I have pointed out that if perception be treated as a case of
knowledge, knowledge of every form and kind must be treated as a case
of a presentation to a knower. The alleged discipline of epistemology
is then inevitable. In common usage, the term "knowledge" tends to be
employed eulogistically; its meaning approaches the connotation of the
term "science." More loosely, it is used, of course, to designate all
beliefs and propositions that are held with assurance, especially with
the implication that the assurance is reasonable, or grounded. In its
practical sense, it is used as the equivalent of "knowing _how_," of
skill or ability involving such acquaintance with things and persons
as enables one to anticipate how they behave under certain conditions
and to take steps accordingly. Such usages of the term are all
differential; they all involve definite contrasts--with ungrounded
conviction, or with doubt and mere guesswork, or with the inexpertness
that accompanies lack of familiarity. In its epistemological use, the
term "knowledge" has a blanket value which is absolutely unknown in
common life. It covers any and every "presentation" of any and every
thing to a knower, to an "awarer," if I may coin a word for the sake
of avoiding some of the pitfalls of the term "consciousness." And, I
repeat, this indiscriminate use of the term "knowledge," so foreign to
science and daily life, is absolutely unavoidable if perception be
regarded as, in itself, a mode of knowledge. And then--and only
then--the problem of "the possibility, nature, and extent of knowledge
_in general_" is also inevitable. I hope I shall not be regarded as
offensively pragmatic if I suggest that this undesirable consequence
is a good reason for not accepting the premise from which it follows,
unless that premise be absolutely forced upon us.
At all events, upon the supposition of the ubiquity of the knowledge
relation in respect to a self, presentative realism is compelled to
accept the genuineness of the epistemological problem, and thus to
convert itself into an epistemological realism, getting one more step
away from both naïve and naturalistic realism. The problem is
especially acute for a presentative realism because idealism has made
precisely this ubiquity of relationship its axiom, its short-cut. One
sample is as good as a thousand. Says Bain: "There is no possible
knowledge of a world except in relation to our minds. Knowledge means
a state of mind; the notion of material things is a mental fact. We
are incapable even of discussing the existence of an independent
material world; the very act is a contradiction. We can speak only of
a world presented to our own minds."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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