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Title: Essays in Experimental Logic

Author: John Dewey

Release Date: September 19, 2012[EBook #40794]

Language: English

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ESSAYS INEXPERIMENTAL

LOGIC

By

JOHN DEWEY

THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

COPYRIGHT 1916 BYTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

All Rights Reserved

Published June 1916Second Impression May 1918

Third Impression October 1920

Composed and Printed By

The University of Chicago PressChicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

PREFATORY NOTE

In 1903 a volume was published bythe University of Chicago Press,entitled Studies in Logical Theory,as a part of the "DecennialPublications" of the University. Thevolume contained contributions byDrs. Thompson (now Mrs.Woolley), McLennan, Ashley,Gore, Heidel, Stuart, and Moore, inaddition to four essays by thepresent writer who was also

general editor of the volume. Theedition of the Studies being recentlyexhausted, the Director of the Presssuggested that my own essays bereprinted, together with otherstudies of mine in the same field.The various contributors to theoriginal volume cordially gaveassent, and the present volume is theoutcome. Chaps. ii-v, inclusive,represent (with editorial revisions,mostly omissions) the essays takenfrom the old volume. The first andintroductory chapter has been

especially written for the volume.The other essays are in partreprinted and in part rewritten, withadditions, from variouscontributions to philosophicalperiodicals. I should like to pointout that the essay on "Some Stagesof Logical Thought" antedates theessays taken from the volume ofStudies, having been published in1900; the other essays have beenwritten since then. I should also liketo point out that the essays in theirpsychological phases are written

from the standpoint of what is nowtermed a behavioristic psychology,though some of them antedate theuse of that term as a descriptiveepithet.

J. D.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITYApril 3, 1916

TABLE OFCONTENTS

PAGEI. INTRODUCTION 1

II.THE RELATIONSHIP OFTHOUGHT AND ITSSUBJECT-MATTER

75

III.THE ANTECEDENTSAND STIMULI OFTHINKING

103

IV. DATA AND MEANINGS 136

V. THE OBJECTS OFTHOUGHT

157

VI. SOME STAGES OFLOGICAL THOUGHT 183

VII. THE LOGICALCHARACTER OF IDEAS 220

VIII. THE CONTROL OFIDEAS BY FACTS 230

IX.NAVE REALISM VS.PRESENTATIVEREALISM

250

X.

EPISTEMOLOGICALREALISM: THEALLEGED UBIQUITY OF 264

THE KNOWLEDGERELATION

XI.THE EXISTENCE OF THEWORLD AS A LOGICALPROBLEM

281

XII. WHAT PRAGMATISMMEANS BY PRACTICAL 303

XIII. AN ADDED NOTE AS TOTHE "PRACTICAL" 330

XIV.THE LOGIC OFJUDGMENTS OFPRACTICE

335

INDEX 443

IINTRODUCTION

The key to understanding thedoctrine of the essays which areherewith reprinted lies in thepassages regarding the temporaldevelopment of experience. Settingout from a conviction (more currentat the time when the essays werewritten than it now is) that

knowledge implies judgment (andhence, thinking) the essays try toshow (1) that such terms as"thinking," "reflection," "judgment"denote inquiries or the results ofinquiry, and (2) that inquiryoccupies an intermediate andmediating place in the developmentof an experience. If this be granted,it follows at once that aphilosophical discussion of thedistinctions and relations whichfigure most largely in logicaltheories depends upon a proper

placing of them in their temporalcontext; and that in default of suchplacing we are prone to transfer thetraits of the subject-matter of onephase to that of anotherwith aconfusing outcome.

I

1. An intermediary stage forknowledge (that is, for knowledgecomprising reflection and having adistinctively intellectual quality)implies a prior stage of a different

kind, a kind variously characterizedin the essays as social, affectional,technological, aesthetic, etc. It maymost easily be described from anegative point of view: it is a typeof experience which cannot becalled a knowledge experiencewithout doing violence to the term"knowledge" and to experience. Itmay contain knowledge resultingfrom prior inquiries; it may includethinking within itself; but not so thatthey dominate the situation and giveit its peculiar flavor. Positively,

anyone recognizes the differencebetween an experience of quenchingthirst where the perception of wateris a mere incident, and anexperience of water whereknowledge of what water is, is thecontrolling interest; or between theenjoyment of social converse amongfriends and a study deliberatelymade of the character of one of theparticipants; between aestheticappreciation of a picture and anexamination of it by a connoisseurto establish the artist, or by a dealer

who has a commercial interest indetermining its probable sellingvalue. The distinction between thetwo types of experience is evidentto anyone who will take the troubleto recall what he does most of thetime when not engaged inmeditation or inquiry.

But since one does not think aboutknowledge except when he isthinking, except, that is, when theintellectual or cognitional interest isdominant, the professionalphilosopher is only too prone to

think of all experiences as if theywere of the type he is speciallyengaged in, and henceunconsciously or intentionally toproject its traits into experiences towhich they are alien. Unless hetakes the simple precaution ofholding before his mind contrastingexperiences like those justmentioned, he generally forms ahabit of supposing that no qualitiesor things at all are present inexperience except as objects ofsome kind of apprehension or

awareness. Overlooking, andafterward denying, that things andqualities are present to most menmost of the time as things andqualities in situations of prizing andaversion, of seeking and finding, ofconverse, enjoyment and suffering,of production and employment, ofmanipulation and destruction, hethinks of things as either totallyabsent from experience or else thereas objects of "consciousness" orknowing. This habit is a tribute tothe importance of reflection and of

the knowledge which accrues fromit. But a discussion of knowledgeperverted at the outset by such amisconception is not likely toproceed prosperously.

All this is not to deny that someelement of reflection or inferencemay be required in any situation towhich the term "experience" isapplicable in any way whichcontrasts with, say, the "experience"of an oyster or a growing bean vine.Men experience illness. What theyexperience is certainly something

very different from an object ofapprehension, yet it is quitepossible that what makes an illnessinto a conscious experience isprecisely the intellectual elementswhich intervenea certain takingof some things as representative ofother things. My thesis about theprimary character of non-reflectional experience is notintended to preclude this hypothesiswhich appears to me a highlyplausible one. But it isindispensable to note that, even in

such cases, the intellectual elementis set in a context which is non-cognitive and which holds within itin suspense a vast complex of otherqualities and things that in theexperience itself are objects ofesteem or aversion, of decision, ofuse, of suffering, of endeavor andrevolt, not of knowledge. When, ina subsequent reflective experience,we look back and find these thingsand qualities (quales would be abetter word, or values, if the latterword were not so open to

misconstruction), we are only tooprone to suppose that they were thenwhat they are nowobjects of acognitive regard, themes of anintellectual gesture. Hence, theerroneous conclusion that things areeither just out of experience, or elseare (more or less badly) knownobjects.

In any case the best way to study thecharacter of those cognitionalfactors which are merely incidentalin so many of our experiences is tostudy them in the type of experience

where they are most prominent,where they dominate; whereknowing, in short, is the primeconcern. Such study will also, by areflex reference, throw into greaterrelief the contrasted characteristictraits of the non-reflectional typesof experience. In such contrast thesignificant traits of the latter areseen to be internal organization: (1)the factors and qualities hangtogether; there is a great variety ofthem but they are saturated with apervasive quality. Being ill with the

grippe is an experience whichincludes an immense diversity offactors, but none the less is the onequalitatively unique experiencewhich it is. Philosophers in theirexclusively intellectualpreoccupation with analyticknowing are only too much given tooverlooking the primary import ofthe term "thing": namely, res, anaffair, an occupation, a "cause";something which is similar tohaving the grippe, or conducting apolitical campaign, or getting rid of

an overstock of canned tomatoes, orgoing to school, or paying attentionto a young woman:in short, justwhat is meant in non-philosophicdiscourse by "an experience."Noting things only as if they wereobjectsthat is, objects ofknowledgecontinuity is rendereda mystery; qualitative, pervasiveunity is too often regarded as asubjective state injected into anobject which does not possess it, asa mental "construct," or else as atrait of being to be attained to only

by recourse to some curious organof knowledge termed intuition. Inlike fashion, organization is thoughtof as the achieved outcome of ahighly scientific knowledge, or asthe result of transcendental rationalsynthesis, or as a fictionsuperinduced by association, uponelements each of which in its ownright "is a separate existence." Oneadvantage of an excursion by onewho philosophizes upon knowledgeinto primary non-reflectionalexperience is that the excursion

serves to remind him that everyempirical situation has its ownorganization of a direct, non-logicalcharacter.

(2) Another trait of every res is thatit has focus and context: brilliancyand obscurity, conspicuousness orapparency, and concealment orreserve, with a constant movementof redistribution. Movement aboutan axis persists, but what is in focusconstantly changes."Consciousness," in other words, isonly a very small and shifting

portion of experience. The scopeand content of the focusedapparency have immediate dynamicconnections with portions ofexperience not at the time obvious.The word which I have just writtenis momentarily focal; around it thereshade off into vagueness mytypewriter, the desk, the room, thebuilding, the campus, the town, andso on. In the experience, and in it insuch a way as to qualify even whatis shiningly apparent, are all thephysical features of the environment

extending out into space no one cansay how far, and all the habits andinterests extending backward andforward in time, of the organismwhich uses the typewriter andwhich notes the written form of theword only as temporary focus in avast and changing scene. I shall notdwell upon the import of this fact inits critical bearings upon theories ofexperience which have beencurrent. I shall only point out thatwhen the word "experience" isemployed in the text it means just

such an immense and operativeworld of diverse and interactingelements.

It might seem wiser, in view of thefact that the term "experience" is sofrequently used by philosophers todenote something very differentfrom such a world, to use anacknowledgedly objective term: totalk about the typewriter, forexample. But experience in ordinaryusage (as distinct from its technicaluse in psychology and philosophy)expressly denotes something which

a specific term like "typewriter"d o e s not designate: namely, theindefinite range of context in whichthe typewriter is actually set, itsspatial and temporal environment,including the habitudes, plans, andactivities of its operator. And if weare asked why not then use ageneral objective term like "world,"or "environment," the answer is thatthe word "experience" suggestssomething indispensable whichthese terms omit: namely, an actualfocusing of the world at one point in

a focus of immediate shiningapparency. In other words, in itsordinary human usage, the term"experience" was invented andemployed previously because of thenecessity of having some way torefer peremptorily to what isindicated in only a roundabout anddivided way by such terms as"organism" and "environment,""subject" and "object," "persons"and "things," "mind" and "nature,"and so on.[1]

II

Had this background of the essaysbeen more explicitly depicted, I donot know whether they would havemet with more acceptance, but it islikely that they would not have metwith so many misunderstandings.But the essays, save for slightincidental references, took thisbackground for granted in theallusions to the universe of non-reflectional experience of ourdoings, sufferings, enjoyments of the

world and of one another. It wastheir purpose to point out thatreflection (and, hence, knowledgehaving logical properties) arisesbecause of the appearance ofincompatible factors within theempirical situation just pointed at:incompatible not in a merestructural or static sense, but in anactive and progressive sense. Thenopposed responses are provokedwhich cannot be takensimultaneously in overt action, andwhich accordingly can be dealt

with, whether simultaneously orsuccessively, only after they havebeen brought into a plan oforganized action by means ofanalytic resolution and syntheticimaginative conspectus; in short, bymeans of being taken cognizance of.In other words, reflection appearsas the dominant trait of a situationwhen there is something seriouslythe matter, some trouble, due toactive discordance, dissentiency,conflict among the factors of a priornon-intellectual experience; when,

in the phraseology of the essays, asituation becomes tensional.[2]

Given such a situation, it is obviousthat the meaning of the situation as awhole is uncertain. Through callingout two opposed modes ofbehavior, it presents itself asmeaning two incompatible things.The only way out is through carefulinspection of the situation,involving resolution into elements,and a going out beyond what isfound upon such inspection to begiven, to something else to get a

leverage for understanding it. Thatis, we have (a) to locate thedifficulty, and (b) to devise amethod of coping with it. Any suchway of looking at thinking demandsmoreover that the difficulty belocated in the situation in question(very literally in question).Knowing always has a particularpurpose, and its solution must be afunction of its conditions inconnection with additional oneswhich are brought to bear. Everyreflective knowledge, in other

words, has a specific task which isset by a concrete and empiricalsituation, so that it can perform thattask only by detecting and remainingfaithful to the conditions in thesituation in which the difficultyarises, while its purpose is areorganization of its factors in orderto get unity.

So far, however, there is noaccomplished knowledge, but onlyknowledge coming to belearning,in the classic Greek conception.Thinking gets no farther, as

thinking, than a statement ofelements constituting the difficultyat hand and a statementapropounding, a propositionof amethod for resolving them. In fixingthe framework of every reflectivesituation, this state of affairs alsodetermines the further step which isneeded if there is to be knowledgeknowledge in the eulogisticsense, as distinct from opinion,dogma, and guesswork, or fromwhat casually passes current asknowledge. Overt action is

demanded if the worth or validity ofthe reflective considerations is tobe determined. Otherwise, we have,at most, only a hypothesis that theconditions of the difficulty are suchand such, and that the way to go atthem so as to get over or throughthem is thus and so. This way mustbe tried in action; it must beapplied, physically, in the situation.By finding out what then happens,we test our intellectual findingsour logical terms or projected metesand bounds. If the required

reorganization is effected, they areconfirmed, and reflection (on thattopic) ceases; if not, there isfrustration, and inquiry continues.That all knowledge, as issuing fromreflection, is experimental (in theliteral physical sense ofexperimental) is then a constituentproposition of this doctrine.

Upon this view, thinking, orknowledge-getting, is far from beingthe armchair thing it is oftensupposed to be. The reason it is notan armchair thing is that it is not an

event going on exclusively withinthe cortex or the cortex and vocalorgans. It involves the explorationsby which relevant data are procuredand the physical analyses by whichthey are refined and made precise;it comprises the readings by whichinformation is got hold of, thewords which are experimentedwith, and the calculations by whichthe significance of entertainedconceptions or hypotheses iselaborated. Hands and feet,apparatus and appliances of all

kinds are as much a part of it aschanges in the brain. Since thesephysical operations (including thecerebral events) and equipments area part of thinking, thinking is mental,not because of a peculiar stuffwhich enters into it or of peculiarnon-natural activities whichconstitute it, but because of whatphysical acts and appliances do: thedistinctive purpose for which theyare employed and the distinctiveresults which they accomplish.

That reflection terminates, through a

definitive overt act,[3] in anothernon-reflectional situation, withinwhich incompatible responses mayagain in time be aroused, and soanother problem in reflection be set,goes without saying. Certain thingsabout this situation, however, do notat the present time speak forthemselves and need to be set forth.Let me in the first place callattention to an ambiguity in the term"knowledge." The statement that allknowledge involves reflectionor,more concretely, that it denotes an

inference from evidencegivesoffense to many; it seems adeparture from fact as well as awilful limitation of the word"knowledge." I have in thisIntroduction endeavored to mitigatethe obnoxiousness of the doctrine byreferring to "knowledge which isintellectual or logical in character."Lest this expression be regarded asa futile evasion of a real issue, Ishall now be more explicit. (1) Itmay well be admitted that there is areal sense in which knowledge (as

distinct from thinking or inquiringwith a guess attached) does notcome into existence till thinking hasterminated in the experimental actwhich fulfils the specifications setforth in thinking. But what is alsotrue is that the object thusdetermined is an object ofknowledge only because of thethinking which has preceded it andto which it sets a happy term. Torun against a hard and painful stoneis not of itself, I should say, an actof knowing; but if running into a

hard and painful thing is an outcomepredicted after inspection of dataand elaboration of a hypothesis,then the hardness and the painfulbruise which define the thing as astone also constitute it emphaticallyan object of knowledge. In short, theobject of knowledge in the strictsense is its objective; and thisobjective is not constituted till it isreached. Now this conclusionasthe word denotesis thinkingbrought to a close, done with. If thereader does not find this statement

satisfactory, he may, pending furtherdiscussion, at least recognize thatthe doctrine set forth has nodifficulty in connecting knowledgewith inference, and at the same timeadmitting that knowledge in theemphatic sense does not exist tillinference has ceased. Seen from thispoint of view, so-called immediateknowledge or simple apprehensionor acquaintance-knowledgerepresents a critical skill, acertainty of response which hasaccrued in consequence of

reflection. A like sureness offooting apart from priorinvestigations and testings is foundin instinct and habit. I do not denythat these may be better thanknowing, but I see no reason forcomplicating an already tooconfused situation by giving themthe name "knowledge" with its usualintellectual implications. From thispoint of view, the subject-matter ofknowledge is precisely that whichwe do not think of, or mentally referto in any way, being that which is

taken as matter of course, but it isnevertheless knowledge in virtue ofthe inquiry which has led up to it.

(2) Definiteness, depth, and varietyof meaning attach to the objects ofan experience just in the degree inwhich they have been previouslythought about, even when present inan experience in which they do notevoke inferential procedures at all.Such terms as "meaning,""significance," "value," have adouble sense. Sometimes they meana function: the office of one thing

representing another, or pointing toit as implied; the operation, in short,of serving as sign. In the word"symbol" this meaning is practicallyexhaustive. But the terms alsosometimes mean an inherent quality,a quality intrinsically characterizingthe thing experienced and making itworth while. The word "sense," asin the phrase "sense of a thing" (andnon-sense) is devoted to this use asdefinitely as are the words "sign"and "symbol" to the other. In such apair as "import" and "importance,"

the first tends to select the referenceto another thing while the secondnames an intrinsic content. Inreflection, the extrinsic reference isalways primary. The height of themercury means rain; the color of theflame means sodium; the form of thecurve means factors distributedaccidentally. In the situation whichfollows upon reflection, meaningsare intrinsic; they have noinstrumental or subservient office,because they have no office at all.They are as much qualities of the

objects in the situation as are redand black, hard and soft, square andround. And every reflectiveexperience adds new shades of suchintrinsic qualifications. In otherwords, while reflective knowing isinstrumental to gaining control in atroubled situation (and thus has apractical or utilitarian force), it isalso instrumental to the enrichmentof the immediate significance ofsubsequent experiences. And it maywell be that this by-product, this giftof the gods, is incomparably more

valuable for living a life than is theprimary and intended result ofcontrol, essential as is that controlto having a life to live. Words aretreacherous in this field; there areno accepted criteria for assigning ormeasuring their meanings; but if oneuse the term "consciousness" todenote immediate values of objects,then it is certainly true that"consciousness is a lyric cry evenin the midst of business." But it isequally true that if someone elseunderstands by consciousness the

function of effective reflection, thenconsciousness is a businessevenin the midst of writing or singinglyrics. But the statement remainsinadequate until we add thatknowing as a business, inquiry andinvention as enterprises, aspractical acts, become themselvescharged with the meaning of whatthey accomplish as their ownimmediate quality. There exists nodisjunction between aestheticqualities which are final yet idle,and acts which are practical or

instrumental. The latter have theirown delights and sorrows.

III

Speaking, then, from the standpointof temporal order, we findreflection, or thought, occupying anintermediate and reconstructiveposition. It comes between atemporally prior situation (anorganized interaction of factors) ofactive and appreciative experience,wherein some of the factors have

become discordant andincompatible, and a later situation,which has been constituted out ofthe first situation by means of actingon the findings of reflective inquiry.This final situation therefore has arichness of meaning, as well as acontrolled character lacking to itsoriginal. By it is fixed the logicalvalidity or intellectual force of theterms and relations distinguished byreflection. Owing to the continuityof experience (the overlapping andrecurrence of like problems), these

logical fixations become of thegreatest assistance to subsequentinquiries; they are its workingmeans. In such further uses, they getfurther tested, defined, andelaborated, until the vast andrefined systems of the technicalobjects and formulae of the sciencescome into existencea point towhich we shall return later.

Owing to circumstances upon whichit is unnecessary to dwell, theposition thus sketched was notdeveloped primarily upon its own

independent account, but rather inthe course of a criticism of anothertype of logic, the idealistic logicfound in Lotze. It is obvious that thetheory in question has criticalbearings. According to it, reflectionin its distinctions and processes canbe understood only when placed inits intermediate pivotal temporalpositionas a process of control,through reorganization, of materialalogical in character. It intimatesthat thinking would not exist, andhence knowledge would not be

found, in a world which presentedno troubles or where there are no"problems of evil"; and on the otherhand that a reflective method is theonly sure way of dealing with thesetroubles. It intimates that while theresults of reflection, because of thecontinuity of experience, may be ofwider scope than the situationwhich calls out a particular inquiryand invention, reflection itself isalways specific in origin and aim; italways has something special tocope with. For troubles are

concretely specific. It intimates alsothat thinking and reflectiveknowledge are never an end-all,never their own purpose norjustification, but that they passnaturally into a more direct andvital type of experience, whethertechnological or appreciative orsocial. This doctrine implies,moreover, that logical theory in itsusual sense is essentially adescriptive study; that it is anaccount of the processes and toolswhich have actually been found

effective in inquiry, comprising inthe term "inquiry" both deliberatediscovery and deliberate invention.

Since the doctrine was propoundedin an intellectual environmentwhere such statements were notcommonplaces, where in fact alogic was reigning whichchallenged these convictions atevery point, it is not surprising thatit was put forth with a controversialcoloring, being directed particularlyat the dominant idealistic logic. Thepoint of contact and hence the point

of conflict between the logic setforth and the idealistic logic are notfar to seek. The logic based onidealism had, as a matter of fact,treated knowledge from thestandpoint of an account of thoughtof thought in the sense ofconception, judgment, andinferential reasoning. But while ithad inherited this view from theolder rationalism, it had alsolearned from Hume, via Kant, thatdirect sense or perceptual materialmust be taken into account. Hence it

had, in effect, formulated theproblem of logic as the problem ofthe connection of logical thoughtwith sense-material, and hadattempted to set forth a metaphysicsof reality based upon variousascending stages of thecompleteness of the rationalizationor idealization of given, brute,fragmentary sense material bysynthetic activity of thought. Whileconsiderations of a much lessformal kind were chiefly influentialin bringing idealism to its modern

vogue, such as the conciliation of ascientific with a religious and moralpoint of view and the need ofrationalizing social and historicinstitutions so as to explain theircultural effect, yet this logicconstituted the technique ofidealismits strictly intellectualclaim for acceptance.

The point of contact, and hence ofconflict, between it and such adoctrine of logic and reflectivethought as is set forth above is, Irepeat, fairly obvious. Both fix upon

thinking as the key to the situation. Istill believe (what I believed whenI wrote the essays) that under theinfluence of idealism valuableanalyses and formulations of thework of reflective thought, in itsrelation to securing knowledge ofobjects, were executed. Butandthe but is one of exceptional gravitythe idealistic logic started fromthe distinction between immediateplural data and unifying,rationalizing meanings as adistinction ready-made in

experience, and it set up as the goalof knowledge (and hence as thedefinition of true reality) acomplete, exhaustive,comprehensive, and eternal systemin which plural and immediate dataare forever woven into a fabric andpattern of self-luminous meaning. Inshort, it ignored the temporallyintermediate and instrumental placeof reflection; and because it ignoredand denied this place, it overlookedits essential feature: control of theenvironment in behalf of human

progress and well-being, the effortat control being stimulated by theneeds, the defects, the troubles,which accrue when the environmentcoerces and suppresses man orwhen man endeavors in ignoranceto override the environment. Henceit misconstrued the criterion of thework of intelligence; it set up as itscriterion an Absolute and Non-temporal reality at large, instead ofusing the criterion of specifictemporal achievement ofconsequences through a control

supplied by reflection. And withthis outcome, it proved faithless tothe cause which had generated itand given it its reason for being: themagnification of the work ofintelligence in our actual physicaland social world. For a theorywhich ends by declaring thateverything is, really and eternally,thoroughly ideal and rational, cutsthe nerve of the specific demandand work of intelligence.

From this general statement, let medescend to the technical point upon

which turns the criticism ofidealistic logic by the essays. Grant,for a moment, as a hypothesis, thatthinking starts neither from animplicit force of rationality desiringto realize itself completely in andthrough and against the limitationswhich are imposed upon it by theconditions of our human experience(as all idealisms have taught), norfrom the fact that in each humanbeing is a "mind" whose business itis just to "know"to theorize in theAristotelian sense; but, rather, that it

starts from an effort to get out ofsome trouble, actual or menacing. Itis quite clear that the human racehas tried many another way outbesides reflective inquiry. Itsfavorite resort has been acombination of magic and poetry,the former to get the needed reliefand control; the latter to import intoimagination, and hence intoemotional consummation, therealizations denied in fact. But asfar as reflection does emerge andgets a working foothold, the nature

of its job is set for it. On the onehand, it must discover, it must findout, it must detect; it must inventorywhat is there. All this, or else itwill never know what the matter is;the human being will not find outwhat "struck him," and hence willhave no idea of where to seek for aremedyfor the needed control. Onthe other hand, it must invent, itmust project, it must bring to bearupon the given situation what is not,as it exists, given as a part of it.

This seems to be quite empirical

and quite evident. The essayssubmitted the thesis that this simpledichotomization of the practicalsituation of power and enjoyment,when menaced, into what is there(whether as obstacle or asresource), and into suggestedinventionsprojections ofsomething else to be brought to bearupon it, ways of dealing with itisthe explanation of the time-honoredlogical determinations of brute fact,datum and meaning or ideal quality;of (in more psychological

terminology) sense-perception andconception; of particulars (parts,fragments) and universals-generics;and also of whatever there is ofintrinsic significance in thetraditional subject-predicatescheme of logic. It held, lessformally, that this view explainedthe eulogistic connotations alwaysattaching to "reason" and to thework of reason in effecting unity,harmony, comprehension, orsynthesis, and to the traditionalcombination of a depreciatory

attitude toward brute facts with agrudging concession of the necessitywhich thought is under of acceptingthem and taking them for its ownsubject-matter and checks. Morespecifically, it is held that this viewsupplied (and I should venture tosay for the first time) an explanationof the traditional theory of truth as acorrespondence or agreement ofexistence and mind or thought. Itshowed that the correspondence oragreement was like that between aninvention and the conditions which

the invention is intended to meet.Thereby a lot of epistemologicalhangers-on to logic wereeliminated; for the distinctionswhich epistemology hadmisunderstood were located wherethey belong:in the art of inquiry,considered as a joint process ofascertainment and invention,projection, or "hypothesizing"ofwhich more below.

IV

The essays were published in 1903.At that time (as has been noted)idealism was in practical commandof the philosophic field in bothEngland and this country; the logicsin vogue were profoundlyinfluenced by Kantian and post-Kantian thought. Empirical logics,those conceived under the influenceof Mill, still existed, but their lightwas dimmed by the radiance of theregnant idealism. Moreover, fromthe standpoint of the doctrineexpounded in the essays, the

empirical logic committed the samelogical fault as did the idealistic, intaking sense-data to be primitive(instead of being resolutions of thethings of prior experiences intoelements for the aim of securingevidence); while it had norecognition of the specific servicerendered by intelligence in thedevelopment of new meanings andplans of new actions. This state ofthings may explain the controversialnature of the essays, and theirselection in particular of an

idealistic logic for animadversion.

Since the essays were written, therehas been an impressive revival ofrealism, and also a development ofa type of logical theorythe so-called Analytic Logiccorresponding to the philosophicalaspirations of the new realism. Thismarked alteration of intellectualenvironment subjects the doctrine ofthe essays to a test not contemplatedwhen they were written. It is onething to develop a hypothesis inview of a particular situation; it is

another to test its worth in view ofprocedures and results having aradically different motivation anddirection. It is, of course,impossible to discuss the analyticlogic in this place. A considerationof how some of its main tenetscompare with the conclusionsoutlined above will, however,throw some light upon the meaningand the worth of the latter. Althoughthis was formulated with theidealistic and sensationalisticlogics in mind, the hypothesis that

knowledge can be rightlyunderstood only in connection withconsiderations of time and temporalposition is a general one. If it isvalid, it should be readilyapplicable to a critical placing ofany theory which ignores and deniessuch temporal considerations. Andwhile I have learned much from therealistic movement about the fullforce of the position sketched in theessays when adequately developed;and while later discussions havemade it clear that the language

employed in the essays wassometimes unnecessarily (thoughnaturally) infected by thesubjectivism of the positions againstwhich it was directed, I find that theanalytic logic is also guilty of thefault of temporal dislocation.

In one respect, idealistic logic takescognizance of a temporal contrast;indeed, it may fairly be said to bebased upon it. It seizes upon thecontrast in intellectual force,consistency, andcomprehensiveness between the

crude or raw data with whichscience sets out and the defined,ordered, and systematic totality atwhich it aimsand which in part itachieves. This difference is agenuine empirical difference.Idealism noted that the differencemay properly be ascribed to theintervention of thinkingthatthought is what makes thedifference. Now since the outcomeof science is of higher intellectualrank than its data, and since theintellectualistic tradition in

philosophy has always identifieddegrees of logical adequacy withdegrees of reality, the conclusionwas naturally drawn that the realworldabsolute realitywas anideal or thought-world, and that thesense-world, the commonsense-world, the world of actual andhistoric experience, is simply aphenomenal world presenting afragmentary manifestation of thatthought which the process of humanthinking makes progressivelyexplicit and articulate.

This perception of the intellectualsuperiority of objects which areconstituted at the conclusion ofthinking over those which formedits data may fairly be termed theempirical factor in the idealisticlogic. The essence of the realisticreaction, on its logical side, isexceedingly simple. It starts fromthose objects with which science,approved science, ends. Since theyare the objects which are known,which are true, they are the realobjects. That they are also objects

for intervening thinking is aninteresting enough historical andpsychological fact, but one quiteirrelevant to their natures, whichare precisely what knowledge findsthem to be. In the biography ofhuman beings it may hold good thatapprehension of objects is arrivedat only through certain wanderings,endeavors, exercises, experiments;possibly acts called sensation,memory, reflection may be neededby men in reaching a grasp of theobjects. But such things denote facts

about the history of the knower, notabout the nature of the knownobject. Analysis will show,moreover, that any intelligibleaccount of this history, any verifiedstatement of the psychology ofknowing assumes objects which areunaffected by the knowingotherwise the pretended history ismerely pretense and not to betrusted. The history of the processof knowing, moreover, implies alsothe terms and propositionstruthsof logic. That logic must

therefore be assumed as a scienceof objects real and true, quite apartfrom any process of thinking them.In short, the requirement is that weshall think things as they arethemselves, not make them intoobjects constructed by thinking.

This revival of realism coincidedalso with an important movement inmathematics and logic: the attemptto treat logical distinctions bymathematical methods; while at thesame time mathematical subject-matter had become so generalized

that it was a theory of types andorders of terms and propositionsin short, a logic. Certain minds havealways found mathematics the typeof knowledge, because of itsdefiniteness, order, andcomprehensiveness. The wonderfulaccomplishments of modernmathematics, including itsdevelopment into a type of highlygeneralized logic, was notcalculated to lessen the tendency.And while prior philosophers havegenerally played their admiration of

mathematics into the hands ofidealism (regarding mathematicalsubject-matter as the embodiment ormanifestation of pure thought), thenew philosophy insisted that theterms and types of order constitutingmathematical and logical subject-matter were real in their own right,and (at most) merely led up to anddiscovered by thinkinganoperation, moreover, itselfsubjected (as has been pointed out)to the entities and relationships setforth by logic.

The inadequacy of this summaryaccount may be pardoned in view ofthe fact that no adequate expositionis intended; all that is wanted issuch a statement of the generalrelationship of idealism to realismas may serve as the point ofdeparture for a comparison with theinstrumentalism of the essays. Inbare outline, it is obvious that thetwo latter agree in regardingthinking as instrumental, not asconstitutive. But this agreementturns out to be a formal matter in

contrast with a disagreementconcerning that to which thinking isinstrumental. The new realism findsthat it is instrumental simply toknowledge of objects. From this itinfers (with perfect correctness andinevitableness) that thinking(including all the operations ofdiscovery and testing as they mightbe set forth in an inductive logic) isa mere psychological preliminary,utterly irrelevant to any conclusionsregarding the nature of objectsknown. The thesis of the essays is

that thinking is instrumental to acontrol of the environment, acontrol effected through acts whichwould not be undertaken without theprior resolution of a complexsituation into assured elements andan accompanying projection ofpossibilitieswithout, that is tosay, thinking.

Such an instrumentalism seems toanalytic realism but a variant ofidealism. For it asserts thatprocesses of reflective inquiry playa part in shaping the objects

namely, terms and propositionswhich constitute the bodies ofscientific knowledge. Now it mustnot only be admitted but proclaimedthat the doctrine of the essays holdsthat intelligence is not an otioseaffair, nor yet a mere preliminary toa spectator-like apprehension ofterms and propositions. In so far asit is idealistic to hold that objects ofknowledge in their capacity ofdistinctive objects of knowledgeare determined by intelligence, it isidealistic. It believes that faith in

the constructive, the creative,competency of intelligence was theredeeming element in historicidealisms. Lest, however, we bemisled by general terms, the scopeand limits of this "idealism" must beformulated.

(1) Its distinguishing trait is that itdefines thought or intelligence byfunction, by work done, byconsequences effected. It does notstart with a power, an entity orsubstance or activity which isready-made thought or reason and

which as such constitutes the world.Thought, intelligence, is to it just aname for the events and acts whichmake up the processes of analyticinspection and projected inventionand testing which have beendescribed. These events, these acts,are wholly natural; they are"realistic"; they comprise the sticksand stones, the bread and butter, thetrees and horses, the eyes and ears,the lovers and haters, the sighs anddelights of ordinary experience.Thinking is what some of the actual

existences do. They are in no senseconstituted by thinking; on thecontrary, the problems of thoughtare set by their difficulties and itsresources are furnished by theirefficacies; its acts are their doingsadapted to a distinctive end.

(2) The reorganization, themodification, effected by thinkingis, by this hypothesis, a physicalone. Thinking ends in experimentand experiment is an actualalteration of a physically antecedentsituation in those details or respects

which called for thought in order todo away with some evil. To suffer adisease and to try to do somethingfor it is a primal experience; to lookinto the disease, to try and find outjust what makes it a disease, toinventor hypothecateremediesis a reflective experience; to try thesuggested remedy and see whetherthe disease is helped is the actwhich transforms the data and theintended remedy into knowledgeobjects. And this transformationinto knowledge objects is also

effected by changing physical thingsby physical means.

Speaking from this point of view,the decisive consideration asbetween instrumentalism andanalytic realism is whether theoperation of experimentation is oris not necessary to knowledge. Theinstrumental theory holds that it is;analytic realism holds that eventhough it were essential in gettingknowledge (or in learning), it hasnothing to do with knowledge itself,and hence nothing to do with the

known object: that it makes achange only in the knower, not inwhat is to be known. And forprecisely the same reason,instrumentalism holds that an objectas a knowledge-object is never awhole; that it is surrounded withand inclosed by things which arequite other than objects ofknowledge, so that knowledgecannot be understood in isolation orwhen taken as mere beholding orgrasping of objects. That is to say,while it is making the sick man

better or worse (or leaving him justthe same) which determines theknowledge-value of certain findingsof fact and certain conceptions as tomode of treatment (so that by thetreatment they become definitelyknowledge-objects), yetimprovement or deterioration of thepatient is other than an object ofcognitive apprehension. Itsknowledge-object phase is aselection in reference to priorreflections. So the laboratoryexperiment of a chemist which

brings to a head a long reflectiveinquiry and settles the intellectualstatus of its findings and theorizings(thereby making them into cognitiveconcerns or terms and propositions)is itself much more than aknowledge of terms andpropositions, and only by virtue ofthis surplusage is it evencontemplative knowledge. Heknows, say, tin, when he has madetin into an outcome of hisinvestigating procedures, but tin ismuch more than a term of

knowledge.

Putting the matter in a slightlydifferent way, logical (as distinctfrom nave) realism confuses meansof knowledge with objects ofknowledge. The means are twofold:they are (a) the data of a particularinquiry so far as they are significantbecause of prior experimentalinquiries; and (b) they are themeanings which have been settledin consequence of prior intellectualundertakings: on the one hand,particular things or qualities as

signs; on the other, generalmeanings as possibilities of what issignified by given data. Ourphysician has in advance atechnique for telling that certainparticular traits, if he finds them,are symptoms, signs; and he has astore of diseases and remedies inmind which may possibly be meantin any given case. From priorreflective experiments he haslearned to look for temperature, forrate of heartbeats, for sore spots incertain places; to take specimens of

blood, sputum, of membrane, andsubject them to cultures,microscopic examination, etc. Hehas acquired certain habits, in otherwords, in virtue of which certainphysical qualities and events aremore than physical, in virtue ofwhich they are signs or indicationsof something else.

On the other hand, this somethingelse is a somewhat not physicallypresent at the time: it is a series ofevents still to happen. It issuggested by what is given, but is

no part of the given. Now, in thedegree in which the physiciancomes to the examination of what isthere with a large andcomprehensive stock of suchpossibilities or meanings in mind,he will be intellectually resourcefulin dealing with a particular case.They (the concepts or universals ofthe situation) are (together with thesign-capacity of the data) the meansof knowing the case in hand; theyare the agencies of transforming it,through the actions which they call

for, into an objectan object ofknowledge, a truth to be stated inpropositions. But since theprofessional (as distinct from thehuman) knower is particularlyconcerned with the elaboration ofthese tools, the professional knowerof which the class philosopherpresents of course one caseungenerously drops from sight thesituation in its integrity and treatsthese instrumentalities ofknowledge as objects ofknowledge. Each of these aspects

signs and things signifiedissufficiently important to deserve asection on its own account.

V

The position taken in the essays isfrankly realistic in acknowledgingthat certain brute existences,detected or laid bare by thinking butin no way constituted out of thoughtor any mental process, set everyproblem for reflection and henceserve to test its otherwise merely

speculative results. It is simplyinsisted that as a matter of fact thesebrute existences are equivalentneither to the objective content ofthe situations, technological orartistic or social, in which thinkingoriginates, nor to the things to beknownto the objects ofknowledge. Let us take the sequenceof mineral rock in place, pig ironand the manufactured article,comparing the raw material in itsundisturbed place in nature to theoriginal res of experience, compare

the manufactured article to theobjective and object of knowledge,and the brute datum to the metalundergoing extraction from raw orefor the sake of being wrought into auseful thing. And we should add thatjust as the manufacturer always hasa lot of already extracted ore onhand for use in machine processesas it is wanted, so every person ofany maturity, especially if he livesin an environment affected byprevious scientific work, has a lotof extracted dataor, what comes

to the same thing, of ready-madetools of extractionfor use ininference as they are required. Wego about with a disposition toidentify certain shapes as tables,certain sounds as words of theFrench language, certain cries asevidences of distress, certainmassed colors as woods in thedistance, certain empty spaces asbuttonholes, and so on indefinitely.The examples are trivial enough.But if more complicated matterswere taken, it would be seen that a

large part of the technique ofscience (all of science which isspecifically "inductive" incharacter) consists of methods offinding out just what qualities areunambiguous, economical, anddependable signs of those otherthings which cannot be got at asdirectly as can the sign-bearingelements. And if we started from themore obscure and complexdifficulties of identification anddiagnosis with which the sciencesof physiology, botany, astronomy,

chemistry, etc., deal, we should beforced to recognize that theidentifications of everyday lifeour "perceptions" of chairs, tables,trees, friendsdiffer only inpresenting questions much easier ofsolution.

In every case, it is a matter of fixingsome given physical existence as asign of some other existences notgiven in the same way as is thatwhich serves as a sign. Thesewords of Mill might well be madethe motto of every logic: "To draw

inferences has been said to be thegreat business of life. Everyone hasdaily, hourly, and momentary needof ascertaining facts which he hasnot directly observed.... It is theonly occupation in which the mindnever ceases to be engaged." Suchbeing the case, the indispensablecondition of doing the business wellis the careful determination of thesign-force of specific things inexperience. And this condition cannever be fulfilled as long as a thingis presented to us, so to say, in bulk.

The complex organizations whichare the subject-matter of our directactivities and enjoyments aregrossly unfit to serve as intellectualindications or evidence. Theirtestimony is almost worthless, theyspeak so many languages. In theircomplexity, they point equally in alldirections; in their unity, they run ina groove and point to whatever ismost customary. To break up thecomplexity, to resolve it into anumber of independent variableseach as irreducible as it is possible

to make it, is the only way of gettingsecure pointers as to what isindicated by the occurrence of thesituation in question. The "objects"of ordinary life, stones, plants, cats,rocks, moon, etc., are neither thedata of science nor the objects atwhich science arrives.

We are here face to face with acrucial point in analytic realism.Realism argues that we have noalternative except either to regardanalysis as falsifying ( laBergson), and thus commit

ourselves to distrust of science asan organ of knowledge, or else toadmit that something eulogisticallytermed Reality (especially asExistence, Being as subject tospace and time determinations) isbut a complex made up of fixed,mutually independent simples: viz.,that Reality is truly conceived onlyunder the caption of whole andparts, where the parts areindependent of each other andconsequently of the whole. Forinstrumentalism, however, the

alleged dilemma simply does notexist. The results of abstraction andanalysis are perfectly real; but theyare real, like everything else, wherethey are real: that is to say, in someparticular coexistence in thesituation where they originate andoperate.

The remark is perhaps more crypticthan enlightening. Its intent is thatreflection is an actual occurrence asmuch so as a thunderstorm or agrowing plant, and as an actualexistence it is characterized by

specific existential traits uniquelybelonging to it: the entities ofsimple data as such. It is in controlof the evidential function thatirreducible and independentsimples or elements exist. Theycertainly are found there; as wehave seen they are "common-sense"objects broken up into expeditiousand unambiguous signs ofconclusions to be drawn,conclusions about other things withwhich theythe elementsarecontinuous in some respects,

although discrete[4] with respect totheir sensory conditions. But thereis no more reason for supposing thatthey exist elsewhere in the samemanner than there is for supposingtha t centaurs coexist along withdomestic horses and cows becausethey coexist with the material offolk-tales or rites, or for supposingthat pigs of iron pre-existed as pigsin the mine. There is no falsifying inanalysis because the analysis iscarried on within a situation whichcontrols it. The fallacy and

falsifying is on the part of thephilosopher who ignores thecontextual situation and whotransfers the properties which thingshave as dependable evidential signsover to things in other modes ofbehavior.

It is no reply to this position to saythat the "elements" or simples werethere prior to inquiry and toanalysis and abstraction. Of coursetheir subject-matter was in somesense "there"; and, being there, wasfound, discovered, or detectedhit

upon. I am not questioning thisstatement; rather, I have beenasserting it. But I am asking forpatience and industry to considerthe matter somewhat further. Iwould ask the man who takes theterms of logical analysis (physicalresolution for the sake of gettingassured evidential indications ofobjects as yet unknown) to be thingswhich coexist with the things of anon-inferential situation, to inquirein what way his independent givenultimates were there prior to

analysis. I would point out that inany case they did not pre-exist assigns. (a) Consequently, whatevertraits or properties they possess assigns must at least be referredexclusively to the reflectivesituation. And they must possesssome distinguishing traits as signs;otherwise they would beindistinguishable from anything elsewhich happens to be thought of, andcould not be employed as evidence:could not be, in short, what they are.If the reader will seriously ask just

what traits data do possess as signs,or evidence, I shall be quite contentto leave the issue to the results ofhis own inquiries. (b) Any inquiryas to how the data antecedently existwill, I am confident, show that theydo not exist in the same purity, thesame external exclusiveness andinternal homogeneity, which theypresent within the situation ofinference, any more than the ironwhich pre-existed in the rocks in themountains was just the same as thefluxed and extracted ore. Hence

they did not exist in the sameisolated simplicity. I have not theslightest interest in exaggerating thescope of this difference. Theimportant matter is not its extent orrange, but what such a changehowever smallindicates: namely,that the material is entering into anew environment, and has beensubjected to the changes which willmake it useful and effective in thatenvironment. It is trivial to supposethat the sole or even the primarydifficulty which an analytic realism

has to face is the occurrence oferror and illusions, of "secondary"qualities, etc. The difficulty residesin the contrast of the world of anave, say Aristotelian, realismwith that of a highly intellectualizedand analytic disintegration of theeveryday world of things. If realismis generous enough to have a placewithin its world (as a res havingsocial and temporal qualities aswell as spatial ones) for data inprocess of construction of newobjects, the outlook is radically

different from the case where, in theinterests of a theory, a realisminsists that analytic determinationsare the sole real things.[5]

If it be not only conceded butasserted that the subject-mattergenerating the data of scientificprocedure antedates the procedure,it may be asked: what is the point ofinsisting so much upon the fact thatdata exist only within theprocedure? Is not the statementeither a trivial tautology or else anattempt to inject, sub rosa, a certain

idealistic dependence upon thoughtinto even brute facts? The questionis a fair one. And the clew to thereply may be found in theconsideration that it was nothistorically an easy matter to reducethe iron of the rocks to the ironwhich could freely and effectivelybe used in the manufacture ofarticles. It involved hitting upon ahighly complicated art, but an art,nevertheless, which anyone with thenecessary capital and education cancommand today as a matter of

course, giving no thought to the factthat one is using an art constructedoriginally with vast pains. Similarlyit is by art, by a carefullydetermined technique, that the thingsof our primary experience areresolved into unquestioned andirreducible data, lacking in innercomplexity and hence unambiguous.There is no call for the scientificman in the pursuit of his calling totake account of this fact, any morethan the manufacturer need reckonwith the arts which are required to

deliver him his material. But alogician, a philosopher, is supposedto take a somewhat broader survey;and for his purposes the fact whichthe scientific inquirer can leave outof account, because it is no part ofhis business, may be the importantfact. For the logician, it wouldseem, is concerned not with thesignificance of these or those data,but with the significance of therebeing such things as data, with theirtraits of irreducibleness, bruteness,simplicity, etc. Now, as the special

scientific inquirer answers thequestion as to the significance of hisspecial brute facts by discoveringother facts with which they areconnected, so it would seem that thelogician can find out thesignificance of the existence of data(the fact which concerns him) onlyby finding out the other facts withw h i c h they coexisttheirsignificance being their factualcontinuities. And the first step in thesearch for these other facts whichsupply significance is the

recognition that they have beenextracted for a purposefor thepurpose of guiding inference. It isthis purposeful situation of inquirywhich supplies the other factswhich give the existence of brutedata their significance. And unlessthere is such a discovery (or somebetter one), the logician willinevitably fail in conceiving theimport of the existence of brutedata. And this misconception is, Irepeat, just the defect from which ananalytic presentative realism

suffers. To perceive that the brutedata laid bare in scientificproceedings are always traits of anextensive situation, and of thatsituation as one which needs controland which is to undergomodification in some respects, is tobe protected from any temptation toturn logical specification intometaphysical atomism. The need forthe protection is sufficiently great tojustify spending some energy inpointing out that the brute objectivefacts of scientific discovery are

discovered facts, discovered byphysical manipulations whichdetach them from their ordinarysetting.

We have stated that, strictlyspeaking, data (as the immediateconsiderations from whichcontrolled inference proceeds) arenot objects but means,instrumentalities, of knowledge:things by which we know ratherthan things known. It is by the colorstain that we know a cellularstructure; it is by marks on a page

that we know what some manbelieves; it is by the height of thebarometer that we know theprobability of rain; it is by thescratches on the rock that we knowthat ice was once there; it is byqualities detected in chemical andmicroscopic examination that weknow that a thing is human bloodand not paint. Just what the realistasserts about so-called mentalstates of sensations, images, andideas, namely, that they are not thesubject-matter of knowledge but its

agencies, holds of the chairs andtables to which he appeals insupport of his doctrine of animmediate cognitive presentation,apart from any problem and anyreflection. And there is very solidground for instituting thecomparison: the sensations, images,etc., of the idealist are nothing butthe chairs, tables, etc., of the realistin their ultimate irreduciblequalities.[6] The problem in whichthe realist appeals to the immediateapprehension of the table is the

epistemological problem, and heappeals to the table not as an objectof knowledge (as he thinks hedoes), but as evidence, as a meansof knowing his conclusionhis realobject of knowledge. He has only toexamine his own evidence to seethat it is evidence, and hence a termin a reflective inquiry, while thenature of knowledge is the object ofhis knowledge.

Again, the question may be asked:Since instrumentalism admits thatthe table is really "there," why make

such a fuss about whether it is thereas a means or as an object ofknowledge? Is not the distinctionmere hair-splitting unless it is away of smuggling in a quasi-idealistic dependence upon thought?The reply will, I hope, clinch thesignificance of the distinction,whether or no it makes itacceptable. Respect for knowledgeand its object is the ground forinsisting upon the distinction. Theobject of knowledge is, so to speak,a more dignified, a more complete,

sufficient, and self-sufficing thingthan any datum can be. To transferthe traits of the object as known tothe datum of reaching it, is amaterial, not a merely verbal, affair.It is precisely this shift which leadsthe presentative realist to substitutefor irreducibility and unambiguityof logical function (use ininference) physical andmetaphysical isolation andelementariness. It is this shift whichgenerates the need of reconcilingthe deliverances of science with the

structure and qualities of the worldin which we directly live, since itsets up a rivalry between the claimsof the data, of common-senseobjects, and of scientific objects(the results of adequate inquiry).Above all it commits us to a viewthat change is in some sense unreal,since ultimate and primary entities,being simple, do not permit ofchange. No; whatever is to be saidabout the validity of the distinctioncontended for, it cannot be said tobe insignificant. A theory which

commits us to the conception of aworld of Eleatic fixities as primaryand which regards alteration andorganization as secondary has suchprofound consequences for thoughtand conduct that a detection of itsmotivating fallacy makes asubstantial difference. No morefundamental question can be raisedthan the range and force of theapplicability to nature, life, andsociety of the whole-and-partconception. And if we confuse ourpremises by taking the existential

instrumentalities of knowledge forits real objects, all distinctions andrelations in nature, life, and societyare thereby requisitioned to bereally only cases of the whole-and-part nature of things.

VI

The instrumental theoryacknowledges the objectivity ofmeanings as well as of data. Theyare referred to and employed inreflective inquiry with the

confidence attached to the hard factsof sense. Pragmatic, as distinct fromsensational, empiricism may claimto have antedated neo-realism incriticism of resolution of meaningsinto states or acts of consciousness.As previously noted, meanings areindispensable instrumentalities ofreflection, strictly coincident withand correlative to what isanalytically detected to be given, orirremovably there. Data in theirfragmentary character pose aproblem; they also define it. They

suggest possible meanings. Whethert h e y indicate them as well assuggest them is a question to beresolved. But the meaningssuggested are genuinely andexistentially suggested, and theproblem described by the datacannot be solved without theiracknowledgment and use. That thisinstrumental necessity has led to ametaphysical hypostatizing ofmeanings into essences orsubsistences having some sort ofmysterious being apart from

qualitative things and changes is asource of regret; it is hardly anoccasion for surprise.

To be sure of our footing, let usreturn to empirical ground. It is ascertain an empirical fact that onething suggests another as that firealters the thing burned. Thesuggesting thing has to be there orgiven; something has to be there todo the suggesting. The suggestedthing is obviously not "there" in thesame way as that which suggests; ifit were, it would not have to be

suggested. A suggestion tends, in thenatural man, to excite action, tooperate as a stimulus. I may respondmore readily and energetically to asuggested fire than to the thing fromwhich the suggestion sprang: that is,the thing by itself may leave mecold, the thing as suggestingsomething else may move mevigorously. The response if effectedhas all the force of a belief orconviction. It is as if we believed,on intellectual grounds, that thething is a fire. But it is discovered

that not all suggestions areindications, or signifiers. The whalesuggested by the cloud form doesnot stand on the same level as thefire suggested by smoke, and thesuggested fire does not always turnout fire in fact. We are led toexamine the original point ofdeparture and we find out that itwas not really smoke. In a worldwhere skim-milk and creamsuggestions, acted upon, haverespectively differentconsequences, and where a thing

suggests one as readily as the other(or skim-milk masquerades ascream), the importance ofexamination of the thing exercisingthe suggestive force prior to actingupon what it suggests is obvious.Hence the act of response naturallystimulated is turned into channels ofinspection and experimental(physical) analysis. We move ourbody to get a better hold on it, andwe pick it to pieces to see what itis.

This is the operation which we have

been discussing in the last section.But experience also testifies that thething suggested is worth attention onits own account. Perhaps we cannotget very readily at the thing which,suggesting flame, suggests fire. Itmay be that reflection upon themeaning (or conception), "fire,"will help us. Firehere, there, oranywhere, the "essence" firemeans thus and so; if this thingreally means fire, it will havecertain traits, certain attributes. Arethey there? There are "flames" on

the stage as part of the scenery. Dothey really indicate fire? Fire wouldmean danger; but it is not possiblethat such a risk would be taken withan audience (other meanings, risk,audience, danger, being brought in).It must be something else. Well, it isprobably colored tissue-paper instrips rapidly blown about. Thismeaning leads us to closerinspection; it directs ourobservations to hunt forcorroborations or negations. Ifconditions permitted, it would lead

us to walk up and get at the thing inclose quarters. In short, devotion toa suggestion, prior to accepting it asstimulus, leads first to othersuggestions which may be moreapplicable; and, secondly, it affordsthe standpoint and the procedure ofa physical experimentation to detectthose elements which are the morereliable signs, indicators( e v i d e nc e ) . Suggestions thustreated are precisely whatconstitute meanings, subsistences,essences, etc. Without such

development and handling of whatis suggested, the process ofanalyzing the situation to get at itshard facts, and especially to get atjust those which have a right todetermine inference, is haphazardineffectively done. In the actualstress of any such neededdetermination it is of the greatestimportance to have a large stock ofpossible meanings to draw on, andto have them ordered in such a waythat we can develop each promptlyand accurately, and move quickly

from one to another. It is not to bewondered at then that we not onlyconserve such suggestions as havebeen previously convertedsuccessfully into meanings, but alsothat we (or some men at least) turnprofessional inquirers and thinkers;that meanings are elaborated andordered in related systems quiteapart from any immediately urgentsituation; or that a realm of"essences" is built up apart fromthat of existences.

That suggestion occurs is doubtless

a mystery, but so is it a mystery thathydrogen and oxygen make water. Itis one of the hard, brute facts thatwe have to take account of. We caninvestigate the conditions underwhich the happening takes place,we can trace the consequenceswhich flow from the happening. Bythese means we can so control thehappening that it will take place in amore secure and fruitful manner.But all this depends upon the heartyacceptance of the happening as fact.Suggestion does not of itself yield

meanings; it yields only suggestedthings. But the moment we take asuggested thing and develop it inconnection with other meanings andemploy it as a guide of investigation(a method of inquiry), that momentwe have a full-fledged meaning onour hands, possessing all theverifiable features which have beenimported at any time to ideas,forms, species, essences,subsistences. This empiricalidentification of meaning by meansof the specific fact of suggestion

cuts deepif Occam's razor stillcuts.

A suggestion lies between adequatestimulation and logical indication.A cry of fire may start us runningwithout reflection; we may havelearned, as children are taught inschool, to react without questioning.There is overt stimulation, but nosuggesting. But if the response isheld off or postponed, it may persistas suggestion: the cry suggests fireand suggests the advisability offlight. We may, in a sense we must,call suggestion "mental." But it isimportant to note what is meant by

this term. Fire, running, gettingburned, are not mental; they arephysical. But in their status of beingsuggested they may be called mentalwhen we recognize this distinctivestatus. This means no more than thatthey are implicated in a specificway in a reflective situation, invirtue of which they are susceptibleof certain modes of treatment. Theirstatus as suggested by certainfeatures of the actual situation (andpossibly meant or indicated as wellas suggested) may be definitely

fixed; then we get meanings, logicaltermsdeterminations.[7]

Words are of course the agencies offixation chiefly employed, thoughany kind of physical existenceagesture, a muscular contraction inthe finger or leg or chestunderready command may be used. Whatis essential is that there be aspecific physical existence at handwhich may be used to concrete andhold on to the suggestion, so that thelatter may be handled on its ownaccount. Until thus detached and

refixed there are things suggested,but hardly a suggestion; thingsmeant, but hardly a meaning; thingsideated, but hardly an idea. And thesuggested thing until detached isstill too literal, too tied up withother things, to be further developedor to be successfully used as amethod of experimentation in newdirections so as to bring to lightnew traits.

As data are signs which indicateother existences, so meanings aresigns which imply other

meanings.[8] I am doubtful, forexample, whether this is a man ornot; that is, I am doubtful as to somegiven traits when they are taken assigns or evidences, but I aminclined to the hypothesis of a man.Having such a tentative orconceptual object in mind, I amenabled to explore economicallyand effectively, instead of atrandom, what is present, provided Ican elaborate the implications of theterm "man." To develop itsimplications is all one with telling

its meaning in connection with othermeanings. Being a man means, forexample, speaking when spoken toanother meaning which need havebeen no part of "man" as originallysuggested. This meaning of"answering questions" will thensuggest a procedure which the term"man" in its first meaning did notpossess; it is an implication orimplied meaning which puts me in anew and possibly more fruitfulrelation to the thing. (The process ofdeveloping implications is usually

termed "discourse" orratiocination.) Now, be it noted,replying to questions is no part ofthe definition of man; it would notbe now an implication of Plato or ofthe Russian Czar for me. In otherwords, there is something in theactual situation which suggestsinquiring as well as man; and it isthe interaction between these twosuggestions which is fruitful. Thereis consequently no mystery aboutthe fruitfulness of deductionthough this fruitfulness has been

urged as though it offered aninsuperable objection toinstrumentalism. On the contrary,instrumentalism is the only theory towhich deduction is not a mystery. Ifa variety of wheels and cams androds which have been invented withreference to doing a given task areput together, one expects from theassembled parts a result whichcould not have been got from anyone of them separately or from allof them together in a heap. Becausethey are independent and unlike

structures, working on one another,something new happens. The sameis true of terms in relation to oneanother. When these are brought tobear upon one another, somethingnew, something quite unexpectedhappens, quite as when one tries anacid with which he is not familiarupon a rock with which he isunfamiliarthat is, unfamiliar insuch a conjunction, in spite ofintimate acquaintance elsewhere. Adefinition may fix a certainmodicum of meaning in the abstract,

as we say; it is a specification of aminimum which gives the point ofdeparture in every interaction of aterm with other terms. But nothingfollows from the definition by itselfor in isolation. It is explicit(boringly so) and has noimplications. But bring it inconnection with another term withwhich it has not previouslyinteracted and it may behave in themost delightful or in the mostdisgustingly disappointing way. Thenecessity for independent terms is

made obvious in the modern theoryof axioms. It escapes attention inmuch of the contemporary logic oftransitive and non-transitive,symmetrical and non-symmetricalrelations, because the terms are soloaded that there are nopropositions at all, but onlydiscriminations of orders of terms.The terms which figure in thediscussions, in other words, arecorrelatives"brother," "parent,""up," "to the right of," "like,""greater," "after." Such terms are

not logical terms; they are halves ofsuch terms as "brother-other-offspring-of-the-same-parents";"parent-child"; "up-down"; "right-left"; "thing-similar-to-another-thing"; "greater-less"; "after-before." They express positions in adetermined situation; they arerelatives, not relations. They lackimplications, being explicit. But aman who is a brother and also arival in love, and a poorer man thanhis rival brother, expresses aninteraction of different terms from

which something might happen:terms with implications, termsconstituting a proposition, which acorrelative term never doestillbrought into conjunction with a termof which it is not a relative. Tohave called a thing "up" or"brother" is to have already solvedits import in some situation. It isdead till set to work in some othersituation.

Experience shows, moreover, thatcertain qualities of things are muchmore fruitful and much more

controllable than others when takenas meanings to be used in drawingconclusions. The term must be of anature to develop a method ofbehavior by which to test whether itis the meaning of the situation.Since it is desirable to have a stockof meanings on hand which are soconnected that we can move readilyfrom one to another in any direction,the stock is effective in just thedegree in which it has been workedinto a systema comprehensiveand orderly arrangement. Hence,

while all meanings are derivedfrom things which antedatesuggestionor thinking or"consciousness"not all qualitiesare equally fitted to be meanings ofa wide efficiency, and it is a workof art to select the proper qualitiesfor doing the work. Thiscorresponds to the working over ofraw material into an effective tool.A spade or a watchspring is madeout of antecedent material, but doesnot pre-exist as a ready-made tool;and, the more delicate and

complicated the work which it hasto do, the more art intervenes.These summary remarks will haveto pass muster as indicating what amore extensive treatment of amathematical system of terms wouldshow. Man began by working suchqualities as hate and love and fearand beauty into the meanings bywhich to interpret and control theperplexities of life. When theydemonstrated their inefficacy, hehad recourse to such qualities asheavy and light, wet and dry,

making them into natural essencesor explanatory and regulatorymeanings. That Greek mediaevalscience did not get very far on theselines is a commonplace. Scientificprogress and practical control assystematic and deliberate mattersdate from the century of Galileo,when qualities which lendthemselves to mathematicaltreatment were seized upon. "Themost promising of these idealsystems at first were of course thericher ones, the sentimental ones.

The baldest and least promisingones were the mathematical ones;but the history of the latter'sapplication is a history of steadilyadvancing successes, while that ofthe sentimentally richer ones is oneof relative sterility and failure."[9]

There is no problem of why andhow the plow fits, or applies to, thegarden, or the watchspring to time-keeping. They were made for thoserespective purposes; the question ishow well they do their work, andhow they can be reshaped to do it

better. Yet they were made out ofphysical material; men used readylimbs or roots of trees with whichto plow before they used metal. Wedo not measure the worth or realityof the tool by its closeness to itsnatural prototype, but by itsefficiency in doing its workwhichconnotes a great deal of interveningart. The theory proposed formathematical distinctions andrelations is precisely analogous.They are not the creations of mindexcept in the sense in which a

telephone is a creation of mind.They fit nature because they arederived from natural conditions.Things naturally bulge, so to speak,and naturally alter. To seize uponthese qualities, to develop them intokeys for discovering the meaningsof brute, isolated events, and toaccomplish this effectively, todevelop and order them till theybecome economical tools (and toolsupon tools) for making an unknownand uncertain situation into a knownand certain one, is the recorded

triumph of human intelligence. Theterms and propositions ofmathematics are not fictions; theyare not called into being by thatparticular act of mind in which theyare used. No more is a self-bindingreaper a figment, nor is it calledmomentarily into being by the manwho wants to harvest his grain. Butboth alike are works of art,constructed for a purpose in doingthe things which have to be done.

We may say of terms whatSantayana so happily said of

expression: "Expression is amisleading term which suggests thatsomething previously known isimitated or rendered; whereas theexpression is itself an original fact,the values of which are thenreferred to the thing expressed,much as the honors of a Chinesemandarin are attributedretroactively to his parents." Thenatural history of imputation ofvirtue should prove to thephilosopher a profitable theme.Even in its most superstitious forms

(perhaps more obviously in themthan elsewhere) it testifies to thesense of a service to be performedand to a demand for application.The superstition lies in making theapplication to antecedents and toancestors, where it is but a shroud,instead of to descendants, where itis a generating factor.

Every reflection leaves behind it adouble effect. Its immediateoutcome is (as I tried to showearlier) the direct reorganization ofa situation, a reorganization which

confers upon its contents newincrements of intrinsic meaning. Itsindirect and intellectual product isthe defining of a meaning which(when fixed by a suitable existence)is a resource in subsequentinvestigations. I would not despisethe assistance lent by the words"term" and "proposition." As slanghas it, a pitched baseball is to thebatter a "proposition"; it states, ormakes explicit, what he has to dealwith next amid all the surroundingand momentarily irrelevant

circumstance. Every statementextracts and sets forth the net resultof reflection up to date as acondition of subsequent reflection.This extraction of the kernel of pastreflections makes possible athrowing to one side of all theconsequences of prior false andfutile steps; it enables one todispense with the experiencesthemselves and to deal only withtheir net profit. In a favorite phraseof realism, it gives an object "as ifthere were no experience." It is

unnecessary to descant upon theeconomy of this procedure. Iteliminates everything which in spiteof its immediate urgency, orvividness, or weight of pastauthority, is rubbish for the purposein hand. It enables one to get downto business with just that which(presumably) is of importance insubsequent procedure. It is nowonder that these logical kernelshave been elevated intometaphysical essences.

The word "term" suggests the

limiting condition of every processof reflection. It sets a fence beyondwhich it is, presumably, a waste towanderan error. It sets forth thatwhich must be taken into accounta limit which is inescapable,something which is to ratiocinationwhat the brute datum is toobservation. In classic phrase, it isa notion, that is, a noting, of thedistinctions which have been fixedfor the purposes of the kind ofinquiry now engaged in. One hasonly to compare the terms of present

scientific discourse with those of,say, Aristotle, to see that theimportance of terms as instrumentsof a proper survey of and attackupon existential situations is suchthat the terms resulting naturally andspontaneously from reflection havebeen dropped and more effectiveones substituted. In one sense, theyare all equally objective; aquosityis as genuine, as well as moreobvious, a notion as the presentchemical conception. But the latteris able to enter a much wider scope

of inquiries and to figure in themmore prosperously.

As a special class of scientificinquirers develops, terms that wereoriginally by-products of reflectionbecome primary objects for theintellectual class. The "troubles"which occasion reflection are thenintellectual troubles, discrepancieswithin some current scheme ofpropositions and terms. Thesituation which undergoesreorganization and increase ofcomprised significance is that of the

subject-matter of specializedinvestigation. Nevertheless thesame general method recurs withinit, and the resulting objectstheterms and propositionsare for all,except those who produce them,instruments, not terminal objects.The objection to analytic realism asa metaphysics of existence is not somuch an undue formalism as itsaffront to the commonsense-worldof action, appreciation, andaffection. The affront, due tohypostatizing terms into objects, is

as great as that of idealism. A naverealism withstands both affronts.

My interest, however, is not toanimadvert upon analytic realism. Itis to show how the main tenets ofinstrumental logic stand in relationto considerations which, althoughignored by the idealism which wascurrent when the theory received itsfirst formulation, demand attention:the objective status of data andterms with respect to states of mindor acts of awareness. I have tried toshow that the theory, without

mutilation or torturing, makesprovision for these considerations.They are not objections to it; theyare considerations which areinvolved in it. There are questionsat issue, but they concern notmatters of logic but matters of fact.They are questions of theexistential setting of certain logicaldistinctions and relations. As to thecomparative merits of the twoschemes, I have nothing to saybeyond what has been said, savethat the tendency of the analytic

realism is inevitably to treat adifference between the logic ofinquiry and of dialectic as if it wereitself a matter to be settled by thelogic of dialectic. I confess to somefear that a philosophy which fails toidentify science with terms andpropositions about things which arenot terms and propositions, willfirst exaggerate and thenmisconstrue the function ofdialectics, and land philosophy in aformalism like unto thescholasticism from which the older

empiricism with all its defectsemancipated those who took it toheart.

VII

Return with me, if you please, tofundamentals. The word"experience" is used freely in theessays and without muchexplanation. In view of the currencyof subjectivistic interpretations ofthat term, the chief wonder isprobably that the doctrine of the

essays was not more misunderstoodthan was actually the case. I havealready said something designed toclarify the sense in which the termwas used. I now come back to thematter. What is the reason for usingthe term at all in philosophy? Thehistory of philosophy supplies, Ithink, the answer. No matter howsubjective a turn was given to theword by Hume and Kant, we haveonly to go to an earlier period tosee that the appeal to experience inphilosophy was coincident with the

emancipation of science from occultessences and causes, and with thesubstitution of methods ofobservation, controlled byexperimentation and employingmathematical considerations, formethods of mere dialectic definitionand classification. The appeal toexperience was the cry of the manfrom Missourithe demand to beshown. It sprang from the desire tocommand nature by observing her,instead of anticipating her in orderto deck her with aesthetic garlands

and hold her with theologicalchains. The significance ofexperience was not that sun andmoon, stick and stone, are creaturesof the senses, but that men wouldnot put their trust any longer inthings which are said, howeverauthoritatively, to exist, unless thesethings are capable of entering intospecifiable connections with theorganism and the organism withthem. It was an emphatic assertionthat until men could see how thingsgot into belief, and what they did

when they got there, intellectualacceptance would be withheld.

Has not the lesson, however, beenso well learned that we can dropreference to experience? Would thatsuch were the case. But the timedoes not seem to have come. Somethings enter by way of theimagination, stimulated byemotional preferences and biases.For certain purposes, they are notthe worse for having entered by thatgate, instead of through sensory-motor adjustments. Or they may

have entered because of the love ofman for logical form and symmetryand system, and because of theemotional satisfaction whichharmony awakens in a sensitivesoul. They too need not be anyworse for all that. But surely it isamong the businesses of philosophyto discriminate between the kinds ofgoodness possessed by differentkinds of things. And how can itdiscriminate unless by telling bywhat road they got into ourexperience and what they do after

they get there? Assuredly thedifference is not in intrinsiccontent. It is not because of self-obvious and self-contained traits ofthe immediate terms that Da