Idealism (Routledge Revivals)

A Critical Survey

Alfred Ewing

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136209772
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

First published in 1934, this book evaluates the characteristic doctrines of the idealism which dominated philosophy during the last century. It seeks to combine realism, as to epistemology and physical objects, with a greater appreciation of views which emphasize the unity and rationality of the universe. This work is not a history and does not try to compete with any histories of idealism but it instead reaches an independent conclusion on certain philosophical problems by criticising what others have said. The book considers differing arguments in order to determine their validity.

CHAPTER VII
Physical Objects

I The Argument from Common-Sense and the Analysis of Propositions About Physical Objects

IN the last chapter I have been speaking as though the belief in the existence of independent physical objects in a realist sense were true. My purpose in this was to see whether the representative theory, which had such a large share in the development of idealism, is defensible or not, and whether the realist could meet the idealist satisfactorily by merely maintaining a theory of direct perception instead. But it remains for us to try to defend the view (a) that our ordinary statements about physical objects mean what the realist thinks they mean, (b) that some of them are true. Against this many thinkers have maintained that what we call physical objects have no existence apart from human (and animal) experience, or that, while there are things external to us, we cannot be justified in saying anything about them except that they produce such-and-such experiences, or, better, sensa, when we observe them.¹ The name phenomenalism² is commonly given to these types of view, and I shall adopt this terminology. According to phenomenalism any statements purporting to be about physical objects can be true or defensible only if they are translated into statements about human experience.

We shall now turn to the argument which, if not de jure, is at any rate de facto by far the strongest obstacle to the acceptance of phenomenalism, namely, what is usually called the argument from ‘common-sense’. It is not, however, very clear what is meant by the assertion that a particular philosophical view is inconsistent with common-sense. It might mean that all or most people prior to studying philosophy believe that it is false. But it is impossible for anybody to believe that the view, e.g., that there are no physical objects independent of us etc., is false unless the view has occurred to him and been rejected, and the views in question have not occurred to the non-philosopher. He cannot believe them to be false because he has never thought of them. This difficulty might be met by amending our analysis of the assertion in one of two ways. We might say that the statement that a philosophical view is inconsistent with common-sense meant that, though most people prior to philosophical study may not have heard of the view in question and therefore cannot believe it to be false, they hold certain positive beliefs¹ which are in fact logically incompatible with the view. Or we might say that it meant that they would reject the view if it were explained to them in a way which they could understand. I think the statement might stand for either or both of these propositions, and I think that, in the case of the view under discussion, both propositions are in fact true; but it is not so clear why the philosopher should be expected to attach much weight in philosophical questions to the opinion of those who have never studied his subject. If those who have studied philosophy see reason to accept a given view, why should they reject it just because those who have not studied the subject think it wrong? This would only be a reasonable course if the study of philosophy instead of improving impaired one’s capacity for making right philosophical judgments, and if so why study it since we could be better philosophers without doing so? But this certainly is not a fair account of ‘the argument from common-sense’: there is more in it than that.

For, in the first place, it is not the case that views such as phenomenalism seem absurd only to the man who has not studied philosophy. On the contrary, in many cases at least, the appearance of absurdity is not in the least dispelled by study and familiarity. They still seem indeed difficult or impossible to refute but also impossible to believe.¹ And, even if we can persuade ourselves that we believe them in the study, we are quite unable to do so in our actual perceptual experience. I cannot speak for all philosophers; but surely it is a very common case, and anyone who feels thus may well be justified in holding that this counts for him as a strong argument against the view in question. He is now appealing not to philosophical beliefs of people who know next to nothing of philosophy, but to a non-inferential but not therefore necessarily irrational conviction which survives the acid test of philosophical study and criticism.

Such a conviction is in the analogous case of solipsism usually sufficient to prevent any serious doubt as to the existence of human beings other than oneself,² even though many philosophers have actually admitted, or held views obviously implying that there are no cogent arguments for the belief. This is to the point here, for any philosopher who would not be prepared to discard the belief that other human beings existed even if he found that he could not justify it philosophically ought to ask himself whether he has not the same irresistible conviction (though perhaps somewhat less in degree) in the independent existence of physical objects, when he considers particular propositions about them and does not merely speculate in the abstract, and whether if he is consistent he ought not to accept this here as well as in the case of other minds as a ground for holding the belief or else accept it in neither and become a solipsist.³

The situation would be different if the existence of independent physical objects could be shown to be logically impossible, but this cannot be done. At the worst all that could be urged is not that the belief in them is untenable but that there are no arguments adequate to establish its truth; but for many philosophers their inability to rid themselves of this conviction may be itself an argument, though not, I admit, a conclusive argument, in favour of its substantial truth.

It is often thought that, while the view that physical objects independent of us do not exist is repugnant to common-sense, the view that, while they exist, we can know nothing about their nature is not nearly so repugnant; but I think that this is only because the latter view is not taken seriously enough. We are ready to acquiesce in the view that we cannot say what matter is in itself but only what it is in its external relations (this has indeed for some time been the orthodox view of science); but, if phenomenalism is to be taken seriously, we shall have to maintain not only that we cannot determine the ‘ultimate nature’ of matter but that we cannot tell what any of its qualities or relations are at all, except the characteristic of causing certain experiences in us.¹ If the view is to be carried out logically we must deny not only that we know the shape and size but that we have the slightest justification for making any statement about the probable shape or size of any independent external objects whatever. We must even deny that we have any reason for supposing them to be in space or time at all. Anybody who holds such a view cannot indeed legitimately be said to believe in the existence of physical objects, for nobody ordinarily means by physical objects totally unknown causes of our experience (these, since we ex hypothesi know nothing about them, might equally well be minds), but things with at least a shape and (relatively to other physical objects) a size that can often be specified by us. If indeed the phenomenalist holds merely that we cannot have knowledge in the strict sense of such objects I should agree with him, but when he maintains that we have no right to assert anything about them as even probably true it becomes extremely difficult to reconcile myself to his view.

But, secondly, I should contend, it is not or not only that phenomenalism contradicts the philosophical beliefs of ‘common-sense’, but that it contradicts common-sense beliefs on non-philosophical subjects where the philosopher is no more qualified to speak than the plain man. The plain man asserts that the table in his dining-room is square, that Cambridge is just over 50 miles from London, that his fire has burnt out since last he looked at it, etc. Now, except on a certain interpretation of these statements which seems to me quite untenable, they are all flatly contradicted by any view such as phenomenalism; and if we accept phenomenalism we shall have to say that these statements about physical objects are all partially false, and not false in a slight matter of detail but very fundamentally. For they all apply properties such as shape or size to physical objects in a sense which cannot in my opinion be analysed phenomenalistically. And similar propositions are asserted in all the sciences, where the philosopher certainly does not claim to be a better judge than the scientist. If a given philosophical theory does really imply that all these assertions are fundamentally mistaken, it does seem to be a serious objection against the theory in question. And this objection I should bring against all phenomenalists.

The only reply possible for them is to maintain not merely that the only part of any proposition¹ about physical objects which we are justified in asserting as true is a proposition about our sensa,² actual and possible, but that such a proposition is all that we mean when we make a statement about physical objects, that when we speak of a penny as round we only mean that it appears round under normal conditions, or something of that kind. (A detailed formulation of this interpretation might be difficult and would no doubt not be a matter of universal agreement.) Phenomenalists have in fact rarely made it clear whether they were maintaining that all statements ascribing specific qualities to physical objects were partially false or that they were true but only meant propositions about our sensa or our experience, and in regard to the great majority of those with whose work I am acquainted I am quite unable to say which of the two alternatives they intended to adopt. But the latter is certainly maintained by some. It is held that assertions about physical objects are simply assertions about the way in which they appear to human percipients under normal conditions, or about the sensa, actually experienced or possible, of human percipients, i.e. it is held that this is all we mean when we make them. This kind of view is now predominant among the so-called Cambridge school of philosophers, though it has not yet been expressed fully in published works by them.

Now the question whether this is so is one as to the usage of words. Such a question might perhaps be settled by argument if it could be shown that the denotation of a given definition did not coincide with the denotation of the term which it claimed to define,¹ though even then the person who maintained the definition might be able to escape refutation by maintaining that in the cases where the two denotations failed to coincide the expression was being used in different senses, i.e. with different connotations, and that his definition only gave the meaning of the expression in one of its senses, not in the other. But, while the denotation cannot be different if the connotation is the same, it may easily be the same though the connotation is different. Wherever two properties of any kind invariably go together, an expression defined in terms of the one will coincide in denotation with an expression defined in terms of the other but not in connotation. Consequently we cannot settle all questions about the meaning of terms by this method, and in the last resort there can be no way of testing the correctness of an analysis of the meaning of a given expression except by observing whether the analysis is of such a character that when we really understand it we can say—‘Oh! that is what I really meant¹ all the time, though I was not clear about it’ or ‘though I could not put it so well’.² If, when we have come to understand a given analysis, we cannot say this but are convinced that we meant something quite different, even if we are not sure of the correct analysis of what we did mean, we must reject the analysis given. After all the person who really decides what a statement means is the person who makes it. Philosophical capacity is required in order fully to understand a given analysis of the meaning of a statement; but to decide whether it is a correct analysis or not is to decide whether it is identical with what is really meant by the plain man, and the philosopher can only do this because he is also a ‘plain man’ besides being a philosopher.

It is therefore for each reader to ask himself whether he does mean by an assertion such as ‘the table in my dining-room is round³’ merely that it appears round under normal conditions, or anything of that kind. The only way of deciding is to ask ourselves whether on considering such an analysis we see that this is ‘what we meant all along’; and it seems quite clear to me that I do not see any such thing, but am convinced on the contrary that this is not what I meant or at any rate not all that I meant. I must therefore reject the interpretation in question in accordance with the only test available. But I do not see how it can be conclusively proved by argument either that we do or that we do not mean this. All I can do is to state in what respects I think our ordinary assertions about physical objects seem to me incompatible with such an interpretation of their meaning. What I am going to say will seem to many too obvious to be worth mentioning, and I should have thought it was so myself if I had not discovered that some of the ablest philosophers of the present time hold quite different views.

(a) It seems clear to me that, when we ascribe shape or position⁴ to a physical object as existing unperceived, when e.g. we say that a table in a given room where no one is at the time is square, we are asserting a categorical proposition, but according to the phenomenalist interpretation such a proposition must be merely hypothetical, i.e. to the effect that if we touched it, etc., it would appear square, (b) Unperceived physical objects, being merely hypothetical entities, could in that case never be correctly said to act as causes except on the regularity view of causation, which I have already rejected, or some very similar view which would be liable to similar objections. It seems to me obvious that by a cause¹ we mean something actual, (c) Even in the case of assertions about physical objects perceived at the time, it seems clear that, when we say that they have a given shape, we are ascribing a spatial characteristic² to something regarded as existing independently of our experience of it, and that this unformulated belief in independence is a common or even essential part of the normal perceptual experience.³

(d) On the view to which I am objecting, the statement (i) that ‘a physical object perceived by me does not merely look e.g. elliptical⁴ but is elliptical’ only differs from the statement (ii) that ‘it looks or appears elliptical’ in that it does not merely refer to my present experience but forecasts the future and implies the past occurrence under given conditions of other experiences (and sensa), and this seems to me clearly not the only point of difference. It seems to me that the assertion that ‘A looks elliptical but is not really elliptical’ and the assertion that ‘A is elliptical’ differ in that these statements are usually meant respectively to deny and assert the presence of a specific quality of ellipticalness⁵ in something actually existent at the time, and do not merely differ in what they assert about something that would exist under given conditions but is not actually existing now or about the connection between that and what is actually existing now.

We cannot indeed conclude that, because a sentence is constructed verbally as if it were meant to refer to a present a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Note to the Third Edition
• I. Introductory
• II. Epistemological Idealism1
• III. Kantian Idealism
• IV. The Theory of Internal Relations
• V. The Coherence Theory
• VI. Idealism and the Theory of Perception
• VII. Physical Objects
• VIII. Idealist Metaphysics
• Summary of Main Conclusions
• Notes Added in Third Edition
• Index