But is it a question of merest chance which of these various
possibilities is actualized? Is Bosanquet really looking--as he
thinks--at the actual life of thought, or is he considering, not what as
a matter of fact does take place under a concrete set of circumstances,
but what might take place under slightly differing sets of
circumstances? If it is true that judgment is a crisis developing
through adequate interaction of stimulus and response into a definite
situation, beginning with doubt and ending with a solution of the doubt,
then it is not true that its limits are purely arbitrary. It begins with
the appearance of the problem and its tentative solutions, and ends with
the solution of a final response. It does, of course, depend upon
momentary interest, but this does not make its limits arbitrary, for the
interest is inherent, not external. In the case of Bosanquet's
illustration, the question of whether one judgment or half a dozen is
made is not a question of merest chance. It depends upon where the
interest of the person making the judgment is centered--in other words,
upon what is the particular doubt to be solved. If the real doubt is as
to whether the man will stay in his room or go out, then when he is
heard leaving his room the solution comes in the form: "He is going
out." But if the doubt is as to whether he will stay in his room, go
out, or go into some other room, then the succession of judgments
occurs, each of which solves a problem. "He has opened his door"--then
he is not going to stay in his room; "He is going toward the
staircase"--then he is not going into a room in the opposite direction,
etc. It is impossible to conceive of such a series of judgments as
actually being made, unless each one represents a problematic situation
and its determination. The only time that a man would, as a matter of
fact, choose to break up the judgment, "He is going out," into such a
series, would be the time when each member of the series had its own
special interest as representing a specific uncertain aim or problem.
Nor is it altogether true that in making the judgment, "He is going
out," one is not a whit the less conscious that he judges all these
different relations. He judges only such relations as are necessary to
the solution of the problem in hand. If hearing the man open his door is
a sufficient basis for the solution, then that is the only one which
consciously enters into the formation of the judgment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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