[62] Professor Perry says (_The New Realism_, p. 115): "Professor
Dewey is mistaken in supposing that realism assumes 'the _ubiquity of
the knowledge-relation_.' Realism does not argue from the 'ego-centric
predicament,' i.e., from the bare presence of the knowledge-relation
in all cases of knowledge." If the text has not made my point clear,
it is probably too much to expect that a footnote will do so. But I
have not accused the realist of arguing from the ego-centric
predicament. I have said that _if_ any realist holds that the sole and
exclusive relation of the one who is knower to things is that of being
their knower, then the realist cannot _escape_ the impact of the
predicament. But if the one who knows things also stands in other
connections with them, then it is possible to make an intelligible
contrast between things as known and things as loved or hated or
appreciated, or seen or heard or whatever. The argument, it should be
noted, stands in connection with that of the last section as to
whether hearing a sound and seeing a color are of themselves (apart
from the use made of them in inference) cases of knowledge. It is
significant that Perry holds (_New Realism_, p. 150) that "sensing" is
_per se_ a case of knowing. Hence it must be in relation to a knower;
it must fall within the "predicament," for "it makes the mind aware of
a characteristic of the environment." That it is _used_ (or may be
used) to make us aware of some characteristic of the environment, I of
course hold. To say that it _is_ an awareness by the mind of a
characteristic of the environment is at once to involve a philosopher
immediately in the discussion of whether red qualities, or only
certain vibrations, are "really" characteristics of the environment.
Then, when the authority of physics is invoked in behalf of the latter
proposition, the epistemologist (however realistic in his intention)
is forced to consider color as a misapprehension of the environment, a
case of error or illusion, while the idealist triumphantly flourishes
it as a case of the transformative or constitutive efficacy of "mind"
in knowing. But if the color is simply a natural event, and if "mind"
does not enter except when color is made the basis of inference to
some characteristic of the environment, then there is no predicament;
and there is no problem of error save as a false inference is made.
Moreover, since errors in inference are an undoubted fact, the
principle that entities are not to be multiplied beyond need gives a
prima facie superiority to any theory which connects all error with
inference till adequate evidence to the contrary is produced.