The chief source of error in ordinary inference is an unrecognized
complexity of data. Perception which is not experimentally controlled
fails to present sufficiently wide data to secure differentia of
possible inferences, and it fails to present, even in what is given,
lines of cleavage which are important for proper inference. This is
only an elaborate way of saying what scientific inquiry has made
clear, that, for purposes of inference as to conditions of production
of what is present, _ordinary_ sense perception is too narrow, too
confused, too vivid as to some _quales_ and too blurred as to some
others. Let us confine our attention for the moment to confusion. It
has often been pointed out that sense qualities being just what they
are, it is illegitimate to introduce such notions as obscurity or
confusion into them: a slightly illuminated color is just as
irretrievably what it is, as clearly itself, as an object in the broad
glare of noonday. But the case stands otherwise when the _quale_ is
taken as a datum for inference. It is not so easy to identify a
perceived object _for purposes of inference_ in the dusk as in bright
light. From the standpoint of an inference to be effected, the
confusion is the same as an unjustifiable simplification. This
over-simplification has the effect of making the _quale_, as a term of
inference, ambiguous. To infer from it is to subject ourselves to the
danger of all fallacies of ambiguity which are expounded in the
textbooks. The remedy is clearly the resolution, by experimental
means, of what seems to be a simple datum into its "elements." This is
a case of analysis; it differs from other modes of analysis only in
the subject-matter upon which it is directed, viz., something which
had been previously accepted as a simple whole. The result of this
analysis is the existence as objects of perception of isolated
qualities like the colors of the spectrum scientifically determined,
the tones of the scale in all their varying intensities, etc., in
short, the "sensations" or sense qualities of contemporary psychology
textbooks or the "simple ideas" of sensation of Locke or the "objects
of sense" of Russell. They are the material of sense perception
discriminated for the purpose of better inferences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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