An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

Can we say that this world is always to be regarded as reality and never as appearance? We have already seen (section 8) that science does not regard as anything more than appearance the real things which seem to be directly presented in our experience.

This pen that I hold in my hand seems, as I pass my fingers over it, to be continuously extended. It does not appear to present an alternation of filled spaces and empty spaces. I am told that it is composed of molecules in rapid motion and at considerable distances from one another. I am further told that each molecule is composed of atoms, and is, in its turn, not a continuous thing, but, so to speak, a group of little things.

If I accept this doctrine, as it seems I must, am I not forced to conclude that the reality which is given in my experience, the reality with which I have contrasted appearances and to which I have referred them, is, after all, itself only an appearance? The touch things which I have hitherto regarded as the real things that make up the external world, the touch things for which all my visual experiences have served as signs, are, then, not themselves real external things, but only the appearances under which real external things, themselves imperceptible, manifest themselves to me.

It seems, then, that I do not directly perceive any real thing, or, at least, anything that can be regarded as more than an appearance. What, then, is the external world? What are things really like? Can we give any true account of them, or are we forced to say with the skeptics that we only know how things seem to us, and must abandon the attempt to tell what they are really like?

Now, before one sets out to answer a question it is well to find out whether it is a sensible question to ask and a sensible question to try to answer. He who asks: Where is the middle of an infinite line? When did all time begin? Where is space as a whole? does not deserve a serious answer to his questions. And it is well to remember that he who asks: What is the external world like? must keep his question a significant one, if he is to retain his right to look for an answer at all. He has manifestly no right to ask us: How does the external world look when no one is looking? How do things feel when no one feels them? How shall I think of things, not as I think of them, but as they are?

If we are to give an account of the external world at all, it must evidently be an account of the external world; i.e. it must be given in terms of our experience of things. The only legitimate problem is to give a true account instead of a false one, to distinguish between what only appears and is not real and what both appears and is real.

Bearing this in mind, let us come back to the plain man's experience of the world. He certainly seems to himself to perceive a real world of things, and he constantly distinguishes, in a way very serviceable to himself, between the merely apparent and the real. There is, of course, a sense in which every experience is real; it is, at least, an experience; but when he contrasts real and apparent he means something more than this. Experiences are not relegated to this class or to that merely at random, but the final decision is the outcome of a long experience of the differences which characterize different individual experiences and is an expression of the relations which are observed to hold between them. Certain experiences are accepted as signs, and certain others come to take the more dignified position of thing signified; the mind rests in them and regards them as the real.

We have seen above that the world of real things in which the plain man finds himself is a world of objects revealed in experiences of touch. When he asks regarding anything: How far away is it? How big is it? In what direction is it? it is always the touch thing that interests him. What is given to the other senses is only a sign of this.

We have also seen (section 8) that the world of atoms and molecules of which the man of science tells us is nothing more than a further development of the world of the plain man. The real things with which science concerns itself are, after all, only minute touch things, conceived just as are the things with which the plain man is familiar. They exist in space and move about in space, as the things about us are perceived to exist in space and move about in space. They have size and position, and are separated by distances. We do not perceive them, it is true; but we conceive them after the analogy of the things that we do perceive, and it is not inconceivable that, if our senses were vastly more acute, we might perceive them directly.

Now, when we conclude that the things directly perceptible to the sense of touch are to be regarded as appearances, as signs of the presence of these minuter things, do we draw such a conclusion arbitrarily? By no means. The distinction between appearance and reality is drawn here just as it is drawn in the world of our common everyday experiences. The great majority of the touch things about us we are not actually touching at any given moment. We only see the things, i.e. we have certain signs of their presence. None the less we believe that the things exist all the time. And in the same way the man of science does not doubt the existence of the real things of which he speaks; he perceives their signs. That certain experiences are to be taken as signs of such realities he has established by innumerable observations and careful deductions from those observations. To see the full force of his reasonings one must read some work setting forth the history of the atomic theory.