. The problem is especially acute for a presentative realism because idealism has made precisely this ubiquity of relationship its axiom, its short-cut. One sample is as good as a thousand. Says Bain: "There is no possible knowledge of a world except in relation to our minds. Knowledge means a state of mind; the notion of material things is a mental fact. We are incapable even of discussing the existence of an independent material world; the very act is a contradiction. We can speak only of a world presented to our own minds."

On the supposition of the ubiquity of the relation, realism and idealism exhaust the alternatives; if the ubiquity of the relation is a myth, both doctrines are unreal, because there is no problem of which they are the solution. My first step in indicating the unreality of both "solutions" is formal. I shall try to show that _if_ the knowledge relation of things to a self is the exhaustive and inclusive relation, there is no intelligible point at issue between idealism and realism; the differences between them are either verbal or else due to a failure on the part of one or the other to stick to their _common_ premise.

I

To my mind, Professor Perry rendered philosophic discussion a real service when he coined the phrase "ego-centric predicament." The phrase designated something which, whether or no it be real in itself, is very real in current discussion, and designating it rendered it more accessible to examination. In terming the alleged uniform complicity of a knower a predicament, it is intended, I take it, to suggest, among other things, that we have here a difficulty with which all schools of thought alike must reckon, so that it is a difficulty that cannot be used as an argument in behalf of one school and against another. If the relation be ubiquitous, it affects alike every view, every theory, every object experienced; it is no respecter of persons, no respecter of doctrines. Since it cannot make any difference to any particular object, to any particular logical a.s.sertion, or to any particular theory, it does not support an idealistic as against a realistic theory. Being a universal common denominator of all theories, it cancels out of all of them alike. It leaves the issue one of _subject-matter_, to be decided on the basis of that subject-matter, not on the basis of an unescapable attendant consideration that the subject-matter must be known in order to be discussed. In short, the moral is quite literally, "Forget it," or "Cut it out."

But the idealist may be imagined to reply somewhat as follows: "If the ubiquity were of any kind other than precisely the kind it is, the advice to disregard it as a mere attendant circ.u.mstance of discussion would be relevant. Thus, for example, we disregard gravitation when we are considering a particular chemical reaction; there is no ground for supposing that it affects a reaction in any way that modifies it as a chemical reaction. And if the 'ego-centric' relation were cited when the point at issue is something about one group of facts in distinction from another group, it ought certainly to be canceled from any statement about them. But since the point at issue is precisely the most universally defining trait of existence as known, the invitation deliberately to disregard the most universal trait is nothing more or less than an invitation to philosophic suicide."

If the idealist I have imagined as making the foregoing retort were up in recent realistic literature, he might add the following argument _ad hominem_: "You, my realistic opponent, say that the doctrine of the external relation of terms expresses a ubiquitous mark of every genuine proposition or relational complex, and that this ubiquity is a strong presumption in favor of realism. Why so uneven, so partial, in your att.i.tude toward ubiquitous relations? Is it perchance that you were so uneasy at our possession of a ubiquitous relation that gives a short cut to idealism that you felt you must also have a short cut to realism?"

If I terminate the controversy at this point, it is not because I think the realist is unable to "come back." On the contrary, I stop here because I believe (for reasons that will come out shortly) that both realist and idealist, having the same primary a.s.sumption, can come back at each other indefinitely. Consequently, I wish to employ the existence of this _tu quoque_ controversy to raise the question: Under what conditions is the relation of knower to known an intelligible question? And I wish to show that it is _not_ intelligible, if the knowledge relation be ubiquitous and h.o.m.ogeneous.

The controversy back and forth is in fact a warning of each side by the other not to depart from their _common_ premise. If the idealist begins to argue (as he constantly does) as if the relation to "mind"

or to "consciousness" made some difference of a specific sort, like that between error and fact, or between sound perception and hallucination, he may be reminded that, since this relation is uniform, it substantiates and nullifies all things alike. And the realist is quite within the common premise when he points out that every special fact must be admitted for what it is specifically known to be; no idealistic doctrine can turn the edge of the fact that knowledge has evolved historically out of a state in which there was no mind, or of the fact that knowledge is even now dependent on the brain, provided that specific evidence shows these to be facts. The realist, on the other hand, must admit that, after all, the entire body of known facts, or of science, including such facts as the above, is held fast and tight in the net of relation to a mind or consciousness. In specific cases this relation may be ignored, but the exact ground for such an ignoring is precisely that the relation is not a specific fact, but a uniform relation of facts. And to call it an external relation makes no practical difference if it is universal and uniform. So the idealist might reply.

Imagine a situation like the following: The sole relation an organism bears to things is that of eater; the sole relation the environment bears to the organism is that of food, that is, things-to-eat. This relation, then, is exhaustive. It defines, or identifies, each term in relation to the other. But this means that there are not, as respects organism and environment, two terms at all. Eater-of-food and food-being-eaten are two names for one and the same situation. Could there be imagined a greater absurdity than to set to work to discuss the relation _of_ eater _to_ food, _of_ organism _to_ the environment, or to argue as to whether one modifies the other or not? Given the premise, the statements in such a discussion could have only a verbal difference from one another.

Suppose, however, the discussion has somehow got under way. Sides have been taken; the philosophical world is divided into two great camps, "foodists" and "eaterists." The eaterists (idealists) contend that no object exists except in relation to eating; hence that everything is const.i.tuted a thing by its relation to eating. Special sciences exist indeed which discuss the nature of various sorts of things in relation to _one another_, and hence in legitimate abstraction from the fact that they are all foods. But the discussion of their nature _an sich_ depends upon "eatology," which deals primarily with the problem of the possibility, nature, and extent (or limits) of eating food in general, and thereby determines what food in general, _uberhaupt_, is and means.

Nay, replies the foodist (realist). Since the eating relation is uniform, it is negligible. All propositions which have any intelligible meaning are about objects just as they are, and in the relations they bear to one another. Foods pa.s.s in and out of the relation to eater with no change in their own traits. Moreover, the position of the eaterists is self-contradictory. How can a thing be eaten unless it is, in and of itself, a food? To suppose that a food is const.i.tuted by eating is to presuppose that eating eats eating, and so on in infinite regress. In short, to be an eater is to be an eater of food; take away the independent existence of foods, and you deny the existence and the possibility of an eater.

I respectfully submit that there is no terminus to such a discussion.

For either both sides are saying the same thing in different words, or else both of them depart from their common premise, and unwittingly smuggle in some relations between the organism and environment other than that of food-eater. If to be an eater means that an organism which is more and other than an eater is doing something _distinctive_, because contrasting with its other functions, in eating then, and then only, is there an issue. In this latter case, the thing which is food may, of course, be _proved_ to be something besides food, because of some different relation to the organism than that of eating. But if both stick consistently to their common premise, we get the following trivial situation. The idealist says: "Every philosophy purports to be knowledge, knowledge of objects; all knowledge implies relation to mind; therefore every object with which philosophy deals is object-in-relation-to-mind." The realist says: "To be a mind is to be a knower; to be a knower is to be a knower-of-objects. Without the objects to be known, mind, the knower, is and means nothing."

The difficulties attending the discussion of epistemology are in no way attendant upon the special subject-matter of "epistemology." They are found wherever any reciprocal relation is taken to define, exclusively and exhaustively, all the connections between any pair of things. If there are two things that stand solely as buyer and seller to each other, or as husband and wife, then that relation is "unique,"

and undefinable; to discuss the relation _of_ the relation _to_ the terms of which it is the relation, is an obvious absurdity; to a.s.sert that the relation does _not_ modify the "seller," the "wife," or the "object known," is to discuss the relation _of_ the relation just as much as to a.s.sert the opposite. The only reason, I think, why anyone has ever supposed the case of knower-known to differ from any case of an alleged exhaustive and exclusive correlation is that while the knower is only one--just knower--the objects known are obviously many, and sustain many relations to one another which vary independently of their relation to the knower. This is the undoubted fact at the bottom of epistemological realism. But the idealist is ent.i.tled to reply that the objects in their variable relations to one another nevertheless fall within a relation to a knower, _as long as_ that relation is regarded by both as exhaustive or ubiquitous.

II

Nevertheless, I do not conceive that the realistic a.s.sertion and the idealistic a.s.sertion in this dilemma stand on the same level, or have the same value. The fact that objects vary in relation to one another independently of their relation to the "knower" _is_ a fact, and a fact recognized by all schools. The idealistic a.s.sertion rests simply upon the presupposition of the ubiquity of the knowledge relation, and consequently has only an _ad hominem_ force, that is a force as against epistemological realists--against those who admit that the sole and exhaustive relation of the "self" or "ego" to objects is that of knower of them.[62] The relation of buyer and seller is a discussable relation; for buyer does not exhaust one party and seller does not exhaust the other. Each is a man or a woman, a consumer or a producer or a middleman, a green-grocer or a dry-goods merchant, a taxpayer or a voter, and so on indefinitely. Nor is it true that such additional relations are borne merely to _other_ things; the buyer-sellers are more than and other than buyer-seller to _each other_. They may be fellow-clubmen, belong to opposite political parties, dislike each other's looks, and be second cousins. Hence the buyer-seller relation stands in intelligent connection and contrast with other relations, so that it can be discriminated, defined, a.n.a.lyzed. Moreover, there are specific differences _in_ the buying-selling relation. Because it is not ubiquitous, it is not h.o.m.ogeneous. If wealthy and a householder, the one who buys is a different buyer--i.e., buys differently--than if poor and a boarder.

Consequently, the seller sells differently, has more or less goods left to sell, more or less income to expend on other things, and so on indefinitely. Moreover, in order to be a buyer the man has to _have been_ other things; i.e., he is not a buyer _per se_, but _becomes_ a buyer because he is an eater, wears clothes, is married, etc.

It is also quite clear that the organism is something else than an eater, or something in relation to food alone. I will not again call the roll of perfectly familiar facts; I will lessen my appeal to the reader's patience by confining my reiteration to one point. Even in relation to the things that are food, the organism is something more than their eater. He is their acquirer, their pursuer, their cultivator, their beholder, taster, etc.; he _becomes_ their eater _only_ because he is so many other things, and his becoming an eater is a natural episode in the natural unfolding of these other things.

Precisely the same sort of a.s.sertions may be made about the knower-known relation. If the one who is knower is something else and more than the knower of objects, and if objects are, _in relation to the one who knows them_, something else and other than things in a knowledge relation, there is somewhat to define and discuss; otherwise we are raising, as we have already seen, the quite foolish question as to what is the relation of a relation to itself, or the equally foolish question of whether being a thing modifies the thing that it is. And, moreover, epistemological realism and idealism both say the same thing: realism that a thing does not modify itself, idealism that, since the thing is what it is, it stands in the relation that it does stand in.

There are many facts which, prima facie, support the claim that knowing is a connection of things which depends upon other and more primary connections between a self and things; a connection which grows out of these more fundamental connections and which operates in their interests at specifiable crises. I will not repeat what is so generally admitted and so little taken into account, that knowing is, biologically, a differentiation of organic behavior, but will cite some facts that are even more obvious and even more neglected.

1. If we take a case of perception, we find upon a.n.a.lysis that, so far as a self or organism is concerned in it at all, the self is, so to say, inside of it rather than outside of it. It would be much more correct to say that a self is contained in a perception than that a perception is presented to a self. That is to say, the organism is involved in the occurrence of the perception in the same sort of way that hydrogen is involved in the happening--producing--of water. We might about as well talk of the production of a specimen of water as a presentation of water to hydrogen as talk in the way we are only too accustomed to talk about perceptions and the organism. When we consider a perception as a case of "apperception," the same thing holds good. Habits enter into the _const.i.tution_ of the situation; they are in and of it, not, so far as it is concerned, something outside of it. Here, if you please, is a unique relation of self and things, but it is unique not in being wholly incomparable to all natural relations among events, but in the sense of being distinctive or just the relation that it is.

2. Taking the many cases where the self may be said, in an intelligible sense, to lie _outside_ a thing and hence to have dealings with it, we find that they are extensively and primarily cases where the self is agent-patient, doer, sufferer, and enjoyer.

This means, of course, that things, the things that later come to be known, are primarily not objects of awareness, but causes of weal and woe, things to get and things to avoid, means and obstacles, tools and results. To a nave spectator, the ordinary a.s.sumption that a thing is "in" experience only when it is an object of awareness (or even only when a perception), is nothing less than extraordinary. The self experiences whatever it undergoes, and there is no fact about life more a.s.sured or more tragic than that what we are aware of is determined by things that we are undergoing but of which we are not conscious and which we cannot be conscious of under the particular conditions.

3. So far as the question of the relation of the self to known objects is concerned, knowing is but one special case of the agent-patient, of the behaver-enjoyer-sufferer situation. It is, however, the case constantly increasing in relative importance. The connections of the self with things by way of weal or woe are progressively found to depend upon the connections established in knowing things; on the other hand, the progress, the advance, of science is found to depend more and more upon the courage and patience of the agent in making the widening and b.u.t.tressing of knowledge a business.

It is impossible to overstate the significance, the reality, of the relation of self as knower to things when it is thought of as a _moral_ relation, a deliberate and responsible undertaking of a self.

Ultimately the modern insistence upon the self in reference to knowledge (in contrast with the cla.s.sic Greek view) will be found to reside precisely here.

My purpose in citing the foregoing facts is not to prove a positive point, viz., that there are many relations of self and things, of which knowing is but one differentiated case. It concerns something less obvious: viz., showing what is meant by saying that the problems at issue concern matters of fact, and are not matters to be decided by a.s.sumption, definition, and deduction. I mean also to suggest what kind of matters of fact would naturally be adduced as evidential in such a discussion. Negatively put, my point is that the whole question of the relation of knower to known is radically misconceived in what pa.s.ses as epistemology, because of an underlying unexamined a.s.sumption, an a.s.sumption which, moreover, when examined, makes the controversy verbal or absurd. Positively put, my point is that since, prima facie, plenty of connections other than the knower-known one exist between self and things, there is a context in which the "problem" of their relation concerns matters of fact capable of empirical determination by matter-of-fact inquiry. The point about a difference being made (or rather making) in things when known is precisely of this sort.