137. VALIDITY OF CONCEPTS REVIEWED.

Now, of course

the really crucial question concerning the significance or know

ledge-value of those intellectual processes is this : Are the

elementary thought-objects or root-concepts, 1 which intellect

employs in these processes, revelations or manifestations of the

objectively and extramentally real?" In other words, are they

1 On the nature and value of these depends of course the knowledge-value of

the more complex generic and specific concepts which intellect elaborates by the

analytic and synthetic process of judgment. (Cf. vol. i., 73, p. 259.)

3 We are quite aware that the analysis given above is based upon concepts, is

carried on by means of concepts, is a series of inferences from concepts, and is

therefore a procedure of the " dogmatic " order, which Kant professes to deprecate as

an invalid procedure in epistemology, and which he professes to reject in favour of

the " critical " or " transcendental " method of arguing from the subjective, a priori

conditions of the possibility of concepts (cf. vol. i., p. 359, n. 5; PRICHARD, op. cit.,

pp. 274-5, 3)- But he must have concepts of what these conditions are ; and so,

as we have seen (ibid.), his method in no way differs from the "dogmatic" method

which he deprecates. Nor could it ; for no rational investigation can be carried on

in any sphere except by using, and arguing from, concepts. To endeavour to in

vestigate the validity of intellectual knowledge without using concepts is even more

absurd than endeavouring to determine the competence of a telescope for its work

before tuining it on the stars (PRICHARD, op. cit., p. 3 ; vol. i., p. 209) ; for it amounts

to undertaking a rational investigation without using one s reason. It is impossible

for anyone undertaking to investigate the validity and scope and limits of know

ledge to blink the fact that throughout this testing process he has got to use the

very instruments into the competence of which he is inquiring, his own human

powers and modes of perception, conception, judgment, reasoning, etc. Nor can he

explore the nature, origin, and validity of those root-concepts or categories on which

the significance and worth of all his knowledge depend, without actually using

those same concepts or categories in the process of critical introspection itself. If,

then, provisionally assuming his conceptions to be valid and their objects to be real,

he finds that reflection justifies this assumption, he has attained to philosophical

certitude. Were he, even provisionally, to assume the opposite, he could not con

sistently take a single step forward in reflective introspection (cf. chap. iii.). In

order to get to work at all he must provisionally assume at least some ot his concep

tions, some of his modes of thought, some lines of investigation, to be valid, i.e. to

reveal to him what is true, what is really so, what is real : as Kant, for instance,

must have assumed the particular conceptions and modes of thought and lines of in

ference which he used in his Critique, to be valid; else of what value are the con

clusions of the Critique ? (cf. 59). On the other hand, should reflection, unfor

tunately, issue in a real doubt about the lawfulness of that provisional assumption,

and about the possibility of justifying any of his spontaneous convictions, he will

have fallen into theoretical scepticism ( 30, 3r). And should he persuade himself,

as Kantists apparently do, that the concepts which he employs in the " theoretical "

or " speculative " use of his reason do not reveal reality, it is not easy to see how he

can persuade himself that the concepts he used in reaching this conclusion are valid,

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 217

given to the knowing mind or intellect in and with and through

the direct data of sense consciousness, data which are intel

lectually interpreted by means of those concepts as constituting

a real material universe, partly extra-subjective or extra-organic

and partly subjective but organic ; and in and with and through

the direct data of intellect itself, data interpreted by means of

these concepts as constituting a suprasensible, rational, or

intellectual knowing subject? Or again, in other words, can

intellect convince itself, by introspective reflection, that reality, in

the process of manifesting or revealing itself to intellect, and thus

entering into cognitive relation or union with intellect, can present

itself as it really is, so that intellect can distinguish reality as

it really is from any subjective intellectual modes or relations

which are added to it, on its presentation, from the side of the

intellect, and which necessarily attach to the reality as it is

known, so that when intellect has thus discriminated between

the ens reale and its own entia rationis in interpreting the real

it can ignore the relation of reality to itself, as not transforming

this reality in some unascertainable way and so for ever screen

ing it off from intellect, but as allowing the reality to manifest

itself as it is ? Or, on the contrary, do those elementary thought-

objects, instead of being given to intellect objectively in and with

the uninterpreted world that appears to direct consciousness,

come up into the conscious domain subjectively and from the side of

the intellect itself, where they must be latent as unconscious cog

nitive grooves or conditions, and emerge into consciousness only

by uniting with the " extramental," objectively " given " world,

to form a "product " which is neither really subjective nor really

objective, neither real self nor real non-self, but is a tertium quid

to which we give the title of "phenomenon" because it alone

"appears "or "manifests itself" to the knowing mind in con

scious experience ? This is the alternative embraced by Kantism ;

and obviously if it be an accurate interpretation of the process of

intellectual cognition the world known through such a process is

relative to unknown and unknowable subjective mental factors

in such a sense that the " known worH " cannot possibly be the

real world as it really is. But where is the evidence for such an

interpretation ? Is it because sense cannot apprehend, in the

domain which is given in our direct sense awareness, such ob-

and that the concepts which he employs in the " practical " use of his reason are

also valid or capable of attaining to reality as it is (cf. 56, 59).

2 1 8 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

jects as "existence," "essence," "substance," "cause," "re

lation," "distinction," "otherness," "externality," "motion,"

"extension," "space," "time," etc., etc., because sense cannot

interpret this domain, because sense cannot reflect on its data

and consciously pronounce to itself wJiat they are, is it because

it takes intellect to do these things, is this any reason, adequate

or inadequate, for asserting that these thought-objects are not

really in this " given " domain, that intellect is mistaken in think

ing it detects them there, that instead of discovering them in this

domain it really projects them into this domain from an un

knowable background of its own subjectivity, and that therefore

the whole intellectually known universe is a mere phenomenal

construction built up by the activity of intellectual thought

through the union of unknowable subjective factors of the real

Ego with equally unknowable factors of the real non-Ego, a

construction, therefore, by knowing which the intellect does not

and cannot know reality ? 1 We must confess that neither in

1 In every error there is a grain of truth which makes the error plausible and

pernicious. The Kantian theory of knowledge misconceives, exaggerates and dis

torts a truth, the truth, namely, that the human intellect has its specific modes of

apprehending reality, and that these cannot bs the modes in which intellects other

than human, if such exist, pure spiritual intelligences, for instance, not to speak

of the Divine Intellect, apprehend reality. The human intellect apprehends

reality not intuitively and comprehensively, but piecemeal, discursively, inade

quately. The reality directly given to consciousness in the stream of conscious ex

perience it slowly interprets by abstracting partial aspects of this concrete whole :

it is a faculty which abstracts, compares, analyses, and synthesizes, divides, unifies,

generalizes, classifies, thus forming specific and generic concepts, ultimate cate

gories, and transcendental notions, expressive of the real. To say that intellects of

a different order from the human intellect would have other modes of apprehending

reality, and would apprehend it without our human apparatus of abstraction, con

ception, comparison, judgment, inference, etc., is not saying or implying that our

human conceptions do not apprehend reality as it really is. Again, one reason why

we have such conceptions in number and in nature as we experience them, e.g. the

abstract conceptions known as the ultimate categories, -is of course because our

intellects are so constituted and not otherwise, because they are human intellects,

not angelic or divine. But this again by no means implies that those human con

ceptions do not reveal reality as it is, or that they reveal it otherwise than it is. It

only implies that we must not attribute the modes of these conceptions, i.e. such

ent in rationis as abstractness, universality, conceptual identities and distinctions,

modes of predication, negations and affirmations, and other such conceptual rela

tions, to the reality which we intellectually apprehend by means of them. And

moreover, there is the other reason why these conceptions reveal the objective con

tents which they do actually reveal, the reason which is the ultimate, and indeed

the only rationally assignable ground of the nature of their actual contents, viz.

that their contents are real, are reality, and that reality is so, and is known to be so

because it appears, manifests, and reveals itself so to the intellect conceiving it (135).

But apparently, because our modus of apprehending reality are modes of the human

RELATIVIST THEORIES O? KNOWLEDGE 219

the considerations just suggested, nor in any we have met else

where, can we see a particle of evidence for such an interpretation.

In examining Kant s theory of conception and judgment we

have already shown that the process of intellectual analysis which

led him to such an interpretation is wholly unwarranted by the

facts. 1

Now, of course

the really crucial question concerning the significance or know

ledge-value of those intellectual processes is this : Are the

elementary thought-objects or root-concepts, 1 which intellect

employs in these processes, revelations or manifestations of the

objectively and extramentally real?" In other words, are they

1 On the nature and value of these depends of course the knowledge-value of

the more complex generic and specific concepts which intellect elaborates by the

analytic and synthetic process of judgment. (Cf. vol. i., 73, p. 259.)

3 We are quite aware that the analysis given above is based upon concepts, is

carried on by means of concepts, is a series of inferences from concepts, and is

therefore a procedure of the " dogmatic " order, which Kant professes to deprecate as

an invalid procedure in epistemology, and which he professes to reject in favour of

the " critical " or " transcendental " method of arguing from the subjective, a priori

conditions of the possibility of concepts (cf. vol. i., p. 359, n. 5; PRICHARD, op. cit.,

pp. 274-5, 3)- But he must have concepts of what these conditions are ; and so,

as we have seen (ibid.), his method in no way differs from the "dogmatic" method

which he deprecates. Nor could it ; for no rational investigation can be carried on

in any sphere except by using, and arguing from, concepts. To endeavour to in

vestigate the validity of intellectual knowledge without using concepts is even more

absurd than endeavouring to determine the competence of a telescope for its work

before tuining it on the stars (PRICHARD, op. cit., p. 3 ; vol. i., p. 209) ; for it amounts

to undertaking a rational investigation without using one s reason. It is impossible

for anyone undertaking to investigate the validity and scope and limits of know

ledge to blink the fact that throughout this testing process he has got to use the

very instruments into the competence of which he is inquiring, his own human

powers and modes of perception, conception, judgment, reasoning, etc. Nor can he

explore the nature, origin, and validity of those root-concepts or categories on which

the significance and worth of all his knowledge depend, without actually using

those same concepts or categories in the process of critical introspection itself. If,

then, provisionally assuming his conceptions to be valid and their objects to be real,

he finds that reflection justifies this assumption, he has attained to philosophical

certitude. Were he, even provisionally, to assume the opposite, he could not con

sistently take a single step forward in reflective introspection (cf. chap. iii.). In

order to get to work at all he must provisionally assume at least some ot his concep

tions, some of his modes of thought, some lines of investigation, to be valid, i.e. to

reveal to him what is true, what is really so, what is real : as Kant, for instance,

must have assumed the particular conceptions and modes of thought and lines of in

ference which he used in his Critique, to be valid; else of what value are the con

clusions of the Critique ? (cf. 59). On the other hand, should reflection, unfor

tunately, issue in a real doubt about the lawfulness of that provisional assumption,

and about the possibility of justifying any of his spontaneous convictions, he will

have fallen into theoretical scepticism ( 30, 3r). And should he persuade himself,

as Kantists apparently do, that the concepts which he employs in the " theoretical "

or " speculative " use of his reason do not reveal reality, it is not easy to see how he

can persuade himself that the concepts he used in reaching this conclusion are valid,

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 217

given to the knowing mind or intellect in and with and through

the direct data of sense consciousness, data which are intel

lectually interpreted by means of those concepts as constituting

a real material universe, partly extra-subjective or extra-organic

and partly subjective but organic ; and in and with and through

the direct data of intellect itself, data interpreted by means of

these concepts as constituting a suprasensible, rational, or

intellectual knowing subject? Or again, in other words, can

intellect convince itself, by introspective reflection, that reality, in

the process of manifesting or revealing itself to intellect, and thus

entering into cognitive relation or union with intellect, can present

itself as it really is, so that intellect can distinguish reality as

it really is from any subjective intellectual modes or relations

which are added to it, on its presentation, from the side of the

intellect, and which necessarily attach to the reality as it is

known, so that when intellect has thus discriminated between

the ens reale and its own entia rationis in interpreting the real

it can ignore the relation of reality to itself, as not transforming

this reality in some unascertainable way and so for ever screen

ing it off from intellect, but as allowing the reality to manifest

itself as it is ? Or, on the contrary, do those elementary thought-

objects, instead of being given to intellect objectively in and with

the uninterpreted world that appears to direct consciousness,

come up into the conscious domain subjectively and from the side of

the intellect itself, where they must be latent as unconscious cog

nitive grooves or conditions, and emerge into consciousness only

by uniting with the " extramental," objectively " given " world,

to form a "product " which is neither really subjective nor really

objective, neither real self nor real non-self, but is a tertium quid

to which we give the title of "phenomenon" because it alone

"appears "or "manifests itself" to the knowing mind in con

scious experience ? This is the alternative embraced by Kantism ;

and obviously if it be an accurate interpretation of the process of

intellectual cognition the world known through such a process is

relative to unknown and unknowable subjective mental factors

in such a sense that the " known worH " cannot possibly be the

real world as it really is. But where is the evidence for such an

interpretation ? Is it because sense cannot apprehend, in the

domain which is given in our direct sense awareness, such ob-

and that the concepts which he employs in the " practical " use of his reason are

also valid or capable of attaining to reality as it is (cf. 56, 59).

2 1 8 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

jects as "existence," "essence," "substance," "cause," "re

lation," "distinction," "otherness," "externality," "motion,"

"extension," "space," "time," etc., etc., because sense cannot

interpret this domain, because sense cannot reflect on its data

and consciously pronounce to itself wJiat they are, is it because

it takes intellect to do these things, is this any reason, adequate

or inadequate, for asserting that these thought-objects are not

really in this " given " domain, that intellect is mistaken in think

ing it detects them there, that instead of discovering them in this

domain it really projects them into this domain from an un

knowable background of its own subjectivity, and that therefore

the whole intellectually known universe is a mere phenomenal

construction built up by the activity of intellectual thought

through the union of unknowable subjective factors of the real

Ego with equally unknowable factors of the real non-Ego, a

construction, therefore, by knowing which the intellect does not

and cannot know reality ? 1 We must confess that neither in

1 In every error there is a grain of truth which makes the error plausible and

pernicious. The Kantian theory of knowledge misconceives, exaggerates and dis

torts a truth, the truth, namely, that the human intellect has its specific modes of

apprehending reality, and that these cannot bs the modes in which intellects other

than human, if such exist, pure spiritual intelligences, for instance, not to speak

of the Divine Intellect, apprehend reality. The human intellect apprehends

reality not intuitively and comprehensively, but piecemeal, discursively, inade

quately. The reality directly given to consciousness in the stream of conscious ex

perience it slowly interprets by abstracting partial aspects of this concrete whole :

it is a faculty which abstracts, compares, analyses, and synthesizes, divides, unifies,

generalizes, classifies, thus forming specific and generic concepts, ultimate cate

gories, and transcendental notions, expressive of the real. To say that intellects of

a different order from the human intellect would have other modes of apprehending

reality, and would apprehend it without our human apparatus of abstraction, con

ception, comparison, judgment, inference, etc., is not saying or implying that our

human conceptions do not apprehend reality as it really is. Again, one reason why

we have such conceptions in number and in nature as we experience them, e.g. the

abstract conceptions known as the ultimate categories, -is of course because our

intellects are so constituted and not otherwise, because they are human intellects,

not angelic or divine. But this again by no means implies that those human con

ceptions do not reveal reality as it is, or that they reveal it otherwise than it is. It

only implies that we must not attribute the modes of these conceptions, i.e. such

ent in rationis as abstractness, universality, conceptual identities and distinctions,

modes of predication, negations and affirmations, and other such conceptual rela

tions, to the reality which we intellectually apprehend by means of them. And

moreover, there is the other reason why these conceptions reveal the objective con

tents which they do actually reveal, the reason which is the ultimate, and indeed

the only rationally assignable ground of the nature of their actual contents, viz.

that their contents are real, are reality, and that reality is so, and is known to be so

because it appears, manifests, and reveals itself so to the intellect conceiving it (135).

But apparently, because our modus of apprehending reality are modes of the human

RELATIVIST THEORIES O? KNOWLEDGE 219

the considerations just suggested, nor in any we have met else

where, can we see a particle of evidence for such an interpretation.

In examining Kant s theory of conception and judgment we

have already shown that the process of intellectual analysis which

led him to such an interpretation is wholly unwarranted by the

facts. 1