organization or integration must admit that any proposition about such
an object is prospective (for it is something _to be_ attained through
action), and that the proposition is made for the sake of furthering
the fulfilment. Let one start at this point and carry back the
conception into a consideration of other kinds of propositions, and
one will have, I think, the readiest means of apprehending the intent
of the theory that all propositions are but the propoundings of
possible knowledge, not knowledge itself. For unless one marks off the
judgment of good from other judgment by means of an arbitrary division
of the organism from the environment, or of the subjective from the
objective, no ground for any sharp line of division in the
propositional-continuum will appear.
But (to obviate misunderstanding) this does not mean that some psychic
state or act makes the difference in things. In the first place, the
subject-matter of the judgment is a change to be brought about; and,
in the second place, this subject-matter does not become an _object_
until the judgment has issued in act. It is the act which makes the
difference, but nevertheless the act is but the complete object of
judgment and the judgment is complete as a judgment only in the act.
The anti-pragmatists have been asked (notably by Professor A. W.
Moore) how they sharply distinguish between judgment--or
knowledge--and act and yet freely admit and insist that knowledge
makes a difference in action and hence in existence. This is the crux
of the whole matter. And it is a logical question. It is not a query
(as it seems to have been considered) as to how the mental can
influence a physical thing like action--a variant of the old question
of how the mind affects the body. On the contrary, the implication is
that the relation of knowledge to action becomes a problem of the
action of a mental (or logical) entity upon a physical one only when
the logical import of judgment has been misconceived. The positive
contention is that the realm of logical propositions presents in a
realm of _possibility_ the specific rearrangement of things which
overt action presents in actuality. Hence the passage of a proposition
into action is not a miracle, but the realization of its own
character--its own meaning as logical. I do not profess, of course, to
have shown that such is the case for _all_ propositions; that is a
matter which I have not discussed. But in showing the tenability of
the hypothesis that practical judgments are of that nature, I have at
least ruled out any purely dialectic proof that the _nature_ of
knowledge as such forbids entertaining the hypothesis that the
import--indirect if not direct--of all logical propositions is some
difference to be brought about. The road is at least cleared for a
more unprejudiced consideration of this hypothesis on its own merits.
SENSE PERCEPTION AS KNOWLEDGE
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