John Dewey's logical theory Part 12

Although every statement embodies judgment, some statements do not reflect the ground upon which they are a.s.serted. In this condition they may be viewed as opinions, suggestions, or guesses, looking towards judgment rather than reflecting its results. True judgment is occupied with reasons, proofs, and grounds, and does not concern itself with action as action. Only when taken as the expression of an individual's att.i.tude, do Dewey's practical judgments (or a.s.sertions) possess the direct reference to action which he selects as their chief characteristic. The statement, "You ought to invest in these bonds,"

does, indeed, suggest a specific action, but in so doing it loses its character as a judgment. Put in more logical form, "You are one of those who should invest in these bonds," the proposition is more clearly the expression of a judgment, and leads back to its premises. Attention turns from specific action as such to action as a typical or universal fact. In short, Dewey's practical judgment is not a true judgment; it will be seen that it is studied, not as a logical, but as a psychological phenomenon.

In pursuance of his psychological method, Dewey discovers several interesting facts about judgments of practice.(1) These judgments imply an incomplete situation,--concretely and specifically incomplete; they express a need. (2) The judgment is itself a factor in a.s.sisting toward the completion of the situation, since it directs an action necessary to the fulfilment of the need. (3) The subject-matter of the judgment expresses the fact that one outcome is to be preferred to another. The element of preference is peculiar to the practical judgment, for it is not found in merely descriptive judgments, or those 'confined to the given.' (4) A practical judgment implies both means and end, the act that completes, and the completeness. It is in this respect 'binary.'

(5) The judgment of what is to be done demands an accurate statement of the course of action to be pursued and the means to be employed, and these are to be determined relatively to the end in view. (6) It finally appears that what is true of the practical judgment may be true of all judgments of fact; it may be held that "all judgments of fact have reference to a determination of courses of action to be tried and the discovery of means for their attempted realization."[262]

This ingenious reading of functionalism out of the practical judgment is, after all, merely a drawing forth of the psychological implications previously placed in it. That judgment is an instrument for completing a situation; that it is linked up with action through desire and preference; that it seeks to determine the means for effecting a practical outcome,--these typically instrumental notions are of one piece with the system of belief that led Dewey to hit upon the practical judgment as the embodiment of a direction to action. It is important to distinguish between the logical and the psychological aspects of these propositions. Action as psychological is one thing; as the subject-matter of judgment, it is another. In coming to a decision as to how to act, the agent sets his proposed action over against himself, and considers it in its universal and typical character. His motor tendencies, his feelings, his desires factor in the situation psychologically considered; but they do not enter judgment as psychological facts, but rather, if at all, as data which have a significance beyond their mere particularity. Dewey remains at the psychological standpoint, giving no attention to the genuinely logical aspects of his 'judgments of practice.'

From the study of the practical judgment, Dewey pa.s.ses on to a consideration of judgments of value, proposing to maintain that "value judgments are a species of practical judgments."[263] There will be a distinct gain for moral and economic theory, he believes, in treating value as concerned with acts necessary to complete a given need-situation. There is no obvious reason why Dewey should pa.s.s to the pragmatic theory of value through the medium of the practical judgment, since it could be directly considered on its own account. At any rate, the discussion of value judgments which follows must stand on its own merits; it has no vital relation to what precedes.

It is, as usual, the psychological characteristics of the value judgment that attract Dewey's attention. Any process of judgment, according to his a.n.a.lysis, deals with a specific subject-matter, not from the standpoint of any objective quality it may possess, but with reference to its functional capacity. "Relative, or comparative, durability, cheapness, suitability, style, esthetic attractiveness [_e. g._, in a suit of clothes] const.i.tute value traits. They are traits of objects not _per se_, but _as entering into a possible and foreseen completing of the situation_. Their value is their force in precisely this function."[264]

Attention should not be distracted from this interpretation of value, Dewey warns, through confusing the value sought with the price or market value of the goods. Price values, like the qualities and patterns of the goods, are data which must be considered in making the judgment, but they are not the values which the judgment seeks. The value to be determined is here, is specific, and must be established by reference to the specific or psychological situation as it presents itself.

It is true, as Dewey says, that in judgment a value is being established which has not been determined previously. But it must be insisted that this value is not estimated by reference to the specific situation in its limited aspects. The weight of the past bears against the moment; the act of judgment bases itself upon knowledge objective and substantial; the test of the value of the thing is its place and function, not in the here and now, but in the whole system of experience. Dewey has excluded the reference of the thing to objective, organized reality, by specifying that its value shall be decided upon with reference to a specific situation. This limitation of the judgment situation is imposed upon it from without, and from a special point of view,--that of functional psychology. Every object and every situation has its quality of uniqueness and particularity; but the judgment, as judgment, is not concerned with this aspect of things. Judgment seizes upon the generic aspect of objects; this kind of a suit of clothes is the kind that is appropriate to this type of situation. The movement of judgment is objective and universal, not subjective and psychological.

Dewey finds one alternative especially opposed to his 'specific'

judgment of value; that is, the proposition that evaluation involves a comparison of the present object with some fixed standard. When the fixed standard is investigated, it is found to depend on something else, and this on something else again in an infinite regress. Finally, the _Summum Bonum_, as the absolute end term of such a _regressus_, turns out to be a fiction. Dewey is quite right in maintaining that value is not something eternally fixed. This does not, however, remove the possibility of 'real' value, as opposed to mere expediency.

Value as established, Dewey continues, must be taken into consideration in making a value judgment. At the same time, it will not do to accept the established value from mere force of habit. Ultimately, he finds, all genuine valuation implies a degree of revaluation. "To many," he observes, "it will appear to be a survival of an idealistic epistemology,"[265] presumably because it implies a real change in reality, as opposed to a fixed and rigid order of external reality. But practical judgments, Dewey says, as having reference to proposed acts, necessarily look toward some proposed change which the act is to effect.

It is not in an epistemological, but in a practical sense, that judgment involves a change in values.

The outcome of the discussion so far, Dewey believes, is to show, first of all, that "the pa.s.sage of a proposition into action is not a miracle, but the realization of its own character--its own meaning as logical,"[266] and, in the second place, to suggest that all judgments, not merely practical ones, may have their import in reference to some difference to be brought about through action.

In the third part of the essay, Dewey's discussion leads him back to sense perceptions as forms of practical judgment. There is no doubt, in his mind, that many perceptions do have an import for action. Not merely sign-posts, and familiar symbols of the kind, but many perceptions lacking this obvious reference, have a significance for conduct. It must not, of course, be supposed that all perception, at any one time, has cognitive properties; for some of the perceptions have esthetic, and other non-cognitive properties. Only certain elements of a situation have the function of cognition.

Dewey goes on to say that care must be taken in the use made of these sign-functions in connection with inference. "There is a great difference between saying that the perception of a shape affords an indication of how to act and saying that the perception of shape is itself an inference."[267] No judgment, Dewey seems to imply, is involved in responding to the motor cue furnished by a familiar object.

Again, the common idea that present perception consists of sensations as immediate, plus inferred images, implies that every perception involves inference. But the merging of sensations and images in perception can be explained naturally, by the fusion of nervous processes, and no supplementary (transcendental) act of mind is needed to explain the integrity of experience.

The tendency to take perception as the object of knowledge, Dewey continues, instead of as simply cognitive, a term in knowledge, is due to two chief causes. The first is that in practical judgments the pointing of the thing towards action is so universal a trait as to be overlooked, and the second is that signs, because of their importance, become objects of study on their own account, and in this condition cease to function directly as cognitive. Dewey means, apparently, that because the cognitive aspect of things is never attended to except when they are 'known,' or treated as objects of judgment, there is a tendency to suppose that they always have the character that pertains to them as 'known' things.

Again, Dewey says, perception may be translated as the effect of a cause that produced it. But the cause does not ordinarily appear in experience, and the perceptions, as effects, remain isolated from the system of things. Truth and error then become matters of the relation of the perception to its cause. The difficulties attendant upon this view can be avoided by taking sense perceptions as terms in practical judgments. Here the 'other term' which is sought is the action proposed by the perception. "To borrow an ill.u.s.tration of Professor Woodbridge's: A certain sound indicates to the mother that her baby needs attention.

If there is error it is not because the sound ought to mean so many vibrations of the air, while as matter of fact it doesn't even suggest air vibrations, but because there is wrong inference as to the act to be performed."[268] The idea is tested, not by its correspondence with some formal reality, but by its ability to lead up to the experience to which it points.

From the consideration of error as cognitive, Dewey pa.s.ses on to consider its status as primitive sense data. He draws a distinction between sensation as psychological and as logical. Ordinary sensation, just as it comes, is often too confused to serve as a basis for inference. "It has often been pointed out that sense qualities being just what they are, it is illegitimate to introduce such notions as obscurity or confusion into them: a slightly illuminated color is just as irretrievably what it is, as clearly itself, as an object in the broad glare of noon-day."[269] But when a confused object is made a datum for inference, its confusion is just the thing to be got rid of.

It is broken up by a.n.a.lysis into simple elements, and the psychologist's sensations are logical products, not psychological facts. "Locke writes a mythology of the history of knowledge, starting from clear and distinct meanings, each simple, well-defined, sharply and unambiguously just what it is on its face, without concealments and complications, and proceeds by 'natural' compoundings up to the store of complex ideas, and the perception of simple relations of agreement among ideas: a perception always certain if the ideas are simple, and always controllable in the case of the complex ideas if we consider the simple ideas and connections by which they are reached. Thus he established the habit of taking logical discriminations as historical or psychological primitives--as 'sources' of beliefs and knowledge instead of as checks upon inference."[270] This way of treating perception found its way into psychology and into empirical logic. The acceptance of the doctrine that all sense involves knowledge, Dewey believes, leads to an epistemological logic; but all perception must involve thought if the 'given' is the simple sensation.

There is nothing especially new in this critique of sensationalism.

Historically, sensationalism had been displaced by idealism, and the idea that reality is a construct of ideas held together by logical relations was given up long before functionalism arrived on the scene.

But if inference, or rationality, is not present in all experience as the combiner of simple into complex ideas, it may be present in some other form, even more vital. Dewey, however, does not consider such possibilities.

Finally, in an article of slightly earlier date than the studies which have just been considered, Dewey returns to a consideration of metaphysics, and the possibility of a metaphysical standpoint in philosophy. This article, ent.i.tled "The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry,"[271] deserves careful notice.

The comments of a number of mechanistic biologists on vitalism furnish the point of departure for Dewey's discussion. These scientists hold that, if the organism is considered simply as a part of external nature, as an existing system, it can be satisfactorily a.n.a.lyzed by the methods of physico-chemical science. But if the question of ultimate origins is raised, if it be asked _why_ nature exhibits certain innate potentialities for producing life, science can give no answer. These questions belong to metaphysics, and vitalistic or biocentric conceptions may be valid in the metaphysical sphere.

This raises the question of the nature of metaphysical inquiry. Dewey says that the ultimate traits or tendencies which give rise to life need not necessarily be considered ultimate in a temporal sense. On the contrary, they may be viewed as permanent, 'irreducible traits,' which are ultimate in the sense of being always present in reality. The inquiry and search for these ultimate traits is what const.i.tutes valid metaphysics. "They are found equally and indifferently whether a subject-matter in question be dated 1915 or ten million years B. C.

Accordingly, they would seem to deserve the name of ultimate, or irreducible, traits. As such they may be made the object of a kind of inquiry differing from that which deals with the genesis of a particular group of existences, a kind of inquiry to which the name metaphysical may be given."[272]

The irreducible traits which Dewey finds are, in the physical sciences, plurality, interaction, and change. "These traits have to be begged or taken in any case," for wherever and whenever we take the world, we must explain it as "a plurality of diverse interacting and changing existences."[273] The evolutionary sciences add another trait; that is, evolution, or development in a direction. "For evolution appears to be just one of the irreducible traits. In other words, it is a fact to be reckoned with in considering the traits of diversity, interaction, and change which have been enumerated as among the traits taken for granted in all scientific subject-matter."[274]

The doctrine that plurality, interaction, change, and evolution are permanent traits of reality gains in clearness when contrasted with the opposed theories which involve creation, absolute origins, or temporal ultimates. The term 'ultimate origins' may be taken in a merely relative sense which is valid. The French language has an origin in the Latin tongues, which is an ultimate origin for French, but this is not an absolutely ultimate origin, since the Latin tongues, in their turn, have origins. It is, for instance, meaningless to inquire into the ultimate origin of the world as a whole; and it is equally futile to trace any part of the world back to an absolute origin. "That scientific inquiry does not itself deal with any question of ultimate origins, except in the purely relative sense already indicated, is, of course, recognized. But it also seems to follow from what has been said that scientific inquiry does not generate, or leave over, such a question for some other discipline, such as metaphysics, to deal with."[275]

Theories like that of Laplace, for instance, trace the world back to an origin in some undifferentiated universe; or, in Spencer's terms, some state of h.o.m.ogeneity. From this original state the world is said to evolve. But the undifferentiated ma.s.s lacks the plurality, interaction, and change which are presupposed in all scientific explanation. These traits must be present before development can occur. "To get change we have to a.s.sume other structures which interact with it, existences not covered by the formula."[276] In short, although Dewey only implies this, all scientific explanation presupposes a system of interacting parts; nothing can be explained by reference to an undifferentiated world which lacks such traits.

Dewey is particularly interested in the origin of mind or intelligence.

In dealing with mind, he says, we must begin with the present, and in the present we find that the world has an organization, "in spots," of the kind we call intelligence. This existing intelligence cannot be explained by any theory which reduces it to something inferior. The "attempt to give an account of any occurrence involves the genuine and irreducible existence of the thing dealt with."[277] Mind cannot be explained by being explained away, nor can it be explained as a development out of an original source in which the potentiality, or direction of change towards mind, was lacking.

The evolution of things, Dewey says, is a real fact, and is to be reckoned with. Moreover, if everything that exists changes, then the evolution of life and mind surely have a bearing on the nature of physico-chemical things. They must have in them the trait of direction of change towards life and mind. "To say, accordingly, that the existence of vital, intellectual, and social organization makes impossible a purely mechanistic metaphysics is to say something which the situation calls for."[278] In other words, the world, metaphysically considered, must have evolution, as well as the physico-chemical traits.

"Without a doctrine of evolution we might be able to say, not that matter _caused_ life, but that matter under certain conditions of highly complicated and intensified interaction is living. With the doctrine of evolution, we can add to this statement that the interactions and changes of matter are themselves of a kind to bring about that complex and intensified interaction which is life."[279] Dewey holds that evolution rests upon the reality of time: "time itself, or genuine change in a specific direction, is itself one of the ultimate traits of the world irrespective of date."[280]

This article presents on the whole a distinct advance over the position taken in the earlier essay, "Some Implications of Anti-Intellectualism,"

which was reviewed in the last chapter. Dewey is not now, to be sure, inst.i.tuting a wholesale inquiry into the nature of being, but he betrays an interest in the general, as opposed to the specific traits of reality. He inquires into the real nature of the world, and believes that he discovers its ultimate traits. This essay, of course, is incomplete, and consequently indefinite in certain important respects.

It may be said, nevertheless, to give an accurate view of the metaphysical back-ground against which all of Dewey's theories are projected. His metaphysics, as would be expected, are evolutionary throughout, and evolution is conceived, where he is at all definite, in biological terms.

FOOTNOTES:

[249] _Influence of Darwin on Philosophy_, Introduction, p. iv.

[250] Vol. VIII: "I. Nave Realism _vs._ Presentative Realism," pp.

393-400. "II. Epistemological Realism: The Alleged Ubiquity of the Knowledge Relation," pp. 546-554.

[251] _Op. cit._, p. 395.

[252] _Ibid._, p. 397.

[253] In this connection Dewey's disagreements with Professor McGilvary are of especial interest. See especially McGilvary's article, "Pure Experience and Reality" (_Philosophical Review_, Vol. XVI, 1907, pp.

266-284) and Dewey's reply, together with McGilvary's rejoinder (_Ibid._, pp. 419-424). McGilvary failed to understand that Dewey's argument was conducted on a purely 'naturalistic' basis, an almost inevitable error, in view of Dewey's practical identification of psychology, biology, and logic.

[254] _Ibid._, p. 399.

[255] Dewey is here dealing with the 'epistemological' realists, among whom he includes such writers as Bertrand Russell. In an article ent.i.tled "The Existence of the World as a Problem" (_Philosophical Review_, Vol. XXIV, 1915, pp. 357-370), Dewey argues that Russell, in making a problem of the existence of the external world, implies its existence in his formulation of the problem. Dewey argues that, since the existence of the world is presupposed in every such formulation, it cannot be called in question. This is like disposing of Zeno's paradox on the ground that arrows fly anyway.

[256] _Op. cit._, p. 548.

[257] _Ibid._

[258] _Op. cit._

[259] _Ibid._, p. 553.

[260] _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol.

XII, 1915. Parts I and II, pp. 505-523; Part III, pp. 533-543.

[261] _Ibid._, p. 506.

[262] _Op. cit._, p. 511.

[263] _Op. cit._, p. 514.

[264] _Ibid._, p. 515.