[63] I shall pass over the terms "our own" so far as specific
reference is concerned, but the method employed applies equally to
them. Who are the "we," and what does "own" mean, and how is ownership
established?
[64] Contrast the statement: "When I speak of a fact, I do not mean
one of the simple things of the world, I mean that a certain thing has
a certain quality, or that certain things have a certain relation" (p.
51).
[65] In view of the assumption, shared by Mr. Russell, that there is
such a thing as non-inferential knowledge, the conception that a thing
offers evidence for itself needs analysis. Self-evidence is merely a
convenient term for disguising the difference between the indubitably
given and the believed in. Hypotheses, for example, are self-evident
sometimes, that is, obviously present for just what they are, but they
are still hypotheses, and to offer their self-evident character as
"evidence" would expose one to ridicule. Meanings may be self-evident
(the Cartesian "clear and distinct") and truth dubious.
[66] "Really known" is an ambiguous term. It may signify _understood_,
or it may signify known to be _there_ or _given_. Either meaning
implies reference beyond.
[67] The reply implies that the exhaustive, all-at-once perception of
the entire universe assumed by some idealistic writers does not
involve any external world. I do not make this remark for the sake of
identifying myself with this school of thinkers, but to suggest that
the limited character of empirical data is what occasions inference.
But it is a fallacy to suppose that the nature of the limitations is
psychologically given. On the contrary, they have to be determined by
descriptive identifications which involve reference to the more
extensive world. Hence no matter how "self-evident" the existence of
the data may be, it is never self-evident that they are rightly
delimited with respect to the specific inference in process of making.
[68] The ambiguities reside in the possibility of treating the
"muscular and other bodily sensations" as meaning something other than
data of motion and corporealness--however these be defined. Muscular
sensation may be an awareness of motion of the muscles, but the phrase
"of the muscles" does not alter the nature of motion as motion; it
only specifies _what_ motion is involved. And the long controversy
about the existence of immediate "muscular sensations" testifies to
what a complex cognitive determination we are here dealing with.
Anatomical directions and long experimentation were required to answer
the question. Were they psychologically primitive data no such
questions could ever have arisen.