Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Psychology and the Logical Judgment with Reference to Realism Author(s): J. A. Leighton Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan. 4, 1906), pp. 12-16 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2010881 . Accessed: 09/07/2013 13:16
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? Doubtlesstheseare strucor the worldof feeling ment,perchance, in of cognition certainseries.10 tural neighbors But it mustbe notedthatthis'world beyond' is not a fixedorder: these kinds of experienceseem to a certain extentto play the role is known so that cognitive of worldbeyondfor each other, experience in turnby cognition. This and value experience by value experience, suggestionreceivessome color fromthe apparent need of explaining if at all, by the normsof action (pragmatism, thenormsof cognition, action theory, etc.), and the ethical 'ought' by an 'is.'
WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING. ANDOVER.

PSYCHOLOGY

AND THE LOGICAL JUDGMENT WITH REFERENCE TO REALISM

various quarterstherehas lately been a renascenceof 'realism' so called. Mr. G. E. Moore's realism of conceptsis made the basis of Mr. B. Russell's imposingwork 'The Prinepistemological echoin thiscountry. and it finds an answering ciplesof Mathematics,' a realistand assertsthatthe Professor Woodbridge proclaimshimself withoutit is simplyan addition of knowledgeto a realityhitherto of it. Dr. Montaguetells us additionto it and not a transformation is simplya relationbetweenthings,but does not that consciousness tell what is the differentia of this peculiar relationby which things a consciousness added to them. Presumably things get cognitive would be just the same withoutconsciousness and, if so, why and howdoes thispeculiar relationcalled consciousness get superimposed on reality? How does consciousnessget born into a world that factorwhich would perhaps get along betterwithoutthis disturbing a rid that it too has determinate of illusion itself the can not seem to in the of realism another variant reality? Again we seem to have of ProfessorsDewey and James,who agree 'immediate' empiricism fromcognition. in eliminating the transcendent reference I confessat the outsetthat I have not been able to make out just what thesevarious writersmean by realism. For ProfessorWoodbridge and Dr. Montague cognitivethoughtseems to be an epipheDewey and James,a singlephase of immenomenon;for Professors diate psychic process on a level with all other psychic processes.
is worth while observing that the fact that an object is known never as a species, but always as an individual, plays a rOle in the knowing of knowfromthe role it plays in the knowing of anything else; knowing is ing different known always in particular acts, and it is known first as physical knowledge. can' not, in the nature of the Knowledge of the last attained degree of reflection case, be known and reckonedwith the species.
10 It

IN

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means that Now, the Platonic view aside, realism in epistemology human thought somehow gets into right relation with reality, whereasrealismin metaphysics meansthatthe real is whollyexternal to and independent of thought. And in recentdiscussions one seems to finda confusedshifting fromone to the otherof theseuses of the terms. I suppose we are all realists in the sense of holding that is not shut up with itselfas a psychicalprocess, cognitivethinking but is in contactwith a real world. But if it be maintainedthat thereis a real world entirely of thought whichmay be independent or represented in thought, but whichin itselfgoes passivelymirrored on entirelyirrespective of whetherthoughtis at work in it, I find such a notioncontradictory to the verynotionof cognitive consciousin a world ness. For in such case thoughtis an otiose excrescence which would still be the same withoutit. In such case cognitive consciousness must be an unaccountableby-productof the cosmic This sortof metaphysical realismstrikes me as a violent machinery. to of out an of the psya confusion created attempt get impasse by and of the logical treatments cognition. It is, therefore, chological some truismson this point. perhaps opportuneto reiterate is the fundamental and a rightnotion act of thought, Judgment of the nature and functionof judgmentis indispensableto an adequate conceptionof the logical functionand ultimate position of withreference to reality. I, therefore, thought proposeto startfrom the definition of judgmentas the reference of an idea to reality,or the 'intellectualfunction whichdefines realityby significant ideas," and to show that the assumptionof a realityentirely of independent has its rootsin a fallaciousconception of thought. thought In the definition of judgmentas thereference of an idea to reality, 'idea' is used notin thepsychological sense of a merementalexistent, but as meaning. We must be on our guard against confusing these two uses of 'idea.' Even Mr. Bradley seems to drop back into the mode of treatment when he says, "A meaningconsists psychological of a part of the content(original or acquired) cut off, fixedby the mind and consideredapart fromthe existenceof the sign."2 To speak thus as if reasoningand judgmentwere static,psychologically is to obscure the true bearings of a conceptionof given contents, judgmentthat is in itselfentirely adequate. I preferto say simply that it is the 'meaning' of an idea that refersto reality and that meaningis dynamic,a matterof active tendencyand direction. In cognitivethinkingjudgment is the act of cognitivereferenceto and hencenot to be regardedas in any sense a psychological reality,
2

1 Bosanquet, 'Logic,' Vol. I., p. 104.

Principles of Logic,' p. 4.

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content. Let us considerfor a moment the distinction betweenthe and the of logical points view. psychological It is necessaryfor the descriptiveanalysis of psychologythat consciousprocess be regarded as having separate and independent existencesunderedfromthe world of social and physical existence. This sunderingof consciousness fromits world-context is absolutely indispensableto the work of exact analysis. Analytic psychology treatsthe individual consciousness as if it flowedon independent of else. This artificial isolationis applied alike to the mental anything processeswhich have cognitive,estheticor ethical reference. Now if the logician or epistemologist sets out from this standpoint of he will never finda clear or straightroad psychologicalabstraction back to the real world with which consciousness as cognitivedeals. The referenceof thoughtto reality in the act of judgment is at some point an immediate referenceor it is no referenceat all. and fundamentally Thoughtforlogic is primarily thought-referringin somenot thoughtas idea simplyentertained to-an-existent-order, body's head. Nothingbut confusioncan result if the logical and of thoughtset out by sundering, in the consideration epistemological fashion of psychologicalanalysis,thoughtfromits object of reference. It is this initial error in the treatmentof judgment that makes plausible the recent'realisms' which maintain that thought makes no sort of difference to the existence and reality of outer of mathematics must things,and that even the abstractpropositions be entitiesexistingindependently of any knowingmind. Truly, if judgment be primarilya conscious process having mere psychical existencein individual heads, if cognitionconsistsin the entertainsunderedfromthe universeof things, ing of ideas by a consciousness thenthought is but the passive reflector of a world of entirelyindependent entities. In this case thought may in some mysterious fashion representthings,but it does nothing. It makes no difference to reality. There is, then,no way of bridgingthe chasm from thethought-side to the real worldoutside,and our so-calleduniversal truths-those of logic and pure mathematics-eitherare mere individual psychicexistents like any othercontentof consciousness or existenceas independententities. (Analotheyhave a mysterious gous problemsarise in regardto the conceptsof ethicsand esthetics when thesetwo are treatedin psychological fashionas mere contents of consciousness. Duty, goodnessand beautyare theneitherpurely subjectiveor theyare independent entities.) I should be the last to deny that we may derive aid in the dev lopment of a logical theory of cognition from psychological analysis. But we shall surelybe led astray unless we bear in mind that thoughtin its actual functioning as instrument of cognitionis

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an act of immediateand indivisiblereferenceto reality. And, on the otherhand, if we keep in mind that judgmentas the immediate referenceof a meaning to reality is the act of a moving or fluid mind in relationto an environment only relativelystable. We shall be able to understandwhy logical thinking, too, undergoesan evolution, and we need not be greatlytroubledby the problemof erroneous judgment. An erroneousjudgmentis a reference to reality, erroneouseitherbecause the mind in makingthis reference has not taken sufficiently into account the systematiccontextof its immediate meaning or because meanwhilethe real contexthas shiftedin some respect. The failure of the immediatemeaning can only be discoveredby an actual reference of it to reality; and the test consists in tryingto fitthe particularjudgmentinto a moreor less connected systemof judgmentsthat have proved themselves workable and consistent. The objectionto the above conceptionof judgmentfromthe existenceof such judgments, as a 'centaurhas thelowerbody of a horse and the head and shouldersof a man,' rests on a confusion. The above propositionis a judgment with referenceto a mythological universe 'of discourse,' which again is related to the real world theimpliedassertionof the real existence of men and horses. through All false ideas and erroneousjudgments have psychical existence, and the assertionof theirexistenceis a true judgmentsince it refers to realityin which every individual mind has a place. Again, the judgment,'there is truth,' is the assertionthat what is meant or signified by 'truth' is involved in the world of fact or reality. (I shouldsay thatthe judgment, 'truthexists,'is badly put, and that it is betterto differentiate truth'sactualityfromthe actualityof other things by saying 'truth is valid' or 'knowledge means or signifies seemsto arise fromthe case of mathereality.') A seriousdifficulty matical and logical judgments. It may be said that the judgment 2 + 2 4 is true even if two thingsdo not and have not anywhere existed and the truthof such judgmentscan not be constituted by any one's thinkingthem. For if they were made true by being thought, theymightbe false, since thoughtis as likely to be false as true. The latterobjectionrestsagain on the confusionof judgment as a cognitiveand over-individual act of referenceto reality and as mere psychical existents. To. judge that 2 + 2 4 propositions is to mean that the real world is so constitutedthat whenevera rational mind performsthe operationof adding two thingsto two that this judgmentis thingsthe resultwill be four,and the assertion true whetherthereare really in the world any minds to thinkfour things derives its specious force from failure to observe that the bare symbolsmean and refer to actual operations of thought in

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counting. Merely to think of two things is at least to assert the universaloperationof thoughtmeantby the figure2. Withoutthis minimum of referencethe statement 2 + 2 4 is meaningless. Either the truthsof mathematics and logic are principlesof actual thinkingor they are material entities. The latter suppositionis meansthattheprinciplesof logic and pure meaningless. The former are expressiveof universalconditionsof valid thinking mathematics in normalminds. If one's thought is to be normaland have a place in that consistentor systematicwhole by which alone thoughtcan validly mean reality,one must followthe conditionof this common or over-individual thought-structure. The realityof abstracttruths, but not then,is a thought-reality, a mere psychological existence. Like all actual judgments, the judgments of mathematicsare logical acts which transcend psychological existenceand take their places in an organic and selfideal that is, at consistent system,which latter is the determining least in part, actualized in the body of science. And the simplest on whichto groundthe validity of this ideal systemand hypothesis by which to account for the commonor over-individual thoughtstructureinvolvedin all judgmentwill perhaps, after all, prove to be that of a general thinkingconsciousness. I do not advance this doctrineas the inevitableoutcomeof reflection on the basis of judgto insist but that it is a ment, simply theoryseriouslyto be reckoned with.
J. A. LEIGHTON.
HOBART COLLEGE.

SOCIETIES
SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY

OF

a meeting held in conjunctionwith the New York Section of the American Psychological Association, on the afternoon and eveningof November27, 1905, with ProfessorWoodbridge in the chair, ProfessorRobert MacDougall was elected Chairman for the comingyear and ProfessorR. S. WoodworthSecretary. The followingare abstractsof the papers read: Smell Discriminationof Two Hundred and Fifty-fiveStudents: Studentswere providedwith sets of small phials filledone third full of commonodors,-chieflyessential oils. Each set contained
WILL S. MONROE.

AT

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