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George Stuart Fullerton - An Introduction to Philosophy

G >> George Stuart Fullerton >> An Introduction to Philosophy




To many men it has seemed that the inference is not an easy one to
justify. One may say: We could have no ideas of things, no sensations,
if real things did not exist and make an impression upon our senses.
But to this it may be answered: How is that statement to be proved? Is
it to be proved by observing that, when things are present and affect
the senses, there come into being ideas which represent the things?
Evidently such a proof as this is out of the question, for, if it is
true that we know external things only by inference and never
immediately, then we can never prove by observation that ideas and
things are thus connected. And if it is not to be proved by
observation, how shall it be proved? Shall we just assume it
dogmatically and pass on to something else? Surely there is enough in
the experience of the plain man to justify him in raising the question
whether he can certainly know that there is an external world.

13. THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD.--We have seen just above
that the doubt regarding the existence of the world seems to have its
root in the familiar distinction between ideas and things, appearances
and the realities which they are supposed to represent. The
psychologist has much to say about ideas; and if sharpening and making
clear this distinction has anything to do with stirring up doubts, it
is natural to suppose that they should become more insistent when one
has exchanged the ignorance of everyday life for the knowledge of the
psychologist.

Now, when the psychologist asks how a given mind comes to have a
knowledge of any external thing, he finds his answer in the messages
which have been brought to the mind by means of the bodily senses. He
describes the sense-organs and the nervous connections between these
and the brain, and tells us that when certain nervous impulses have
traveled, let us say, from the eye or the ear to the brain, one has
sensations of sight or sound.

He describes for us in detail how, out of such sensations and the
memories of such sensations, we frame mental images of external things.
Between the mental image and the thing that it represents he
distinguishes sharply, and he informs us that the mind knows no more
about the external thing than is contained in such images. That a
thing is present can be known only by the fact that a message from the
thing is sent along the nerves, and what the thing is must be
determined from the character of the message. Given the image in the
absence of the thing,--that is to say, an hallucination,--the mind will
naturally suppose that the thing is present. This false supposition
cannot be corrected by a direct inspection of the thing, for such a
direct inspection of things is out of the question. The only way in
which the mind concerned can discover that the thing is absent is by
referring to its other experiences. This image is compared with other
images and is discovered to be in some way abnormal. We decide that it
is a false representative and has no corresponding reality behind it.

This doctrine taken as it stands seems to cut the mind off from the
external world very completely; and the most curious thing about it is
that it seems to be built up on the assumption that it is not really
true. How can one know certainly that there is a world of material
things, including human bodies with their sense-organs and nerves, if
no mind has ever been able to inspect directly anything of the sort?
How can we tell that a sensation arises when a nervous impulse has been
carried along a sensory nerve and has reached the brain, if every mind
is shut up to the charmed circle of its own ideas? The anatomist and
the physiologist give us very detailed accounts of the sense-organs and
of the brain; the physiologist even undertakes to measure the speed
with which the impulse passes along a nerve; the psychologist accepts
and uses the results of their labors. But can all this be done in the
absence of any first-hand knowledge of the things of which one is
talking? Remember that, if the psychologist is right, any external
object, eye, ear, nerve, or brain, which we can perceive directly, is a
mental complex, a something in the mind and not external at all. How
shall we prove that there are objects, ears, eyes, nerves, and
brains,--in short, all the requisite mechanism for the calling into
existence of sensations,--in an outer world which is not immediately
perceived but is only inferred to exist?

I do not wish to be regarded as impugning the right of the psychologist
to make the assumptions which he does, and to work as he does. He has
a right to assume, with the plain man, that there is an external world
and that we know it. But a very little reflection must make it
manifest that he seems, at least, to be guilty of an inconsistency, and
that he who wishes to think clearly should strive to see just where the
trouble lies.

So much, at least, is evident: the man who is inclined to doubt whether
there is, after all, any real external world, appears to find in the
psychologist's distinction between ideas and things something like an
excuse for his doubt. To get to the bottom of the matter and to
dissipate his doubt one has to go rather deeply into metaphysics. I
merely wish to show just here that the doubt is not a gratuitous one,
but is really suggested to the thoughtful mind by a reflection upon our
experience of things. And, as we are all apt to think that the man of
science is less given to busying himself with useless subtleties than
is the philosopher, I shall, before closing this chapter, present some
paragraphs upon the subject from the pen of a professor of mathematics
and mechanics.

14. THE "TELEPHONE EXCHANGE."--"We are accustomed to talk," writes
Professor Karl Pearson,[1] "of the 'external world,' of the 'reality'
outside us. We speak of individual objects having an existence
independent of our own. The store of past sense-impressions, our
thoughts and memories, although most probably they have beside their
psychical element a close correspondence with some physical change or
impress in the brain, are yet spoken of as _inside_ ourselves. On the
other hand, although if a sensory nerve be divided anywhere short of
the brain, we lose the corresponding class of sense impression, we yet
speak of many sense-impressions, such as form and texture, as existing
outside ourselves. How close then can we actually get to this supposed
world outside ourselves? Just as near but no nearer than the brain
terminals of the sensory nerves. We are like the clerk in the central
telephone exchange who cannot get nearer to his customers than his end
of the telephone wires. We are indeed worse off than the clerk, for to
carry out the analogy properly we must suppose him _never to have been
outside the telephone exchange, never to have seen a customer or any
one like a customer--in short, never, except through the telephone
wire, to have come in contact with the outside universe_. Of that
'real' universe outside himself he would be able to form no direct
impression; the real universe for him would be the aggregate of his
constructs from the messages which were caused by the telephone wires
in his office. About those messages and the ideas raised in his mind
by them he might reason and draw his inferences; and his conclusions
would be correct--for what? For the world of telephonic messages, for
the type of messages that go through the telephone. Something definite
and valuable he might know with regard to the spheres of action and of
thought of his telephonic subscribers, but outside those spheres he
could have no experience. Pent up in his office he could never have
seen or touched even a telephonic subscriber _in himself_. Very much
in the position of such a telephone clerk is the conscious _ego_ of
each one of us seated at the brain terminals of the sensory nerves.
Not a step nearer than those terminals can the _ego_ get to the 'outer
world,' and what in and for themselves are the subscribers to its nerve
exchange it has no means of ascertaining. Messages in the form of
sense-impressions come flowing in from that 'outside world,' and these
we analyze, classify, store up, and reason about. But of the nature of
'things-in-themselves,' of what may exist at the other end of our
system of telephone wires, we know nothing at all.

"But the reader, perhaps, remarks, 'I not only see an object, but I can
_touch_ it. I can trace the nerve from the tip of my finger to the
brain. I am not like the telephone clerk, I can follow my network of
wires to their terminals and find what is at the other end of them.'
Can you, reader? Think for a moment whether your _ego_ has for one
moment got away from his brain exchange. The sense-impression that you
call touch was just as much as sight felt only at the brain end of a
sensory nerve. What has told you also of the nerve from the tip of
your finger to your brain? Why, sense-impressions also, messages
conveyed along optic or tactile sensory nerves. In truth, all you have
been doing is to employ one subscriber to your telephone exchange to
tell you about the wire that goes to a second, but you are just as far
as ever from tracing out for yourself the telephone wires to the
individual subscriber and ascertaining what his nature is in and for
himself. The immediate sense-impression is just as far removed from
what you term the 'outside world' as the store of impresses. If our
telephone clerk had recorded by aid of a phonograph certain of the
messages from the outside world on past occasions, then if any
telephonic message on its receipt set several phonographs repeating
past messages, we have an image analogous to what goes on in the brain.
Both telephone and phonograph are equally removed from what the clerk
might call the 'real outside world,' but they enable him through their
sounds to construct a universe; he projects those sounds, which are
really inside his office, outside his office, and speaks of them as the
external universe. This outside world is constructed by him from the
contents of the inside sounds, which differ as widely from
things-in-themselves as language, the symbol, must always differ from
the thing it symbolizes. For our telephone clerk sounds would be the
real world, and yet we can see how conditioned and limited it would be
by the range of his particular telephone subscribers and by the
contents of their messages.

"So it is with our brain; the sounds from telephone and phonograph
correspond to immediate and stored sense-impressions. These
sense-impressions we project as it were outwards and term the real
world outside ourselves. But the things-in-themselves which the
sense-impressions symbolize, the 'reality,' as the metaphysicians wish
to call it, at the other end of the nerve, remains unknown and is
unknowable. Reality of the external world lies for science and for us
in combinations of form and color and touch--sense-impressions as
widely divergent from the thing 'at the other end of the nerve' as the
sound of the telephone from the subscriber at the other end of the
wire. We are cribbed and confined in this world of sense-impressions
like the exchange clerk in his world of sounds, and not a step beyond
can we get. As his world is conditioned and limited by his particular
network of wires, so ours is conditioned by our nervous system, by our
organs of sense. Their peculiarities determine what is the nature of
the outside world which we construct. It is the similarity in the
organs of sense and in the perceptive faculty of all normal human
beings which makes the outside world the same, or _practically_ the
same, for them all. To return to the old analogy, it is as if two
telephone exchanges had very nearly identical groups of subscribers.
In this case a wire between the two exchanges would soon convince the
imprisoned clerks that they had something in common and peculiar to
themselves. That conviction corresponds in our comparison to the
recognition of other consciousness."

I suggest that this extract be read over carefully, not once but
several times, and that the reader try to make quite clear to himself
the position of the clerk in the telephone exchange, _i.e._ the
position of the mind in the body, as depicted by Professor Pearson,
before recourse is had to the criticisms of any one else. One cannot
find anywhere better material for critical philosophical reflection.

As has been seen, our author accepts without question, the
psychological doctrine that the mind is shut up within the circle of
the messages that are conducted to it along the sensory nerves, and
that it cannot directly perceive anything truly external. He carries
his doctrine out to the bitter end in the conclusion that, since we
have never had experience of anything beyond sense-impressions, and
have no ground for an inference to anything beyond, we must recognize
that the only external world of which we know anything is an external
world built up out of sense-impressions. It is, thus, in the mind, and
is not external at all; it is only "projected outwards," _thought of_
as though it were beyond us. Shall we leave the inconsistent position
of the plain man and of the psychologist and take our refuge in this
world of projected mental constructs?

Before the reader makes up his mind to do this, I beg him to consider
the following:--

(1) If the only external world of which we have a right to speak at all
is a construct in the mind or _ego_, we may certainly affirm that the
world is in the _ego_, but does it sound sensible to say that the _ego_
is somewhere in the world?

(2) If all external things are really inside the mind, and are only
"projected" outwards, of course our own bodies, sense-organs, nerves,
and brains, are really inside and are merely projected outwards. Now,
do the sense-impressions of which everything is to be constructed "come
flowing in" along these nerves that are really inside?

(3) Can we say, when a nerve lies entirely within the mind or _ego_,
that this same mind or _ego_ is nearer to one end of the nerve than it
is to the other? How shall we picture to ourselves "the conscious
_ego_ of each one of us seated at the brain terminals of the sensory
nerves"? How can the _ego_ place the whole of itself at the end of a
nerve which it has constructed within itself? And why is it more
difficult for it to get to one end of a nerve like this than it is to
get to the other?

(4) Why should the thing "at the other end of the nerve" remain unknown
and unknowable? Since the nerve is entirely in the mind, is purely a
mental construct, can anything whatever be at the end of it without
being in the mind? And if the thing in question is not in the mind,
how are we going to prove that it is any nearer to one end of a nerve
which is inside the mind than it is to the other? If it may really be
said to be at the end of the nerve, why may we not know it quite as
well as we do the end of the nerve, or any other mental construct?

It must be clear to the careful reader of Professor Pearson's
paragraphs, that he does not confine himself strictly to the world of
mere "projections," to an outer world which is really _inner_. If he
did this, the distinction between inner and outer would disappear. Let
us consider for a moment the imprisoned clerk. He is in a telephone
exchange, about him are wires and subscribers. He gets only sounds and
must build up his whole universe of things out of sounds. Now we are
supposing him to be in a telephone exchange, to be receiving messages,
to be building up a world out of these messages. Do we for a moment
think of him as building up, out of the messages which came along the
wires, those identical wires which carried the messages and the
subscribers which sent them? Never! we distinguish between the
exchange, with its wires and subscribers, and the messages received and
worked up into a world. In picturing to ourselves the telephone
exchange, we are doing what the plain man and the psychologist do when
they distinguish between mind and body,--they never suppose that the
messages which come through the senses are identical with the senses
through which they come.

But suppose we maintain that there is no such thing as a telephone
exchange, with its wires and subscribers, which is not to be found
within some clerk. Suppose the real external world is something
_inner_ and only "projected" without, mistakenly supposed by the
unthinking to be without. Suppose it is nonsense to speak of a wire
which is not in the mind of a clerk. May we under such circumstances
describe any clerk as _in a telephone exchange_? as _receiving
messages_? as _no nearer_ to his subscribers than his end of the wire?
May we say that sense-impressions _come flowing in_ to him? The whole
figure of the telephone exchange becomes an absurdity when we have once
placed the exchange within the clerk. Nor can we think of two clerks
as connected by a wire, when it is affirmed that every wire must
"really" be in some clerk.

The truth is, that, in the extracts which I have given above and in
many other passages in the same volume, the real external world, the
world which does not exist in the mind but _without_ it, is much
discredited, and is yet not actually discarded. The ego is placed at
the brain terminals of the sensory nerves, and it receives messages
which _flow in_; _i.e._ the clerk is actually placed in an exchange.
That the existence of the exchange is afterward denied in so many words
does not mean that it has not played and does not continue to play an
important part in the thought of the author.

It is interesting to see how a man of science, whose reflections compel
him to deny the existence of the external world that we all seem to
perceive and that we somehow recognize as distinct from anything in our
minds, is _nevertheless compelled to admit the existence of this world
at every turn_.

But if we do admit it, what shall we make of it? Shall we deny the
truth of what the psychologist has to tell us about a knowledge of
things only through the sensations to which they give rise? We cannot,
surely, do that. Shall we affirm that we know the external world
directly, and at the same time that we do not know it directly, but
only indirectly, and through the images which arise in our minds? That
seems inconsistent. Certainly there is material for reflection here.

Nevertheless the more we reflect on that material, the more evident
does it become that the plain man cannot be wrong in believing in the
external world which seems revealed in his experiences. We find that
all attempts to discredit it rest upon the implicit assumption of its
existence, and fall to the ground when that existence is honestly
denied. So our problem changes its form. We no longer ask: Is there
an external world? but rather: _What_ is the external world, and how
does it differ from the world of mere ideas?


[1] "The Grammar of Science," 2d Ed., London, 1900, pp. 60-63.




CHAPTER IV

SENSATIONS AND "THINGS"

15. SENSE AND IMAGINATION.--Every one distinguishes between things
perceived and things only imagined. With open eyes I see the desk
before me; with eyes closed, I can imagine it. I lay my hand on it and
feel it; I can, without laying my hand on it, imagine that I feel it.
I raise my eyes, and see the pictures on the wall opposite me; I can
sit here and call before my mind the image of the door by which the
house is entered.

What is the difference between sense and imagination? It must be a
difference of which we are all somehow conscious, for we unhesitatingly
distinguish between the things we perceive and the things we merely
imagine.

It is well to remember at the outset that the two classes of
experiences are not wholly different. The blue color that I imagine
seems blue. It does not lose this quality because it is only
imaginary. The horse that I imagine seems to have four legs, like a
horse perceived. As I call it before my mind, it seems as large as the
real horse. Neither the color, nor the size, nor the distribution of
parts, nor any other attribute of the sort appears to be different in
the imaginary object from what it is in the object as given in
sensation.

The two experiences are, nevertheless, not the same; and every one
knows that they are not the same. One difference that roughly marks
out the two classes of experiences from one another is that, as a rule,
our sense-experiences are more vivid than are the images that exist in
the imagination.

I say, as a rule, for we cannot always remark this difference.
Sensations may be very clear and unmistakable, but they may also be
very faint and indefinite. When a man lays his hand firmly on my
shoulder, I may be in little doubt whether I feel a sensation or do
not; but when he touches my back very lightly, I may easily be in
doubt, and may ask myself in perplexity whether I have really been
touched or whether I have merely imagined it. As a vessel recedes and
becomes a mere speck upon the horizon, I may well wonder, before I feel
sure that it is really quite out of sight, whether I still see the dim
little point, or whether I merely imagine that I see it.

On the other hand, things merely imagined may sometimes be very vivid
and insistent. To some persons, what exists in the imagination is dim
and indefinite in the extreme. Others imagine things vividly, and can
describe what is present only to the imagination almost as though it
were something seen. Finally, we know that an image may become so
vivid and insistent as to be mistaken for an external thing. That is
to say, there are such things as hallucinations.

The criterion of vividness will not, therefore, always serve to
distinguish between what is given in the sense and what is only
imagined. And, indeed, it becomes evident, upon reflection, that we do
not actually make it our ultimate test. We may be quite willing to
admit that faint sensations may come to be confused with what is
imagined, with "ideas," but we always regard such a confusion as
somebody's error. We are not ready to admit that things perceived
faintly are things imagined, or that vivid "ideas" are things perceived
by sense.

Let us come back to the illustrations with which we started. How do I
know that I perceive the desk before me; and how do I know that,
sitting here, I imagine, and do not see, the front door of the house?

My criterion is this: when I have the experience I call "seeing my
desk," the bit of experience which presents itself as my desk is in a
certain setting. That is to say, the desk seen must be in a certain
relation to my body, and this body, as I know it, also consists of
experiences. Thus, if I am to know that I see the desk, I must realize
that my eyes are open, that the object is in front of me and not behind
me, etc.

The desk as seen varies with the relation to the body in certain ways
that we regard as natural and explicable. When I am near it, the
visual experience is not just what it is when I recede from it. But
how can I know that I am near the desk or far from it? What do these
expressions mean? Their full meaning will become clearer in the next
chapter, but here I may say that nearness and remoteness must be
measured for me in experiences of some sort, or I would never know
anything as near to or far from my body.

Thus, all our sensory experiences are experiences that fall into a
certain system or order. It is a system which we all recognize
implicitly, for we all reject as merely imaginary those experiences
which lack this setting. If my eyes are shut--I am speaking now of the
eyes as experienced, as felt or perceived, as given in sensation--I
never say; "I see my desk," no matter how vivid the image of the
object. Those who believe in "second sight" sometimes talk of seeing
things not in this setting, but the very name they give to the supposed
experience indicates that there is something abnormal about it. No one
thinks it remarkable that I see the desk before which I perceive myself
to be sitting with open eyes. Every one would think it strange if I
could see and describe the table in the next room, now shut away from
me. When a man thinks he hears his name pronounced, and, turning his
head, seeks in vain for the speaker, he sets his experience down as a
hallucination. He says, I did not really hear that; I merely imagined
it.

May one not, with open eyes, have a hallucination of vision, just as
one may seem to hear one's name pronounced when no one is by?
Certainly. But in each case the experience may be proved to be a
hallucination, nevertheless. It may be recognized that the sensory
setting is incomplete, though it may not, at first, seem so. Thus the
unreal object which seems to be seen may be found to be a thing that
cannot be touched. Or, when one has attained to a relatively complete
knowledge of the system of experiences recognized as sensory, one may
make use of roundabout methods of ascertaining that the experience in
question does not really have the right setting. Thus, the ghost which
is seen by the terrified peasant at midnight, but which cannot be
photographed, we may unhesitatingly set down as something imagined and
not really seen.

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