On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of KnowledgeFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge
Fullerton, George Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of
5. An "external" thing (in the sense just indicated), or an "external"
quality, may be called the _same_ with its representative. If this
representative be the immediate object of knowledge, we have the
experience described as Sense VII. If it be another "external" thing
or quality, _e. g._, an "external" picture in an "external" mirror, an
"external" statue in "external" marble, etc., we have Sense V.
6. Two men may be said to perceive the _same_ "external" thing. In
saying this one simply calls up in mind the complex described at length
under VI, but makes the duplicate, which is, to him, the thing, stand
in the complex in the place of the percept, this being now regarded as
a mere representative.
7. An "external" thing may be said to be the _same_ with its
representative in consciousness or with the substance or noumenon
assumed to underlie it. Here we have Sense VII.
It would seem scarcely necessary to mention this last, since, if
the representative in consciousness can be called the same with its
"real" correlate, it would seem self-evident that the "real" correlate
may be called the same with it. I add it, however, for the sake of
completeness. It should be noted that in this last kind of sameness
we step over the limits of any one class of being, ideas, things (as
bundles of qualities), or substance. The word is used to denote a
relation between something in one class and a corresponding thing in
another class.
In the foregoing I have been considering the sameness of "real"
or "external" things regarded as bundles of qualities. If one ask
concerning the sameness of Locke's "substance," or the "noumenon" of
other writers, I would say that our notions of this must vary with
the kind of being we allow this nebulous entity. Strict consistency
in dealing with a noumenon as sometimes defined means, of course, its
utter collapse. If, however, we keep anything in mind at all, we must
carry over to it at least the first of the kinds of sameness described.
I do not think it would be hard to show that several other kinds are
carried over in despite of consistency by men who hold to this shadowy
something under one name or another.
As, however, we do not find here any new sense of the word same, but
mere repetition in a new field (if one may call it such), it seems
unnecessary to dwell upon this part of my subject.
I have not discussed at all the sameness of things from the point of
view of an adherent of that Natural Realism which claims that we know
immediately real things and yet holds that real things are not our
perceptions themselves, but something extra-mental. This view is so
incoherent that it is not likely to be taken seriously by men who
have learned to reflect at all. I may say, however, _en passant_, that
it does not add to the kinds of sameness I have described: it merely
confounds them one with another, and falls into the inconsequences
which naturally result from so doing.
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