Reading Notes: December 8th, 2021

“Science has been able to make the great strides which it has made by deliberately ignoring one side of reality….In philosophy, as in economics, facts do not cease to be real by being ignored; and the philosopher becomes the residuary legatee of all those aspects of reality which the physicist quite rightly for his own purpose) has decided to leave out of account.” (Broad, Scientific Thought, 535-536) 

“In this paper I shall be concerned partly to bring forward arguments in support of the realist view of knowledge, but even more to indicate what I take to be important consequences, in regard not only to mind and knowledge but to philosophy in general, of accepting that position…Knowledge being taken as a relation, it is thus asserted that, when I know this paper, “I know” in no way constitutes this paper, nor does “know this paper” in any way constitute me, nor does “know” in any way constitute either me or this paper….The view that knowledge is a relation implies that knower and known are two different things or that, in knowledge, the knower is not the known….It is thus seen to be logically necessary to hold that, in knowledge, “the knower is not the known.”….And, in general, in saying of any two related things that they are distinct, we must suppose each to have some character, or certain qualities, of its own….The view that in knowing we know ourselves knowing, that we know as knowing or consciously know, is thus seen to be as ill-founded as the view that we know things as known. The identity “the known is known” does not imply that it is the same thing to know X and to know that X is known; nor does the identity “I know what I know” imply that I must know that I know it, or know anything about myself at all, in knowing it.”…. But all that is implied is that the relation has order; it is not asymmetrical, but at least it is “non-symmetrical.” When A knows B, B need not know A; and even if B does know A, this is a different state of affairs from A knowing B. Only if there are cases of this kind can it be possible for us to talk about “knowledge.” As regards my knowledge of myself, this will have to be accounted for by saying that a certain process in my mind knows another, or knows myself, but without knowing itself.” (Anderson, The Knower and the Known, 61-69) 

“Well, as we have asserted, a given act of finding does not and cannot find itself; yet it can be found—by another act of finding. Of course there will always be one act of finding which is not found.” (Parker, The Self and Nature, 7) 

“If the only reality of which we have any experience is consciousness, we have no material out of which to form the conception of a reality of different nature, and that conception is consequently perfectly groundless and arbitrary.” (Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body, 287-288) 

“A purely external reality cannot furnish a single criterion of truth. Tests of truth must be immanent.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 133) 

“Let us examine the idealistic principles which stand in the way of a realistic view of knowledge. The first principle is of a formal character and is somewhat as follows. The terms “subject” and “object” are relative and imply each other; hence a thing cannot be an object unless there is a subject for which it is an object. Other examples of relative terms which involve each other are usually advanced to support the contention that subject and object are meaningless expressions when separated from their unity of implication. A ruler implies subjects whom he rules; a doctor, patients whom he doctors; a shepherd, sheep which he herds. But we can think of a sheep without implying that there must be a shepherd. These terms are only semi-correlatives. Let us recall the attitude taken by common sense as described in the chapter on Natural Realism. Things are supposed to exist in the physical world whether we perceive them or not. Our perception is an event or act which reveals them to us as they are, and has no influence upon them. These are thought of as semi-correlatives and not as relatives. Again, when we say that we have an idea of a person, we do not think that our idea is literally connected with the person. The phrase “of a person” tells what sort of an idea it is and is thus the result of an analysis of the idea. The idea means to give knowledge of the person, but does not assert that, as an idea, it is existentially related to the person. In order to possess the idea, the knower must have had direct or indirect causal relation with the person known but this causal relation with the person known but this causal relation may have been in the distant past. Our conclusion is, that neither in the subject-object antithesis nor in the more complicated trinity of subject, idea-object, and existent do we have anything stronger than semi-correlatives.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 136-137) 

“Another point should be noted in this connection. The relatives which are usually selected as throwing light upon the relativity of subject and object involve two things which act upon each other or are in spatial relation. The ruler acts upon the ruled, the doctor upon the patient, the shepherd upon the sheep. We have to do with objective relations between things. But is it not begging the question to assume that in knowing we have to do with a relation between things of either passive or an active character? Knowledge may be something unique in nature for which we can find no good analogy in the relations of objects known. There are now two possibilities before us. Either there is no relation, be it active or passive, between subject (or knower) and object (or known), or the relation which exists must be discovered by reflection. We have no right to work by analogy in the uncritical way that is so often done.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 137) 

“The object is not independent of the subject, [the idealist] replies. The relation between them is not external, as you would have us believe, but intimate and internal. Thus the controversy turns about the nature of a supposed cognitive relation. The idealist attacks the presentative realist in the following way. The cognitive relation must to some extent modify the reality known. Hence it is impossible to know the reality as it is apart from this relation. The situation is similar to the familiar instance of the palpably absurd, the turning on of a light to see the darkness. Consequently, reality becomes a thing-in-itself which we cannot get at. Against this position the idealist holds that thought assists in the construction of reality; it does not seek a reality as something given independently of mind. That this controversy is not merely a scholastic survival appears evident from a study of recent philosophical literature.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 138) 

“If there is no relation between the knower and the known, it is asked, how is knowledge possible? It becomes inexplicable because there is nothing to compare with it. Knowledge as a function seems to bid defiance to time and space; the most distant past and the farthest reaches of the material cosmos are laid bare to its gaze. So different is it from all other acts and processes that it must be adjudged non-natural and without a basis in the immediate physiological and psychological processes which apparently underlie experience. We saw that Natural Realism is open to these charges. For it, knowledge seemed to be master of space within limits not easily discoverable. But I do not see that the addition of a cognitive relation aids matters to any extent. Yet this is what is done. The idealist bridges the apparent gulf which separates the knower from the things known by the tenuous rope of a cognitive relation….How can a mind know a thing if it has no commerce with it? The mind that knows is one entity and the object known is another entity, and knowledge surely involves a relation between them. My answer is that knowledge involves a commerce between the mind knowing and the thing known, but that this commerce precedes the event of knowing and is not identical with it. The mistake made is to take the mind as a simple entity whose sole function is knowing.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 139-140) 

“Let us examine the idealistic argument against things-in-themselves….We are evidently desirous of showing that things-in-themselves are knowable and that they are really what the scientist calls physical things. The assumption which the idealist makes is that to know is to bring within experience in a literal way….[We] stressed the distinction between the idea and the thing of which it is an idea. The idea, or concept, claims to give knowledge of the thing it means. The thing is absent, while the idea is present. This idea may consist of propositions which are referred to the thing. Here we have the cognitive trinity to which I made reference a while ago, subject-self, idea-object (or series of propositions), and thing. Let us note at once that the idea-object is present in the field of the individual’s experience, while the thing may be absent. Yet the idea gives knowledge of the thing. We have here a structure which can be employed by critical realism under the stress of facts to undermine the idealistic assumption made by Miss Calkins that to know is to bring into consciousness. When we analyze the knowledge of the physical world given by science we find that it is reducible to a knowledge of the relative sizes, the structure, the active properties, and the relations of things. Nowhere do we have the actual presence of a physical thing in the field of experience. We have, then, good reason to deny the proposition that objects to be known must be drawn into the domain of consciousness….[We] can possess knowledge of physical things which remain outside the field of experience….Psychology, in its assumption that percepts are induced by stimuli coming from the physical environment, is only accepting the realistic outlook common to everyone.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 150-151) 

“Very few idealists are avowedly subjective idealists. Actually, however, the majority of them are fundamentally influenced by arguments against realism which are strictly those of subjective idealism. I refer especially to the content argument of Mr. Bradley and to the corresponding endeavor of Berkeley to show that the external world is reducible to what is undeniably mental. Besides, objective idealism is virtually an attempt to satisfy realistic motives and instincts while admitting the validity of the arguments of subjective idealism. Remove these principles, and you draw out the support from under objective idealism. The main battle which realism has to wage is against subjective idealism. After that is through, it can turn its attention to the weaknesses of objective idealism with confidence.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 154-155) [Underlining is mine]

A total and complete misunderstanding of Bradley’s conception of Experience and his Idealism. Bradley’s “Find any piece of existence…” experiment is not an argument—this is something which Bradley explicitly states in one of the footnotes of Essays on Truth and Reality.

“Idealism bases itself on two principles which are frequently confused. The one is formal and rests on a supposed relation between the object known and the knower. The other principle is empirical and asserts that all objects of thought are mental….The assumption that knowledge always involves the actual presence to the mind of the object known…is used as a foundation for the [principle that all objects of thought are mental]. The argument is as follows: Since objects to be known must be present in the field of experience, they must be mental. All known objects are, therefore, mental and we can possess no knowledge of what is non-mental. If we grant the first principle, the second certainly follows. But we have seen that the first principle involves the obviously false assertion that nothing outside of the individual’s mind can be known by him, because only objects which are present in the field of his experience can be present literally to his mind. Now, because things which common sense assumes are present to the mind and at the same time non-mental turn out to be mental, it in no wise follows that objects known which are not present to the mind in a literal sense are mental and necessarily so. Such a conclusion cannot be deduced from the facts upon which the idealist relies.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 183-184) 

“How do [idealists] know that reality must be “psychical matter of fact”? I have already paid my respects to this view. It is founded on the “argument from content,” advanced by Mr. Bradley and seconded by Mr. Taylor, (Cf. Elements of Metaphysics, p. 23). These thinkers challenge an opponent to perform the experiment of thinking of anything whatever as real and then explaining what he means by its reality. Let us glance at Mr. Taylor’s argument. What is the difference between the real and the imagined hundred dollars in Kant’s famous case? They have the same qualities as contents. The difference lies in the fact that the real dollars may be the objects of direct perception, while the imaginary dollars cannot be. “It is in this connection with immediate psychical fact that the reality of the real coins lies.” Really I do not understand this. Are not the imaginary dollars objects as directly connected with immediate psychical fact as are the real dollars? Are they not more indissolubly connected than the real dollars? Perception is here thought of as merely a test of the real dollars. If they are real and not merely imaginary, they can be perceived. Berkeley pointed out that the distinction between images and things, or—to use James’s contrast—thoughts and things, is one within experience. This signifies that existence is a meaning which has grown up in our minds. But the realist would admit this conclusion. He claims, however, that existence does not mean connection with immediate psychical fact. Imaginary dollars do not exist except as ideas, i.e., objects of thought qualified as merely mental; real dollars are thought of as existing outside of the mind. We have pointed out the fact that this meaning is not contradicted by the argument from content, because both percept and knowledge are within the field of the individual’s experience.” (Sellars, Critical Realism, 201-202) [Underlining is mine] 

Sellars fails to understand Taylor’s argument (cf. What is the Difference Between the Real and the Imaginary?) because he fails to distinguish the psychical act of “imagining” and the “imaginatum” being “imagined.” My psychical act of “imagining” the “imaginary” hundred dollars is certainly “real” and not “imaginary,” because the psychical act of “imagining” is one with my Experience, it is something which I am actually doing. On the other hand, the “imaginatum” which I am “imagining” (i.e., the “unreal” or “imaginary” hundred dollars”) neither is, nor can be, something which enters into my Experience. If one muddles the distinction between the “imagining” and the “imaginatum,” then one inevitably falls into one of the following two absurdities: (a) they end up committing themselves to the “reality” of griffins, round-squares, and leprechauns because they collapse the “unreal” “imaginatum” into the “real” psychical act of “imagining;” or (b) they end up committing themselves to the “unreality” of psychical acts of “imagining” because they collapse the psychical act of “imagining” into the “unreal” “imaginatum.” With this clarification in mind, we can proceed with our investigation into the difference between a “real” material object and its merely “imaginary” counterpart.