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A Hundred Years of Philosophy A HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY John Passmore -*"1 t,. I tq." I t' )l i PENGUINBOOKS -./ ('t ("(-^ ,l THE NEW REALISTS CHAPTER 11 pcriencedepends for its existenceupon the fact that it is experi- onccd was to be the most characteristic feature of the New The New Realists llcnlism. The secondaryqualities, Stout had also said, exist only as objccts of experience.If we look at a buttercup in a variety of years present IN the early of the century, it could no longer bc lightswe seedifferent shades ofcolour, without havingany reason presufned that Realism was intellectually disreputable,a mero to believethat the buttercup itself has altered; if a number of vulgar prejudice. What a mind knows, Brentano and Meinong observersplunge their hands into a bowl of water, they will report had argued,exists independently of the act by which it is known; vcry different degrees of warmth, even although nothing has Mach, and James after him - if they were still, from a Realist Iruppenedwhich could affect the water's temperature. Such facts point tainted of view, with subjectivism- had at least denied that dcmonstrate,Stout thought, that secondaryqualities exist only as what is immediately perceived is a state of mind; and then 'scnsa'- objectsof our perception;they are not actualproperties Moore, seconded by Russell, had rejected that thesis which of physicalobjects. Idealistslike phenomenalists Bradleyand like Mill had united in Nunn'sreply is uncompromising.The contrastbetween 'sensa' regarding as indisputable: that the existenceof objects of percep- and 'actual properties'is, he argues,an untenableone. All the tion consists the perceived. in fact that they are The 'New Real. nhadesof colour which the buttercuppresents to an observerare ism' brought togetherthese converging tendencies; it owedmuch uctual properties of the buttercup; and all the hotnessesof the to Meinong, more to Mach and James,and it acknowledgedtho w&terare propertiesof the water.The plain man and the scientist help Moore of and Russellin the battle againstIdealism. rscribea standardtemperature and a standardcolour to a thing The first, in England, to formulate the characteristic doctrinct nnd limit it to a certain region of space,because its complexity of the New Realismwas T. P. Nunn.l Best known as an educa. wouldotherwise defeat them. The fact remains,Nunn argues,that tionalist, Nunn wrote little philosophy, on but that little had an o thinghas not onehotness, for example,but many,and that these influence out of proportion all to its modest dimensions. In hotnessesare not in a limited regionof spacebut in variousplaces particular, his contribution to a symposiumon 'Are Secondary aroundabout the standardobject. A thing is hotter an inch away Independent Qualities of Perception?'2 was widely studied both than a foot away and hotter on a cold hand than on a warrn one, in England where,as we have alreadynoted, it struck Bertrand just as it is a paleryellow in one lieht than it is in another light. Russell'sroving fancy, and in the United States.Nunn there sus- To imagineotherwise is to confusebetween the arbitrary'thing' tained two theses:(l) that primary both the and the secondary of everyday life rand the 'thing' as experience shows it to qualitiesof really in perceived bodiesare them, whetherthey are be. not; (2) qualities perceived. or that exist as they are In Nunn's theory of perception,then, the ordinary conception Much of his argumentis polemical in form, with Stout'searlier of a material thing is revolutionized; that is the price he has to artidesr as its chief target. Stout had thought he could begin by payfor his Realism.A 'thing', now, is a colleclionof appearances' presuming that there are at least someelements in our experience evenifevery appeaxanceis independentofthe mind beforewhich which existonly in perceived pain. being - he instanced But Nunn it appears.Nunn's realism, at this point, is very like Mach's pain, precisely objects that in the manner of a material object, phenomenalism.The sameis true of American New Realism. presentsdifficulties us, path, to raisesobstacles in our is, in short, Scottish 'common-sensephilosophy', as we have already ob- somethingwe must reckon with. 'Pain,' he thereforeconcludes, served, dominated the American Universities during the greater something my 'is outside mind, with which my mind may como part of the nineteenthcentury; nor was it entirely swept out of into various relations.' A refusal to admit that anything wo €x- existenceeither by James'spragmatism or by Royce's idealism. 258 259 A HUNDREDYEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NBW REALISTS Peirce, to take the most notable case, continued to admire that contributions by E. B. Holt, W. T. Marvin, W. P. Montague, .critical 'subtle and well-balanced intellect, Thomas Reid'; his R. B. Perry, W. B. Pitkin and E. G. Spaulding. commonsensism'aowed much to Reid and his school. When The New Realismis the Realist equivalent of ldealism's Essays Peirce criticized Reid, furthermore, it was from a Realist point ln Philosophical Criticism. A number of philosophers, by no of view; Reid, he complained,had not wholly shakenhimself free nrcansunanimous on everypoint, felt that they had in commona .W€ from the Cartesian doctrine of representative perception. nrethodof approachto philosophy,with the help of which they have direct experienceof things in themselves,,peirce wrote in couldsatisfy their diverseaims. A manifesto,6it beginswith a long 1896.'Nothing can be more completelyfalse than that we can cxplanatory preface and ends with a series of brief policy- experienceonly our own ideas. That is indeed without exaggera- speeches.The world of philosophy could no longer pretend tion the very epitome of all falsity.' ignorance of the fact that a new and revolutionary spirit of The American tendency towards Realism, however, had been Itcalism was abroad. vigorously opposed by Royce rn The World and the Individaal ln many respects,however, The New Realism had little to add (1900). Realism was there defined as, above all, a defenceof in- exceptliveliness of statementto Moore's Refutationof ldealism. dependence,and Roycecriticized it as such.'The world of fact,, In other ways,again - in maintaining,for example,that philos- Roycedescribes the Realistas maintaining, 'is independentof our ophy is'peculiarly dependentupon logic' and in defendingthe knowledgeof that world . the vanishingof our mindsfrom that validity ofanalysis againstthe Idealist doctrine that'the truth is world would make no difference in the being of the independent the whole'- the New Realismis mainly important as a medium facts we know.' Royce's counter-argument, lengthy, robust and tlrrough which Russell'sconception of phllosophy was natural- ingenious, is designedto show that if independenceis ultimate - ized in America. Yet one must not overestimatethe New Real- not mere 'appearance'- then all relations,including the relation isnr'sindebtedness to English philosophy. Russell,after all, had of knowledge, are impossible in principle. In trying to preserve lcarnt many of his most characteristicdoctrines from William the independenceof the objects of knowledge the Realist ends, James,whom he describesas 'the most important of all critics of according to Royce, by destroying the very possibitity of know- Monism'. The point most vital in the logic of The New Realism ledge. - that relations are external - James had particularly urged. Royce's attack provoked an immediaie reply from two of his Marvin summed up that do4rine with rare succinctness.'In the former.pupils,R. B. Perryand W. P. Montague.sRelatedness and proposition"the term a is in the relation .Rto the term b", aR independence,they argued, perfectly are compatible.The task of in no degreeconstitutes b, nor does-Rb constitute a, nor doesR explainingin what 'independence'consistsis not, however,an constituteeither a or b.' From this it follows, presumingthat easy one; in England, Schiller had attacked Nunn on this very knowledgeis a relation, that the known is not constitutedby its point. To give a satisfactory account ofindependence was one of relationto the knowel, or the knower by its relationto the known, the two main problemswhich confrontedthe New Realists;the or either knower or known by the fact that it is a constituentin other was to explain, without abandoningRealism, how reality the knowledgerelation. is to be distinguishedfrom illusion - that rock on which so many On so much, the New Realistsagreed. There wasnot the same hogefullyJaunched Realismshave foundered. agreementabout the nature of the knower or the nature of the American philosophical journals, in the first decade of the known. When Russellrefered favourably to the 'new Realism' preseJrtcentuq/, cdntain a multitude of attempts to sketch a hc meantthe'neutral monism' which Perry and Holt had worked Realist philosophy which would deal satisfactorily with these out under the influenceof Mach, Jamesand Nunn.? Other New problems.But New Realismdid not comeof ageuntil the publica- Realists, Montague especially, were highly critical of neutral tion in l9l2 of The New Realism, a cooperative volume with monism. 260 261 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PIIILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS The Holt-Perry variety of realism is an out-radicalizing qf No doubt, Perry admits, other people sometimesfind it difficult James'sradical empiricism. Jameshad denied that there is suchaiq to decidewhat I am thinking about - that is why it is plausible entity as 'consciousness';its adherents,he wrote, ,are clingiilg' to suggsslthat the contentsof my
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