Leslie J Walker S J

Theories of Knowledge - Absolutism Pragmatism Realism Leslie J Walker S J

Introduction 8 Part I. Psychological Analysis of Cognition. 33 I. The Data of Experience: Sense-Perception 33 II. The Data of Experience: Conceptual Thought 47 III. The Psychology of Criticism and the Distinction of Subject 63 and Object IV. Reality as Sentient Experience 78 V. Postulation and the Experimental Theory of Knowledge 103 VI. Conception and the Cognitive Relation 132 VII. Genetic Psychology and the Faculties 153 Part II. The Metaphysical Conditions of Knowledge. 170 VIII. Apriorism and Absolutism 170 IX. Criticism of Apriorism 197 X. Criticism of Absolutism 211 XI. The Philosophy of Pure Experience: Exposition 242 XII. The Philosophy of Pure Experience: Criticism 263 XIII. The Conditions of Knowledge Ex Parte Objecti 284 XIV. The Conditions of Knowledge Ex Parte Subjecti: The Senses 304 XV. The Conditions of Knowledge Ex Parte Subjecti: The Intellect 318 Part III. The Epistemological Value of Cognition 339 XVI. Development and Validity 339 XVII. Pragmatism and Physical Science 363 XVIII. Realism and Physical Science 383 XIX. Absolute Truth 408 XX. The Nature of Pragmatic Truth 425 XXI. The Value of Pragmatic Truth 449 XXII. Pragmatic Criteria of Truth 480 XXIII. Criteria of Error in Realism 506 Concluding Chapter 529 Cognition The Psychological Analysis -- its Metaphysical Conditions, and its Epistemological Value INTRODUCTION § 1. Cognition is an act of the mind, one of the three primary functions into which modern psychology divides all psychical activity. But it is more than this; it implies a relatio ad extra, a reference to something other than itself, a something we call an object in contradistinction from the subject, which is the mind itself that knows. To discover the nature of this relation is the aim of a theory of knowledge. Hence its problem is three-fold. We have to analyse psychologically the nature and function of those mental activities by which knowledge is acquired and to discuss the influence which they have upon one another; we have to enquire into the conditions of knowledge, to ask what precisely is to be understood by subject and object, and how far knowledge is due to the activity of the one, how far to that of the other; and we have to examine the notions of validity, truth, objectivity, and to determine the criterion by which we may decide when these notions are applicable to an act of cognition, and when they are not. No one of these aspects of the problem can be left out if our treatment of the subject is to be adequate. A theory of knowledge which fails to define its position in regard to any one of them is incomplete. At the same time the scope of the theory of knowledge is so vast, the terms which an epistemologist uses are capable of so many different shades of meaning, the analysis of mental processes which he institutes have given apparently such divergent results, and the relations which he finds to exist between mind on the one hand and objective reality on the other admit of so many different interpretations, that some division of the subject must perforce be made; and the obvious division is that which I have indicated above. Accordingly, we shall discuss first the psychology of cognition; secondly, its meta physical conditions; and, lastly, its epistemological value, i.e., the objectivity and validity of cognitive acts and the criteria by which we distinguish the true from the false.