Wendell T. Bush

“ The 'plain man,' if asked for his opinion on the merits of realism, would be at least so sure of its case that he would be unable to comprehend any other point of view. His would be, indeed, a very poor metaphysic, and likely enough quite in error, but this humble realism would express with great energy how the world comes home to the natural unsophisticated man. "You ask me," we may imagine him saying, "how I know that the world out there is independent of me and of everybody else. I know it by experience. Don't my crops grow, whether any one thinks about them or not? ”

“ Now that cognitive experience which for itself is rational and full of insight, yet which a later judgment of the same mind, or a judgment of another mind, characterizes as whimsical, is what the criticizing mind can not get hold of and make its own. It remains the private experience of another, a mental state, a state of consciousness. ”

“ It is clear and manifest. When I concentrate my attention in the simplest act of perception, I return from my observation with the most irresistible conviction of two facts, or rather two branches of the same fact; that I am and that something different from me exists." [2] "The ego and non-ego, mind and matter, are given together." This fact is 'clear and manifest.'
I am not now asking whether there is any truth in these statements. I simply call attention to the fact that when a philosopher harks back to the plain testimony of consciousness, this is what he harks back to. ”

“ The great role which materialism played thirty and forty years ago was an inevitable result of the great triumphs of physical science, when physicists defined the goal of their science as metaphysical insight, insight into the eternal laws of the movements of matter of which all change in the world is the resulting effect.
It is no doubt more intelligent to recognize science as the effort to describe experience rather than to try to regard it as explaining experience in any ultimate sense. ”

“ When you argue for solipsism observe, pray, the kind of situation you appeal to. You admit that your experience has the character of a social experience. But you deny that there is a genuine system of experience which proceeds from the interaction of different selves. You maintain that in your universe there exists only one self which is yourself. At least you insist that no other can be observed. Obviously you appeal to an observation which is not subject to the limitations of your own observation. ”

“ And when I at last have come to something that I have long and eagerly wished to see, there may be such a lively pleasure and such a sense of purpose fulfilled that I say to myself, 'Now you are beholding it, now you have really got the experience you have been longing for.' In these cases an empirical ego is present, but it is another object in the field of experience. ”

“ Stages of culture not so far from our own have the experience that shrieking drives away the monster that darkens the sun, and that incantations drive out the evil spirit which has entered into a body. ”

“ We are seeking an experience with the fidential-character, the character of 'Heimhaftiakeit,' as Avenarius called it, and, in fact, the presence of ultimate problems is often testified to in language that breathes an acute tone of 'Heimweh.' The search for truth is indeed the search for a satisfied will, but the truth which we find may remain the truth for ten minutes or for a lifetime. ”

“ Yet we do seriously discuss how we come to believe in the presence of other selves, and how we can rationally justify the belief. There is something a little futile, perhaps even a little insincere, in such discussion. We do not ‘come to believe’ in other selves at all. It is misleading to inquire into our ‘belief in other selves. Other selves are simply facts,—not reality-facts, perhaps, but experience-facts. ”

“ Is this idealism ashamed, or agnosticism skulking under a better name, or realism too timid to speak out? It is hard to answer; the 'radical empiricist' has learned something from each doctrine. I am not sure that the demand for existence distinguished from experience is an intelligible demand. But in saying that, I do not admit any flight to idealism or to any other of the traditional alternatives in metaphysics. ”

“ How is the world constituted? is the question of philosophy. When this question is first asked, there is no doubt concerning our power to know how the world is constituted if we can only find it out. At the same time, psychology contributes little or nothing in giving shape to philosophy. Psychology hardly exists as an independent field, but forms a chapter in some system of metaphysics. The fate of metaphysical systems, however, contradictions discovered within and without, made the problem of knowledge more and more prominent, so that instead of the question. How is the world constituted? ”

“ Science says that phenomena are as if reality were thus and so, as if the world of matter had a molecular structure, as if space were filled with a vibrating ether, and, with the attention directed upon experience of another sort, she might say, as if each finite human life were a moment in an absolute life which comprised all of reality. ”

“ I am not concerned with any metaphysic. I do not purpose to justify any experience as against any other, but simply to state some of the commoner characteristics of frankly naïve and spontaneous experience, and to mention some logical considerations that seem relevant. And if from time to time the habits of language may cause it to appear that I am discussing a metaphysical question, I would beg the reader to recall that my real interest is in characteristics of human experience simply, detached as completely as may be from any notion of reality. ”

“ Now this flies in the face of normal experience, but it is perfectly logical, granting the premises. The argument proceeds: different selves can not come together in any way or have any common objects. Two selves, therefore, can not occupy the same universe. And if we are to claim to live together at all in the same universe, this universe must be the total consciousness of one self, which integrates and absorbs all our various individual selves. My world and your world are the same because we are of it, and it is the consciousness of one self. ”

“ It may perhaps be said that this is an attempt to describe science itself as the line of least resistance, whereas science means effort, the expenditure of force. How much less is the effort involved in being indifferent to scientific problems! The man who cares nothing for science is, other things being equal, more economical, as regards his energy, than the eager scientist. Science is not, this view would hold, the line of least resistance, but a line of very great resistance. ”

“ I have raised the question about solipsism in order to bring out the way in which the experience of all of us is superior to logic. We all draw the line with great emphasis at the fellow being. His reality must not be brought into question. We can perhaps discuss it as a problem, but we know that it will not be a real problem. We know that our experience is characterized in a social way and that this social character is all-important in our world of values. ”

“ A point of view which leaves to science full scope to carry on its tasks, and defines those tasks in such a way as to eliminate metaphysics, or at least to reduce the metaphysical presuppositions to a minimum, is sure to be most welcome. And this point of view, when it comes to be regarded as the only point of view for science, when the definition of the goal of science as the knowledge of the unchanging original causes of phenomena comes to be looked back upon as something quite antiquated and outgrown, may have important consequences for metaphysics. ”

“ Every such case of experience is a case of insight. The person who has the insight is not aware that he contributes anything toward the construction of what he perceives. He is sure that he is not mutilating any facts. He reports the truth as he perceives it. The command of God, a bit of geometry, excursions of the soul, facts of chemistry or mechanics are all facts which are directly observed and reported. From our point of view some reports of experience may be true reports of fact while others are not, but this is to say that experience is not necessarily valid experience. ”

“ I dwell upon it so much because of our habits, as students of philosophy, of neglecting experience which seems illusory from our favorite point of view.
There is then a natural view of the world, a natural attitude toward it, a natural illusion if you like, from which we may possibly be delivered by moments of profounder insight. But our experiences of philosophic grace are like many other experiences of grace; one comes at pretty regular intervals, perhaps, into the temple, but one continually relapses into sin. ”

“ And supposing that the concepts of science, the atom, the molecule, the ether, etc., are recognized and claimed as nothing but conceptual instruments for extending our acquaintance with nature, and the idea of the atom or of the ether as an image of 'reality' is remembered as a notion surprisingly naive, is it not altogether likely that minds of the purely intellectual type, which devote themselves to problems about an ultimate reality, may feel disposed to regard their concepts as science regards hers? ”

“ By this emphasis laid upon the problem of knowledge, and the recognition that the mind is so constituted as perhaps to interfere with its own cognitive purposes, psychology becomes of decided importance for philosophy, and it is not long before the world of real objects shrinks to a region of things in themselves, set over against forms of experience. It is a matter of recent history how the content of the world, which seemed to be lost on the objective side, was brought back from the subjective side, and how from this point of view the great systems of idealism grew up. ”

“ It seems as though the consequence of defining the object of knowledge as a transcendent object whose reality does not depend on being known brought one into a logical impasse. It is not that I think I am the only self in the universe, but that I do not see any way to prove that I am not the only self. Of course I know there are other selves all about me; that is the way my experience is characterized ”

“ Just why certain physical processes should have phenomena of consciousness as sequences no one pretends to say,—but the same mystery exists in all caudal relations. If one ask why the stream of consciousness continues to flow, why it didn't stop a minute ago instead of keeping on, one can only say it is because the heart con tinues to beat, the blood to circulate, and the brain to function. One can ask, if one has the courage, why the earth doesn't stop in its orbit, or why the sun doesn't stop shining. ”

“ But even for the most advanced idealist who seeks to limit his idea of the world to this minimum of content, there remains always the recollection of ‘things’ as they used to be before his conversion to idealism,—as something really existent, or as he used to call them real, as something immediately sure, as immediately cognized, and known and knowable,—as parts of his environment independent of his thought, in contrast with himself and set over against his thought. ”

“ The habit, however, of seeking reality in some other world of ideal truth causes us to leap over the delusive and illogical but the very real experience of actual life. But except, perhaps, for the mystic in his moments of rapture, this seeking a beyond does not change the character of human experience that I have laid stress upon, so that as a philosopher a man may be anything you like, but as a man, living the life of a human being, he is bound to be a realist in his spontaneous organic attitudes. ”

“ I really see no reason why one should not be frankly and outspokenly materialistic in a natural science. It is understood that the question about ultimate reality is not raised at all, and until this question is raised there is no metaphysic.
But it certainly comes to the same thing in science to say that a physical state is the universal antecedent, or the universal concomitant, or the cause of a given mental state. When consciousness is disordered because of an observable accident to the brain, one says the condition of the brain thus introduced is the cause of the disordered consciousness. ”

“ The experience of many thousands of persons is no doubt characterized by the efficiency of holy relics to cure disease. The friendliness of disembodied souls, miracles of the saints, the existence of God, can all be objects of experience. That is, experience is adjusted to the reality of these things, just as our experience is adjusted to the reality of our fellow of whom we can get no glimpse whatever. But we sometimes awaken from the cognitive dream. We do so all the time in trivial ways, as when one seeks for his purse or his keys, and finds he has left them at home. ”

“ No doubt the principle of economy leads, to a certain extent, to a misrepresentation of objects, but this is the ignoring of what is regarded as irrelevant from the point of view of the special interests, whereas a subjective enrichment of the object is the putting into it of what might make a difference in the description. This much seems clear, science feels at liberty to ignore as much detail in the objects as it is not interested in, but it denies the right to add anything. ”

“ We sometimes hear it said, ‘That point of view would turn my world upside down’ or, ‘I could not get ahead on that supposition.’ But whether suggestions like these be worth anything or not, there is evidently a natural view of the world, the only view the ‘plain man’ knows, and which is as deeply rooted in the experience of the critical idealist as in that of any one else. That view is practical naïve realism. ”

“ What Avenarius would have us observe is that the evolution of experience is still in progress, and that what lies ahead must be a continuation of what lies behind. The progress thus far has been the development of that concept of nature which natural science has come to regard as the proper one, and the very general elimination of animism. The continuance of the same process should mean the complete elimination of animism, making the modern concept of nature wholly consistent and the complete acceptance of the world so defined as an object of experience. ”

“ VIII Of all our independent objects the one that is most stubbornly and defiantly transcendent is our fellow. It is just the transcendent side of him which seems to give purpose and value to actual concrete life, and which gives him the peculiar position of fellow. Whether he is really a transcendent object, I do not inquire, but human experience has precisely the character which the transcendent reality of fellow beings would confer upon it,—that is, it is characterized as a social experience. ”

“ In view of the continuity of experience, such an evolution as that described by Avenarius seems, then, extremely plausible, when once attention is called to it.
We can not cast off all at once habits of mind cultivated by centuries of faith; they bind us in ways we can not name. But the theological tradition is giving way, and in proportion as it does, we come more and more to feel that the truth about the world is to be found in a complete description of its empirical content. ”

“ In all this, a philosophical doctrine is seen to meet resistance from something that is not logical thought. The problem of the transcendent object can hardly get a hearing on its own merits. It is met by thoroughly realistic prejudices, which seem to be planted deep down in our nature. This attitude of resistance to certain perfectly logical points of view is something deeper than the sentimental antipathies to a criticism of cherished ideas. It expresses that law of experience which a psychologist is trying to make out when he seeks to discover why we believe in an outer world. ”

“ The special sciences are distributed, each to its own field. Within each field, novel facts are comprehended by reducing them to a group of known facts, which group undertakes to be as small as possible. In the same way the effort to understand the world would be the effort to reduce to a single concept the characters, common to the pure experience, which the special sciences are able to secure. This effort, based upon the special sciences, to describe the common character of the whole world, is, says Avenarius, philosophy. ”

“ Evidently, experience appears in this distinction as a character, for in the question, did you experience that, or did you imagine it or dream it? the idea of experience stands for certainty, sure knowledge of fact.
The shifting value of the reality-feeling is readily illustrated by the religious questionings and doubts of many persons. At the outset there is frequently no question about God at all; everything is sure, and as yet unquestioned. No question has ever occurred, just as no genuine question has ever occurred about the reality of my fellow being. ”

“ It is our natural organic attitude toward our outer world. And the student of philosophy who has this same natural attitude along with the rest of his fellows may, indeed, vigorously repudiate any charge of being a realist in his philosophy, but he and his fellows will have a world of common objective reference, much of which will have a material character, and which, emotional values being neglected, seems pretty much the same for all observers. As a philosopher, he will hardly be so sure about his doctrine as the unreflective man is about the world of his experience. ”

“ His uncertainty is fact of his experience, but his experience does not present it as fact that the man across the street is really his friend. It is this cognitive character of experience that we have in mind when we speak of experience as the basis of science, when we speak of facts, of experience and objects of experience. Any discussion of experience as a criterion of certainty must conceive it in the narrower sense, as direct cognition of fact, without, however, implying that the fact has any metaphysically independent existence. ”

“ Here we have the initial assumption in the word 'knowledge' which solves a problem in advance by a mere fiat. If pure experience be the only source of knowledge, then pure experience is a good enough basis for all the science we have, for it has no other basis, and we can continue our scientific undertakings on that one. ”

“ There is perfect adjustment, perfect satisfaction; no problem appears anywhere. There is an experience of genuine insight. Many persons who go through painful religious experiences start from a situation like this, others always remain in it,—others attain to it. It is our attitude toward our intimate friends,—we know them, we are sure of them, they are the most real facts in our lives.
But this condition of perfect mental and organic stability does not always continue. The time comes when one believes in God,—one no longer claims direct insight and certain knowledge. ”

“ It is the infinite process with the last judgment not a bit nearer the goal than the first one. To establish a solipsistic doctrine, you must have an observation which can overlook the whole situation, and then one of two things happens. You either get into the infinite regress, or you admit that the observation you appeal to is really an observation of the facts, and that if the facts include a system of different selves, the observation can be a recognition of that fact. But your observation must not be a kind of experience which we know nothing about. ”

“ Meanwhile this discovery makes absolutely no difference to experience. It continues to be as social as ever. One goes about one’s work and lives out one’s life in the world among one’s fellows. One has observed, perhaps, that one can not prove that solipsism is logically impossible, but that that does not disturb one. One does not say that solipsism as a logical possibility is inconsistent in such and such respects. ”