An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

CHAPTER XIII

REALISM AND IDEALISM

52. REALISM.—The plain man is a realist. That is to say, he believes in a world which is not to be identified with his own ideas or those of any other mind. At the same time, as we have seen (section 12), the distinction between the mind and the world is by no means clear to him. It is not difficult, by judicious questioning, to set his feet upon the slippery descent that shoots a man into idealism.

The vague realism of the plain man may be called Naïve or Unreflective Realism. It has been called by some Natural Realism, but the latter term is an unfortunate one. It is, of course, natural for the unreflective man to be unreflective, but, on the other hand, it is also natural for the reflective man to be reflective. Besides, in dubbing any doctrine "natural," we are apt to assume that doctrines contrasted with it may properly be called "unnatural" or "artificial." It is an ancient rhetorical device, to obtain sympathy for a cause in which one may happen to be interested by giving it a taking name; but it is a device frowned upon by logic and by good sense.

One kind of realism is, then, naïve realism. It is the position from which we all set out, when we begin to reflect upon the system of things. It is the position to which some try to come back, when their reflections appear to be leading them into strange or unwelcome paths.

We have seen how Thomas Reid (section 50) recoiled from the conclusions to which the reasonings of the philosophers had brought him, and tried to return to the position of the plain man. The attempt was a failure, and was necessarily a failure, for Reid tried to come back to the position of the plain man and still be a philosopher. He tried to live in a cloud and, nevertheless, to see clearly—a task not easy to accomplish.

It should be remarked, however, that he tried, at least, to insist that we know the external world directly. We may divide realists into two broad classes, those who hold to this view, and those who maintain that we know it only indirectly and through our ideas.

The plain man belongs, of course, to the first class, if it is just to speak of a man who says inconsistent things as being wholly in any one class. Certainly he is willing to assert that the ground upon which he stands and the staff in his hand are perceived by him directly.

But we are compelled to recognize that there are subdivisions in this first class of realists. Reid tried to place himself beside the plain man and failed to do so. Hamilton (section 50) tried also, and he is not to be classed precisely either with the plain man or with Reid. He informs us that the object as it appears to us is a composite something to the building up of which the knowing mind contributes its share, the medium through which the object is perceived its share, and the object in itself its share. He suggests, by way of illustration, that the external object may contribute one third. This seems to make, at least, something external directly known. But, on the other hand, he maintains that the mind knows immediately only what is in immediate contact with the bodily organ—with the eyes, with the hands, etc.; and he believes it knows this immediately because it is actually present in all parts of the body. And, further, in distinguishing as he does between existence "as it is in itself" and existence "as it is revealed to us," and in shutting us up to the latter, he seems to rob us even of the modicum of externality that he has granted us.

I have already mentioned Herbert Spencer (section 50) as a man not without sympathy for the attempt to rehabilitate the external world. He is very severe with the "insanities" of idealism. He is not willing even to take the first step toward it.

He writes:[1] "The postulate with which metaphysical reasoning sets out is that we are primarily conscious only of our sensations—that we certainly know we have these, and that if there be anything beyond these serving as cause for them, it can be known only by inference from them.

"I shall give much surprise to the metaphysical reader if I call in question this postulate; and the surprise will rise into astonishment if I distinctly deny it. Yet I must do this. Limiting the proposition to those epiperipheral feelings produced in us by external objects (for these are alone in question), I see no alternative but to affirm that the thing primarily known is not that a sensation has been experienced, but that there exists an outer object."

According to this, the outer object is not known through an inference; it is known directly. But do not be in haste to class Spencer with the plain man, or with Reid. Listen to a citation once before made (section 22), but worth repeating in this connection: "When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can know only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by the relativity of thought, compelled to think of these in relation to a cause—the notion of a real existence which generated these impressions becomes nascent. If it be proved that every notion of a real existence which we can frame is inconsistent with itself,—that matter, however conceived by us, cannot be matter as it actually is,—our conception, though transfigured, is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated as far as possible from those special forms under which it was before represented in thought."

It is interesting to place the two extracts side by side. In the one, we are told that we do not know external objects by an inference from our sensations; in the other we are taught that the piece of matter which we regard as existing externally cannot be really known; that we can know only certain impressions produced on us, and must refer them to a cause; that this cause cannot be what we think it. It is difficult for the man who reads such statements not to forget that Spencer regarded himself as a realist who held to a direct knowledge of something external.

There are, as it is evident, many sorts of realists that may be gathered into the first class mentioned above—men who, however inconsistent they may be, try, at least, to maintain that our knowledge of the external world is a direct one. And it is equally true that there are various sorts of realists that may be put into the second class.

These men have been called Hypothetical Realists. In the last chapter it was pointed out that Descartes and Locke belong to this class. Both of these men believed in an external world, but believed that its existence is a thing to be inferred.

Now, when a man has persuaded himself that the mind can know directly only its own ideas, and must infer the world which they are supposed to represent, he may conceive of that external world in three different ways.

(1) He may believe that what corresponds to his idea of a material object, for example, an apple, is in very many respects like the idea in his mind. Thus, he may believe that the odor, taste, color, hardness, etc., that he perceives directly, or as ideas, have corresponding to them real external odor, taste, color, hardness, etc. It is not easy for a man to hold to this position, for a very little reflection seems to make it untenable; but it is theoretically possible for one to take it, and probably many persons have inclined to the view when they have first been tempted to believe that the mind perceives directly only its ideas.

(2) He may believe that such things as colors, tastes, and odors cannot be qualities of external bodies at all, but are only effects, produced upon our minds by something very different in kind. We seem to perceive bodies, he may argue, to be colored, to have taste, and to be odorous; but what we thus perceive is not the external thing; the external thing that produces these appearances cannot be regarded as having anything more than "solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number." Thus did Locke reason. To him the external world as it really exists, is, so to speak, a paler copy of the external world as we seem to perceive it. It is a world with fewer qualities, but, still, a world with qualities of some kind.

(3) But one may go farther than this. One may say: How can I know that even the extension, number, and motion of the things which I directly perceive have corresponding to them extension, number, and motion, in an outer world? If what is not colored can cause me to perceive color, why may not that which is not extended cause me to perceive extension? And, moved by such reflections, one may maintain that there exists outside of us that which we can only characterize as an Unknown Cause, a Reality which we cannot more nearly define.

This last position resembles very closely one side of Spencer's doctrine—that represented in the last of the two citations, as the reader can easily see. It is the position of the follower of Immanuel Kant who has not yet repudiated the noumenon or thing-in-itself discussed in the last chapter (section 51).

I am not concerned to defend any one of the varieties of Direct or of Hypothetical Realism portrayed above. But I wish to point out that they all have some sort of claim to the title Realism, and to remind the reader that, when we call a man a realist, we do not do very much in the way of defining his position. I may add that the account of the external world contained in Chapter IV is a sort of realism also.

If this last variety, which I advocate, must be classified, let it be placed in the first broad class, for it teaches that we know the external world directly. But I sincerely hope that it will not be judged wholly by the company it keeps, and that no one will assign to it either virtues or defects to which it can lay no just claim.

Before leaving the subject of realism it is right that I should utter a note of warning touching one very common source of error. It is fatally easy for men to be misled by the names which are applied to things. Sir William Hamilton invented for a certain type of metaphysical doctrine the offensive epithet "nihilism." It is a type which appeals to many inoffensive and pious men at the present day, some of whom prefer to call themselves idealists. Many have been induced to become "free-willists" because the name has suggested to them a proper regard for that freedom which is justly dear to all men. We can scarcely approach with an open mind an account of ideas and sensations which we hear described as "sensationalism," or worse yet, as "sensualism." When a given type of philosophy is set down as "dogmatism," we involuntarily feel a prejudice against it.

He who reads as reflectively as he should will soon find out that philosophers "call names" much as other men do, and that one should always be on one's guard. "Every form of phenomenalism," asseverated a learned and energetic old gentleman, who for many years occupied a chair in one of our leading institutions of learning, "necessarily leads to atheism." He inspired a considerable number of students with such a horror for "phenomenalism" that they never took pains to find out what it was.

I mention these things in this connection, because I suspect that not a few in our own day are unduly influenced by the associations which cling to the words "realism" and "idealism." Realism in literature, as many persons understand it, means the degradation of literature to the portrayal of what is coarse and degrading, in a coarse and offensive way. Realism in painting often means the laborious representation upon canvas of things from which we would gladly avert our eyes if we met them in real life. With the word "idealism," on the other hand, we are apt to connect the possession of ideals, a regard for what is best and noblest in life and literature.

The reader must have seen that realism in the philosophic sense of the word has nothing whatever to do with realism in the senses just mentioned. The word is given a special meaning, and it is a weakness to allow associations drawn from other senses of the word to color our judgment when we use it.

And it should be carefully held in view that the word "idealism" is given a special sense when it is used to indicate a type of doctrine contrasted with the doctrine of the realist. Some forms of philosophical idealism have undoubtedly been inspiring; but some have been, and are, far from inspiring. They should not be allowed to posture as saints merely because they are cloaked with an ambiguous name.

53. IDEALISM.—Idealism we may broadly define as the doctrine that all existence is mental existence. So far from regarding the external world as beyond and independent of mind, it maintains that it can have its being only in consciousness.

We have seen (section 49) how men were led to take the step to idealism. It is not a step which the plain man is impelled to take without preparation. To say that the real world of things in which we perceive ourselves to live and move is a something that exists only in the mind strikes him as little better than insane. He who becomes an idealist usually does so, I think, after weighing the arguments presented by the hypothetical realist, and finding that they seem to carry one farther than the latter appears to recognize.

The type of idealism represented by Berkeley has been called Subjective Idealism. Ordinarily our use of the words "subjective" and "objective" is to call attention to the distinction between what belongs to the mind and what belongs to the external order of things. My sensations are subjective, they are referred to my mind, and it is assumed that they can have no existence except in my mind; the qualities of things are regarded as objective, that is, it is commonly believed that they exist independently of my perception of them.

Of course, when a man becomes an idealist, he cannot keep just this distinction. The question may, then, fairly be raised: How can he be a subjective idealist? Has not the word "subjective" lost its significance?

To this one has to answer: It has, and it has not. The man who, with strict consistency, makes the desk at which he sits as much his "idea" as is the pain in his finger or his memory of yesterday, cannot keep hold of the distinction of subjective and objective. But men are not always as consistent as this. Remember the illustration of the "telephone exchange" (section 14). The mind is represented as situated at the brain terminals of the sensory nerves; and then brain, nerves, and all else are turned into ideas in this mind, which are merely "projected outwards."

Now, in placing the mind at a definite location in the world, and contrasting it with the world, we retain the distinction between subjective and objective—what is in the mind can be distinguished from what is beyond it. On the other hand, in making the whole system of external things a complex of ideas in the mind, we become idealists, and repudiate realism. The position is an inconsistent one, of course, but it is possible for men to take it, for men have taken it often enough.

The idealism of Professor Pearson (section 14) is more palpably subjective than that of Berkeley, for the latter never puts the mind in a "telephone exchange." Nevertheless, he names the objects of sense, which other men call material things, "ideas," and he evidently assimilates them to what we commonly call ideas and contrast with things. Moreover, he holds them in some of the contempt which men reserve for "mere ideas," for he believes that idolaters might be induced to give over worshiping the heavenly bodies could they be persuaded that these are nothing more than their own ideas.

With the various forms of subjective idealism it is usual to contrast the doctrine of Objective Idealism. This does not maintain that the world which I perceive is my "idea"; it maintains that the world is "idea."

It is rather a nice question, and one which no man should decide without a careful examination of the whole matter, whether we have any right to retain the word "idea" when we have rubbed out the distinction which is usually drawn between ideas and external things. If we maintain that all men are always necessarily selfish, we stretch the meaning of the word quite beyond what is customary, and selfishness becomes a thing we have no reason to disapprove, since it characterizes saint and sinner alike. Similarly, if we decide to name "idea," not only what the plain man and the realist admit to have a right to that name, but also the great system which these men call an external material world, it seems right to ask; Why use the word "idea" at all? What does it serve to indicate? Not a distinction, surely, for the word seems to be applicable to all things without distinction.

Such considerations as these lead me to object to the expression "objective idealism": if the doctrine is really objective, i.e. if it recognizes a system of things different and distinct from what men commonly call ideas, it scarcely seems to have a right to the title idealism; and if it is really idealism, and does not rob the word idea of all significance, it can scarcely be objective in any proper sense of the word.

Manifestly, there is need of a very careful analysis of the meaning of the word "idea," and of the proper significance of the terms "subjective" and "objective," if error is to be avoided and language used soberly and accurately. Those who are not in sympathy with the doctrine of the objective idealists think that in such careful analysis and accurate statement they are rather conspicuously lacking.

We think of Hegel (1770-1831) as the typical objective idealist. It is not easy to give an accurate account of his doctrine, for he is far from a clear writer, and he has made it possible for his many admirers to understand him in many ways. But he seems to have accepted the system of things that most men call the real external world, and to have regarded it as the Divine Reason in its self-development. And most of those whom we would to-day be inclined to gather together under the title of objective idealists appear to have been much influenced, directly or indirectly, by his philosophy. There are, however, great differences of opinion among them, and no man should be made responsible for the opinions of the class as a class.

I have said a few pages back that some forms of idealism are inspiring, and that some are not.

Bishop Berkeley called the objects of sense ideas. He regarded all ideas as inactive, and thought that all changes in ideas—and this includes all the changes that take place in nature—must be referred to the activity of minds. Some of those changes he could refer to finite minds, his own and others. Most of them he could not, and he felt impelled to refer them to a Divine Mind. Hence, the world became to him a constant revelation of God; and he uses the word "God" in no equivocal sense. It does not signify to him the system of things as a whole, or an Unknowable, or anything of the sort. It signifies a spirit akin to his own, but without its limitations. He writes:[2]—

"A human spirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not being an idea; when, therefore, we see the color, size, figure, and motions of a man, we perceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own minds; and these being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct collections serve to mark out unto us the existence of finite and created spirits like ourselves. Hence, it is plain we do not see a man,—if by man is meant that which lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do,—but only such a certain collection of ideas as directs us to think there is a distinct principle of thought and motion, like to ourselves, accompanying and represented by it. And after the same manner we see God; all the difference is that, whereas some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a particular human mind, whithersoever we direct our view, we do at all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity—everything we see, hear, feel, or any wise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of the power of God; as is our perception of those very motions which are produced by men."

With Berkeley's view of the world as a constant revelation of God, many men will sympathize who have little liking for his idealism as idealism. They may criticise in detail his arguments to prove the nonexistence of a genuinely external world, but they will be ready to admit that his doctrine is an inspiring one in the view that it takes of the world and of man.

With this I wish to contrast the doctrine of another idealist, Mr. Bradley, whose work, "Appearance and Reality," has been much discussed in the last few years, in order that the reader may see how widely different forms of idealism may differ from each other, and how absurd it is to praise or blame a man's philosophy merely on the ground that it is idealistic.

Mr. Bradley holds that those aspects of our experience which we are accustomed to regard as real—qualities of things, the relations between things, the things themselves, space, time, motion, causation, activity, the self—turn out when carefully examined to be self-contradictory and absurd. They are not real; they are unrealities, mere appearances.

But these appearances exist, and, hence, must belong to reality. This reality must be sentient, for "there is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence."

Now, what is this reality with which appearances—the whole world of things which seem to be given in our experience—are contrasted? Mr. Bradley calls it the Absolute, and indicates that it is what other men recognize as the Deity. How shall we conceive it?

We are told that we are to conceive it as consisting of the contents of finite minds, or "centers of experience," subjected to "an all-pervasive transfusion with a reblending of all material." In the Absolute, finite things are "transmuted" and lose "their individual natures."

What does this mean in plain language? It means that there are many finite minds of a higher and of a lower order, "centers of experience," and that the contents of these are unreal appearances. There is not a God or Absolute outside of and distinct from these, but rather one that in some sense is their reality. This mass of unrealities transfused and transmuted so that no one of them retains its individual nature is the Absolute. That is to say, time must become indistinguishable from space, space from motion, motion from the self, the self from the qualities of things, etc., before they are fit to become constituents of the Absolute and to be regarded as real.

As the reader has seen, this Absolute has nothing in common with the God in which Berkeley believed, and in which the plain man usually believes. It is the night in which all cats are gray, and there appears to be no reason why any one should harbor toward it the least sentiment of awe or veneration.

Whether such reasonings as Mr. Bradley's should be accepted as valid or should not, must be decided after a careful examination into the foundations upon which they rest and the consistency with which inferences are drawn from premises. I do not wish to prejudge the matter. But it is worth while to set forth the conclusions at which he arrives, that it may be clearly realized that the associations which often hang about the word "idealism" should be carefully stripped away when we are forming our estimate of this or that philosophical doctrine.

[1] "Principles of Psychology," Part VII, Chapter VI, section 404.

[2] "Principles," section 148.