An Introduction to PhilosophyFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy
Fullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
(1) He may believe that what corresponds to his idea of a material
object, for example, an apple, is in very many respects like the idea
in his mind. Thus, he may believe that the odor, taste, color,
hardness, etc., that he perceives directly, or as ideas, have
corresponding to them real external odor, taste, color, hardness, etc.
It is not easy for a man to hold to this position, for a very little
reflection seems to make it untenable; but it is theoretically possible
for one to take it, and probably many persons have inclined to the view
when they have first been tempted to believe that the mind perceives
directly only its ideas.
(2) He may believe that such things as colors, tastes, and odors cannot
be qualities of external bodies at all, but are only effects, produced
upon our minds by something very different in kind. We seem to
perceive bodies, he may argue, to be colored, to have taste, and to be
odorous; but what we thus perceive is not the external thing; the
external thing that produces these appearances cannot be regarded as
having anything more than "solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest,
and number." Thus did Locke reason. To him the external world as it
really exists, is, so to speak, a paler copy of the external world as
we seem to perceive it. It is a world with fewer qualities, but,
still, a world with qualities of some kind.
(3) But one may go farther than this. One may say: How can I know that
even the extension, number, and motion of the things which I directly
perceive have corresponding to them extension, number, and motion, in
an outer world? If what is not colored can cause me to perceive color,
why may not that which is not extended cause me to perceive extension?
And, moved by such reflections, one may maintain that there exists
outside of us that which we can only characterize as an Unknown Cause,
a Reality which we cannot more nearly define.
This last position resembles very closely one side of Spencer's
doctrine--that represented in the last of the two citations, as the
reader can easily see. It is the position of the follower of Immanuel
Kant who has not yet repudiated the noumenon or thing-in-itself
discussed in the last chapter (section 51).
I am not concerned to defend any one of the varieties of Direct or of
Hypothetical Realism portrayed above. But I wish to point out that
they all have some sort of claim to the title _Realism_, and to remind
the reader that, when we call a man a realist, we do not do very much
in the way of defining his position. I may add that the account of the
external world contained in Chapter IV is a sort of realism also.
If this last variety, which I advocate, _must_ be classified, let it be
placed in the first broad class, for it teaches that we know the
external world directly. But I sincerely hope that it will not be
judged wholly by the company it keeps, and that no one will assign to
it either virtues or defects to which it can lay no just claim.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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