[52] _Studies in Logical Theory_, University of Chicago Press, 1903.
[53] Mill's doctrine of the ambiguity of the copula (_Logic_, Book I,
chap. IV, § 1) is an instance of one typical way of evading the
problem. After insisting with proper force and clearness upon the
objective character of our intellectual beliefs and propositions,
viz., that when we say fire causes heat we mean actual phenomena, not
our ideas of fire and heat (Book I, chap. II and chap. XI, § 1, and
chap. V, § 1), he thinks to dispose of the whole problem of the "is"
in judgment by saying that it is only a sign of affirmation (chap. I,
§ 2, and chap. IV, § 1). Of course it is. But unless the affirmation
(the sign of thought) "agrees" or "corresponds with" the relations of
the phenomena, what becomes of the doctrine of the objective import of
propositions? How otherwise shall we maintain with Mill (and with
common-sense and science) the difference between asserting "a fact of
external nature" and "a fact in my mental history"?
[54] _Studies in Philosophy and Psychology_, article by Woodbridge on
"The Problem of Consciousness," especially pp. 159-60.
[55] In other words, "ideas" is a term capable of assuming any
definition which is logically appropriate--say, meaning. It need not
have anything to do with the conception of little subjective entities
or psychical stuffs.
[56] Of course, the monistic epistemologies have an advantage in the
statement of the problem over the dualistic--they do not state it in
terms which presuppose the impossibility of the solution.
[57] This view was originally advanced in the discussion of quite
another problem than the one here discussed, viz., the problem of
consciousness; and it may not be quite just to dissever it from that
context. But as a formula for knowledge it has enough similarity with
the one brought out in this paper to suggest further treatment; it is
not intended that the results reached here shall apply to the problem
of consciousness as such.