Dewey's purpose, though not well stated, seems to be the complete rejection of the notion of knowledge as awareness, or of the subjective knower. He discovers at the same time an opportunity to substantiate his own descriptive account of knowing (or reflection) as an occasional function. The two enterprises, however, should be kept distinct. Granting that the subjective knower of the older epistemology should be dismissed from philosophy, it does not follow that Dewey's special interpretation of the function of reflection is the only substitute. The principle of immediate empiricism, Dewey says, furnishes no positive truth. It is simply a method. Not a single philosophical proposition can be deduced from it. The application of the method is indicated in the following proposition: "If you wish to find out what subjective, objective, physical, mental, cosmic, psychic, cause, substance, purpose, activity, evil, being, quality--any philosophic term, in short--means, go to experience and see what the thing is experienced _as_."[215] This recipe cannot be taken literally. Dewey probably means that each concept has, or should have, a positive empirical reference, and is significant only in that reference. He is a firm believer, however, in the descriptive method. In a note, he remarks that he would employ in philosophy "the direct descriptive method that has now made its way in all the natural sciences, with such modifications, of course, as the subject itself entails."[216] This remark calls for closer examination than can be made here. It may be said in passing, however, that 'scientific description' is by no means so simple a method of procedure as Dewey would seem to indicate. 'Scientific description,' as actually employed, is a highly elaborated and specialized method of dealing with experience. The whole subject, indeed, is involved, and requires cautious treatment. Dewey's somewhat ingenuous hope, that the identification of his method with the methods of science will add to its impressiveness, is in danger, unfortunately, of being vitiated through the suspicion that he is, after all, not in close touch with the methods of science. Dewey employs the descriptive method chiefly as a means for substantiating his special interpretation of the judgment process. His use of the method in this connection is well illustrated by an article called "The Experimental Theory of Knowledge"[217] (1906), in which he attempts "to find out _what_ sort of an experience knowing is" through an appeal to immediate experience. "It should be possible," he says, "to discern and describe a knowing as one identifies any object, concern, or event.... What we want is just something which takes itself as knowledge, rightly or wrongly."[218] The difficulty lies not in finding a case of knowing, but in describing it when found. Dewey selects a case to be described, and, as usual, chooses a simple one.