The Meaning of Truth | Page 6

moment of consciousness either preceding or following it.
Well now, can our little feeling, thus left alone in the universe,-- for the
god and we psychological critics may be supposed left out of the
account,--can the feeling, I say, be said to have any sort of a cognitive
function? For it to KNOW, there must be something to be known. What
is there, on the present supposition? One may reply, 'the feeling's
content q.' But does it not seem more proper to call this the feeling's
QUALITY than its content? Does not the word 'content' suggest that
the feeling has already dirempted itself as an act from its content as an
object? And would it be quite safe to assume so promptly that the
quality q of a feeling is one and the same thing with a feeling of the
quality q? The quality q, so far, is an entirely subjective fact which the
feeling carries so to speak endogenously, or in its pocket. If any one
pleases to dignify so simple a fact as this by the name of knowledge, of
course nothing can prevent him. But let us keep closer to the path of
common usage, and reserve the name knowledge for the cognition of
'realities,' meaning by realities things that exist independently of the
feeling through which their cognition occurs. If the content of the
feeling occur nowhere in the universe outside of the feeling itself, and
perish with the feeling, common usage refuses to call it a reality, and
brands it as a subjective feature of the feeling's constitution, or at the
most as the feeling's DREAM.
For the feeling to be cognitive in the specific sense, then, it must be
self-transcendent; and we must prevail upon the god to CREATE A
REALITY OUTSIDE OF IT to correspond to its intrinsic quality Q.
Thus only can it be redeemed from the condition of being a solipsism.
If now the new created reality RESEMBLE the feeling's quality Q I say
that the feeling may be held by us TO BE COGNIZANT OF THAT
REALITY.

This first instalment of my thesis is sure to be attacked. But one word
before defending it 'Reality' has become our warrant for calling a
feeling cognitive; but what becomes our warrant for calling anything
reality? The only reply is--the faith of the present critic or inquirer. At
every moment of his life he finds himself subject to a belief in SOME
realities, even though his realities of this year should prove to be his
illusions of the next. Whenever he finds that the feeling he is studying
contemplates what he himself regards as a reality, he must of course
admit the feeling itself to be truly cognitive. We are ourselves the
critics here; and we shall find our burden much lightened by being
allowed to take reality in this relative and provisional way. Every
science must make some assumptions. Erkenntnisstheoretiker are but
fallible mortals. When they study the function of cognition, they do it
by means of the same function in themselves. And knowing that the
fountain cannot go higher than its source, we should promptly confess
that our results in this field are affected by our own liability to err. THE
MOST WE CAN CLAIM IS, THAT WHAT WE SAY ABOUT
COGNITION MAY BE COUNTED AS TRUE AS WHAT WE SAY
ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE. If our hearers agree with us about what
are to be held 'realities,' they will perhaps also agree to the reality of
our doctrine of the way in which they are known. We cannot ask for
more.
Our terminology shall follow the spirit of these remarks. We will deny
the function of knowledge to any feeling whose quality or content we
do not ourselves believe to exist outside of that feeling as well as in it.
We may call such a feeling a dream if we like; we shall have to see
later whether we can call it a fiction or an error.
To revert now to our thesis. Some persons will immediately cry out,
'How CAN a reality resemble a feeling?' Here we find how wise we
were to name the quality of the feeling by an algebraic letter Q. We
flank the whole difficulty of resemblance between an inner state and an
outward reality, by leaving it free to any one to postulate as the reality
whatever sort of thing he thinks CAN resemble a feeling,--if not an
outward thing, then another feeling like the first one,--the mere feeling
Q in the critic's mind for example. Evading thus this objection, we turn

to another which is sure to be urged.
It will come from those philosophers to whom 'thought,' in the sense of
a knowledge of relations, is the all in all of mental life; and who