Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Cognitive Thought and `Immediate' Experience Author(s): J. A. Leighton Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 3, No. 7 (Mar. 29, 1906), pp. 174-180 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2011842 . Accessed: 09/07/2013 12:28
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affords me what I considerone phase of a functionaldoctrine. I hold bothto be not onlytrue,but equally indispensable to a complete account of feeling. I should not wish to call pleasantnessand its opposite feelingas such. I prefer,as I have already indicated,to follow the usage which I think accords more nearly with our linand I should,therefore, reserve the termfor a total guistictradition, are dominant. I am psychosisin whichthe factorsjust mentioned resist by no means certain that these elements will indefinitely analysis, nor can I admit that relational psychosesare even now in the main I agree with Dr. whollyunanalyzable,but nevertheless Washburnso far as her view gives a statement provisionally acceptable for a structural of relationalfeelpsychology. Her connection ings with congenitalmotorattitudesis thoroughly congenialto my whole point of view, and I should only insistthat this connection is no exclusiveprerogativeof such feelings. Every psychosiscan, in my judgment,be stated in termsof motoractivityand must be so stated in orderto appreciateits full significance.
JAMES ROWLAND ANGELL.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

COGNITIVE

THOUGHT AND 'IMMEDIATE'

EXPERIENCE

a formerdiscussionI maintainedthat the genesis and plausibility of some recentmetaphysicalrealismswere due to a confusion between the psychological and the logical treatmentsof thought. In the present discussion I shall endeavor to point out that the doctrineknownas 'pure' or 'immediate' empiricism derives its plausibilityin part fromthe same confusion. There is, indeed, to hypostatize to regardit as to-daya widespread tendency experience, the all-comprehending of which men and reality thingsare elements, fromwhich thoughtsets out on its reflective quest and into which in the end it is somehow absorbed. But one does not finda distinction made and kept betweenexperienceas 'actual' and 'personal' and experienceas 'possible.' What in strict logic holds only of the latteris assertedof the former, and vice versa. This treatment of experienceone findswith varying contextsin Bradley and his desciplesand in Professors Dewey and James. It is with the views of the lattertwo alone that I shall be hereinconcerned. ProfessorJames tells us that a physical object, e. g., his pen, is an experiencewhich may be taken in two contexts: (1) in the personal contextof my or your experience; (2) as a pure experienceor pen experiencein itself. 'The pen experience,'we are told, 'in its is not aware of itself: it simply is,'1 etc. Now original immediacy
1This JOURNAL, Vol. I., pp. 538, 566, etc.; Vol. II., p. 180, etc.

IN

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what does this latter expressionmean? I have some notion of the existenceof a physical object when no one thinksit. I have even a glimmering notionof what it mightmean for the pen's existence to depend on the thoughtof an all-thinker. But I can frame no intelligiblenotion of what a pen is as a bit of pure 'physical' experiencewhichno personhas and whichhas itselfno feeling. Surely it can only conduce to confusion of thought to apply the term experience to anything that actually figuresin no consciousness.2 If the personalquale be eliminatedfromexperiencethereis nothing and surelyit is a mistake left but the bare possibilityof experience, to call an unconsciouspossibilityexperience? Words should have and the following some sort of definite meaningeven in philosophy, definition of experiencetaken from the CenturyDictionary states the actual historicalmeaningof the termand bringsout its personal quale: "The state or fact of having made trial or proof,or of having acquired knowledge, skill,etc.,by actual trial or observation. wisdom, Personal and practical acquaintancewith anything." The consequence of the loose use of this term 'experience' is that so short and easy a road is found to some all-comprehending unity of experience. We are told by James that the sum-totalof experiences is a 'pure' experience on an enormous scale, undifferentiated and undifferentiable into thoughtand thing.3 Now this sum-total of experience, this 'pure' experience, eitheris had by some psychic centeror it is not. In the latter case we are landed in a mist (I was about to say 'mysticism') which is fatal to clear thinking. We are told that experiencesare 'confluent,'etc. Now qua experiencemy psychiclife is uniquely and unsharablymy own. As experiencing centers,
-" in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone."

The interrelations of selves,the common truthand the social activity, doubtless do referto commonor over-individualconditionsor implications of experience. But these commonconditionsmust transcend any actual experience.4 I do not get my individualexperiences nor can by takinga slice out of a social or cosmiccommon-sensorium, I without furtherado logically 'pool' my experience in a social 'pot.'
Ibid., Vol. II., p. 181, etc. 8Ibid., Vol. II., p. 181. When Professor James says that 'experience itself, taken at large, can grow by itself,' that it 'proliferates' by 'continuous transitions,' etc., does he mean in the individual or is he talking about the totality of experience?
2

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ProfessorDewey does not assume that experienceis a comprehensive flux or matrix in which all separate experiencesmeet and blend. Experience for him is always determinate.5 Every experienceis a real thing and everychange in experienceis a change in reality. Determinateexperiencesare conterminous with things. There are just as many reals as thereare experiences. He says that when I am frightened by a noise, that is one experienceor 'thing,' and when I discoverthat the cause of the noise is the flappingof the window-blind, that is another real thing. And when I see Zollner's lines as convergent they really are convergent. When the a new real. Now, of course,all my is corrected we have experience whether experiences, judgments true or false, hallucinations,emotions good and bad, and what not, are actual in the sense of having psychical existence. The plausibility of Professor Dewey's contentionthat reality= immediateexperienceis due to the paralogism of identifying the psychicallyexistentwith the total reality,'actual' with 'possible' experience. In logic, as I have previouslyinsisted,realityis primarilythat which judgmentmeans or refersto. In the Z6llnerline illusionmy experienceas cognitivegets the wrong reference. My perceptdoes not mean what I take it to mean. And I reconstruct or transform this particularbit of cognitiveexperience i. e., by referto otherconditionsof the perception, by a reference ence to a moresystematized experienceof reality. Similarly,when I discoverthe cause of the noise I may not alter at all the fact of 'window-blind-wind-blowing.'I make a new judgment by a sysand so alter my personal state. In such cases we tematicreference rectify our cognitive relations, not the external reality. These of our meaningsto the reality mean that the references rectifications which has not changed must be altered in order that cognitionmay work. ProfessorDewey insiststhat any experienceis determinate. He in the dark "is as 'good' says the vague impressionof something vision of an absolute." But it isn't a reality as the self-luminous if it does not work as well. If I take this vague impressionfor a or a bathtub, softcouchand it turnsout to be a coil of hotsteam-pipes to be I do not considermy former 'good.' I say it was judgment and the an erroneousexperience steam-pipesare and were real all insists that to findthe meaningof any Professor the time. Dewey to must we go experience. True! but how? to philosophicconcept how shall whose experience? and experience be controlled? We must thinkin order to make experienceyield its fruitage,and because it fails to yield completefullness and harmonyour thought must continueever to transcendactual experiencein its own inter5Ibid., Vol. II., p. 393, ff.

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ests. The urge and stressof thinking is born of the partial failure and partial promise of actual experience. Professor Dewey says that the methodof immediateempiricism is identical in kind with that of the scientist. But thescientist is continually experiremaking ences and by thoughtconstructions the actual. The transcending massless fluid and the electriccorpuscles all-pervadingfrictionless, of the physicistcertainlytranscendimmediateexperience. Actual experience,which always belongs to a self and hence is not a substantive reality,does not stand self-sufficient on its own feet. If every determinateexperiencedid so stand, like ProfessorJames's 'pure' pen experience,unconsciousand absolute in its own right, of course there would be no occasion for thought's correctiveand work. Things would be just what they seem even supplementary when there was no one for them to 'seem' to. The sun would go round the earth,therewould be two marbleswhenthe finger-tips are in for crossedin the Aristotelian moons the the two sky experiment, theoretical extremedevoteesof Bacchus, etc. The strictly parts of in which science constructions actual abound by physical thought more is made experience corrected, consistent, supplemented. Of course the value of these constructions to a 'possible' has reference or is whichbebut this an ideal self-consistent completeexperience, in the of comes actualized only in part. And even case a perfect if we do not presupposean experiencing center 'possible' experience, or self, we are assumingan unconsciousexperiencehad by no one. Such a conceptionseems to me to have about as much meaning as 'wooden iron.' In short,pure or immediateexperienceis the hypostatizationof the psychologicalabstraction of consciousnessor forthe psychologist to treat experience'in general.' It is legitimate consciousness as a fact by itself,but is it legitimateto assert that of realityapart fromwhether any self has experienceis the bed-rock of it or not? And if we stickto the personal quale of consciousness experienceall philosophicalconceptswill not be found on the same level or yield their meaningsin the same terms. So-called immeforall philosis simplythe indifferent diate experience starting-point it is shotthrough But for rational as science and all activity. ophy of reflective and through and it is the function withmediacy, thought to justifythe elementof mediacyin each specificcase. Our 'immediate' experiencesare being constantlycorrectedby the case with perceptual experience. thought. This is notoriously But it is quite as true that esthetic,personal and religious experiences do not yield their full fruitagewithoutthe interpreting that does its work an activity and transforming activityof cognition, there and without mediation already by developingthe elementof datum. 'brute' which experiencewould be a meaningless

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Just hereinlies the dynamicand constructive quality of thought. The vital function of thought consists in submittingimmediate to a reflective treatment experiences by whichtheyare made to yield of theirmeaningsand submitto control up to thought interpretation and transformation at the hands of thought. Mere thoughtis not to life consistsin interpreting, translife,but thought'scontribution and supplementing actual experiences. This harmonizing forming, work logical thinkingperformsjust because it is not a mere psychologicalexistenton a dead-levelwith everysort of grain and smut that may be grist for the psychologicalmill. In the performance of this workcognitive transcends a merepsychicalexistence thinking and reaches beyond actual experience. It develops implicationsin and regard to the real that are required to render more consistent harmoniousactual experiencesthat are in themselves fragmentary. These implications, we may say, referto some self's possible experiand we may not understand ences,but theyare not now convertible, the conditionsunder which they may become convertible, into the currentcoin of our immediateexperiences. In this sense, reality for thoughtthat goes to the bitter end must include implications that are only 'possible' experiences. Every immediateexperiencehas, withoutfurtherconsideration, whateverrealitymay belongto any psychicalprocess. In this sense cognitionis just one elementin experience. But when we remind ourselvesthat thoughtas psychologicalfact and thoughtas valid are two different meaningor reference things,and that it is in the lattersense alone that thought in its dynamicactualityis adequately conceived,we shall not make the mistakeof puttingcognitionon a level with otherpsychical facts and so eliminating its transcendent reference. The psychologicaltreatmentof thoughtis responsiblefor the assumptionthat reality equals experience. It is one thing to say experienceis real (and, of course,all experienceis real in the sense of being actual psychical process,although we hardly need a new to conveythisveryobviousbit of information) and quite philosophy anotherthingto say that all realityis immediateexperience. Our immediateexperiences,cognitiveand non-cognitive, are often misand inharmonious. Reality in the fullestsense leading,fragmentary means the objective systemof conditionsin relationto which these experiencesmay get corrected,enlarged,harmonized. Of course, to reality,both extra-experiential thoughtmust make a difference and intra-experiential, and some realitymustbe of the sort to which can make a difference. Thoughtbothtransforms thought experience and alters some elementsin reality,so makingway for a readjustmentof experience. Of what sortthis realitymustbe so to undergo

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the action of thought is a questionremaining over--themetaphysical problemof logic. In his latest discussion6 of Dewey lays emphasison the end-state knowledgeas saturated with emotion. Knowledge mediatesactivities whose aims are the development of emotionalsubstratesor continua into perfectfeeling-harmonies, moral,esthetic, personal. Now it seemsto me perfectly is true that the goal of a completedcognition always a personal state suffusedwith emotional coloring. But I of cognitivefeelingare reducibleto should denythat the differentice moral and estheticterms. Since all higherfeelingis a reactionof the unity of self to a content,cognitioninvolves feeling,and the articulation of knowledge is the articulation of feeling. But I should maintain that the personal feeling which accompanies any relatively complete insight in science or philosophy may have a unique quale due to the specificcharacterof the cognitivereaction. In other words, cognitivefeelingmay be and often is sui generis, i. e., not reducible to moral, esthetic,or religious terms. And I should agree with the contention that thoughthas always personal that while insisting reference, 'pragmatism' ignoresthe ontological of this reference. implications Thought is never wholly external to any personal experience. 'Pure' experiencedevoid of thoughtis a Grenzbegriff. There are of experience: treatment two chief desideratain the epistemological which,in the (1) the explicationof the chieflogical stages,through individual and the race, experiencepasses by the action of reflective in which and whichstagesrun,of course,froma beginning thinking, thoughtis inchoateto a relative conclusionin which it has become articulated; (2) the explication of the objective or unidefinitely versal implicationsof the individuals having experience. This is of an environing worldor reality,social the problemof the definition and physical. The fact that my experienceis uniquely my own, as does not abolish but rathersets a metaphysical well as determinate, problem. We are repeatedly told that pragmatic empiricismis a new 'method' of treatingphilosophicalconcepts. But, so far, we have and thoseof us who are not conbeen given only vague generalities, mired are told that it is because we are irretrievably vincedthereby in the bog of transcendentalism. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' Let the pragmatical,or immediate,empiricistsgive us a treatment by theirmethodof one or two fundamental thoroughgoing etc., selfhood, causality,thinghood, substance, philosophicalconcepts, of the pragmaticuses of and thenperhaps the actual demonstration this 'method' will let light into our skulls. In the meantime, perThis JOURNAL, Vol. II., pp. 707-711.

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haps one may be pardoned for the perversityof holding on to a point of view which seems both to be more in harmonywith the whole procedure and function of reflective thought and to have results. And I will be specificand say that I yielded some definite mean that the philosophiesof Kant, Fichte and Hegel have yielded definiteresults in renderingthe actual world more intelligiblein of experience. termsof an idealistic7 rendering
J. A. LEIGHTON.
HOBART COLLEGE.

DISCUSSION THE QUARREL ABOUT TRANSCENDENCY ROFESSOR JAMES has said: "Does it not seem as if the in knowledgemight drop? quarrel about self-transcendency Is it not a purelyverbal dispute? Call it self-transcendency or call it pointing,whicheveryou like-it makes no difference so long as real transitionstoward real goals are admitted as things given in experience,and among experience's most indefeasibleparts.'1 I believe these words apply to more than one philosophicissue, but I take up now only that about transcendent objects. The arguments on both sides grow so numerousand complicatedthat one feels the need of stoppingto ask: What does it all amountto? The radical in experientialterms: empiricistis concernedto defineexternality the realist is equally concerned to show that in this definition someunaccountedfor,namely,the transcendent external thingis omitted, to practical life or to one's object. But does it make any difference systemof philosophywhetherthe realist is right or wrong in this? Let us state very roughlywhat has resultedfromthe discussion so far, so as to get the issue beforeus. The empiricists began by definingknowledgein practical terms. It was objected that this laid so much stresson the subjectiveside as to exclude real external thingsand standards. Doubtless the word 'experience' was partly to blame for this, since it has usually signified a personal and subin affair contrast with the with which it was conjective things versant. If given a definite it would meaning, naturallymean the limited to one's own But the experience body.2 empiricists replied that theirswas no such narrowview. They have, afterall, as much good commonsense as the realists,and believe in a real objective world. For them'experience' is no moresubjectivethan objective;
without qualifying phrase I mean metaphysical, not epistemological or psychological idealism. 1This JOURNAL, Vol. II., p. 237. 2W. Fite, Philosophical Review, January, 1906.
TWhen I use the term 'idealism'

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