Theory of knowledge

“ We find, then, that since man first began to inquire reflectively upon the nature of his cognitive faculty his speculation has followed one or other of two great lines or divisions of theory, neither of which has been found to afford intellectual satisfaction. ”

“ All such conceptions can be viewed either as relatively valid, or as metaphysically final, only upon the basis to be established by a general theory of what constitutes our own type of knowledge. And for such a theory, — our whole present concern, — experience and reality alike contain only fulfilment of purpose, complete or incomplete, conditions of interest and attention, expressed or partially expressed in present consciousness, — acknowledgments of facts, and ignorance of facts, — beliefs, and truths related to beliefs. ”

“ According to the view of Knowledge of which we have extracted examples above, the ideas of the mind are originally furnished to it by sensation, from which therefore are derived, not necessarily all our Thoughts, but all the materials of Discourse, all that constitutes the essence of Knowledge. ”

“ In the department of philosophic speculation, however, it appeared only under the debased and misleading form of a belief that the sensible presentation was the true source of the contents of Cognition, that it was from Sensation that the Mind of Man derived the whole fabric of Science. ”

“ Yet, when correctly defined, this very practical knowledge, so boastfully opposed to theory, in reality presupposes it. True practical knowledge is simply a ready discernment of the proper modes and seasons of applying to the common affairs of life those general truths and principles which are deduced from an extensive and accurate observation of facts, by minds stored with various knowledge, accustomed to investigation, and trained to the art of reasoning ”

“ Such a view avoids the incurable difficulties and contradictions involved in the theory of the reality of extended material substance, or in any theory, indeed, which asserts the reality—as presented—of the sensible presentation. Physical Reality thus conceived is consistently thinkable as co-existent with the thing-in-itself—be it ultimately Intelligence or Volition—of which our cognitive and conative existence is a manifestation. ”

“ By means of self-instruction and the acquisition of ideas, man finally acquires the idea of SCIENCE,—that is, of a system of knowledge in harmony with the reality of things, and inferred from observation. ”

“ This, and nothing more than this, is what the claim of the Science of Knowledge to a validity outside of itself and for actual consciousness in life, is to signify, and in this manner, the claim to such validity is based, like the whole science, upon the same immediate contemplation. ”

“ But the Science of Knowledge has, moreover, an immediate influence upon life. Although not in and for itself the correct practical mode of thinking, since it lacks the vitality of experience, it yet furnishes a complete picture of it. ”

“ The science of knowledge, you say, furnishes me with a consciousness of the fundamental determination of my consciousness, without these determinations actually occurring in consciousness. How is that possible? Do I not become conscious of what the science of knowledge teaches? ”

“ The fundamental proposition of the apriorist theory is that knowledge is made up of two sorts of elements, which cannot be reduced into one another, and which are like two distinct layers superimposed one upon the other. ”

“ They are truths which, to an intelligence sufficiently refined, would shine forth in their own unborrowed light, without the need of those connecting links of thought, those steps of wearisome and often painful deduction, by which the knowledge of them is actually acquired. Let us define as fundamental those laws and principles from which all other general truths of science may be deduced, and into which they may all be again resolved. ”

“ At the risk of being tedious, I shall take an example of the growth of our information about a single substance, to illustrate the indefinitely great extensions of knowledge which are possible to us, in every direction in which we may seek it—this in contrast with the views of knowable truth which were current in the infancy of information. ”

“ Now there is nothing, however hidden—nothing, however profound—into which this sensuous principle of knowledge, which investigates all that is earthly, natural or human, and historical, may not attempt at least to penetrate. ”

“ Hence, the form of the absolute first principle of the science of knowledge is not only contained in that principle itself, but is also presented as absolutely valid for the content of that principle. ”

“ It argues an utter want of consistency to say, on the one hand, that the understanding only knows phenomena, and, on the other, assert the absolute character of this knowledge, by such statements as 'Cognition can go no further'; 'Here is the natural and absolute limit of human knowledge.' But 'natural' is the wrong word here. ”

“ How much of the creative factor of knowledge does nature supply? How much does man supply? Can a man with deranged faculties get order out of a rational world? Can a man of sane mind get order out of an irrational world? If there is to be a rational system of knowledge built up in the mind, must there not be reason in the thinker and reason in the outside world, coming into organic relations, the one with the other? As to how we regard this [159] question will determine how we regard truth, and whether or not it is possible for us to know it. ”

“ It does not teach that any particular fact proves any other, but points out to what conditions all facts must conform, in order that they may prove other facts. To decide whether any given fact fulfills these conditions, or whether facts can be found which fulfill them in a given case, belongs exclusively to the particular art or science, or to our knowledge of the particular subject. ”

“ It has already been stated that Knowledge requires us to possess both Facts and Ideas;—that every step in our knowledge consists in applying the Ideas and Conceptions furnished by our minds to the Facts which observation and experiment offer to us. When our Conceptions are clear and distinct, when our Facts are certain and sufficiently numerous, and when the Conceptions, being suited to the nature of the 28 Facts, are applied to them so as to produce an exact and universal accordance, we attain knowledge of a precise and comprehensive kind, which we may term Science. ”

“ First, that even if your knowledge and its object are facts which when examined, say by a psychologist, appear to him to be causally connected, or which, when externally observed, seem to agree, still any such linkage, where it exists, is no part of the essential nature, i.e. of the mere definition, either of your object in so far as it is real, or of your knowledge in so far as it consists of mere ideas. If your knowledge is true, is sound, is valid, it is indeed such as somehow to agree with the object. ”

“ One of the first requirements for the education of the object of philosophy is to recall its various names. The understanding, or the power of knowledge, is also called intelligence, intellect, mind, spirit, reason, power of cognition, of conception, of distinction, of imagination, of judgment, and of drawing conclusions. ”

“ The whole of our physical knowledge consists in the establishment of such propositions; and in all such cases, Facts are bound together by the aid of suitable Conceptions. This part of the formation of our knowledge I have called the Colligation of Facts: and we may apply this term to every case in which, by an act of the intellect, we establish a precise connexion among the phenomena which are presented to our senses. The knowledge of such connexions, accumulated and systematized, is Science. ”

“ Pure thinking or philosophizing is with a view to philosophy or knowledge as an interconnected system of all sciences or departmental forms of knowledge, the mark of knowledge being its identity for all thinking minds. ”

“ In his stores of knowledge, by the side of the error, of the pre-occupation, and of the hasty induction which has mistaken the mere repetition of a phenomenon in a small number of cases for a true law, are to be found the powerful intuition, the delicate observation, and the knowledge of a real property of a being or phenomenon of nature which passes unobserved by the scientific man. ”

“ The belief or unconscious conviction that all propositions are of the subject-predicate form—in other words, that every fact consists in some thing having some quality—has rendered most philosophers incapable of giving any account of the world of science and daily life. ”

“ If I am asked for the proof of such an existence, I answer that the proof is consciousness, as I define it, and this I conceive is the highest kind of proof.
One may appeal to the convictions of mankind for an answer to the question, What is the highest and most satisfactory kind of knowledge that any of us possess? The most intelligent man may be mistaken in that part of self-knowledge that relates to his own character or motives. ”

“ We may best hope to understand the nature and conditions of real knowledge, by studying the nature and conditions of the most certain and stable portions of knowledge which we already possess: and we are most likely to learn the best methods of discovering truth, by examining how truths, now universally recognized, have really been discovered. ”

“ Scientific Ideas can often be adequately exhibited for all the purposes of reasoning, by means of Definitions and Axioms; all attempts to reason by means of Definitions from common Notions, lead to empty forms or entire confusion.
6 Scientific Ideas depend upon certain Fundamental Ideas, which are enumerated in the Philosophy, book i. ch. 8.
Such common Notions are sufficient for the common practical conduct of human life: but man is not a practical creature merely; he has within him a speculative tendency, a pleasure in the contemplation of ideal relations, a love of knowledge as knowledge. ”

“ In order to do this, we must reconsider, in a more definite and precise shape, the doctrine which has already been laid down;—that our Knowledge consists 29 in applying Ideas to Facts; and that the conditions of real knowledge are that the ideas be distinct and appropriate, and exactly applied to clear and certain facts. The steps by which our knowledge is advanced are those by which one or the other of these two processes is rendered more complete;—by which Conceptions are made more clear in themselves, or by which the Conceptions more strictly bind together the Facts. ”

“ Philosophy, therefore, dear reader—or, since this word might lead to disputes,—the science of knowledge first of all utterly abstracts from all that we have above characterized as higher degrees of consciousness, and limits itself with its assertion, which we shall directly state, to the primary and fundamental determinations of consciousness, altogether in the sense stated above. ”

“ But although the fundamental principle be exhausted and a complete system erected upon it, it does not follow that thereby human knowledge generally is exhausted, unless we presuppose what ought first to be proven, namely, that this fundamental principle is the fundamental principle of human knowledge generally. ”

“ When we try to reduce the genesis of our knowledge to scientific ordination, and when to this end we search for the fundamental fact—the fact on which all knowledge depends, we meet the difficulty that there are several facts apparently answering to this description. ”

“ Consciousness, evidence, and intellectual instinct or common sense, are the three means; to which correspond truths of consciousness, necessary truths, and common-sense truths. These are distinct, different, and in many cases unconnected with each other; and he, who seeks to acquire complete and accurate ideas upon matters relating to the first principle of human knowledge, must mark out their limits with great care. ”

“ In order to communicate it and retain the power of getting the facts back again after we have relaxed our grip on them we are obliged, once we have obtained the fullest direct knowledge of which we are capable, to apply the intellectual method to the fact thus revealed and attempt to describe it in general terms. ”

“ The demand is everywhere for Knowledge of the soul. Facts there are in abundance, but how far these facts are demonstrated, so as to constitute a basis of exact science, and how to classify and systematize them, the average intelligence does not know. ”

“ And, first, I grant the knowledge of all those truths is perfective of the understanding, which are the matter of those arts and sciences, that are built upon stable and immoveable foundations, such as divinity, metaphysics, geometry, together with those unchangeable rules and measures of reason and consequence, which lead us to all other knowledge, and are the subject of that art we term logic. ”

“ For if the successively deeper interpretations of nature which constitute advancing knowledge, are merely successive inclusions of special truths in general truths, and of general truths in truths still more general ”

“ The number of these ideas is the measure of our knowledge; exactness of thought depends on their clearness and precision; the art of comparing them one with another is called human reason. Thus what I call the reasoning of the senses, or the reasoning of the child, consists in the formation of simple ideas through the associated experience of several sensations; what I call the reasoning of the intellect, consists in the formation, of complex ideas through the association of several simple ideas. ”