The Logocentric Predicament: An Essay on the Problem of Error in the Philosophy of Josiah Royce [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512806878

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The Logocentric Predicament

The Logocentric Predicament A n Essay on The Problem of Error in the Philosophy of Josiah Royce John E. Skinner

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press

© 1965 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-24493

Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi

7461 Printed in the United States of America

For My Mother

Preface Philosophical idealism has often been criticized as being the victim of an egocentric predicament. This phrase, made famous by Ralph Barton Perry, refers to the elevation of finite human selfhood to the level of the Absolute. The idealistic philosophy of Josiah Royce has attempted to extricate itself from such a criticism. In this essay which discusses the problem of error in Royce's philosophy, the solution to the difficulty centers in what I have called the logocentric predicament. Royce does not use this expression, but it accurately describes the conclusions of his thought. Royce was probably more successful in achieving a solution to this impasse than any other of the important idealistic philosophers at the beginning of this century. In this short book I present Royce's arguments for the solution to the problem of error—a problem incidentally that has never been satisfactorily resolved by modem logical analysis. An examination of common sense, realistic and pragmatic approaches to the problem are considered in relation to Royce's objective idealism and his projected solution. The criticism which is discussed in the book is for the most part that which resulted from the encounter of the best of Royce's own contemporary antagonists with his ideas. Modern philosophy, after a period of preoccupation with positivism and logical analysis, is once again becoming con7

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Preface

cerned with metaphysical questions. Royce was a systematic philosopher, but his system was always open to new possibilities. In the quest for metaphysics in the last half of this century, perhaps the great American metaphysician from Harvard who reached his peak at the beginning of this century can help direct our way. Gabriel Marcel has described Royce's philosophy as a transition from idealism to existentialism. Royce's love of reason both in its ontological as well as in its technical facets may serve as an antidote for misologism—whether it is expressed in the nihilism of certain existentialist perspectives or in the reduced picture of reality that is the result of a preoccupation with scientific and technical reason. Royce's openness to truth from within the framework of his logic of order (ontological reason) should aid the contemporary philosopher in the search for a philosophic equilibrium. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote from books on which they hold the copyright: Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc., for G. Watts Cunningham's The Idealistic Argument in Recent British and American Philosophy, 1933; Yale University Press for Josiah Royce's Lectures in Modem Idealism, 1919; Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., and The Liberal Arts Press for Francis MacDonald Cornford's Plato's Theory of Knowledge, 1935; Holt, Rinehart and Winston for John Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy, 1920; and The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, 1910; and for Edward Gleason Spaulding's The New Rationalism, 1918; The Macmillan Company for Ralph Barton Perry's "A Realistic Theory of Independence," in The New Realism, 1912; The Harvard Trust Company for Royce's William James and other Essays, 1911; Houghton, Mifflin and Company for Royce's "The Eternal and the Practical," in The Development of

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Preface

American Philosophy, 1940. All other quotations are taken from volumes which are no longer under copyright restrictions. In conclusion I should like to thank the following who have aided me in my philosophical development and who many years ago subjected my views on Royce's thought to a close scrutiny: Dr. Tunis Prins of Calvin College; Dr. William H. Bernhardt of Iliff School of Theology; and Dr. Francis Myers of the University of Denver. JOHN E. SKINNER Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia December 1, 1963

Contents I

The Problem of Error

15

The Realistic Doctrine of Independence

23

ΙΠ

The Pragmatic Theory of Truth

39

IV

The Logoceotric Predicament

50

Royce and His Critics

76

Index of Names

87

Π

V

The Logocentric Predicament

I The Problem of Error The problem of error was Josiah Royce's greatest concern. His doctoral thesis at Johns Hopkins was written upon the problem of error and its possibility. Later, he developed his dissertation into a volume entitled, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy. The purpose of this work revolves around his chapter in the book on the possibility of error. From the publication of The Religious Aspect of Philosophy throughout all his later works, which included The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, The Conception of God, The World and the Individual, and The Problem of Christianity, he never deviated from his central theme. His metaphysics rests upon the indubitable fact of error. Error exists. It is never questioned. But why? If it is an existent, what are the underlying conditions that make its existence possible. Through an analysis of the implications of the existence of error, he builds an idealistic metaphysics. His famous conclusion, 'The conditions that determine the logical possibility of error must themselves be absolute truth,"1 is the reflection of his entire philosophy. 1 Josiah Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1885), p. 385.

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Royce did not question the existence of error. He felt the problem of error was in its nature, in its meaning, not in the question whether or not it was an existent. He realized the futility of questioning the existence of error, since the very act of questioning would assume that which was in the process of being questioned. Rather, he stood in a long line of historical tradition. The great thinkers of the past did not question error's existence. They started from it. There were philosophers in the history of thought who at times seemed to be guilty of non-acceptance such as the Greek Sophist, Protagoras. But these men were finding themselves constantly in a self-contradiction. For in the act of upholding the non-existence of error, they affirmed its non-existence. And in the act of affirmation, they implicitly negated those positions which affirmed the existence of error. The negation on their part implied the existence of error since those positions which affirmed error's existence were mistaken. Royce considered such an argument as would deny the existence of error but in the denial affirm its factuality to be pleasant jargon, and he treated it as such.2 In the introducton to the basic issues of this problem, by following the example of Royce we shall take a position that asserts the factuality of error, analyze it, and see in what sense error is possible, or in what sense the conditions that make error possible can be found within such a position. If such conditions cannot be found, we shall supplement the chosen position until we are successful in findiig that which is the meaning and the possibility of error's existence. We shall begin with the common sense view. Royce evduates it in this manner: Common sense regards an assertion as true or as false apirt from any other assertion or thought solely in reference to its ovn object. For common sense each judgment, as a separate crta2

Ibid., p. 394.

The Problem of Error

17

tion, stands out alone, looking at its object, and trying to agree with it. If it succeeds, we have truth. If it fails, error. But as we shall find, this view is unintelligible. A judgment cannot have an object and fail to agree with it, unless the judgment is a part of an organism of thought. Alone, as a separate fact, a judgment has no intelligible object beyond itself.8 In order to investigate the import of Royce's statement, it is necessary to consider briefly the nature of judgment. It is agreed by logicians that single ideas can be neither true nor false. To assert the single idea, centaur, is to say nothing erroneous. Error cannot be attributed to isolated, simple terms. If, however, a person asserts, "Centaurs have existence in the realm of the imaginative," he is attributing to this simple idea some quality implied in its symbol, but not explicit in the mere term itself. The former is only a simple idea. The latter is a proposition or judgment. From this distinction, there is the realization that truth or error is only possible in respect to some type of judgment. Only a judgment can be true or false. What briefly is the nature of judgment? A judgment always has a subject and a predicate. The subject is usually the object judged, and the predicate the judgment of that object. When someone says, "Centaurs have existence in the realm of the imaginative," they have for their object of judgment, centaurs. They attribute to their object existence in the realm of the imaginative. Apparently their judgment is complete with these two aspects. But is it? This question presents another manifestation of the judging process, sometimes overlooked. Judgment has been defined as that which entails both an object of judgment and the judgment of that object. But there is another important element in all judgment. This is purpose or intention. When an individual judges, he judges his object or the object which he purposes 8

Ibid.,

p. 393.

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to judge. So the object of his judgment is always willed or intended by him to be his object. In making a judgment about centaurs, he intends to judge centaurs only. The nature of the existence of pink elephants has no bearing upon his judgment of centaurs. Judgment is both restrictive and selective in nature. The frame of reference in judgment must be restricted to an intended or selected object. Otherwise, all sorts of conditions could present themselves as negations of the truth of a judgment which would not be related to the judgment in question. Therefore an individual who judges has as object only what he intends to have as object. He has only to conform to that to which he wants his judgment to conform.4 With this general nature of judgment in mind, let us proceed to an evaluation of the common sense view. Common sense regards an assertion as true or false apart from any other assertion or thought solely in reference to its own object. Such a viewpoint would necessitate no outside influence relative to the judgment of any individual. The judgment according to common sense is restricted to the individual and his intended object. Each judgment is a separate creation. It stands out alone. It looks at its object, and tries to agree with it. If the agreement succeeds, it is true. If the agreement fails, it is false. Common sense or the non-reflective mind asserts a naive type of correspondence as the test of truth. The question which arises from such a viewpoint is whether or not it is possible for a judgment to have an intelligible object, if the judgment stands alone and the object stands alone separated from the person judging. In order to analyze the common sense view more adequately, a utilization of one of Royce's illustrations that very ably presents an analysis of this approach is essential.5 4 5

Ibid., p. 397. Ibid., p. 408.

The Problem of Error

19

Imagine a conversation between two individuals. Royce calls these individuals John and Thomas. Let us investigate more thoroughly the nature of a conversation between two persons. We have by hypothesis the two, John and Thomas. But let us take a closer look at John. In the first place there is the "real" John presented by the hypothesis. In the second place there is also John as John conceives himself to be, that is, John's opinion of himself. There is also Thomas' opinion of John. So in respect to John there are three persons present, all in a sense existent And if the same analysis is applied to the "real" Thomas, we have an identical result Such a breakdown as the above may appear to be negligible. However, an important question which illustrates the necessity of the analysis is formulated as follows: "Is John wholly what he thinks himself to be?" If this were the case, John could commit no error relative to a judgment concerning himself. For what John thinks himself to be, he is, by definition. However, such a position is untenable. The essence of the perverted mind is that it takes itself to be other than it is. John is more than what he thinks himself to be. He is, as a self, more than he at any given moment conceives himself to be. He possesses a higher meaning than he can grasp at any fleeting moment of self-consciousness. If the above be true, by the same token Thomas' conception of John cannot be equated with the "real" John. Moreover in the same spirit we can assert that John is not what the sum-total of his acquaintances think that he is. An addition of contingent opinion results in contingent opinion. Consequently the outsider can from this viewpoint only know John as object. An objective analysis of John's behavior is not John. It is John as object. But John is also subject. John's meaning is neither wholly dependent upon John as he conceives himself to be, nor upon Thomas as he conceives John.

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The Logocentric Predicament

We shall consider in this hypothetical conversation three of the six persons involved, namely, the "real" Thomas, the "real" John, and Thomas as John conceives him to be. The problem is restricted to this: "When John judges Thomas, which Thomas does he judge?" It must be remembered that this analysis is wholly in terms of the common sense viewpoint, which has been selected as a starting-point in the introduction to the problem. John is to judge Thomas. But which Thomas? For in terms of common sense, John's judgment stands alone separated from its intended object. Now if John's judgment is separated from its object, how can John judge at all? He cannot. At least he cannot judge the "real" Thomas for the "real" Thomas is outside his judging processes. The common sense onlooker sees John and Thomas. John is in one place, Thomas in another place. They are not connected in any way. They are separate from each other. Since they are separate from each other, their judging processes are also separate. Under these circumstances John cannot know the "real" Thomas. John perceives Thomas through his sensory apparatus. He conceptualizes his sensory data of Thomas. In this way he conceives Thomas. But what he conceives is not the "real" Thomas, but his "ideal" Thomas or "phantom" Thomas. The "real" Thomas is not in his thought at all. There is no connection between Thomas' thought and John's thought. Thomas is independent of John. Therefore John is limited to his "phantom" Thomas. He cannot bridge the gap of the common sense separation. He must be satisfied with just what he thinks about Thomas. And even if Thomas told John something about himself, John would hear, that is, he would perceive through hearing the sounds of Thomas. He would conceptualize these sensory data and conceive Thomas. But the same predicament would hold.

The Problem of Error

21

From this viewpoint there cannot be an exchange of ideas since all that I can ever know is what I conceive to be the case. As a result John can have only his image or concept of Thomas. He finds himself unable to know the one with whom he is conversing. They are speaking to each other, but at the same time they are total strangers holding only each one's opinion of the other. John and Thomas are hopelessly imprisoned in their own separate, psychological experiences. Is error possible under such circumstances? Can John in this view be mistaken in his judgment of Thomas? We shall find that he cannot He cannot err because he cannot judge the "real" Thomas. Whom does he judge? He judges his conception of Thomas which is wholly separated from the "real" Thomas. He judges his conception because he has nothing more than his conception to judge. When he judges, he never errs since he always intends as his object of judgment his conception of that object. He can intend nothing more. And John is not in error if he judges his own conception and intends to judge his own conception. A person conceives what he conceives. He experiences what he experiences. The denial of feeling is impossible. There is no truth or falsity in isolated psychological experience. The truth or falsity is present only by implication in psychological experience. Yet we realize that John can make mistakes about Thomas. We can assert such a fact from our own associations with our fellow men. There are times when we judge them, and are mistaken in our judgments. But this is not possible under the common sense view. The only possibility of John's erring in respect to Thomas is if John intended the "real" Thomas as his object. But he cannot know the "real" Thomas. He cannot intend as his object what he does not and cannot in some sense know. He

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The Logocentric Predicament

cannot err in his judgment of the "phantom" Thomas. Error is not possible with such a view of reality. And since error is not possible this position is untenable. Common sense affirms the factuality of error but fails in presenting adequate conditions for its existence. It can be concluded that the conditions that make error possible are not to be found in this non-reflective view of reality. Common sense asserts that objects within reality are separate entities. Reality is such that objects within it are not of this nature. It follows that an underlying connecting element which makes possible intelligible discussion is necessary. In other words psychological experience has ontologica! implications.

II The Realistic Doctrine of Independence The purpose of this chapter is to analyze one of the schools of thought that has taken the common sense position, and by an examination of its implications has established a pertinent approach to the problem of error and the nature of reality. Hie view in question is commonly called realism. To develop in detail all realistic systems in the history of philosophy would be an insuperable undertaking and would not be necessitated by the restricted framework of this discussion. Consequently we shall restrict our analysis of realism to the one basic doctrine and its modifications that distinguishes the realistic approach from other philosophical positions. This basic teaching of realism is the insistence upon the independence of objects from the knowing process. This doctrine of independence might be said to constitute realistic ontology. Our first examination will occupy itself with a form of realism that emphasizes the basic tenet of independence to its logical extremes. This viewpoint is similar to

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The Logocentric Predicament

the common sense explanation. It insists upon the absolute separation of knower and known. Our second analysis will consider the spirit of modern realism, and the teaching of this perspective relative to the doctrine of independence. Independence according to modern realism does not imply absolute separation of knower and known, but emphasizes the teaching that the object is not dependent upon the knower. The relationship of knowledge can nevertheless arise between the object, not dependent upon the knower, and the knower. In both traditional and modern realism, therefore, the identifying principle that separates realism from other schools of thought is the doctrine of the independence of objects. The extreme position which is our first concern insists upon the absolute separation or independence of objects from the knowing process. To be real means to be independent of ideas which, while other than a given real being, still relate to that being.1 The world of fact is independent of our knowledge of that world. This independence and the very reality itself of the world of fact are one. The mere knowledge of any being by anyone, who is not himself that being known, makes no difference to that known being.2 This form of realism agrees with the argument that there is a reality beyond what anyone knows or experiences, and this reality is not dependent upon a cognitive process for either its existence or its meaning. Knowledge is only an incidental factor in relationship to the object. It can emerge and vanish without any effect upon the nature of the object itself. The argument presented appears to be very tenable. Certainly, it must be admitted that there is implied in the experience of the individual something beyond that mere experi1 Josiah Royce, The World and the Individual (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901), I, 93. 2 ibid.

The Realistic Doctrine of Independence

25

enee. We do not at any given moment of experience exhaust all of reality. The argument that reality is wholly independent of our knowing at least seems to be a position worth holding. Κ a possible object of experience was a nonexistent object until it is experienced, and by experiencing it the object is created, all individuals would find themselves in the subjectivistic predicament from which there is no escape. It can, therefore, be assumed that there is in some sense a type of independence between object known and the knower of that object even if that independence is only psychological in nature. The realist would also assert that it is one thing to have a "mere" idea in your thoughts, but it is another thing whether that idea corresponds to a real outer fact.3 To have an idea of a chair is quite different from the idea's correspondence to a reality outside the knower which is a physical chair. The realist would teach, therefore, that there is implicit in the judging process the question of "what is" and "what is not." According to Royce, when I judge I attribute certain qualities to an object, as well as a type of existence. The qualities I attribute to the object are called "the what" of that object. The existence of the object is denoted by the term, "the that." So "thatness" and "whatness" are important aspects of judgment. Implied in the realistic doctrine of independence is the sundering of the "what" from the "that." The "what" is the meaning attributed to the object by the knower. But this meaning, which Royce calls "the internal meaning,"4 has no effect upon the object known, namely, "the that." To the realist the "that" or the existence of the object and the "what" or the meaning of the object are independent of the act of cognition. What type of consequences result from such a position 8 4

Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 265.

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which asserts that the reality and meaning of the object is independent of its being known? The meaning of the object is an external meaning. By this is meant that the object possesses a meaning which has no quality of "subject" about it, that is, the object has no internal meaning. But the question which arises is: "Is there in the last analysis any such thing as strictly external meaning?" Is it possible for an object to have "thatness" and "whatness" which is itself external to cognition, and to be wholly independent of the knowing process? The significant question at issue is relative to the nature of "the what," and whether or not "the what" can be wholly external. Within a judgment "the what" is that which is attributed of "the that." But the attributing is done by a knower who utilizes ideas. These ideas are asserted of the existent object. But what the knower attributes to the object has no effect upon the object. For the knower to grasp the meaning of the object his idea must correspond to the external meaning of the object. If the idea corresponds, it is true; if not, it is false. If the theory of external meaning is true, then the knower is wholly passive in his relationship to his object. He must conform to the external meaning of the object; his idea must correspond to the true meaning of the object in order to be true. But how can knowledge that such correspondence has been effected be possible?, when the test for the truth of my statement is external to my cognition. Is it then possible to have knowledge of this true correspondence of idea to object? The answer is: No. For the act of discovery is itself a cognitive process, and by what criterion could I distinguish my "idea" from the "external meaning" which has no dependence upon my idea? The meaning might be out there in the object, but I cannot know it for I have no criterion of comparison between the idea that I have of the object, and the "true what" that externally in-

The Realistic Doctrine of Independence

27

heres in the object. In this type of position, therefore, I find myself in somewhat of a predicament. My ideas might correspond to the object of my judgment, but for lack of a criterion I can never know whether they correspond or not, since the object to which they are to correspond is independent of my ideas of it. Idea and object are thus separated from each other.5 The object is not dependent upon the idea for its meaning. Ideas come and go but the object remains constant. There is implicit in this position a mutual relation between idea and object. Both are independent of each other. This being the case, we find as in the above analysis that the thinker can have only an opinion relative to whether his idea corresponds to the object, since there is no criterion in the cognitive faculty that would enable him to know the correspondence. He can only opine concerning his object Royce has stated in this connection that a realist's own theory is an idea or opinion." Moreover the object of the realistic position is the world itself. Thus the consequences that follow are simply deduced: As an entity, the realist is an independent being. His idea, as part of his being, can have nothing to do with any object that exists independently of himself or themselves. The realistic theory, then, as we now know, by its own explicit consequences, and just because its real objects are totally independent of its ideas, has nothing to do with independently real objects, and has no relation 7to the independent external world that its own account defines. The realist is guilty of that which he condemns, the application of an "internal meaning" to an object. For in terms of his position, the realist could have only an idea concerning the independently real world, and this idea is an internal meaning given to the world by the realist. So even 6 β 7

Ibid., p. 134. Ibid., p. 135. Ibid.

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if his idea or theory were true, he would be in no position to know whether or not it was true. For the object with which his idea must conform is outside his idea, and he as a knower can only treat such correspondence again in terms of cognition. Therefore, the test for truth commonly known as correspondence seems to break down in this extreme realistic theory. This is because the activity of the test is cognition and the correspondence must be effected between an idea that is cognitive in nature and an object that is noncognitive in nature. The realist insists upon the factuality of error. But error is not possible in such a position since I cannot know my object of judgment. I cannot be in error about that which I do not in some sense know. The naive correspondence of idea to object is not tenable. The intention aspect in judgment restricts a man's object again to mere opinion. The same conclusion can be drawn from this approach to realism that was drawn from the common sense view. Error is not possible since I can never intend as the object of my judgment the "real" object. I can only intend my "phantom" image of the object, and this image is separated from the "real" object. This consequence results also because in this position no place is given for the purposive and selective activity of the judger. The judger must passively submit to a reality that is unknowable in nature. Such submission is of course an impossibility. Modern realism is a development in the history of philosophy that has attempted to overcome the difficulties inherent in the more traditional realistic systems. Ralph Barton Perry, an able spokesman, has made this sufficiently evident: It is reasonably clear, then, that the traditional realism has been both confused and comprised by an alliance with substantialism. In view of this fact, the critics of realism are

The Realistic Doctrine of Independence

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scarcely to be blamed if they have not shown a nicety of discrimination which realists themselves have failed to show.8 Perry is quite sensitive relative to an identification of realism with substantialism. In fact he feels that Royce is partially guilty of such an identification in The World and the Individual.e Realism, according to Perry, is in sympathy with the whole modern trend of thought towards identifying reality with the elements, processes, and systems of experience.10 But he does maintain that these elements, processes, and systems are independent of being experienced.11 They may compose or enter into an experience but they need not do so. In order, however, for the modern realist to emancipate himself from the contradiction of traditional realism, he must define the term "independence" in a more adequate fashion. The entire difficulty present in the first examination was relative to the independence of the object. The modern realist claims that something different is meant by independence. It is not an absolute separation of idea from object. We shall, therefore, follow Perry's argument relative to the nature of independence as representative of the spirit of modem realism and we shall criticize his argument from the perspective of Royce's reaction to realism. Perry has asserted that the meaning of the word "independence" depends upon its opposite, "dependence." So that independence means: "the state of not-being dependent." He also declared that it is fundamental to distinguish the concept of relation from the concept of dependence.12 He formulated this distinction because of the difficulties 8 Ralph Barton Perry, "A Realistic Theory of Independence," The New Realism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), p. 103. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. » Ibid. 10 Ibid. "Ibid., ρ 104 12 Ibid., p. 114.

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arising from an identification of the two. Relation is not a form of dependence. Facts may be related, but when their relation ceases, it leaves the factors previously related, nondependent upon each other. Relation can come and go. A fact can be related to another fact, but "related" does not imply "necessary dependence." Perry has insisted upon this attitude towards relation, otherwise: If the real were necessarily out of relation to knowledge, then it is obvious that, as real, things could not be in the relation of being known. Thus it behooves realism to define a species of relation in which the terms, although related, are nevertheless independent, or to show that dependence is something over and above bare relation.13 Perry continues, however, by saying that realism does not propose to define reality in terms of its independence. Independence is not a relation, but the absence of a certain type of relation. Independence itself defines nothing. He also states that everything that is true of one object, such as a, is independent of another object, such as b. For a's independence of b is true of a; and this judgment depends upon b. He concludes that the independence of α as respects b means that b things that may or may not be true of a are in any case not necessary to a.1* He continues in this same argument by saying: Realism does not deny that when a enters into a relation, such as knowledge, of which it is independent, a now acquires that relation, and is, accordingly, different by so much; but realism denies only that this added relation is necessary to α as already constituted. Thus when a is known, it is a itself, as constituted without knowledge, that is independent of that circumstance. The new complex known-a is, of course, dependent on knowledge as one of its parts.15 13 14 15

Ibid. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Ibid., p. 117. ¡bid., p. 118. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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It can be deduced from the above that known-a is a complex made of two independent entities, namely, a as already constituted, and the quality of being known attributed to it. So a can be known and still be independent. However, the a that is known is known-a, a complex, not a, the simple entity. Perry has concluded that when an entity is known, it is a complex. Simple entities as such are not dependent upon consciousness. He states that insofar as knowledge of such entities is possible, they must be regarded as independent of knowledge.16 He argues that a person must be able to know the simple entities, since we know the complex which they compose. And we could not know the complex qua complex unless we were also aware of its component parts. His final statement affirms the assertion that complexes are independent of knowledge as respects their simple constituents.17 This presentation of a realistic theory of independence appears to be a very conclusive and convincing solution to the problem at hand. Independence does not mean absolute separation, but non-dependence. So the problem of idea and object takes on a different aspect. It is possible for the object to be related to the idea, but the object qua object is not dependent upon the idea for its meaning. All the idea has to do is to correspond to the meaning of its independent object. The idea contributes some of the meaning to the object, since it presents the object with a relation that makes it complex and not simple. This argument is an improvement over the extreme realistic view of absolute separation, but an analysis of this theory of independence will present almost identical difficulties. In the first place, the object a is not dependent upon the "Ibid., "Ibid.,

p. 127. p. 129.

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knower b. But suppose that b comes into a knowing relationship with a, "as already constituted." Consequently, according to Perry, a acquires a relation of being known. But, then, the acquisition of this relation changes a, "as already constituted," to α as known-a, a complex entity. For Perry states that when a enters into a relation such as knowledge of which it is independent, a now acquires that relation and is accordingly different by so much.18 However, does b know a as simple entity? For b in the act of knowing a attributes a relation to a through this act of knowing. Such a relation changes a by so much in the knowing relationship. The cognitive act of b must simultaneously change his object from simple to complex entity since b can never know a simple entity. A simple entity known is no longer simple, but by definition complex. As a result a is not dependent upon knowledge for its meaning as a simple entity. Poor b on the other hand can know a only as a complex entity, not as a simple entity. Therefore, α as a simple entity not dependent upon knowledge eludes his grasp. He knows as his object a complex entity that "is of course dependent on knowledge as one of its parts."19 We must conclude that what is knowable is dependent upon the knowledge relation, but what is non-dependent, namely, the simple entity, is itself unknowable. As soon as cognition begins, the simple becomes complex, but the simple qua simple remains by definition unknowable. The pertinent problem at hand is how Perry, as a knower, could formulate such a position as this, since what he declares to be independent of knowledge is itself unknowable. The object that he has for judgment, namely, the problem of the independence of the simple entity, is not 18 Ibid., Italics mine. 19 Ibid.

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itself a simple entity, but a complex. It is certainly known by Perty to be a problem. Therefore, the modern realist finds himself in an insoluble predicament. He asserts that the simple entity is not dependent upon knowledge, but the very meaning of his assertion is itself a known fact; it is a complex entity rather than a simple entity. The final argument of Perry, however, presents the greatest difficulty. We know the complex. In order to know the complex qua complex we must be able to analyze, that is; to break it down into its component parts. So by analysis we are able to know the simple entities whidh compose the complex. For example: I know a. Therefore, the a that I know is a complex, namely, known-a. However, I know that it is a complex since I am aware of the entity and the cognitive relation attached to it. I am aware of its component parts. It is interesting to note that the knowing of α in the first sense is different from the knowing that I know a and its acquired relation. In the first sense I know about an object. In the second sense I know that I know about. But nevertheless even in the second sense I still know. So by analysis I can freak down known-a into its parts, namely, known, that is, my knowing that I know, and a, that which I know about. But the breakdown itself involves a cognitive relationship. So that now the component known is known, for I certainly know that I know about something and this itself becomes a complex, and the other component, a, is also known again in the process of analysis and becomes a complex. So that even the simple component parts of a complex from the standpoint of the knower and Perry's definition must themselves be complexes also. In light of the preceding argument we can conclude that the knower cannot know the simple entity but only a complex entity. But the simple entities according to this view are equally as real as the complex entities since they make

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up the complex entities. Consequently, the knower cannot know the basic "reals" that go to constitute his world of "known" complex entities. The problem of error in this position is unique. Correspondence might be possible between the idea and the object since both are known and both are complex. But there is no possibility for the test of the truth of Perry's position since his view has for its object an unknowable simple entity or entities. As a result the same difficulty that presented itself in the extreme realistic position finds its way into this brand of modern realism. In order for the correspondence theory to be significant, the idea that is cognitive in nature must correspond to an object, the simple entity that is non-cognitive in nature. The bridging of the gap of the cognitive and the non-cognitive in terms of correspondence appears to be impossible. From such a view of independence, there has also been the development that truth is an external relation which arises between the idea and the object when a true correspondence is effected.20 The real world independent of knowledge is only fact. But when a thing believed is a fact, that is, an entity not dependent on mere belief, then, the belief in person of the judgment expressed is true since it corresponds to the fact. If the belief expressed is not a fact, the expressed judgment or belief is false.21 Spaulding and Montague have formulated the above conception of the nature of truth and error. It is possible from the foregoing arguments of this chapter to ascertain that modern realism relies upon the correspondence theory of truth. The correspondence theory, at least in its form 20 Edward Gleason Spaulding, The New Rationalism (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1918), p. 423. 21 William Pepperrell Montague, "A Realistic Theory of Truth and Error," The New Realism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), p. 257.

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presented by realism, always makes Truth an external relation arising between the agreement of idea to object. Our problem of concern is the conditions that make error possible. Can those conditions be found in the correspondence theory of truth as expressed by the realist? This question is by no means a recent one. It was asked by the philosopher Plato in one of his epistemological dialogues, the Sophist. To bring forth the implications of the problem more fully, we shall present briefly the argument in the Sophist as an example of the difficulty in the naive correspondence theory of truth. The question at issue in this part of the dialogue is: "How is false judgment possible?" The proposition, "Theaetetus sits," is formulated, and through a short discussion it is tentatively decided that the truth of the proposition, "Theaetetus sits," rests upon whether or not there is a corresponding outer fact that verifies the sitting status of Theaetetus. There was since Theaetetus was sitting. Therefore, the judgment is true, and true in terms of correspondence. But the question arises whether such a test could be applied to false judgment. In order to receive the full impact of the argument, one should read the section in its entirety, but F. M. Cornford in a commentary on the section presents the dilemma very adequately: Common sense might accept this account of true statement, and this, no doubt, was the popular meaning of "speaking of things that are" or "stating" facts as they are. If all statements were true and were of the type now exemplified, the account might be taken as complete. But here the difficulty begins. How are we to define false statement on these lines? If we define true statement by the correspondence of its structure with the structure of the existing fact, which it refers to, the Sophist will object that a false statement cannot be defined as corresponding with anything, since there are no non-existent facts for it to cor-

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respond with or mean or refer to. A false statement, therefore, means nothing.22 The argument, presented by Plato in the Sophist insisted upon more than a mere correspondence between idea and object since false judgment would have nothing with which to correspond. Montague had declared that "true" and "false" are used as adjectives modifying "belief," the word "belief' being used in the physical or objective sense of "thing believed" rather than in the psychical or subjective sense of believing.23 He feels that it is the fact of error that has led to subjectivism or idealism. Indeed he says that subjectivism is founded upon error.24 Montague in the above argument, however, is striving to stress the necessity of truth and error as external relations. We might add that the argument implicitly says that truth and error are objects. By "object" is meant in this case a relation existing or subsisting outside the psychological experience of the individual. Montague's attempt in this instance is to refute the idealistic position which begins with the fact of error and upon that fact constructs an idealistic metaphysics. Truth and error are then objective in nature. They arise not in the activity of belief, but in the "thing believed." If a is in error about b, it is not a's psychological experience that is in error, but that which is believed about b, which is in error. But what is basically the difference between the act of believing and that which is believed? One is psychological, subjective. The other is objective. Now it may be true that a's psychological experience or act of believing is neither 22 Francis MacDonald Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1935), p. 311. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. 23 Montague, op. cit., p. 262. 24 Ibid., p. 300.

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true nor false, and that the "thing believed about b" is either true or false. But how does a ever know the truth or falsity of his judgment? He intends to judge an object. The act of intention is psychological but it points beyond the mere psychological to his object. The judgment is made. And what is judged is false. How does a know this? The falsity lies not in his act of judging. He judges in terms of his experience. But what he experienced is false. His error is external in nature. It is true that on the level of psychological experience, there is no truth or falsity. But because of this to say that error and truth have no psychological element in them is definitely false. When I make an error I think that I am in truth. I experience it and I think therefore that what I experience is true. Later on, however, I may find out that I was not in truth but in error. A change then has occurred in my experience. I am now in truth. If, however, truth and error are wholly external separated from my psychological experience how can I ever tell one from the other? It may be true that I have erred externally but I never shall know about it. In the case of a's judgment of b what a judges might be false but a will never know it, since error and truth are by definition objects. Truth and error, therefore, cannot be wholly external in nature, mere objects, any more than reality can be wholly external in nature.25 If truth is wholly external, I can never know truth or error. I am again imprisoned in psychological experience. If reality is wholly external, non-dependent of knowing, then I can never know reality except myself, and again I am im25 Jean-Paul Sartre in his Literary and Philosophical Essays (Collier Books, New York, 1962) equates the world of the absurd described in A. Camus' The Stranger with the world of the American Neo-Realist: "We shall simply indicate that the universe of the absurd man is the analytic world of the neo-realist." "The American neo-realists . . . deny the existence of any but external relations between phenomena." (p. 40).

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prisoned. Reality must be not only external in nature, that is, object, but also internal in nature, that is, subject. Truth must be not only an external relation, but also an internal relation. For error is not possible when truth is mere object, mere externality.

III The Pragmatic Theory of Truth Josiah Royce was both an admirer and a critic of the pragmatic movement in American thought. He recognized the undeniable contribution to knowledge that was made by its principal exponents, Peirce, James, and Dewey. He also acknowledged a debt to Peirce and James for their influence upon him and his thinking. Royce insisted that knowledge is action, although knowledge is never mere action. He fully accepted the position that a present judgment is a reaction to a present empirically given situation, a reaction expressing a need to get control over the situation, whatever else the judgment may also express. Temporally speaking, he affirmed the pragmatic position that the world of truth is not now a finished world, and is now in the act of making.1 Royce has stated that in all aspects of experience the pragmatic spirit is present. Every judgment is the expression of a present activity determined by a consciousness of need, 1 Josiah Royce, "The Eternal and the Practical," The Development of American Philosophy, Edited by Walter G. Muelder and Laurence Sears (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1940), p. 248.

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is responsive to this need, and is such as this need determines; judgment is a constructive response to a situation, and not a mere copying of an externally given object.2 Royce modifies his affirmation by saying that insofar as we ourselves observe that our present judgment has only this character of being our present and passing response to a given situation, we find that we need the judgment to be more than this. The need is the peculiar need that our judgment should be not only ours but true. He has also asserted that this need for truth is the need that there should be other points of view, other actual judgments, responsive to the same situation and the same object. All these judgments, these other points of view, ought despite their diversity so to agree as to confirm one another, and so to unite in one system of truth as to characterize harmoniously the same object.3 In the spirit of Royce and his modified pragmatism, we shall evaluate the pragmatic position. Our purpose is not to eliminate pragmatism from the scene, but rather through an evaluation of its basic assumption, we hope to find sufficient insight into those conditions that make error possible. Pragmatism emphasizes the practical aspect of all judgment. Judgment has originated under conditions of need for a survey and statement, and is tested by efficiency in meeting this need.4 Pragmatism recognizes the human factor and it is at hand to insist that the believer must accept the full consequences of his beliefs. His beliefs must be tried out through acting upon them to discover their meaning and consequences. Till so tested, the pragmatist insists that such beliefs, no matter how noble and edifying, are dogmas, not truths. Beliefs must be held as provisional until they are 2

Ibid., p. 261. Ibid. * John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910), p. 165. 3

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5

verified through a long process of testing. Beliefs are in the words of Dewey, "working hypotheses" in need of verification in terms of their consequential manifestations. Dewey in his Reconstruction in Philosophy is very explicit to affirm this: Now an idea or conception is a claim or injunction or plan to act in a certain way as the way to arrive at the clearing up of a specific situation. Its active dynamic function is the all important thing about it, and in the quality of activity induced by it lies all its truth or falsity. The hypothesis that works is true; and truth is an abstract noun applied to the collection of cases, actual, forseen, and desired, that receive confirmation in their works and in their consequences. Truth as utility mean service in making just that contribution to reorganization in experience that the idea or theory claims to be able to make.® Dewey is extremely sensitive in regard to systems of thought that assert the antecedent nature of truth. He feels that such positions are not able to resign themselves to uncertainty and wait patiently upon the results of testing of ideas and beliefs: The older conception falls back upon what is antecedent, prior, original, a priori, for assurance. The thought of looking ahead toward the eventual, toward consequences, creates uneasiness and fear. It disturbs the sense of rest that is attached to the ideas of fixed Truth already in existence. It puts a heavy burden of responsibility upon us for search, unremitting observation, scrupulous development of hypotheses and thoroughgoing testing. To generalize the recognition that the true means the verified and means nothing else places upon men the responsibility for surrendering political and moral dogmas, and subjecting to the test of consequences their most cherished prejudices.7 5

Ibid., p. 162. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920), pp. 156-157. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 7 Ibid., pp. 159-160. Italics mine. Reprinted by permission of the pub8

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Dewey has presented in his pragmatism the essence of scientific method. A hypothesis does not stand alone. It must be subjected to the test of verification and confirmation through endless types of research. And if, after a period of several testings, the hypothesis is found to work, it is acceptable as a tentatively true hypothesis in terms of the collected data on hand. This method of verification need not be limited to the natural sciences. It can be applied with equal vigor to any type of activity. In fact the great influence of Dewey upon modern education is due in part to the incorporation of this pragmatic methodology in his educational philosophy. There is no one of any import in contemporary thought who will level an attack against the experimental method and its use. It is in universal operation in all schools of good learning. The question, of course, in respect to the experimental approach is how far we can subjugate ourselves to only experimentation and observation. The first step in pragmatic procedure is what might be called the occasion of reflection. Thought comes when decisions or conclusions are necessary. Whenever there is a decision to be made or a conclusion to be stated, there arises a difficulty. Following the occasion of reflection comes the second step. This is the procedure used in the definition of the difficulty occasioned by reflection. The difficulty is the decision to be made. The third step in the process is the rise of suggestions or possible answers, in other words, hypotheses. These hypotheses come only when the difficulty is clearly defined, only when the thinker is thoroughly familiar with the background into which the problem fits and has had a wide range of experience with lisher. For another emphasis upon truth as verifiability, the reader is referred to the vast philosophical literature on logical analysis, particularly Language, Truth and Logic by Prof. A.J. Ayer of Oxford University.

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similar difficulties; only when the thinker has a more or less indefinable something called ability disciplined but at the same time daring and shrewd. Once the hypotheses have arisen in the situation, they must be tested with reference to foundations and consequences. This is called the mental elaboration of hypotheses. After the hypothesis is accepted, and it appears to be true, then the careful thinker seeks confirming evidence. The closing of his reflective process incident to his reaching a conclusion comes only after the experimental verification.8 Κ we are successful in finding a hypothesis which through this problem-solving, reflective thinking procedure, tests out consistent with the evidence, then, the hypothesis is true because it works. If, however, the hypothesis does not work in terms of this evidence uncovered, it is false; and we must again utilize the five steps in order to find the true operational principle. The idea or the hypothesis always has a reference to the future. As the hypothesis stands in the present, it is neither true nor false. It is operational in nature. Its truth or its falsity rests upon the process of verification. The judgment is true or false in terms of its future consequences. To exemplify the spirit of the pragmatic position, suppose that I make the judgment: "Centaurs have existence in the realm of the imaginative." Before I could have made such a judgment, there was the occasion of reflection in respect to the problem of centaurs. Before I had occasion to reflect upon the nature of centaurs, centaurs presented no difficulty for me. I was faced with no necessity of making a decision. However, thought on the subject of centaurs has arisen. A decision or a conclusion is essential. It is, there8 This description of Dewey's five steps was taken from An Introduction To Reflective Thinking by the Columbia Associates in Philosophy. Dewey's How We Think was utilized by this group in the compilation of the five steps.

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fore, necessary for me to define my difficulty, to clarify my question or problem. My difficulty is the existential nature of centaurs. After these first two steps in the reflective process, I find hypotheses arising on the scene. One of these operational principles is: "Centaurs have existence in the realm of the imaginative." Others arise also, such as: "Centaurs have real existence." But through the fourth step, the mental elaboration of the hypothesis, I find from my experience that the hypothesis: "Centaurs have existence in the realm of the imaginative," is the most apparenly true. Of course, its truth or falsity is as yet indeterminate. So the fifth step is essential. I must find evidence in fact and conclusion. Consequently I find out all that I can about centaurs, and all that is available about the realm of the imaginative. If my findings are such that centaurs are imaginative creatures, that is, from the standpoint of the evidence, then my operational hypothesis is true; it works. But it is subject to any possible future evidence that may be uncovered later. It is hoped that the preceding example has sufficiently conveyed the essence of the pragmatic position. Our purpose in this essay is to find those conditions that make error possible. We shall attempt no detailed analysis or criticism of pragmatism, but rather we shall examine the implications of its basic assumption. Through such an examination it is hoped that insight may be occasioned into the nature of truth and error and the possibility of an adequate explanation of the two. In respect to our evaluation of the pragmatic basic assumption, Dewey has asserted that beliefs must be held as provisional until they are verified. He has declared that they are dogmas, not truths, if they are not subject to testing and verification. Beliefs must always be "working hypotheses." This seems to be the basic assumption of all pragmatism.

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The purpose of this chapter is to reveal whether or not pragmatism has the necessary conditions for truth and error. Pragmatism as far as this essay's purpose is concerned is an operational hypothesis. It cannot stand on the merits of its own assertion. It must be verified, and if verified, it will be an acceptable position for the solution to the problem of error. The operational hypothesis with which we are dealing is the pragmatic theory itself. This pragmatic theory is the hypothesis that states that all hypotheses, all ideas, all judgments, must be made subject to the process of verification. If such a test is not effected, they are dogmas, not truths. Let us apply the pragmatic methodology to our operational hypothesis, the pragmatic theory. We assume that the first and second steps in the pragmatic methodology have been met by the very nature of this study. We have had occasion to think about the pragmatic position. We have been forced to define our difficulty, or to clarify our question. These two steps have arisen in the writing of this book on the problem of error. Through this evaluation of the problem of error, we have had many hypotheses arise on the scene. First, there was the common-sense position which we found to be untenable. Secondly, there was the teaching of realistic doctrine which was equally untenable. And in this chapter we find ourselves confronted with the pragmatic hypothesis. We are now at the point in our problem-solving procedure to consider this suggestion or hypothesis relative to the problem of error. The third and fourth steps, that is, the arising of the hypotheses and the mental elaboration of suggestions have been completed. Therefore, it is necessary for us to find evidential data to confirm or deny our hypothesis. This is very simple. All we need to do is to take into consideration

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the findings of modern science in its many fields of endeavor. The sciences operate upon the pragmatic principle of verification of ideas through experimentation. This experimental method has always worked. It is a successful instrument. It would seem from our evaluation that we must conclude that the pragmatic theory is true because it works. It has satisfactory consequences. It is definitely functional in nature. Truth is the verifiable. Error is the mishandling or the wrong formulation of operational hypotheses. The problem of error is solved. But is it? The evidence seems to be conclusive, but sometimes appearances are deceiving. The statement by Dewey that all beliefs must be subject to verification is our key. The assertion that the hypothesis cannot stand alone, but must be verified is the deceptive appearance. We have applied the pragmatic methodology to the pragmatic theory and we find that this position is a workable and true position. But it works and it is true in terms of what. It is true in terms of itself. Dewey assents to this conclusion when he says : Naturally the pragmatist claims his theory to be true in the pragmatic sense of truth; it works, it clears up difficulties; removes obscurities, puts individuals into more experimental, less dogmatic, and less arbitrarily sceptical relations to life; aligns philosophy with scientific method, does away with selfmade problems of epistemology, clarifies and reorganizes logical theory, etc.9 Dewey has also asserted in the same context that the intellectualistic criticism of pragmatism is always based on an intellectualistic theory of truth. But his theory is thoroughly consistent with itself; it is true in terms of the pragmatic test. 'Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, p. 164. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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We are now, however, in a position to conclude that pragmatism is dogma, not truth. It is dogma, not in terms of an intellectualistic or idealistic theory of truth, but it is dogma in terms of the pragmatic theory itself. To support this conclusion, a brief analysis is necessary. In our evaluation of the pragmatic view, we subjected it to its own methodology. Dewey has also asserted that pragmatism is true in the pragmatic sense of truth. This is in essence the subjection of the theory to its own methodology. We are aware of the fact that the pragmatic theory asserts that verification determines the truth or falsity of a hypothesis. A hypothesis without verification, but nevertheless believed is in the words of Dewey a dogma. It is interesting to note in light of Dewey's assertion that the pragmatic theory of truth is itself a hypothesis that is not verifiable. It is a hypothesis that is believed by Dewey and his followers, but it cannot be verified except in terms of itself. It is, therefore, dogma. But yet we did verify it. It worked. It had satisfactory consequences. Even so the verification qua verification emanated from the pragmatic hypothesis itself. As a result we were verifying the hypothesis of pragmatism in terms of the hypothesis of pragmatism. Dewey himself has asserted that a hypothesis is not true in terms of its own assertion, and if it is believed without verification, it is dogma, not truth. In another section Dewey contradicts himself when he says that the pragmatic theory is true because it works. This is a verification of the hypothesis in terms of itself. Dewey seems to affirm unconsciously the fact that pragmatism is dogma, not truth, when he speaks in such a way. It can be concluded and without a misrepresentation of the Deweyan position that the pragmatic theory rests in the last analysis upon that very unpopular word and its corresponding meaning, dogma. The pragmatic position is an idea

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standing in need of verification. In the case of pragmatism qua pragmatism, it cannot be verified by its workability, since that would be verification in terms of the hypothesis itself that states that all ideas must be verified. The pragmatist then makes an exception in respect to his own position. For its truth as a position must transcend the purely "practical" aspects of its method. Its truth as a position for the sake of consistency must rely upon something that is itself non-verifiable, but stands as the possibility of verification. Pragmatism in itself must rely upon truth transcendent to it, but at the same time immanent within it. Pure pragmatism is in a state of bankruptcy and selfcontradiction. A bankrupt theory of truth cannot furnish us with the conditions that make possible error. However, if we follow Royce and discard pure pragmatism and replace it by a modified pragmatism, we find ourselves on the way to a solution of the problem at hand. A modified form of pragmatism seems to be essential to avoid self-contradiction. As Royce declares: If the pragmatist has taught us a truth, then he has done something more than assume his needful inner attitudes. But if he has merely adjusted himself to his conscious environment by means of his own inner mental constitution, then he has instructed nobody and has refuted nobody; and has said nothing that has any genuine meaning for anybody but himself. Accordingly even when he has contradicted absolutism, in uttering such a contradiction he has merely assumed an anti-absolutist inner attitude of his own. Hence that attitude has involved no refutation of anybody else. The pure pragmatist, therefore, contradicts nobody but himself when he asserts that other people, say absolutists, are wrong. For none of his assertions can relate to anybody but himself, as he happens to be what he makes them.10 Pragmatism justifies its position in terms of its theory of truth. The justification is non-verifiable, and it stands under 10

Royce, op. cit., p. 257. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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the position as the possibility of verification. It is the nature of this non-verifiable principle in pragmatic thought that constitutes Royce's answer to our difficulty, the solution to our problem. Royce in a final evaluation of pure pragmatism has stated: The need for the Eternal is consequently one of the deepest of all our practical needs. Herein lies at once the justification of pragmatism and the logical impossibility of pure pragmatism. Everything finite and temporal is practical. All that is practical borrows its truth from the Eternal.11

11

Ibid., p. 261. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

IV The Logocentric Predicament Pragmatism rests upon a non-verifiable principle. It is this principle upon which Royce builds his system of Objective Idealism. Royce considered idealism to be constituted by two basic propositions. The first is that truth meets needs. The second is that truth is true.1 If one attempts to define a world of merely relative truth, this world as soon as it is defined in its wholeness becomes once more an absolute, a truth that is true. But in the acknowledgment of truth we are indeed meeting or endeavoring to meet a need that always expresses itself in finite form. But this need can never be satisfied by the acknowledgment of anything finite as the whole truth.2 So when an instrumentalist or pragmatist gives an account of the empirical truth that men attain through using their ideas as instruments to guide and to control their experience, his account of human organic and psychological functions is as far as it goes true. But if it is true at all, it is 1 Josiah Royce, Lectures in Modern Idealism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), p. 257. 2 Ibid.

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true as an account of the characters actually common to the vast experience of a great number of men. It is true as a report of the objective constitution of a certain totality of facts that are called human experience. It is true in the sense that no man can ever test by empirical success of his own ideas as his means of controlling his own experience.* Royce also asserts in the same spirit: The truth which we must ascribe to instrumentalism, if we regard it as a true doctrine at all, is precisely a truth, not insofar as instrumentalism is itself an instrument for helping on this man's or that man's way of controlling his experience. If instrumentalism is true, it is true as a report of facts about the general course of history, of evolution, and of human experience,—facts which transcend every individual man's experience, verifications, and successes. To make its truth consist m the mere sum of the various individual successes is equally vain, unless indeed that sum is a fact. But no individual man ever experiences that fact.4 Royce continues his assertion that instrumentalism, consequently, expresses no motive which by itself alone is adequate to constitute any theory of truth. But at the same time it presents a substantially true account of man's natural function as a truth seeker. The sense in which instrumentalism is a true account of human life is opposed to the adequacy of its own definition of truth.8 Royce also declares in the same context: In fact it is useless to talk of the success of the human spirit in its efforts to win control over experience, unless there is indeed a human spirit which is more than any man's transient consciousness of his own efforts, and unless there is an unity objective, real, and supratemporal in its significance.* »Josiah Royce, William James and Other Essays (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911), p. 221. * Ibid., ρ, 222. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. • Ibid. ' Ibid., p. 223. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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Truth meets needs, but it is also true. This twofold aspect of truth, the practical and the eternal, led Royce to say: I am both a pragmatist and an absolutist. . . . I believe each of these doctrines to imply the other, and that therefore I regard them not only as reconcilable, but as in truth reconciled.7 In our development of Royce's position, we shall emphasize the proposition that truth is not only practical in nature, but also true as well. Pragmatism presented us with a tenable description of how truth works, and how it meets our finite needs. Pragmatism failed to justify its position in terms of verification procedure; it works successfully but this is no test for its truth. Works may be the test of truth for all other judgments, but it cannot be the test for pragmatism itself, since this test is exactly that of which pragmatism is constituted. The implications of the pragmatic teaching are essentially non-pragmatic in nature. Pragmatism justifies its position in terms of itself. But such a justification is non-pragmatic. Truth in the sense of its being true is non-pragmatic in nature. It is with the problem of the non-verifiable and non-pragmatic nature of Truth that we shall approach Royce's idealistic solution to the problem of error. Royce has declared that there are two definitions of truth commonly offered in answer to the question: "What is truth?" The first is that truth is that about which we judge, and the second is that truth is the correspondence between an idea and its object.8 He also has written that each of these definitions is in its own way correct and the two taken together and adequately understood can furnish us with the conditions that make error possible. 7 Royce, Lectures in Modern Idealism, p. 258. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 8 Josiab Royce, The World and the Individual (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901), I, 270.

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In regard to the first definition, we find that all types of judgment make some sort of reference to reality in a positive or negative fashion. Royce asserts: Never do you judge at all, unless you suppose yourself to be asserting something about a real world. You can express doubt as to whether a certain ideal object has its place in Reality. You can deny that some class of ideal objects is real. You can affirm the Being of this or that object. But never can you judge without some sort of conscious intention to be in significant relation to the Real.9 Every judgment consciously intends to judge about the Real. Even if I make a judgment about centaurs, I am judging about the Real in stating a concept that is not characteristic of the real world, but of an imaginative world. Even so my judgment is about the Real, since I am implicitly saying what the Real is not. The conscious intention or purpose of judging about the Real is an integral part of every judging process. Purpose or intention, as we have found in Chapter One, is essential in all judgment. The purposive element in judgment is described in terms of ideas. An idea is any state of consciousness, which, when present, is then and there viewed as at least the expression of a single conscious purpose. Ideas of things are never merely images of things, but they always involve a consciousness of how a person proposes to act toward the things of which he has ideas. An idea always has the appearance of an act of will. It is always the embodiment of a conscious purpose. The purpose, when it is embodied in an idea, constitutes the internal meaning of that idea. It is that which the idea aims to express and when expressed is the fulfillment of the idea.10 With this internal meaning, the idea has an external 9

Ibid., p. 272. All of this material relative to internal and external meaning of ideas is taken from Royce's Lecture VII of The World and the Individual, Series One. 10

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meaning. The external meaning is the internal meaning's reference beyond itself to an object to which it refers. Thus when I hum a melody, the melody means my conscious purpose in so humming the melody and also it means a certain musical theme which a great artist has composed. Royce has also insisted that internal and external meanings cannot be sundered in the judging process. They are rather inseparably joined. They are two aspects of one principle. This is evident from the very nature of judgment itself since both are involved in judgment, and they are meaningless apart from each other.11 Royce demonstrates the necessity of the non-separation of internal and external meaning in his discussion of Realism and Mysticism in Series One of The World and the Individual. Realism, as we have concluded in Chapter Two, tends to sunder the internal from the external meaning, and to place all the emphasis upon the externality of meaning. Mysticism, on the other hand, is guilty of a similar sundering, except the emphasis is placed upon internal meaning at the expense of external meaning. Royce concludes in this discussion that judgment cannot stand such dismemberment and live. For the individual who attempts to sunder the two will find that every attempt to judge, even while he recognizes this sundering as sharpest, is an effort to link afresh what it all the time also seems to keep apart.12 Although a separation between internal and external meaning in a judging situation is impossible, distinctions between them can be made without sundering these two aspects of meaning into irreconcilable poles. Internal meanings distinguished from external meanings are fragmentary and incomplete. Most internal meanings manifest themselves as questions. The answers to the questions asked, that is, the internal meanings, are to be found in the external 11 12

Ibid., p. 273. Ibid.

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meanings, or in the facts of external experience. Royce is very explicit to affirm this: Man thinks in order to get control of his world, and thereby of himself. What the bare internal meanings, in their poverty, leave an open question, the external experience shall decide. If you ask again, What experience?, the answer always is, Not any experience that you please, but a sort of experience determined by the question asked, viz., whatever experience is apt to decide between conflicting ideas, and to determine them to precise meaning.13 The function of internal meaning is to ask questions. The function of external experience is to answer those questions. But the internal meaning through its purposive and intentional behavior is always selective. It both determines and is determined by the external meanings it seeks. Royce has often declared that it is customary to dwell upon the "crushing character," the "overwhelming power" of "stubborn empirical facts," and the character in question is a valid one. But he continues to assert that this crushing force of experience is never a barely immediate fact; it is something relative to the particular ideas in question. The so-called external experience, that is, the experience taken as other than our meanings and viewed as what confirms or refutes them here or there, never does more in any question concerning the truth than to decide our ideal issues, and to decide them in particular instances whose character and meaning for us are determined solely by what ideas of our own are in question.14 Royce insists that empirical facts never by themselves absolutely confirm or refute all that our ideas mean. What they confirm or refute depends upon what questions have been asked from the side of our internal meanings. He has declared in this argument: 13 14

Ibid., p. 286. Ibid.

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The empirical facts can, indeed, refute, and they very often do refute, abstractly stated universal judgments, by showing particular cases that contradict these judgments. But they can never show by themselves, that the ideas in question have no application, anywhere, in yonder externally valid world, but only that in some case just diese ideas fail. Hence, unless I have ideally chosen to stake my all upon a single throw of the dice of "external experience" I am not logically "crushed" by the particular experience that this time disappoints me.15 Royce definitely believes that the human will need not be defeated by any particular experience, unless its ideas determine that it ought to accept defeat An individual can always try again because ideas can be as stubborn as any particular facts, can outlast them, and often in the end abolish them. Experience taken as external and particular can never prove any absolute negation.16 External experience can never wholly refute any of our ideas, unless we find that we ought to accept defeat. On the other hand, external experience can never confirm or demonstrate in any finite time a universal judgment. External experience can make only particular judgments such as: "Some A is B." Royce declares: That is all your experience, when viewed as other than your ideas, and as that to which you appeal for the sake of defining your external object, can ever by itself reveal.17 The fact that all of us believe universal propositions about the external world of valid objects is due to the fact that none of us are mere empiricists. Judgment has two aspects, the universal and the particular. External experience can refute the universal judgment, such as All A is Β by giving a particular instance, such as Some A is not B. But external experience cannot wholly 15 16 17

Ibid., p. 287. Ibid. Ibid., p. 288.

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verify a universal proposition, All A is B, by asserting in a multitude of instances that Some A is B. Universal and particular judgments in the abstract, although they have reality as their object, can never present reality as anything more than an indeterminate object, since an idea cannot be wholly refuted by particulars of external experience, and an idea cannot be wholly verified through particulars of external experience. Royce has posited this question in respect to the problem: Can we leave this view of Reality as final? Ideas, as such, take, we have said, the abstractly universal form. External experience, as such, in this realm where we find it sundered from the internal meanings, confirms or refutes ideas in particular cases. But do ideas, insofar as they merely imitate or seek their external Other, ever express what common sense often means by calling that external object an Individual? Or, on the other hand, does the external experience ever, as such, present to us individuals, and show them to us ay individuals.18 Common sense seems to speak of knowledge of individual things. All of us seem to think that we know an object or that we know a person as an individuated entity. But is such knowledge actually possible? Can we know an object as an individual and at the same time sunder internal and external meaning? Royce declares: Neither do our internal meanings ever present to us, nor yet do our external experiences ever produce before us, for our inspection, an object whose individuality we ever really know as such. Neither internal meanings nor external meanings, in their isolation, are in the least adequate to embody individuality.19 The essence of individuality is uniqueness. There is no other of its individual kind. If Socrates is an individual, there is only one Socrates in the universe. If reality is individual, there is only one unique reality. 18 19

Ibid., p. 291. Ibid., p. 292.

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The uniqueness of the individual that we all seek in the knowing of an object presents an unusual problem. Try to define in idea some one individual, real or fictional. When you define, your idea as an internal meaning, presents a combination of characters that some object external to the idea might embody. In consequence, the possibility of characterizing the features that are to make the external individual unique has been sundered in the very act of trying to define what constitutes his uniqueness as an individual. The object is the Other of the Idea, and it is known in this sense through ideally imitating it and corresponding to iL20 The object of an idea is then defined in terms of characteristics other than the object in question. We define the object by telling "what it is not." But Royce declares that an individual to be unique is precisely that which has no likeness. Definition gives information concerning everything but the uniqueness of the object. This question arises in Royce's thought: If ideas, as internal meanings opposed to external objects, cannot express the individuality of the world or any one Being in it, whence, then, do we ever get this belief that Being is, in fact, individual.21 The question arises as to whether or not external experience in isolation presents to us individuated entities. Royce answers this question in a negative manner: If when you define Socrates in inner idea, you define a type of man, and not an unique Being without any likeness, it is equally true that, if you ever had an experience which made you say, Here is Socrates, you would have present to yourself, but, once more, a type of empirically observed man—a kind of experience.22 20 21 22

ibid. Ibid., p. 293. Ibid.

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In any experience in which an individual is confronted with another individual, the person confronted confirms his internal meanings by external experience. But "the confirmation," Royce declares, "is always a confirmation of ideal types by particular cases, never by really individual Beings, directly known and present to you as unique." 23 Accordingly, any individual that you meet, know, are friendly to, is an individual whose individuality is presupposed. Individuality is never found by uncovering particular expressions of external experience. Individuality is never found in our fragmentary internal meanings. The individuality of the object of judgment is presupposed. Royce develops this point as follows: In this presupposition lies the very mystery of Being. The is abstractly universal. The that is individual. You have an idea of your friend. You go to meet him; and lo, the idea is verified. Yes, but what is verified? I answer this, that you have met a certain type of empirical object. "But my friend is unique. There is no other who has his voice, manner, behavior." "Yes; but how should your personal experience verify that? Have you seen all beings in heaven and earth?" Perhaps you reply, "Yes; but human experience in general shows that every man is an individual, unique, and without any absolute likeness." If such is your reply, you are appealing to general inductive methods. I admit their significance. But I deny that they rest solely upon external experience, as such, for their warrant. They presuppose a metaphysic. They do not prove one.24 what

Thought always looks to external experience to decide whether hypotheses about fact can be confirmed. But this external experience has definite limitations. It confirms hypotheses, but the confirmation is never adequate. It demonstrates particular instances that agree with hypotheses. Refutation of hasty generalizations is possible, but it can 23 24

Ibid., p. 294. Ibid.

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never prove by itself a determinative negative by excluding from reality the whole of what the hypotheses have defined. It may be concluded that internal and external experience never present to us what we regard as real. They never present the Individual Fact. The Individual Fact is determinate. External experience only affirms or negates in an indeterminate manner. It is the determinate fact that we seek. It is certainty that we desire, whether we be realist, pragmatist, or idealist. Royce concludes his discussion of individuality by asserting: Yet if we could reach that limit of determination which is all the while our goal, if our universal judgments were confirmed by an adequate experience, not of some object, or of all individual objects, so that no other empirical expression of our ideas remained possible, then, indeed, we should stand in the immediate presence of the Real. The Real, then, is from this point of view, that which is immediately beyond the whole of our series of possible efforts to bring, by any process of finite experience and of merely general conception, our own internal meaning to a complete determination.2® Reality is never achieved by either internal meaning or external experience in isolation except in an indeterminate fashion. Reality is the individual, whether it be individual objects or individual persons. Reality as a determinate individuation is presupposed. We can search the depths of internal experience and find no individuation, no reality; we find nothing but indétermination and opinion. We can search the breadth of external experience and never find in that experience qua experience an individual. Here again we find only indeterminancy, uncertainty. Reality is the one great presupposition of Royce's thinking. Without this presupposition, human experience would be wholly chaotic. Reality, the absolute presupposition, is the principle of individuation, is the Individual Fact, is the 25

Ibid., p. 299.

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fulfillment and satisfaction of all our fragmentary internal experiences.26 An understanding of the relationship of internal meaning to external meaning and the relationship of these two principles to the absolute presupposition underlying all judgment is essential to a comprehensive knowledge of Royce's position. The use of the word "presupposition" in Roycean idealism must not be confused with such terms as "assumption," "hypothesis," and "suggestion." An "hypothesis" is an operational principle that can be called into question in terms of verification procedure. The "hypothesis" is a principle of external experience taken in isolation or abstraction. It is only a tentative, operational procedure. Presupposition, on the other hand, is that which is implied in any type of activity, conscious or unconscious. It is not an operational principle, a tentative hypothesis, that later may be called into question in terms of problemsolving procedure. It is rather the underlying base from which verification and experimentation emanate. It is the non-verifiable principle implicit in all pragmatic operation. It is the regulative ideal of reason, to use Kant's phrase, that makes possible hypotheses, assumptions, and verification procedure. It is now necessary to show the relation of internal meaning to external meaning, followed by a more thorough development of the problem of the non-verifiable principle or absolute presupposition.27 Every judgment entails the 26 Royce uses the concept of the Logos as the metaphysical category comprising reality. The Logos, or logic of order, is the fundamental mode of apprehension, and the presupposed totality within which all analytic knowledge is derived. 27 The term "absolute presupposition" is taken from "The Science of Absolute Presuppositions" in R.G. Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics. Royce does not use the term, but the meaning implied by the term is in spirit with Royce's usage. The presupposition is the epistemological category that corresponds to the metaphysical category, the Logos, or logic of order.

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meaning of an object of thought by a subject engaged in the activity of judgment. The internal meaning or purpose of the judgment must be so related to the external meaning that no separation of the two is possible. If internal meaning is the sole criterion for reality, we have the predicament of John as w e found in Chapter One. John was unable to judge the "real" Thomas. He could only judge his "internal meaning" of Thomas. Hence, pure subjectivism resulted. O n the other hand, if there is only external meaning, we have the predicament of the realist in Chapter T w o . I posit a reality independent of knowledge, but end up in a self-contradiction since the only way this reality can be known is through my internal meanings. Consequently the reality of the universe results in being unknowable. Royce avoids this predicament by subsuming internal and external meanings under the one principle that includes the significance of both the polar principles, but is not reduced to either of the two poles. This principle is the absolute presupposition in question. The internal meaning of a finite subject is fleeting and uncertain, and in itself only opinionative, but at the same time it is selective, it is purposive, it is volitional. For it means, it purposes to know an object beyond its present selfconsciousness which is the external meaning. Royce declares in this connection: To return, then, to our supposed believer, he believes that he knows some fact beyond his present consciousness. This involves, as we have now seen, the assertion that he believes himself to stand in an actual relation to the fact yonder that were it in, instead of out of his present consciousness, he would recognize it both as the object meant by his present thought, and also as in agreement therewith; and it is all this which, as he believes, an immediate observer of his own thought and of the object—that is, an observer who should include our believer's

The Logocentric Predicament 63 present self, and the fact yonder, and who should reflect on their relations—would find as the real relation.28 The thinking subject in his activity of judgment selects his object of judgment. This selection on the part of the thinking subject restricts his frame of reference in respect to his judgment. What he selects is an external object. Because he selects in terms of his ideas, his ideas are not mere images of his object The object is not the "cause" of his idea. His idea is a conscious purpose that he utilizes in his selective activity of judgment. It was noted previously that the internal meaning of the thinking subject both determines and is determined by its object It determines its object because it selects its object, and it is determined by the object since the thinking subject is not the object and does not know the object in the way desired by the selective act The occasion to judge in the first place is because of a need or lack in experience. The selective act represents this need. The selected object is the determinate fulfillment of this need or lack in the thinker's experience. It might be asserted that the selective activity of the internal meaning is indeterminate, and awaits the determination in the selected external meaning. The determinate object sought, however, is not the realist's independent entity that makes the internal meaning subservient to the external object. Rather, as Royce has declared: What the idea always aims to find in its object is nothing whatever but the idea's own conscious purpose or will, embodied in some more determinate form than the idea itself alone at this instant consciously possesses. When I have an idea of the world, my idea is a will and the world of my idea is simply my own will itself determinately embodied.39 »Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1896), p. 375. 28 Royce, The World and the Individual, I, 327.

(New York:

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The object sought is the individual's own will determinately embodied. However, the individual's private will does not create the rest of nature, but the conscious will as explained in ideas does logically determine what objects are the individual's objects.80 The problem can be described in another manner. Suppose that I seek to know a distant mountain. I select this mountain as my object The selection of the object is an act. What is selected, namely, the mountain, is not an act qua act, but rather an act objectified. My act of selection, however, is indeterminate, since I do not now possess the achieved relationship with my object, the mountain. The mountain, as object, stands as the determination of my will or desire. But when the need is sufficiently supplied, and my achievement sought is complete, namely, the knowledge desired about the mountain, then, what I have achieved is not the mountain as an act objectified, but what I have achieved is the act itself of which the mountain is an object. So when I desire to know about the mountain, the mountain stands as the determination of my internal meaning, but when my desire is fulfilled, I no longer seek the object, namely, the mountain, but rather I have embodied the act which has the mountain as its object. I transcend my own desire or purpose which is indeterminant, since the desire or purpose has been fulfilled. I transcend my object which is determinate since I now have embodied the act of meaning that has the mountain as object. The mountain no longer determines me. Rather I determine it. The result is that I am self-determinate in my relationship to my purpose that I first had in my selective activity, and also in relationship to my selected Other, the mountain. What I sought was not the mountain qua object, but the act that possesses the 80

Ibid., p. 339.

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mountain and gives it meaning. Royce makes this point sufficiently clear when he states: It follows that the finally determinate form of the object of any finite idea is that form which the idea itself would assume whenever it became individuated, or in other words, became a completely determined idea, an idea or will fulfilled by a wholly adequate empirical content; for which no other content need be substituted, or, from the point of view of the satisfied idea, could be substituted.81 Royce concludes the statement by declaring that what is, or what is real, is as such the complete embodiment, in individual form and in final fulfillment of the internal meaning of finite ideas.82 Returning briefly to the nature of the absolute presupposition, Royce states that everything finite is more or less obscure, dark, doubtful. Only the Logos which expresses itself in and through the totality of reality but yet is not exhausted by this expression is actually the presupposition of our deepest doubt. Royce personifies the logos idea by calling it the Infinite Self, the problem-solver, the complete thinker, the one who knows what we mean even when we are most confused and ignorant, the one who includes us, who has the world present to itself in unity, before whom all past and future truth, all distant and dark truth is clear in one eternal moment, to whom far and forgot is near, who has the whole of nature for its object, and in whom are all things.88 One of the admirers of Royce among modern existentialists, Gabriel Marcel in his book Royce's Metaphysics feels that the personification of the logos idea is perhaps the weakest point in Royce's argument. Marcel doubts whether or not such an Infinite Self can be thought. The Logos, however, as the presupposition for all analytical SIL

Ibid., p. 337. "8 8 Ibid., p. 339.

Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, p. 374.

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judgments is sound, since the presupposition of analysis is totality and totality cannot be achieved by analysis. Royce would affirm the argument that all finite beings are involved in a logocentric predicament. We constantly find ourselves in this so-called predicament of meaning, this predicament of being closely related to the reality of our world. When we judge, we always judge about the meaningful, about the real. No matter how insignificant our activity may be, it is always centered in meaning. The Logos is the presupposition of all; it is implicit in all activity, as the measure and meaning of that activity. We cannot escape from this predicament, for the escape would itself be real, would itself be meaningful. But in the predicament we find freedom, we find knowledge, we find a true relation to reality. All of our hopes, our desires, our purposes, have their fruition in the Logos, or from the epistemological perspective, the absolute presupposition. The Logos is the meaning and order of reality. The Logos acts in and through us, has the world as object, and possesses the meaning of the world as totality. This according to Royce is the presupposition of our deepest doubts: To believe that you know anything beyond your present and momentary self, is, therefore, to believe that you do stand in such a relation to truth as only a larger and reflectively observant self, that included you and your object, could render intelligible.84

Royce anticipates an objection when he declares that to say I know a truth, and yet to say, this larger self to whom I appeal, is appealed to only as a possible self, that need not be real, involves the absurdity against which his whole idealistic analysis has been directed. To believe is to say, I stand in a real relation to truth, a relation which transcends wholly my present momentary self; and this real relation is 84

Ibid., p. 375.

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of such a curious nature that only a larger inclusive self which consciously reflected upon my meaning and consciously possessed the object that I mean, could know or grasp the reality of the relation.86 In concluding his treatment of the nature of the Logos, the Absolute Self, Royce asserts: The relation of conforming one's thought to an outer object meant by this thought is a relation which only a Reflective Larger Self could grasp or find real. If the relation is real, the larger self is real, too.88 If the absolute presupposition of all our thoughts were not a self, what would follow? In Royce's position the Self is the ontological principle. But, if this position is denied, we will have to resort to other explanations. However, we know from past investigations that it could not be the common-sense or realistic positions that in the last analysis have a wholly determinate reality with which the individual's ideas must correspond, and that also affirms the absolute transcendence of its "reals," since they are unknowable. In the realistic position, the individual is wholly passive to his object, and there is no way in which the false separation of knower-known can be bridged once the separation is allowed. The ontological doctrine of the mystic is equally untenable, since the mystic wishes to swallow up all of reality in the mystical One that is an emphasis of "oneness" to the expense of "manyness." A solution could, perhaps, be found in the pragmatic position that emphasizes the necessity of the individual being an active, creative entity, rather than a passive, submissive creature. Pragmatism also emphasizes the selective activity of all judgment, and it appears to be much more 35 se

Ibid., pp. 375-376. Ibid.

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important in its problem-solving procedure than the other mentioned attempts. But as we have seen pragmatism rests upon a non-verifiable principle, and this principle Royce equates with the absolute presupposition expressed in his philosophy. It can be concluded that regardless of the position and its basic teachings, two findings result. Either the position is self-contradictory in that it does not allow for knowledge, or it bases its doctrine upon a non-verifiable principle. Of the several possible alternatives, Royce adopts a modified pragmatism as the most adequate approach to the problem of error. As the pragmatist teaches, the individual selects his object of judgment, is active in his relationship to it. This act of selectivity is very important. And as Royce would teach, the object selected is the act objectified. When the need is met, the individual purpose fulfilled, the individual finds himself in his own activity reflecting the meaningful activity of his own larger Self. He, then, as was described, becomes self-determinate, free, and achieves the true meaning of his object. His object is truly knowable, and he does not find himself in a world whose reality is unknowable. It is now necessary to examine briefly Royce's second definition of truth, namely, the correspondence of an idea to its object. Royce has referred to this theory as a "timehonoured definition of truth."87 In brief, as we found in Chapters One and Two, this theory states that in order for an idea to be true or false, it must have some type of corresponding object, for an idea that stands alone without an object is neither true nor false. The problem in this theory is relative to what constitutes this "having of an object," or what is the nature of this socalled correspondence. It can be concluded from our analy" Royce, The World and the Individual, I, 300.

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sis of realism that the correspondence cannot be a mere agreement between idea and object. It can also be concluded that truth is not an external relation which arises through a true correspondence of an idea to its object. It can, therefore, be declared that the correspondence theory, as it is usually understood, is inadequate as a test for truth and as a basis for the possibility of error. Royce has affirmed it, however, as definitely the right approach to the nature of Truth, and the possibility of error. The nature of this correspondence is related to his first definition of Truth as that about which we judge. The question then which arises once again in our discussion is: "What is the test of the truthful correspondence of an idea to its object, if object and idea can differ so widely?" Royce answers this question in terms of the selective or purposive activity of the thinking subject He insists that the idea is true if it possesses the sort of correspondence to its object that the idea itself wants it to possess.38 If this were not the case, the idea, or the internal meaning of the thinking subject would be forced to submit to the object; the thinking subject would be wholly passive in his relationship to the object. This, however, Royce and also the pragmatist will not allow. Thus the correspondence is not mere agreement which is only opinion for lack of a criterion, but rather it is intended agreement which is knowledge that constitutes truth.89 But, then, these questions arise: "How can a person be in error, if this be true?" "Does not this principle reduce all judgment to subjective opinion?" "What about the object judged? What is its status?" "Does not the object have any part in the truth of the judgment?" " Ibid., p. 306. 89 Ibid., p. 307.

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From these questions, there arises an apparent antinomy in Royce's thought. On the one hand, we must insist upon the selective or purposive activity of the thinking subject as being essential to true correspondence. But, on the other hand, the object selected by the thinking subject is equally as important. It is the determination of the internal meaning. How are the two reconciled? Royce's answer is in terms of the development preceding this discussion on correspondence. I select my object. My selection is an act. What I select is an act objectified. But what I achieve when my purpose is fulfilled is not the determinate object which I select, but rather what I achieve is of the same nature as my act of selection. I achieve the meaningful act which has the object, or I achieve my own activity determinately embodied. I stand in a meaningful relation to my object. I possess the meaning of my "unfulfilled purpose," and the meaning of its Other, the object. In this state I have achieved an active relationship with the Real which I sought in my initial activity of selecting an object. Now what occurs in this activity is not a correspondence of an idea which is purposive, selective, and itself an act to an object which is non-purposive and an act objectified. What occurs is a correspondence of an activity which becomes fulfilled to an already self-determinate activity implicit in the activity of fulfillment. Taken from one perspective it is a correspondence between a not yet completely realized internal meaning and a completely realized Internal Meaning. When, however, the true correspondence is effected, what results is no correspondence at all, but a fulfillment through self-determination of the prior, fleeting, internal meaning. The thinking subject in his activity grasps the true meaning of the object. It might be called a correspondence of the meaning grasped to the meaning of the object, but since the meaning grasped which is activity and

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the meaning of the object which is also an act are identical, there truly is no correspondence at all. The paradox of the situation is when a true correspondence is effected, there is no correspondence but an identical act. The so-called true correspondence is the intended agreement of an idea to its object, but the object of the idea is its own will, its own selective activity, embodied in self-determinate fashion. True correspondence is the grasping of the meaning implicit for the thinking subject in his selective act, but at the time of the selection not meaningful to him, that is, not psychologically present to him in his experience. In the initial act of all judgment, my Other stands in opposition to me. But through the meaningful, selective activity of my judgment, I become related to the meaning of my object which is not the object qua object, but it is the act which has my object for its own. The Act is the absolute presupposition, the Logos. Royce declares in this connection: All the many Beyonds, which single significant judgments seem vaguely and separately to postulate, are present or fully realized intended objects to the unity of the all-inclusive, absolutely clear, universal, and conscious thought, of which all judgments, true or false, are but fragments, the whole being at once Absolute Truth and Absolute Knowledge.40 Nothing has been said, however, about the nature of error, and about its possibility in Royce's system. Royce defines an error as: An error is an error about a specific object, only in case the purpose imperfectly defined by the vague idea at the instant when the error is made, is better defined, in fact, better fulfilled, by an object whose determinate character in some wise although never absolutely, opposes the fragmentary efforts first made to define them.41 Josiah Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1885), p. 423. 41 Royce, The World and the Individual, I, 335.

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The key to the problem of error in Royce's philosophy can be found in the purposive or selective activity of the thinking subject when he judges. Previously, Royce was quoted as representing the position that whenever a judgment is made, it, directly or indirectly, has as its object, the Real. No judgment is made unless it has a reference to reality. The purposive or intentional activity of the thinking subject always refers to the real. This point is paramount in Royce's teaching. If I judge about the imaginative realm, I am judging about something that is not real, except as the imaginative realm. But I consciously refer to the real in saying what the real is not, if the imaginative is transformed into the non-imaginative. Even if I assert that I do not intend to judge about the real, there is implicit in my assertion, the affirmation of the real as that about which I do not judge. In this case, also, I have the real as my object, only in an indirect manner. It can be concluded categorically that all judgment has for its object the real, indirectly or directly. If this were not the case there could be no solution to the problem of error, since error would be non-existent. Since, therefore, my object is my purpose determinately embodied, the Real in a restricted sense is my purpose determinately embodied. For when I judge, my act of judgment is equally as real as that about which I judge. But suppose that I judge an object and I am mistaken concerning that object, so that I err in my judgment. What then? The fact of my erring about the object is indubitable. But how can my object be my own purpose determinately embodied, and at the same time how can I err about my own purpose determinately embodied? For example: suppose that I find myself in a judging situation. I judge that man in the corner, and I take him to be a despicable character.

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Now implicitly in my judgment of this man is my purposive activity. I intend to judge just this man. But, even more, I intend to judge not only "just this man" but the "real character" of this man, since every judgment has the real as its object. This intention is implicit in my activity. I have judged the man to be a despot, but it so happens that he is not a despot by any man's standard but a very admirable person. But I think him to be a despot. I am in error. What is the nature of this error? The nature of all error is the taking of error to be truth. I have negated the real character of this man, and have substituted an erroneous conception in its place. I also think that I am right in so doing. Psychologically I think that my judgment is a true one. How, then, do I ever come to know my error? Must I be in the predicament of John in his relationship to Thomas? Must I always think him to be a despot, when in reality he is an admirable person. The answer is: No. In regard to John's predicament in Chapter I escape from his psychological prison was not possible because he was restricted to a common-sense, non-reflective view of reality. But in this case redemption from error is possible. Such redemption is possible since in the first place I purposed to judge about the "real" man. This "real" man is my determinate will. This is the element of connection needed to liberate me from my psychological prison. It might be said that the meaning of the judgment that I have made of this man is implicit in my purposive, selective activity. If I err concerning him it is because I have not achieved in my person the determination of my purpose or intention. I have not achieved a true relationship to the intended object of my judgment, that is, the real man in question. My redemption from error is in terms of the fact that I still can achieve that self-determinate relationship which shows me to be in error.

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I am in error about this man. While I am in this state, psychologically, I think myself to be in truth. I truly think him to be a despot. But, now, a change comes into my thinking. I realize that he is not a despot. I recognize my error. My recognition of the error transcends my previous psychological experience which was in error. My recognition of my error makes me the meaning of the error in the sense that I am now in truth. My purposed or intended correspondence has been effected. I stand in a true relation to my object. It is then the logocentric predicament that liberates me from my psychological prison. In my purposive activity of judgment, I always consciously or otherwise intend to judge the real. My purpose, my intention, clouded though it may be, is a reflection of my relationship to the Logos. I therefore cannot act without the Logos being implicit in my activity. The Logos is the Truth, and the Truth is implicit in my purposive activity of judgment in that I intend to judge about the true, about the real. If I do not, if I err, then, my escape from error is in terms of Truth; it is my only redemption, for I am not capable of saving myself from the depths of error. In respect to the problem of John and Thomas in Chapter One, John can now judge the "real" Thomas. In fact he purposes to judge him. The logos of Thomas is implicit in his very act of judgment so even if John errs about Thomas and attributes to him qualities which are not consistent with the "real" Thomas, there is implicit in his error an element of truth. He, then, through a realization of his imperfected and unfulfilled will can be liberated from his error and achieve the true knowledge relation with Thomas. The underlying connecting principle that was needed in Chapter I is found in terms of the Logos which is implicit in our activity of judgment in that we always intend to judge

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about the real, the true. This is our logocentric predicament. The preceding discussion can be summed up in simple terms. A man in error is in error because he takes error to be truth. He negates truth in favor of its opposite. But his hope is in the fact that error is not the mutual opposite of Truth, but rather the non-mutual opposite. Truth is the meaning of error, but the converse does not follow. So the element of truth in all judging activity is just that we do act, we do purpose, we do select the real, the true, as our object, and although we may err, present in our act of erring is the real, the true, our own determinate will which is in the last analysis nothing more than a manifestation of the Logos, of Truth, in our finite activity. Error is indeed possible. The conditions that make error possible have been found. The conditions are one, namely, the Logos, in which we live and move and have our Being.

ν Royce and His Critics The criticism of Royce's idealistic position will be divided into three parts. The first will present a critical account of his internal and external meaning of ideas in terms of G. Watts Cunningham's basic position. The second part of the criticism will convey certain basic arguments relative to presupposing and the realistic doctrine of independence by Edward Gleason Spaulding. The third will voice the objection that the absolute presupposition has no content, and therefore is meaningless. This criticism as it is reported will attempt to represent an analytic philosopher's attitude towards Royce's philosophy which for the most part precedes that school. Cunningham feels that Royce's approach is founded on the paradox of knowledge, that is the Other which we seek in knowledge is the complete embodiment of our internal meanings, and such a complete embodiment is a single individual Life.1 Cunningham also believes that the basic 1 G . Watts Cunningham, The Idealistic Argument In Recent British and American Philosophy (New York: The Century Company, 1933), p. 434.

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point in Royce's position is the logical priority of internal meanings. He feels that this emphasis is the great weakness of the position. Cunningham declares in this connection: It would seem to be entirely inadequate to say, as Royce does, that an idea is true if it possesses the sort of correspondence to its object that the idea itself wants it to possess, or that it is false unless that kind of identity in inner structure between the idea and the object can be found which the specific purpose embodied in a given idea demands.2 Cunningham states that it would be much better to say that an idea is true if it possesses the sort of correspondence to the object that the object itself "wants" it to possess, and that otherwise it is false. He feels that it is a single fact of all too common experience that an idea may possess the sort of correspondence it wants to its object and still be false.3 He concludes this aspect of his criticism by asserting: In every case where the object of an idea is at all in doubt, the final appeal is necessarily to the external aspect of the meaning-situation, and never merely to the internal . . . Everywhere, confidence is grounded in the external aspect. The relation of "having" when it is said that the idea "has" an object, it would thus appear, is not determinable by examination of the internal meaning alone. The external meaning must also be examined, and in the end it is the final court of appeal; if the internal meaning remains contradictory to the external, it is set aside as illusory. The object, which the idea "has" is the object which is determinable only by reference to the meaningsituation in its wholeness, and not by reference to one aspect of it—certainly not by reference to that aspect which is the internal meaning.4 Cunningham seems to clinch his rebuttal of the position by saying that the theoretical vicious circle is plain in Royce's system. By hypothesis the "correspondence" beIbid., p. 435. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Ibid. * Ibid., p. 438. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 2 3

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tween the idea true or false is determinable only by reference to the same internal meaning. Since this is true it follows that truth is necessarily a character of all ideas that claim to be true and falsity is a character of all ideas that do not claim to be true. For every idea that claims to be true possesses the sort of correspondence to its object that the idea itself wants it to possess, and is, therefore, by definition a true idea. Every idea that claims not to be true, or does not claim to be true, is an idea whose relation to its object is not "that kind of identity in inner structure between the idea and the object," which is demanded by the "specific purpose" embodied in the idea "at the instant when it comes to mind." It is, therefore, false.5 Cunningham's criticism concludes that Royce's position ends in a pure subjectivism, something that Royce attempted to avoid in formulating his system. The appeal for Truth cannot be to internal meaning, but rather it must be to external meaning. The apparent antinomy between internal and external meaning again arises on the scene. Cunningham interprets Royce as making the "internal meaning" the final court of appeal, whereas the "external meaning" has always been the final court of appeal in judgment. To emphasize internal meaning at the expense of external meaning is to land in a pure subjectivism. Royce was also sensitive to this problem. He did not, however, make the "internal meaning" of the thinking subject the final test for the truth of a judgment, as Cunningham has asserted. The internal meaning is purposive, but at the same time it is fragmentary. The thinking subject can err. Truth is not private caprice in Royce's system. Neither is the thinking subject wholly passive in respect to his object. His purposive activity is important and must be considered as an aspect of the truth of a judgment. 5

Ibid.,

p. 440.

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In the last analysis, however, it seems that Royce's "Internal Meaning" is the same as Cunningham's "External Meaning." The thinking subject always intends to judge the Real whether he errs or not. This intention to judge the Real stands as his salvation from error. The internal meaning, is a purposive, intentional activity that desires the Real. As afleetinginternal meaning, however, it does not possess the Real in toto, but it is connected with the Real by its purposive activity, its intention to judge about the Real. The external meaning is the Other sought; it is the Real the internal meaning desires. What it seeks is not the Other qua object, but the Other qua meaning. When the Other qua meaning has been achieved, the thinking subject finds himself in a real relationship with his object, since he, in his purposive activity has for his object what was previously his Other. He embodies the meaning of his Other. Royce calls this the "Internal Meaning." This "Internal Meaning" is the final determination of the "internal meaning" of a thinking subject. The former is the self-determinate principle. The latter is the indeterminate principle. The test for truth is the correspondence desired by the intentional activity of the thinking subject. But what correspondence is desired? Since all judgments are about the Real, what is desired is the true relationship to the object This as we have previously seen is a correspondence of the "internal meaning" in determinate form to the "external meaning," which when achieved is no correspondence at all, but an identity of meaning in diversity. This identity of meaning, Royce calls the Internal Meaning. In Cunningham's position the appeal is to the External Meaning. There must be, however, some connection between this External Meaning and the subject's internal meaning, otherwise John's predicament in Chapter One would again result. Royce teaches that this connection must be in terms of purpose. It must be in the assertion that every

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judgment is about the Real. When the true relation between the subject and the object has been achieved, the result is identical with Royce's conclusion. Cunningham prefers to call the Logos, the External Meaning, while Royce prefers Internal Meaning. The difference, however, is only a difference in terms of language, not of position. Truth is not private caprice, although a finite subject may take his private caprice to be truth. His escape from error is in terms of the Logos, the Internal Meaning of Royce, or the External Meaning of Cunningham. It is this principle that is implicit in all activity of judgment. Spaulding, on the other hand, criticizes Royce's position in terms of "presupposing." His opposition to Royce is in terms of the realistic doctrine of independence. He states in this respect: Although neither "presuppose" nor "imply" is defined by Professor Royce, each of these "entities" is by his own logic (at least) a relation. This is the case, first, because the distinction is made between the act of "rational activity" (the will to reason) and that which this activity presupposes or logically implies, namely, individuals, classes, series. "Présupposer and Presupposed" are, therefore, at least two.® Spaulding also asserts that a relation is defined as a "character that an object possesses as a member of a collection, and that would not belong to an object, were it not such a member." He concludes that since "présupposer" and "presupposed" are two, they are related, and that "presuppose" or "imply" is the relation between them.7 Spaulding feels that the important question to ask in respect to Royce's position is: "Can that which is presupposed or implied be related to and yet be independent of the 'preβ

Edward Gleason Spaulding, The New Rationalism (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1918), p. 21. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 7 Ibid.

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supposer' or implier?" He affirms the position that what is presupposed or implied, namely, the logic of order, the meaning of the situation, the Logos, may be related to and yet be independent of that which presupposes it, namely, the rational activity which Professor Royce emphasizes so much.8 Royce would agree with Spaulding that the Logos is not dependent upon the finite activity of the thinking subject for its meaning and existence. Rather, the converse is true. If this is what Spaulding means by "independence," then Royce would also affirm the same position. But Royce would deny in respect to the act of presupposing that "présupposer" and "presupposed" are two. The "présupposer" does presuppose something, that is, the reality of his world, the Logos, and it is through a rational activity that the presupposing is effected. But the nature of the presupposing act is very different from Spaulding's interpretation. In Royce's system the word "presupposition" has a different meaning. When I am engaged in an activity of judgment, I do not first "presuppose" the reality of my object, and then judge about the object My presupposition is my rational activity of judgment. My presupposition is implicit throughout my entire activity of judgment. It is not merely one aspect of the temporal series or process of action but it is the meaning of my action. It is this presupposition, this logocentric predicament, that is a connecting link between my activity and reality. The presupposition is the Logos positing itself in my act. Presupposing is not an act that I initiate, and in terms of what is presupposed determine my course of activity. Rather the presupposition is implicit in every aspect of my activity; it is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, and without it I would not act at all. a

lbid.,

p. 22.

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So "présupposer" and "presupposed" are not two, but one. If they were two the présupposer would be distinct from that which is presupposed. The présupposer would be in a relationship to reality, his presupposition, but would not himself be real, since the presupposition of Royce's position, is the Real, the True, the Logos. Royce does not say, however, that the finite subject is the Logos, and the Logos is the finite subject. Rather he would say that the act of presupposing is the Logos positing itself in the activity of judgment, and it is this connection between the Logos and the thinker that enables the thinker to achieve true knowledge about his world. It is this positing of the Real in all activity of judgment that takes the form of the "purposive, rational will of the thinking subject," who always intends to judge about the Real. The "positing" act of the Logos manifests itself in the finite subject as the subject's internal meaning, and it is this undeniable connection with the Real, the True that makes error possible. It may be concluded in regard to Spaulding's criticism that the Real, or "the presupposed," is independent of the thinking subject, or the so-called "présupposer" in that the Real is not exhausted by any one of its finite instances, but at the same time it is definitely connected with every infinitesimal aspect of the world, giving to every aspect its meaning and significance. If at any time the Logos were not connected with the world, this world would be doomed to eternal error, for the source of all truth is in the Logos which is the Truth itself. Our third criticism is in terms of the Absolute presupposition. The objection is made that the absolute presupposition is without content in itself. The only method whereby the presupposition can receive content is in terms of the formulation of propositions. But since the source of content for the presupposition is in terms of propositions,

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and propositions can be true or false, that is, they are subject to verification, then the presupposition that receives its content from propositions is also subject to verification procedure. Since this is the case there is no non-verifiable presupposition, because all presuppositions are contingent upon propositions for content. The only non-verifiable presupposition is an empty presupposition devoid of all content and such a presupposition is of no significance in this world of facts. To say that reality is this non-verifiable principle seems to say that reality is nothing. In saying that reality is nothing, nonsense is spoken instead of anything meaningful. This is in essence the objection. The difficulty in the above criticism, however, revolves around a perennial problem of the one and the many, or the problem of transcendence and immanence. According to Royce the non-verifiable principle, namely, Truth, epistemologically, takes the form of a presupposition. It seemingly is without content in that it is impossible to identify Truth in toto or the world in toto in any particular situation. Truth is always transcendent to the situation as the meaning of the situation. When a proposition is formed, Truth manifests itself in the particular situation giving meaning to the proposition in question, and apparently in so doing it gives content to itself. This is the paradox of transcendence in immanence. To say that because Truth manifests itself in the form of a proposition in a particular situation, and that Truth prior to that time is empty, is to reduce all Truth to epistemology and is to equate Truth with verification procedure. From Royce's perspective, however, this is not the case. Metaphysically the Truth is the Logos, the totality that is implicit in all analytic activity making possible such activity. In the epistemological situation, the Truth is always manifest in particulars, that is in instances or propositions about

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itself, and in this case it does give content to the presupposition which is a "giving of content" to itself. The formulation of propositions and the giving of content to the presupposition is a description of how Truth works, how Truth manifests itself in the human situation. So from the one perspective the presupposition receives content in terms of problems that are solved on the human scene. This is the epistemological perspective. But the presupposition's so-called reception of content is really the finite act of judgment receiving content. In other words, the reception is a description of how the finite act of judgment becomes aware of that principle implicit in all activity. But the reception qua reception of content does not tell the whole story, simply because it would reduce all reality to the finite act of judgment and its verification procedure. The reception of content by the presupposition would itself be contingent upon a type of manufacturing or creative activity of the finite act of judgment. All reality would be limited to the processes of human experience, and particularly human experience as it is mediated through verification procedure. This would be the fallacy of an absolute immanence.

The objection proposes that the proposition through some sort of activity generates a truth that is given as content to the presupposition, while according to Royce it is the presupposition, or the Logos that manifests itself in the prepositional activity as the meaning of the prepositional activity. The fallacy of the objection is in terms of the reduction of Truth to a descriptive analysis of how truth operates or how it works in problematic situations. This Royce found to be the fallacy of pure pragmatism and it is because of this fallacy that Royce adopted a modified pragmatism. Our discussion of this objection may be concluded by saying that Truth must always be a transcendent factor.

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The immanent factor is how truth works or how truth manifests itself in a given situation. The transcendent factor is not separate from the situation but nevertheless is transcendent since the Truth is the meaning of the situation, and no one situation can ever exhaust the meaning of Truth. The Truth is that which is implicit in all activity of judgment but at the same time is transcendent to that activity. The presupposition is that which is implicit in all activity of judgment, but at the same time is transcendent to that activity. The rise of propositions on the scene is not a giving of content to the presupposition, but the rise of propositions on the scene is a realization of the presupposition in specific situations by the thinking subject. It is not a giving of content to the presupposition, but a giving of content to the finite human subject's act of judgment. To reduce all Truth to a description of how a finite human subject comes to know Truth is to deny that there is Truth. Such an assertion is absurd.

Index of Names Ayer, Alfred J., 42. Bernhardt, William H., 9. Camus, Albert, 37. Collingwood, R. G., 61. Coraford, Francis M., 8, 35-36. Cunningham, G. Watts, 8,76-80. Darwin, Charles, 46. Dewey, John, 8, 40-47. James, William, 39, 51. Marcel, Gabriel, 8, 65. Montague, William P., 34, 36.

Muelder, Walter G., 39. Myers, Francis, 9. Peirce, Charles S., 8, 39. Perry, Ralph B., 7, 8, 28, 29-34. Plato, 35-36. Prins, Tunis, 9. Protagoras, 16. Sartre, Jean-Paul, 37. Sears, Laurence, 39. Spaulding, Edward G. 8, 34, 8082.