Reading Notes: December 27th, 2021

“If I know X, X obviously must be in relation to my mind at the time I know it, and again at any other time also it must bear the relation to my mind of “going to be known by me after such a lapse of time” or “having been known by me so many hours, months, or years ago,” but it does not follow that the relation is essential to X or that X could not exist without being in that relation.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 15) 

“Anything that is ever known must always have been such that it could eventually come to be known…It must indeed be admitted that any fact whichever comes to be known must be in that respect related to the knowing of it and the knower…” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 15) 

“[W]e can only think an object existing independently of our consciousness by thinking it as it would be if it were present to a mind. For example, if we are really to understand what is meant by talking of the state of the earth prior to man we must imagine some mind as contemplating it at the time…and think it as it would have been for that mind. We can make correct verbal statements about it without doing this, but this is the only way in which we can picture to ourselves what the statements really mean. Similarly, I can only realize other facts by picturing them as they would be for a knowing mind. It may even be contended that the only way in which I can think an a priori universal truth to be necessarily valid is by thinking it as such that any mind must necessarily accept it as true if he understands it.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 21) 

“It is sometimes argued that mind can only know what is like itself, namely mind, and that therefore reality must be mental….An argument to this effect might be based on the premise that the presence of a relation implies that its terms have a determinable in common, in respect of determinate values of which the relation holds, (as it seems to be the case with most or, some would say, all relations), and conclude that what knows and what is known must be of the same genus if this condition is to be fulfilled.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 27) 

“To know is to know something, and this something cannot be just our knowing it….[K]nowing clearly presupposes an object to be known, and this object is logically prior to and cannot be dependent on or made by the knowing….To say that an object depends for its existence or being on the knowledge of it thus involves a vicious circle, for it must be already if it is to be known.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 27-38) 

“We may note also that most of those who reject the view that an object implies consciousness seem to accept the converse proposition, namely, that consciousness implies an object. But anyone who makes such an admission as this is altogether debarred from rejecting the idealist view on the ground that an object is different from the consciousness of it and therefore cannot imply the latter. The fact that A implies B does not necessarily carry with it the conclusion that B implies A….” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 32-33) 

“Now we have already found an idealistic element in knowledge in the fact that in order to determine what something is we must first think what it would be for a mind fully and discriminately aware of it….For to think of objects of cognition as they are or would be for a knowing mind is a method necessary if we are to attain any truth at all. By this I do not mean merely the trivial tautology that what I cognize must stand in a relation, namely, the relation of being cognized, to a conscious mind, my own. I mean that to know any fact, X, or form any intelligible opinion about X, I must ultimately think X as it would be for a mind which was consciously aware of it as a present fact, though there may never be or have been such a mind...Thus ultimately we can only think of unperceived physical thinks in terms of a possible observer, in the sense that we must think them as if they were objects of actual present experience or rather conscious perception. A similar contention may be put forward even in regard to “necessary truths.” As far as I can see we can only think universal principles as true a priori by thinking them as in some sense necessary for any mind that accepts the premises on which they are based, by thinking of them as such that any mind which realized their meaning would be bound to accept them as true...The cognitive process…is idealistic…as it always involves thinking facts as they would be for as mind, as if they existed for a mind.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 56-58) 

“In the first place a relation, if it is to be a relation at all, must unite some terms. Secondly, most, if not all, kinds of relation presuppose a specific common character, usually or always of the type called by Mr. Johnson a determinable in the related terms, without which the assertion of the specific relation would be not merely false but absurd…” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 128) 

“Spatial relations presuppose in this way the common determinable of extension….the relation of similarity presupposes some common determinable in the determinate value of which the objects are said to be similar, the relations of enmity or love the common determinable of emotional capacity, the relation of causality the common character of being events or continuants in time, and perhaps membership in some specific causal system…..[A relation] could not be present at all if its terms were not characterized by a certain determinable and if their determinate qualities within this and other subordinate determinables did not fall within certain limits….” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 129-130) 

“If we are to think of the spatial objects to which we usually give the name, physical, as existing unperceived by us…we must think of them…as objects of experience…by thinking of them as standing in the position of images relatively to a non-human experience….In order to think what physical objects are we must think of them as if they were objects of experience….For example, in order to give full intelligibility to propositions about the state of the earth prior to man, we must imagine some mind as contemplating it at the time when no human mind was in fact contemplating it, and think it as it would have been for that mind. We can make correct verbal statements without doing this, but this is the only way in which we can picture to ourselves what the statements really mean. In this sense, it may be true that propositions about material objects can only be interpreted in terms of experience, either actual experience or the imaginary experience of an imaginary observer.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 393-399) 

“It is true that we cannot give a meaning to propositions about physical objects except in terms of experience, if experience is used in the wide sense in which it covers characteristics experienced, that is, it is true that the objects must ultimately be interpreted in terms of characteristics which have been on other occasions experienced by human beings.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 397) 

“T.H. Green, in order to prove the unthinkability of physical things apart from mind, makes use of an argument from the nature of relations. If A and B are related they are at once separate and together, and for this to be possible “there must be something other than the manifold of things themselves which combines them without effacing their severalty.” Now we can see how this is possible if there is an intelligence which thinks the related things together; we know that, when we think two things, they are distinct and not merged in one, and yet also fall within the same unity of consciousness, and so are together. Such a process as comparison involves at once the difference and union of its objects. They must be different, for otherwise there would be no distinction and therefore no comparison; they must also be united together, for to think first A and then B is not to compare A and B, to compare them we must hold them together. But it is impossible to conceive how related terms could in any other way be thus at once a unity and separate, therefore the fact of relation implies the existence of an intelligence to which both the related terms are present.” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 399-400) 

“Propositions about physical objects cannot be analyzed in terms of actual and possible sensa of human beings. On the contrary, in such propositions we are normally ascribing at least primary qualities to physical objects existing independently of us in the same sense as we ascribe them to sensa. Hence, unless such independent objects with at least primary qualities exist, most or all of the propositions of “common sense” and science about physical objects are false. (ch. VII).” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 441)