{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38141/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38141","id":"gutenberg_38141","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38141","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Dewey, John, 1859-1952","Logic"],"text":"Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Martin Pettit and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCORNELL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY\n\nNo. 11\n\n\nJOHN DEWEY'S LOGICAL THEORY\n\n\nBY\n\nDELTON THOMAS HOWARD, A.M.\n\nFORMERLY FELLOW IN THE SAGE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nA THESIS\nPRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF\nCORNELL UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE\nREQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nNEW YORK\nLONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.\n1919\n\n\nPRESS OF\nTHE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY\nLANCASTER, PA.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIt seems unnecessary to offer an apology for an historical treatment of\nProfessor Dewey's logical theories, since functionalism glories in the\ngenetic method. To be sure, certain more extreme radicals are opposed to\na genetic interpretation of the history of human thought, but this is\ninconsistent. At any rate, the historical method employed in the\nfollowing study may escape censure by reason of its simple character,\nfor it is little more than a critical review of Professor Dewey's\nwritings in their historical order, with no discussion of influences and\nconnections, and with little insistence upon rigid lines of development.\nIt is proposed to \"follow the lead of the subject-matter\" as far as\npossible; to discover what topics interested Professor Dewey, how he\ndealt with them, and what conclusions he arrived at. This plan has an\nespecial advantage when applied to a body of doctrine which, like\nProfessor Dewey's, does not possess a systematic form of its own, since\nit avoids the distortion which a more rigid method would be apt to\nproduce.\n\nIt has not been possible, within the limits of the present study, to\ntake note of all of Professor Dewey's writings, and no reference has\nbeen made to some which are of undoubted interest and importance. Among\nthese may be mentioned especially his books and papers on educational\ntopics and a number of his ethical writings. Attention has been devoted\nalmost exclusively to those writings which have some important bearing\nupon his logical theory. The division into chapters is partly arbitrary,\nalthough the periods indicated are quite clearly marked by the different\ndirections which Professor Dewey's interests took from time to time. It\nwill be seen that there is considerable chance for error in\ndistinguishing between the important and the unimportant, and in\nselecting the essays which lie in the natural line of the author's\ndevelopment. But, _valeat quantum_, as William James would say.\n\nThe criticisms and comments which have been made from time to time, as\nseemed appropriate, may be considered pertinent or irrelevant according\nto the views of the reader. It is hoped that they are not entirely\naside from the mark, and that they do not interfere with a fair\npresentation of the author's views. The last chapter is devoted to a\ndirect criticism of Professor Dewey's functionalism, with some comments\non the general nature of philosophical method.\n\nSince this thesis was written, Professor Dewey has published two or\nthree books and numerous articles, which are perhaps more important than\nany of his previous writings. The volume of _Essays in Experimental\nLogic_ (1916) is a distinct advance upon _The Influence of Darwin on\nPhilosophy and Other Essays_, published six years earlier. Most of these\nessays, however, are considered here in their original form, and the new\nmaterial, while interesting, presents no vital change of standpoint. It\nmight be well to call attention to the excellent introductory essay\nwhich Professor Dewey has provided for this new volume. Some mention\nmight also be made of the volume of essays by eight representative\npragmatists, which appeared last year (1917) under the title, _Creative\nIntelligence_. My comments on Professor Dewey's contribution to the\nvolume have been printed elsewhere.[1] It has not seemed necessary, in\nthe absence of significant developments, to extend the thesis beyond its\noriginal limits, and it goes to press, therefore, substantially as\nwritten two years ago.\n\nI wish to express my gratitude to the members of the faculty of the Sage\nSchool of Philosophy for many valuable suggestions and kindly\nencouragement in the course of my work. I am most deeply indebted to\nProfessor Ernest Albee for his patient guidance and helpful criticism.\nMany of his suggestions, both as to plan and detail, have been adopted\nand embodied in the thesis, and these have contributed materially to\nsuch logical coherence and technical accuracy as it may possess. The\nparticular views expressed are, of course, my own. I wish also to thank\nProfessor J. E. Creighton especially for his friendly interest and for\nmany suggestions which assisted the progress of my work, as well as for\nhis kindness in looking over the proofs.\n\nD. T. HOWARD.\n\nEVANSTON, ILLINOIS,\nJune, 1918.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] \"The Pragmatic Method,\" _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and\nScientific Methods_, 1918, Vol. XV, pp. 149-156.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                                        PAGE\n\n   I. \"Psychology as Philosophic Method\"                          1\n\n  II. The Development of the Psychological Standpoint            15\n\n III. \"Moral Theory and Practice\"                                33\n\n  IV. Functional Psychology                                      47\n\n   V. The Evolutionary Standpoint                                59\n\n  VI. \"Studies in Logical Theory\"                                72\n\n VII. The Polemical Period                                       88\n\nVIII. Later Developments                                        105\n\n  IX. Conclusions                                               119\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\"PSYCHOLOGY AS PHILOSOPHIC METHOD\"\n\n\nDewey's earliest standpoint in philosophy is presented in two articles\npublished in _Mind_ in 1886: \"The Psychological Standpoint,\" and\n\"Psychology as Philosophic Method.\"[2] These articles appear to have\nbeen written in connection with his _Psychology_, which was published in\nthe same year, and which represents the same general point of view as\napplied to the study of mental phenomena. For the purposes of the\npresent study attention may be confined to the two articles in _Mind_.\n\nDewey begins his argument, in \"The Psychological Standpoint,\" with a\nreference to Professor Green's remark that the psychological standpoint\nis what marks the difference between transcendentalism and British\nempiricism. Dewey takes exception to this view, and asserts that the two\nschools hold this standpoint in common, and, furthermore, that the\npsychological standpoint has been the strength of British empiricism and\ndesertion of that standpoint its weakness. Shadworth Hodgson's comment\non this proposal testifies to its audacity. In a review of Dewey's\narticle, he says: \"If for instance we are told by a competent writer,\nthat Absolute Idealism is not only a truth of experience but one\nattained directly by the method of experiential psychology, we should\nnot allow our astonishment to prevent our examining the arguments, by\nvirtue of which English psychology attains the results of German\ntranscendentalism without quitting the ground of experience.\"[3]\n\nDewey defines his psychological standpoint as follows: \"We are not to\ndetermine the nature of reality or of any object of philosophical\ninquiry by examining it as it is in itself, but only as it is an element\nin our knowledge, in our experience, only as it is related to our mind,\nor is an 'idea'.... Or, in the ordinary way of putting it, the nature\nof all objects of philosophical inquiry is to be fixed by finding out\nwhat experience says about them.\"[4] The implications of this definition\ndo not appear at first sight, but they become clearer as the discussion\nproceeds.\n\nLocke, Dewey continues, deserted the psychological standpoint because he\ndid not, as he proposed, explain the nature of such things as matter and\nmind by reference to experience. On the contrary, he explained\nexperience through the assumption of the two unknowable substances,\nmatter and mind. Berkeley also deserted the psychological standpoint, in\neffect, by having recourse to a purely transcendent Spirit. Even Hume\ndeserted it by assuming as the only reals certain unrelated sensations,\nand by trying to explain the origin of experience and knowledge by their\ncombination. These reals were supposed to exist in independence of an\norganized experience, and to constitute it by their association. It\nmight be argued that Hume's sensations are found in experience by\nanalysis, and this would probably be true. But the sensations are\nnothing apart from the consciousness in which they are found. \"Such a\nsensation,\" Dewey says, \"a sensation which exists only within and for\nexperience, is not one which can be used to account for experience. It\nis but one element in an organic whole, and can no more account for the\nwhole, than a given digestive act can account for the existence of a\nliving body.\"[5]\n\nSo far Dewey is merely restating the criticism of English empiricism\nthat had been made by Green and his followers. Reality, as experienced,\nis a whole of organically related parts, not a mechanical compound of\nelements. Whatever is to be explained must be taken as a fact of\nexperience, and its meaning will be revealed in terms of its position\nand function within the whole. But while Dewey employs the language of\nidealism, it is doubtful whether he has grasped the full significance of\nthe \"concrete universal\" of the Hegelian school. The following passage\nillustrates the difficulty: \"The psychological standpoint as it has\ndeveloped itself is this: all that is, is for consciousness or\nknowledge. The business of the psychologist is to give a genetic\naccount of the various elements within this consciousness, and thereby\nfix their place, determine their validity, and at the same time show\ndefinitely what the real and eternal nature of this consciousness\nis.\"[6]\n\nConsciousness (used here as identical with 'experience') is apparently\ninterpreted as a structure made up of elements related in a determinable\norder, and having, consequently, a 'real and eternal nature.' The result\nis a 'structural' view of reality, and the type of idealism for which\nDewey stands may fittingly be called 'structural' idealism. This type of\nidealism does, in fact, hold a position intermediate between English\nempiricism and German transcendentalism. But it would not commonly be\nconsidered a synthesis of the best characteristics of the two schools.\n'Structural' idealism is, historically considered, a reversion to Kant\nwhich retains the mechanical elements of the _Critique_, but fails to\nreckon with the truly organic mode of interpretation in which it\nculminates. As experience, from Kant's undeveloped position, is a\nstructure of sensations and forms, so Dewey's 'consciousness' is a\ncompound of separate elements or existences related in a 'real and\neternal' order.\n\nDewey illustrates his method, in the discussion which follows, by\nemploying it, or showing how it should be employed, in the definition of\ncertain typical objects of philosophical inquiry. The first to be\nconsidered are subject and object. In dealing with the relation of\nsubject to object, the psychological method will attempt to show how\nconsciousness differentiates itself, or 'specifies' itself, into subject\nand object. These terms will be viewed as related terms within the whole\nof 'consciousness,' rather than as elements existing prior to or in\nindependence of the whole in which they are found.\n\nThere is a type of realism which illustrates the opposite or ontological\nmethod. It is led, through a study of the dependence of the mind upon\nthe organism, to a position in which subject and object fall apart, out\nof relation to each other. The separation of the two leads to the\npositing of a third term, an unknown _x_, which is supposed to unite\nthem. The psychological method would hold that the two objects have\ntheir union, not in an unknown 'real,' but in the 'consciousness' in\nwhich they appear. The individual consciousness as subject, and the\nobjects over against it, are elements at once distinguished and related\nwithin the whole. All the terms are facts of experience, and none are to\nbe assumed as ontological reals.\n\nSubjective idealism, Dewey continues, makes a similar error in failing\nto discriminate between the ego, or individual consciousness, and the\nAbsolute Consciousness within which ego and object are differentiated\nelements. It fails to see that subject and object are complements, and\ninexplicable except as related elements in a larger whole. The\nindividual consciousness, again, and the universal 'Consciousness,' are\nto be defined by reference to experience. It is not to be assumed at the\nstart, as the subjective idealists assume, that the nature of the\nindividual consciousness is known. The ego is to be defined, not\nassumed, and this is the essence of the psychological method.\n\nSo far, two factors in Dewey's standpoint are clearly discernible. In\nthe first place, all noumena and transcendent reals are to be rejected\nas means of explanation, and definition is to be wholly in terms of\nexperienced elements, as experienced. In the second place, experience is\nto be regarded as a rational system of related elements, while\nexplanation is to consist in tracing out the relations which any element\nbears to the whole. The universal 'Consciousness' is the whole, and the\nindividual mind, again, is an element within the whole, to be explained\nby tracing out the relations which it bears to other elements and to the\nwhole system. It is not easy to avoid the conclusion that Dewey\nconceives of 'consciousness' as a construct of existentially distinct\nterms.\n\nDewey does not actually treat subject and object, individual and\nuniversal consciousness, in the empirical manner for which he contends.\nHe merely outlines a method; and, while this has a negative bearing as\nagainst transcendent modes of explanation, it has little content of its\nown. But in spite of Dewey's lack of explicitness, it is evident that he\ntends to view his 'objects of philosophical inquiry' as so many concrete\nparticular existences or things. The idea that they can be empirically\nmarked out and investigated seems to imply this. But subject, object,\nindividual, and universal are certainly not reducible to particular\nsensations, even though it must be admitted that they have a reference\nto particulars. These abstract concepts had been a source of difficulty\nto the empiricists, because they had not been able to reduce them to\nparticular impressions, and Dewey's proposed method appears to involve\nthe same difficulty.\n\nIn his second article, on \"Psychology as Philosophic Method,\" Dewey\nproposes to show that his standpoint is practically identical with that\nof transcendental idealism. This is made possible, he believes, through\nthe fact that, since experience or consciousness is the only reality,\npsychology, as the scientific account of this reality, becomes identical\nwith philosophy.\n\nIn maintaining his position, Dewey finds it necessary to criticise the\ntendency, found in certain idealists, to treat psychology merely as a\nspecial science. This view of psychology is attained, Dewey observes, by\nregarding man under two arbitrarily determined aspects. Taken as a\nfinite being acting amid finite things, a knowing, willing, feeling\nphenomenon, man is said to be the object of a special science,\npsychology. But in another aspect man is infinite, the universal\nself-consciousness, and as such is the object of philosophy. This\ndistinction between the two aspects of man's nature, Dewey believes,\ncannot be maintained. As a distinction, it must arise within\nconsciousness, and it must therefore be a psychological distinction.\nPsychology cannot limit itself to anything less than the whole of\nexperience, and cannot, therefore, be a special science dependent, like\nothers, upon philosophy for its working concepts. On the contrary, the\nmethod of psychology must be the method of philosophy.\n\nDewey reaches this result quite easily, because he makes psychology the\nscience of reality to begin with. \"The universe,\" he says, \"except as\nrealized in an individual, has no existence.... Self-consciousness means\nsimply an individualized universe; and if this universe has _not_ been\nrealized in man, if man be not self-conscious, then no philosophy\nwhatever is possible. If it _has_ been realized, it is in and through\npsychological experience that this realization has occurred. Psychology\nis the scientific account of this realization, of this individualized\nuniverse, of this self-consciousness.\"[7]\n\nIt is difficult to understand exactly what these expressions meant for\nDewey. Granting that the human mind is both individual and universal,\nwhat objection could be raised against the study of its individual or\nfinite aspects as the special subject-matter of a particular science?\nAll the sciences, as Dewey was aware, are abstract in method. Dewey's\nposition appears to be that the universal and individual aspects of\nconsciousness are nothing apart from each other, and must be studied\ntogether. But 'consciousness' in Dewey's view is, in fact, two\nconsciousnesses. Reality as a whole is a Consciousness, and the\nindividual mind is another consciousness. A problem arises, therefore,\nas to their connection. Dewey affirms that, unless they are united,\nunless the universal is given in the individual consciousness, there can\nbe no science of the whole, and therefore no philosophy. The\nepistemological problem of the relation of the mind to reality becomes,\naccordingly, the _raison d'etre_ of his method. The problem was an\ninheritance from subjective idealism. It may be pointed out that there\nis some similarity between Dewey's standpoint and Berkeley's. Both\nconceive of consciousness as a construct of elements, and Dewey's\n'Consciousness in general' holds much the same relation to the finite\nconsciousness that the Divine Mind holds to the individual consciousness\nin Berkeley's system. The similarity between the two standpoints must\nnot be overemphasized, but it is none the less suggestive and\ninteresting.\n\nIn attempting to determine the proper status of psychology as a science,\nDewey is led into a more detailed exposition of his standpoint. His\nposition in general is well indicated in the following passage: \"In\nshort, the real _esse_ of things is neither their _percipi_, nor their\n_intelligi_ alone; it is their _experiri_.\"[8] The science of the\n_intelligi_ is logic, and of the _percipi_, philosophy of nature. But\nthese are abstractions from the _experiri_, the science of which is\npsychology. If it be denied that the _experiri_, self-consciousness in\nits wholeness, can be the subject-matter of psychology, then the\npossibility of philosophy is also denied. \"If man, as matter of fact,\ndoes not realise the nature of the eternal and the universal _within_\nhimself, as the essence of his own being; if he does not at one stage of\nhis experience consciously, and in all stages implicitly, lay hold of\nthis universal and eternal, then it is mere matter of words to say that\nhe can give no account of things as they universally and eternally are.\nTo deny, therefore, that self-consciousness is a matter of psychological\nexperience is to deny the possibility of any philosophy.\"[9] Dewey\nassures us again that his method alone will solve the epistemological\nproblem.\n\nSelf-consciousness, as that within which things exist _sub specie\naeternitatis_ and _in ordine ad universum_, must be the object of\npsychology. The refusal to take self-consciousness as an experienced\nfact, Dewey says, results in such failures as are seen in Kant, Hegel,\nand even Green and Caird, to give any adequate account of the nature of\nthe Absolute. Kant, for purely logical reasons, denied that\nself-consciousness could be an object of experience, although he\nadmitted conceptions and perceptions as matters of experience. As a\nresult of his attitude, conception and perception were never brought\ninto organic connection; the self-conscious, eternal order of the world\nwas referred to something back of experience. Dewey attributes Kant's\nfailure to his logical method, which led him away from the psychological\nstandpoint in which he would have found self-consciousness as a directly\npresented fact.\n\nThis criticism of Kant's 'logical method' fails to take account of the\ntransitional nature of Kant's standpoint. Looking backward, it is easy\nenough to ask why Kant did not begin with the organic view of experience\nat which he finally arrived. But the answer must be that the organic\nstandpoint did not exist until Kant, by his 'logical method,' had\nbrought it to light. The Kantian interpretation of experience, in which,\nas Dewey asserts, conception and perception were never brought into\norganic relation, is a half-way stage between mechanism and organism.\nBut how does Dewey propose to improve upon Kant's position? He will\nfirst of all put Kant's noumenal self back into experience, as a fact in\nconsciousness. But how will this help to bring perception and conception\ninto closer union? There seems to be no answer. Dewey's view appears to\nbe that organic relations are achieved whenever an object is made a part\nof experience and so brought into connection with other experienced\nfacts. 'Organic relation' is interpreted as equivalent to 'mental\nrelation.' But mental relations are not organic because they are mental.\nIt would be as easy to assert that they are mechanical. The test lies in\nthe nature of the relations which are actually found in the mental\nsphere and the fitness of the organic categories to express them.\nDewey's 'consciousness,' as has been said before, appears to be a\nstructure, not an organism. Its parts are external to each other,\nhowever closely they may be related. An organic view of experience would\nbegin with a denial of the actuality of bare facts or sensations, and\nwould not waver in maintaining that standpoint to the end.\n\nHegel's advance upon Kant, Dewey continues, \"consisted essentially in\nshowing that Kant's _logical_ standard was erroneous, and that, as a\nmatter of logic, the only true criterion or standard was the organic\nnotion, or _Begriff_, which is a systematic totality, and accordingly\nable to explain both itself and also the simpler processes and\nprinciples.\"[10] The logical reformation which Hegel accomplished was\nmost important, but the work of Kant still needed to be completed by\n\"showing self-consciousness as a fact of experience, as well as\nperception through organic forms and thinking through organic\nprinciples.\"[11] This element is latent in Hegel, Dewey believes, but\nneeds to be brought out.\n\nT. H. Green comes under the same criticism. He followed Kant's logical\nmethod, and as a consequence arrived at the same negative results. The\nnature of self-consciousness remains unknown to Green; he can affirm its\nexistence, but cannot describe its nature. Dewey quotes that passage\nfrom the _Prolegomena to Ethics_ in which Green says:[12] \"As to what\nthat consciousness in itself or in its completeness is, we can only\nmake negative statements. _That_ there is such a consciousness is\nimplied in the existence of the world; but _what_ it is we only know\nthrough its so far acting in us as to enable us, however partially and\ninterruptedly, to have knowledge of a world or an intelligent\nexperience.\" If, Dewey observes, Green had begun with the latter point\nof view, and had taken self-consciousness as at least partially realized\nin finite minds, he would have been able to make some positive\nstatements about it. Dewey, however, has not given the most adequate\ninterpretation of Green's 'Spiritual Principle in Nature.' This was\nevidently, for Green, a symbol of the intelligibility of the world as\norganically conceived, an order which could not be comprehended by the\nmechanical categories, but which was nevertheless real. As Green tended\nto hypostatize the organic conception, so Dewey would make it a concrete\nreality, with the further specification that it must be something given\nto psychological observation.\n\nThe chief point of Dewey's criticism of the idealists is that they fail\nto establish self-consciousness as an experienced fact; and, Dewey\nmaintains, it must be so established if it is to be anything real and\ngenuine. If it is anything that can be discussed at all, it must be an\nelement in experience; and if it is in experience, it must be the\nsubject-matter of psychology. It is inevitable, from Dewey's standpoint,\nthat transcendentalism should adopt his psychological method.\n\nIn the further development of his standpoint, Dewey considers (1) the\nrelations of psychology to the special sciences, and (2) the relation of\npsychology to logic. Dewey's conception of the relation of psychology to\nthe special sciences is well illustrated in the following passage:\n\"Mathematics, physics, biology exist, because conscious experience\nreveals itself to be of such a nature, that one may make virtual\nabstraction from the whole, and consider a part by itself, without\ndamage, so long as the treatment is purely scientific, that is, so long\nas the implicit connection with the whole is left undisturbed, and the\nattempt is not made to present this partial science as metaphysic, or as\nan explanation of the whole, as is the usual fashion of our uncritical\nso-called 'scientific philosophies.' Nay more, this abstraction of some\none sphere is itself a living function of the psychologic experience. It\nis not merely something which it allows: it is something which it\n_does_. It is the analytic aspect of its own activity, whereby it\ndeepens and renders explicit, realizes its own nature.... The analytic\nmovement constitutes the special sciences; the synthetic constitutes the\nphilosophy of nature; the self-developing activity itself, as\npsychology, constitutes philosophy.\"[13]\n\nThe special sciences are regarded as abstractions from the central or\npsychological point of view, but they are legitimate abstractions,\nconstituted by a proper analytic movement of the total\nself-consciousness, which specifies itself into the special branches of\nknowledge. If we begin with any special science, and drive it back to\nits fundamentals, it reveals its abstractness, and thought is led\nforward into other sciences, and finally into philosophy, as the science\nof the whole. But philosophy, first appearing as a special science,\nturns out to be science; it is presupposed in all the special sciences,\nand is their basis. But where does psychology stand in this\nclassification?\n\nAt first sight psychology appears to be a special science, abstract like\nthe others. \"As to systematic observation, experiment, conclusion and\nverification, it can differ in no essential way from any one of\nthem.\"[14] But psychology, like philosophy, turns out to be a science of\nthe whole. Each special science investigates a special sphere of\nconscious experience. \"From one science to another we go, asking for\nsome explanation of conscious experience, until we come to\npsychology.... But the very process that has made necessary this new\nscience reveals also that each of the former sciences existed only in\nabstraction from it. Each dealt with some one phase of conscious\nexperience, and for that very reason could not deal with the totality\nwhich gave it its being, consciousness.\"[15] Philosophy and psychology\ntherefore mainly coincide, and the method of psychology, properly\ndeveloped, becomes the method of philosophy.\n\nIf psychology is to be identified with philosophy in this fashion, the\nmere change of name would seem to be superfluous. There would be no\nreason for maintaining psychology as a separate discipline. Perhaps\nDewey did not intend that it should be maintained separately. In that\ncase, the total effect of his argument would be to prescribe certain\nmethods for philosophy. It seems necessary to suppose that Dewey\nproposed to merge philosophy in psychology, and make it an exact science\nwhile retaining its universality. \"Science,\" he argued, \"is the\nsystematic account, or _reason_ of _fact_; Psychology is the completed\nsystematic account of the ultimate fact, which, as fact, reveals itself\nas reason....\"[16] Self-consciousness in its ultimate nature is\nconceived of as a special fact, over and above what it includes in the\nway of particulars. Psychology, as the science of this ultimate fact,\nmust at the same time be philosophy. The identification of the two\ndisciplines depends upon taking the 'wholeness' of reality as a 'fact,'\nwhich can be brought under observation. This is a natural conclusion\nfrom Dewey's structural view of reality.\n\nIn taking up the subject of the relation of psychology to logic, Dewey\nremarks that in philosophy matter and form cannot be separated.\n\"Self-consciousness is the final truth, and in self-consciousness the\nform as organic system and the content as organized system are exactly\nequal to each other.\"[17] Logic abstracts from the whole, gives us only\nthe form, or _intelligi_ of reality, and is therefore only one moment in\nphilosophy. Since logic is an abstraction from Nature, we cannot get\nfrom logic back to Nature, by means of logic. We do, as a matter of\nfact, make the transition in philosophy, because the facts force us back\nto Nature. Just as in Hegel's logic, the category of quality, when\npressed, reveals itself as inadequate to express the facts, and is\ncompelled to pass into the category of quantity, so does logic as a\nwhole, when pressed, reveal its inadequacy to express the whole of\nreality. The transition from category to category in the Hegelian logic\nis not an unfolding of the forms as forms, but results from a compulsion\nexerted by the facts, when the categories are used to explain them.\nLogic is, and must remain, abstract in all its processes, and its\noutcome (with Hegel, _Geist_) may assert the abstract necessity of one\nself-conscious whole, but cannot give the reality. \"Logic cannot reach,\nhowever much it may point to, an actual individual. The gathering up of\nthe universe into one self-conscious individuality it may assert as\n_necessary_, it cannot give it as _reality_.\"[18] Taken as an abstract\nmethod, logic is apt to result in a pantheism, \"where the only real is\nthe _Idee_, and where all its factors and moments, including spirit and\nnature, are real only at different stages or phases of the _Idee_, but\nvanish as imperfect ways of looking at things ... when we reach the\n_Idee_.\"[19]\n\nDewey has in mind logic as a science of the forms of reality taken in\nabstraction from their content. In reality, however, there can be no\nlogic of concepts apart from their concrete application. Hegel certainly\nnever believed that it was possible to abstract the logical forms from\nreality and study them in their isolation. As against a purely formal\nlogic, if such a thing were possible, Dewey's criticism would be valid,\nbut the transcendental logic of his time was not formal in this sense.\nThe psychological method which Dewey offers as a substitute for the\nlogical method escapes, he believes, the difficulties of the latter\nmethod. At the same time it preserves, in his opinion, the essential\nspirit of the Hegelian method. Dewey's comments show that he conceives\nhis method to be a restatement, in improved form, of the doctrine of the\n'concrete universal.' But the 'psychological method' and the method of\nidealism are, if anything, antithetical. An excellent summary of Dewey's\ntheory is afforded by the following passage: \"Only a living actual Fact\ncan preserve within its unity that organic system of differences in\nvirtue of which it lives and moves and has its being. It is with this\nfact, conscious experience in its entirety, that psychology as method\nbegins. It thus brings to clear light of day the presupposition implicit\nin every philosophy, and thereby affords logic, as well as the\nphilosophy of nature, its basis, ideal and surety. If we have determined\nthe nature of reality, by a process whose content equals its form, we\ncan show the meaning, worth and limits of any one moment of this\nreality.\"[20]\n\nIt would be useless to speculate upon the various possible\ninterpretations that might be given of Dewey's psychological method. The\nmost critical examination of the text will not dispel its vagueness, nor\nafford an answer to the many questions that arise. It does, however,\nthrow an interesting light on certain tendencies in Dewey's own\nthinking.\n\nDewey's attempt to show that English empiricism and transcendentalism\nhave a common psychological basis must be regarded as a failure. That\nthe nature of the attempt reveals a misunderstanding, or fatal lack of\nappreciation, on the part of Dewey, of the critical philosophy and the\nlater development of idealism by Hegel, has already been suggested. He\ndoes not appear to have grasped the significance of the movement from\nKant to Hegel. Kant, of course, believed that the _a priori_ forms of\nexperience could be determined by a process of critical analysis, which\nwould reveal them in their purity. The constitutive relations of\nexperience were supposed by him to be limited to the pure forms of\nsensibility, space and time, and the twelve categories of the\nunderstanding, which, being imposed upon the manifold of sensations, as\norganized by the productive imagination, determined once and for all the\norder of the phenomenal world. His logic, therefore, as an account of\nthe forms of experience, would represent logic of the type which Dewey\ncriticized. But with the rejection of Kant's noumenal world, the\ncritical method assumed a different import. It was no longer to be\nsupposed that reality, as knowable, was organized under the forms of a\ndeterminate number of categories, which could be separated out and\nclassified. Kant's idea that experience was an intelligible system was\nretained, but its intelligibility was not supposed to be wholly\ncomprised in man's methods of knowing it. The instrumental character of\nthe categories was recognized. Criticism was directed upon the\ncategories, with the object of determining their validity, spheres of\nrelevance, and proper place in the system of knowledge. Such a\ncriticism, in the nature of things, could not deal with the forms of\nthought in abstraction from their application. Direct reference to\nexperience, therefore, became a necessary element in idealism. At the\nsame time, philosophy became a 'criticism of categories.' The method is\nempirical, but never psychological.\n\nDewey recognized the need of an empirical method in philosophy, but\nfailed to show specifically how psychology could deal with philosophical\nproblems. He appears to have conceived that sensation and meaning, facts\nand forms, were present in experience or 'Consciousness,' as if this\nwere some total understanding which retained the elements in a fixed\nunion and order. While, according to his method, the forms of this\nuniversal consciousness could not be considered apart from the\nparticulars in which they inhered, they might be studied by a survey of\nexperience, a direct appeal to consciousness, in which 'form and content\nare equal.' He seems to have held that truth is given in immediate\nexperience. A study of reality as immediately given, therefore, to\npsychological observation, would provide an account of the eternal\nnature of things, as they stand in the universal mind. Dewey did not\nattempt a criticism of the categories and methods which psychology must\nemploy in such a task. Had he done so, the advantages of a critical\nmethod might have occurred to him.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Vol. XI, pp. 1-19; pp. 153-173.\n\n[3] \"Illusory Psychology,\" _Mind_, Vol. XI, 1886, p. 478.\n\n[4] \"The Psychological Standpoint,\" _Mind_, 1886, Vol. XI, p. 2.\n\n[5] _Ibid._, p. 7.\n\n[6] _Op. cit._, p. 8 f.\n\n[7] \"Psychology as Philosophic Method,\" _Mind_, 1886, Vol. XI, p. 157.\n\n[8] _Ibid._, p. 160. (Observe that this is a direct reference to\nBerkeley.)\n\n[9] _Op. cit._\n\n[10] _Op. cit._, p. 161.\n\n[11] _Ibid._\n\n[12] Third Edition, p. 54.\n\n[13] _Mind_, Vol. XI, p. 166 f.\n\n[14] _Ibid._, p. 166.\n\n[15] _Ibid._\n\n[16] _Op. cit._, p. 170.\n\n[17] _Ibid._\n\n[18] _Op. cit._, p. 172.\n\n[19] _Ibid._\n\n[20] _Op. cit._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STANDPOINT\n\n\nThe \"psychological method,\" as so far presented, is an outline which\nmust be developed in detail before its philosophical import is revealed.\nFor several years following the publication of his first articles in\n_Mind_ Dewey was occupied with the task of working out his method in\ngreater detail, and giving it more concrete form. His thought during\nthis period follows a fairly regular order of development, which is to\nbe sketched in the present chapter.\n\nIn 1887 Dewey published in _Mind_ an article entitled \"Knowledge as\nIdealisation.\"[21] This article is, in effect, a consideration of one of\nthe special problems of the \"psychological method.\" If reality is an\neternal and all-inclusive consciousness, in which sensations and\nmeanings are ordered according to a rational system, what must be the\nnature of the finite thought-process which apprehends this reality? In\nhis previous articles Dewey had proposed the \"psychological method\" as\nan actual mode of investigation, and questions concerning the nature of\nthe human thought-process naturally forced themselves upon his\nattention.\n\nThe thought-process is, to begin with, a relating activity which gives\nmeaning to experience. Says Dewey: \"When Psychology recognizes that the\nrelating activity of mind is one not exercised _upon_ sensations, but\none which supplies relations and thereby makes meaning (makes\nexperience, as Kant said), Psychology will be in a position to explain,\nand thus to become Philosophy.\"[22] This statement raises the more\nspecific question, what is meaning?\n\nEvery idea, Dewey remarks, has two aspects: existence and meaning.\n\"Recognizing that every psychical fact does have these two aspects, we\nshall, for the present, confine ourselves to asking the nature,\nfunction and origin of the aspect of meaning or significance--the\ncontent of the idea as opposed to its existence.\"[23] The meaning aspect\nof the idea cannot be reduced to the centrally excited image existences\nwhich form a part of the existence-aspect of the idea. \"I repeat, as\nexistence, we have only a clustering of sensuous feelings, stronger and\nweaker.\"[24] But the thing is not perceived as a clustering of feelings;\nthe sensations are immediately interpreted as a significant object.\n\"Perceiving, to restate a psychological commonplace, is interpreting.\nThe content of the perception is what is signified.\"[25] Dewey's\ntreatment of sensations, at this point, is somewhat uncertain. If it be\na manifold that is given to the act of interpretation, Kant's difficulty\nis again presented. The bare sensations taken by themselves mean\nnothing, and yet everything does mean something in being apprehended.\nThe conclusion should be that there is no such thing as mere existence.\nDewey's judgment is undecided on this issue. \"It is true enough,\" he\nsays, \"that without the idea _as existence_ there would be no\nexperience; the sensuous clustering is a condition _sine qua non_ of\nall, even the highest spiritual, consciousness. But it is none the less\ntrue that if we could strip any psychical existence of all its qualities\nexcept bare existence, there would be nothing left, not even existence,\nfor our intelligence.... If we take out of an experience all that it\n_means_, as distinguished from what it _is_--a particular occurrence at\na certain time, there is no psychical experience. The barest fragment of\nconsciousness that can be hit upon has meaning as well as being.\"[26] An\ninterpretation of reality as truly organic would treat mechanical\nsensation as a pure fiction. But Dewey clings to 'existence' as a\nnecessary 'aspect' of the psychical fact. The terms and relations never\nentirely fuse, although they are indispensable to each other. There is\ndanger that the resulting view of experience will be somewhat angular\nand structural.\n\nAt one point, indeed, Dewey asserts that there is no such thing as a\nmerely immediate psychical fact, at least for our experience. \"So far is\nit from being true that we know only what is _immediately_ present in\nconsciousness, that it should rather be said that what is _immediately_\npresent is never known.\"[27] But in the next paragraph Dewey remarks:\n\"That which is immediately present is the sensuous existence; that which\nis known is the content conveyed by this existence.\"[28] The sensation\nis not known, and therefore probably not experienced. In this case Dewey\nis departing from his own principles, by introducing non-experienced\nfactors into his interpretation of experience. The language is\nambiguous. If nothing is immediately given, then the sensuous content is\nnot so given.\n\nThe 'sensuous existences' assumed by Dewey are the ghosts of Kant's\n'manifold of sensation.' The difficulty comes out clearly in the\nfollowing passage: \"It is indifferent to the sensation whether it is\ninterpreted as a cloud or as a mountain; a danger signal, or a signal of\nopen passage. The auditory sensation remains unchanged whether it is\ninterpreted as an evil spirit urging one to murder, or as intra-organic,\ndue to disordered blood-pressure.... It is not the sensation in and of\nitself that means this or that object; it is the sensation as\nassociated, composed, identified, or discriminated with other\nexperiences; the sensation, in short, as mediated. The whole worth of\nthe sensation for intelligence is the meaning it has by virtue of its\nrelation to the rest of experience.\"[29]\n\nThere is an obvious parallel between this view of experience and Kant's.\nKant, indeed, transcended the notion that experience is a structure of\nsensations set in a frame-work of thought forms; but the first\n_Critique_ undoubtedly leaves the average reader with such a conception\nof experience. It is unjust to Kant, however, to take the mechanical\naspect of his thought as its most important phase. He stands, in the\nopinion of modern critics, at a half-way stage between the mechanism of\nthe eighteenth century and the organic logic of the nineteenth, and his\nworks point the way from the lower to the higher point of view. This\nwas recognized by Hegel and by his followers in England. How does it\nhappen, then, that Dewey, who was well-read in the philosophical\nliterature of the day, should have persisted in a view of experience\nwhich appears to assume the externally organized manifold of the\n_Critique of Pure Reason_? Or, to put the question more explicitly, why\ndid he retain as a fundamental assumption Kant's 'manifold of\nsensations'?\n\nSo far, Dewey has been concerned with the nature of meaning. He now\nturns to knowledge, and the knowing process as that which gives meaning\nto experience. Knowledge, or science, he says, is a process of following\nout the ideal element in experience. \"The idealisation of science is\nsimply a further development of this ideal element. It is, in short,\nonly rendering explicit and definite the meaning, the idea, already\ncontained in perception.\"[30] But if perception is already organized by\nthought, the sensations must have been related in a 'productive\nimagination.' Dewey, however, does not recognize such a necessity. The\nfactor of meaning is ideal, he continues, because it is not present as\nso much immediate content, but is present as symbolized or mediated. But\nthe question may be asked, \"Whence come the ideal elements which give to\nexperience its meaning?\" No answer can be given except by psychology, as\nan inquiry into the facts, as contrasted with the logical necessity of\nexperience.\n\nSensations acquire meaning through being identified with and\ndiscriminated from other sensations to which they are related. But it is\nnot as mere existences that they are compared and related, but as\nalready ideas or meanings. \"The identification is of the meaning of the\npresent sensation with some meaning previously experienced, but which,\nalthough previously experienced, still exists because it _is_ meaning,\nand not occurrence.\"[31] The existences to which meanings attach come\nand go, and are new for every new appearance of the idea in\nconsciousness; but the meanings remain. \"The experience, as an existence\nat a given time, has forever vanished. Its meaning, as an ideal quality,\nremains as long as the mind does. Indeed, its remaining is the\nremaining of the mind; the conservation of the ideal quality of\nexperience is what makes the mind a permanence.\"[32]\n\nIt is not possible, Dewey says, to imagine a primitive state in which\nunmeaning sensations existed alone. Meaning cannot arise out of that\nwhich has no meaning. \"Sensations cannot revive each other except as\nmembers of one whole of meaning; and even if they could, we should have\nno beginning of significant experience. Significance, meaning, must be\nalready there. Intelligence, in short, is the one indispensable\ncondition of intelligent experience.\"[33]\n\nThinking is an act which idealizes experience by transforming sensations\ninto an intelligible whole. It works by seizing upon the ideal element\nwhich is already there, conserving it, and developing it. It produces\nknowledge by supplying relations to experience. Dewey realizes that his\nact of intelligence is similar to Kant's 'apperceptive unity.' He says:\n\"The mention of Kant's name suggests that both his strength and his\nweakness lie in the line just mentioned. It is his strength that he\nrecognizes that an apperceptive unity interpreting sensations through\ncategories which constitute the synthetic content of self-consciousness\nis indispensable to experience. It is his weakness that he conceives\nthis content as purely logical, and hence as formal.\"[34] Kant's error\nwas to treat the self as formal and held apart from its material. \"The\nself does not work with _a priori_ forms upon an _a posteriori_\nmaterial, but intelligence as ideal (or _a priori_) constitutes\nexperience (or the _a posteriori_) as having meaning.\"[35] Dewey's\nstandpoint here seems to be similar to that of Green. But as Kant's\nunity of apperception became for Green merely a symbol of the world's\ninherent intelligibility, the latter did not regard it as an actual\nprocess of synthesis. Dewey fails to make a distinction, which might\nhave been useful to him, between Kant's unity of apperception and his\nproductive imagination. It is the latter which Dewey retains, and he\ntends to identify it with the empirical process of the understanding.\nKnowing, psychologically considered, is a synthetic process. \"And this\nis to say that experience grows as intelligence adds out of its own\nideal content ideal quality.... The growth of the power of comparison\nimplies not a formal growth, but a synthetic internal growth.\"[36]\nDewey, of course, views understanding as an integral part of reality's\nprocesses rather than as a process apart, but it is for him a very\nspecial activity, which builds up the meaning of experience. \"Knowledge\nmight be indifferently described, therefore, as a process of\nidealisation of experience, or of realisation of intelligence. It is\neach through the other. Ultimately the growth of experience must consist\nin the development out of itself by intelligence of its own implicit\nideal content upon occasion of the solicitation of sensation.\"[37]\n\nThe difficulties of Dewey's original position are numerous. The relation\nof the self, as a synthetic activity, to the \"Eternal Consciousness,\" in\nwhich meaning already exists in a completed form, is especially\nperplexing. Does the self merely trace out the meaning already present\nin reality, or is it a factor in the creation of meaning? It is clear\nthat if the thinking process is a genuinely synthetic activity, imposing\nmeaning on sensations, it literally 'makes the world' of our experience.\nBut, on the other hand, if meaning is given to thought, as a part of its\ndata, the self merely reproduces in a subjective experience the thought\nwhich exists objectively in the eternal mind. The dilemma arises as a\nresult of Dewey's initial conception of reality as a structure of\nsensations and meanings. This conception of reality must be given up, if\nthe notion of thought as a process of idealization is to be retained.\n\nIn 1888, Dewey's _Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human\nUnderstanding_ appeared, and during the two years following he appears\nto have become interested in ethical theory, the results of his study\nbeginning to appear in 1890. Dewey's ethical theories have so important\na bearing upon his logical theory as to demand special attention. They\nwill be reserved, therefore, for a separate chapter, and attention will\nbe given here to the more strictly logical studies of the period.\n\nThe three years which intervened between the publication of the essay on\n\"Knowledge as Idealisation\" and the appearance of an article \"On Some\nCurrent Conceptions of the term 'Self,'\" in _Mind_ (1890),[38] did not\nserve to divert Dewey's attention from the inquiries in which he had\npreviously been interested. On the contrary, the later article shows how\npersistently his mind must have dwelt upon the problems connected with\nthe notion of the self as a synthetic activity in experience.\n\nThe immediate occasion for the article on the Self was the appearance of\nProfessor Andrew Seth's work, _Hegelianism and Personality_ (1889).\nDewey appears to have been influenced by Seth at an even earlier\nperiod,[39] and he now found the lectures on Hegel stimulating in\nconnection with his own problems about thought and reality.\n\nIt will not be necessary to go into the details of Dewey's criticism of\nthe three ideas of the self presented by Seth. Since it is Dewey's own\nposition that is in question, it is better to begin with his account of\nthe historical origin of these definitions, \"chiefly as found in Kant,\nincidentally in Hegel as related to Kant.\"[40] Dewey turns to the\n'Transcendental Deduction,' and follows Kant's description of the\nsynthetic unity of apperception. \"Its gist,\" he says, \"in the second\nedition of the _K.d.r.V._, is the proof that the identity of\nself-consciousness involves the synthesis of the manifold of feelings\nthrough rules or principles which render this manifold objective, and\nthat, therefore, the analytic identity of self-consciousness involves an\nobjective synthetic unity of consciousness.\"[41] To say that\nself-consciousness is identical is a merely analytical proposition, and,\nas it stands, unfruitful. \"But if we ask how we know this sameness or\nidentity of consciousness, the barren principle becomes wonderfully\nfruitful.\"[42] In order to know reality as mine, not only must the\nconsciousness that it is mine accompany each particular impression, but\neach must be known as an element in _one_ consciousness. \"The sole way\nof accounting for this analytic identity of consciousness is through the\nactivity of consciousness in connecting or 'putting together' the\nmanifold of sense.\"[43]\n\nIn the 'Deduction' of the first _Critique_, Dewey continues, Kant begins\nwith the consciousness of objects, rather than with the identity of\nself-consciousness. Here also consciousness implies a unity, which is\nnot merely formal, but one which actually connects the manifold of sense\nby an act. \"Whether, then, we inquire what is involved in mere sameness\nof consciousness, or what is involved in an objective world, we get the\nsame answer: a consciousness which is not formal or analytic, but which\nis synthetic of sense, and which acts universally (according to\nprinciples) in this synthesis.\"[44]\n\nThe term 'Self,' as thus employed by Kant, Dewey says, is the\ncorrelative of the intelligible world. \"It is the transcendental self\nlooked at as 'there,' as a product, instead of as an activity or\nprocess.\"[45] This, however, by no means exhausts what Kant means by the\nself, for while he proceeds in the 'Deduction' as if the manifold of\nsense and the synthetic unity of the self were strictly correlative, he\nassumes a different attitude elsewhere. The manifold of sense is\nsomething in relation to the thing-in-itself, and the forms of thought\nhave a reference beyond their mere application to the manifold. In the\nother connections the self appears as something purely formal; something\napart from its manifestation in experience. In view of the wider meaning\nof the self, Dewey asks, \"Can the result of the transcendental deduction\nstand without further interpretation?\" It would appear that the content\nof the self is not the same as the content of the known world. The self\nis too great to exhaust itself in relation to sensation. \"Sense is, as\nit were, inadequate to the relations which constitute\nself-consciousness, and thus there must also remain a surplusage in the\nself, not entering into the make-up of the known world.\"[46] This\nfollows from the fact that, while the self is unconditioned, the\nmanifold of sensation is conditioned, as given, by the forms of space\nand time. \"Experience can never be complete enough to have a content\nequal to that of self-consciousness, for experience can never escape its\nlimitation through space and time. Self-consciousness is real, and not\nmerely logical; it is the ground of the reality of experience; it is\nwider than experience, and yet is unknown except so far as it is\nreflected through its own determinations in experience,--this is the\nresult of our analysis of Kant, the _Ding-an-Sich_ being eliminated but\nthe Kantian method and all presuppositions not involved in the notion of\nthe _Ding-an-Sich_ being retained.\"[47]\n\nDewey's interpretation of Kant's doctrine as presented in the\n'Deductions' is no doubt essentially correct. But granting that Kant\nfound it necessary to introduce a synthesis in imagination to account\nfor the unity of experience and justify our knowledge of its relations,\nit must not be forgotten that this necessity followed from the nature of\nhis presuppositions. If the primal reality is a 'manifold of\nsensations,' proceeding from a noumenal source, and lacking meaning and\nrelations, it follows that the manifold must be gathered up into a unity\nbefore the experience which we actually apprehend can be accounted for.\nBut if reality is experience, possessing order and coherence in its own\nnature, the productive imagination is rendered superfluous. Dewey,\nhowever, clings to the notion that thought is a \"synthetic activity\"\nwhich makes experience, and draws support from Kant for his doctrine.\n\nDewey now inquires what relation this revised Kantian conception of the\nself bears to the view advanced by Seth, viz., that the idea of\nself-consciousness is the highest category of thought and explanation.\nKant had tried to discover the different forms of synthesis, by a method\nsomewhat artificial to be sure, and had found twelve of them. While\nHegel's independent derivation and independent placing of the categories\nmust be accepted, it does not follow that the idea of self-consciousness\ncan be included in the list, even if it be considered the highest\ncategory. \"For it is impossible as long as we retain Kant's fundamental\npresupposition--the idea of the partial determination of sensation by\nrelation to perception, apart from its relation to conception--to employ\nself-consciousness as a principle of explaining any fact of\nexperience.\"[48] It cannot be said of the self of Kant that it is simply\nan hypostatized category. \"It is more, because the self of Kant ... is\nmore than any category: it is a real activity or being.\"[49]\n\nHegel, Dewey continues, develops only one aspect of Kant's _Critique_,\nthat is, the logical aspect, and consequently does not fulfil Kant's\nentire purpose. \"This is, I repeat, not an immanent 'criticism of\ncategories' but an analysis of experience into its aspects and really\nconstituent elements.\"[50] Dewey, as usual, shows his opposition to a\n'merely logical' method in philosophy. He plainly indicates his\ndissatisfaction with the Hegelian development of Kant's standpoint. He\nis unfair to Hegel, however, in attributing to him a 'merely logical'\nmethod. Kant's self was, as Dewey asserts, something more than a\ncategory of thought, but it is scarcely illuminating to say of Kant that\nhis purpose was the analysis of experience into its 'constituent\nelements.' Kant did, indeed, analyze experience, but this analysis must\nbe regarded as incidental to a larger purpose. No criticism need be made\nof Dewey's preference for the psychological, as opposed to the logical\naspects of Kant's work. The only comment to be made is that this\nattitude is not in line with the modern development of idealism.\n\nThe question which finally emerges, as the result of Dewey's inquiry, is\nthis: What is the nature of this self-activity which is more than the\nmere category of self-consciousness? \"As long as sensation was regarded\nas given by a thing-in-itself, it was possible to form a conception of\nthe self which did not identify it with the world. But when sense is\nregarded as having meaning only because it is 'there' as determined by\nthought, just as thought is 'there' only as determining sense, it would\nseem either that the self is just their synthetic unity (thus equalling\nthe world) or that it must be thrust back of experience, and become a\nthing-in-itself. The activity of the self can hardly be a third\nsomething distinct from thought and from sense, and it cannot be their\nsynthetic union. What, then, is it?\"[51] Green, Dewey says, attempted to\nsolve the difficulty by his \"idea of a completely realized self making\nan animal organism the vehicle of its own reproduction in time.\"[52]\nThis attempt was at least in the right direction, acknowledging as it\ndid the fact that the self is something more than the highest category\nof thought.\n\nDewey admits his difficulties in a way that makes extended comment\nunnecessary. He does not challenge the validity of the Hegelian\ndevelopment of the Kantian categories, but proposes to make more of the\nself than the Hegelians ordinarily do. This synthetic self-activity must\nreveal itself as a concrete process; that is one of the demands of his\npsychological standpoint. It is impossible to foresee what this process\nwould be as an actual fact of experience.\n\nAlthough the next article which is to be considered does not offer a\ndirect answer to the problems which have so far been raised, it\nnevertheless indicates the general direction which Dewey's thought is to\ntake. This article, on \"The Present Position of Logical Theory,\" was\npublished in the _Monist_ in 1891.[53] Dewey appears at this time as the\nchampion of the transcendental, or Hegelian logic, in opposition to\nformal and inductive logic. His attitude toward Hegel undergoes a marked\nchange at this period. Dewey's general objection to formal logic is well\nexpressed in the following passage: \"It is assumed, in fine, that\nthought has a nature of its own independent of facts or subject-matter;\nthat this thought, _per se_, has certain forms, and that these forms are\nnot forms which the facts themselves take, varying with the facts, but\nare rigid frames, into which the facts are to be set. Now all of this\nconception--the notion that the mind has a faculty of thought apart from\nthings, the notion that this faculty is constructed, in and of itself,\nwith a fixed framework, the notion that thinking is the imposing of this\nfixed framework on some unyielding matter called particular objects, or\nfacts--all of this conception appears to me as highly scholastic.\"[54]\nThe inductive logic, Dewey says, still clings to the notion of thought\nas a faculty apart from its material, operating with bare forms upon\nsensations. Kant had been guilty of this separation and never overcame\nit successfully. Because formal logic views thought as a process apart\nfrom the matter with which it has to deal, it can never be the logic of\nscience. \"For if science means anything, it is that our ideas, our\njudgments may in some degree reflect and report the fact itself. Science\nmeans, on one hand, that thought is free to attack and get hold of its\nsubject-matter, and, on the other, that fact is free to break through\ninto thought; free to impress itself--or rather to express itself--in\nintelligence without vitiation or deflection. Scientific men are true to\nthe instinct of the scientific spirit in fighting shy of a distinct _a\npriori_ factor supplied to fact from the mind. Apriorism of this sort\nmust seem like an effort to cramp the freedom of intelligence and of\nfact, to bring them under the yoke of fixed, external forms.\"[55]\n\nIn opposition to this formal, and, as he calls it, subjective standpoint\nin logic, Dewey stands for the transcendental logic, which supposes that\nthere is some kind of vital connection between thought and fact; \"that\nthinking, in short, is nothing but the fact in its process of\ntranslation from brute impression to lucent meaning.\"[56] Hegel holds\nthis view of logic. \"This, then, is why I conceive Hegel--entirely apart\nfrom the value of any special results--to represent the quintessence of\nthe scientific spirit. He denies not only the possibility of getting\ntruth out of a formal, apart thought, but he denies the existence of any\nfaculty of thought which is other than the expression of fact\nitself.\"[57] At another place Dewey expresses his view of Hegel as\nfollows: \"Relations of thought are, to Hegel, the typical forms of\nmeaning which the subject-matter takes in its various progressive stages\nof being understood.\"[58]\n\nDewey's defence of the transcendental logic is vigorous. He maintains\nthat the disrespect into which the transcendental logic had fallen, was\ndue to the fact that the popular comprehension of the transcendental\nmovement had been arrested at Kant, and had never gone on to Hegel.\n\nThe objection made to Kant's standpoint is that it treated thought as a\nprocess over against experience, imposing its forms upon it from\nwithout. \"Kant never dreams, for a moment, of questioning the existence\nof a special faculty of thought with its own peculiar and fixed forms.\nHe states and restates that thought in itself exists apart from fact and\noccupies itself with fact given to it from without.\"[59] While Kant gave\nthe death blow to a merely formal conception of thought, indirectly, and\nopened up the way for an organic interpretation, he did not achieve the\nhigher standpoint himself. Remaining at the standpoint of Kant,\ntherefore, the critic of the transcendental logic has much to complain\nof. Scientific men deal with facts, look to them for guidance, and must\nsuppose that thought and fact pass into each other directly, and without\nvitiation or deflection. They are correct in opposing a conception which\nwould interpose conditions between thought on the one hand and the facts\non the other.\n\nBut Hegel is true to the scientific spirit. \"When Hegel calls thought\nobjective he means just what he says: that there is no special, apart\nfaculty of thought belonging to and operated by a mind existing separate\nfrom the outer world. What Hegel means by objective thought is the\nmeaning, the significance of the fact itself; and by methods of thought\nhe understands simply the processes in which this meaning of fact is\nevolved.\"[60]\n\nIf Hegel is true to the scientific spirit; if his logic presupposes that\nthere is an intrinsic connection of thought and fact, and views science\nsimply as the progressive realization of the world's ideality, then the\nonly questions to be asked about his logic are questions of fact\nconcerning his treatment of the categories. Is the world such a\nconnected system as he holds it to be? \"And, if a system, does it, in\nparticular, present such phases (such relations, categories) as Hegel\nshows forth?\"[61] These questions are wholly objective. Such a logic as\nHegel's could scarcely make headway when it was first produced, because\nthe significance of the world, its ideal character, had not been brought\nto light through the sciences. We are now reaching a stage, however,\nwhere science has brought the ideality of the world into the foreground,\nwhere it may become as real and objective a material of study as\nmolecules and vibrations.\n\nThis appreciation of Hegel would seem to indicate that Dewey has finally\ngrasped the significance of Hegel's development of the Kantian\nstandpoint. A close reading of the article, however, dispels this\nimpression. Dewey believes that he has found in Hegel a support for his\nown psychological method in philosophy. It is scarcely necessary to say\nthat Hegel's standpoint was anything but psychological. Dewey has\nalready given up Kant; he will presently desert Hegel. A psychological\ninterpretation of the thought-process in its relations to reality is not\ncompatible with the critical method in philosophy.\n\nIn the next article to be examined, \"The Superstition of Necessity,\" in\nthe _Monist_ (1893),[62] Dewey begins to attain the psychological\ndescription of thought at which he had been aiming. This article was\nsuggested, as Dewey indicates in a foot-note, by Mr. C. S. Pierce's\narticle, \"The Doctrine of Necessity Examined,\" in the _Monist_\n(1892).[63] Although Dewey acknowledges his indebtedness to Pierce for\ncertain suggestions, the two articles have little in common.\n\nDewey had consistently maintained that thought is a synthetic activity\nthrough which reality is idealized or takes on meaning. It is from this\nstandpoint that he approaches the subject of necessity. The following\npassage reveals the connection between his former position and the one\nthat he is now approaching: \"The whole, although first in the order of\nreality, is last in the order of knowledge. The complete statement of\nthe whole is the goal, not the beginning of wisdom. We begin, therefore,\nwith fragments, which are taken for wholes; and it is only by piecing\ntogether these fragments, and by the transformation of them involved in\nthis combination, that we arrive at the real fact. There comes a stage\nat which the recognition of the unity begins to dawn upon us, and yet,\nthe tradition of the many distinct wholes survives; judgment has to\ncombine these two contradictory conceptions; it does so by the theory\nthat the dawning unity is an effect necessarily produced by the\ninteraction of the former wholes. Only as the consciousness of the unity\ngrows still more is it seen that instead of a group of independent\nfacts, held together by 'necessary' ties, there is one reality, of which\nwe have been apprehending various fragments in succession and\nattributing to them a spurious wholeness and independence. We learn (but\nonly at the end) that instead of discovering and then connecting\ntogether a number of separate realities, we have been engaged in the\nprogressive definition of one fact.\"[64]\n\nDewey adds to his idea that our knowledge of reality is a progressive\ndevelopment of its implicit ideality through a synthetic\nthought-process, the specification that the process of idealization\noccurs in connection with particular crises and situations. There comes\na stage, he says, when unity begins to dawn and meaning emerges.\nNecessity is a term used in connection with these transitions from\npartial to greater realization of the world's total meaning. Necessity\nis a middle term, or go-between. It marks a critical stage in the\ndevelopment of knowledge. No necessity attaches to a whole, as such.\n\"_Qua_ whole, the fact simply is what it is; while the parts, instead of\nbeing necessitated either by one another or by the whole, are the\nanalyzed factors constituting, in their complete circuit, the\nwhole.\"[65] But when the original whole breaks up, through its inability\nto comprehend new facts under its unity, a process of judgment occurs\nwhich aims at the establishment of a new unity. \"The judgment of\nnecessity, in other words, is exactly and solely the transition in our\nknowledge from unconnected judgments to a more comprehensive synthesis.\nIts value is just the value of this transition; as negating the old\npartial and isolated judgments--in its backward look--necessity has\nmeaning; in its forward look--with reference to the resulting completely\norganized subject-matter--it is itself as false as the isolated\njudgments which it replaces.\"[66] We say that things must be so, when we\ndo not know that they are so; that is, while we are in course of\ndetermining what they are. Necessity has its value exclusively in this\ntransition.\n\nDewey attempts to show, in a discussion which need not be followed in\ndetail, that there is nothing radical in his view, and that it finds\nsupport among the idealists and empiricists alike. Thinkers of both\nschools (he quotes Caird and Venn) admit that the process of judgment\ninvolves a change in objects, at least as they are for us. There is a\ntransformation of their value and meaning. \"This point being held in\ncommon, both schools must agree that _the progress of judgment is\nequivalent to a change in the value of objects_--that objects as they\nare for us, as known, change with the development of our judgments.\"[67]\nDewey proposes to give a more specific description of this process of\ntransformation, and especially, to show how the idea of necessity is\ninvolved in it.\n\nThe process of transformation is occasioned by practical necessity. Men\nhave a tendency to take objects as just so much and no more; to attach\nto a given subject-matter these predicates, and no others. There is a\nprinciple of inertia, or economy, in the mind, which leads it to\nmaintain objects in their _status quo_ as long as possible. \"There is no\ndoubt that the reluctance of the mind to give up an object once made\nlies deep in its economies.... I wish here to call attention to the fact\nthat the forming of a number of distinct objects has its origin in\npractical needs of our nature. The analysis and synthesis which is first\nmade is that of most practical importance....\"[68] We tend to retain\nsuch objects as we have, and it is not until \"the original\nsubject-matter has been overloaded with various and opposing predicates\nthat we think of doubting the correctness of our first judgments, of\nputting our first objects under suspicion.\"[69] Once the Ptolemaic\nsystem is well established, cycles and epicycles are added without\nnumber, rather than reconstruct the original object. When, finally, we\nare compelled to make some change, we tend to invent some new object to\nwhich the predicates can attach. \"When qualities arise so incompatible\nwith the object already formed that they cannot be referred to that\nobject, it is easier to form a new object on their basis than it is to\ndoubt the correctness of the old....\"[70] Let us suppose, then, that\nunder stress of practical need, we refer the new predicates to some new\nobject, and have, as a consequence, two objects. (Dewey illustrates this\nsituation by specific examples.) This separation of the two objects\ncannot continue long, before we begin to discover that the two objects\nare related elements in a larger whole. \"The wall of partition between\nthe two separate 'objects' cannot be broken at one attack; they have to\nbe worn away by the attrition arising from their slow movement into one\nanother. It is the 'necessary' influence which one exerts upon the other\nthat finally rubs away the separateness and leaves them revealed as\nelements of one unified whole.\"[71]\n\nThe concept of necessity has its validity in such a movement of judgment\nas has been described. \"Necessity, as the middle term, is the mid-wife\nwhich, from the dying isolation of judgments, delivers the unified\njudgment just coming into life--it being understood that the\nseparateness of the original judgments is not as yet quite negated, nor\nthe unity of the coming judgment quite attained.\"[72] The judgment of\nnecessity connects itself with certain facts in the situation which are\nimmediately concerned with our practical activities. These are facts\nwhich, before the crisis arises, have been neglected; they are elements\nin the situation which have been regarded as unessential, as not yet\nmaking up a part of the original object. \"Although after our desire has\nbeen met they have been eliminated as accidental, as irrelevant, yet\nwhen the experience is again desired their integral membership in the\nreal fact has to be recognized. This is done under the guise of\nconsidering them as means which are necessary to bring about the\nend.\"[73] We have the if so, then so situation. \"_If_ we are to reach an\nend we _must_ take certain means; while so far as we want an undefined\nend, an end in general, conditions which accompany it are mere\naccidents.\"[74] The end of this process of judgment in which necessity\nappears as a half-way stage, is the unity of reality; a whole into which\nthe formerly discordant factors can be gathered together.\n\nOnly a detailed study of the original text, with its careful\nillustrations, can furnish a thorough understanding of Dewey's position.\nEnough has been said, however, to show that this psychological account\nof the judgment process is a natural outgrowth of his former views, and\nthat, as it stands, it is still in conformity with his original\nidealism. The article as a whole marks a half-way stage in Dewey's\nphilosophical development. Looking backward, it is a partial fulfilment\nof the demands of \"The Psychological Standpoint.\" It is a psychological\ndescription of the processes whereby self-consciousness specifies itself\ninto parts which are still related to the whole. Looking forward, it\nforecasts the functional theory of knowledge. We have, to begin with,\nobjects given as familiar or known experiences. So long as these are not\nput under suspicion or examined, they simply are themselves, or are\nnon-cognitionally experienced. But on the occasion of a conflict in\nexperience between opposed facts and their meanings, a process of\njudgment arises, whose function is to restore unity. It is in this\nprocess of judgment as an operation in the interests of the unity of\nexperience, that the concepts, necessity and contingency, have their\nvalid application and use. They are instruments for effecting a\ntransformation of experience. This is the root idea of functional\ninstrumentalism. It is apparent, therefore, that Dewey's later\nfunctionalism resulted from the natural growth and development of the\npsychological standpoint which he adopted at the beginning of his\nphilosophical career.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[21] Vol. XII, pp. 382-396.\n\n[22] _Ibid._, p. 394.\n\n[23] _Op. cit._, p. 383.\n\n[24] _Ibid._\n\n[25] _Ibid._, p. 384.\n\n[26] _Ibid._\n\n[27] _Op. cit._, p. 385.\n\n[28] _Ibid._\n\n[29] _Ibid._, p. 388.\n\n[30] _Op. cit._, p. 390.\n\n[31] _Ibid._, p. 392.\n\n[32] _Op. cit._\n\n[33] _Ibid._, p. 393.\n\n[34] _Ibid._, p. 394.\n\n[35] _Ibid._, p. 395.\n\n[36] _Op. cit._\n\n[37] _Ibid._, p. 396. (The last sentence forecasts Dewey's later\ncontention that knowing is a specific act operating upon the occasion of\nneed.)\n\n[38] Vol. XV, pp. 58-74.\n\n[39] See _Mind_, Vol. XI, 1886, p. 170.\n\n[40] _Ibid._, p. 63.\n\n[41] _Ibid._\n\n[42] _Ibid._, p. 64.\n\n[43] _Op. cit._\n\n[44] _Ibid._, p. 65.\n\n[45] _Ibid._\n\n[46] _Op. cit._, p. 67.\n\n[47] _Ibid._, p. 68.\n\n[48] _Op. cit._, p. 70.\n\n[49] _Ibid._, p. 71.\n\n[50] _Ibid._\n\n[51] _Op. cit._, p. 73.\n\n[52] _Ibid._\n\n[53] Vol. II, pp. 1-17.\n\n[54] _Op. cit._, p. 4.\n\n[55] _Ibid._, p. 12.\n\n[56] _Ibid._, p. 3.\n\n[57] _Ibid._, p. 14.\n\n[58] _Ibid._, p. 13.\n\n[59] _Op. cit._, p. 11.\n\n[60] _Ibid._, p. 12 f.\n\n[61] _Op. cit._, p. 14.\n\n[62] Vol. III, pp. 362-379.\n\n[63] Vol. II, pp. 321-337.\n\n[64] _The Monist_, Vol. III, 1893, p. 364.\n\n[65] _Ibid._, p. 363.\n\n[66] _Op. cit._\n\n[67] _Ibid._, p. 364 f.\n\n[68] _Ibid._, p. 367.\n\n[69] _Ibid._, p. 366.\n\n[70] _Op. cit._, p. 367.\n\n[71] _Ibid._, p. 368.\n\n[72] _Ibid._, p. 363.\n\n[73] _Op. cit._, p. 372.\n\n[74] _Ibid._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\"MORAL THEORY AND PRACTICE\"\n\n\nDewey's ethical theory, as has already been indicated, stands in close\nrelation to his general theory of knowledge. Since it has been found\nexpedient to treat the ethical theory separately, it will be necessary\nto go back some two years and trace it from its beginnings. The order of\narrangement that has been chosen is fortunate in this respect, since it\nbrings into close connection two articles which are really companion\npieces, in spite of the two-year interval which separates them. These\nare \"The Superstition of Necessity,\" which was considered at the close\nof the last chapter, and \"Moral Theory and Practice,\" an article\npublished in _The International Journal of Ethics_, in January,\n1891.[75] This latter article, now to be examined, is one of Dewey's\nfirst serious undertakings in the field of ethical theory, and probably\nrepresents some of the results of his study in connection with his\ntext-book, _Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics_, published in the\nsame year (1891).\n\nThe immediate occasion for the article is explained by Dewey in his\nintroductory remarks: \"In the first number of this journal four writers\ntouch upon the same question,--the relation of moral theory to moral\npractice.\"[76] The four writers mentioned were Sidgwick, Adler,\nBosanquet, and Salter. None of them, according to Dewey, had directly\ndiscussed the relation of moral theory to practice. \"But,\" he says,\n\"finding the subject touched upon ... in so many ways, I was led to\nattempt to clear up my own ideas.\"[77]\n\nThere seems to exist, Dewey continues, \"the idea that moral theory is\nsomething other than, or something beyond, an analysis of conduct,--the\nidea that it is not simply and wholly 'the theory of practice.'\"[78] It\nis often defined, for instance, as an inquiry into the metaphysics of\nmorals, which has nothing to do with practice. But, Dewey believes,\nthere must be some intrinsic connection between the theory of morals and\nmoral practice. Such intrinsic connection may be denied on the ground\nthat practice existed long before theory made its appearance. Codes of\nmorality were in existence before Plato, Kant, or Spencer rose to\nspeculate upon them. This raises the question, What is theory?\n\nMoral theory is nothing more than a proposed act in idea. It is insight,\nor perception of the relations and bearings of the contemplated act. \"It\nis all one with moral _insight_, and moral insight is the recognition of\nthe relationships in hand. This is a very tame and prosaic conception.\nIt makes moral insight, and therefore moral theory, consist simply in\nthe everyday workings of the same ordinary intelligence that measures\ndrygoods, drives nails, sells wheat, and invents the telephone.\"[79] The\nnature of theory as idea is more definitely described. \"It is the\nconstruction of the act in thought against its outward construction. _It\nis, therefore, the doing,--the act itself, in its emerging._\"[80]\n\nTheory is practice in idea, or as foreseen; it is the perception of what\nought to be done. This, at least, is what moral theory is. Dewey's\ndemand that fact and theory must have some intrinsic connection,\nunsatisfied in the articles reviewed in the previous chapter, is met\nhere by discovering a connecting link in _action_. Theory is \"_the\ndoing,--the act itself in its emerging_.\" The reduction of thought to\nterms of action, here implied, is a serious step. It marks a new\ntendency in Dewey's speculation. Dewey does not claim, in the present\narticle, that his remarks hold good for all theory. \"Physical science,\"\nhe remarks, \"does deal with abstractions, with hypothesis. It says, 'If\nthis, then that.' It deals with the relations of conditions and not with\nfacts, or individuals, at all. It says, 'I have nothing to do with your\nconcrete falling stone, but I can tell you this, that it is a law of\nfalling bodies that, etc.'\"[81] But moral theory is compelled to deal\nwith concrete situations. It must be a theory which can be applied\ndirectly to the particular case. Moral theory cannot exist simply in a\nbook. Since, moreover, there is no such thing as theory in the abstract,\nthere can be no abstract theory of morals.\n\nThere can be no difficulty, Dewey believes, in understanding moral\ntheory as action in idea. All action that is intelligent, all conduct,\nthat is, involves theory. \"For any _act_ (as distinct from mere impulse)\nthere must be 'theory,' and the wider the act, the greater its import,\nthe more exigent the demand for theory.\"[82] This does not, however,\nanswer the question how any particular moral theory, the Kantian, the\nHedonistic, or the Hegelian, is related to action. These systems\npresent, not 'moral ideas' as explained above, but 'ideas about\nmorality.' What relation have ideas about morality to specific moral\nconduct?\n\nThe answer to this question is to be obtained through an understanding\nof the nature of the moral situation. If an act is moral, it must be\nintelligent; as moral conduct, it implies insight into the situation at\nhand. This insight is obtained by an examination and analysis of the\nconcrete situation. \"This is evidently a work of analysis. Like every\nanalysis, it requires that the one making it be in possession of certain\nworking tools. I cannot resolve this practical situation which faces me\nby merely looking at it. I must attack it with such instruments of\nanalysis as I have at hand. _What we call moral rules are precisely such\ntools of analysis._\"[83] The Golden Rule is such an instrument of\nanalysis. Taken by itself, it offers no direct information as to what is\nto be done. \"The rule is a counsel of perfection; it is a warning that\nin my analysis of the moral situation (that is, of the conditions of\npractice) I be impartial as to the effects on me and thee.'\"[84] Every\nrule which is of any use at all is employed in a similar fashion.\n\nBut this is not, so far, a statement of the nature of moral theory,\nsince only particular rules have been considered. Ethical theory, in its\nwider significance, is a reflective process in which, as one might say,\nthe 'tools of analysis' are shaped and adapted to their work. These\nrules are not fixed things, made once and for all, but of such a nature\nthat they preserve their effectiveness only as they are constantly\nrenewed and reshaped. Ethical theory brings the Golden Rule together\nwith other general ideas, conforms them to each other, and in this way\ngives the moral rule a great scope in practice. All moral theory,\ntherefore, is finally linked up with practice. \"It bears much the same\nrelation to the particular rule as this to the special case. It is a\ntool for the analysis of its meaning, and thereby a tool for giving it\ngreater effect.\"[85] In ethical theory we find moral rules in the\nmaking. Ideas about morals are simply moral ideas in the course of being\nformed.\n\nDewey presents here an instrumental theory of knowledge and concepts.\nBut it differs widely from the instrumentalism of the Neo-Hegelian\nschool both in its form and derivation. Dewey reaches his\ninstrumentalism through a psychological analysis of the judgment\nprocess. He finds that theory is related to fact through action, and\nsince he had been unable to give a concrete account of this relationship\nat a previous time, the conclusion may be regarded as a discovery of\nconsiderable moment for his philosophical method. Dewey's\ninstrumentalism rests upon a very special psychological interpretation,\nwhich puts action first and thought second. Unable to discover an overt\nconnection between fact and thought, he delves underground for it, and\nfinds it in the activities of the nervous organism. This discovery, he\nbelieves, solves once and for all the ancient riddle of the relation of\nthought to reality.\n\nIn the concluding part of the article Dewey takes up the consideration\nof moral obligation. \"What is the relation of knowledge, of theory, to\nthat Ought which seems to be the very essence of moral conduct?\"[86] The\nanswer anticipates in some measure the position which was taken later,\nas has been seen, in regard to necessity. The concept of obligation,\nlike that of necessity, Dewey believes, has relevance only for the\njudgment situation. \"But,\" Dewey says, \"limiting the question as best I\ncan, I should say (first) that the 'ought' always rises from and falls\nback into the 'is,' and (secondly) that the 'ought' is itself an\n'is,'--the 'is' of action.\"[87] Obligation is not something added to the\nconclusion of a judgment, something which gives a moral aspect to what\nhad been a coldly intellectual matter. The 'ought' finds an integral\nplace in the judgment process. \"The difference between saying, 'this act\nis the one to be done, ...' and saying, 'The act _ought_ to be done,' is\nmerely verbal. The analysis of action is from the first an analysis of\nwhat is to be done; how, then, should it come out excepting with a 'this\nshould be done'?\"[88] The peculiarity of the 'ought' is that it applies\nto conduct or action, whereas the 'is' applies to the facts. It has\nreference to doing, or acting, as the situation demands. \"This, then, is\nthe relation of moral theory and practice. Theory is the cross-section\nof the given state of action in order to know the conduct that should\nbe; practice is the realization of the idea thus gained: in is theory in\naction.\"[89]\n\nThe parallel between this article and \"The Superstition of Necessity\" is\ntoo obvious to require formulation, and the same criticism that applies\nto the one is applicable to the other. \"The Superstition of Necessity\"\nis more detailed and concrete in its treatment of the judgment process\nthan this earlier article, as might be expected, but the fundamental\nposition is essentially the same. The synthetic activity of the self,\nthe thought-process, finally appears as the servant of action, or, more\nexactly, as itself a special mode of organic activity in general.\n\nFrom the basis of the standpoint which he had now attained Dewey\nattempted a criticism of Green's moral theory, in two articles in the\n_Philosophical Review_, in 1892 and 1893. The first of these, entitled\n\"Green's Theory of the Moral Motive,\"[90] appeared almost two years\nafter the article on \"Moral Theory and Practice.\" The continuity of\nDewey's thought during the intervening period, however, is indicated by\nthe fact that the first four pages of the article to be considered are\ngiven over to an introductory discussion which repeats in almost\nidentical terms the position taken in \"Moral Theory and Practice.\" Dewey\nhimself calls attention to this fact in a foot-note.\n\nThere must be, Dewey again asserts, some vital connection of theory with\npractice. \"Ethical theory must be a general statement of the reality\ninvolved in every moral situation. It must be action stated in its more\ngeneric terms, terms so generic that every individual action will fall\nwithin the outlines it sets forth. If the theory agrees with these\nrequirements, then we have for use in any special case a tool for\nanalyzing that case; a method for attacking and reducing it, for laying\nit open so that the action called for in order to meet, to satisfy it,\nmay readily appear.\"[91] Dewey argues that moral theory cannot possibly\ngive directions for every concrete case, but that it by no means follows\nthat theory can stand aside from the specific case and say: \"What have I\nto do with thee? Thou art empirical, and I am the metaphysics of\nconduct.\"\n\nDewey's preliminary remarks are introductory to a consideration of\nGreen's ethical theory. \"His theory would, I think,\" Dewey says, \"be\ncommonly regarded as the best of the modern attempts to form a\nmetaphysic of ethic. I wish, using this as type, to point out the\ninadequacy of such metaphysical theories, on the ground that they fail\nto meet the demand just made of truly ethical theory, that it lend\nitself to translation into concrete terms, and thereby to the guidance,\nthe direction of actual conduct.\"[92] Dewey recognizes that Green is\nbetter than his theory, but says that the theory, taken in logical\nstrictness, cannot meet individual needs.\n\nDewey makes a special demand of Green's theory. He demands, that is,\nthat it supply a body of rules, or guides to action which can be\nemployed by the moral agent as tools of analysis in cases requiring\nmoral judgment. It is evident in advance that Green's theory was built\nupon a different plan, and can not meet the conditions which Dewey\nprescribes. The general nature of Green's inquiry is well stated in the\nfollowing summary by Professor Thilly: \"The truth in Green's thought is\nthis: the purpose of all social devotion and reform is, after all, the\nperfection of man on the spiritual side, the development of men of\ncharacter and ideals.... The final purpose of all moral endeavor must be\nthe realization of an attitude of the human soul, of some form of noble\nconsciousness in human personalities.... It is well enough to feed and\nhouse human bodies, but the paramount question will always be: What\nkinds of souls are to dwell in these bodies?\"[93] To put the matter in\nmore technical terms, Green is concerned with ends and values. His\nquestion is not, What is the best means of accomplishing a given\npurpose, but, What end is worth attaining? Such an inquiry has no\nimmediate relation to action. It may lead to conclusions which become\ndetermining factors in action, but the process of inquiry has no direct\nreference to conduct. Dewey, having reduced thought to a function of\nactivity, must proceed, by logical necessity, to carry the same\nreduction into the field of theory in general. This he does in thorough\nstyle. His demand that moral theory shall concern itself with concrete\nand 'specific' situations is a result of the same tendency. Since action\ncan only be described as response to a 'situation,' thought, as a\nfunction of activity, must likewise be directed upon a 'situation.'\nConduct in general and values in general become impossible under his\nsystem, because there is no such thing as an activity-in-general of the\norganism. Ends, in other words, exist only for thought, when thought is\ninterpreted as transcending action, and being, in some sense,\nself-contained. When thought is interpreted as a kind of 'indirect\nactivity,' its capacity for metaphysical inquiry vanishes along with its\nindependence.\n\nIt would have been more in keeping with sound criticism had Dewey\nhimself taken note of the important divergence in aim and intent between\nhis work and Green's. As a consequence of his failure to do so, he\nfails, necessarily, to do justice to Green's standpoint. The criticism\nwhich he directs against Green's moral theory may be briefly summed up\nas follows.\n\nGreen tends to repeat the Kantian separation of the self as reason from\nthe self as want or desire. \"The dualism between reason and sense is\ngiven up, indeed, but only to be replaced by a dualism between the end\nwhich would satisfy the self as a unity or whole, and that which\nsatisfies it in the particular circumstances of actual conduct.\"[94] As\na consequence of the separation of the ideal from the actual, no action\ncan satisfy the whole self, and thus no action can be truly moral. \"No\nthorough-going theory of total depravity ever made righteousness more\nimpossible to the natural man than Green makes it to a human being by\nthe very constitution of his being....\"[95] Dewey traces this separation\nof the self as reason from the self as desire through those passages in\nwhich Green describes the moral agent as one who distinguishes himself\nfrom his desires (Book II, _Prolegomena to Ethics_). \"The process of\nmoral experience involves, therefore, a process in which the self, in\nbecoming conscious of its want, objectifies that want by setting it over\nagainst itself; distinguishing the want from self and self from want....\nNow this theory so far might be developed in either of two\ndirections.\"[96]\n\nIn the first place, the self-distinguishing process may be an activity\nby means of which the self specifies its own activity and satisfaction.\n\"The particular desires and ends would be the modes in which the self\nrelieved itself of its abstractness, its undeveloped character, and\nassumed concrete existence.... The unity of the self would stand in no\nopposition to the particularity of the special desire; on the contrary,\nthe unity of the self and the manifold of definite desires would be the\nsynthetic and analytic aspects of one and the same reality, neither\nhaving any advantage metaphysical or ethical over the other!\"[97] But\nGreen, unfortunately, does not develop his theory in this concrete\ndirection. The self does not specify itself in the particulars, but\nremains apart from them. \"The objectification is not of the self in the\nspecial end; but the self remains behind setting the special object over\nagainst itself as not adequate to itself.... The unity of the self sets\nup an ideal of satisfaction for itself as it withdraws from the special\nwant, and this ideal set up through negation of the particular desire\nand its satisfaction constitutes the moral ideal. It is forever\nunrealizable, because it forever negates the special activities through\nwhich alone it might, after all, realize itself.\"[98] In completing this\nargument Dewey refers to certain well-known passages in the _Prolegomena\nto Ethics_, in which Green states that the moral ideal is never\ncompletely attainable. Green's abstract conception of the self as that\nwhich forever sets itself over against its desires is, Dewey argues, not\nonly useless as an ideal for action, but positively opposed to moral\nstriving. \"It supervenes, not as a power active in its own satisfaction,\nbut to make us realize the unsatisfactoriness of such seeming\nsatisfactions as we may happen to get, and to keep us striving for\nsomething which we can never get!\"[99] The most that can be made of\nGreen's moral ideal is to conceive it as the bare form of unity in\nconduct. Employed as a tool of analysis, as a moral rule, it might tell\nus, \"Whatever the situation, seek for its unity.\" But it can scarcely go\neven as far as this in the direction of concreteness, for it says: \"_No_\nunity can be found in the situation because the situation is particular,\nand therefore set over against the unity.\"[100]\n\nMost students of Green would undoubtedly say that this account of his\nmoral theory is entirely one-sided, and fails to reckon with certain\nelements which should properly be taken into account. In the first\nplace, Green is defining the moral agent as he finds him, and is\nreporting what seems to him a fact when he says that the moral ideal is\ntoo high to be realized in this life. Having a spiritual nature, man\nfails to find satisfaction in the goods of natural life. Dewey should\naddress himself to the facts in refuting Green's analysis of human\nnature. In the second place, with respect to Green's separation of the\nself as unity from the self as a manifold of desires, Dewey's criticism\nmay be flatly rejected. Green raises the question himself: \"'Do you\nmean,' it may be asked, 'to assert the existence of a mysterious\nabstract entity which you call the self of a man, apart from all his\nparticular feelings, desires, and thoughts--all the experience of his\ninner life?'\"[101] Green takes time to state his position as clearly as\npossible. He repudiates the idea of an abstract self apart from desire.\nThe following passage is typical of his remarks: \"Just as we hold that\nour desires, feelings, and thoughts would not be what they are--would\nnot be those of a man--if not related to a subject which distinguishes\nitself from each and all of them; so we hold that this subject would not\nbe what it is, if it were not related to the particular feelings,\ndesires, and thoughts, which it thus distinguishes from and presents to\nitself.\"[102] It will be remembered also, that in moral action the agent\nidentifies himself with his desires, or adopts them as his own, and the\nability to do this is the chief mark of human intelligence. But man\ncould not identify himself with his desires, or 'specify himself in\nthem,' as Dewey says, did he not at the same time have the capacity to\ndifferentiate himself from them.\n\nDewey's further remarks on Green's ideal need not be followed in detail,\nsince they rest upon a misapprehension of Green's purpose, and add\nlittle to what he has already said. Taking the moral ideal as something\nthat can never be realized in this life, Dewey inquires what use can be\nmade of it. He considers three modes in which Green might have given\ncontent to the ideal, as a working principle, and finds that it cannot\nbe made, in any of these ways, to serve as a tool of analysis. Green was\nnot prepared to meet these 'pragmatic' requirements. He did not propose\nhis ideal as a principle of conduct, in Dewey's sense; he stated that,\nas a matter of fact, man is more than natural, and that, as such a\nbeing, his ideals can never be completely met by natural objects. How\nman is to act, in view of his spiritual nature, is a further question:\nbut the realization which the individual has of his own spiritual nature\nmust of necessity be a large factor in the determination of his conduct.\nThe 'Spiritual Nature,' in Green's terminology, meant a 'not-natural'\nnature, and 'not-natural' in turn meant a nature that is not definable\nin mechanical or biological terms. Dewey's criticism, therefore, went\nwide of the mark.\n\nIn November, 1893, Dewey followed his criticism of Green's moral motive\nby a second article in the _Philosophical Review_ on \"Self-realization\nas the Moral Ideal.\"[103] It continues the criticism which has already\nbeen made of Green, but from a different point of departure.\n\nThe idea of self-realization in ethics, Dewey begins, may be helpful or\nharmful according to the way in which the ideas of the self and its\nrealization are worked out in the concrete. The mere idea of a self to\nbe realized is, of course, abstract; it is merely the statement of a\nproblem, which needs to be worked out and given content. By way of\nintroducing his own idea of self-realization, Dewey proposes to\ncriticize a certain conception of the self which he finds in current\ndiscussion. \"The notion which I wish to criticize,\" he says, \"is that of\nthe self as a presupposed fixed _schema_ or outline, while realization\nconsists in the filling up of this _schema_. The notion which I would\nsuggest as substitute is that of the self as always a concrete\n_specific_ activity; and, therefore, (to anticipate) of the identity of\nself and realization.\"[104] Such a presupposed fixed self is to be found\nin Green's \"Eternally complete Consciousness.\"\n\nThe idea of self-realization implies capacities or possibilities. To\ntranslate capacity into actuality, as the conception of the fixed self\nseems to do, is to vitiate the whole idea of possibility. There must,\nthen, be some conception of unrealized powers which will meet this\ndifficulty. The way to a valid conception is through the realization\nthat capacities are always specific. \"The capacities of a child, for\nexample, are not simply of _a_ child, not of a man, but of _this_ child,\nnot of any other.\"[105] Whatever else capacity may be, whether infinite\nor not, it must be an element in an actual situation. As specific\nthings, moreover, capacities reside in activities, which are now going\non. The capacity of a child to become a musician consists in this fact:\n\"Even _now_ he has a certain quickness, vividness, and plasticity of\nvision, a certain deftness of hand, and a certain motor coordination by\nwhich his hand is stimulated to work in harmony with his eye.\"[106]\n\nHow do these specific, actual activities come to be called capacities?\nThere is a peculiar psychological reason for this which James has\npointed out, in his statement that essence \"is that _which is so\nimportant for my interests_ that, comparatively, other properties may be\nomitted.\"[107] When we pay attention to any activity, there is a natural\ntendency to select only that portion of it that is of immediate\ninterest, and to exclude the rest as irrelevant. \"In the act of vision,\nfor example,\" Dewey tells us, \"the thing that seems nearest us, that\nwhich claims continuously our attention, is the eye itself. We thus come\nto abstract the eye from all special acts of seeing; we make the eye the\n_essential_ thing in sight, and conceive of the circumstances of vision\nas indeed _circumstances_; as more or less accidental concomitants of\nthe permanent eye.\"[108] There is no eye in general; the eye is always\ngiven along with other circumstances which in their totality make up a\nconcrete seeing situation. Nevertheless, we abstract the eye from other\ncircumstances and set it up as the essence of seeing. But we cannot\nretain the eye in absolute abstraction, because the concrete\ncircumstances of vision force themselves upon the attention. So we lump\nthese together on the other side as a new object, and take as their\nessence the vibrations of ether. \"_The eye now becomes the capacity of\nseeing; the vibrations of ether, conditions required for the exercise of\nthe capacity._\"[109] We keep the two abstractions, but try to restore\nthe unity of the situation through taking one as capacity and the other\nas the condition of the exercise of capacity.\n\nBut we cannot stop even with this double abstraction. \"The eye in\ngeneral and the vibrations in general do not, even in their unity,\nconstitute the act of vision. A multitude of other factors are\nincluded.\"[110] Preserving the original 'core' as capacity, we tend to\ntreat all the attendant circumstances which occur frequently enough to\nrequire taking account of, as conditions which help realize the\nabstracted reality called capacity.\n\nThe discussion here is very much like that in \"The Superstition of\nNecessity\" (published in the same year), which was reviewed in the last\nchapter. Dewey calls attention to this connection in a foot-note,\nremarking that he has already developed at greater length \"the idea that\nnecessity and possibility are simply the two correlative abstractions\ninto which the one reality falls apart during the process of our\nconscious apprehension of it.\"[111] The danger, Dewey says, is that the\nmerely relative character of a given capacity may be overlooked, and\nthat it may be ontologized into a fixed entity. This is the error, he\nthinks, into which Green fell. The ideal self, as that which capacity\nmay realize, is ontologized into an already existent fact. Then we get a\nseparation between the present self, as capacity, and the ideal self\nwhich is to be realized. The self already realized is opposed to the\nself as yet ideal. \"This 'realized self' is no reality by itself; it is\nsimply our partial conception of the self erected into an entity.\nRecognizing its incomplete character, we bring in what we have left out\nand call it the 'ideal self.' Then by way of dealing with the fact that\nwe have not two selves here at all, but simply a less and a more\nadequate insight into the same self, we insert the idea of one of these\nselves realizing the other.\"[112] It is in this manner that error\narises.\n\nBut what is the correct attitude toward the self? First of all, the self\nmust be conceived as \"a working, practical self, carrying within the\nrhythm of its own process both 'realized' and 'ideal' self. The current\nethics of the self ... are too apt to stop with a metaphysical\ndefinition, which seems to solve problems in general, but at the expense\nof the practical problems which alone really demand or admit\nsolution.\"[113] The first point of the argument is that the self\nactivity is individual, concrete, and specific, here and now, and the\nsecond point is that if the self is to be talked of in an intelligent\nway it must be taken as something empirically given. \"The whole point is\nexpressed when we say that no possible future activities or conditions\nhave anything to do with the present action except as they enable us to\ntake deeper account of the present activity, to get beyond the mere\nsuperficies of the act, to see it in its totality.\"[114] The phrase,\n'realize yourself,' is a direction for knowledge; it means, see the\nwider consequences of your act, realize its wider bearings.\n\nDewey says: \"The fixed ideal is as distinctly the bane of ethical\nscience today as the fixed universe of mediaevalism was the bane of the\nnatural science of the Renascence.\"[115] This is a strong statement,\nwhich indicates how wide was the gulf which now separated Dewey from\nGreen, whom he formerly acknowledged as his master.\n\nDewey's interpretation of Green's ideal self is far from satisfactory,\nlargely because of its lack of insight and appreciation. The reduction\nof thought to a 'form of activity' renders a purely theoretical inquiry\nimpossible. The 'present activity,' the biological situation, becomes\nthe measure of all things, even of thought. Ideals, in his own words,\nhave nothing to do with present action, \"except as they enable us to\ntake deeper account of the present activity.\" Dewey's self and Green's\nare incommensurable. The former is the biological organism, with a\ncapacity for indirect activity called thinking; the latter is a\nnot-natural being, whose reality escapes the logic of descriptive\nscience, because of the fulness of its content. Dewey's failure to\nunderstand this difference is significant. His acquaintance with Green\nseems to have been formal from the beginning, never intimate, and the\narticles just reviewed mark the end of Dewey's idealistic discipleship.\nHis psychological idealism, in fact, was fundamentally antithetical to\nthe Neo-Hegelianism which he had sought to espouse, and the development\nof his own standpoint brought out the vital differences which had been\nhidden from his earlier understanding. The idealism which seeks to view\nreality together and as a whole is forever incompatible with a method\nwhich seeks to interpret the whole in terms of one of its parts.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[75] Vol. I, pp. 186-203.\n\n[76] _Ibid._, p. 186.\n\n[77] _Ibid._\n\n[78] _Op. cit._, p. 187.\n\n[79] _Ibid._, p. 188.\n\n[80] _Ibid._\n\n[81] _Ibid._, p. 191 f.\n\n[82] _Op. cit._, p. 189.\n\n[83] _Ibid._, p. 194. Author's Italics.\n\n[84] _Ibid._\n\n[85] _Op. cit._, p. 195.\n\n[86] _Ibid._, p. 198.\n\n[87] _Op. cit._\n\n[88] _Ibid._, p. 202.\n\n[89] _Ibid._, p. 203.\n\n[90] _Philosophical Review_, Vol. I, 1892, pp. 593-612.\n\n[91] _Op. cit._, p. 596.\n\n[92] _Ibid._, p. 597.\n\n[93] _History of Philosophy_, p. 555.\n\n[94] _Philosophical Review_, Vol. I, 1892, p. 598.\n\n[95] _Ibid._\n\n[96] _Ibid._, p. 599.\n\n[97] _Ibid._ Compare with the passage in \"Psychology as Philosophic\nMethod,\" _Mind_, Vol. XI, p. 9.\n\n[98] _Op. cit._, p. 600.\n\n[99] _Ibid._, p. 601.\n\n[100] _Ibid._, p. 602.\n\n[101] _Prolegomena to Ethics_, third ed., p. 103.\n\n[102] _Ibid._, p. 104.\n\n[103] Vol. II, pp. 652-664.\n\n[104] _Ibid._, p. 653.\n\n[105] _Ibid._, p. 655.\n\n[106] _Op. cit._, p. 656.\n\n[107] _Ibid._, p. 657.\n\n[108] _Ibid._\n\n[109] _Ibid._, p. 658. Author's italics.\n\n[110] _Ibid._\n\n[111] _Op. cit._, note.\n\n[112] _Ibid._, p. 663.\n\n[113] _Ibid._\n\n[114] _Op. cit._, p. 659.\n\n[115] _Ibid._, p. 664.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nFUNCTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY\n\n\nIt now becomes necessary to review that period of Dewey's philosophical\ncareer which is marked by the definite abandonment of the idealistic\nstandpoint, and the adoption of the method of instrumental pragmatism.\nIt has already been seen that there is a close connection between the\n\"functionalism\" which now begins to appear, and the \"Psychological\nStandpoint\" set forth in the preceding pages of this review. It is not\npossible, however, to account for all the elements which contribute to\nthis development. Dewey was active in many fields and received\nsuggestions from many sources. It seems best, in dealing with this\nperiod, to \"follow the lead of the subject-matter\" and avoid _a priori_\nspeculation on the factors which determined the precise form of Dewey's\nmature standpoint in philosophy.\n\nDewey had always kept in mind the idea that the synthetic activity\nwhereby self-consciousness evolves the ideality of the world must\noperate through the human organism. He had frequently referred to\nGreen's saying that the Eternal Self-Consciousness reproduces itself in\nman, and to similar notions in Caird and Kant; but he had never\nconsidered, in a detailed way, how the organism might serve as the\nvehicle for such a process. His ethical theory, with its analysis of\nindividuality into capacity and environment, tended to bring the\nbody-world relationship into the foreground, and the idea that theory is\nrelative to action tended to emphasize still more the relation of\nthought to the bodily processes. Dewey finally discovers the basis upon\nwhich the synthetic activity of the self, the thought process, may be\ndescribed empirically and concretely.\nOrganism-in-relation-to-environment becomes the key-stone of his theory\nof knowledge. Thought is interpreted as a function of the organism,\nbiologically considered, and the biological psychology which results\nfrom this mode of interpretation is commonly known as 'functional\npsychology.'\n\nThe functional psychology is presented in a series of articles in the\n_Philosophical Review_ and the _Psychological Review_, published between\n1894 and 1898. The most important of these is \"The Reflex Arc Concept in\nPsychology,\" published in the _Psychological Review_ in 1896.[116] Since\nit is the only article in the series which gives a complete view of the\ntheory, it will be made the basis for the discussion of the functional\ntheory of psychology.\n\nThe reflex arc concept in psychology, Dewey says, recognizes that the\nsensory-motor arc is to be taken as the unit of nerve structure, and the\ntype of nerve function. But psychologists do not avail themselves of the\nfull value of this conception, because they still retain in connection\nwith it certain distinctions which were used in the older psychology.\n\"The older dualism between sensation and idea is repeated in the current\ndualism of peripheral and central structures and functions; the older\ndualism of body and soul finds a distinct echo in the current dualism of\nstimulus and response.\"[117] These rigid distinctions must be set aside,\nand the separated elements must be viewed as elements in one\nsensory-motor coordination. Each is to be defined, not as something\nexisting by itself, but as an element functioning in a concrete whole of\nactivity. Thus, if we are to study vision, we must first take vision as\na sensory-motor coordination, the act of seeing, and within the whole we\nmay then be able to distinguish certain elements, sensations, or\nmovements, and define them according to their function in the total act\nof seeing. The reflex arc idea, as commonly employed, takes sensation as\nstimulus, and movement as response, as if they were actually separate\nexistences, apart from a coordination. Response is said to follow\nsensation, but it is forgotten that the sensation which preceded was\ncorrelated with a response, and that the response which follows is also\ncorrelated with sensation. Sound, for instance, is not a mere sensation\nin itself, apart from sensory-motor coordination. Hearing is an act, and\nwhile sound may, for purposes of study, be abstracted from the total, it\nis not, in itself, independent of the total act of hearing.\n\n\"But, in spite of all this, it will be urged, there is a distinction\nbetween stimulus and response, between sensation and motion. Precisely;\nbut we ought now to be in a condition to ask of what nature is the\ndistinction, instead of taking it for granted as a distinction somehow\nlying in the existence of the facts themselves.\"[118] The distinction\nwhich is to be made between them must be made on a teleological basis.\n\"The fact is that stimulus and response are not distinctions of\nexistence, but teleological distinctions, that is, distinctions of\nfunction, or part played, with reference to reaching or maintaining an\nend.\"[119] There are two kinds of teleological distinction that can be\nmade between stimulus and response, or rather, the teleological\ninterpretation has two phases.\n\nIn the first place, it may be assumed that all of man's activity\nfurthers some general end, as, for instance, the maintenance of life.\nThen man's activity may be viewed as a sequence of acts, which tend to\nfurther this end, and on this basis we may separate out stimulus and\nresponse. \"It is only when we regard the sequence of acts _as if_ they\nwere adapted to reach some end that it occurs to us to speak of one as\nstimulus and the other as response. Otherwise, we look at them as a\n_mere_ series.\"[120] In these cases the stimulus is as truly an act as\nthe response, and what we have is a series of sensory-motor\ncoordinations. Looking, for instance, is a sensory-motor coordination\nwhich is the stimulus or antecedent of another coordinated act, running\naway. The first coordination passes into the second, and the second may\nbe viewed as a modification or reconstitution of the first.\n\nBut this external teleological distinction between sensation and\nresponse is not so important as the distinction now to be made. So far\nonly fixed coordinations, habitual modes of action, have been\nconsidered. But there are situations in which habitual responses and\nfixed modes of action fail: situations in which new habits are formed.\nIn these situations there arises a special distinction between stimulus\nand response, for in these formative situations the stimuli and\nresponses are consciously present in experience as such. \"The circle is\na coordination, some of whose members have come into conflict with each\nother. It is the temporary disintegration and need of reconstitution\nwhich occasions, which affords the genesis of, the conscious distinction\ninto sensory stimulus on one side and motor response on the other.\"[121]\nThe distinction which arises between stimulus and response is a\ndistinction of function within the problematical situation. Suppose that\na sound is heard, the character of which is uncertain, and which, as a\ncoordination, does not readily pass into its following coordination, or\nhabitual response. The sound is puzzling, and moves into the center of\nattention. It is fixed upon, abstracted, studied on its own account. In\nthat event, the sound may be spoken of as a sensation. As a sensation,\nit is the datum of a reflective process of thought, or conscious\ninference, whose aim is to constitute the sound a stimulus, or, in other\nwords, to find what response belongs to it. When this response is\ndetermined the problem is done with and sensory-motor unity is achieved.\n\nThe stimulus, in these cases, is simply \"that phase of activity\nrequiring to be defined in order that a coordination may be\ncompleted.\"[122] It is not any particular existence, and is not to be\ntaken as an element apart from others, having an independent existence.\nBut the conscious process of attending to the sensation and finding a\nresponse to it arises only when coordination is disturbed by conflicting\nfactors, and the separation of stimulus from response arises only as a\nmeans for bringing unity into the coordination. The sensation, then, is\nthat element which is to be attended to; upon which further response\ndepends. This phase of the teleological interpretation defines each\nelement by the part which it plays in the reflective process.\n\nIf this brief summary of the article is difficult to comprehend, a\nreading of the original text will do little towards making it more\nintelligible. The doctrine presented there, however, is simple and\ncoherent enough when its bearings and purpose are once understood, and,\nat the risk of being over-elaborate, it seems advisable to attempt some\nremarks on the general bearing and applications of the theory.\n\nIt must be remembered that Dewey is seeking an interpretation of the\nthought process which shall reveal it as an actual fact of experience. A\nthought which is apart from experience and not _in_ it, which is shut up\nto the contemplation of its own mental states is, by its definition,\nnon-experienced. It is, like Kant's 'productive imagination,' formative\nof experience, but not a part of it. Dewey holds to the belief that\nexperience must be explained in terms of itself; he would do away with\nall transcendental factors in the explanation of reality. But modern\npsychological theory, Dewey believes, tends to shut thought in to the\ncontemplation of its own subjective states, and thus gives it an\nextra-experiential status. A stimulus is said to strike upon an end\norgan, which sends an impulse to the cortex and there gives rise to a\nsensation which, as the effect of a stimulus, is representative of the\nreal, but not real in itself. Thought, again, interprets the sensation,\nand sends out a motor impulse appropriate to the situation. These mental\nstates and the thought which interprets them are, in Dewey's mind,\nwholly fictitious. The problem, then, is to give an account of the\nperceptual processes which shall eliminate the artificial states of mind\nand present mental operations as natural processes.\n\nThe difficulty with customary psychological explanation is that it\nbreaks the reflex arc of the nervous system into three parts whose\nrelations are successive and causal rather than simultaneous and\norganic. There is not first a stimulus, then perception, then response;\nthese processes are supplementary, not separate. Or, from another point\nof view, psychological explanation must begin with a whole process\nwhich, when analyzed, is seen to contain the three moments or phases:\nstimulus, sensation, and response. The whole process is primary and\nactual, the abstracted phases are secondary and derivative.\n\nWith the disappearance of the mechanical interpretation of the\nperceptual process, mental states vanish. Representative perceptionism\nis thus done away with, together with all the problems which it\ngenerates.\n\nThe position of conscious, or reflective thought, in Dewey's scheme, is\nespecially interesting. This mode of thought is not constantly\noperative, but arises only in situations of stress and strain, when\nhabitual modes of response break down. A dualism is established between\nreflective thought and the habitual life processes. Dewey does not take\nthe ground that these processes are supplementary, as he had done in the\ncase of stimulus, sensation, and response. It will be remembered that\nDewey had defined judgment, in his logical and ethical writings of an\nearlier period, as a special activity operating in critical situations.\nThis conception of judgment is now carried over into his psychology, and\ngiven a biological basis. It is worth noting that this view of judgment\nwas worked out in logical terms before it was reinforced by biological\ndata. Nevertheless, it is through biology that Dewey is able to give his\ninterpretation of the thought process that empirical concreteness which\nhe demanded from the beginning, but achieved very slowly.\n\nThe value of the functional psychology, considered merely as psychology,\nis undeniable. It is, in fact, a natural and almost inevitable step in\nthe development of psychological theory. Dewey's achievement consists in\nthe establishment of an organic mode of interpretation in psychology,\nintended to displace the mechanical interpretation. The mechanical\ncausal series is displaced by an organic system of internally related\nparts. Dewey, however, does not display any interest in the logical\naspects of his doctrine. He takes the biological situation literally, as\na fact empirically given, and to be accepted without criticism.\n\nA discussion of the period now under consideration would not be complete\nwithout reference to certain articles which supplement the essay\ndiscussed above. The first of these is an article on \"The Psychology of\nEffort,\" published in the _Philosophical Review_ in 1897.[123]\n\nIt is not proposed to follow the argument of this article in detail, but\nto center attention upon those parts of it, especially the concluding\npages, which have a special interest in connection with the subject\nunder discussion. Dewey returns, in this article, to the situation of\neffort at adjustment; to the situation in which an effort is made to\ndetermine the proper response to a stimulus. The opening pages are\ndevoted, in the first place, to a discussion of the distinction between\nconscious effort and the mere expenditure of energy or effort as it\nappears to an outsider, and, in the second place, to maintaining, by\nmeans of examples, the proposition that the sense of effort is\nsensationally mediated. \"How then does, say, a case of perception with\neffort differ from a case of 'easy' or effortless perception? The\ndifference, I repeat, shall be wholly in sensory quale; but in _what_\nsensory quale?\"[124]\n\nThe conscious sense of effort arises, Dewey answers, when there is a\nrivalry or conflict between two sensational elements in experience. \"In\nthe case of felt effort, certain sensory quales, usually fused, fall\napart in consciousness, and there is an alternation, an oscillation,\nbetween them, accompanied by a disagreeable tone when they are apart,\nand an agreeable tone when they become fused again.\"[125] These two sets\nof sensory elements have each a significance in terms of adjustment; one\nof them is a correlate of a habit, or fixed mode of response, and the\nother is an intruder which resists absorption into, or fusion with, the\ndominant images of the current habit or purpose. The same idea of a\nnatural tendency to persist in a habitual mode of regarding things was\nmet with in the last two chapters, and is qualified here by the addition\nof the idea that each sensory element represents a typical mode of\nresponse on the part of the organism. Dewey illustrates his notion by\nthe case of learning to ride a bicycle. \"Before one mounts one has\nperhaps a pretty definite visual image of himself in balance and in\nmotion. This image persists as a desirability. On the other hand, there\ncomes into play at once the consciousness of the familiar motor\nadjustments,--for the most part, related to walking. The two sets of\nsensations refuse to coincide, and the result is an amount of stress and\nstrain relevant to the most serious problems of the universe.\"[126] In\nanother passage, which brings out even more clearly the rivalry of the\ntwo sets of sensations, he says: \"It means that the activity already\ngoing on (and, therefore, reporting itself sensationally) resists\ndisplacement, or transformation, by or into another activity which is\nbeginning, and thus making its sensational report.\"[127]\n\nThe sense of effort, then, reduces itself to an awareness of conflict\nbetween two sensational elements and their motor correlates.\n\"Practically stated, this means that effort is nothing more, and also\nnothing less, than tension between means and ends in action, and that\nthe sense of effort is the awareness of this conflict.\"[128]\n\nThe important aspect of Dewey's argument, for the present discussion, is\nthat awareness reduces to these sensational elements and their\nattributes. Throughout the article Dewey is opposing his sensational\nview of the sense of effort to what he calls the 'spiritual' or\nnon-sensational view, which supposes that the sense of effort is\nsomething purely psychical, which accompanies the expenditure of\nphysical energy. The consciousness of effort, Dewey says, is not\nsomething added to the effort, but is itself a certain condition\nexisting in the sensory quales.\n\nThis provision would make it necessary to identify consciousness, and,\ntherefore, conscious inference, with the tensional situation which has\nbeen described. This being granted, all that pertains to conscious\ninference, all the methods and categories of science, would be\napplicable only in such situations of stress and strain; they would\nappear simply as instruments for effecting a readjustment; they would be\nemployed exclusively in the interests of action. This is the direction\nin which Dewey is tending. No criticism of this treatment of judgment\nneed be made at this time, beyond pointing out that it presents itself,\nat first sight, as an awkward and indirect mode of describing the\nrelations between organic activity and intelligence, and between\npsychology and logic.\n\nNothing has so far been said of the historical sources of Dewey's\ntheory, and these may be briefly considered. There are at least two\nsources which must be taken into account: the James-Lange theory of the\nemotions, and the Neo-Hegelian ethical theory. The latter has already\nbeen considered to some extent, as it manifests itself in Dewey's own\nethical theory, but its relation to his psychology has not been\nindicated. In his text-book, the _Outlines of a Critical Theory of\nEthics_ (1891), Dewey advanced certain ideas for which he claimed\noriginality, at least in treatment. Among these was the analysis of\nindividuality into function including capacity and environment.[129]\n\nBradley appears to have been the first among English philosophers to\nintroduce that synthesis of the internal and external, of the\nintuitional and utilitarian modes of judging conduct, which became\ncharacteristic of Neo-Hegelian ethics. The synthesis, of course, is\nHegelian in temper, and the _Ethical Studies_ are much more suggestive,\nin general method, of the _Philosophie des Rechts_ than of any previous\nEnglish work. Utilitarianism tended to judge the moral act by its\nexternal, _de facto_ results; intuitionism, on the contrary, attributed\nmorality to the will of the agent. The former found morality to consist\nin a certain state of affairs, the latter in a certain internal\nattitude. According to the synthetic point of view, these opposed\nethical systems are one-sided representations of the moral situation,\neach being true in its own way. To state the matter in another form, the\nmoral act has a content as well as a purpose. \"Let us explain,\" says\nBradley. \"The moral world, as we said, is a whole, and has two sides.\nThere is an outer side, systems and institutions, from the family to the\nnation; this we may call the body of the moral world. And there must\nalso be a soul, or else the body goes to pieces; every one knows that\ninstitutions without the spirit of them are dead.... We must never let\nthis out of our sight, that, where the moral world exists, you have and\nyou must have these two sides.\"[130] Dewey expresses the same idea in a\nmore detailed fashion. \"What do we mean by individuality? We may\ndistinguish two factors--or better two aspects, two sides--in\nindividuality. On one side it means special disposition, temperament,\ngifts, bent, or inclination; on the other side it means special station,\nsituation, limitations, surroundings, opportunities, etc. Or, let us\nsay, it means _specific capacity_ and _specific environment_. Each of\nthese elements apart from the other, is a bare abstraction, and without\nreality. Nor is it strictly correct to say that individuality is\ncontributed by these two factors _together_. It is, rather, as intimated\nabove, that each is individuality looked at from a certain point of\nview, from within and from without.\"[131] It is a fact, empirically\ndemonstrable, according to Dewey, that body and object, intention and\nforeseen consequence, interest and environment, attitude and\nobjectivity, are parts of one another and of the whole moral situation.\nEach is relative to the other. \"It is not, then, the environment as\nphysical of which we are speaking, but as it appears to consciousness,\nas it is affected by the make-up of the agent. This is the _practical_\nor _moral_ environment.\"[132] When this relation of the inner to the\nouter is taken literally and universally, we have the essence of the\nfunctional psychology. Organism-in-relation-to-environment becomes the\ncatch-word of instrumental pragmatism.\n\nThe other source of Dewey's psychology, which is now to be considered,\nis the James-Lange theory of the emotions. The connection here is more\nobvious, but perhaps not so vital, as in the case of the ethical theory.\nFrom the numerous references which Dewey made to James's _Principles of\nPsychology_ (1890), it is evident that he was much impressed with this\nwork. The theory of emotion there presented seems to have had a special\ninterest for him; so much so that he made it the subject of two articles\nin the _Psychological Review_, in 1894 and 1895, under the general\ntitle, \"The Theory of Emotion.\"[133] These studies bear a very close\nrelation to the article on \"The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology\"\n(1896), the standpoint being essentially the same, although developed in\nreference to a technical problem. Some indications may be given here of\nthe relationships which they bear to the James-Lange theory on the one\nside, and functional psychology on the other. The James-Lange theory is\nitself concerned with order and connection between emotional states,\nperceptions, and responses. James says: \"Our natural way of thinking\nabout these coarser emotions is that the mental perception of some fact\nexcites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter\nstate of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the\ncontrary, is that _the bodily changes follow directly the perception of\nthe exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they\noccur IS the emotion_.\"[134] It is all a question, James says, of the\norder and sequence of these elements, and his contention is that the\nbodily changes should be interposed between the two mental states. This\nis the question with which Dewey's functional psychology is also\nconcerned, the relation of response to stimulus, and the manner in which\na stimulus is determined by a reaction 'into it.' Dewey's theory rises\nso naturally out of James's theory of the emotions as to seem but little\nmore than its universal application.\n\nThis connection is revealed in several passages in Dewey's study of the\nemotions. It is said, for instance, that the emotional situation must be\ntaken as a whole, as a state, for instance, of 'being angry.' The\nseveral constituents of the state of anger, idea or object, affect or\nemotion, and mode of expression or behavior, are not to be taken\nseparately, but all together as elements in one whole.[135] Another\ncharacteristic doctrine appears in the affirmation that the emotional\nattitude is to be distinguished from other attitudes by certain special\nfeatures which it possesses. Particularly, it involves a special\nrelation of stimulus to response.[136] Again, there is a tendency to\ntranslate meaning in terms of projected activity. \"The consciousness of\nour mode of behavior as affording data for other possible actions\nconstitutes an objective or ideal content.\"[137]\n\nIt is enough, perhaps, to reveal these two sources as probable factors\nin the development of Dewey's psychological method. No speculation upon\nthem is necessary. At most, they were merely contributory to Dewey's\nthought, and by fitting in with his previous ideas enabled him to give a\nmore concrete presentation of his psychological theory than would\notherwise have been possible.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[116] Vol. III, pp. 357-370.\n\n[117] _Ibid._, p. 357.\n\n[118] _Op. cit._, p. 365.\n\n[119] _Ibid._\n\n[120] _Ibid._, p. 366, note.\n\n[121] _Op. cit._, p. 370.\n\n[122] _Ibid._, p. 368.\n\n[123] Vol. VI, pp. 43-56.\n\n[124] _Op. cit._, p. 46.\n\n[125] _Ibid._, p. 48.\n\n[126] _Op. cit._, p. 50.\n\n[127] _Ibid._, p. 52.\n\n[128] _Ibid._, p. 51.\n\n[129] _Op. cit._, p. viii.\n\n[130] _Ethical Studies_, p. 160 f.\n\n[131] _Outlines of Ethics_, p. 97.\n\n[132] _Ibid._, p. 99.\n\n[133] Vol. I, pp. 553-569; Vol. II, pp. 13-32.\n\n[134] _Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 449.\n\n[135] _Psy. Rev._, Vol. II, p. 15 f.\n\n[136] _Ibid._, p. 24 f.\n\n[137] _Ibid._, p. 24.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE EVOLUTIONARY STANDPOINT\n\n\nDewey's psychology is linked up with his logical theory, as has already\nbeen suggested, through the interpretation of the thought-process as a\nmode of adjustment involving inference. This conception of thought\nimplies, of course, that thought is an instrument of adaptation, and\nthis in turn suggests that the organ of reflection is a product of\nevolutionary forces operating on the individual and on the race. In the\nperiod now to be reviewed Dewey, for the first time in his career,\ndisplays an active and intense interest in evolutionary theory,\nespecially as applied in the fields of ethics and psychology.\n\nAn article published in the _Monist_, in 1898, on \"Evolution and\nEthics,\"[138] deserves special attention. The central thought of the\narticle is to be found in the following passage: \"The belief that\nnatural selection has ceased to operate [in the human sphere] rests upon\nthe assumption that there is only one form of such selection: that where\nimprovement is indirectly effected by the failure of species of a\ncertain type to continue to reproduce; carrying with it as its\ncorrelative that certain variations continue to multiply, and finally\ncome to possess the land. This ordeal by death is an extremely important\nphase of natural selection, so called.... However, to identify this\nprocedure absolutely with selection, seems to me to indicate a somewhat\ngross and narrow vision. Not only is one form of life as a whole\nselected at the expense of other forms, _but one mode of action in the\nsame individual is constantly selected at the expense of others_. There\nis not only the trial by death, but there is the trial by the success or\nfailure of special acts--the counterpart, I suppose, of physiological\nselection so called.\"[139] We have here a refinement upon the doctrine\nof natural selection. The keynote of Dewey's new psychology is a\nprocess of selection constantly occurring within the individual\norganism. He points out that, in dealing with man, we have a highly\nadaptable, not merely a highly adapted animal. \"It is certainly implied\nin the idea of natural selection that the most effective modes of\nvariation should themselves be finally selected.\"[140] The capacity to\nvary, or adapt, is highly developed in man. Through these variations,\nthe organism is able to react against the environment, changing its\ncharacter quite completely. The environment of the modern human is\ntremendously complicated by his reaction upon it. \"The growth of\nscience, its application in invention to industrial life, the\nmultiplication and acceleration of means of transportation and\nintercommunication, have created a peculiarly unstable\nenvironment.\"[141] Under these conditions, the ability of the individual\nto adapt himself to changing circumstances is largely determined by his\ndegree of flexibility in the selection of right acts and responses. \"In\nthe present environment, flexibility of function, the enlargement of the\nrange of uses to which one and the same organ, grossly considered, may\nbe put, is a great, almost the supreme, condition of success.\"[142] The\nhuman mind is to be interpreted as a highly developed organ whose\nspecial function is to make adaptation more flexible and response more\nvaried and discriminating. \"That which was 'tendency to vary' in the\nanimal is conscious foresight in man. That which was unconscious\nadaptation and survival in the animal, taking place by the 'cut and try'\nmethod until it worked itself out, is with man conscious deliberation\nand experimentation.\"[143]\n\nThis view of consciousness is worked out on the basis of an evolutionary\nmetaphysics. Man is viewed as an organism, placed amid the changing\nwhirl of things, stimulated into action by his needs and wants, adapting\nhimself to conditions, making the situation over, or meeting it\nhabitually where he can and suffering the consequences where he cannot\nmake the necessary adjustment. If this be taken, as would seem, for the\nultimate truth about reality and man's place in it, it must be called a\nmetaphysics. Against this background Dewey's logical theory is\ndeveloped. The most important result, from the standpoint of the student\nof mind and spirit, is the reduction of self-conscious reflection to the\nposition of a nervous function of the organism. The purely theoretical\nevidence by which this position is sustained should be subjected to\ncloser scrutiny than can be undertaken in this limited space.\n\nThe purpose of reflection, then, is to enable man to adapt himself to\nhis environment, understanding by the environment the whole of the\nreality which surrounds him. The test of the mind and its newly\nprojected modes of response [ideas] lies in its ability to meet the\ndemands of the situation. The capacities and limits of mind are\ndetermined by the purpose for which it was evolved; it can enable a man\nto deal more effectively with his environment; it can do nothing else.\nIt cannot speculate on the nature of reality as such, nor voyage on long\njourneys in search of truth! Its business is practical, here and now.\nIts problems are always set for it by circumstances, and these\ncircumstances are concrete and specific. There is no such thing as\nadaptation at large or in general.\n\nThe business of mind is to have, and to continually reconstruct, useful\nhabits. So Dewey assures the American Psychological Association in 1899,\nin an address on \"Psychology and Social Practice.\"[144] We must\nrecognize, he says, \"that the existing order is determined neither by\nfate nor by chance, but is based on law and order, on a system of\nexisting stimuli and modes of reaction, through knowledge of which we\ncan modify the practical outcome.\"[145] Psychology uninterpreted, he\nsays, will never provide ready-made materials and prescriptions for the\nethical life. \"But science, both physical and psychological, makes known\nthe conditions upon which certain results depend, and therefore puts at\nthe disposal of life a certain method of controlling them.\"[146] These\nstatements show the extent to which Dewey's view of knowledge has come\nto be controlled by biological conceptions.\n\nThe evolutionary method is investigated in considerable detail in the\nnext article to be considered, which was published in two parts in the\n_Philosophical Review_, 1902, under the title, \"The Evolutionary Method\nas Applied to Morality.\"[147]\n\nThe fact that some philosophers deny the importance of the evolutionary\nmethod for ethics, holding that morality is purely a matter of value,\nand that the evolutionary method tends only to obscure differences of\nvalue, makes it necessary to inquire into the import and nature of this\nmethod. \"Anyway,\" Dewey says, \"before we either abuse or recommend\ngenetic method we ought to have some answers to these questions: Just\nwhat is it? Just what is to come of it and how?\"[148]\n\nThe experimental method in science has at least some of the traits of a\ngenetic method. The nature of water, for instance, cannot be determined\nby simply observing it. But experiment brings to light the exact\nconditions under which it came into being and therefore explains it.\n\"Through generating water we single out the precise and sole conditions\nwhich have to be fulfilled that water may present itself as an\nexperienced fact. If this case be typical, then the experimental method\nis entitled to rank as genetic method; it is concerned with the manner\nor process by which anything comes into experienced existence.\"[149]\n\nSome would deny this, on the ground that a genuinely historical event\noccupies a particular place in a historical series, from which it is\ninseparable, while in experimental science the sets or pairs of terms\nare not limited to any particular place in a historical series, but\noccur and recur. \"Water is made over and over again, and, so to speak,\nat any date in the cosmic series. This deprives any account of it of\ngenuinely historic quality.\"[150] Again, it might be said in opposition\nto treating the experimental method as a genetic method, that it is\ninterested in individual cases not as such, but as samples or instances.\nThe particular case is only an illustration of the general relation\nwhich is being sought.\n\nIt will turn out in the course of the discussion, Dewey says, that,\nalthough science deals with origins, it is not, in strictness, a\nhistorical discipline. The distinction between the historical and other\nsciences is based on an abstraction, which has been introduced for the\nsake of more adequate control. It is only by abstraction that we get the\npairs of facts that may show up at any time, and by abstraction we\nattribute to them a generalized character. The facts, in themselves, are\nhistoric.\n\nThere is no such thing as water in general, but water is just this\nwater, at this time, in this place, and it never shows itself twice,\nnever recurs. The scientist must deal, therefore, with particular\nhistoric cases of water, and with their specific origins. \"Experiment\nhas to do with the conditions of production of a specific amount of\nwater, at a specific time and place, under specific circumstances: in a\nword, it must deal with just _this_ water. The conditions which define\nits origin must be stated with equal definiteness and\ncircumstantiality.\"[151] The instance has as definite a place in an\nhistorical series as has Julius Caesar. But the difference in treatment\nof the water and Caesar is due to the difference in interest. \"Julius\nCaesar served a purpose which no other individual, at any other time,\ncould have served. There is a peculiar flavor of human meaning and\naccomplishment about him which has no substitute or equivalent. Not so\nwith water. While each portion is absolutely unique in its occurrence,\nyet one lot will serve our intellectual or practical needs just as well\nas any other.\"[152] For this reason the specific case of water is not\ndealt with on its own account, but only as giving insight into the\nprocesses of its generation in general. In this way the difference\narises between the generalized statements of physical science and the\nindividualized form demanded in historical science. The abstract\ncharacter of the physical result is recognized by the hypothetical form\nof judgment in modern logic; if certain conditions, then certain\nconsequences. But the counterpart of this must not be forgotten, that\nevery categorical proposition applies to an individual. Experimental\npropositions, therefore, have an historical value. \"They take their\nrise in, and they find their application to, a world of unique and\nchanging things: an evolutionary universe.\"[153] The recognition of the\nhistorical character of experimental science does not in any way\nderogate from its value, but, properly understood, gives a deeper\ninsight into its significance. It should be observed that here also\nDewey treats thought, hypothesis, as coming 'after something, and for\nthe sake of something.'\n\nThis attempt to justify the historical method by showing that it is\nimplied in physical experiment is of dubious value. Its net result would\nseem to be the conclusion that every fact may be dealt with either as a\nhistorical fact or as a datum for physical science. Even here, however,\nDewey slurs over certain difficulties which demand close scrutiny. The\ntreatment of individuality is most unsatisfactory. While each portion or\ninstance of water is itself, and has its own unquestionable uniqueness,\nno case is a mere particular, but each is a true individual, which means\nthat it is, as it occurs, an instance of a general phenomenon. While the\nscientist must deal with specific cases of water, he has no regard for\ntheir particularity, but chooses them as instances, and is from first to\nlast occupied with their typical characteristics. The historian, also,\nselects relevant and representative instances, in so far as his history\nis interpretative and not mere narrative.\n\nA merely factual account of a series of events is not science, and never\ncould be.\n\nDewey now turns to the ethical field, with the purpose of showing that\nthe historical method in ethics does for this science precisely what the\nexperimental method does for other sciences. \"History offers to us the\nonly available substitute for the isolation and for the cumulative\nrecombination of experiment. The early periods present us in their\nrelative crudeness and simplicity with a substitute for the artificial\noperation of an experiment: following the phenomenon into the more\ncomplicated and refined form which it assumes later, is a substitute for\nthe synthesis of the experiment.\"[154] Hydrogen and oxygen are the\nhistorical antecedents of water, whose synthesis the scientist\nobserves, and so the more primitive forms of conduct are the elements\nwhich the moralist traces in their process of becoming fused into the\npresent social fabric. Primitive social practices cannot be artificially\nisolated, like the physical elements, but they can be traced to their\nhistorical origins, and their interweaving towards present complex\nconditions can be observed.\n\nThe historical method is subject to two misunderstandings, Dewey says,\none by the empiricists and materialists, the other by the idealists. The\nformer, having isolated the primitive facts, suppose them to have a\nsuperior logical and existential value. \"The earlier is regarded as\nsomehow more 'real' than the later, or as furnishing the quality in\nterms of which the reality of all the later must be stated.\"[155] The\nlater is looked upon as simply a recombination of the earlier\nexistences. \"Writers who ought to know better tell us that if we only\nhad an adequate knowledge of the 'primitive' state of the world, if we\nonly had some general formula by which to circumscribe it, we could\ndeduce down to its last detail the entire existing constitution of the\nworld, life, and society.\"[156] The primitive elements, however, take on\nnew qualities on entering into new combinations. Water is more than\nhydrogen and oxygen. There is a similar process intervening between the\nearlier and the later in the moral field, of which the primitive state\nand the present are merely end terms. Actual study must take account of\nthe whole process.\n\nThe idealistic fallacy is of the opposite nature. It takes the final\nterm of the process to be exclusively real. \"The later reality is,\ntherefore, to him the persistent reality in contrast with which the\nfirst forms are, if not illusions, at least poor excuses for being....\nIt is enough for present purposes to note that we have here simply a\nparticular case of the general fallacy just discussed--the emphasis of a\nparticular term of the series at the expense of the process operative in\nreference to all terms.\"[157] The true reality is the whole process,\nwhich is represented in empiricism only by the primitive terms, and in\nidealism only by the end terms. Only a historical method can deal with\nit in its entirety.\n\nIn summing up the advantages of the historical method, Dewey says that\nit gives a complete account of the origin and development of ethical\nideas, opinions, beliefs, and practices. \"It is concerned with the\norigin and development of these customs and ideas; and with the question\nof their mode of operation after they have arisen. The described\nfacts--yes; but among the facts described is precisely certain\nconditions under which various norms, ideals, and rules of action have\noriginated and functioned.\"[158] Dewey finds it irritating that the\nfacts thus singled out should be treated as mere facts, apart from their\nsignificance. The historical method employs description, to be sure, but\nit also aims at interpretation. \"The historic method is a method, first,\nfor determining how specific moral values (whether in the way of\ncustoms, expectations, conceived ends, or rules) came to be; and second,\nfor determining their significance as indicated in their career.\"[159]\n\nIt is true, as Dewey holds, that the historical method may furnish a\nbasis for interpretation, as well as description. But the mere scrutiny\nof what has happened will not reveal the elements, nor determine their\nsignificance. The historian must approach his material with something\nmore than his eyes. But there are many historical methods. Which shall\nbe used in dealing with the development of morals?[160] Chemistry, for\ninstance, in interpreting the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen into water,\nemploys a system of atoms related to each other in a mathematical order,\nand something similarly definite must underlie the study of morals. The\nhistorical method, in general, needs no defence, but since it takes many\nforms, great care must be exercised in its application. Dewey seems to\nignore these difficulties.\n\nDewey's argument now leads him to a comparison of the evolutionary\nmethods with the intuitional and empirical methods in ethics. In making\nthe comparison, he does not propose to raise the question of fact\nconcerning the existence of intuitions. The question to be confronted is\nrather a logical one, concerning the validity of beliefs. \"Under what\nconditions alone, and in what measure or degree, are we justified in\narguing from the existence of moral intuitions as mental states and acts\nto facts taken to correspond to them?\"[161]\n\nThe answer is that the existence of a belief argues nothing as to its\nvalidity. The intuitionist takes his belief as a brute fact, unrelated\nto objective conditions. The 'inexpugnable' character of the belief\ncannot establish its validity, because the life of a single individual\noccupies but a brief span in the continuity of the social life in which\nthe belief is embedded. Beliefs last for generations, and then very\noften disappear. \"What guarantee have we that our present 'intuitions'\nhave more validity than hundreds of past ideas that have shown\nthemselves by passing away to be empty opinion or indurated\nprejudice?\"[162] Intuitionism has no way of guaranteeing its beliefs.\n\nThe evolutionary method, on the other hand, is able to determine the\nvalidity of beliefs. \"The worth of the intuition depends upon genetic\nconsiderations. In so far as we can state the intuition in terms of the\nconditions of its origin, development, and later career, in so far we\nhave some criterion for passing judgment upon its pretensions to\nvalidity.... But if we cannot find such historic origin and functioning,\nthe intuition remains a mere state of consciousness, a hallucination, an\nillusion, which is not made more worthy by simply multiplying the number\nof people who have participated in it.\"[163] Certain savage races, for\ninstance, possessed moral intuitions which made the practice of\ninfanticide an obligation. But the fact that it was universally held\ndoes not establish its validity. It must be condemned or justified by\nthe results to which it led.\n\nDewey's criticism of intuitionism scarcely does justice to that method,\nwhatever may be its inherent weakness. There doubtless have been\nthinkers who held that truth is revealed to the reason of man in its\nnaked purity, in the shape of apodictic intellectual principles. But\neven in the case of so extreme a position as that of Kant, there are\nimportant qualifying considerations to be taken into account. There is\nno reason to suppose that moral judgment, as Kant conceived it, was\nexcluded from the consideration of relevant data, such as the knowledge\nof actual effects produced by given courses of conduct. His position\nseems to have been, not that moral judgment lacked specific content, but\nthat reason took something with it to the moral situation. The\nintuitionists may have over-estimated the original endowment of the\nmind, but it must be admitted with them that the mind which approaches\nthe moral situation empty of concepts cannot make moral decisions. If\nman is to hold no beliefs except those proved valid by experience, how\ncan there be any to validate? Intelligence must have the capacity to\nframe beliefs in the light of its past knowledge, and its acts of\njudgment, consequently, presuppose a test of the validity of ideas which\nbelongs to intelligence as such, and not to history taken abstractly.\nBeliefs are adapted to their objects in the making, and on this account\nare usually found to have had some justification, even where set aside.\n'A principle that is suitable for universal legislation already\npresupposes a content.'\n\nDewey next considers the relation of the evolutionary methods to\nempiricism. \"Empiricism,\" he says, \"is no more historic in character\nthan is intuitionalism. Empiricism is concerned with the moral idea or\nbelief as a grouping or association of various elementary feelings. It\nregards the idea simply as a complex state which is to be explained by\nresolving it into its elementary constituents. By its logic, both the\ncomplex and the elements are isolated from an historic context.... The\nempirical and the genetic methods thus imply a very different\nrelationship between the moral state, idea, or belief, and objective\nreality.... The empirical theory holds that the idea arises as a reflex\nof some existing object or fact. Hence the test of its objectivity is\nthe faithfulness with which it reproduces that object as copy. The\ngenetic theory holds that the idea arises as a response, and that the\ntest of its validity is found in its later career as manifested with\nreference to the needs of the situation that evoked it.\"[164]\n\nOnly a method that takes the world as a changing, historical thing, can\ndeal with the adaptation of morality to new conditions. \"Both empiricism\nand intuitionalism, though in very different ways, deny the continuity\nof the moralizing process. They set up timeless, and hence absolute and\ndisconnected, ultimates; thereby they sever the problems and movements\nof the present from the past, rob the past, the sole object of calm,\nimpartial, and genuinely objective study, of all instructing power, and\nleave our experience to form undirected, at the mercy of circumstance\nand arbitrariness, whether that of dogmatism or scepticism.\"[165]\n\nIn evaluating the article as a whole, it must be said that Dewey's study\nis not productive of definite results. The history of the past can\nundoubtedly offer to the student a mass of data that is interesting and\ninstructive. The importance of this or that belief, or its value, can be\ngauged by the results which it is known to have produced. But when, in\nthis day and age, the moralist sets out to find the principles which\nshall guide his own conduct, the history of morals is of no more\nimportance than the observations of every day life, which reveal the\nconsequences of conduct in the lives of men about him. But more\nparticularly, it should be added, an estimate of present moral action\ndepends, not upon truth uttered by the past, but upon truth discovered\nand interpreted by an intelligence which surveys the past and makes it\nmeaningful. The past in itself is nothing; thought alone can create real\nhistory.\n\nAnother article, published by Dewey in the _Philosophical Review_ in\n1900, \"Some Stages of Logical Thought,\" illustrates the employment of\nthe genetic method in a more specific way.[166] In his introductory\nremarks, Dewey says: \"I wish to show how a variety of modes of thinking,\neasily recognizable in the progress of both the race and the individual,\nmay be identified and arranged as successive species of the relationship\nwhich doubting bears to assurance; as various ratios, so to speak, which\nthe vigor of doubting bears to mere acquiescence. The presumption is\nthat the function of questioning is one which has continually grown in\nintensity and range, that doubt is continually chased back, and, being\ncornered, fights more desperately, and thus clears the ground more\nthoroughly.\"[167] Dewey finds four stages of relationship between\nquestioning and dogmatism: dogmatism, discussion, proof, and empirical\nscience; and he seeks to show how each stage involves a higher degree of\nfree inquiry. \"Modern scientific procedure, as just set forth, seems to\ndefine the ideal or limit of this process. It is inquiry emancipated,\nuniversalized, whose sole aim and criterion is discovery, and hence it\nmakes the terminus of our description. It is idle to conceal from\nourselves, however, that this scientific procedure, as a practical\nundertaking, has not as yet reflected itself into any coherent and\ngenerally accepted theory of thinking....\"[168]\n\nIt is not necessary to comment on Dewey's stages of thought. The\nsimilarity of this division to Comte's theological, metaphysical and\nscientific stages of explanation will be apparent. Dewey's remarks on\nthe logic of the scientific stage, however, are interesting. \"The simple\nfact of the case is,\" he says, \"that there are at least three rival\ntheories on the ground, each claiming to furnish the sole proper\ninterpretation of the actual procedure of thought.\"[169] There is the\nAristotelian logic, with its fixed forms; the empirical logic, which\nholds \"that only particular facts are self-supporting, and that the\nauthority allowed to general principles is derivative and second\nhand;\"[170] and finally there is the transcendental logic, which claims,\n\"by analysis of science and experience, to justify the conclusion that\nthe universe itself is a construction of thought, giving evidence\nthroughout of the pervasive and constitutive action of reason; and\nholds, consequently, that our logical processes are simply the reading\noff or coming to consciousness of the inherently rational structure\nalready possessed by the universe in virtue of the presence within it of\nthis pervasive and constitutive action of thought.\"[171]\n\nNone of these logics, Dewey finds, is capable of dealing with the\nactual procedure of science, because none of them treats thought as a\ndoubt-inquiry process, but rather as something fixed and limited by\nconditions which determine its operations in advance. Dewey asks: \"Does\nnot an account or theory of thinking, basing itself on modern scientific\nprocedure, demand a statement in which all the distinctions and terms of\nthought--judgment, concept, inference, subject, predicate and copula of\njudgment, etc. _ad indefinitum_--shall be interpreted simply and\nentirely as distinctive functions or divisions of labor within the\ndoubt-inquiry process?\"[172]\n\nSeven years before, Dewey had been an ardent champion of the\ntranscendental logic, on the ground that it was progressive, and he\ncontrasted it most favorably with the formal logics which treat thought\nas a self-contained process. Now, however, he has a new insight. Logic\nmust be reinterpreted in the light of the evolutionary or biological\nmethod. We shall see how this is accomplished in the next chapter.\n\nTo the student of the history of philosophy, Dewey's treatment of the\ngenetic and historical methods must seem seriously inadequate. The\nidealist, moreover, will feel that Dewey should have taken note, in his\ncriticism of the idealistic standpoint, of the fact that Hegelianism was\nfrom first to last a historical method; that the German idealists gave\nthe impulse to modern historical research, and provoked a study of the\nhistorical method whose results are still felt. But in turning away from\nidealism, Dewey has no word of appreciation for this aspect of the\nHegelian philosophy.\n\nWhen the truth is boiled down, it appears that Dewey's historical\nmethod, in so far as he had one, was based on biological evolutionism.\nHe had no interest in any other form of historical interpretation.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[138] Vol. VIII, pp. 321-341. The article is a criticism of Huxley's\nessay with the same title.\n\n[139] _Ibid._, p. 337. Italics mine.\n\n[140] _Op. cit._, p. 338.\n\n[141] _Ibid._, p. 340.\n\n[142] _Ibid._\n\n[143] _Ibid._ It should be observed that this conclusion is reached on a\npurely theoretical basis.\n\n[144] Printed in the _Psychological Review_, Vol. VII, 1900, pp.\n105-124.\n\n[145] _Ibid._, p. 123.\n\n[146] _Ibid._, p. 124.\n\n[147] Vol. XI, pp. 107-124; 353-371.\n\n[148] _Ibid._, p. 108.\n\n[149] _Ibid._, p. 109.\n\n[150] _Ibid._\n\n[151] _Op. cit._, p. 110.\n\n[152] _Ibid._, p. 111.\n\n[153] _Op. cit._, p. 112.\n\n[154] _Ibid._, p. 113.\n\n[155] _Op. cit._, p. 114.\n\n[156] _Ibid._, p. 116.\n\n[157] _Ibid._, p. 118.\n\n[158] _Op. cit._, p. 355.\n\n[159] _Ibid._, p. 356.\n\n[160] See Bosanquet's _Logic_, second edition, Chapter VII, and\nespecially page 240.\n\n[161] _Philosophical Review_, Vol. XI, p. 357.\n\n[162] _Ibid._, p. 360.\n\n[163] _Ibid._, p. 358.\n\n[164] _Op. cit._, p. 364 f.\n\n[165] _Op. cit._, p. 370.\n\n[166] Vol. IX, pp. 465-489.\n\n[167] _Op. cit._, p. 465.\n\n[168] _Ibid._, p. 486 f.\n\n[169] _Ibid._, p. 487.\n\n[170] _Ibid._\n\n[171] _Ibid._\n\n[172] _Op. cit._, p. 489.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\"STUDIES IN LOGICAL THEORY\"\n\n\nIn 1903 a volume entitled _Studies in Logical Theory_, consisting of\nessays on logical topics by Dewey and his colleagues and pupils, was\npublished under the auspices of the University of Chicago. In a review\nof this volume, Professor Pringle-Pattison remarks: \"It is, indeed, most\nunusual to find a series of philosophical papers by different writers in\nwhich (without repetition or duplication) there is so much unity in the\npoint of view and harmony in results. That this is so is a striking\nevidence of the moulding influence of Professor Dewey upon his pupils\nand coadjutors in the Chicago School of Philosophy.\"[173] It would be a\nneedless task to review the whole volume, and attention will be confined\nto the essays which constitute Dewey's special contribution to the\nundertaking. These constitute the first four chapters of the volume, and\nare devoted to a critical examination of Lotze's logic.[174] Here, for\nthe first time, Dewey presents in complete form the logical theory which\nstands as the goal of his previous endeavors, and marks the beginning of\nhis career as a pragmatist.[175]\n\nThe first chapter of the \"Studies\" is devoted to a general consideration\nof the nature of logical theory. Dewey begins his discussion with an\naccount of the naive view of thought, the view of the man of affairs or\nof the scientist, who employs ideas and reflection but has never become\ncritical of his mental processes; who has never reflected upon\nreflection. \"If we were to ask,\" he says, \"the thinking of naive life to\npresent, with a minimum of theoretical elaboration, its conception of\nits own practice, we should get an answer running not unlike this:\nThinking is a kind of activity which we perform at specific need, just\nas at other need we engage in other sorts of activity.\"[176] While the\nstandpoint of the naive man is usually hard to determine, there appears\nto be considerable justification for Dewey's statement. The common man\ndoes tend to view thinking as a special kind of activity, performed by\nan organ which can be 'trained,' and he is inclined to speak of\neducation as a process of 'training the mind.'[177]\n\nDewey finds a large measure of truth in this naive view of thought.\nThought appears to be derivative and secondary. \"It comes after\nsomething and out of something, and for the sake of something.\"[178] It\nis employed at need, and ceases to operate when not needed. \"Taking some\npart of the universe of action, of affection, of social construction,\nunder its special charge, and having busied itself therewith\nsufficiently to meet the special difficulty presented, thought releases\nthat topic and enters upon further more direct experience.\"[179] There\nis a rhythm of practice and thought; man acts, thinks, and acts again.\nThe business of thought is to solve practical difficulties, such as\narise in connection with the conduct of life. The purpose for which\nthought intervenes is to enable action to get ahead by discovering a way\nout of the given difficulty. Ordinarily, the transition from thought to\naction and the reverse is accomplished without break or difficulty.\n\nOccasions arise, however, when thought is balked by a situation with\nwhich it is unable to deal, after repeated attempts. Critical reflection\nis then directed upon thought itself, and logical theory is the result.\n\"The general theory of reflection, as over against its concrete\nexercise, appears when occasions for reflection are so overwhelming and\nso mutually conflicting that specific adequate response in thought is\nblocked.\"[180] The purpose of logical theory is therefore a practical\none, and logical theory, like ordinary reflection, is directed toward\nthe removal of difficulties which stand in the way of the achievement of\npractical ends.\n\nThis description of thought and of the nature of logical theory invites\nsuspicion by its very simplicity. Nobody would deny that thought is\nlinked up with practice, that the processes of life link up into one\nwhole organic process, and that it would be a mistake to treat the\ncognitive processes as if they were separate from the whole. But Dewey's\naccount of thought seems to fall into the very abstractness which he is\nso anxious to avoid. Experience is represented as a series of acts,\nattitudes, or functions, which follow one another in succession.\n\"Thinking follows, we will say, striving, and doing follows thinking.\nEach in the fulfilment of its own function inevitably calls out its\nsuccessor.\"[181] The functions are distinct, but are united to each\nother, end to end, like links in a chain. They pass into and out of one\nanother, but are not simultaneous. This description gives rise, as\nBosanquet observes,[182] to a kind of dualism between thinking and the\nother processes of life, which is made deeper because thinking is\nregarded as a very special activity, which \"passes judgment upon both\nthe processes and contents of other functions,\" and whose aim and work\nis \"distinctively reconstructive or transformatory.\"[183]\n\nDewey's description of the processes of experience is undoubtedly\nplausible, but should not be accepted without close scrutiny of the\nfacts. It has been held, in opposition to such a view, that the\ncognitive processes are so bound up with perception, feeling, willing,\nand doing, that they cannot be separated from the complex.[184] Or it\nmight be held that thinking and doing are simultaneous and\ncomplementary processes, rather than successive and supplementary. Dewey\ndoes not concern himself with these possibilities, seeming to take it\nfor granted that his interpretation is the 'natural' one. It must be\nsaid, however, that Dewey's description of thought as a process is by no\nmeans obvious and simple; thought is not easy to describe.\n\nWhen we turn to logical theory, Dewey says, there are two directions\nwhich may be taken. The general features of logical theory are indicated\nby its origin. When ordinary thinking is impeded, an examination of the\nthinking function is undertaken, with the purpose of discovering its\nbusiness and its mode of operation. The object of the examination is\npractical; to enable thinking to be carried on more effectively. If\nthese conditions are kept in mind, logical theory will be guided into\nits proper channels: it will be assumed that every process of reflection\narises with reference to some specific situation, and has to subserve a\nspecific purpose dependent upon the occasion which calls it forth.\nLogical theory will determine the conditions which arouse thought, the\nmode of its operation, and the testing of its results. Such a logic,\nbeing true to the problems set for it by practical needs, is in no\ndanger of being lost in generalities.\n\nBut there is another direction which logical theory sometimes takes,\nunmindful of the conditions imposed by its origin. This is the\nepistemological direction. Epistemological logic concerns itself with\nthe relation of thought at large to reality at large. It assumes that\nthought is a self-contained activity, having no vital connection with\nthe world which is to be known. Such a logic can never be fruitful, for\nit has lost sight of its purpose in the formulation of its problem.\n\nDewey is quite right in opposing a conception of thought which makes it\na self-contained activity, having no vital connection with other life\nprocesses. Few recent thinkers have been guilty of that error. Lotze, to\nbe sure, made the mistake of separating thought from the reality to be\nknown, and therefore serves as a ready foil for Dewey's criticism. But\nLotze's age is past and gone.\n\nWhen the abstract conception of thought is set aside, and it is agreed\nthat thought must be treated as a process among the processes of\nexperience, there is still room for divergence of opinion as to the\nexact manner in which thought is related to other functions. Dewey's\nlogical theory, as outlined above, depends upon a very special\ninterpretation of the place which thought occupies in experience. For\nthis reason he considers logic to be inseparable from psychology.\n\"Psychology ... is indispensable to logical evaluation, the moment we\ntreat logical theory as an account of thinking as a mode of adaptation\nto its own generating conditions, and judge its validity by reference to\nits efficiency in meeting its problems.\"[185] Psychology, in other\nwords, must substantiate Dewey's account of thought, else his 'logic'\nhas no foundation. But if it were held that the cognitive processes\ncannot be separated (except by abstraction for psychological purposes)\nfrom other processes, there could manifestly be no such logical problem\nas Dewey has posited. Logic would be freed from reliance upon\npsychology. In this case, logical inquiry would be directed to the study\nof concepts, forms of judgment, and methods of knowledge, with the\npurpose of determining their relations, proper applications, and spheres\nof relevance. Logic would be a 'criticism of categories' rather than a\ncriticism of the function of thinking. Dewey recognizes that such a\nstudy of method might be useful, but holds that it would be subsidiary\nto the larger problems of logic. \"The distinctions and classifications\nthat have been accumulated in 'formal' logic are relevant data; but they\ndemand interpretation from the standpoint of use as organs of adjustment\nto material antecedents and stimuli.\"[186] It will be seen that the\ntreatment of the forms of thought as \"organs of adjustment\" makes logic\nsubsidiary to psychology, necessarily and completely. All follows,\nhowever, from the original assumption that thought is a special\nactivity, clearly distinguishable from other experienced processes, and\npossessing a special function of its own.\n\nIn his further analysis of logical theory, Dewey states that it has two\nphases, one general and one specific. The general problem concerns the\nrelations of the various functions of experience to one another; how\nthey give rise to each other, and what is their order of succession.\nThis wider logic is identified with philosophy in general.[187] The\nspecific phase of logic, logic proper, concerns itself with the function\nof knowing as such, inquiring into its typical behavior, occasion of\noperation, divisions of labor, content, and successful employment. Dewey\nindicates the danger of identifying logic with either of these to the\nexclusion of the other, or of supposing that they can be finally\nisolated from one another. \"It is necessary to work back and forth\nbetween the larger and the narrower fields.\"[188]\n\nWhy is it necessary to make such a distinction at all? And why necessary\nto move back and forth between the two provisional standpoints? Dewey\nmight answer by the following analogy: The thought function may be\nstudied, first of all, as a special organ, as an anatomist might study\nthe structure of any special organ of the body; but in order to\nunderstand the part played by this member in the organism as a whole, it\nwould be necessary to adopt a wider view, so that its place in the\nsystem could be determined. This is probably what Dewey means by his two\nstandpoints. He says: \"We keep our paths straight because we do not\nconfuse the sequential, efficient, and functional relationship of types\nof experience with the contemporaneous, correlative, and structural\ndistinctions of elements within a given function.\"[189] The first\nobjection to be made to this treatment of thought is that it makes\nknowing the activity of a special organ, like liver or lungs. If this\nobjection is surmounted, there remains another from the side of general\nmethod. The biologist not only studies the particular organs as to their\nstructure and their relationships within the body, but he has a view of\nthe body as a whole, of its general end and purpose. His study of the\nparticular organ is in part determined by his knowledge of the relations\nbetween body and environment. But experience as a whole cannot be\ntreated like a body, because it has no environment. The analogy between\nbody and its processes and experience and its processes breaks down,\ntherefore, at a vital point. Dewey's genetic interpretation gains in\nplausibility when the human body, and not the whole of experience, is\ntaken as the ground upon which the 'functions' are to be explained, for\nthe body has an environment and purposes in relation to that\nenvironment. Experience as a whole possesses no such external reference.\n\nIt will be seen that Dewey's interpretation of the function of knowing\nis not as empirical as it proposes to be. Its underlying conceptions are\nbiological in character, and these conceptions are brought ready-made to\nthe study of thought. Logical theory does not arise naturally and\nspontaneously from a study of the facts of mind, but the facts are\naligned and interpreted in terms of categories selected in advance.\nEmpiricism develops its theories in connection with facts, but\nrationalism (in the bad sense of the word) fits the facts into prepared\ntheories. Dewey's treatment of thought is, after all, more rationalistic\nthan empirical.\n\nTo sum up Dewey's conclusions so far: Logic is the study of the function\nof knowing in relation to the other functions of experience. The wider\nlogic distinguishes the function of knowing from other activities, and\ndiscovers its general purpose; the narrower logic examines the function\nof knowing in itself, with the object of determining its structure and\noperation. The aim of logic as a whole is to understand the operations\nof the concrete activity called knowing, with the purpose of rendering\nit more efficient. This concrete treatment of thought contrasts sharply\nwith the 'epistemological' method, which sets thought over against the\nconcrete processes of experience, and thus generates the false problem\nof the relation of thought in general to reality in general.\n\nHaving stated his position, we might expect Dewey, in the course of the\nnext three chapters, to enter upon a consideration of one phase or other\nof his logic. On the contrary, he proposes to take up \"some of the\nconsiderations that lie on the borderland between the larger and the\nnarrower conceptions of logical theory.\"[190] First, he will consider\nthe antecedent conditions and cues of the thought-process; the\nconditions which lead up to and into the function of knowing. These\nconditions lie between the thought-process and the preceding function\n(in order of time), and are therefore on the borderland between the\nwider and narrower spheres of logic.\n\nIn defining the conditions which precede and evoke thought, Dewey says:\n\"There is always as antecedent to thought an experience of some\nsubject-matter of the physical or social world, or organized\nintellectual world, whose parts are actively at war with each other--so\nmuch so that they threaten to disrupt the entire experience, which\naccordingly for its own maintenance requires deliberate re-definition\nand re-relation of its tensional parts.\"[191] Thought is always called\ninto action by the whole concrete situation in which it occurs, not by\nany particular sensation, idea, or feeling.\n\nThe opposite interpretation of the nature of the antecedents of thought\nis furnished by Lotze, who makes them consist in bare impressions,\n'moods of ourselves,' mere states of consciousness. Dewey is quite right\nin calling these bare impressions purely fictitious, though the\nobservation is by no means original. From the manner in which he\napproaches the study of the \"antecedents of thought\" it appears,\nhowever, that Dewey has something in common with Lotze. The functional\ntheory, that is, allows a certain initial detachment of thought from\nreality, which must be bridged over by an empirical demonstration of its\nnatural connection with preceding processes.\n\nDewey is wholly justified, again, in maintaining that thought is not a\nfaculty set apart from reality, and that what is 'given' to thought is a\ncoherent world, not a mass of unmeaning sensations. He recognizes his\nsubstantial agreement with the modern idealists in these matters.[192]\nBut the idealists, he believes, hold a constitutive conception of\nthought which is in conflict with the empirical description of thinking\nas a concrete activity in time. Reality, according to this conception,\nis a vast system of sensations brought into a rational order by logical\nforms, and finite thought, in its operations, simply apprehends or\ndiscovers the infinite order of the cosmos. \"How does it happen,\" Dewey\nasks, \"that the absolute constitutive and intuitive Thought does such a\npoor and bungling job that it requires a finite discursive activity to\npatch up its products?\"[193]\n\nAgainst Lotze, such an indictment has considerable force, but its\napplicability to modern idealism is not so obvious. Modern idealism has\ninsisted upon an empirical treatment of thought, and has definitely\nsurrendered the abstract sensations of the older psychologies. Nor does\nidealism tend to treat finite thought as a process which merely 'copies'\nan eternally present nature. The issue between Dewey and the idealists\nis this: Does functionalism render an accurate empirical account of the\nnature of thought as a concrete process?\n\nIn his third chapter Dewey discusses \"Thought and its Subject-matter:\nThe Datum of Thinking.\" The tensional situation passes into a thought\nsituation, and reflection enters upon its work of restoring the\nequilibrium of experience. Certain characteristic processes attend the\noperation of thought. \"The conflicting situation inevitably polarizes or\ndichotomizes itself. There is somewhat which is untouched in the\ncontention of incompatibles. There is something which remains secure,\nunquestioned. On the other hand, there are elements which are rendered\ndoubtful and precarious.\"[194] The unquestioned element is the _datum_;\nthe uncertain element, the _ideatum_. Ideas are \"impressions,\nsuggestions, guesses, theories, estimates, etc., the facts are crude,\nraw, unorganized, brute.\"[195] There is an approximation to bare meaning\non the one hand, and bare existence on the other.\n\nThe first dichotomy passes into a second. \"Once more, and briefly, both\ndatum and ideatum may ... break up, each for itself, into physical and\npsychical.\"[196] The datum, or sense material, is all, somehow, matter\nand real, but one part of it turns out to have a psychical, another a\nphysical form. Similarly, the ideatum divides into what is mere fancy,\nthe psychical, and what is objectively valid, the physical.\n\nThese distinctions are divisions of labor within the thought-process.\n\"All the distinctions of the thought-function, of conception as over\nagainst sense-perception, of judgment in its various modes and forms, of\ninference in its vast diversity of operation--all these distinctions\ncome within the thought situation as growing out of a characteristic\nantecedent typical formation of experience....\"[197] Great confusion\nresults in logical theory, Dewey believes, when it is forgotten that\nthese distinctions are valid only within the thought process. Their\norder of occurrence within the thought process must also be observed, if\nconfusion is to be prevented. Datum and ideatum come first, psychical\nand physical next in order. \"Thus the distinction between subjectivity\nand objectivity is not one between meaning as such and datum as such. It\nis a specification that emerges, correspondently, in _both_ datum and\nideatum, as affairs of the direction of logical movement. That which is\nleft behind in the evolution of accepted meaning is characterized as\nreal, but only in a psychical sense; that which is moved toward is\nregarded as real in an objective, cosmic sense.\"[198]\n\nDewey does well to call attention to the limitations of these\ncategories, which cannot, indeed, be treated as absolute without serious\nerror. It may be questioned, however, whether their limitations are of\nthe precise nature which he describes. All depends upon the initial\nconception of the nature of thought. From Dewey's standpoint, these\ncategories are 'tools of analysis' which function only within the\nthinking process; but his description of the function of knowing may be\nquestioned, in which case his instrumental view of the concepts is\nrendered meaningless. A logical, as distinct from a psychological,\ntreatment of the concepts mentioned, would show that their validity is\nlimited to a certain 'sphere of relevance;' that they are applicable\nwithin a certain context and to a particular subject-matter. The danger\nof indiscriminate use of the categories would be avoided by the logical\ncriticism even better, perhaps, than by Dewey's method.\n\nThe discussion in Dewey's fourth and last chapter, concerning \"The\nContent and Object of Thought,\" hinges upon a detailed criticism of\nLotze's position, which cannot be presented here. The general bearing of\nthe discussion, however, may be indicated. \"To regard,\" says Dewey, \"the\nthought-forms of conception, judgment, and inference as qualifications\nof 'pure thought, apart from any difference in objects,' instead of as\nsuccessive dispositions in the progressive organization of the material\n(or objects) is the fallacy of rationalism.\"[199]\n\nPure thought, of course, cannot be defended. At the same time, Dewey,\nlike Lotze, tends to regard thought as a special function with a\n'content' of its own. If thought is regarded as a special kind of\nprocess, having its own content in the way of instrumental concepts, the\nquestion inevitably arises: How shall these forms be employed to reach\ntruth? How apply them correctly to the matter in hand?\n\nDewey answers that the forms and hypotheses of thought, like the tools\nand scaffoldings for its operations, are especially designed for the\nlabor which they have to perform. \"There is no miracle in the fact that\ntool and material are adapted to each other in the process of reaching a\nvalid conclusion.... Each has been slowly evolved with reference to its\nfit employ in the entire function; and this evolution has been checked\nat every point by reference to its own correspondent.\"[200]\n\nIt is no doubt true that established conceptions, no less than temporary\nhypotheses, have been evolved in connection with, as a feature or part\nof, the subject-matter to which they pertain. But it is quite another\nthing to say that these evolved forms belong to thought, if by thought\nbe meant the functional activity of Dewey's description. Dewey stresses\nthe relevance of these forms to the thought-process, rather than their\nrelevance to a particular sphere of discourse. His purpose is to show\nthat distinctions which are valid within the process of knowing are not\nvalid elsewhere, and the net result is to limit the faculty of thought\nas a whole, as well as the forms of thought.\n\nThis result reveals itself most clearly in his discussion of the test of\ntruth. \"In that sense the test of reality is beyond thought, as thought,\njust as at the other limit thought originates out of a situation which\nis not reflectional in character. Interpret this before and beyond in a\nhistoric sense, as an affair of the place occupied and role played by\nthinking as a function in experience in relation to other functions, and\nthe intermediate and instrumental character of thought, its dependence\nupon unreflective antecedents for its existence, and upon a consequent\nexperience for its test of final validity, becomes significant and\nnecessary.\"[201] This notion that the test of thought must be external\nto thought depends directly upon the doctrine that thought is a special\nactivity of the kind heretofore described. It results from the\noccasionalism attributed by Dewey to the thinking process.\n\nIf the truth or falsity of an idea is not discovered by thought, then by\nwhat faculty might it be discovered? Perhaps by experience as a whole or\nin general. Dewey, on occasion, speaks as follows: \"Experience is\ncontinually integrating itself into a wholeness of coherent meaning\ndeepened in significance by passing through an inner distraction in\nwhich by means of conflict certain contents are rendered partial and\nhence objectively conscious.\"[202] Perhaps Dewey means to say that truth\nis determined by this cosmic automatism. It is confusing, however, to be\ntold in one moment that thought transforms experience, and in another\nthat experience transforms itself.\n\nExperience, not reflection, is, then, the test of truth and thought.\nSuch a statement would not be possible, except in connection with a\npsychology which deliberately sets experience over against reflection,\nmaking the latter a peculiar, although dependent, process. Lotze,\nindeed, makes the separation of thought from experience quite complete.\nDewey attempts to bring them together by his psychological method, but\ndoes not completely succeed. In the meantime modern idealism has\nsuggested that thought and experience are merely parts of one general\nprocess, constantly operating in conjunction. To one who believes that\nthe various processes or 'functions' of experience constitute a single\norgan of life, the proposition that experience, rather than reflection,\nis the judge of truth, becomes meaningless.\n\nIn an essay on \"The Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of\nMorality\" in another volume of the Chicago Publications of 1903,[203]\nDewey presents a positive statement of his logical theory which is an\nexcellent supplement to the critical study of Lotze.\n\nScience, Dewey remarks in introducing this essay, is a systematized body\nof knowledge. Knowledge may be taken either as a body of facts or as a\nprocess of arranging a body of facts; as results or the acquiring of\nresults. The latter phase of science is the more important. \"As used in\nthis article, 'scientific' means regular methods of controlling the\nformation of judgments regarding some subject-matter.\"[204] In the\nscientific attitude, beliefs are looked upon as _conclusions_, and as\nconclusions they look in two directions. They look backward towards the\nground from which they are empirically derived, and which renders them\nvalid, and they look forward, as meaning, to being the ground from which\nfurther conclusions can be deduced. \"So far as we engage in this\nprocedure, we look at our respective acts of judging not as independent\nand detached, but as an interrelated system, within which every\nassertion entitles us to other assertions (which must be carefully\ndeduced since they constitute its meaning) and to which we are entitled\nonly through other assertions (so that they must be carefully searched\nfor). 'Scientific' as used in this article thus means the possibility of\nestablishing an order of judgments such that each one when made is of\nuse in determining other judgments, thereby securing control of their\nformation.\"[205]\n\nThis view of science as an order of judgments requires a special\ntreatment of the generic ideas, the 'conclusions,' or universals of\nscience. The individual judgment, 'This, _A_, is _B_,' expresses an\nidentity. But it is much better expressed in hypothetical form.\n\"Identification, in other words, is secure only when it can be made\nthrough (1) breaking up the analyzed. This of naive judgment into\ndeterminate traits, (2) breaking up the predicate into a similar\ncombination of elements, and (3) establishing uniform connection between\nsome of the elements in the subject and some in the predicate.\"[206]\nIdentity exists amid relevant differences, and the more intimately the\nsystem of differents is understood, the more positive is the\ndetermination of identity. This will be recognized as the 'concrete\nuniversal' of the Hegelian logicians.\n\nBut, Dewey says, modern logicians tend to disregard judgment as act, and\npay attention to it only as content. The generic ideas are studied in\nindependence of their applications, as if this were a matter of no\nconcern in logic. \"In truth, there is no such thing as control of one\ncontent by mere reference to another content as such. To recognize this\nimpossibility is to recognize that the control of the formation of the\njudgment is always through the medium of an act by which the respective\ncontents of both the individual judgment and of the universal\nproposition are selected and brought into relationship to each\nother.\"[207] The individual act of judgment is necessary to logical\ntheory, because the act of the individual forms the connecting link\nbetween the generic idea and the specific details of the situation.\nThere must be some means whereby the instrumental concept is brought to\nbear upon its appropriate material. \"The logical process includes, as an\norganic part of itself, the selection and reference of that particular\none of the system which is relevant to the particular case. This\nindividualized selection and adaptation is an integral portion of the\nlogic of the situation. And such selection and adjustment is clearly in\nthe nature of an act.\"[208]\n\nThis problem of the relation of the categories to their subject-matter\nis an acute one for Dewey, because of limitations placed upon thought.\nHe decides that the idea must be, in some fashion, self-selective, must\nsignify its own fitness to a given subject-matter. But it can only be\nself-selective by being itself in the nature of an act. It turns out\nthat the generic idea has been evolved in connection with acts of\njudgment, and its own applicability is born in it. \"The activity which\nselects and employs is logical, not extra-logical, just because the tool\nselected and employed has been invented and developed precisely for the\nsake of just such future selection and use.\"[209]\n\nThe logic and system of science must be embodied in the individual. He\nmust be a good logical medium, his acts must be orderly and consecutive,\nand generic ideas must have a good motor basis in his organism, if he is\nto think successfully. This is the essence of Dewey's argument in the\nessay under discussion. The inference seems to be that logic cannot be\nseparated from biology and psychology, since the act of knowing and the\nideas which it employs have a physiological basis.\n\nIt is difficult to see, however, how such a standpoint could prove\nuseful in the practical study of logic. Certainly little headway could\nbe made toward a study of the proper use and limitations of the\ncategories by an investigation of the human nervous system. And to what\nextent would physiology illuminate the problem of the relation of the\ngeneric ideas to their appropriate objects? Although Dewey decides that\nthe relationship must have its ground in the motor activities of the\norganism, his conclusion has little empirical evidence to support it.\n\nA practical, workable conception of the relations between generic ideas\nand their objects must be based on considerations less obscure. Why not\nbe content to verify, by criticism, the truth that experience and\nthoughts about experience develop together, with the result that each\ntheory, hypothesis, or method is applicable within the sphere where it\nwas born? Why wait upon psychology for confirmation of a truth so\nobvious and important?\n\nBosanquet remarks: \"Either one may speak as if reality were relative to\nthe individual mind, a ridiculous idea ..., or one may become interested\nin tracing the germination and growth of ideas in the individual mind as\ntypical facts indeed, but only as one animal's habits are typical of\nthose of others, and we may slur over the primary basis of logic, which\nis its relation to reality. For mental facts unrelated to reality are no\nknowledge, and therefore have no place in logic.\"[210] Bosanquet\nemphasizes an important truth neglected by Dewey. Logic is not concerned\nwith ideas as things existing in individuals, nor with conceptions as\nindividual modes of response. Truth has little to do with the individual\nas such, though the individual might well concern himself about truth.\nTruth is objective, super-individual, and logic is the study of the\nobjective verity of thought. The proposition, 'All life is from the\nliving,' finds no premises in the nerve tissues of the scientist who\naccepts it. How does the proposition square up with reality or\nexperience? That is the question, and it can only be answered by turning\naway from psychology to empirical verification, involving a critical\ntest of the applicability of the thought to reality.\n\nIn the strictly ethical part of the essay, Dewey tries to show that\nmoral judgments, at least, involve the character of the agent and his\nspecific acts as data. Intellectual judgments, on the other hand, may\ndisregard the acts of the individual; they are left out of account,\n\"when they are so uniform in their exercise that they make no difference\nwith respect to the _particular_ object or content judged.\"[211] It will\nbe seen that the distinction between moral and intellectual judgments is\nmade on the basis of their content. But Dewey is committed to the\ndoctrine that judgments are to be differentiated as acts, on a\npsychological basis. In any case, if the character and acts of a man are\nto be judged, they must be treated objectively, and the relevance of the\njudge's ideas to the man's actual character cannot be decided by a\npsychological analysis of the judge's mind. Right and wrong, whether\nmoral or intellectual, are not attributes of the individual nervous\nsystem.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[173] _The Philosophical Radicals_, \"Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory,\"\np. 179. The essay was originally printed as a critical notice in the\n_Philosophical Review_, November, 1904.\n\n[174] Since this was written (1915-16), Dewey's chapters have been\nreprinted in a volume entitled _Essays in Experimental Logic_, published\nby the University of Chicago Press (June, 1916). They are preceded, in\nthis new setting, by a special introductory chapter, and numerous\nalterations have been made which do not, however, affect the fundamental\nstandpoint.\n\n[175] See James's review, \"The Chicago School,\" _Psychological\nBulletin_, Vol. I, 1904, pp. 1-5.\n\n[176] _Studies in Logical Theory_, p. 2.\n\n[177] Compare Dewey, _How We Think_ (1910), Chapter II, \"The Need for\nTraining Thought.\"\n\n[178] _Studies in Logical Theory_, p. 1.\n\n[179] _Ibid._, p. 2.\n\n[180] _Op. cit._, p. 3 f.\n\n[181] _Ibid._, p. 16.\n\n[182] _Logic_, second ed., Vol. II, p. 270.\n\n[183] _Studies in Logical Theory_, p. x.\n\n[184] \"Thinking or rationality is not limited to the process of abstract\ncognition, but it includes feeling and will, and in the course of its\ndevelopment carries these along with it. There is, of course, such a\nthing as what we have called abstract cognition; but the different\nmoments are all united in the concrete experience which we may name the\nlife of thought.\" Creighton, \"Experience and Thought,\" _Philosophical\nReview_, Vol. XV, 1906, p. 487 f.\n\n[185] _Op. cit._, p. 15.\n\n[186] _Ibid._, p. 8.\n\n[187] _Op. cit._, pp. 18-19.\n\n[188] _Ibid._, p. 23.\n\n[189] _Ibid._, p. 17.\n\n[190] _Op. cit._, p. 23.\n\n[191] _Op. cit._, p. 39 f. Bradley suggests a similar idea of the\n'tensional situation.' See, for instance, _Ethical Studies_, p. 65,\nwhere he remarks: \"We have conflicting desires, say A and B; we feel two\ntensions, two drawings (so to speak) but we can not actually affirm\nourselves in both.\" A more complete statement of the 'tensional\nsituation' will be found on page 239 of the same work and in various\nother passages.\n\n[192] _Ibid._, pp. 43-44.\n\n[193] _Op. cit._, p. 45.\n\n[194] _Ibid._, p. 50.\n\n[195] _Ibid._, p. 52.\n\n[196] _Op. cit._\n\n[197] _Ibid._, p. 47.\n\n[198] _Ibid._, p. 53.\n\n[199] _Op. cit._, p. 61 f.\n\n[200] _Ibid._, p. 80.\n\n[201] _Op. cit._, p. 85.\n\n[202] _Ibid._\n\n[203] _Decennial Publications of the University of Chicago_, First\nSeries, Vol. III, pp. 115-139.\n\n[204] _Ibid._, p. 115.\n\n[205] _Ibid._, p. 116.\n\n[206] _Op. cit._, p. 120.\n\n[207] _Ibid._, p. 121.\n\n[208] _Ibid._, p. 122.\n\n[209] _Op. cit._\n\n[210] _Logic_, second ed., Vol. I, p. 232.\n\n[211] _Decennial Publication of the University of Chicago_, First\nSeries, Vol. III, p. 127.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE POLEMICAL PERIOD\n\n\nAfter the publication of the _Studies in Logical Theory_, Dewey entered\nupon what may be called the polemical period of his career. He joined\nforces with James and Schiller in the promotion of the new movement\ncalled 'Pragmatism.' The _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and\nScientific Methods_, instituted at Columbia University in 1904, the same\nyear in which Dewey accepted a professorship in that institution, became\na convenient medium for the expression of his views, and every volume of\nthis periodical will be found to contain notes, discussions, and\narticles by Dewey and his followers, bearing on current controversy. He\nalso published many articles in other journals, technical and popular.\nIn 1910, the most important of these essays were collected into a\nvolume, published under the title, _The Influence of Darwin on\nPhilosophy, and Other Essays_. For purposes of discussion, these essays\nmay be divided into two classes: those of a more constructive character,\nsetting forth Dewey's own standpoint, and those which are mainly\npolemical, directed against opposing standpoints, chiefly the\nidealistic. The constructive writings will be given first consideration.\n\nThe essay on \"The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism,\" first published in\nthe _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, in\nJuly, 1905, and later reprinted in the volume of collected essays,\noffers a convenient point of departure. Dewey observes that many of the\ndifficulties in current controversy can be traced to presuppositions\ntacitly held by thinkers as to what experience means. Dewey attempts to\nmake his own presuppositions explicit, with the object of clearing up\nthis confusion.\n\n\"Immediate empiricism,\" he says, \"postulates that things--anything,\neverything, in the ordinary or non-technical use of the term\n'thing'--are what they are experienced as. Hence, if one wishes to\ndescribe anything truly, his task is to tell what it is experienced as\nbeing.\"[212] The idealists, on the contrary, hold \"that things (or,\nultimately, Reality, Being) _are_ only and just what they are _known_ to\nbe or that things are, or Reality _is_, what it is for a conscious\nknower--whether the knower be conceived primarily as a perceiver or as a\nthinker being a further, and secondary, question. This is the\nroot-paralogism of all idealisms, whether subjective or objective,\npsychological or epistemological.\"[213] Knowing is merely one mode of\nexperiencing, and things may be experienced in other ways, as, for\ninstance, aesthetically, morally, technologically, or economically. This\nfollows Dewey's familiar division of the processes of experience into\nseparate 'functions' or activities. It becomes the duty of the\nphilosopher, following this scheme, to find out \"_what_ sort of an\nexperience knowing is--or, concretely how things are experienced when\nthey are experienced _as_ known things.\"[214]\n\nDewey fails, in this essay, to draw a distinction which is highly\nimportant, between knowledge as awareness and knowledge as reflection.\nThis results in some confusion. For the present, he is concerned with\nknowledge as awareness. He employs an illustration to make his meaning\nclear; the experience of fright at a noise, which turns out, when\nexamined and known, to be the tapping of a window shade. What is\noriginally experienced is a frightful noise. If, after examination, the\n'frightfulness' is classified as 'psychical,' while the 'real' fact is\nsaid to be harmless, there is no warrant for reading this distinction\nback into the original experience. The argument is directed against that\nmode of explaining the difference between the psychical and the physical\nwhich employs a subjective mind or 'knower' as the container of the\nmerely subjective aspects of reality. Dewey would hold that mind, used\nin this sense, is a fiction, having a small explanatory value, and\ncreating more problems than it solves. The difference between psychical\nand physical is relative, not absolute. The frightful noise first heard\nwas neither psychical nor physical; it was what it was experienced as,\nand the experience contained no such distinction, nor did it contain a\n'knower.' The noise _as known_, after the intervention of an act of\njudgment, contained these elements (except the 'knower'), but the thing\nis not merely what it is known as. There is no warrant for reading the\ndistinctions made by judgment back into a situation where judgment was\nnot operative. The original fact was precisely what it was experienced\nas.\n\nDewey's purpose, though not well stated, seems to be the complete\nrejection of the notion of knowledge as awareness, or of the subjective\nknower. He discovers at the same time an opportunity to substantiate his\nown descriptive account of knowing (or reflection) as an occasional\nfunction. The two enterprises, however, should be kept distinct.\nGranting that the subjective knower of the older epistemology should be\ndismissed from philosophy, it does not follow that Dewey's special\ninterpretation of the function of reflection is the only substitute.\n\nThe principle of immediate empiricism, Dewey says, furnishes no positive\ntruth. It is simply a method. Not a single philosophical proposition can\nbe deduced from it. The application of the method is indicated in the\nfollowing proposition: \"If you wish to find out what subjective,\nobjective, physical, mental, cosmic, psychic, cause, substance, purpose,\nactivity, evil, being, quality--any philosophic term, in short--means,\ngo to experience and see what the thing is experienced _as_.\"[215] This\nrecipe cannot be taken literally. Dewey probably means that each concept\nhas, or should have, a positive empirical reference, and is significant\nonly in that reference. He is a firm believer, however, in the\ndescriptive method. In a note, he remarks that he would employ in\nphilosophy \"the direct descriptive method that has now made its way in\nall the natural sciences, with such modifications, of course, as the\nsubject itself entails.\"[216] This remark calls for closer examination\nthan can be made here. It may be said in passing, however, that\n'scientific description' is by no means so simple a method of procedure\nas Dewey would seem to indicate. 'Scientific description,' as actually\nemployed, is a highly elaborated and specialized method of dealing with\nexperience. The whole subject, indeed, is involved, and requires\ncautious treatment. Dewey's somewhat ingenuous hope, that the\nidentification of his method with the methods of science will add to its\nimpressiveness, is in danger, unfortunately, of being vitiated through\nthe suspicion that he is, after all, not in close touch with the methods\nof science.\n\nDewey employs the descriptive method chiefly as a means for\nsubstantiating his special interpretation of the judgment process. His\nuse of the method in this connection is well illustrated by an article\ncalled \"The Experimental Theory of Knowledge\"[217] (1906), in which he\nattempts \"to find out _what_ sort of an experience knowing is\" through\nan appeal to immediate experience. \"It should be possible,\" he says, \"to\ndiscern and describe a knowing as one identifies any object, concern, or\nevent.... What we want is just something which takes itself as\nknowledge, rightly or wrongly.\"[218] The difficulty lies not in finding\na case of knowing, but in describing it when found. Dewey selects a case\nto be described, and, as usual, chooses a simple one.\n\n\"This means,\" he says, \"a specific case, a sample.... Our recourse is to\nan example so simple, so much on its face as to be as innocent as may be\nof assumptions.... Let us suppose a smell, just a floating odor.\"[219]\nThe level at which this illustration is taken is significant. Is it\npossible to suppose that anything so complex, varied, myriad-sided as\nthat something we call knowledge, can be discovered and described within\nthe limits of so simple an instance?\n\nDewey employs the smell in three situations, the first representing the\n'non-cognitional,' the second the 'cognitive,' and the third the\ngenuinely 'cognitional' situation. The first, or 'non-cognitional'\nsituation is described as follows: \"But, let us say, the smell is not\nthe smell _of_ the rose; the resulting change of the organism is not a\nsense of walking and reaching; the delicious finale is not the\nfulfilment of the movement, and, through that, of the original smell;\n'is not,' in each case meaning is 'not experienced as' such. We may\ntake, in short, these experiences in a brutely serial fashion. The\nsmell, _S_, is replaced (and displaced) by a felt movement, _K_, this is\nreplaced by the gratification, _G_. Viewed from without, as we are now\nregarding it, there is _S-K-G_. But from within, for itself, it is now\n_S_, now _K_, now _G_, and so on to the end of the chapter. Nowhere is\nthere looking before and after; memory and anticipation are not born.\nSuch an experience neither is, in whole or in part, a knowledge, nor\ndoes it exercise a cognitive function.\"[220]\n\nIt will be seen at once that this is not a description of an actual\nhuman experience, but a schematic story designed to illustrate a\ncomparatively simple point. In this situation the person concerned does\nnot deliberately and consciously recognize the smell as the smell of a\nrose; he is not aware of any symbolic character in the smell, it does\nnot enter as a middle term into a process of inference. In such a\nsituation, Dewey believes, it would be wrong to read into the smell a\ncognitive property which it does not, as experienced, possess.\n\nIn the second, or 'cognitive' situation, the smell as originally\nexperienced does not involve the function of knowing, but turns out\nafter the event, as reflected upon, to have had a significance. \"In\nsaying that the smell is finally experienced as _meaning_ gratification\n... we retrospectively attribute intellectual force and function to the\nsmell--and this is what is signified by 'cognitive.' Yet the smell is\nnot cognitional, because it did not knowingly intend to mean this; but\nis found, after the event, to have meant it.\"[221] The moral is, as\nusual, that the findings of reflection must not be read back into the\nformer unreflective experience.\n\nIn the truly 'cognitional' experience the smell is then and there\nexperienced as meaning or symbolizing the rose. \"An experience is a\nknowledge, if in its quale there is an experienced distinction and\nconnection of two elements of the following sort: _one means or intends\nthe presence of the other in the same fashion in which itself is already\npresent, while the other is that which, while not present in the same\nfashion, must become so present if the meaning or intention of its\ncompanion or yoke-fellow is to be fulfilled through the operation it\nsets up_.\"[222] In the 'cognitional' situation, the smell is then and\nthere experienced as signifying the presence of a rose in the vicinity,\nand the rose must be experienced as a present fact, before the meaning\nof the smell is completely fulfilled and verified.\n\nIt will be seen at once that this description of knowing follows the\nlines laid down by James in his chapter on \"Reasoning\" in the\n_Principles of Psychology_. In the process of reasoning the situation is\nanalyzed; some particular feature of it is abstracted and made the\nmiddle term in an inference. The smell, as thus abstracted, is said to\nhave the function of knowing, or meaning, the rose whose reality it\nevidences.\n\nDewey's treatment of knowledge, however, is far too simple. The function\nof meaning, symbolizing, or 'pointing' does not reside in the abstracted\nelement as such; for the context in which the judgment occurs determines\nthe choosing of the 'middle term,' as well as the direction in which it\nshall point. The situation as a whole has a rationality which resides in\nthe distinctions, identities, phases of emphasis, and discriminations of\nthe total experience. Rationality expresses itself in the organized\nsystem of experience, not in particular elements and their 'pointings.'\nTaken in this sense, rationality is present in all experience. The\nsmell, in Dewey's first situation, is not 'cognitional' because the\nsituation as a whole does not permit it to be, if such an expression may\nbe used. The intellectual drift of the moment drives the smell away from\nthe centre of attention at one time, just as at another it selects it to\nserve as an element in judgment. It is only with reference to a system\nof some kind that things can be regarded as symbols at all. Things do\nnot represent one another at haphazard, but definitely and concretely;\nthey imply an organization of elements having mutual implications. One\nthing implies another because both are elements in a whole which\ndetermines their mutual reference. This organization is present in all\nexperience, not in the form of 'established habits,' but in the form of\nwill and purpose.\n\nIn the course of his further discussion, which need not be followed in\ndetail, Dewey passes on to a consideration of truth. Truth is concerned\nwith the worth or validity of ideas. But, before their validity can be\ndetermined, there must be a 'cognitional' experience of the type\ndescribed above. \"Before the category of confirmation or refutation can\nbe introduced, there must be something which _means_ to mean something\nand which therefore can be guaranteed or nullified by the issue.\"[223]\nIdeas, or meanings, as directly experienced, are neither true nor false,\nbut are made so by the results in which they issue. Even then, the\noutcome must be reflected upon, before they can be designated true or\nfalse. \"_Truth and falsity present themselves as significant facts only\nin situations in which specific meanings and their already experienced\nfulfilments and non-fulfilments are intentionally compared and\ncontrasted with reference to the question of the worth, as to\nreliability of meaning, of the given meaning or class of\nmeanings._\"[224] This makes the whole problem of truth a relatively\nsimple affair. The symbol and its 'pointing' are taken as a single,\nobjective fact, to be tested, and, if verified, labelled 'true.'\nMeanings, after all, are not so simple as this scheme would imply.\n\nAs the intellectual life of man is more subtle and universal than Dewey\nrepresents it to be, so is truth, as that which thought seeks to\nestablish, something deeper-lying and more comprehensive. Ideas are not\nsimple and isolated facts; their truth is not strictly their own, but is\nreflected into them from the objective order to which they pertain. The\npossibility of making observations and experiments, and of having ideas,\nrests upon the presence in and through experience of that directing\ninfluence which we call valid knowledge, or truth. An idea, to be true,\nmust fit in with this general body of truth. Not correspondence with its\nsingle object, but correspondence with the whole organized body of\nknowledge, is the test of the truth of an idea. The attempt to describe\nknowledge as a particular occurrence, fact, or function, is foredoomed\nto failure. It should be noted also that Dewey's 'description,'\nthroughout this essay, is anything but a direct, empirical examination\nof thought. He presents a schematized picture of reality which, like an\nengineer's diagram, leaves out the cloying details of the object it is\nsupposed to represent.\n\nThe sceptical and positivistic results of Dewey's treatment of knowledge\nare set forth in an article entitled \"Some Implications of\nAnti-Intellectualism,\" published in the _Journal of Philosophy,\nPsychology, and Scientific Methods_, in 1910.[225] This was not included\nin the volume of collected essays published in the same year, but may be\nregarded as of some importance.\n\nAfter some comments on current anti-intellectualistic tendencies, Dewey\nproceeds to distinguish his own anti-intellectualism from that of\nothers. This type \"starts from acts, functions, as primary data,\nfunctions both biological and social in character; from organic\nresponses, readjustments. It treats the knowledge standpoint, in all its\npatterns, structures, and purposes, as evolving out of, and operating in\nthe interests of, the guidance and enrichment of these primary\nfunctions. The vice of intellectualism from this standpoint is not in\nmaking of logical relations and functions in and for knowledge, but in a\nfalse abstraction of knowledge (and the logical) from its working\ncontext.\"[226]\n\nThe manner in which this exaltation of the \"primary\" functions at the\nexpense of knowledge affects philosophy is indicated in the following\npassage: \"Philosophy is itself a mode of knowing, and of knowing wherein\nreflective thinking is much in play.... As a mode of knowledge, it\narises, like any intellectual undertaking, out of certain typical\nperplexities and conflicts of behavior, and its purpose is to help\nstraighten these out. Philosophy may indeed render things more\nintelligible or give greater insight into existence; but these\nconsiderations are subject to the final criterion of what it means to\nacquire insight and to make things intelligible, _i. e._, namely,\nservice of _special_ purposes in behavior, and limit by the _special_\nproblems in which the need of insight arises. This is not to say that\ninstrumentalism is merely a methodology or an epistemology preliminary\nto more ultimate philosophic or metaphysical inquiries, for it involves\nthe doctrine that the origin, structure, and purpose of knowing are such\nas to render nugatory any wholesale inquiries into the nature of\nBeing.\"[227]\n\nIn the last analysis, this appears to be a confession, rather than an\nargument. It is the inevitable outcome of the functional analysis of\nintelligence. Thought is this organ, with these functions, and is\ncapable of so much and no more. The limit to its capacity is set by the\ndescription of its nature. The nature of the functionalistic limitation\nof thought is well expressed in the words 'special' and 'specific.'\nSince thought is the servant of the 'primary' modes of experience, it\ncan only deal with the problems set for it by preceding non-reflective\nprocesses. These problems are 'specific' because they are concrete\nproblems of action, and are concerned with particular aspects of the\nenvironment. Dewey's formidable positivism would vanish at once,\nhowever, if his special psychology of the thought-process should be\nfound untenable. Thought is limited, according to Dewey, because it is a\nvery special form of activity, operating occasionally in the interest of\nthe direct modes of experiencing.\n\nProbably every philosopher recognizes that speculation cannot be allowed\nto run wild. Some problems are worth while, others are artificial and\ntrivial, and some means must be found for separating the sound and\nsubstantial from the tawdry and sentimental. The question is, however,\nwhether Dewey's psychology furnishes a ground for such distinctions.\nAgain, it should be noted that, in spite of the limitations placed upon\nthought by its very nature, as described by Dewey, certain philosophers,\nby his own confession, are guilty of \"wholesale inquiries into the\nnature of Being.\" If thought can deal only with specific problems, then\nthere can be no question as to whether philosophy _ought_ to be\nmetaphysical. It is a repetition of the case of psychological _versus_\nethical hedonism.\n\nModern idealists would resent the imputation that there is any\ninclination on their part to deny the need for a critical attitude\ntoward the problems and methods of philosophy. Kant's criticism of the\n'dogmatists' for their undiscriminating employment of the categories in\nthe interpretation of reality, established an attitude which has been\nsteadily maintained by his philosophical descendants. The idealist, in\nfact, has accused Dewey of laxity in the criticism of his own methods\nand presuppositions. The categories of description and natural selection\nby means of which his functionalism is established, it is argued, are of\nlittle service in the sphere of mind. And while Dewey accepts an\nevolutionary view of reality in general, the idealist has found\nevolutionism, at least in its biological form, too limited in scope to\nserve the extensive interests of philosophy. Dewey is right in opposing\nfalse problems and fanciful solutions in philosophy; but these evils are\nto be corrected, not by functional psychology, but by an empirical\ncriticism of each method and each problem as it arises.\n\nIt has been seen that, even in these more constructive essays, Dewey's\nposition is largely defined in negatives. What might be expected, then,\nof the essays which are primarily critical? Perhaps the best answer will\nbe afforded by a close analysis of one or more of them. Idealism, as has\nbeen said, receives most of Dewey's attention. There are three essays in\n_The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, which bear directly against\nidealism. One, \"The Intellectualist Criterion of Truth,\" is directed\nagainst Bradley; another, \"Experience and Objective Idealism,\" is a\nhistorical discussion of idealistic views. The third, which is broadest\nin scope, is entitled \"Beliefs and Existences.\" This was originally\ndelivered as the presidential address at the meeting of the American\nPhilosophical Association in December, 1905, and was printed in the\n_Philosophical Review_ in March, 1906, under the title, \"Beliefs and\nRealities.\"\n\nDewey begins with a discussion of the personal and human character of\nbeliefs. \"Beliefs,\" he says, \"look both ways, towards persons and\ntowards things.... They form or judge--justify or condemn--the agents\nwho entertain them and who insist upon them.... To believe is to ascribe\nvalue, impute meaning, assign import.\"[228] Beliefs are entertained by\npersons; by men as individuals and not as professional beings. Because\nthey are essentially human, beliefs issue in action, and have their\nimport in conduct. \"That believed better is held to, asserted, affirmed,\nacted upon.... That believed worse is fled, resisted, transformed into\nan instrument for the better.\"[229] Beliefs, then, have a human side;\nthey belong to people, and have a character which is expressed in the\nconduct to which they lead.\n\nOn the other hand, beliefs look towards things. \"'Reality' naturally\ninstigates belief. It appraises itself and through this self-appraisal\nmanages its affairs.... It is interpretation; not merely existence aware\nof itself as fact, but existence discerning, judging itself, approving\nand disapproving.\"[230] The vital connection between belief as personal,\nand as directed upon things, cannot be disregarded. \"We cannot keep\nconnection on one side and throw it away on the other. We cannot\npreserve significance and decline the personal attitude in which it is\ninscribed and operative....\"[231] To take the world as something\nexisting by itself, is to overlook the fact that it is always somebody's\nworld, \"and you shall not have completed your metaphysics till you have\ntold whose world is meant and how and what for--in what bias and to what\neffect.\"[232]\n\nBut philosophers have been guilty of error here. They have thrown aside\nall consideration of belief as a personal fact in reality, and have\ntaken \"an oath of allegiance to Reality, objective, universal, complete;\nmade perhaps of atoms, perhaps of sensations, perhaps of logical\nmeanings.\"[233] This Reality leaves no place for belief; for belief, as\nhaving to do with human adventures, can have no place in a cut and dried\ncosmos. The search for a world which is eternally fixed in eternal\nmeanings has developed the present wondrous and formidable technique of\nphilosophy.\n\nThe attempt to exclude the human element from belief has resulted in\nphilosophical errors. Philosophers have divided reality into two parts,\n\"one of which shall alone be good and true 'Reality,' ... while the\nother part, that which is excluded, shall be referred exclusively to\nbelief and treated as mere appearance....\"[234] To cap the climax, this\ndivision of the world into two parts must be made by some philosopher\nwho, being human, employs his own beliefs, and classifies things on the\nbasis of his own experience. Can it be done? We are today in the\npresence of a revolt against such tendencies, Dewey says; and he\nproposes to give some sketch, \"(1) of the historical tendencies which\nhave shaped the situation in which a Stoic theory of knowledge claims\nmetaphysical monopoly, and (2) of the tendencies that have furnished the\ndespised principle of belief opportunity and means of reassertion.\"[235]\n\nThroughout this introduction Dewey speaks with considerable feeling, as\nif the question were a moral one, rather than a disquisition concerning\nthe best method of dealing with the personal aspects of thought. His\nmeaning, however, is far from being apparent. What does it mean to say\nthat a Stoic theory of knowledge holds a monopoly in modern philosophy?\nIn what sense has the philosophy of the past been misanthropic? _Is_\nHumanism a product of the twentieth century? Dewey's assertions are\nbroad and sweeping; too broad even for a popular discourse, let alone a\nphilosophical address. Perhaps his attitude will be more fully expressed\nin the historical inquiry which follows.\n\nDewey begins this inquiry with the period of the rise of Christianity,\nwhich, because it emphasized faith and the personal attitude, seemed in\na fair way to do justice to human belief. \"That the ultimate principle\nof conduct is affectional and volitional; that God is love; that access\nto the principle is by faith, a personal attitude; that belief,\nsurpassing logical basis and warrant, works out through its own\noperation its own fulfilling evidence: such was the implied moral\nmetaphysic of Christianity.\"[236] But these implications had to be\nworked out into a theory, and the only logical or metaphysical systems\nwhich offered themselves as a basis for organization were those Stoic\nsystems which \"identified true existence with the proper object of\nlogical reason.\" Aristotle alone among the ancients gave practical\nthought its due attention, but he, unfortunately, failed to assimilate\n\"his idea of theoretical to his notion of practical knowledge.\"[237] In\nthe Greek systems generally, \"desiring reason culminating in beliefs\nrelating to imperfect existence, stands forever in contrast with\npassionless reason functioning in pure knowledge, logically complete, of\nperfect being.\"[238]\n\nDewey's discussion moves too rapidly here to be convincing. He does not\ntake time, for instance, to make a very important distinction between\nthe Greek and Hellenistic philosophies. He does not do justice to the\npurpose which animated the Greeks in their attempt to put thought on a\n'theoretical' basis. His confusion of Platonism with Neo-Platonism is\nespecially annoying. And, most assuredly, his estimate of primitive\nChristianity needs corroboration. Probably Christianity, in its\nprimitive form, did lay great stress upon individual beliefs and\npersuasions, but it was expected, nevertheless, that the Holy Spirit\nworking in men would produce uniform results in the way of belief. When\nthe uniformity failed to materialize, Christianity was forced, in the\ninterests of union, to fall back upon some objective standard by which\nbelief could be tested. After this was established, an end was made of\nindividual inspiration. From the earliest times, therefore, it may be\nsaid, Christianity sought means for the suppression of free inquiry and\nbelief, a proceeding utterly opposed to the spirit of ancient Greece.\n\n\"I need not remind you,\" Dewey continues, \"how through Neo-Platonism,\nSt. Augustine, and the Scholastic renaissance, these conceptions became\nimbedded in Christian philosophy; and what a reversal occurred of the\noriginal practical principle of Christianity. Belief is henceforth\nimportant because it is the mere antecedent in a finite and fallen\nworld, a temporal and phenomenal world infected with non-being, of true\nknowledge to be achieved only in a world of completed Being.\"[239]\nThrough the hundreds of years that intervened before the world's\nawakening, the 'Stoic dogma,' enforced by authority, held the world in\nthrall. And still Dewey finds the mediaeval Absolutism in many respects\nmore merciful than the Absolutism of modern philosophy. \"For my part, I\ncan but think that mediaeval absolutism, with its provision for\nauthoritative supernatural assistance in this world and assertion of\nsupernatural realization in the next, was more logical, as well as more\nhumane, then the modern absolutism, that, with the same logical\npremises, bids man find adequate consolation and support in the fact\nthat, after all, his strivings are already eternally fulfilled, his\nerrors already eternally transcended, his partial beliefs already\neternally comprehended.\"[240] Dewey takes no note of the fact that\nphilosophy, as involving really free inquiry, was dead during the whole\nperiod of mediaeval predominance.\n\nThe modern age, Dewey continues, brought intelligence back to earth\nagain, but only partially. Fixed being was still supposed to be the\nobject of thought. \"The principle of the inherent relation of thought to\nbeing was preserved intact, but its practical locus was moved down from\nthe next world to this.\"[241] Aristotle's mode of dealing with the\nPlatonic ideas was followed, and Spinoza was the great exponent of \"the\nstrict correlation of the attribute of matter with the attribute of\nthought.\"\n\nBut, again, the modern conception of knowledge failed to do justice to\nbelief, in spite of the compromise that gave the natural world to\nintelligence, and the spiritual world to faith. This compromise could\nnot endure, for Science encroached upon the field of religious belief,\nand invaded the sphere of the personal and emotional. \"Knowledge, in its\ngeneral theory, as philosophy, went the same way. It was pre-committed\nto the old notion: the absolutely real is the object of _knowledge_, and\nhence is something universal and impersonal. So, whether by the road of\nsensationalism or rationalism, by the path of mechanicalism or objective\nidealism, it came about that concrete selves, specific feeling and\nwilling beings, were relegated with the beliefs in which they declare\nthemselves to the 'phenomenal.'\"[242] Feeling, volition, desiring\nthought have never received the justice due them in the whole course of\nphilosophy. This is Dewey's conclusion. Little can be said in praise of\nhis historical survey. There is scarcely a statement to which exception\ncould not be taken, for the history of philosophy is not amenable to\ngeneralized treatment of this character.\n\nThe reader turns more hopefully toward the third part of the essay, in\nwhich he is promised a positive statement of the new theory which does\nfull justice to belief. \"First, then, the very use of the knowledge\nstandpoint, the very expression of the knowledge preoccupation, has\nproduced methods and tests that, when formulated, intimate a radically\ndifferent conception of knowledge, and of its relation to existence and\nbelief, than the orthodox one.\"[243]\n\nBut after this not unpromising introduction, Dewey falls into the\npolemical strain again. The argument need not be followed in detail,\nsince it consists largely in a reassertion of the validity of belief as\nan element in knowledge. The general conclusion is that modern\nscientific investigation reveals itself, when examined, as nothing more\nthat the \"rendering into a systematic technique, into an art\ndeliberately and delightfully pursued, the rougher and cruder means by\nwhich practical human beings have in all ages worked out the\nimplications of their beliefs, tested them, and endeavored in the\ninterests of economy, efficiency, and freedom, to render them coherent\nwith one another.\"[244] This is presumably true. If no more is implied\nthan is definitely asserted in this passage, the reader is apt to wonder\nwho would deny it.\n\nDewey again claims for his theory the support of modern science.\n\"Biology, psychology, and the social sciences proffer an imposing body\nof concrete facts that also point to the rehabilitation of\nbelief....\"[245] Psychology has revised its notions in terms of\nbeliefs. 'Motor' is writ large on the face of sensation, perception,\nconception, cognition in general. Biology shows that the organic\ninstruments of the intellectual life were evolved for specifically\npractical purposes. The historical sciences show that knowledge is a\nsocial instrument for the purpose of meeting social needs. This\ntestimony is not philosophy, Dewey says, but it has a bearing on\nphilosophy. The new sciences have at least as much importance as\nmathematics and physics. \"Such being the case, the reasons for ruling\npsychology and sociology and allied sciences out of competency to give\nphilosophic testimony have more significance than the bare denial of\njurisdiction.\"[246] The idealists, apparently, have been the worst\noffenders in this connection. \"One would be almost justified in\nconstruing idealism as a Pickwickian scheme, so willing is it to\nidealize the principle of intelligence at the expense of its specific\nundertakings, were it not that this reluctance is the necessary outcome\nof the Stoic basis and tenor of idealism--its preoccupation with logical\ncontents and relations in abstraction from their _situs_ and function in\nconscious living beings.\"[247]\n\nIn conclusion, Dewey warns against certain possible misunderstandings.\nThe pragmatic philosopher, he says, is not opposed to objective\nrealities, and logical and universal thinking. Again, it is not to be\nsupposed that science is any the less exact by reason of being\ninstrumental to human beliefs. \"Because reason is a scheme of working\nout the meanings of convictions in terms of one another and of the\nconsequences they import in further experience, convictions are the\nmore, not the less, amenable and responsible to the full exercise of\nreason.\"[248] And finally, Dewey assures the reader that the outcome of\nhis discussion is not a solution, but a problem. Nobody is apt to\ndispute that statement.\n\nThis very unsatisfactory essay is, nevertheless, a fair specimen of the\npolemical literature which was produced by Dewey and others during these\nyears. Pragmatism was trying to make converts, and the _argumentum ad\nhominem_ was freely employed. If the opposition was painted a good deal\nblacker than was necessary, the end was supposed to justify the evident\nexaggeration. And so, in this essay, after accusing his contemporaries\nof adherence to tenets that they would have indignantly repudiated,\nafter a wholesale and indiscriminate condemnation of idealism, Dewey\nconcludes with--a problem. This period of propaganda is now quite\ndefinitely a thing of the past. Philosophical discussion, especially\nsince the beginning of the great war, has entered upon a new epoch of\nsanity, and, perhaps, of constructive effort.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[212] _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, p. 227.\n\n[213] _Ibid._, p. 228. In connection with the discussion which follows\nsee Bradley \"On Our Knowledge of Immediate Experience,\" in _Essays on\nTruth and Reality_, Chapter VI.\n\n[214] _Ibid._, p. 229.\n\n[215] _Op. cit._, p. 239.\n\n[216] _Ibid._, p. 240.\n\n[217] _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, pp. 77-111.\n\n[218] _Ibid._, p. 77.\n\n[219] _Ibid._, p. 78.\n\n[220] _Op. cit._\n\n[221] _Ibid._, p. 84.\n\n[222] _Op. cit._, p. 90. Author's italics.\n\n[223] _Op. cit._, p. 87.\n\n[224] _Ibid._, p. 95. Author's italics.\n\n[225] Vol. VII. pp. 477-481.\n\n[226] _Ibid._, p. 478.\n\n[227] _Op. cit._, p. 479.\n\n[228] _Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, p. 169.\n\n[229] _Ibid._, p. 170.\n\n[230] _Ibid._, p. 171.\n\n[231] _Ibid._\n\n[232] _Ibid._\n\n[233] _Ibid._, p. 172.\n\n[234] _Op. cit._, p. 175.\n\n[235] _Ibid._, p. 177.\n\n[236] _Ibid._, p. 17?.\n\n[237] _Op. cit._, p. 179.\n\n[238] _Ibid._\n\n[239] _Op. cit._\n\n[240] _Ibid._, p. 180.\n\n[241] _Ibid._, p. 181.\n\n[242] _Op. cit._, p. 183.\n\n[243] _Ibid._, p. 184.\n\n[244] _Ibid._, p. 187.\n\n[245] _Ibid._, p. 189.\n\n[246] _Op. cit._, p. 190.\n\n[247] _Ibid._, p. 191 f.\n\n[248] _Ibid._, p. 194.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nLATER DEVELOPMENTS\n\n\nNeo-realism began to flourish in this country after 1900, its rise being\nnearly contemporary with the spread of pragmatism. Many neo-realists,\nindeed, consider themselves followers of James. Dewey views the new\nrealism, along with pragmatism and 'naturalistic idealism,' as \"part and\nparcel of a general movement of intellectual reconstruction.\"[249] The\nneo-realists, like the pragmatists, have been active in the field of\ncontroversy, and the pages of the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology,\nand Scientific Methods_ are filled with exchanges between the\nrepresentatives of the two schools, in the form of notes, articles,\ndiscussions, agreements, and disclaimers. Dewey has more sympathy for\nrealism than for idealism. He finds among the writers of this school,\nhowever, a tendency toward the epistemological interpretation of thought\nwhich he so strongly opposes. An excellent statement of his estimate of\nrealism is furnished by his \"Brief Studies in Realism,\" published in the\n_Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, in\n1911.[250]\n\nIn beginning these studies Dewey observes that certain idealistic\nwriters (not named) have been employing in support of their idealism\ncertain facts which have an obvious physical nature and explanation.\nSuch illusions as that of the bent stick in the water, the converging\nrailway tracks, and the double image that occurs when the eye-ball is\npressed, have, as the realists have well proved, a physical explanation\nwhich is entirely adequate. Why is it that the idealists remain\nunimpressed by this demonstration? There is a certain element in the\nrealistic explanation which undoubtedly explains the reluctance of the\nidealists to be convinced. \"Many realists, in offering the type of\nexplanation adduced above, have treated the cases of seen light,\ndoubled imagery, as perception in a way that ascribes to perception an\ninherent cognitive status. They have treated the perceptions as _cases\nof knowledge_, instead of as simply natural events....\"[251]\n\nDewey draws a distinction, at this point, between naive and presentative\nrealism, employing, by way of illustration, the 'star' illusion, which\nturns upon the peculiar fact that a star may be seen upon the earth long\nafter it has ceased to exist. The naive realist remains in the sphere of\nnatural explanation. He accounts for the star illusion in physical\nterms. The astronomical star and the perceived star are two physical\nevents within a continuous physical order or process. But the\npresentative realist maintains that, since the two stars are numerically\nseparate, the astronomical star must be the 'real' star, while the\nperceived star is merely mental; the real star exists in independence of\na knowing subject, while the perceived star is related to a mind. The\nnaive realist has no need of the hypothesis of a knower, since he can\nfurnish an adequate physical account of the numerical duplicity of the\nstar. Dewey favors the naive standpoint, and affirms that presentative\nrealism is tainted by an epistemological subjectivism. \"Once depart,\" he\nsays, \"from this thorough naivete, and substitute for it the\npsychological theory that perception is a cognitive presentation of an\nobject to a mind, and the first step is taken on the road which ends in\nan idealistic system.\"[252]\n\nThe presentative realist, Dewey continues, finds himself possessed of\ntwo kinds of knowledge, when he comes to take account of inference; for\ninference is \"in the field as an obvious and undisputed case of\nknowledge.\" There is the knowledge of perception by a knower, and the\ninferential knowledge which passes beyond perception. All reality,\nconsequently, is related, directly or indirectly, to the knowing\nsubject, and idealism is triumphant. But the real difficulty of the\nrealist's position is that, if perception is a mode of knowing, it\nstands in unfavorable contrast with knowledge by inference. How can the\ninferred reality of the star be established, considering the\nsubjectivity of all perception?\n\nDewey is alert to the dangers which result from subjectivism, but does\nnot distinguish, as carefully as he might, between knowledge as\ninference, and knowledge as perceptual awareness. Thus, while it might\nbe granted that the subjective mind is a vicious abstraction, it does\nnot follow that Dewey's particular interpretation of the function of\ninference is correct. And, although the \"unwinking, unremitting eye\" of\nthe subjective knower might make experience merely a mental affair,\nthere is no reason to believe that the operation of inference in\nperception would lead to the same result, for inference and awareness\nare quite distinct, in historical meaning and function. It is, in fact,\na mere accident that inference and awareness (in the subjective sense)\nshould both be called knowledge.\n\nIn opposition to presentative realism, Dewey offers his 'naturalistic'\ninterpretation of knowledge.[253] He finds that the function of\ninference, \"although embodying the logical relation, is itself a natural\nand specifically detectable process among natural things--it is not a\nnon-natural or epistemological relation, that is, a relation to a mind\nor knower not in the natural series....\"[254] As has been observed,\nDewey is safe in maintaining that inference is _not_ an operation\nperformed by a subjective knower, but it does not follow from this that\nhis interpretation of inference is correct. In fact, a discussion of\ninference is irrelevant to the matters which Dewey is here considering.\n\nIn the second part of the essay, the discussion passes into a keen and\nrather clever recital of the difficulties that result from taking the\nknowledge relation to be 'ubiquitous.'[255] Since this relation is a\nconstant factor in experience, it would seem as if it might be\neliminated from philosophical calculations. The realist would be glad to\neliminate it, but the idealist is not so willing; for, \"since the point\nat issue is precisely the statement of the most universally defining\ntrait of existence as existence, the invitation deliberately to\ndisregard the most universal trait is nothing more or less than an\ninvitation to philosophic suicide.\"[256] It is, Dewey says, as if two\nphilosophers should set out to ascertain the relation which holds\nbetween an organism as 'eater' and the environment as 'food,' and one\nshould find the essential thing to be the food, the other the eating.\nThe 'foodists' would represent the realists, the 'eaterists' the\nidealists. No advance, he believes, can be made on this basis.\n\nIn opposition to the epistemologists, Dewey would consider the knowledge\nrelation not ubiquitous, but specific and occasional. As man bears other\nrelations to his environment than that of eater, so is he also something\nmore than a knower. \"If the one who is knower is, in relation to\nobjects, something else and more than their knower, and if objects are,\n_in relation to the one who knows them_, something else and other than\nthings in a knowledge relation, there is somewhat to define and\ndiscuss....\"[2] Dewey proposes to advance certain facts to support his\ncontention that knowing is \"a relation to things which depends upon\nother and more primary connections between a self and things; a relation\nwhich grows out of these more fundamental connections and which operates\nin their interests at specifiable crises.\"[257]\n\nThis brings the discussion back to familiar ground again, and nothing is\nadded to his previous statements of the functional conception of\nknowledge. While the realist (explicitly or implicitly) conceives the\nknowledge relation as obtaining between a subject knower and the\nexternal world, Dewey interprets the knowledge relation in terms of\norganism and environment. The 'ubiquity' of the knowledge relation is\ndisposed of, as has been seen, by conceiving knowledge from an entirely\ndifferent standpoint; by reducing all knowledge to inference, and\nabolishing the knowing subject. Dewey is plainly under the impression\nthat the only alternative to the ubiquitous knower is his naturalistic,\nbiological interpretation of the processes of inference.\n\nIn support of his naturalistic logic, Dewey argues as follows: (1) All\nperception involves reference to an organism. \"We might about as well\ntalk of the production of a specimen case of water as a presentation of\nwater to hydrogen as talk in the way we are only too accustomed to talk\nabout perceptions and the organism.\"[258] (2) Awareness is only a single\nphase of experience. We 'know' only a small part of the causes which\naffect us as agents. \"This means, of course, that things, the things\nthat come to be _known_, are primarily not objects of awareness, but\ncauses of weal and woe, things to get and things to avoid, means and\nobstacles, tools and results.\"[259] (3) Knowing is only a special phase\nof the behaver-enjoyer-sufferer situation, but very important as having\nto do with means for the practical and scientific control of the\nenvironment.\n\nIn the final analysis, it will be seen that Dewey refutes the realist by\nsubstituting inference for what the realist calls 'consciousness,' and\nsettling the issue by this triumph in the field of dialectics, rather\nthan by an appeal to the facts. Nowhere does Dewey do justice to those\nconcrete situations which, to the realist, seem to necessitate a\ndefinition of consciousness as awareness. His attitude toward the\nrealists may be summed up in the statement that he finds in most\nrealistic systems the fault to which his logical theory is especially\nopposed: the tendency to define the problem of logic as that of the\nrelation of thought at large to reality at large, and to distinguish the\ncontent of mind from the content of the world on an existential rather\nthan on a functional basis.\n\nOne of Dewey's more recent studies, \"The Logic of Judgments of\nPractise,\"[260] seems to add something positive to his interpretation of\nknowledge. A practical judgment, Dewey explains at the outset of this\nstudy, is differentiated from others, not by having a separate organ and\nsource, but by having a specific sort of subject-matter. It is concerned\nwith things to be done or situations demanding action. \"He had better\nconsult a physician,\" and \"It would be well for you to invest in these\nbonds,\" are examples of the practical judgment.\n\nThese propositions, as will be seen, are not cast in what the logician\ncalls logical form, with regular terms and copula. When put in that\nform, they seem to lose the direct reference to action which, Dewey\nsays, differentiates them from the 'descriptive' judgment of the form\n_S_ is _P_.[261] This apparently trivial matter is really important.\nAlthough every statement embodies judgment, some statements do not\nreflect the ground upon which they are asserted. In this condition they\nmay be viewed as opinions, suggestions, or guesses, looking towards\njudgment rather than reflecting its results. True judgment is occupied\nwith reasons, proofs, and grounds, and does not concern itself with\naction as action. Only when taken as the expression of an individual's\nattitude, do Dewey's practical judgments (or assertions) possess the\ndirect reference to action which he selects as their chief\ncharacteristic. The statement, \"You ought to invest in these bonds,\"\ndoes, indeed, suggest a specific action, but in so doing it loses its\ncharacter as a judgment. Put in more logical form, \"You are one of those\nwho should invest in these bonds,\" the proposition is more clearly the\nexpression of a judgment, and leads back to its premises. Attention\nturns from specific action as such to action as a typical or universal\nfact. In short, Dewey's practical judgment is not a true judgment; it\nwill be seen that it is studied, not as a logical, but as a\npsychological phenomenon.\n\nIn pursuance of his psychological method, Dewey discovers several\ninteresting facts about judgments of practice.(1) These judgments imply\nan incomplete situation,--concretely and specifically incomplete; they\nexpress a need. (2) The judgment is itself a factor in assisting toward\nthe completion of the situation, since it directs an action necessary to\nthe fulfilment of the need. (3) The subject-matter of the judgment\nexpresses the fact that one outcome is to be preferred to another. The\nelement of preference is peculiar to the practical judgment, for it is\nnot found in merely descriptive judgments, or those 'confined to the\ngiven.' (4) A practical judgment implies both means and end, the act\nthat completes, and the completeness. It is in this respect 'binary.'\n(5) The judgment of what is to be done demands an accurate statement of\nthe course of action to be pursued and the means to be employed, and\nthese are to be determined relatively to the end in view. (6) It finally\nappears that what is true of the practical judgment may be true of all\njudgments of fact; it may be held that \"all judgments of fact have\nreference to a determination of courses of action to be tried and the\ndiscovery of means for their attempted realization.\"[262]\n\nThis ingenious reading of functionalism out of the practical judgment\nis, after all, merely a drawing forth of the psychological implications\npreviously placed in it. That judgment is an instrument for completing a\nsituation; that it is linked up with action through desire and\npreference; that it seeks to determine the means for effecting a\npractical outcome,--these typically instrumental notions are of one\npiece with the system of belief that led Dewey to hit upon the practical\njudgment as the embodiment of a direction to action. It is important to\ndistinguish between the logical and the psychological aspects of these\npropositions. Action as psychological is one thing; as the\nsubject-matter of judgment, it is another. In coming to a decision as to\nhow to act, the agent sets his proposed action over against himself, and\nconsiders it in its universal and typical character. His motor\ntendencies, his feelings, his desires factor in the situation\npsychologically considered; but they do not enter judgment as\npsychological facts, but rather, if at all, as data which have a\nsignificance beyond their mere particularity. Dewey remains at the\npsychological standpoint, giving no attention to the genuinely logical\naspects of his 'judgments of practice.'\n\nFrom the study of the practical judgment, Dewey passes on to a\nconsideration of judgments of value, proposing to maintain that \"value\njudgments are a species of practical judgments.\"[263] There will be a\ndistinct gain for moral and economic theory, he believes, in treating\nvalue as concerned with acts necessary to complete a given\nneed-situation. There is no obvious reason why Dewey should pass to the\npragmatic theory of value through the medium of the practical judgment,\nsince it could be directly considered on its own account. At any rate,\nthe discussion of value judgments which follows must stand on its own\nmerits; it has no vital relation to what precedes.\n\nIt is, as usual, the psychological characteristics of the value judgment\nthat attract Dewey's attention. Any process of judgment, according to\nhis analysis, deals with a specific subject-matter, not from the\nstandpoint of any objective quality it may possess, but with reference\nto its functional capacity. \"Relative, or comparative, durability,\ncheapness, suitability, style, esthetic attractiveness [_e. g._, in a\nsuit of clothes] constitute value traits. They are traits of objects not\n_per se_, but _as entering into a possible and foreseen completing of\nthe situation_. Their value is their force in precisely this\nfunction.\"[264]\n\nAttention should not be distracted from this interpretation of value,\nDewey warns, through confusing the value sought with the price or market\nvalue of the goods. Price values, like the qualities and patterns of the\ngoods, are data which must be considered in making the judgment, but\nthey are not the values which the judgment seeks. The value to be\ndetermined is here, is specific, and must be established by reference to\nthe specific or psychological situation as it presents itself.\n\nIt is true, as Dewey says, that in judgment a value is being established\nwhich has not been determined previously. But it must be insisted that\nthis value is not estimated by reference to the specific situation in\nits limited aspects. The weight of the past bears against the moment;\nthe act of judgment bases itself upon knowledge objective and\nsubstantial; the test of the value of the thing is its place and\nfunction, not in the here and now, but in the whole system of\nexperience. Dewey has excluded the reference of the thing to objective,\norganized reality, by specifying that its value shall be decided upon\nwith reference to a specific situation. This limitation of the judgment\nsituation is imposed upon it from without, and from a special point of\nview,--that of functional psychology. Every object and every situation\nhas its quality of uniqueness and particularity; but the judgment, as\njudgment, is not concerned with this aspect of things. Judgment seizes\nupon the generic aspect of objects; this kind of a suit of clothes is\nthe kind that is appropriate to this type of situation. The movement of\njudgment is objective and universal, not subjective and psychological.\n\nDewey finds one alternative especially opposed to his 'specific'\njudgment of value; that is, the proposition that evaluation involves a\ncomparison of the present object with some fixed standard. When the\nfixed standard is investigated, it is found to depend on something else,\nand this on something else again in an infinite regress. Finally, the\n_Summum Bonum_, as the absolute end term of such a _regressus_, turns\nout to be a fiction. Dewey is quite right in maintaining that value is\nnot something eternally fixed. This does not, however, remove the\npossibility of 'real' value, as opposed to mere expediency.\n\nValue as established, Dewey continues, must be taken into consideration\nin making a value judgment. At the same time, it will not do to accept\nthe established value from mere force of habit. Ultimately, he finds,\nall genuine valuation implies a degree of revaluation. \"To many,\" he\nobserves, \"it will appear to be a survival of an idealistic\nepistemology,\"[265] presumably because it implies a real change in\nreality, as opposed to a fixed and rigid order of external reality. But\npractical judgments, Dewey says, as having reference to proposed acts,\nnecessarily look toward some proposed change which the act is to effect.\nIt is not in an epistemological, but in a practical sense, that judgment\ninvolves a change in values.\n\nThe outcome of the discussion so far, Dewey believes, is to show, first\nof all, that \"the passage of a proposition into action is not a miracle,\nbut the realization of its own character--its own meaning as\nlogical,\"[266] and, in the second place, to suggest that all judgments,\nnot merely practical ones, may have their import in reference to some\ndifference to be brought about through action.\n\nIn the third part of the essay, Dewey's discussion leads him back to\nsense perceptions as forms of practical judgment. There is no doubt, in\nhis mind, that many perceptions do have an import for action. Not merely\nsign-posts, and familiar symbols of the kind, but many perceptions\nlacking this obvious reference, have a significance for conduct. It must\nnot, of course, be supposed that all perception, at any one time, has\ncognitive properties; for some of the perceptions have esthetic, and\nother non-cognitive properties. Only certain elements of a situation\nhave the function of cognition.\n\nDewey goes on to say that care must be taken in the use made of these\nsign-functions in connection with inference. \"There is a great\ndifference between saying that the perception of a shape affords an\nindication of how to act and saying that the perception of shape is\nitself an inference.\"[267] No judgment, Dewey seems to imply, is\ninvolved in responding to the motor cue furnished by a familiar object.\nAgain, the common idea that present perception consists of sensations as\nimmediate, plus inferred images, implies that every perception involves\ninference. But the merging of sensations and images in perception can be\nexplained naturally, by the fusion of nervous processes, and no\nsupplementary (transcendental) act of mind is needed to explain the\nintegrity of experience.\n\nThe tendency to take perception as the object of knowledge, Dewey\ncontinues, instead of as simply cognitive, a term in knowledge, is due\nto two chief causes. The first is that in practical judgments the\npointing of the thing towards action is so universal a trait as to be\noverlooked, and the second is that signs, because of their importance,\nbecome objects of study on their own account, and in this condition\ncease to function directly as cognitive. Dewey means, apparently, that\nbecause the cognitive aspect of things is never attended to except when\nthey are 'known,' or treated as objects of judgment, there is a tendency\nto suppose that they always have the character that pertains to them as\n'known' things.\n\nAgain, Dewey says, perception may be translated as the effect of a cause\nthat produced it. But the cause does not ordinarily appear in\nexperience, and the perceptions, as effects, remain isolated from the\nsystem of things. Truth and error then become matters of the relation of\nthe perception to its cause. The difficulties attendant upon this view\ncan be avoided by taking sense perceptions as terms in practical\njudgments. Here the 'other term' which is sought is the action proposed\nby the perception. \"To borrow an illustration of Professor Woodbridge's:\nA certain sound indicates to the mother that her baby needs attention.\nIf there is error it is not because the sound ought to mean so many\nvibrations of the air, while as matter of fact it doesn't even suggest\nair vibrations, but because there is wrong inference as to the act to be\nperformed.\"[268] The idea is tested, not by its correspondence with some\nformal reality, but by its ability to lead up to the experience to which\nit points.\n\nFrom the consideration of error as cognitive, Dewey passes on to\nconsider its status as primitive sense data. He draws a distinction\nbetween sensation as psychological and as logical. Ordinary sensation,\njust as it comes, is often too confused to serve as a basis for\ninference. \"It has often been pointed out that sense qualities being\njust what they are, it is illegitimate to introduce such notions as\nobscurity or confusion into them: a slightly illuminated color is just\nas irretrievably what it is, as clearly itself, as an object in the\nbroad glare of noon-day.\"[269] But when a confused object is made a\ndatum for inference, its confusion is just the thing to be got rid of.\nIt is broken up by analysis into simple elements, and the psychologist's\nsensations are logical products, not psychological facts. \"Locke writes\na mythology of the history of knowledge, starting from clear and\ndistinct meanings, each simple, well-defined, sharply and unambiguously\njust what it is on its face, without concealments and complications, and\nproceeds by 'natural' compoundings up to the store of complex ideas, and\nthe perception of simple relations of agreement among ideas: a\nperception always certain if the ideas are simple, and always\ncontrollable in the case of the complex ideas if we consider the simple\nideas and connections by which they are reached. Thus he established the\nhabit of taking logical discriminations as historical or psychological\nprimitives--as 'sources' of beliefs and knowledge instead of as checks\nupon inference.\"[270] This way of treating perception found its way into\npsychology and into empirical logic. The acceptance of the doctrine that\nall sense involves knowledge, Dewey believes, leads to an\nepistemological logic; but all perception must involve thought if the\n'given' is the simple sensation.\n\nThere is nothing especially new in this critique of sensationalism.\nHistorically, sensationalism had been displaced by idealism, and the\nidea that reality is a construct of ideas held together by logical\nrelations was given up long before functionalism arrived on the scene.\nBut if inference, or rationality, is not present in all experience as\nthe combiner of simple into complex ideas, it may be present in some\nother form, even more vital. Dewey, however, does not consider such\npossibilities.\n\nFinally, in an article of slightly earlier date than the studies which\nhave just been considered, Dewey returns to a consideration of\nmetaphysics, and the possibility of a metaphysical standpoint in\nphilosophy. This article, entitled \"The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical\nInquiry,\"[271] deserves careful notice.\n\nThe comments of a number of mechanistic biologists on vitalism furnish\nthe point of departure for Dewey's discussion. These scientists hold\nthat, if the organism is considered simply as a part of external nature,\nas an existing system, it can be satisfactorily analyzed by the methods\nof physico-chemical science. But if the question of ultimate origins is\nraised, if it be asked _why_ nature exhibits certain innate\npotentialities for producing life, science can give no answer. These\nquestions belong to metaphysics, and vitalistic or biocentric\nconceptions may be valid in the metaphysical sphere.\n\nThis raises the question of the nature of metaphysical inquiry. Dewey\nsays that the ultimate traits or tendencies which give rise to life need\nnot necessarily be considered ultimate in a temporal sense. On the\ncontrary, they may be viewed as permanent, 'irreducible traits,' which\nare ultimate in the sense of being always present in reality. The\ninquiry and search for these ultimate traits is what constitutes valid\nmetaphysics. \"They are found equally and indifferently whether a\nsubject-matter in question be dated 1915 or ten million years B. C.\nAccordingly, they would seem to deserve the name of ultimate, or\nirreducible, traits. As such they may be made the object of a kind of\ninquiry differing from that which deals with the genesis of a particular\ngroup of existences, a kind of inquiry to which the name metaphysical\nmay be given.\"[272]\n\nThe irreducible traits which Dewey finds are, in the physical sciences,\nplurality, interaction, and change. \"These traits have to be begged or\ntaken in any case,\" for wherever and whenever we take the world, we must\nexplain it as \"a plurality of diverse interacting and changing\nexistences.\"[273] The evolutionary sciences add another trait; that is,\nevolution, or development in a direction. \"For evolution appears to be\njust one of the irreducible traits. In other words, it is a fact to be\nreckoned with in considering the traits of diversity, interaction, and\nchange which have been enumerated as among the traits taken for granted\nin all scientific subject-matter.\"[274]\n\nThe doctrine that plurality, interaction, change, and evolution are\npermanent traits of reality gains in clearness when contrasted with the\nopposed theories which involve creation, absolute origins, or temporal\nultimates. The term 'ultimate origins' may be taken in a merely relative\nsense which is valid. The French language has an origin in the Latin\ntongues, which is an ultimate origin for French, but this is not an\nabsolutely ultimate origin, since the Latin tongues, in their turn,\nhave origins. It is, for instance, meaningless to inquire into the\nultimate origin of the world as a whole; and it is equally futile to\ntrace any part of the world back to an absolute origin. \"That scientific\ninquiry does not itself deal with any question of ultimate origins,\nexcept in the purely relative sense already indicated, is, of course,\nrecognized. But it also seems to follow from what has been said that\nscientific inquiry does not generate, or leave over, such a question for\nsome other discipline, such as metaphysics, to deal with.\"[275]\n\nTheories like that of Laplace, for instance, trace the world back to an\norigin in some undifferentiated universe; or, in Spencer's terms, some\nstate of homogeneity. From this original state the world is said to\nevolve. But the undifferentiated mass lacks the plurality, interaction,\nand change which are presupposed in all scientific explanation. These\ntraits must be present before development can occur. \"To get change we\nhave to assume other structures which interact with it, existences not\ncovered by the formula.\"[276] In short, although Dewey only implies\nthis, all scientific explanation presupposes a system of interacting\nparts; nothing can be explained by reference to an undifferentiated\nworld which lacks such traits.\n\nDewey is particularly interested in the origin of mind or intelligence.\nIn dealing with mind, he says, we must begin with the present, and in\nthe present we find that the world has an organization, \"in spots,\" of\nthe kind we call intelligence. This existing intelligence cannot be\nexplained by any theory which reduces it to something inferior. The\n\"attempt to give an account of any occurrence involves the genuine and\nirreducible existence of the thing dealt with.\"[277] Mind cannot be\nexplained by being explained away, nor can it be explained as a\ndevelopment out of an original source in which the potentiality, or\ndirection of change towards mind, was lacking.\n\nThe evolution of things, Dewey says, is a real fact, and is to be\nreckoned with. Moreover, if everything that exists changes, then the\nevolution of life and mind surely have a bearing on the nature of\nphysico-chemical things. They must have in them the trait of direction\nof change towards life and mind. \"To say, accordingly, that the\nexistence of vital, intellectual, and social organization makes\nimpossible a purely mechanistic metaphysics is to say something which\nthe situation calls for.\"[278] In other words, the world, metaphysically\nconsidered, must have evolution, as well as the physico-chemical traits.\n\"Without a doctrine of evolution we might be able to say, not that\nmatter _caused_ life, but that matter under certain conditions of highly\ncomplicated and intensified interaction is living. With the doctrine of\nevolution, we can add to this statement that the interactions and\nchanges of matter are themselves of a kind to bring about that complex\nand intensified interaction which is life.\"[279] Dewey holds that\nevolution rests upon the reality of time: \"time itself, or genuine\nchange in a specific direction, is itself one of the ultimate traits of\nthe world irrespective of date.\"[280]\n\nThis article presents on the whole a distinct advance over the position\ntaken in the earlier essay, \"Some Implications of Anti-Intellectualism,\"\nwhich was reviewed in the last chapter. Dewey is not now, to be sure,\ninstituting a wholesale inquiry into the nature of being, but he betrays\nan interest in the general, as opposed to the specific traits of\nreality. He inquires into the real nature of the world, and believes\nthat he discovers its ultimate traits. This essay, of course, is\nincomplete, and consequently indefinite in certain important respects.\nIt may be said, nevertheless, to give an accurate view of the\nmetaphysical back-ground against which all of Dewey's theories are\nprojected. His metaphysics, as would be expected, are evolutionary\nthroughout, and evolution is conceived, where he is at all definite, in\nbiological terms.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[249] _Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, Introduction, p. iv.\n\n[250] Vol. VIII: \"I. Naive Realism _vs._ Presentative Realism,\" pp.\n393-400. \"II. Epistemological Realism: The Alleged Ubiquity of the\nKnowledge Relation,\" pp. 546-554.\n\n[251] _Op. cit._, p. 395.\n\n[252] _Ibid._, p. 397.\n\n[253] In this connection Dewey's disagreements with Professor McGilvary\nare of especial interest. See especially McGilvary's article, \"Pure\nExperience and Reality\" (_Philosophical Review_, Vol. XVI, 1907, pp.\n266-284) and Dewey's reply, together with McGilvary's rejoinder\n(_Ibid._, pp. 419-424). McGilvary failed to understand that Dewey's\nargument was conducted on a purely 'naturalistic' basis, an almost\ninevitable error, in view of Dewey's practical identification of\npsychology, biology, and logic.\n\n[254] _Ibid._, p. 399.\n\n[255] Dewey is here dealing with the 'epistemological' realists, among\nwhom he includes such writers as Bertrand Russell. In an article\nentitled \"The Existence of the World as a Problem\" (_Philosophical\nReview_, Vol. XXIV, 1915, pp. 357-370), Dewey argues that Russell, in\nmaking a problem of the existence of the external world, implies its\nexistence in his formulation of the problem. Dewey argues that, since\nthe existence of the world is presupposed in every such formulation, it\ncannot be called in question. This is like disposing of Zeno's paradox\non the ground that arrows fly anyway.\n\n[256] _Op. cit._, p. 548.\n\n[257] _Ibid._\n\n[258] _Op. cit._\n\n[259] _Ibid._, p. 553.\n\n[260] _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol.\nXII, 1915. Parts I and II, pp. 505-523; Part III, pp. 533-543.\n\n[261] _Ibid._, p. 506.\n\n[262] _Op. cit._, p. 511.\n\n[263] _Op. cit._, p. 514.\n\n[264] _Ibid._, p. 515.\n\n[265] _Op. cit._, p. 521.\n\n[266] _Op. cit._, p. 522 f.\n\n[267] _Ibid._, p. 536.\n\n[268] _Op. cit._, p. 538.\n\n[269] _Ibid._, p. 540.\n\n[270] _Op. cit._, p. 541.\n\n[271] _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol.\nXII, 1915, pp. 337-345.\n\n[272] _Op. cit._, p. 340.\n\n[273] _Ibid._\n\n[274] _Ibid._, p. 345.\n\n[275] _Op. cit._, p. 339.\n\n[276] _Ibid._, p. 343.\n\n[277] _Ibid._, p. 344.\n\n[278] _Op. cit._, p. 345.\n\n[279] _Ibid._\n\n[280] _Ibid._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCONCLUSIONS\n\n\nDewey's interest as a philosopher centres, from first to last, upon\nknowledge and the knowing process. All that is vital in his ethical,\nsocial, and educational theories depends ultimately upon the special\ninterpretation of the function of knowledge which constitutes his chief\nclaim to philosophical distinction. Dewey's logical theory, as has been\nseen, was the natural and inevitable outcome of his demand for an\nempirical and 'psychological' description of thought as a\n'transformatory' process working actual changes in reality. If in the\nbeginning of his career he found the problem of the nature of knowledge\nall-important for his own interests, he came in the end to regard it as\nthe problem of problems for all philosophers. There is no mistaking\nDewey's conviction that the special interpretation of knowledge which he\nadvocates opens the door to important advances in philosophical\nspeculation, while it ends all discussion of those pseudo-problems which\nresult from a false, epistemological formulation of the function of\nknowledge.\n\nThe history of the development of Dewey's thought, set forth in the\npreceding chapters, does not pretend to furnish an adequate estimate of\nhis philosophical system. The two questions, of origin and worth, are,\nafter all, distinct. The genetic account of Dewey's theory of knowledge\nmay serve to make its bearings and implications better understood, may\nreveal its deeper meaning and import, but the final estimate of its\nvalue as a philosophical hypothesis depends on other considerations. In\nthis final chapter, it is proposed to deal with the question of the\npositive value of functionalism as a working hypothesis. This criticism\nmay also serve to gather together the threads of criticism and comment\nwhich run through the previous chapters, and reveal the general ground\nupon which the writer's opposition to Dewey's theory is based.\n\nThere can be no question that Dewey's theory of knowledge rests,\nfinally, upon the doctrine of 'immediate empiricism;' upon his belief in\n\"the necessity of employing in philosophy the direct descriptive method\nthat has now made its way in all the natural sciences....\"[281] This\ndoctrine is clearly stated in the first essay reviewed in this study,\n\"The Psychological Standpoint\" (1886). To quote again from that essay:\n\"The psychological standpoint as it has developed itself is this: all\nthat is, is for consciousness or knowledge. The business of the\npsychologist is to give a genetic account of the various elements within\nthis consciousness, and thereby fix their place, determine their\nvalidity, and at the same time show definitely what the real and eternal\nnature of this consciousness is.\"[282] The descriptive method here\nadvocated does not differ, as an actual mode of procedure, from that of\nDewey's later empiricism. It lies at the basis of all his speculation,\nearlier as well as later, and is undoubtedly the most important single\nelement in his philosophical system.\n\nIn \"The Psychological Standpoint\" Dewey ascribes the failure of the\nearlier empiricists to their desertion of the direct descriptive method\n(a criticism repeated frequently in later essays). Locke, for instance,\ninstead of describing experience as it actually occurs, interprets it in\nterms of certain assumed simple sensations, the products of reflection.\nThese non-experienced elements, Dewey believes, have no place in a\npurely empirical philosophy.\n\nBut the empiricist must deal in some manner with the products of\nreflection. The atoms of chemistry and the elements of the psychologist\nare not experienced facts, but still they play a valuable, indispensable\nrole in the technique of the sciences. What is to be done with them? It\nmust be made to appear that they are valid within knowledge, but invalid\nelsewhere. This leads to a separation of knowing from other modes of\nexperiencing, and the descriptive method is depended upon to maintain\nthe empirical validity of the separation. It has been seen how Dewey's\nattempt to interpret knowledge led gradually to a distinction between\nthe 'cognitional' and the 'non-cognitional' processes of experience.\n\nThe completed theory of knowledge depends for its validity upon the\ndistinction thus established between knowing (as reflective thought) and\nthe practical attitudes of life. The concepts, elements, and other\napparatus of reflection are employed, it is said, only when there is\nthinking,--and this is only occasionally. Theory is an instrument to be\nused in connection with that special activity, reflective thought, the\ngeneral aim of which is the furtherance of the practical ends of life.\n\nOne fairly obvious difficulty with this separation of reflection from\nthe other life activities is that the 'direct descriptive method,' as\nhere employed, is itself reflective. How does it come, then, that this\nparticular method achieves such an effective hegemony over the other\nmodes of reflection? The 'descriptive method,' as the method of pure\nexperience, is made to determine or supplant all other methods. It\ndefines the limits and aims of conceptual systems; it marks out the\nlimits, aims, and tests of reflective thought in general. How, it may be\nasked, does the 'direct descriptive method' escape the limitations which\nit imposes upon the other forms of reflective thought?\n\nIt has been seen that in Dewey's view logic is subsidiary to psychology.\nBut psychology (his psychology) results from the application of the\n'descriptive method' to experience. The 'descriptive method,' it may be\ninferred from this, is not subject to logical criticism. On the\ncontrary, it is the basis of all logic. Logic, as the criticism of\ncategories, is confined to the study of the instrumental concepts as\nfunctioning within the knowledge experience, and its limits are set by\ndescriptive psychology. There is, apparently, no means by which the\n'direct descriptive method' can itself be brought under criticism.\n\nDewey says: \"By our postulate, things are what they are experienced to\nbe; and, unless knowing is the sole and only genuine mode of\nexperiencing, it is fallacious to say that Reality is just and\nexclusively what it is or would be to an all-competent all-knower; or\neven that it _is_, relatively and piece-meal, what it is to a finite and\npartial knower.\"[283] Reality is not simply what it is known as, for it\nis experienced in other ways than by being known. \"But I venture to\nrepeat that ... the inferential factor must _exist_, or must occur, and\nthat all existence is direct and vital, so that philosophy can pass upon\nits nature--as upon the nature of all of the rest of its\nsubject-matter--only by first ascertaining what it exists or occurs\n_as_.\"[284]\n\nReflection, then, is not designed to furnish an insight into the nature\nof things. Acquaintance with reality must be obtained, not by reflecting\nupon it, but by describing it as it occurs. Whatever else this may mean,\nit certainly aims at demonstrating the superiority of description to the\nsupposedly less effective modes of thought. It cannot be conceded,\nhowever, that 'description,' as employed by Dewey, is non-reflective, or\nsuper-reflective. If things are not what they are known as, then they\nare not what they are known as to a describer. The point of this\nobjection will be obvious if it is remembered that it is the method of\n'direct description' which enables Dewey to distinguish between the\n'cognitional' and the 'non-cognitional' activities of life, and make\nthought the servant of action. If Dewey's descriptive method is not\nreflective, then there is no such thing as reflection.\n\nPassing for the moment from this criticism, which is not apt to be\nconvincing in such abstract form, it may be well to consider for a time\nthe psychology upon which Dewey's logical theory is grounded: the\npsychology which is established by the 'direct descriptive method.'\n\nFrom the standpoint of the nervous correlates of experience, Dewey's\ntheory involves two postulates: first, that customary conduct is carried\non by an habitual set of nervous adjustments, and, second, that\nreflection is a process whereby new reactions are established when\nhabitual modes of response fail to meet a critical situation.\n\nIt must be clearly recognized that, so far as the nervous system is\nconcerned, the scheme is highly speculative. The advance made by\nphysiology towards an analysis and understanding of the minute and\nspecialized parts of the nervous organism has necessarily been slow and\nuncertain. Whatever plausibility Dewey's theory possesses must depend,\nnot upon the technical results of neurology, but upon the external\nevidence which seems to justify some such scheme of nervous\norganization.\n\nAn examination of this evidence shows that it falls under two main\nheads: (1) facts drawn from the observation of the outward behavior of\nthe organism, and (2) facts derived from an introspective analysis of\nthe thought-process.\n\nThe study of behavior shows that man thinks only now and then. Most of\nhis conduct is, literally, thoughtless. It is said that thought is\noutwardly manifested by a characteristic attitude, marked by hesitation\nand an obvious effort at adjustment. The introspective analysis of the\nthought-process shows that it alone, among experiences, is accompanied\nby analysis, abstraction, and mediation. Again, both the internal and\nexternal evidence show that a puzzling situation (whose nervous\ncorrelate is a conflict of impulses) is the stimulus which awakens\nthought. These are important items in the list of evidence which\nsupports the functional theory.\n\nIt would be a tedious and unnecessary task to subject each of these bits\nof evidence to empirical criticism. It will be better to deal with them\nby showing that they do not necessarily imply functionalism, since they\nare compatible with a psychology directly opposed to the fundamental\nassumptions of Dewey's theory.\n\nIt is doubtless true that men think only occasionally and with some\nreluctance. This is a common observation. What is to be made of this\nintermittance of thought? The evidence merely shows that man is more\nwide awake, energetic, and alert at some times than at others. On these\noccasions every faculty of the organism is in operation, higher as well\nas lower centres are pitched to a high degree of responsiveness, not at\nhap-hazard, to be sure, but _apropos_--tuned to the situation. In saying\nthat men think only now and then nothing more is necessarily implied\nthan that men are for the most part sluggish and indifferent, and the\nperiods of high intensification of the normal processes contrast sharply\nwith the habitual lethargy of conduct.\n\nAgainst Dewey, it will be maintained here that thought cannot be\ndefined as a special kind of activity considered from the side of the\norganism. The life processes are constantly welded into a single unified\nactivity, which may, as a whole, be directed upon different objects.\nThus, from the side of its objects, this life activity may be called\neating, running, reading, and whatever else one chooses. Thinking, from\nthis standpoint, may be defined as the direction of effort upon symbols\nand abstract terms. But thinking in this case would be identified on the\nbasis of its content, not in terms of special nervous activities in the\norganism. Whether, therefore, thinking signifies that intense periodical\nactivity which has been noted, or preoccupation with a certain kind of\nsubject-matter, it in no case implies the operation of a special organic\nfaculty of the type described by Dewey.\n\nBut, again, it is said that true reflection is marked by a certain\ncharacteristic bodily attitude, which bespeaks inner conflict and a\nsearch for adjustment. This contention seems to have little ground in\nfact. The puzzled, hesitating, undecided expression that is usually\nsupposed to betray deep cogitation may in fact mean simply hesitation\nand bewilderment,--the need for thought, rather than its presence. The\nexpression reveals a certain degree of incompetence and sluggishness in\nthe individual concerned, and signifies a lack of wide-awakeness and\nresponsiveness. A student puzzling over his algebra, a speaker\nextemporizing an argument, a ball-player using all his resources to\ndefeat the enemy, have attitudes so unlike that no analysis could\ndiscover in them a common form of expression. And yet it would be\nmadness to deny that thinking attends their various performances. There\nis, in short, no evidence from the side of bodily expression to indicate\nthe presence in man of a special nervous faculty called reflection.\n\nConsider next the contention that the cue to thought is a puzzling\nsituation, involving a problem. No problem, no thought; no thought, no\nproblem. This may mean either that a man finding himself in a difficult\nsituation uses all his energy and resource to escape from it, or, that\nhe never concerns himself with abstract symbols except under the spur of\nnecessity. The former meaning contains some truth, but the latter is\nwhat Dewey would call a 'dark saying.' If by 'thought' be meant that\nperiod of high activity of all the faculties which is only occasional,\nit is doubtless true enough that a problem is frequently needed to\nawaken it. Man is content to let life glide along with a minimum of\neffort; he cannot, if he would, long maintain the state of high activity\nhere called 'thinking.' As a consequence of not thinking when he should,\nman frequently finds himself involved in situations requiring the\nexercise of all the energy and resource he possesses. But the really\nefficient 'thinker' is the man who keeps his eyes open, who sees ahead.\nHe is not efficient merely because of the excellence of his established\nmodes of response, but, more particularly, because he is alive and\nalert. His thinking is effective in preventing difficult situations, as\nwell as in getting out of them.\n\nDefining 'thought,' however, as the direction of activity upon symbols\nand conceptions, there seems to be little warrant for asserting that it\nfunctions only on the occasion of a concrete, specific problem. One\nwould say, on the contrary, that this would be an unfavorable occasion\nfor the study of fundamental principles, whether scientific or\npractical. Summing up the external evidence, then, one would say that it\naccords as well with the hypothesis that the life processes constitute a\nsingle activity directed upon various objects, as with the hypothesis\nthat thought is a very special organic activity, having a special\nbiological function. At least, the evidence for the existence of such a\nspecial faculty is dubious and uncertain.\n\nWhat does the internal evidence prove? The analysis of thought contained\nin James's chapter on \"Reasoning\" in the _Principles of Psychology_ has\nbeen the guide for Dewey and other pragmatists in this connection.[285]\nJames undertakes to show that reasoning is marked off from other\nprocesses by the employment of analysis, abstraction, and the use of\nmediating terms. It must be urged here, not only against James, but\nagainst a considerable modern tradition, that this account of thinking\nis misleading and inaccurate. The question to be faced, of course, is\nwhether the processes of thought differ radically from the\nnon-reflective processes _in kind_, or whether they are simply the\nintensification of processes which attend all conscious life. It should\nbe noted that no concession is made to the notion that thinking is a\nspecial kind of process; only its subject-matter is special, or else\nthought is simply a period of wide-awakeness and alertness. In the\nlatter sense, thought involves an intensification of the powers of\nobservation, an awakening of memory, a general stimulation of all the\nfaculties. It calls for the fullest possible apprehension, demands the\nmost complete insight into the nature of the situation that the\ncapacities can provide. The contrast between the adequate view of\nreality achieved in this manner and the common and inadequate\napprehension of ordinary life is very great, and might easily lead to\nthe supposition that thinking (so understood) contains elements which\nare added through the activities of a special nerve process.\n\nBut is it only in such moments that we deliberately resolve a situation\ninto its elements, and abstract an 'essence' to serve as a middle term\nin inference? It is certain that at such moments these processes are\nmore distinct than at other times; but the whole situation, for that\nmatter, stands out more clearly and distinctly. Perception is keener,\nmemory more definite, feeling more intense. In less degree, however, all\nattention involves analysis and abstraction. Experience has always a\nfocus and a margin; there is a constant selecting and analyzing out of\nimportant elements, which in turn lead to further conclusions and acts,\nthrough associations by contiguity and similarity. This process appears\nin an intensified form in the high moments of life. In short, thought\nand passive perception are differentiated, not by the elements which\ncompose them, but by the degree of energy that goes into perception,\nmemory, feeling, and discrimination. There is nothing in the evidence to\nshow that thinking is a special kind of activity, which operates now and\nthen. On the contrary, there is every reason to hold to the position\nthat the life processes are one and inseparable, operating continually\nin conjunction.\n\nWhat shall be said, then, with reference to the assertion that thought\noperates in the interests of the non-cognitive life processes? That it\ncomes 'after something and for the sake of something,' namely, 'direct'\nexperience? Since the separation of the activities into various\n'functions' cannot be allowed, by occasional thought must then be meant\nthose moments of energetic aliveness described above. Translating,\nDewey's theory would read something like this: Man employs his faculties\nto the fullest extent only when he is compelled to do so. He gets along\nhabitually, that is, with a minimum of effort, as long as he can, but\nrouses himself and makes an earnest effort to comprehend the world only\nwhen his environment presents him with difficulties which demand\nsolution. The test of man's thinking consists in its efficiency in\ngetting him out of trouble, and enabling him to return to his habitual\nmodes of sub-conscious conduct with a minimum of annoyance. In short,\nthinking is an instrument which subserves man's natural laziness, and\nits test is the efficiency with which it promotes an easy, or, at any\nrate, a satisfactory mode of existence.\n\nNo doubt some men, perhaps many men, do follow such a programme; but it\nwould not be kind to Nature to assert that she planned it so.\n\nThis separation of the activities of life into several distinct\nprocesses having each a special function looks like a survival of the\nold faculty psychology, against which modern thought has protested as\nmuch as against anything whatever. The conception of the organic\nprocesses as separate in action has all the faults of a merely\nmechanical representation of consciousness. Doubtless some advantage is\nto be obtained, for purposes of investigation, by treating thought,\nappreciation, and affection separately; but it is a serious error to\ntake this provisional distinction as real. It is a curious fact that\nDewey, with all his opposition to such modes of procedure, himself falls\ninto this abstract way of treating the 'functions' of experience, seeing\nnot the beam that is in his own eye.\n\nIt is this very form of treatment, strangely enough, which enables Dewey\nto call biology to the support of his interpretation of the function of\nknowledge. According to the Darwinian theory, survival of the species is\ndependent upon the development of special structures and capacities\nwhich enable the organism to adjust itself to its environment. Dewey\nfinds, following a familiar argument, that the lower animals are adapted\nto their environment by special habits of reaction which are relatively\nfixed and inelastic. Man, on the contrary, has an exceedingly plastic\nnervous system, which enables him to meet changing conditions. Man is\nnot only highly adapted, but highly adaptable. This trait of plasticity,\nor adaptability, Dewey believes, is a product of natural selection, and,\nof course, in the final analysis, this high degree of plasticity is the\nthought function.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to say that this treatment of thought is highly\nspeculative. Dewey offers little concrete evidence to support his\nposition; indeed, it would require the labor of a Darwin to supply the\nneeded evidence. Instead of grounding his theories upon the results of\nscience, Dewey adapts the ever elastic 'evolutionary method' (not really\nthat of biological evolution, however indeterminate) to his own scheme\nof things. It would be hard to discover in philosophical literature a\nmethod more purely theoretical and even dialectical than that whereby\nDewey gives his logical theory the support of evolutionary theory.\n\nThe ultimately mechanical tendencies of his argument are conspicuous, in\nspite of all disclaimers. The effect of his analysis is to set\nplasticity or adaptability off by itself, as a special trait or feature\nof the nervous system. The lower forms of life are governed, we are\ntold, by fixed reflexes, and the trait of adaptability appears at some\nhigher stage in the process as a superadded capacity of the nervous\nsystem, correlated, no doubt, with special nervous structures.\nEvolutionism would not serve Dewey so well, had he not previously made\nthis separation between the organic functions and their correlated\nstructures; but, given this abstract treatment of the life processes, he\nis able to make the doctrine of selection contribute to its support. In\nopposition to Dewey's argument, it would be reasonable to contend that\nplasticity is inherent in all nervous substance. The higher organisms\nare more adaptable, because there is more to be modified in them,--more\nnerves and synapses, more pliability. There is no sound empirical reason\nfor accepting Dewey's biological conclusions.\n\nTaking Dewey's theory at its face value,--and it would be presumptuous\nto search for hidden meanings,--its net result is to place the function\nof knowing in an embarrassing situation with respect to its capacity for\ngiving a correct report of reality. Dewey expressly denies, indeed, that\nthe purpose of knowing is to give an account of the nature of things.\nReality, he asserts, is whatever it is 'experienced as being,' and it is\nnormally experienced in other ways than by being known. The nature of\nreality is not hidden behind a veil, to be searched out; but is here and\nnow, as it comes and goes in the form of passing experience. Knowing is\ndesigned to transform experience, not to bring it within the survey of\nconsciousness.\n\nHow does it stand, then, with Dewey's own account of the knowledge\nprocess? He has reflected upon experience, and claims to have given a\ncorrect account of its nature. Dewey's conception of the processes of\nexperience is genuinely conceptual, a thought product, designed to\nfurnish a solid basis for belief and calculation. But reflection, by his\nown account, is shut in to its own moment, cannot apprehend the true\nnature of 'non-cognitional' experiences, and cannot, therefore, deal\nadequately with any problems except such as are furnished it by other\n'functions.' No wonder that 'anti-intellectualism' should result from\nsuch a conception of knowledge.\n\nPhilosophers have always held that the purpose of reflection (whatever\nreflection may be, psychologically) is the attainment of a reliable\ninsight into the nature of the world. Practical considerations compel\nthis view. Ordinary, casual observation is superficial and unsystematic;\nit never penetrates beneath the surface. Doubtless reality is, in some\ndegree, what it is in unreflective moments; but it is frequently\nsomething more, as man learns to his sorrow. Reflection displaces the\ncasual, haphazard attitude, in the attempt to get at the real nature of\nthe world.\n\nThe results of reflection, moreover, are cumulative. It tends to build\nup, by gradual accretions, a conceptual view of reality which may serve\nas a relatively stable basis for conduct and calculation. Thought does,\nindeed, possess a transforming function. The reasoned knowledge of\nthings is gradually extended beyond the occasional moments of inquiring\nthought, supplanting the casual view with a more penetrating insight;\nreality becomes more and better _known_, and less merely _experienced_.\n\nDewey reverses this view in a curious manner. It is 'experience' that is\nbuilt up by the action of thought, not knowledge itself. This play on\nterms might be innocuous, if it were not accompanied by his separation\nof the knowing function from others. Dewey makes 'knowing' the servant\nof 'direct experience' by giving it the function of reconstructing the\nhabits of the organism, in order that unreflective experience may be\nmaintained with a minimum of effort. The non-reflective experience\nbecomes the valuable experience, and knowledge is made to minister unto\nit. This is truly a 'transvaluation of values.'\n\nDewey asks: \"What is it that makes us live alternately in a concrete\nworld of experience in which thought as such finds not satisfaction, and\nin a world of ordered thought which is yet only abstract and\nideal?\"[286] This sharp separation of thought from action is vigorously\nmaintained. Following are some of the terms by means of which the\ndifference between direct and reflective experience is expressed:\n'direct practice,' 'derived theory;' 'primary construction,' 'secondary\ncriticism;' 'living appreciation,' 'abstract description;' 'active\nendeavor,' 'pale reflection.'[287] This casual, easy distinction escapes\ncriticism because it seems harmless and unimportant. The distinction,\nhowever, is _not_ real. It does not correspond to the simple facts of\nlife. Thinking, far from being 'pale reflection,' is often a strenuous\nand energetic 'activity.' Reflection, not 'direct experience,' is often,\nat least, at the high moment of life. Experience becomes unmeaning on\nany other basis. 'Living appreciation' and 'primary construction'\ninvolve thought in a high degree; 'pale reflection' is lazy\ncontemplation, lacking the spark of life that characterizes true\nthought.\n\nThere is no escape from Dewey's needlessly alarming conclusions, except\nby maintaining that thought accompanies all conscious life, in greater\nor less degree, and that the moment of _real_, earnest thinking is at\nthe high tide of life, when all the powers are awake and operating.\nThought must be made integral with all other activities, a feature of\nthe total life organization, rather than an isolated phenomenon. Man is\na thinking organism, not an organism with a thinker.\n\nIt is not to be supposed for a moment that by 'thought' is here meant\nthe activity of a merely subjective knower. Dewey does, indeed, deal\neffectively with the subjective ego, and with representative\nperceptionism. But by 'thought' is here meant reflection, judgment,\ninference; and in this sense thought is said to be present in all\nexperience. There can be no question of the relation of thought, so\nunderstood, to reality; for the reason that it has been so integrated\nwith experience as to be inseparable from it. Setting aside knowing as\nthe awareness of a conscious subject, there remains an issue with Dewey\nconcerning the actual place of thought, as an empirical process, in\nexperience, and the issue must be settled on definite and really\nempirical grounds. So much, then, for 'functionalism' and its\npsychology.\n\nSomething should be said, before closing this discussion, concerning\nphilosophical methods in general, since Dewey's psychological approach\nto the problems of philosophy must be held responsible for his\nanti-intellectualistic results, with their sceptical implications. In\nthe beginning of his career, as has been seen, Dewey adopted the\n'psychological method,' and he has adhered to it consistently ever\nsince. This initial attitude, although he was not aware of it for many\nyears, cut him off from the community of understanding that exists among\nmodern idealists concerning the proper aims and purposes of\nphilosophical inquiry. Although at first a professed follower of Green\nand Caird, Dewey's method was not reconcilable with idealistic\nprocedure, and in a very real sense he never was an idealist. The\nvirulence of his later attacks on 'intellectualism' may be explained in\nterms of his reaction against a philosophical method which interfered\nwith the development of his own 'naturalistic' tendencies.\n\nThe method of idealism, or speculative philosophy, is logical; but it\nmay perfectly well be empirical at the same time. To the\nanti-intellectualist empirical logic is an anomaly, a red blue-bird, so\nto speak. The philosophical logician is represented as one who evolves\nreality out of his own consciousness; who labors with the concepts which\nhave their abode in the mental sphere, and, by means of the principle of\ncontradiction, forces them into harmony until they provide a perfectly\nconsistent representation of the external world which, because of its\nperfect rationality, must somehow correspond with the cosmic reality. In\nspite of the fact that no man possesses, at least in a sane condition,\nthe mental equipment requisite for such a performance, certain critics\nhave not hesitated to impute this kind of logical procedure to the\nidealists. To quote from Dewey himself: \"For modern philosophy is, as\nevery college senior recites, epistemology; and epistemology, as perhaps\nour books and lectures sometimes forget to tell the senior, has absorbed\nStoic dogma. Passionless imperturbability, absolute detachment, complete\nsubjection to a ready-made and finished reality ... is its professed\nideal.... Philosophy has dreamed the dream of a knowledge which is other\nthan the propitious outgrowth of beliefs that shall develop aforetime\ntheir ulterior implications in order to recast them ..., the dream of a\nknowledge that has to do with objects having no nature save to be\nknown.\"[288]\n\nThis charge against modern idealism has little foundation. Speculative\nphilosophy repudiated, long ago, the 'epistemological standpoint' as\ndefined by Dewey. Idealists have not fostered the conception of a\nknowing subject shut in to its own states, seeking information about an\nimpersonal reality over against itself. Note, for example, this comment\nof Pringle-Pattison on Kant, made over thirty-five years ago: \"The\ndistinction between mind and the world, which is valid only from a\ncertain point of view, he took as an absolute separation. He took it, to\nuse a current phrase, abstractly--that is to say, as a mere fact, a fact\nstanding by itself and true in any reference. And of course when two\nthings are completely separate, they can only be brought together by a\nbond which is mechanical, external, and accidental to the real nature\nof both.\"[289] Dewey himself never condemned 'epistemology' more\neffectively. But it is useless to cite instances, for any serious\nstudent familiar with the literature of modern philosophy ought to know\nthat 'idealism' has never really been 'epistemological' in the sense\nmeant by Dewey and his disciples. Subjectivism is not idealism,--the\nstolid dogmatism of neo-realism to the contrary notwithstanding.\n\nIdealism holds, speaking more positively, that philosophers must submit\nthe conceptions and methods which they employ to a preliminary immanent\ncriticism, in order to determine the limits within which they may be\nvalidly applied. Every genuine category or method is valid within a\ncertain sphere of relevance, and the business of criticism is to\ndetermine by empirical investigation or by 'ideal experiment' (which\nmeans much the same thing) what concrete significance the conception is\ncapable of bearing. Dewey, from the standpoint of idealism, is guilty of\na somewhat uncritical use of the categories of 'description' and\n'evolution.' Are the categories of biology fitted to explain mind and\nspirit? Instead of instituting an inquiry designed to answer that\nquestion, Dewey accepts 'evolutionism' as final, and attempts to force\nall phenomena into conformity with his resulting logical scheme. He\nmisses the valuable checks upon thought which are furnished by the\n'critical method,' and is none too sensitive to the technical results of\nthe special sciences.\n\nThe logical approach to philosophy strictly involves certain\nimplications which have been overlooked by many of its critics. It may\nwell be admitted that our real categories are not fixed and final, but\nare perpetually in process of reconstruction. The process of criticism\ninevitably makes manifest the human and empirical character of the\nparticular forms of reflective thought. It recognizes the fact of\ndevelopment, both in knowledge and in reality, and by this very\nrecognition the value of knowledge is enhanced. It is forced, by the\nvery nature of its method, to recognize the concrete and practical\nbearings of thought. Indeed, there is a sense in which idealism would\ndeclare that there is no thought--when thought, that is, is taken to\nmean an isolated fact out of relation to the world. It is not possible\nto make this retort upon the critics of idealism without recognizing\nthat there has been a vast misjudgment, amounting almost to\nmisrepresentation, of the intellectual ideals of modern speculative\nphilosophy.\n\nTo conclude, it is neither by abstract logical processes, nor yet by the\ndogmatic employment of scientific categories, that philosophy makes\nprogress, but by an empirical process which unites criticism and\nexperiment. In speaking of the development of modern idealism, Bosanquet\nsays: \"All difficulties about the general possibility--the possibility\nin principle--of apprehending reality in knowledge and preception were\nflung aside as antiquated lumber. What was undertaken was the direct\nadventure of knowing; of shaping a view of the universe which should\ninclude and express reality in its completeness. The test and criterion\nwere not any speculative assumption of any kind whatever. They were the\ndirect work of the function of knowledge in exhibiting what could and\nwhat could not maintain itself when all the facts were confronted and\nset in the order they themselves demanded. The method of inquiry was\nideal experiment.\"[290]\n\nWhen all has been said, this method remains the natural and normal one.\nDewey's 'psychological method,' by contrast, seems strained and\nfar-fetched, an artificial and externally motived attempt to guide the\nintellect, which only by depending upon its own resources and its own\nincreasing insight can hope to attain the distant and difficult, but\nnever really foreign goal.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[281] _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, p. 240.\n\n[282] _Op. cit._, Mind, Vol. XI, p. 8 f.\n\n[283] \"The Experimental Method,\" _Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, p.\n228.\n\n[284] \"The Experimental Method,\" _Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, p.\n240.\n\n[285] See the review of Dewey's essay, \"The Experimental Method,\" in\nChapter VII of this study, p. 91 ff.\n\n[286] _Studies in Logical Theory_, p. 4.\n\n[287] _Ibid._, p. 2.\n\n[288] \"Beliefs and Existences,\" _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_,\np. 172 f.\n\n[289] _The Philosophical Radicals_, p. 297. The essay in which it\noccurs, \"Philosophy as a Criticism of Categories,\" was first published\nin 1883, in the volume _Essays on Philosophical Criticism_.\n\n[290] \"Realism and Metaphysics,\" _Philosophical Review_, Vol. XXVI,\n1917, p. 8.","title":"John Dewey's logical theory","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":48554}