An Introduction to Philosophy by George Stuart Fullerton (bookreader TXT) 📖

it under his hand, may come to be regarded as the sign of the presence of those entities that science seems, at present, to regard as ultimate. Does this prevent it from being the object which has stood as the interpreter of all those diverse visual sensations that we have called different views of the tree? They are still the appearances, and it, relatively to them, is the reality. Now we find that it, in its turn, can be used as a sign of something else, can be regarded as an appearance of a reality more ultimate. It is clear, then, that the same thing may be regarded both as appearance and as reality—appearance as contrasted with one thing, and reality as contrasted with another.

But suppose one says: I do not want to know what the real external world is to this man or to that man; I want to know what the real external world is. What shall we say to such a demand?

There is a sense in which such a demand is not purely meaningless, though it may not be a very sensible demand to make. We have seen that an increase of knowledge about things compels a man to pass from the real things of common life to the real things of science, and to look upon the former as appearance. Now, a man may arbitrarily decide that he will use the word "reality" to indicate only that which can never in its turn be regarded as appearance, a reality which must remain an ultimate reality; and he may insist upon our telling him about that. How a man not a soothsayer can tell when he has come to ultimate reality, it is not easy to see.

Suppose, however, that we could give any one such information. We should then be telling him about things as they are, it is true, but his knowledge of things would not be different in kind from what it was before. The only difference between such a knowledge of things and a knowledge of things not known to be ultimate would be that, in the former case, it would be recognized that no further extension of knowledge was possible. The distinction between appearance and reality would remain just what it was in the experience of the plain man.

22. THE BUGBEAR OF THE "UNKNOWABLE."—It is very important to recognize that we must not go on talking about appearance and reality, as if our words really meant something, when we have quite turned our backs upon our experience of appearances and the realities which they represent.

That appearances and realities are connected we know very well, for we perceive them to be connected. What we see, we can touch. And we not only know that appearances and realities are connected, but we know with much detail what appearances are to be taken as signs of what realities. The visual experience which I call the house as seen from a distance I never think of taking for a representative of the hat which I hold in my hand. This visual experience I refer to its own appropriate touch thing, and not to another. If what looks like a beefsteak could really be a fork or a mountain or a kitten indifferently,—but I must not even finish the sentence, for the words "look like" and "could really be" lose all significance when we loosen the bond between appearances and the realities to which they are properly referred.

Each appearance, then, must be referred to some particular real thing and not to any other. This is true of the appearances which we recognize as such in common life, and it is equally true of the appearances recognized as such in science. The pen which I feel between my fingers I may regard as appearance and refer to a swarm of moving atoms. But it would be silly for me to refer it to atoms "in general." The reality to which I refer the appearance in question is a particular group of atoms existing at a particular point in space. The chemist never supposes that the atoms within the walls of his test-tube are identical with those in the vial on the shelf. Neither in common life nor in science would the distinction between appearances and real things be of the smallest service were it not possible to distinguish between this appearance and that, and this reality and that, and to refer each appearance to its appropriate reality. Indeed, it is inconceivable that, under such circumstances, the distinction should have been drawn at all.

These points ought to be strongly insisted upon, for we find certain philosophic writers falling constantly into a very curious abuse of the distinction and making much capital of it. It is argued that what we see, what we touch, what we conceive as a result of scientific observation and reflection—all is, in the last analysis, material which is given us in sensation. The various senses furnish us with different classes of sensations; we work these up into certain complexes. But sensations are only the impressions which something outside of us makes upon us. Hence, although we seem to ourselves to know the external world as it is, our knowledge can never extend beyond the impressions made upon us. Thus, we are absolutely shut up to appearances, and can know nothing about the reality to which they must be referred.

Touching this matter Herbert Spencer writes[1] as follows: "When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can know only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by the relativity of thought, compelled to think of these in relation to a cause—the notion of a real existence which generated these impressions becomes nascent. If it be proved that every notion of a real existence which we can frame is inconsistent with itself,—that matter, however conceived by us, cannot be matter as it actually is,—our conception, though transfigured, is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated as far as possible from those special forms under which it was before represented in thought."

This means, in plain language, that we must regard everything we know and can know as appearance and must refer it to an unknown reality. Sometimes Mr. Spencer calls this reality the Unknowable, sometimes he calls it the Absolute, and sometimes he allows it to pass by a variety of other names, such as Power, Cause, etc. He wishes us to think of it as "lying behind appearances" or as "underlying appearances."

Probably it has already been remarked that this Unknowable has brought us around again to that amusing "telephone exchange" discussed in the third chapter. But if the reader feels within himself the least weakness for the Unknowable, I beg him to consider carefully, before he pins his faith to it, the following:—

(1) If we do perceive external bodies, our own bodies and others, then it is conceivable that we may have evidence from observation to the effect that other bodies affecting our bodies may give rise to sensations. In this case we cannot say that we know nothing but sensations; we know real bodies as well as sensations, and we may refer the sensations to the real bodies.

(2) If we do not perceive that we have bodies, and that our bodies are acted upon by others, we have no evidence that what we call our sensations are due to messages which come from "external things" and are conducted along the nerves. It is then, absurd to talk of such "external things" as though they existed, and to call them the reality to which sensations, as appearances, must be referred,

(3) In other words, if there is perceived to be a telephone exchange with its wires and subscribers, we may refer the messages received to the subscribers, and call this, if we choose, a reference of appearance to reality.

But if there is perceived no telephone exchange, and if it is concluded that any wires or subscribers of which it means anything to speak must be composed of what we have heretofore called "messages," then it is palpably absurd to refer the "messages" as a whole to subscribers not supposed to be composed of "messages"; and it is a blunder to go on calling the things that we know "messages," as though we had evidence that they came from, and must be referred to, something beyond themselves.

We must recognize that, with the general demolition of the exchange, we lose not only known subscribers, but the very notion of a subscriber. It will not do to try to save from this wreck some "unknowable" subscriber, and still pin our faith to him.

(4) We have seen that the relation of appearance to reality is that of certain experiences to certain other experiences. When we take the liberty of calling the Unknowable a reality, we blunder in our use of the word. The Unknowable cannot be an experience either actual, possible, or conceived as possible, and it cannot possibly hold the relation to any of our experiences that a real thing of any kind holds to the appearances that stand as its signs.

(5) Finally, no man has ever made an assumption more perfectly useless and purposeless than the assumption of the Unknowable. We have seen that the distinction between appearance and reality is a serviceable one, and it has been pointed out that it would be of no service whatever if it were not possible to refer particular appearances to their own appropriate realities. The realities to which we actually refer appearances serve to explain them. Thus, when I ask: Why do I perceive that tree now as faint and blue and now as vivid and green? the answer to the question is found in the notion of distance and position in space; it is found, in other words, in a reference to the real world of touch things, for which visual experiences serve as signs. Under certain circumstances, the mountain ought to be robed in its azure hue, and, under certain circumstances, it ought not. The circumstances in each case are open to investigation.

Now, let us substitute for the real world of touch things, which furnishes the explanation of given visual experiences, that philosophic fiction, that pseudo-real nonentity, the Unknowable. Now I perceive a tree as faint and blue, now as bright and green; will a reference to the Unknowable explain why the experiences differed? Was the Unknowable in the one instance farther off in an unknowable space, and in the other nearer? This, even if it means anything, must remain unknowable. And when the chemist puts together a volume of chlorine gas and a volume of hydrogen gas to get two volumes of hydrochloric acid gas, shall we explain the change which has taken place by a reference to the Unknowable, or shall we turn to the doctrine of atoms and their combinations?

The fact is that no man in his senses tries to account for any individual fact by turning for an explanation to the Unknowable. It is a life-preserver by which some set great store, but which no man dreams of using when he really falls into the water.

If, then, we have any reason to believe that there is a real external world at all, we have reason to believe that we know what it is. That some know it imperfectly, that others know it better, and that we may hope that some day it will be known still more perfectly, is surely no good reason for concluding that we do not know it at all.

[1] "First Principles," Part I, Chapter IV, section 26.

CHAPTER VI OF SPACE

23. WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT IT.—The plain man may admit that he is not ready to hazard a definition of space, but he is certainly not willing to admit that he is wholly ignorant of space and of its attributes. He knows that it is something in which material objects have position and in which they move about; he knows that it has not merely length, like a line, nor length and breadth, like a surface, but has the three dimensions of length, breadth, and depth; he knows that, except in the one circumstance of its position, every part of space is exactly like every other part, and that, although objects may move about in space, it is incredible that the spaces themselves should be shifted about.

Those who are familiar with the