Studies in Logical Theory

by John Dewey

At this point we must revert to a suggestion which presented itself above in another connection, but which at the time could not be further developed. This was, in a word, that there is often a feeling of obtrusiveness in our appreciation of the objectivity of the things before us in ordinary sense-perception (or physical judgment) which is not unlike the felt insistence of remorse and grief.[123] This feeling is so conspicuous a feature of the state of consciousness in physical judgment as frequently to serve the plain man as his last and irrefragable evidence of the metaphysical independence of the material world, and it is indeed a feature whose explanation does throw much light upon the meaning of the consciousness of objectivity as a factor within experience. Now, there is another common feeling—or, as we do not scruple to call it, another emotion—which is perhaps quite as often appealed to in this way; though, as we believe, never in quite the same connection in any argument in which the two experiences are called upon to do service to the same end. Material objects, we are told, are reliable and stable as distinguished from the fleeting illusive images of a dream—they have a "solidity" in virtue of which one can "depend upon them," are "hard and fast" remaining faithfully where one deposits them for future use or, if they change and disappear, doing so in accordance with fixed laws which make the changes calculable in advance. The material realm is the realm of "solid fact" in which one can work with assurance that causes will infallibly produce their right and proper effects, and to which one willingly returns from the dream-world in which his adversary, the "idealist," would hold him spellbound. We propose now briefly to consider these two modes of apprehension of external physical reality in the light of the general analysis of judgment given above—from which it will appear that they are, psychologically, emotional expressions of what have been set forth as the essential features of the judgment-situation, whether in its physical, ethical, or economic forms. From this we shall argue that there should actually be in the ethical and economic spheres similar, or essentially identical, "emotions of reality," and we shall then proceed to verify the hypothesis by pointing to those ethical and economic experiences which answer the description.

We have seen that the center of attention or subject in the judgment-process is as such problematic—in the sense that there are certain of its observed and recognized attributes which make it in some sense relevant and useful to the purpose in hand, while yet other of its attributes (or absences of certain attributes) suggest conflicting activities. The object which one sees is certainly a stone and of convenient size for hurling at the pursuing animal. The situation has been analyzed and found to demand a missile, and this demand has led to search for and recognition of a stone. The stone, however, may be of a color suggesting a soft and crumbling texture, or its form may appear from a distance to be such as to make it practically certain to miss the mark, however carefully it may be aimed and thrown. Until these points of difficulty have been ascertained, the stone is wanting still in certain essential determinations. So far as it has been certainly determined, it prompts to the response directly suggested by one's general end of defense and escape, but there are these other indications which hold this response in check and which, if verified, will cause the stone to be let lie unused. Now, we have, in this situation of conflict or tension between opposed incitements given by the various discriminated characters of the object, the explanation of the aspect of obtrusiveness, of arbitrary resistance to and independence of one's will, which for the time being seems the unmistakable mark or coefficient of the thing's objectivity. For it is not the object as a whole that is obtrusive; indeed, clearly, there could be no obtrusiveness on the part of an "object as a whole," and in such a case there could also be no judgment. The obtrusion in the case before us is not a sense of the energy of a recalcitrant metaphysical object put forth upon a coerced and helpless human will, but simply a conscious interpretation of the inhibition of certain of the agent's motor tendencies by certain others prompted by the object's "suspicious" and as yet undetermined appearances or possible attributes. The object as amenable to use—those of its qualities which taken by themselves are unquestionable and clearly conducive to the agent's purpose—needs no attention for the moment, let us say. The attention is rather upon the dubious and to all appearance unfavorable qualities, and these for the time being make up the sum and content of the agent's knowledge of the object. On the other hand, the agent as an active self is identified with the end and with those modes of response to the object which promise to contribute directly to its realization. It is in this direction that his interest is set and he strains with all his powers of mind to move, and it is upon the self as identified with, and for the time being expressed in, the "effort of the agent's will" that the object as resistant, refusing to be misconstrued, obtrudes. One must see the object and must acknowledge its apparent, or in the end its ascertained, unfitness. One is "coerced." The situation is one of conflict, and it is out of the conflict that the essentially emotional experience of "resistance" emerges.[124] The more special emotions of impatience, anger, or discouragement may in a given case not be present or may be suppressed, but the emotion of objectivity will still remain.[125]

On the same general principles the other of our two coefficients of reality may be explained. Let us assume that the stone in our illustration has at last been cleared of all ambiguity in its suggestion, having been taken as a missile, and that the man in flight now holds it ready awaiting the most favorable moment for hurling it at his pursuer. It will hardly be maintained that under these conditions the coefficient of the stone's reality as an object consists in its obtrusiveness, in its resistance to or coercion of the self. The stone is now regarded as a fixed and determinate feature of the situation—a condition which can be counted on, whatever else may fail. Over against other still uncertain aspects of the situation (which are now in their turn real because resistant, coercive, and obtrusive) stands the stone as a reassuring fact upon and about which the agent can build up the whole plan of conduct which may, if all goes well, bring him safely out of his predicament. The stone has, so to speak, passed over to the "end" side of the situation, and although it may have to be rejected for some other means of defense, as the definition of the situation proceeds and the plan of action accordingly changes (as in some degree it probably must), nevertheless for the time being the imaged activities as stimulus to which the stone is now accepted are a fixed part of the plan and guide in further judgment of the means still undefined. The agent can hardly recur to the stone, when, after attending for a time to the bewildering perplexities of the situation, he pauses once more to take an inventory of his certain resources, without something of an emotional thrill of assurance and encouragement. In this emotional appreciation of the "solidity" and "dependability" of the object the second of our coefficients of reality consists. This might be termed the Recognition, the other the Perception, coefficient. Classifying them as emotions, because both are phenomena of tension in activity, we should group the Perception coefficient with emotions of the Contraction type, like grief and anger, and the Recognition coefficient with the Expansion emotions, like joy and triumph.

Now, in the foregoing interpretation no reference has been made to any conditions peculiar to the physical type of judgment-situation. The ground of explanation has been the feature of arrest of activity for the sake of reconstruction, and this, if our analyses have been correct, is the essence of the ethical and economic situations as well as of the physical. Can there then be found in these two spheres experiences of the same nature and emerging under the same general conditions as our Perception and Recognition coefficients of reality? If so, then our case for the objective significance and value of ethical and economic judgment is in so far strengthened. (1) In the first place, then, the object in its economic character is problematic, assuming a desire on the agent's part to apply it, as means, to some new or freshly interesting end, because it has already been, and accordingly now is, set apart for other uses and cannot thoughtlessly be withdrawn from them. Extended illustration is not needed to remind one that these established and hitherto unquestioned uses will haunt the economic conscience as obtrusively and inhibit the desired course of economic conduct with as much energy of resistance as in the other case will any of the contrary promptings of a physical object. Moreover, the Recognition coefficient may as easily be identified in this connection. If one's scruples gain the day, in such a case one has at least a sense of comforting assurance in the conservatism of his choice and its accordance with the facts, however unreconciled in another way one may be to the deprivation that has thus seemed to be necessary. If, however, the new end in a measure makes good its case and the modes of expenditure which the "scruples" represented have been readjusted in accordance with it, then the means, no less than before the new interpretation had been placed upon them, will enjoy the status of Reality in the economic sense. They will be real now, however, not in the obtrusive way, as presenting aspects which inhibit the leading tendency in the judgment-process, but, instead, as means having a fixed and certain character in one's economic life, which, after the hesitation and doubt just now superseded, one may safely count upon and will do well to keep in view henceforth. (2) In the second place, mere mention of the corresponding ethical experiences must suffice, since only extended illustration from literature and life would be fully adequate: on the one hand, the "still small voice" of Conscience or the authoritativeness of Duty, "stern daughter of the voice of God;" and, on the other, the restful assurance with which, from the vantage-ground of a satisfying decision, one may look back in wonder at the possibility of so serious a temptation or in rejoicing over the new-won freedom from a burdensome and repressive prejudice.

This must for the present serve as positive exposition of our view as to the objective significance of the valuational types of judgment. There are certain essential points which have as yet not been touched upon, and there are certain objections to the general view the consideration of which will serve further to explain it; but the discussion of these various matters will more conveniently follow the special analysis of the valuational judgments, to which we shall now proceed.

IV

In the last analysis the ultimate motive of all reflective thought is the progressive determination of the ends of conduct. Physical judgment, or, in psychological terms, reflective attention to objects in the physical world, is at every turn directed and controlled by reference to a gradually developing purpose, so that the process may also be described as one of bringing to fulness of definition an at first vaguely conceived purpose through ascertainment and determination of the means at hand. The problematic situation in which reflection takes its rise inevitably develops in this two-sided way into consciousness of a definite end on the one side, and of the means or conditions of attaining it on the other.

It has been shown that there may be involved in any finally satisfactory determination of a situation an explicit reflection upon and definition of the controlling end which is present and gives point and direction to the physical determination. But very often such is not the case. When a child sees a bright object at a distance and makes toward it, availing himself more or less skilfully of such assistance as intervening articles of furniture may afford, there is of course no consciousness on his part of any definite purpose as such, and this is to say that the child does not subject his conduct to criticism from the standpoint of the value or its ends. There is simply strong desire for the distant red ball, controlling all the child's movements for the time being and prompting a more or less critical inspection of the intervening territory with reference to the easiest way of crossing it. The purpose is implicitly accepted, not explicitly determined, as a preliminary to physical determination of the situation. If one may speak of a development of the purpose in such a case as this, one must say that the development into details comes through judgment of the environing conditions. To change the illustration in order not to commit ourselves to the ascription of too developed a faculty of judgment to the child, this is true likewise of any process of reflective attention in the mind of an adult in which a general purpose is accepted at the outset and is carried through to execution without reflection upon its ethical or economic character as a purpose. The specific purpose as executed is certainly not the same as the general purpose with which the reflective process took its rise. It is filled out with details, or may perhaps even be quite different in its general outlines. There has necessarily been development and perhaps even transformation, but our contention is that all this has been effected in and through a process of judgment in which the conditions of action, and not the purpose itself, have been the immediate objects of determination. Upon these the attention has been centered, though of course the attention was directed to them by the purpose. To state the case in logical terms, it has been only through selection and determination of the means and conditions of action from the standpoint of predicates suggested by the general purpose accepted at the outset that this purpose itself had been rendered definite and practical and possible of execution. Probably such cases are seldom to be found in the adult experience. As a rule, the course of physical or technological judgment will almost always bring to light implications involved in the accepted purpose which must inevitably raise ethical and economic questions; and the resolution of these latter will in turn afford new points of view for further physical determination of the situation. In such processes the logical points of the problem of ethical and economic valuation come clearly into view.

In our earlier account of the matter it was more convenient to use language which implied that ethical and economic judgment must be preceded by implicit or explicit acceptance of a definite situation presented in sense-perception, and that these evaluating judgments could be carried through to their goal only upon the basis of such an inventory of fixed conditions. Thus the ultimate ethical quality of the general purpose of building a house would seem to depend upon the precise form which this purpose comes to assume after the actual presence and the quality of the means of building have been ascertained and the economic bearings of the proposed expenditure have been considered. Surely it is a waste of effort to debate with oneself upon the ethical rightness of a project which is physically impossible or else out of the question from the economic point of view. We are, however, now in a position to see that this way of looking at the matter is both inaccurate and self-contradictory. In the actual development of our purposes there is no such orderly and inflexible arrangement of stages; and if it is a waste of effort to deliberate upon a purpose that is physically impossible, it may, with still greater force, be argued that we cannot find, and judge the fitness of, the necessary physical means until we know what, precisely, it is that we wish to do. The truth is that there is constant interplay and interaction between the various phases of the inclusive judgment-process, or rather, more than this, that there is a complete and thoroughgoing mutual implication. It is indeed true that our ethical purposes cannot take form in a vacuum apart from consideration of their physical and economic possibility, but it is also true that our physical and economic problems are ultimately meaningless and impossible, whether of statement or of solution, except as they are interpreted as arising in the course of ethical conflict.

We have, then, to do, in the present division, with situations in which, whether at the outset or from time to time during the course of the reflective process, there is explicit conflict between ends of conduct. These situations are the special province of the judgment of valuation. Our line of argument may be briefly indicated in advance as follows: