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Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Is There a Cognitive Relation?Author(s): Roy Wood SellarsSource: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 9, No. 9 (Apr. 25,1912), pp. 225-232Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2013733 .

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VOL. IX. No. 9. APRIL 25, 1912

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYPSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS

IS THERE A COGNITIVE RELATION?HE formal distinctions of epistemological theory are well worked

out at the present time. All possible combinations of theterms of this discipline seem to have been discovered and cham-pioned. Each combination has points in its favor which awaken thesincere zeal of its champion. I wish to rise to a point of order.Have the postulates which lie back of these combinations been suffi-ciently examined? Is there, indeed, a cognitive relation either ex-ternal or internal? I am of the opinion that there is no such rela-tion. I shall now seek to justify and explain this opinion whichseems, on the face of it, so revolutionary.

Theories of knowledge are, first of all, divisible into two classes,those which hold cognition to be somehow immediate and thosewhich regard it as mediate. Theories of immediate cognition may,again, be divided into two subclasses. One subclass is idealistic andasserts that an internal relation exists between the object and theknower or subject. There are many slightly divergent forms ofthis position, but, in essentials, the above statement is not mislead-ing. The second subclass is realistic and holds that an externalrelation exists between the object and the knower. By external ismeant a relation which does not affect the object cognized. Thereare two current forms of this realistic subclass. The differencebetween them consists in their views of consciousness. The oneconsiders it an actus purus externally related to the object; theother identifies it with the external relations supposed somehow togroup objects selectively. Before we pass to a consideration of themediate theories of cognition, let us ask ourselves what knowledgemeans for these realistic systems. Knowledge is the actual presenceof reals. For the first view, consciousness in its relation to a thingaccomplishes knowledge. The nature of the object is supposed to lieopen to the mind and become subject to inspection. Things becometransparent, as it were. Out of this peculiar relation, they are, forus, enveloped in darkness; in it, they stand in a glare of light.

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226 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYKnowledge is a presenting, an introducing, an intuition. The secondposition is even more skeptical of the traditional views of mind thanthe first. The emphasis shifts from mind as a knower to the objectsknown. Knowledge is a grouping of these objects. The theory maybe designated selective objectivism and cognition is the selection.

I wish now to call attention to a common characteristic of allthese theories of immediate knowledge. They assert a real cognitiverelation, external or internal, between the knower and the object.The only partial exception is the theory that tends to do away withthe knower and to substitute a pan-objectivism. Even here, how-ever, a real relation determines a grouping although it does notaffect the nature of the objects grouped. Such epistemologicalhypotheses are statements of our actual experience in terms of logic-or, shall I say, in terms of mathematics ? They are professed trans-lations of natural realism. I suspect their correctness. What weactually have in cognition is an attitude towards objects consideredreal. Usually the attention is concentrated on the things and theattitude escapes notice. It lies in the background of consciousness.Even when it does attract attention, there is no experience of acognitive relation between the individual and the thing. Awarenessis simply an attitude towards things which is not supposed to affectthem. Plans of action may come to mind and then the attitudebecomes more complex; but always the objects retain their inde-pendence so far as awareness is concerned. It is, I believe, thischaracter of cognition that makes realistic systems thinkable. Thecognitive attitude involves a dutalism and suggests no relation, ex-ternal or internal, to bridge it. This is a description of naturalrealism as I see it. Cognition does not imply a cognitive relation.Mediate theories of cognition are more complex than immediatetheories. That fact is not necessarily in their favor. There arethree important classes: the representative, the normative, and thepragmatic. Space forbids me to enter into the analysis which I havemade of these. Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, they are allone-sided. But they emphasize some aspects of knowledge whichmust be borne in mind.

Pragmatism stresses the mediate character of the objectsknown. It points out their history, the reconstructions theyhave undergone. Knowledge is an achievement and "ideas" areinstruments for this end. This doctrine is rightly considered byMoore to be idealistic in the strictest sense of that much-abusedterm. The mistake made by the pragmatist is to confuse the re-flective attitude with the cognitive. He is so interested in the useof knowledge, its criteria, and the process of its achievement thathe has overlooked the important stratifications and distinctions char-


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PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 227acteristic of the cognitive attitude. We must thank the realist forhis counterbalancing emphasis on them. The reflective attitude is,strictly speaking, precognitive.The normative position brings us back from the process to theact. Its mistake is to misinterpret this act. It makes the objectconsciously depend on the "ought" of the subject. Here, again,there is a misreading of our actual experience. I repeat that theknower's attitude is one of acceptance of an object as being of sucha character or as qualified in such a way. This attitude is modeledupon that of natural realism. It is dualistic and no cognitive rela-tion is to be found in the experience.The representative view is more complex. I shall not enter intothe criticism which I must pass upon it. It is, however, the means ofpointing out and stressing the peculiar phenomenon of doubling thatseems to telescope itself into the apparently simple act of cognition.The distinction between thought, consciousness, idea, or concept andits object, which the human mind has been forced to postulate inorder to account for error and for the mediate and personal char-acter of the content of knowledge, as against the supposedly com-mon and independent object known, is erected into a theory ofknowledge. The real explanation of this distinction is entirely dif-ferent. It results from a duplication of the cognitive object. Thisduplication is due to the conflict between the cognitive attitude andthe facts which emphasize the personal character of the objectivum.For instance, the objectivum can be considered mental and dependentand, at the same time, physical and independent of mind as thecognitive attitude requires. It is assigned to two spheres of exist-ence. The duplication of the cognitive object enables both motivesto secure satisfaction. And they must both secure it. Hence evenwhen we acknowledge the idealistic motives present in mediatetheories of cognition, the structure of cognition remains dualistic.

It is interesting to hunt for indications of the twofold use ofthe cognitive object, as idea and as object, in philosophic literature.UJnfortunatelyidealistic motives and outlook so dominated the think-ers who came nearest to its discovery that its significance was notgrasped. A critical study of Hume (Treatise, I., III., 7), Kant("Critique of Pure Reason," p. 483, Max Muller's translation) andJames ("Psychology," Vol. II., p. 290) is illuminating from thepresent point of view. None of them does justice to the structure ofcognition. Professor James substitutes a psychological explanationof cognition for the cognitive experience. He comes much nearer toa realization of the duplication in the article, "Does ConsciousnessExist?", but makes it an affair merely of context. The tendencyto emphasize the influence of feeling and interest in determining the


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228 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYattitude and object of cognition is natural to a psychologist. Thevery term, belief, selected as descriptive of the cognitive attitudeinevitably leads to an analysis of these subjective factors. It is buta short step from this to the consideration of the object as merelyan "idea" and the meaning of the existence of the object its relationto the individual's mind. We noted, in the discussion given to themediate theories of knowledge, a similar mistake on the part of thepragmatist. The latter seeks to neutralize this result by a denialthat there are individual minds. The mediation which leads tocognition overshadows the cognitive structure and meanings andcauses their neglect or misinterpretation. In the very interestingand suggestive note in his "Psychology "' James discusses theexistential judgment and decides that the distinction between itand the attributive judgment is superficial. We might suggest thatthe reason is not that existential judgments are attributive, but thatattributive judgments are implicitly existential. Let us examinehis argument: " 'The candle exists' is equivalent to, 'The candle isover there.' And this 'over there' means real space, space relatedto other reals. The proposition amounts to saying, 'The candle is inthe same sphere with other reals.' It affirms of the candle a veryconcrete predicate, namely, this relation to other particular con-crete things." (So far we would agree with his analysis.) "Theirreal existence, as we shall later see, resolves itself into their peculiarrelation to ourselves. Existence is thus no substantive quality whenwe predicate it of an object." This emphasis on the subjective isapparent in another place: "Reality means simply relation to ouremotional and active life" (p. 295). He apparently agrees withHume and Kant whom he quotes with approval. We must ask our-selves this question: "Is not James confusing two standpoints?"A thing is considered real when it does touch us vitally, but is themeaning of reality or existence that of a relation to ourselves?Existence is a meaning, unique in character, which does not affectthe content of the object. It is not a determinant in the attributivesense. But it does qualify the whole object and give it a place withother objects of its own class. Things toward which we take thisattitude are considered as real as ourselves. In this James is rightwhen he says, "The ponis et origo of all reality, whether from theabsolute or the practical point of view is thus subjective, is our-selves" (p. 296). But the relations which we suppose ourselves toestablish with such things are not cognitive. Cognition is a meanstowards the establishment of practical relations, but is not itselfthought of as a real relation. We may suppose that cognition isimpossible unless we are in causal relation with things by means of

'Vol. II., page 290.


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PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 229our bodies, but cognition itself means a duality of equally realobjects in which one takes a peculiar attitude towards the other.The cognitive relation, so-called, is either an intellectual, logicaladdition assumed because it is scandalous to think of two termswithout a relation between them, or else the reading into the cog-nitive attitude of genetic relations in the precognitive stage, or elsethe shadow of the causal relation supposed to exist between us andthe object. The first of these mistakes is made by the logician, thesecond by the psychologist, and the third by the scientist. All threeare wrong. When we perceive an object or think of it, we do nothave as an essential element a relation between the object and our-selves as knowers.If this interpretation of the structure of cognition is correct, im-portant consequences flow from it. In the first place idealism isrobbed of the defense which has sheltered it for so long against theattacks of realism. Who has not felt the exasperating, bafflingpower of the dictum that we can not think an object except in rela-tion with a subject. This turns out to be merely a false rendition ofthe analytic proposition: We can not think of an object unless wethink of it. Otherwise, the very nature of cognition is to recognizethe independence and reality of the object. A peculiar, non-naturalrelation, such as the supposed cognitive relation, would be the verydenial of such independence. It seems, then, that the subject-objectrelation is a dogma which has been an article of faith in the philo-sophic world. The nearest approach, hitherto, to heresy has beenthe doctrine of external relations. But such a doctrine is half-hearted. We need the complete and final heresy; there is no cog-intive relation.

Were we to accept the view that cognition is immediate and is thepresence of an object to a knower, we would be forced to hold someform of naYverealism. Once deny the existence of a cognitive rela-tion, if such is the view of knowledge, and no other course is open.The presence of objects to a knower would make no difference tothem. He would be a spectator in whose field of vision they wouldcome and go as people in a thronged street pass before the eyes ofa stranger who looks out upon them from a hotel window. If cog-nition is the actual presence of reals to consciousness, idealism isdoomed.

But we have been led to acknowledge that cognition is mediate,not immediate. The idealistic motives, which the precognitive stageof reflective consciousness supports, are unaffected by the denial ofthe cognitive relation. The history of the material, the mediate orconstructive character of the object, the fact of error, all induced usto refuse to acknowledge that the object present in cognition exists


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230 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYapart from the individual's mind. These facts, stressed so emphatic-ally by modern psychology and by pragmatism of the Dewey type,are the true defense of idealism. To what do they lead? We haveclaimed that they lead to a realism broadened by the inclusion ofthese idealistic motives and with a new conception of knowledge.Let us examine this more critical and indirect type of realism.There are many questions which it must answer satisfactorily if itis to justify itself.

There is one problem which will occur to the mind of the readeralmost immediately. In cognition does the mind transcend itself ?Hitherto those who have denied the possibility of such a transcend-ence of experience have been idealists. How can the mind passthrough the gulf of reality and touch things? To those who holdan organic view of mind, such a feat seems self-contradictory. Evenrevelation must be somehow immanent and adapted to the under-standing of the seer. The reply must be that such a transcendenceis both thinkable and unthinkable. It is thinkable so long as wegive attention to the cognitive attitude and its meanings. It is un-thinkable when mind is regarded as a realm of constructs and feel-ings, when it is regarded as consciousness in the non-cognitive,generic sense of that word. Real existents can not mix with mind,and knowledge is not a possession. Let us examine both aspectswhich have been so much confused.

Transcendence is thinkable when we pay regard to the cognitiveattitude and its meanings, for here the mind is a limited entity op-posed to that which is known as regards both content and existence.Of course the objects known could be called a part of experience, butthe victory resulting would be merely verbal. It would consist inso stating the problem that it would be meaningless. We mustadmit, then, that the cognitive attitude makes the transcendence ofmind thinkable. So long as the mind can be opposed to that which itknows in cognition the transcendence of mind is conceivable becauseit is seemingly a fact. We have, however, acknowledged that thecognitive object does not exist apart from mind even though it de-mands such an existence. This peculiar contradiction led, as we saw,to the phenomenon of the duplication of the cognitive object as ideaand as object. As a result of this doubling, mind is enlarged tosatisfy the idealistic motives and at the same time is opposed to theobject as an independent existent. Cognition continues dualisticand, hence, realistic in its structure and meanings. The transcend-ence of mind is, however, unthinkable when mind is regarded as apersonal system of ideas.The answer that critical realism must logically make to this firstproblem is evident. Knowledge does not involve an actual trans-


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PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 231cendence of the individual's mind, but it secures a reference beyondthe individual's mind through the structure and meanings of thecognitive attitude.What, then, is knowledge and what is the relation of the cogni-tive object in the individual's mind to the real whose existence cog-nition demands? Knowledge is an achievement of the individual'smind working in collaboration with other minds in a more or lessconscious fashion. The methods and tests used are immanent andarise in large measure from the material. When a conclusion isarrived at it is objectified, i. e., considered to exist as a quality,object, or relation in the sphere of existence presupposed by thenature of the domain investigated. When this domain is the physi-cal world, the construction is considered entirely independent of themind which has elaborated it. There are types of knowledge of thephysical world which are functions of our interest and our point ofview. The usual type results from a collaboration between thingsand man. We do not attempt to separate out our contribution. Alandscape is beautiful. The soft tones and harmonious outlines areassigned to nature. Esthetic knowledge welcomes this collabora-tion. The scientific type is dominated by another ideal, to separateout and remove from things evidently subjective elements. Inneither type is knowledge the actual presence of the real in the mind.In both, however, the reference is realistic.

We can turn now to the second part of the question under dis-cussion. What is the relation of the cognitive object in the indi-vidual's mind to the real whose existence cognition demands? Theanswer is simple and presents a negative reply to the question pro-pounded in the title of the article. In the case of physical realsthere is no relation of a cognitive sort. The dualism of the cogni-tive attitude corresponds to an actual dualism. But a causal rela-tion of however indirect a sort between the real and a mind is apresupposition of the possibility of knowledge. This fact is ex-pressed by us in the causal relation assumed to connect percept andphysical thing. This epistemological dualism is conceived by meansof the duplication of the cognitive object into idea and thing betweenwhich no relation is supposed to exist. The preposition, "of," inthte phrase "idea of" is not symbolic of any actual relation, but ofa distinction between two spheres with different characteristics.These spheres are considered existentially distinct.The second comprehensive question which should be asked ofcritical realism is the following: In what sense does it differ fromthe idealism of the critical, phenomenalistic sort, from an up-to-dateKantianism, for instance? The difference lies not in the content ofknowledge, not necessarily even in the methods and criteria, which


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232 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYmust be those of science, but in the reference of cognition and in theexistential meanings connected with it. Idealism has entirely mis-interpreted the cognitive attitude. The Kantian phenomenon is thereal as we are compelled to think it. Kant's interest in the processby which knowledge is secured, together with his leaning towards aLeibnitzian metaphysics, obscured for him the realistic import ofcognition. The phenomenon is the thing-in-itself as we think it.The third question concerns the relation of individual minds toeach other. Common sense and psychology hold that minds do notintersect. Critical realism agrees with this natural view and makesit comprehensible. Minds are microcosms whose boundaries are oftheir own making. Relatively to each other they live in a fourthdimension. But, since knowledge does not involve the actual pres-ence of the real, this pluralism is no barrier to mutual knowledge.What is required is actual causal influence and this is obtainedthrough the body. Knowledge of other minds is, for critical realism,not a whit more mysterious than knowledge of physical reals. Wereminds disembodied, there would, indeed, be trouble. As it is, ourinformation is interpretative and comes through the channel of or-ganic activities and language. The cognitive reference and itsmechanism is the same as for physical things. The knowledge ofphysical reals is, however, a means as well as an end in itself. Thisis seen in imitation and in the actual handling of things, or inpointing towards them to gain a common reference and under-standing.There are many questions which could be raised and discussedin connection with this subject, besides those which I have attemptedto answer here. But it is only the general epistemological schemewhich I wish to present. I may state, however, that the import ofthis position for the categories is uppermost in my mind.

RoY WOOD SELLARS.UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

"INVERSION"CONSIDERING the contemptuous attitude of the average philos-opher toward algebra of logic, it is amusing to see "logicians"

quarreling about so simple a matter as "inversion." Whilst somemaintain, and "prove," that it is unconditionally possible, ProfessorHicks' as stoutly maintains, and "proves," that it is unconditionallyimpossible. The whole matter seems really a mere trifle; but theclearing up of the issue may be undertaken as a very simple exercisein the "calculus of classes."This JOURNAL, Vol. IX., pages 65 if.

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