The Control of Ideas by Facts

Essays in Experimental Logic, by John Dewey is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter VIII: The Control of Ideas by Facts

There is something a little baffling in much of the current discussion regarding the reference of ideas to facts. The not uncommon assumption is that there was a satisfactory and consistent theory of their relation in existence prior to the somewhat impertinent intrusion of a functional and practical interpretation of them. The way the instrumental logician has been turned upon by both idealist and realist is suggestive of the way in which the outsider who intervenes in a family jar is proverbially treated by both husband and wife, who manifest their unity by berating the third party.

I feel that the situation is due partly to various misapprehensions, inevitable perhaps in the first presentation of a new point of view[52] and multiplied in this instance by the coincidence of the presentation of this logical point of view with that of the larger philosophical movements, humanism and pragmatism. I wish here to undertake a summary statement of the logical view on its own account, hoping it may receive clearer understanding on its own merits.

In the first place it was (apart from the frightful confusion of logical theories) precisely the lack of an adequate and generally accepted theory of the nature of fact and idea, and of the kind of agreement or correspondence between them which constitutes the truth of the idea, that led to the development of a functional theory of logic. A brief statement of the difficulties in the traditional views may therefore be pertinent. That fruitful thinking—thought that terminates in valid knowledge—goes on in terms of the distinction of facts and judgment, and that valid knowledge is precisely genuine correspondence or agreement, of some sort, of fact and judgment, is the common and undeniable assumption. But the discussions are largely carried on in terms of an epistemological dualism, rendering the solution of the problem impossible in virtue of the very terms in which it is stated. The distinction is at once identified with that between mind and matter, consciousness and objects, the psychical and the physical, where each of these terms is supposed to refer to some fixed order of existence, a world in itself. Then, of course, there comes up the question of the nature of the agreement, and of the recognition of it. What is the experience in which the survey of both idea and existence is made and their agreement recognized? Is it an idea? Is the agreement ultimately a matter of self-consistency of ideas? Then what has become of the postulate that truth is agreement of idea with existence beyond idea?[232] Is it an absolute which transcends and absorbs the difference? Then, once more, what is the test of any specific judgment? What has become of the correspondence of fact and thought? Or, more urgently, since the pressing problem of life, of practice and of science, is the discrimination of the relative, or superior, validity of this or that theory, plan, or interpretation, what is the criterion of truth within present non-absolutistic experience, where the distinction between factual conditions and thoughts and the necessity of some working adjustment persist?

Putting the problem in yet another way, either both fact and idea are present all the time or else only one of them is present. But if the former, why should there be an idea at all, and why should it have to be tested by the fact? When we already have what we want, namely, existence, reality, why should we take up the wholly supernumerary task of forming more or less imperfect ideas of those facts, and then engage in the idle performance of testing them by what we already know to be? But if only ideas are present, it is idle to speak of comparing an idea with facts and testing its validity by its agreement. The elaboration and refinement of ideas to the uttermost still leaves us with an idea, and while a self-consistent idea stands a show of being true in a way in which an incoherent one does not, a self-consistent idea is still but a hypothesis, a candidate for truth. Ideas are not made true by getting bigger. But if[233] only 'facts' are present, the whole conception of agreement is once more given up—not to mention that such a situation is one in which there is by definition no thinking or reflective factor at all.

This suggests that a strictly monistic epistemology, whether idealistic or realistic, does not get rid of the problem. Suppose for example we take a sensationalistic idealism. It does away with the ontological gulf between ideas and facts, and by reducing both terms to a common denominator seems to facilitate fruitful discussion of the problem. But the problem of the distinction and reference (agreement, correspondence) of two types or sorts of sensations still persists. If I say the box there is square, and call "box" one of a group of ideas or sensations and "square" another sensation or "idea," the old question comes up: Is "square" already a part of the "facts" of the box, or is it not? If it is, it is a supernumerary, an idle thing, both as an idea and as an assertion of fact; if it is not, how can we compare the two ideas, and what on earth or in heaven does their agreement or correspondence mean? If it means simply that we experience the two "sensations" in juxtaposition, then the same is true, of course, of any casual association or hallucination. On the sensational basis, accordingly, there is still a distinction of something "given," "there," brutally factual, the box, and something else which stands on a different level, ideal, absent, intended, demanded, the "square," which is asserted[234] to hold good or be true of the thing "box." The fact that both are sensations throws no light on the logical validity of any proposition or belief, because by theory a like statement holds of every possible proposition.[53]

The same problem recurs on a realistic basis. For example, there has recently been propounded[54] the doctrine of the distinction between relations of space and time and relations of meaning or significance, as a key to the problem of knowledge. Things exist in their own characters, in their temporal and spatial relations. When knowledge intervenes, there is nothing new of a subjective or psychical sort, but simply a new relation of the things—the suggesting or signifying of one thing by another. Now this seems [235]to be an excellent way of stating the logical problem, but, I take it, it states and does not solve. For the characteristic of such situations, claiming to terminate in knowledge, is precisely that the meaning-relation is predicated of the other relations; it is referred to them; it is not simply a supervention existing side by side with them, like casual suggestions or the play of phantasy. It is something which the facts, the qualitative space and time things, must bear the burden of, must accept and take unto themselves as part of themselves. Until this happens, we have only "thinking," not accomplished knowledge. Hence, logically, the existential relations play the rôle of fact, and the relation of signification that of idea,[55] distinguished from fact and yet, if valid, to hold of fact.

This appears quite clearly in the following quotation: "It is the ice which means that it will cool the water, just as much as it is the ice which does cool the water when put into it." There is, however, a possible ambiguity in the statement, to which we shall return later. That the "ice" (the thing regarded as ice) suggests cooling is as real as is a case of actual cooling. But, of course, not every suggestion is valid. The "ice" may be a crystal, and it will not [236]cool water at all. So far as it is already certain that this is ice, and also certain that ice, under all circumstances, cools water, the meaning-relation stands on the same level as the physical, being not merely suggested, but part of the facts ascertained. It is not a meaning-relation as such at all. We already have truth; the entire work of knowing as logical is done; we have no longer the relation characteristic of reflective situations. Here again the implication of the thinking situation is of some "correspondence" or "agreement" between two sets of distinguished relations; the problem of valid determination remains the central question of any theory of knowing in its relation to facts and truth.[56]

I hope this statement of the difficulty, however inadequate, will serve at least to indicate that a functional logic inherits the problem in question and does not create it; that it has never for a moment denied the prima facie working distinction between "ideas," "thoughts," "meanings," and "facts," "existences," "the environment," nor the necessity of a control of meaning by facts. It is concerned not with denying, but with understanding. What is denied is not the genuineness of the problem of the [237]terms in which it is stated, but the reality and value of the orthodox interpretation. What is insisted upon is the relative, instrumental, or working character of the distinction—that it is a logical distinction, instituted and maintained in the interests of intelligence, with all that intelligence imports in the exercise of the life functions. To this positive side I now turn.

In the analysis it may prove convenient to take an illustration of a man lost in the woods, taking this case as typical of any reflective situation in so far as it involves perplexity—a problem to be solved. The problem is to find a correct idea of the way home—a practical idea or plan of action which will lead to success, or the realization of the purpose to get home. Now the critics of the experimental theory of logic make the point that this practical idea, the truth of which is evidenced in the successful meeting of a need, is dependent for its success upon a purely presentative idea, that of the existent environment, whose validity has nothing to do with success but depends on agreement with the given state of affairs. It is said that what makes a man's idea of his environment true is its agreement with the actual environment, and "generally a true idea in any situation consists in its agreement with reality." I have already indicated my acceptance of this formula. But it was long my misfortune not to be possessed offhand of those perfectly clear notions of just what is meant[238] in this formula by the terms "idea," "existence," and "agreement" which are possessed by other writers on epistemology; and when I analyzed these notions I found the distinction between the practical idea and the theoretical not fixed nor final, and I found a somewhat startling similarity between the notions of "success" and "agreement."

Just what is the environment of which an idea is to be formed: i.e., what is the intellectual content or objective detail to be assigned to the term "environment"? It can hardly mean the actual visible environment—the trees, rocks, etc., which a man is actually looking at. These things are there and it seems superfluous to form an idea of them; moreover, the wayfaring man, though lost, would have to be an unusually perverse fool if under such circumstances he were unable to form an idea (supposing he chose to engage in this luxury) in agreement with these facts. The environment must be a larger environment than the visible facts; it must include things not within the direct ken of the lost man; it must, for instance, extend from where he is now to his home, or to the point from which he started. It must include unperceived elements in their contrast with the perceived. Otherwise the man would not be lost. Now we are at once struck with the facts that the lost man has no alternative except either to wander aimlessly or else to conceive this inclusive environment; and that this conception is just what is meant by[239] idea. It is not some little psychical entity or piece of consciousness-stuff, but is the interpretation of the locally present environment in reference to its absent portion, that part to which it is referred as another part so as to give a view of a whole. Just how such an idea would differ from one's plan of action in finding one's way, I do not know. For one's plan (if it be really a plan, a method) is a conception of what is given in its hypothetical relations to what is not given, employed as a guide to that act which results in the absent being also given. It is a map constructed with one's self lost and one's self found, whether at starting or at home again, as its two limits. If this map in its specific character is not also the only guide to the way home, one's only plan of action, then I hope I may never be lost. It is the practical facts of being lost and desiring to be found which constitute the limits and the content of the "environment."

Then comes the test of agreement of the idea and the environment. Supposing the individual stands still and attempts to compare his idea with the reality, with what reality is he to compare it? Not with the presented reality, for that reality is the reality of himself lost; not with the complete reality, for at this stage of proceedings he has only the idea to stand for the complete theory. What kind of comparison is possible or desirable then, save to treat the mental layout of the whole situation as a working hypothesis,[240] as a plan of action, and proceed to act upon it, to use it as a director and controller of one's divagations instead of stumbling blindly around until one is either exhausted or accidentally gets out? Now suppose one uses the idea—that is to say, the present facts projected into a whole in the light of absent facts—as a guide of action. Suppose, by means of its specifications, one works one's way along until one comes upon familiar ground—finds one's self. Now, one may say, my idea was right, it was in accord with facts; it agrees with reality. That is, acted upon sincerely, it has led to the desired conclusion; it has, through action, worked out the state of things which it contemplated or intended. The agreement, correspondence, is between purpose, plan, and its own execution, fulfillment; between a map of a course constructed for the sake of guiding behavior and the result attained in acting upon the indications of the map. Just how does such agreement differ from success?