idealism a critical survey a.c. ewing
p25EPISTEMOLOGICAL IDEALISM
not for agnosticiam but for what Kant would have called dogmatic idealism If cognition either is or involves a process of this kind, then, it is thought, we can caly know what mind in us has made, and must choose between an agnosticism according to which we can only know our own ideas and an idealism according to which all reality is con stitated by the universal Mind which is partially manifested in our finite minds. To quote from an argument much in vogue, if reality is given fact we can never know it, because what we know is never pure fact without any admixture of theory, is never taken just as it is given; but if it is not mere given fact, if it is, so to speak, infected by theory and there fore by mind, it is partly at least a mental construct, and since we can never reach mere unquestioned fact, unsystema tised by thought, we can never distinguish any element in reality as existing in the realist sense independent of a knower or thinker
But the argument still breaks down before the distinction between the assertion that I come to apprehend the nature of an object by elaborate thought-processes and the assertion that I make the object by the thought-processes As against the views generally attributed to the British empiricists (whether rightly or wrongly), it has been shown that we are active in cognition and never arrive at a fact merely by sma tion or by pamively receiving data but always understand it in terms of peeninceived, though not usually explicitly for mulated, theories: but this, although it adds to the difficulty of arriving at the facts, does not prove that we never arrive at them, unless we assume that all theories are necessarily wrong. The argument may be valid against the views of some realists, but not against all realism. Theories of know ledge may have to do better justice in the future to this char
++++
fore by mind, it is partly at least a mental construct, and since we can never reach mere unquestioned fact, unsystema tised by thought, we can never distinguish any element in reality as existing in the realist sense independent of a knower or thinker But the argument still breaks down before the distinction
between the assertion that I come to apprehend the nature of an object by elaborate thought-processes and the assertion that I make the object by the thought-processes. As against the views generally attributed to the British empiricists (wrther rightly or wrongly), it has been shown that we are active in cognition and never arrive at a fart merely by sensa tion or by passively receiving data but always understand it in terms of preconceived, though not usually explicitly for mulated, theories: but this, although it adds to the difficulty of arriving at the facts, does not prove that we never arrive at them, unde we ate that all theories are necessarily wrong The argument may be valid against the views of same realists, but not against all realism. Theories of know ledge may have to do better justice in the future to this char acteristic at our cognitive processes than they have often done in the past; but to say this is not necessarily to contradict malism, since the real may be apprehensible not only by sense but also by thought. We cannot, it must be admitted, appenhend the real without thought, but the real need not
for all that be itself dependent on thought. There is indeed an ambiguity in the terms, fact and theory,
V Bradley, Eysen Truch and Reality, 200 Usingubject in the widest see a genel tar for whatever inged by Some
possibly with W.
(The Android-to-Chrome text copier is almost maliciously dreadful.)
p9
INTRODUCTION
statements. There is no reason why a philosopher might not have the clarity and precision of the logical analysts without their philosophy.
There seems to be besides the difference in views a differ in temperament and in style between idealists and s such as to prove an almost insuperable bar to mutual understanding and appreciation. We must recognize that there is at least some excuse for Professor Broad's remark that the writings of too many eminent Absolutists seem to start from no discoverable premisses; to proceed by means of puns, metaphors, and ambiguities; and to resemble in their literary style glue thickened with sawdust' but 1 mat add that even when the style of an ablate idealist seems most troubled by obscurity and confusion, I am often sabject to an feeling that this is partly due to my own faure to see su thing extremely well with sering which he e dinily and so describes obscurely but which his critics de as see all It is a grave fault in a philopher to be content with a cop fused account where he could give a clear one, but it is also a fault to dismiss either a nival philosopher's contentions or a particular conception is not worth consideration tecate they are incapable of really clear statement. Owing to the weakness of human intelligence and the defects of human language it may well be the case that none of the points mit worth considering in philosophy are capable of being grasped with anything like complete clearess or stated with anything like complete precision at present, and to give our philosophy clearness and prveisin at the expense of esdaling from consideration or even dogmatically denying whatever w cannot make clear and precise may be to render our work worse for this and not better than the work of those who see something beyond our ken and do not, because the task can only be partially fulfilled, shrink from trying to com municate and justify their vision. Did not one of the ables representatives of the new logie himself say: The chief danger to our philosophy, apart from laziness and wellness
is scholasticism, the essence of which is treating what is Vague as if it were precise and trying to fit it into an exact logical category On the other hand I am certainly not
Examination of MeTagga Phitusegay, vol. I. p. lll. Dr. Meg gart, be insists, is not him in the last sucht the deficient do not mean to suggest that Pronur Ihread in guilty of thes Ramary,
