We have reached the point of conflict in the matters of an experience.
It is _in_ this conflict and because of it that the matters, or
significant quales, stand out _as_ matters. As long as the sun
revolves about earth without question, this "content" is not in any
way abstracted. Its distinction from the form or mode of experience as
its matter is the work of reflection. The same conflict makes other
experiences assume discriminated objectification; they, too, cease to
be ways of living, and become distinct objects of observation and
consideration. The movements of planets, eclipses, etc., are cases in
point.[21] The maintenance of a unified experience has become a
problem, an end, for it is no longer secure. But this involves such
restatement of the conflicting elements as will enable them to take a
place somewhere in the world of the new experience; they must be
disposed of somehow, and they can be disposed of finally only as they
are provided for. That is, they cannot be simply denied or excluded or
eliminated; they must be taken into the fold. But such introduction
clearly demands more or less modification or transformation on their
part. The thought-situation is the deliberate maintenance of an
organization in experience, with a critical consideration of the
claims of the various conflicting contents to a place, and a final
assignment of position.
The conflicting situation inevitably polarizes or dichotomizes itself.
There is somewhat which is untouched in the contention of
incompatibles. There is something which remains secure, unquestioned.
On the other hand, there are elements which are doubtful and
precarious. This gives the framework of the general distribution of
the field into "facts," the given, the presented, the Datum; and
ideas, the _Quaesitum_, the conceived, the Inferential.
_a_) There is always something unquestioned in any problematic
situation at any stage of its process,[22] even if it be only the
fact of conflict or tension. For this is never _mere_ tension at
large. It is thoroughly qualified, or characteristically toned and
colored, by the particular elements which are in strife. Hence it is
_this_ conflict, unique and irreplaceable. That it comes now means
precisely that it has never come before; that it is now passed in
review and some sort of a settlement reached, means that just _this_
conflict will never recur. In a word, the conflict is immediately of
just this and no other sort, and this immediately given quality is an
irreducible datum. _It_ is fact, even if all else be _doubtful_. As it
is subjected to examination, it loses vagueness and assumes more
definite form.
Only in very extreme cases, however, does the assured, unquestioned
element reduce to terms as low as we have here imagined. Certain
things come to stand forth as facts, no matter what else may be
doubted. There are certain _apparent_ diurnal changes of the sun;
there is a certain annual course or track. There are certain nocturnal
changes in the planets, and certain seasonal rhythmic paths. The
significance of these may be doubted: Do they _mean_ real change in
the sun or in the earth? But change, and change of a certain definite
and numerically determinate character, is there. It is clear that
such out-standing facts (ex-istences) constitute the data, the given
or presented, in the thought-function.
_b_) It is obvious that this is only one correspondent, or status, in
the total situation. With the consciousness of _this_ as certain, as
given to be reckoned with, goes the consciousness of uncertainty as to
_what it means_--of how it is to be understood or interpreted, that
is, of its reference and connection. The facts qua presentations or
existences are sure; _qua_ meanings (position and relationship in an
experience yet to be secured) they are doubtful. Yet doubt does not
preclude memory or anticipation. Indeed, it is possible only through
them. The memory of past experience makes sun-revolving-about-earth an
object of attentive regard. The recollection of certain other
experiences suggests the idea of earth-rotating-daily-on-axis and
revolving-annually-about-sun. These contents are as much present as is
the observation of change, but as respects connection they are only
possibilities. Accordingly, they are categorized or disposed of as
ideas, meanings, thoughts, ways of conceiving, comprehending,
interpreting facts.
Correspondence of reference here is as obvious as correlation of
existence. In the logical process, the datum is not just external
existence, and the idea mere psychical existence. Both are modes of
existence--one of _given_ existence, the other of _possible_, of
inferred existence. And if the latter is regarded, from the standpoint
of the unified experience aimed at, as having only _possible_
existence, the datum also is regarded as incomplete and unassured. Or,
as we commonly put it, while the ideas are impressions, suggestions,
guesses, theories, estimates, etc., facts are crude, raw, unorganized,
brute. They lack relationship, that is, assured place; they are
deficient as to continuity. Mere change of relative position of sun,
which is absolutely unquestioned as datum, is a sheer abstraction from
the standpoint either of the organized experience left behind, or of
the reorganized experience which is the end--the objective. It is
impossible as a persistent object. In other words, datum and ideatum
are divisions of labor, co-operative instrumentalities, for economical
dealing with the problem of the maintenance of the integrity of
experience.
Once more, and briefly, both datum and ideatum may (and positively,
veritably, do) break up, each for itself, into physical and mental. In
so far as the conviction gains ground that the earth revolves about
the sun, the old fact is broken up into a new cosmic existence, and a
new psychological condition--the recognition of a process in virtue of
which movements of smaller bodies in relation to very remote larger
bodies are interpreted in a reverse sense. We do not just eliminate
the source of error in the old content. We reinterpret it as valid in
its own place, viz., a case of the psychology of perception, although
invalid as a matter of cosmic structure. Until we have detected the
source of error as itself a perfectly genuine existence, we are not,
scientifically, satisfied. If we decide that the snake is but a
hallucination, our reflection is not, in purport, complete until we
have found some fact just as existential as the snake would have been
had it been there, which accounts for the hallucination. We never
stop, except temporarily, with a reference to the mind or knower as
source of an error. We hunt for a specific existence. In other words,
with increasing accuracy of determination of the given, there comes a
distinction, for methodological purposes, between the _quality_ or
matter of the sense experience and its _form_--the sense perceiving,
as itself a psychological fact, having its own place and laws or
relations. Moreover, the old experience, that of sun-revolving,
abides. But it is regarded as belonging to "me"--to this experiencing
individual rather than to the cosmic world.
Here, then, _within_ the growth of the thought-situation and as a part
of the process of determining _specific_ truth under _specific_
conditions, we get for the first time the clue to that distinction
with which, as ready-made and prior to all thinking, Lotze started
out, namely, the separation of the matter of impression from
impression as a personal event. The separation which, taken at large,
engenders an insoluble problem, appears within a particular reflective
inquiry, as an inevitable differentiation of a scheme of existence.
The same sort of thing occurs on the side of thought, or meaning. The
meaning or idea which is growing in acceptance, which is gaining ground
as meaning-of-datum, gets logical or intellectual or objective force;
that which is losing standing, which is increasingly doubtful, gets
qualified as just a notion, a fancy, a prejudice, misconception--or
finally just an error, a mental slip.
Evaluated as fanciful in _validity_ it becomes a mere fancy in its
existence.[23] It is not eliminated, but receives a new reference or
meaning. Thus the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is
not one between meaning as such and datum as such. It is a
specification that emerges, correspondently, in _both_ datum and
ideatum. That which is left behind in the evolution of accepted
meaning is still characterized as real, but real now in relation only
to a way of experiencing--to a peculiarity of the organism. That which
is moved toward is regarded as real in a cosmic or extra-organic
sense.
1. _The data of thought._--When we turn to Lotze, we find that he
makes a clear distinction between the presented material of thought,
its datum, and the typical characteristic modes of thinking in virtue
of which the datum gets organization or system. It is interesting to
note also that he states the datum in terms different from those in
which the antecedents of thought are defined. From the point of view
of the data or material upon which ideas exercise themselves, it is
not coincidence, collocation, or succession that counts, but gradation
of degrees in a scale. It is not things in spatial or temporal
arrangement that are emphasized, but qualities as mutually
distinguished, yet resembling and classed. There is no inherent
inconceivability in the idea that every impression should be as
incomparably different from every other as sweet is from warm. But by
a remarkable circumstance such is not the case. We have series, and
networks of series. We have diversity of a common--diverse colors,
sounds, smells, tastes, etc. In other words, the data are sense
qualities which, fortunately for thought, are given arranged as
shades, degrees, variations, or qualities of somewhat that is
identical.[24]
All this is given, presented, to our ideational activities. Even the
universal, the common color which runs through the various qualities
of blue, green, white, etc., is not a product of thought, but
something which thought finds already in existence. It conditions
comparison and reciprocal distinction. Particularly all mathematical
determinations, whether of counting (number), degree (more or less),
and quantity (greatness and smallness), come back to this peculiarity
of the datum. Here Lotze dwells at considerable length upon the fact
that the very possibility, as well as the success, of thought is due
to this peculiar universalization or _prima facie_ ordering with which
its material is given to it. Such pre-established fitness in the
meeting of two things that have nothing to do with each other is
certainly cause enough for wonder and congratulation.
It should not be difficult to see why Lotze uses different categories
in describing the material of thought from those employed in
describing its antecedent conditions, even though, according to him,
the two are absolutely the same.[25] He has different _functions_ in
mind. In one case, the material must be characterized as evoking, as
incentive, as stimulus--from this point of view the peculiar feature
of spatial and temporal arrangement in contrast with coherence or
connection is emphasized. But in the other case the material must be
characterized as affording stuff, actual subject-matter. Data are not
only what is given _to_ thought, but they are also the food, the raw
material, _of_ thought. They must be described as, on the one hand,
wholly outside of thought. This clearly puts them into the region of
sense perception. They are matters of _sensation_ given free from all
inferring, judging, relating influence. Sensation is just what is
_not_ called up in memory or in anticipated projection--it is the
immediate, the irreducible. On the other hand, sensory-_matter_ is
qualitative, and quales are made up on a common basis. They are
degrees or grades of a common quality. Thus they have a certain
ready-made setting of mutual distinction and reference which is
already almost, if not quite, the effect of comparing, of relating,
effects which are the express traits of thinking.
It is easy to interpret this miraculous gift of grace in the light of
what has been said. The data are in truth precisely that which is
selected and set aside as present, as immediate. Thus they are _given_
to _further_ thought. But the selection has occurred in view of the
need for thought; it is a listing of the capital in the way of the
undisturbed, the undiscussed, which thought can count upon in this
particular problem. Hence it is not strange that it has a peculiar
fitness of adaptation for thought's further work. Having been selected
with precisely that end in view, the wonder would be if it were not so
fitted. A man may coin counterfeit money for use upon others, but
hardly with the intent of passing it off upon himself.
Our only difficulty here is that the mind flies away from the logical
interpretation of sense datum to a ready-made notion of it brought
over from abstract psychological inquiry. The belief in isolated
sensory quales which are somehow forced upon us, and forced upon us at
large, and thus conditioning thought wholly _ab extra_, instead of
determining it as instrumentalities or elements selected from
experienced things for that very purpose, is too fixed. Sensory
qualities _are_ forced upon us, but _not_ at large. The sensory data
of experience always come _in a context_; they always appear as
variations in a continuum. Even the thunder which breaks in upon me
(to take the extreme of apparent discontinuity and irrelevancy)
disturbs me because it is taken as thunder: as a part of the same
space-world as that in which my chair and room and house are located;
and it is taken as an influence which interrupts and disturbs,
_because_ it is part of a common world of causes and effects. The
solution of continuity is itself practical or teleological, and thus
presupposes and affects continuity of purpose, occupations, and means
in a life-process. It is not metaphysics, it is biology which enforces
the idea that actual sensation is not only determined as an event in a
world of events,[26] but is an occurrence occurring at a certain
period in the control and use of stimuli.[27]
2. _Forms of thinking data._--As sensory datum is material set for
work of thought, so the ideational forms with which thought does its
work are apt and prompt to meet the needs of the material. The
"accessory"[28] notion of ground of coherence turns out, in truth, not
to be a formal, or external, addition to the data, but a
requalification of them. Thought is accessory as accomplice, not as
addendum. "Thought" is to eliminate mere coincidence, and to assert
grounded coherence. Lotze makes it clear that he does not at bottom
conceive of "thought" as an activity "in itself" imposing a form of
coherence; but that the organizing work of "thought" is only the
progressive realization of an inherent unity, or system, in the
material experienced. The specific modes in which thought brings its
"accessory" power to bear--names, conception, judgment, and
inference--are successive stages in the adequate organization of the
matter which comes to us first as data; they are successive stages of
the effort to overcome the original defects of the data. Conception
starts from the universal (the common element) of sense. Yet (and this
is the significant point) it does not simply abstract this common
element, and consciously generalize it over against its own
differences. Such a "universal" is _not_ coherence just because it
does not _include_ and dominate the temporal and local heterogeneity.
The _true_ concept (see I, 38) is a system of attributes, held
together on the basis of some ground, or determining, dominating
principle--a ground which so controls all its own instances as to make
them into an inwardly connected whole, and which so specifies its own
limits as to be exclusive of all else. If we abstract color as the
common element of various colors, the result is not a scientific idea
or concept. Discovery of a process of light-waves whose various rates
constitute the various colors of the spectrum gives the concept. And
when we get such a concept, the former mere temporal abruptness of
color experiences gives way to ordered parts of a color system. The
logical product--the concept, in other words--is not a formal seal or
stamp; it is a thoroughgoing connection of data in a dynamic
continuity of existence.
The form or mode of thought which marks the continued transformation
of the data and the idea in reference to each other is judgment.
Judgment makes explicit the assumption of a principle which determines
connection within an individualized whole. It definitely states red as
_this_ case or instance of the law or process of color, and thus
further overcomes the defect in _subject-matter_ or data still left by
conception.[29] Now judgment logically terminates in disjunction. It
gives a universal which may determine any one of a number of
alternative defined particulars, but which is arbitrary as to _what_
one is selected. Systematic _inference_ brings to light the material
conditions under which the law, or dominating universal, applies to
this, rather than that alternative particular, and so completes the
ideal organization of the subject-matter. If this act were complete,
we should finally have present to us a whole on which we should know
the determining and effective or authorizing elements, and the order
of development or hierarchy of dependence, in which others follow from
them.[30]
In this account by Lotze of the operations of the forms of thought,
there is clearly put before us the picture of a continuous correlative
determination of datum on one side and of idea or meaning on the
other, till experience is again integral, data being thoroughly
defined and connected, and ideas being the relevant meanings of
subject-matter. That we have here in outline a description of what
actually occurs there can be no doubt. But there is as little doubt
that the description is thoroughly inconsistent with Lotze's
supposition that the material or data of thought is precisely the same
as the antecedent of thought; or that ideas, conceptions, are purely
mental somewhats extraneously brought to bear, as the sole essential
characteristics of thought, upon a material provided ready-made. It
means but one thing: The maintenance of unity and wholeness in
experience through conflicting contents occurs by means of a strictly
correspondent setting apart of facts to be accurately described and
properly related, and meanings to be adequately construed and properly
referred. The datum is given _in_ the thought-situation, and _to_
further qualification of ideas or meanings. But even in this aspect
it presents a problem. To find out _what is_ given is an inquiry which
taxes reflection to the uttermost. Every important advance in
scientific method means better agencies, more skilled technique for
simply detaching and describing what is barely there, or given. To be
able to find out what can safely be taken as _there_, as given in any
particular inquiry, and hence be taken as material for orderly and
verifiable inference, for fruitful hypothesis-making, for entertaining
of explanatory and interpretative ideas, is one phase of the effort of
systematic scientific inquiry. It marks its inductive phase. To take
what is discovered to be reliable evidence within a more complex
_situation_ as if it were given absolutely and in isolation, or apart
from a particular historic situs and context, is the fallacy of
empiricism as a logical theory. To regard the thought-forms of
conception, judgment, and inference as qualifications of "pure
thought, apart from any difference in objects," instead of as
successive dispositions in the progressive organization of the
material (or objects), is the fallacy of rationalism. Lotze, like
Kant, attempts to combine the two, thinking thereby to correct each by
the other.
Lotze recognizes the futility of thought if the sense data as data are
final, if they alone are real, the truly existent, self-justificatory
and valid. He sees that, if the empiricist were right in his
assumption as to the real worth of the given data, thinking would be a
ridiculous pretender, either toilfully and poorly doing over again
what needs no doing, or making a wilful departure from truth. He
realizes that thought is evoked because it is needed; and that it has
a work to do which is not merely formal, but which effects a
modification of the subject-matter of experience. Consequently he
assumes a thought-in-itself, with certain forms and modes of action of
its own, a realm of meaning possessed of a directive and normative
worth of its own--the root-fallacy of rationalism. His attempted
compromise between the two turns out to be based on the assumption of
the indefensible ideas of both--the notion of an independent matter
given to thought, on one side, and of an independent worth or force of
thought-forms, on the other.
This pointing out of inconsistencies becomes stale and unprofitable
save as we bring them back into connection with their root-origin--the
erection of distinctions that are genetic and historic, and working or
instrumental divisions of labor, into rigid and ready-made structural
differences of reality. Lotze clearly recognizes that thought's nature
is dependent upon its aim, its aim upon its problem, and this upon the
situation in which it finds its incentive and excuse. Its work is cut
out for it. It does not what it would, but what it must. As Lotze puts
it, "Logic has to do with thought, not as it would be under
hypothetical conditions, but as it is" (I, 33), and this statement is
made in explicit combination with statements to the effect that the
peculiarity of the material of thought conditions its activity.
Similarly he says, in a passage already referred to: "The possibility
and the success of thought's production in general depends upon this
original constitution and organization of the whole world of ideas, a
constitution which, though not necessary in thought, is all the more
necessary to make thought possible."[31]
As we have seen, the essential nature of conception, judgment, and
inference is dependent upon peculiarities of the propounded material,
they being forms dependent for their significance upon the stage of
organization in which they begin.
From this only one conclusion is possible. If thought's nature is
dependent upon its actual conditions and circumstances, the primary
logical problem is to study thought-in-its-conditioning; it is to
detect the crisis within which thought and its subject-matter present
themselves in their mutual distinction and cross-reference. But Lotze
is so thoroughly committed to a ready-made antecedent of some sort,
that this genetic consideration is of no account to him. The historic
method is a mere matter of psychology, and has no logical worth (I,
2). We must presuppose a psychological mechanism and psychological
material, but logic is concerned not with origin or history, but with
authority, worth, value (I, 10). Again: "Logic is not concerned with
the manner in which the elements utilized by thought come into
existence, but their value _after_ they have somehow come into
existence, for the carrying out of intellectual operations" (I, 34).
And finally: "I have maintained throughout my work that logic cannot
derive any serious advantage from a discussion of _the conditions
under which thought as a psychological process comes about_. The
significance of logical forms ... is to be found in the utterances of
thought, the laws which it imposes, after or during the act of
thinking, not in the conditions which lie back of any which produce
thought."[32]
Lotze, in truth, represents a halting-stage in the evolution of
logical theory. He is too far along to be contented with the
reiteration of the purely formal distinctions of a merely formal
thought-by-itself. He recognizes that thought as formal is the form of
some matter, and has its worth only as organizing that matter to meet
the ideal demands of reason; and that "reason" is in truth only an
adequate systematization of the matter or content. Consequently he has
to open the door to admit "psychical processes" which furnish this
material. Having let in the material, he is bound to shut the door
again in the face of the processes from which the material
proceeded--to dismiss them as impertinent intruders. If thought gets
its data in such a surreptitious manner, there is no occasion for
wonder that the legitimacy of its dealings with the material remains
an open question. Logical theory, like every branch of the philosophic
disciplines, waits upon a surrender of the obstinate conviction that,
while the work and aim of thought is conditioned by the material
supplied to it, yet the _worth_ of its performances is something to be
passed upon in complete abstraction from conditions of origin and
development.