[78] _Scientific Method in Philosophy_, p. 57.
[79] The analytic realists have shown a peculiar disinclination to
discuss the nature of future consequences as terms of propositions.
They certainly are not identical with the mental act of referring to
them; they are "objective" to it. Do they, therefore, already subsist
in some realm of subsistence? Or is subsistence but a name for the
fact of logical reference, leaving the determination of the meaning of
"subsistence" dependent upon a determination of the meaning of
"logical"? More generally, what is the position of analytic realism
about the future?
[80] Supposing the question to be that of some molten state of the
earth in past geologic ages. Taken as the complete subject-matter of a
proposition--or science--the facts discovered cannot be regarded as
causative of, or a mechanism of, the appearance of life. For by
definition they form a closed system; to introduce reference to a
future event is to deny the definition. Contrariwise, a statement of
that past condition of the earth as a mechanical condition of the
later emergence of life means that that past stage is taken not merely
as past, but as in process of transition to its future, as in process
of alteration in the direction of life. Change in this direction is an
integral part of a statement of the early stage of the earth's
history. A purely geologic statement may be quite accurate in its own
universe of discourse and yet quite incomplete and hence inaccurate in
another universe of discourse. That is to say, a geologist's
propositions may accurately set forth a prior state of things, while
ignoring any reference to a later state entailed by them. But a
would-be philosophy may not ignore the implied future.
[81] _Philosophical Essays_, pp. 104, 105.
[82] _Sixth Meditation._
[83] _Principles of Philosophy_, p. 90.
[84] _Treatise of Human Nature_, Part III, sec. iii.
[85] It is perhaps poor tactics on my part to complicate this matter
with anything else. But it is evident that "passions" and pains and
pleasures may be used as _evidences_ of something beyond themselves
(as may the fact of being more than five feet high) and so get a
representative or cognitive status. Is there not also a prima facie
presumption that all sensory qualities are of themselves bare
existences or occurrences without cognitive pretension, and that they
acquire the latter status as signs or evidence of something else?
Epistemological idealists or realists who admit the non-cognitive
character of pleasure and pain would seem to be under special
obligations carefully to consider the thesis of the non-cognitive
nature of all sensory qualities except as they are employed as
indications or indexes of some other thing. This recognition frees
logic from the epistemological discussion of secondary qualities.
[86] To readers who have grasped the thought of my argument, it may
not be meaningless to say that the typical idealistic fallacy is to
import into the direct experience the results of the intellectual or
reflective examination, while that of realism is to treat the
reflective operation as dealing with precisely the same subject-matter
as the original act was concerned with--taking the good of "reason"
and the good of immediate behavior to be the same sort of things. And
both fallacies will result from any assimilation of two different acts
to one another through giving them both the title "knowledge," and
hence treating the difference between them as simply the difference
between a direct apprehension and a mediated one.
[87] Analytic realism ought to be favorable to such a hedonism; the
fact that present-day analytic realists are not favorable would seem
to indicate that they have not taken their logic seriously enough, but
have been restrained, by practical motives, from applying it
thoroughly. To say that the moral life presents a high degree of
organization and integration is to say something which is true, but is
also to say something which by the analytic logic calls for its
resolution into ultimate and independent simples. Unless they accept
the pleasures and pains of Bentham as such ultimates, they are bound
to present acceptable substitutes. But here they tend to shift their
logic and to make the fulfilment of some _organization_ (variously
defined) the standard good. Consistency would then admit the
hypothesis that in _all_ cases an eventual organization rather than
antecedent simples supply the standard of knowledge. Meanwhile the
term "fulfilment" (or any similar term) stands as an acknowledgment
that the organization in question is not something ontologically prior
but is one yet to be achieved.
[88] It must not be overlooked that a mere reminder of an end
previously settled upon may operate as a sufficient stimulus to
action. It is probably this act of calling the end to mind which the
realist confuses with knowledge, and therefore terms apprehension. But
there is nothing cognitive about it, any more than there is in
pressing a button to give the signal for an act already decided upon.
[89] Upholders of this view generally disguise the assumption of
repetition by the notion that what is judged is progress in the
direction of approximation to an eternal value. But as matter of fact,
progress is never judged (as I have had repeated occasion to point
out) by reference to a transcendent eternal value, but in reference to
the success of the end-in-view in meeting the needs and conditions of
the specific situation--a surrender of the doctrine in favor of the
one set forth in the text. Logically, the notion of progress as
approximation has no place. The thesis should read that we always try
to repeat a given value, but always fail as a matter of fact. And
constant failure is a queer name for progress.
[90] See IX and X _ante_.
[91] I use the term "image" in the sense of optics, not of psychology.
[92] That something of the cognitive, something of the sign or term
function, enters in as a catalyzer, so to speak, in even the most
aesthetic experiences, seems to be altogether probable, but that
question it is not necessary to raise here.
[93] The superstition that whatever influences the action of a
conscious being must be an unconscious sensation or perception, if it
is not a conscious one, should be summarily dismissed. We are active
beings from the start and are naturally, wholly apart from
consciousness, engaged in redirecting our action in response to
changes in our surroundings. _Alternative_ possibilities, and hence an
indeterminate situation, change direct response into a response
mediated by a perception as a sign of possibilities, that is, a
physiological stimulus into a perceived quality: a sensory datum.
[94] Compare Woodbridge, _Journal of Philosophy and Psychology_, X, 5.
[95] See Russell, _Scientific Method in Philosophy_, p. 53.
[96] _Ibid._, p. 101.
[97] See the essay on _The Existence of the World as a Logical
Problem_.