Critical realism; a study of the nature and conditions of knowledge

Front matter

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Chapter I The Setting Of The Problem: Natural Realism

PHILOSOPHY properly begins in a description of human experience. It must give close attention to the distinctions, meanings, and attitudes which are characteristic of man's natural view of the world in which he lives. Such a preliminary study prepares a foundation upon which the thinker may work. He is aware that it presents an organization of experience and an outlook which is the expression of habits and judgments slowly formed through ages. It is the part of wisdom, then, to examine this gradually developed view of nature and of man with great care in order to see what its principles and pre-suppositions are and to determine how far these are tenable. Without this empirical basis and without the respect for the accumulated insight of multitudes of human beings to which it testifies, the thinker, with individual perspective founded on particular problems and facts, is very apt to be led astray. Reason often creates difficulties instead of solving them, and the history of philosophy bears witness to the blind vortices into which genius has at times thrown thought. The advance of philosophy, like that of science, must be gradual, and the starting-point must be the experience of everyday life.

The outlook of the plain man on the world is realistic. He perceives what he calls physical things and reacts to them in appropriate ways. He believes that these physical things are experienced in much the same manner by all normal human beings and that they are evidently independent, for their properties and existence, of man's experience of them. All workers see and handle the tools which are necessary for cooperation. Sailors pull on the same rope; the farmer and his helpers load the same wagon with sheaves of wheat or barleygrown on a field which has been tilled by them year after year; factory ''hands'' who, for a pittance, tend the whirring machinery day after day, would laugh at the suggestion that it is less real than they who are its servants. But why multiply examples? To none of us does this outlook seem strange. Stars, rivers, mountains, tenements, street-cars, books — to enumerate things at haphazard — are all considered objects which exist in a common world to which we must adapt ourselves. There is every reason to believe that these general distinctions are universal with the human race, although the properties assigned to particular classes of things vary greatly from age to age.

^ The physical world is, then, regarded not only as common Nto the experiencing of all individuals but also as independent, 1 for its existence and nature, of the individuals who experience (jt. It is probable that the commonness of the objects is considered a result of their independent existence. You and I perceive the same tree because it is there to be perceived. Commonness is the inevitable consequence of a relation of two persons, capable of perceiving, to the selfsame existence. This would be, at least, the plain man's explanation of the fact of commonness. As we shall have occasion to note in another connection, commonness and independence have, from the genetic point of view, a more intimate relation than this explanation indicates ; they grow up together and reenf orce each other. But common sense is not necessarily aware of the motives and processes which lie back of its outlook and make it possible. Within the world of common sense, it is more natural to make the commonness of things a result of their independence than their independence a result of their commonness. When I am alone in my study I see things which I regard as independent and as real as I myself. At the time, they are not common, for others do not see them. Commonness thus seems to be a secondary characteristic of objects added to their independence. When we examine what the plain man means by ''seeing" or "perceiving," we find that this is of the nature of an event in which the object is revealed to the individual. And when we ask what is meant i by the term * 'independence,'' we find that it signifies that physical things are as real as the individual who perceives them and that he can affect them only by overt action, much as one thing affects another.

That the point of departure is the supposedly independent thing, is made still more evident when we examine /the plain man's explanation of the changes which occur in his experiences of the same thing. These are accounted for by changes in his relations to these objects. His experiences are functions of the unvarying object in its varying relations to himself as a perceiver. Again, when an object is no longer seen, it is not supposed that it has ceased to exist. Physical things are thought of as permanent, just as individuals are, to the degree determined by their nature and causal connections^v^ It is from these assumptions as a basis that we explain their appearance and disappearance in our field of vision. When I leave my study, I take it for granted that the desk will remain such as it was while I was there to perceive it. As a matter of fact, everything countenances this belief, which is at the bottom of the plain man's view of the world, that things are existences which we perceive but which are quite independent of this event. Berkeley may consider this belief the height of abstraction, but even the most mediocre mind so views nature. We start from independent things, and not from percepts.

This attitude toward the physical world, in which it is considered independent of the event of perceiving and hence common, may be called that of Natural Realism. Natural Realism is a growth, as we shall see later, but the plain man is not aware of the logical and factual motives which have led him to this position. The view is based on the exigencies of biological and practical life and is as natural to us as are our instincts. Man is outward-looking: perception as an event or act has an immediate object, and this is the physical thing which exists in a common, independent sphere whose general characteristics are fairly well known. While the conditions of this act or event are, to some extent, matters of general information, they are seldom reflected upon, and the event itself remains unique. This uniqueness and apparent directness of perception is expressed in common parlance in the phrase, '*Open your eyes and you cannot help seeing/' It is evident that the object with its associated meanings and the attitude which it evokes dominates the individual.' This dominant role played by the object is all the more inevitable that perception does not usually involve a consciously strained attention. Accordingly, grant the nature of the physical thing perceived, in the context of normal tendencies and dispositions, and any working view other than Natural Realism is improbable. The individual perceives things, and not percepts.

This general description is true of Natural Realism in the primary or uncritical form in which it is the matrix of realistic theories of all sorts. No reflective theory of the nature of the event which is called perceiving, or experiencing, an object is as yet developed. Certainly, there is no intuition of a peculiar^ ego or subject as the seat of this event. What would be insisted upon, first of all, is the presence of the object to the individual. We see what is around us and the we, who see these things, are concrete individuals. There is nothing recondite or mysterious about the individual who perceives. To these things we can assume various attitudes according to our interests. We may simply observe them or we may handle them; but, all the while, they are out there as real as ourselves. Furthermore, their relations and properties are unchanged by our perception of them. We take them unawares, so to speak. We are to them as Fortunatus in the fairy story with his cap of darkness. They enter into no peculiar relation to the perceiver but are rather flooded with light and rendered visible. Natural Realism, in the form in which it is a true description of our ordinary outlook on nature, is a flat epistemological dualism in which there is no ! peculiar, non-physical relation between the individual and the object — the two terms of the dualism. And the term, epistemological, can be used here only by courtesy, since the personal pole is the concrete individual and not an abstract subject or centre of awareness. The individual, as one thing among others, has simply the ability to take in these other things along with himself. We shall find these facts, the

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absence of any peculiar ego and of any unique perceptual or cognitive relation, of great significance for theory of knowledge. Let us remember, however, that we possess in descriptive Natural Realism, not a theory of what takes place, but a statement of what appears to take place.

It is, perhaps, at this point that we can best understand the objections which the plain man — and I hope others — takes to Berkeley's principles. Does not Berkeley assume a standpoint different from the natural one and argue from it as though it were the natural one? In other words, is he not perilously near what is called begging the question? He admits {Principles of Human Knowledge, sees. 4 and 5) that it is "an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in a word, all sensible objects have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding." This is a correct description of what we have designated Natural Realism. Berkeley asserts, however, that this position involves a manifest contradiction. ''For what are the fore-mentioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? And what do we perceive besides our own ideas^or sensations?" Evidently, Berkeley assumes it beyond question that we perceive, not things, but sensations or psychical elements concreted together. It follows that he has substituted idealism for the meanings and attitude of Natural Realism, and has argued, with this substitution as a basis, that things cannot exist apart from the act of perception. Thus, he creates a contradiction in the plain man's outlook which did not exist in it before. It may be that idealism is right, that objects are nothing but our ideas; but do we so consider them? Berkeley's claim that things are nothing but sensations forces the problem of knowledge upon us. It does not, however, prove idealism, for the reason that it disregards the demands of cognition because they seem to him to involve abstraction. His fear of abstractions prevented him from examining thoroughly the structure and distinctions characteristic of cognition.

We have already given reasons for the belief that the thinker should start from the standpoint of Natural Realism. Let us look at this point a little more closely. Philosophy is a product of reflection. Consequently, it arises in an experience already organized. Its task is, therefore, set by the difficulties, within this characteristic organization, which have called it forth. To separate these conflicts from the context in which they have arisen is assuredly bad method. If they lead us beyond the standpoint in which they developed, good; but we have no right to cut ourselves loose from this standpoint in any arbitrary fashion. Our aim should be to remodel it and not simply to negate it. It is in this respect that Berkeley's method must fall under our condemnation. Instead of an immanent criticism of the structure and meanings of experience, he offers an airy hypothesis of a theological character. We shall see that his criticism of Locke's notion of substance was valuable, although he drew the wrong conclusion from it. His sensationalism, the influence of Locke, and his dislike of naturalism amply account for the direction which his own construction took. He did not distinguish clearly enough between perception and knowledge and was, therefore, led to regard his critique of Natural Realism and of the Lockian notion of substance as completely covering all forms of realism. Time has brought a more adequate analysis of the structure and implications of experience and has at last made possible a more critical form of realism than any of those which Berkeley attacked.

Natural Realism as a description of the plain man's out- j look on nature is beyond dispute. We have seen the idealist, ' Berkeley, testify unwillingly to its presence. It would be an easy matter to point out passages in Hume which also bear witness to it. {Treatise, p. 202, Selby-Bigge edition.) It i may be that we have spent too much time in making its 1 general tenets clear, since it is supposed to be the ordinary f view of the world, dominant even among philosophers when they are not in a reflective mood. But the justification of Natural Realism as a theory of knowledge is another affair, and appeal to the experience of the ordinary man is beside the point. Many facts must be organized in relation to one another and many conflicts settled; much that common sense has left vague and in obscurity must be brought into the light and carefully examined. Accordingly, the task is one for the trained thinker. It is a mere begging of the question to reassert the fact to be explained and to ignore the difficulties which arise.

It is not without bearing upon the problem to note how quickly Natural Realism was attacked by reflective thought. Were there no fundamental difficulties for it to face, this would surely not have occurred — unless, indeed, it be assumed that man's mind has a tendency to go astray. The relativism of Protagoras, for instance, was evidently a protest against the belief that objects are in themselves as we, the individuals or the race, perceive them.

Let us now examine the more weighty reasons which have led the majority of modern thinkers to assert that perception is a mediate process and not an event in which the thing is revealed as it is. Since our purpose is entirely disinterested, the method we shall adopt will be to hear what the critics of Natural Realism have to say in attack and what its defenders can say in defense. The result should at least be a realization of the problem involved in perception.

The difficulties which I wish to weigh concern, not realism as such, but Natural Realism. This point is important and should be marked, because idealists persuade themselves very often that they have refuted realism when they have only indicated inadequacies in the matrix out of which more critical realisms develop under the pressure of facts whose significance is realized by reflection. These inadequacies and contradictions concern (i) the fact that perception has conditions which do not appear in that which is immediately perceived; (2) the distinction between appearance and reality, a distinction which is held by the plain man along with the immediacy of perception, although the two cannot be reconciled; (3) the lack of concomitant variation between things and that which is actually perceived; (4) the difference between the perceptions of individuals; (5) the explanation of images, dream-life, and memory; (6) the synthetic or composite character of that which is perceived and the presence in it of inferential elements. We shall take up these topics in the foregoing order.

Perception has conditions which do not appear in that which is immediately perceived. Can we reconcile the existence of these conditions with the plain man's view that the object reveals itself as it is in spite of intervening space ? Perception seems to involve mediatory, causal processes, yet it claims to be immediate. Now the most natural division of these mediatory processes can be made with reference to the body. They are external to the body, or internal. Although these processes are continuous, it will be best to consider them separately.

External mediation of perception is quite evident in the case of seeing, of hearing, of smelling, and of the sense of temperature. Even common sense has long been aware of this fact, although the knowledge has not led it to alter its assumption that the object itself is perceived. Science has so completely studied the nature of these mediatory processes which lead to the stimulation of the sense-organs that skepticism of their existence seems misplaced. We must remember that science is itself based on perception and that its observations are more systematic than those of common life. The object appears to be one of the conditions of its own perception. As we shall see, this position gets us into spatial and temporal difficulties which are insoluble so long as we identify the object with that which is perceived. How, then, can that view be right which assumes that objects display themselves to the individual immediately and as they are? Let us remember that the plain man does not assert a duplication of object and corresponding percept, but believes that he is aware directly of the physical thing. Hume was alive to this fact, and his criticism of the ''philosophical hypothesis" is based in large measure on it. This ' ' philosophical hypothesis, ' ' it will be remembered, consists in the assumption that thing and percept are numerically different yet resemble each other. (Cy. Treatise, p. 202.)

The internal medium must also affect that which is perceived. What the observer perceives depends on the focalization of the eye and is to that extent its function. The part played by the retina and the nervous system must also be considered, so that, to the external conditions, these internal ones must be added. The defender of Natural Realism may

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seek to discount the internal factors by a theory of passive transmission. But where is the scientific basis for such a view? Are not the optic nerve and brain as real as other physical things? If atmospheric conditions affect color, why should not they likewise? We do not notice their influence and are not able to discount it because they are always with us.

What the critical protagonist of Natural Realism seems forced to admit is that he sees a portion of the world selected by the position of his body and the focalization of his eyes and somehow brought to a focus by the brain. However, this is not what the plain man believes that he perceives. He would certainly not thank his defender if that individual told him that what he actually perceived were temporary ''sets'' in the brain. And I am sure that we could not blame common sense for rejecting this conclusion. It is diametrically opposed to the outlook on the world which it has built up. Far from being that which is perceived, the brain is a physical thing which is seldom, if ever, perceived by the mass of men. In truth, the majority of men hardly know of its existence ; they secure their information of it indirectly and on the basis of other things. To affirm that men pass their time observing the condition caused in their brain by the rest of the physical world is hardly less palatable than idealism, and yet, to what other conclusion can we come if we persist in holding the view that, in perception, physical objects are immediately revealed? We begin with the belief that the physical object seen is outside the body and we end with the proof, if not the conviction, that what we do actually perceive immediately is the brain as it is affected by the outside world through the sense-organs and nerves. And such a conclusion has all the marks of a reductio ad absurdum. The physical world with which the plain man starts with such assurance disappears into the part of it with which he is least acquainted.

We may be told, however, that this conclusion does not at all follow unless it be assumed that the complex or object -inits-setting which is immediately perceived be located in the brain. There is another possibility. The terminus ad quern of the complex may be the object, and not the brain. What we lo CRITICAL REALISM

perceive is the object in its surroundings, and the body enters as simply an important part of these surroundings. Unfortunately, science has shown that the object which common sense assumes is perceived is the terminus a quo, and not the terminus ad quem. Light passes from the object to the eye and takes time in its passage; the same is true of sound. We shall have occasion to show that this time-interval proves beyond doubt that the percept arises not in the object but at the brain. In line with this direction of the mediatory processes is the fact that the body is concerned in perception, not simply as a body, but as a body having sense-organs and a peculiar internal structure.^ Other things influence the result because they reflect light or intercept it, and so on; but the perceiver's body contributes unique internal processes of mediation, and this internal structure seems to have no meaning unless the brain be the terminus ad quem of the total conditions of which the percept is a function. This way of escape does not seem open to the Natural Realist; we shall not, however, be dogmatic, but shall await confirmation from a study of' the other difficulties which confront Natural Realism.

The distinction between a physical thing and its appearance to the individual is almost, if not quite, as primitive as the view that perception is an event in which the physical thing reveals itself; yet the two are hostile to each other. The distinction between the thing and its appearance meets us on every hand. When examined closely, it is found to be a popular recognition of the fact that objects are perceived differently at different times and that the difference is not assignable to the object. When I approach a house, what I perceive changes continuously; the house grows larger and I can see details which were not at first apparent. As I go away, the reverse series of changes occurs in what I perceive. Now I know that it took at least a year to build this house and that it has a stability which contradicts these changes. Moreover, I can apply a test through my ability to

1 It is this direction of the stimulus which makes it imp6ssible for me to accept the position, held by Bergson and in another form by the "New Realists," that the percept is a selected part of the physical world. I am unable to see that they have made clear the mechanism of the external reach of the "selective response" to which they appeal. Is this not the reappearance in disguise of the mythological doctrine of projection which they rightly condemn? The use of a simile like that of the searchlight is surely not sufficient.

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communicate with other individuals. They inform me that the house did not change at all either while I was approaching or while I was departing. These motives reenforce those already present in my natural attitude toward physical things. Hence, instead of saying that things change, I assert that their appearance to me changes. But how can I reconcile this assertion with my other natural belief that, in perception, things reveal themselves as they are ? When is the moment in my approach or my departure that the thing supplants the appearance, and the appearance the thing. Since I am aware of no such mysterious moment, I may well be skeptical of its existence. If it be stated that there is a standard position at which this occurs, I must ask if it is the same for all and, if not, why not? Upon investigation, I find that the standard position is rather arbitrary and is not founded upon any change from thing to appearance but upon practical advantages. The suspicion arises, as a consequence, that, the individual perceives only the appearances of a thing and never the thing itself. When this suspicion meets the information which science has gathered in regard to the mediatory processes which are the conditions of perception, it is confirmed in its skepticism of Natural Realism.

Before we pass on to the other inadequacies in Natural Realism, let us consider a problem which arises at this point. Are appearances physical? If so, there are, at least in potentia, an infinite number of appearances for each physical thing. Strictly speaking, each thing when connected with an individual can beget a multitude of appearances, and this multitude can be multiplied by the number of individuals who perceive the object. Again, are these appearances temporary or permanent? If temporary and physical, we have the development of a dualism within the physical world. We can divide physical things into two classes: those which are relatively permanent and those which are transient. And these transient physical things seem not to possess any causal efficacy nor to be able to enter into spatial relations with the other class of physical things. We need, I think, hardly consider the possibility that appearances are physical and permanent. They cannot be in the space where they appear to be, for that is already preempted by the primary physical thing. To hold that they exist outside the body is not possible unless we assume that two physical bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. To hold that they exist in the body seems impossible for the same reason. Appearances are thus rejected by the physical world. When we remember the facts which point to the belief that percepts are functions of the brain in dynamic relation to stimulating complexes, the suggestion comes to mind that appearances are these percepts and that they must, therefore, be connected with the brain. But how? They are usually larger than the brain, and, if physical, cannot be thought of as inside it, for that would involve a geometrical absurdity. Either the defender of Natural Realism must play fast and loose with his conception of the physical, or appearances cannot be physical. On the other hand, if appearances are not physical, do we not have new difficulties? Can that which is not physical be in space? And, if not in space, can it be connected with physical processes as their function?

Let us use the more common name for these appearances and call them percepts. By '* percept'' we shall mean only that which is immediately perceived by the individual and we shall not allow any psychological prejudice to creep into the term. Another expression which we shall use as synonymous with ' ' percept' ' is ' ' thing-experience. ' ' We shall also continue to assume with Natural Realism that there are things of which these percepts are somehow the appearances, and we shall not as yet inquire too curiously how we can know about these things if what we perceive directly are percepts. Evidently, Natural Realism is breaking down as regards its view that perception is an event in which things directly reveal themselves. That there are things we have not, however, § found reason to doubt. Our arguments to show the inadequacy of Natural Realism are based upon their assumption.

The lack of concomitant variation between percepts and I things likewise militates against the supposition that they are identical. Professor Stout formulates the principle thus: ''If anything X exhibits variations which are not shared by Yy X and Y must be distinct existences," Now appearance^ do vary when we have every reason to beHeve that the thing itself does not. This table appears to me oblong, while I know that it is square. All that is required in order to notice variations in the percept which we judge are not shared by the thing is a little training in introspection or, rather, the ability to distinguish between what we actually perceive and what we judge we ought to see. The relative proportions of the sides of objects as they appear to us in our percepts are decidedly different from the proportions as determined by measurement. Now this divergence can be explained by the laws of optics if we grant that the percept is not identical with the thing. The position of the body and its distance from the object to which we refer the percept, enter as the essential factors to account for this lack of concomitant variation. We are confirmed in this belief when we note that the perspective of the image on the ground-glass window of a camera is similar to that of our percept which we obtain by looking in the same direction as that in which the camera is pointed. Many other variations in regard to color, size, and position could be noted, but these will occur readily to the mind of the reader. We constantly have to discount our percepts by means of past experience in order not to be misled. As a rule, this correction comes to us so naturally that we are hardly conscious of it, and believe that we perceive what is really a combination of percept and judgment. Once our attention is called to this state of things, however, we can separate the part due to present perceptual factors and the part due to past experience. More and more, we are forced to refuse to identify thing and percept.

In our account of concomitant variation we have thus far paid attention mainly to spatial and qualitative differences between the thing and its appearance; but temporal variations are at least as interesting and even more suggestive. We are informed by astronomers, for example, that a star which we just now perceive may have been destroyed years ago, so long does it take for its light to travel to us through interstellar space. How, then, can we possibly identify our percept with the star itself or even with a selected part of it? And science is led to this calculation by experiences which cannot