What does the internal evidence prove? The analysis of thought contained in James's chapter on "Reasoning" in the Principles of Psychology has been the guide for Dewey and other pragmatists in this connection.[285] James undertakes to show that reasoning is marked off from other processes by the employment of analysis, abstraction, and the use of mediating terms. It must be urged here, not only against James, but against a considerable modern tradition, that this account of thinking is misleading and inaccurate. The question to be faced, of course, is whether the processes of thought differ radically from the non-reflective processes in kind, or whether they are simply the intensification of processes which attend all conscious life. It should be noted that no concession is made to the notion that thinking is a special kind of process; only its subject-matter is special, or else thought is simply a period of wide-awakeness and alertness. In the latter sense, thought involves an intensification of the powers of observation, an awakening of memory, a general stimulation of all the faculties. It calls for the fullest possible apprehension, demands the most complete insight into the nature of the situation that the capacities can provide. The contrast between the adequate view of reality achieved in this manner and the common and inadequate apprehension of ordinary life is very great, and might easily lead to the supposition that thinking (so understood) contains elements which are added through the activities of a special nerve process.
But is it only in such moments that we deliberately resolve a situation into its elements, and abstract an 'essence' to serve as a middle term in inference? It is certain that at such moments these processes are more distinct than at other times; but the whole situation, for that matter, stands out more clearly and distinctly. Perception is keener, memory more definite, feeling more intense. In less degree, however, all attention involves analysis and abstraction. Experience has always a focus and a margin; there is a constant selecting and analyzing out of important elements, which in turn lead to further conclusions and acts, through associations by contiguity and similarity. This process appears in an intensified form in the high moments of life. In short, thought and passive perception are differentiated, not by the elements which compose them, but by the degree of energy that goes into perception, memory, feeling, and discrimination. There is nothing in the evidence to show that thinking is a special kind of activity, which operates now and then. On the contrary, there is every reason to hold to the position that the life processes are one and inseparable, operating continually in conjunction.
What shall be said, then, with reference to the assertion that thought operates in the interests of the non-cognitive life processes? That it comes 'after something and for the sake of something,' namely, 'direct' experience? Since the separation of the activities into various 'functions' cannot be allowed, by occasional thought must then be meant those moments of energetic aliveness described above. Translating, Dewey's theory would read something like this: Man employs his faculties to the fullest extent only when he is compelled to do so. He gets along habitually, that is, with a minimum of effort, as long as he can, but rouses himself and makes an earnest effort to comprehend the world only when his environment presents him with difficulties which demand solution. The test of man's thinking consists in its efficiency in getting him out of trouble, and enabling him to return to his habitual modes of sub-conscious conduct with a minimum of annoyance. In short, thinking is an instrument which subserves man's natural laziness, and its test is the efficiency with which it promotes an easy, or, at any rate, a satisfactory mode of existence.
No doubt some men, perhaps many men, do follow such a programme; but it would not be kind to Nature to assert that she planned it so.
This separation of the activities of life into several distinct processes having each a special function looks like a survival of the old faculty psychology, against which modern thought has protested as much as against anything whatever. The conception of the organic processes as separate in action has all the faults of a merely mechanical representation of consciousness. Doubtless some advantage is to be obtained, for purposes of investigation, by treating thought, appreciation, and affection separately; but it is a serious error to take this provisional distinction as real. It is a curious fact that Dewey, with all his opposition to such modes of procedure, himself falls into this abstract way of treating the 'functions' of experience, seeing not the beam that is in his own eye.
It is this very form of treatment, strangely enough, which enables Dewey to call biology to the support of his interpretation of the function of knowledge. According to the Darwinian theory, survival of the species is dependent upon the development of special structures and capacities which enable the organism to adjust itself to its environment. Dewey finds, following a familiar argument, that the lower animals are adapted to their environment by special habits of reaction which are relatively fixed and inelastic. Man, on the contrary, has an exceedingly plastic nervous system, which enables him to meet changing conditions. Man is not only highly adapted, but highly adaptable. This trait of plasticity, or adaptability, Dewey believes, is a product of natural selection, and, of course, in the final analysis, this high degree of plasticity is the thought function.
It is scarcely necessary to say that this treatment of thought is highly speculative. Dewey offers little concrete evidence to support his position; indeed, it would require the labor of a Darwin to supply the needed evidence. Instead of grounding his theories upon the results of science, Dewey adapts the ever elastic 'evolutionary method' (not really that of biological evolution, however indeterminate) to his own scheme of things. It would be hard to discover in philosophical literature a method more purely theoretical and even dialectical than that whereby Dewey gives his logical theory the support of evolutionary theory.
The ultimately mechanical tendencies of his argument are conspicuous, in spite of all disclaimers. The effect of his analysis is to set plasticity or adaptability off by itself, as a special trait or feature of the nervous system. The lower forms of life are governed, we are told, by fixed reflexes, and the trait of adaptability appears at some higher stage in the process as a superadded capacity of the nervous system, correlated, no doubt, with special nervous structures. Evolutionism would not serve Dewey so well, had he not previously made this separation between the organic functions and their correlated structures; but, given this abstract treatment of the life processes, he is able to make the doctrine of selection contribute to its support. In opposition to Dewey's argument, it would be reasonable to contend that plasticity is inherent in all nervous substance. The higher organisms are more adaptable, because there is more to be modified in them,—more nerves and synapses, more pliability. There is no sound empirical reason for accepting Dewey's biological conclusions.
Taking Dewey's theory at its face value,—and it would be presumptuous to search for hidden meanings,—its net result is to place the function of knowing in an embarrassing situation with respect to its capacity for giving a correct report of reality. Dewey expressly denies, indeed, that the purpose of knowing is to give an account of the nature of things. Reality, he asserts, is whatever it is 'experienced as being,' and it is normally experienced in other ways than by being known. The nature of reality is not hidden behind a veil, to be searched out; but is here and now, as it comes and goes in the form of passing experience. Knowing is designed to transform experience, not to bring it within the survey of consciousness.