The Common-Sense View of Reality

Author(s): Stephen S. Colvin

Source: The Philosophical Review , Mar., 1902, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar., 1902), pp. 139-151
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review

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 THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY.

THE question as to the extent and validity o

edge is one so fundamental to philosophy, that it would
seem that thought can never abandon the problem so long as
metaphysics and speculative inquiry shall exist. Throughout
the entire history of philosophy, the epistemological query is
continually raised with a persistence that would seem to indicate
that this question is the very life-blood of metaphysics itself, and
that a search for ultimate truth must of necessity go hand in
hand with a criticism of the faculty that seeks for truth. That
such criticism is proper and healthful it would be rash to deny.
Yet, on the other hand, it may be maintained that epistemology
has too often gone beyond its legitimate limits, and, instead of
being a valuable aid in the acquisition of truth, has introduced
confusion and uncertainty into the problem. It is the purpose
of this paper to consider one point, at least, in which the theory
of knowledge has led to no helpful conclusion, but has rather
raised difficulties where they should not exist, or at least has in-
creased the difficulties which of necessity arise. In particular, it is
the aim of the present discussion to consider that dispute of long
standing between epistemology and the so-called common-sense
view of the external world. This paper accordingly divides itself
into four sections, namely: (i) An exposition of the common-
sense view of external reality; (2) A brief outline of the epistemo-
logical problem in philosophy; (3) A consideration of certain
fundamental contradictions in the attack of epistemology on the
common-sense view of the world; (4) An attempt to suggest certain
lines along which the solution of these contradictions may proceed.
Perhaps the best way to get at the fundamental conception
concerning reality, which is involved in the common-sense view
of the world, is to consider for a moment its genesis in the child
and in the race. Such a proposal may at first glance seem
rash, especially in reference to the child, since it may with pro-
priety be urged that too little is known of the early conscious

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I40 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [VOL. XI.

life of the individual to warrant any conclusions from such un-

certain and insufficient data. On the whole, this may be true;
yet it seems possible to draw conclusions in a general way from
the phenomena of infant conscious life. It is not an unwarranted
assumption that the psychical state of early infancy is more of a
chaos than a cosmos. It is a condition that may be more ap-
propriately described as 'sciousness than consciousness. It is a
state of nebulosity in which there is no fixed point of radiation,
no central sun. At this stage of development it is nonsense to
talk about the self or the non-self, egoism or altruism, the indi-
vidual or the external world, for neither exist as far as the child
is concerned. We must conclude that the psychical life is made
up of many discrete elements which have at the most a minimal
connection. If we may be pardoned for using a Kantian phrase,
apperception plays no part in the dawning consciousness. Grad-
ually, however, the psyche unfolds, and the individual by degrees
becomes conscious of two great realities, neither of which he
doubts for a moment, the self and the non-self. The chaos has
now become a cosmos, which circles about two opposing suns, the
individual and the external world. But how does this transition
take place ? What are the causes that lead to this breaking up
and grouping of the psychical series ? The answer which this
paper would give to this query is that the cause is the opposition
which the external world presents to the unconscious impulses
of the infant organism. Were there no inflexible reality outside
of the individual, opposing and limiting it, knowledge of the self
and the non-self would never develop. Further, it is through this
external opposition which confronts the infant that he learns to
distinguish between the impressions and impulses which go to
make up his psychical states. Gradually, though very slowly,
he begins to separate fact from fancy, dream from awaking, re-
ality from delusion, using as a criterion for this distinction the
conditions and opposition which meet him on all sides as he
seeks to unfold his being. What then is external reality for the
child: what then is fact ? The answer must be, that which has a
practical bearing upon his existence; that which can act caus-
ally upon his organism. That which has for him an interest is

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY. I4I

the real and the only real. Apart from this practical standard
there is no measure for reality, there is no meaning to the term.
The familiar saying, "the burnt child fears the fire," illustrates
the meaning of reality from the practical standpoint. The child
will, without hesitation, touch that which he may imagine in play
is hot; but the glowing stove has for him a reality determined
purely by practical experience. And what is true of the child is
to a great degree true of the race in its earliest stages of devel-
opment. The external world is a practical world. Not that
fancy and imagination do not play an important r6le, but they
are continually being eliminated and corrected through practical
experience. As the child and the race advance, the criterion of
practicability becomes more and more pronounced, unless turned
aside and subverted by the introduction of speculative thinking,
and even then, while such philosophizing may have a great effect
upon the thinking of a people, history has shown that it has a
relatively slight influence upon their conduct. To sum up in
brief, it is this determination of the external world from the prac-
tical standpoint, from the standpoint of interest, that may be de-
fined as the common-sense view of reality.
With whatever tenacity the common-sense view may have held
its place in ordinary thinking, the history of philosophy shows
that from the very beginning speculation broke away from the
naive conception of reality in an attempt to harmonize the con-
tradictions between logical thinking and perception. Even before
systematic philosophy had developed in Greece, the Eastern
sages had declared that the whole world of sense was illusion,
that phenomena were but the veil of maya, that life itself was a
dream, and its goal was Nirvana. The first attempt at systematic
thinking, that of the Milesian school, seems to have been prompted
by a desire to find in the dpx7 a resting place for thought be-
yond immediate externality, though there seems to be here no
direct break with the popular conception concerning the material
universe. This break was not, however, long delayed. Both
Heraclitus and Parmenides speak of the illusion of the senses;
while Zeno attempted with his refined logic to refute all assertion
of the multiplicity and changeability of being. For the Pythag-

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142 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [VOL. XI.

oreans, number was the true being, and Leucippus is alleged to

have developed the theory of the subjective character of the sense-
qualities.
With the second period of Greek philosophy, the break be-
tween the popular and the speculative view of the world is com-
pleted. The Sophists aimed at the destruction of all knowledge,
and tried to reduce everything to individual opinion. Protagoras
declared that man was the measure of all things, and denied uni-
versal validity. Gorgias maintained that both being and non-be-
ing were contradictory terms, and that nothing existed. Further,
he declared that if there were anything it could not be known, and
even if it could be known it could not be taught. In such an
extreme attitude, thought had of course defeated itself, and the
search for truth ended in a universal negation. The edifice which
the Sophists destroyed Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, tried to
rebuild, but not with perfect success. Socrates does not attempt
to gain insight into nature, neither does he find his science at all
times sufficient to solve ethical problems, but is compelled to call
to his aid the dainonion to determine difficult courses of action.
Plato starts with an acknowledgment that perception can yield
no knowledge, and turns his back on the world of sense to view
the pure ideas. Aristotle returns in part to phenomena, yet he
denies a complete knowledge of nature as such, and, since he
considers matter as introducing something contingent and acci-
dental, he finds in intuitive reason, not in demonstration, the most
perfect revelation of truth.
Post-Aristotelian philosophy sought knowledge mainly for
practical purposes, but was far from successful in this search. It is
during this period that scepticism re-asserts itself with great vigor,
and holds to the proposition that both thought and perception pos-
sess absolute relativity. The Stoics, while positing a metaphysical
monism, fall into an ethical dualism, finding in the nature of the in-
dividual something contrary to the highest impulses and to reason.
The Epicurean position may be characterized as a blending of scep-
ticism and positivism. In the last period of Greek philosophy,
mankind sought refuge from relativity and doubt in a divine cer-
tainty. Revelation takes the place of reason, and is even some-

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY7 143

times contrary to it; Credibile est quia ine

quia impossible est-credo quia absurdum, says Tertullian.
No time need be spent in considering the philosophy of the
middle ages with its dogmatism and its poor logic. Not that it did
not at times wrestle with mighty problems, nor that it did not at-
tempt at times, in men like Roger Bacon, to get at real science.
On the whole, however, it is but the threshing of old straw.
With the dawn of modern philosophy came new energy and
new hopes. The disappointing results of so fair a promise are
too well known to be dwelt upon in detail. From the very start,
epistemology holds the central position. Descartes begins with
scepticism, only to end in dogmatism. Schopenhauer has not
come far from the truth when he writes: " Descartes was a re-
markable intellect, and when one considers the age in which he
lived he achieved much. But if we leave this consideration aside,
and measure him by his boasted emancipation of thought from
all its chains, and his would-be inauguration of a new period of
independent research, we shall find with all his scepticism, which
was destitute of any real earnestness, and therefore quickly and
readily yielding-that he indeed made as though he were about
to strike off the chains of indoctrinate opinion that bound his age
and nation; but that this was merely a pretence, assumed for the
purpose of immediately taking them up again and riveting them so
much the faster. And thus it is with all his successors till Kant."
Locke's polemic against the Cartesian epistemology, as far as
the doctrine of innate ideas is involved, resulted in leaving the
knowledge of the external world in an extremely dubious posi-
tion; while Berkeley, following after, attempts to demolish the
conception of corporeal substance; and Hume, developing Locke's
doctrine of impressions and ideas, removes all basis from exter-
nality and sweeps away without compunction both the material
universe and the res cogitans, leaving nothing in their places but a
bundle of perceptions.
With Hume's conclusions, epistemology seemed to have finally
brought, an end to philosophy, " killing the mother that en-
gendered it," and speculative thought might well stand aghast
in witnessing the astonishing feat of raising one's self by one's

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I44 THE PHILOSOPHICA L REVIEW. [VOL. XI.

boot straps. But now comes upon the scene the master who is
to bring back the lost cosmos, and to restore metaphysics to her
once proud position as a science. The professor at Koenigsberg
hears the note of scepticism, awakens from his dogmatic slum-
bers, the Critique of Pure Reason is given to the world, and a
new era of philosophy is inaugurated.
But have the claims of Kant been realized ? Is metaphysics to-
day on a more firm foundation than when the author of the Critique
wrote: "Time was when she was the queen of all the sciences.
Now it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon
her, and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken like Hecuba."
Compared with the many devotees of empirical science, how few
there are who to-day turn their attention to metaphysics, not
because the questions raised are not still of burning interest, but
because there is a general despair of reaching any result. Will
this condition ever be changed? Possibly, but not until meta-
physics has shaken off the incubus of a perverted epistemology,
the pursuit of which leaves thought in a hopeless tangle; not
until the common-sense view of the world in the form of a
critical realism is made the starting-point of a sincere investigation
of reality.
In examining more closely the warfare of epistemology upon
the common-sense view of reality, a warfare waged for the most
part by the aid of logical subtleties, no claim of unfairness can
certainly be made if the same logical reasons are used in the
defence as are employed in the attack. The history of philosophy
shows that this attack upon the reality of the external world has
proceeded along two main lines, one empirical, the other a priori.
While it is not here the purpose to present all the lines of this
attack in detail, an attempt will be made to select certain repre-
sentative positions of epistemology in this controversy, and ex-
amine their claims to acceptance. And first, the empirical argu-
ments may be for matters of convenience put under three main
categories: (i) Arguments based on the relativity of sense per-
ception; (2) Arguments based on certain phenomena derived
from physical science ; (3) Arguments based on the construction
of the human body, and particularly on the character and ar-

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY I45

rangement of the nervous system. The logical arguments,

though not by any means new in the history of philosophy, find
their focus in Kant, and may best be discussed in connection with
that philosopher.
Turning our attention for the moment to the empirical proofs
against a common-sense view of external reality, we may first con-
sider one typical argument based on the relativity of sense percep-
tion. It is urged that the same object appears differently to differ-
ent individuals, and that it also appears from time to time different
to the same individual. To the well and happy man the world
looks joyous; to the same man when sick or sorrowful quite the
reverse. Therefore it is asserted that objects are not really what
we judge them to be for practical purposes. They may, in fact, be
quite opposite to our idea of them, or even be complete delusions
of the senses-the stuff that dreams are made of. Pausing for a
moment to notice the basis on which this argument rests, we may
do well to show in passing that the first part of the proof is
founded upon a self-contradictory assumption. Passing over the
self-evident fact that the exact communication of thought is
fraught with the greatest difficulties, and that, therefore, a mere
difference in statement as to the appearance of an object does
not of necessity involve a difference in physical conditions, we
may nevertheless at this point observe that while the argument at-
tempts to prove the relative, or absolute unknowability, or even
the non-existence of an external object, it does so only by as-
suming that another external object, here an individual, is known
completely or exactly in so far as that individual expresses a judg-
ment concerning an external object. Otherwise the fact that
judgments differ concerning an object presented to the senses
could have no force.
In considering the second part of this empirical proof, namely,
that the same object appears differently to the same individual at
different times and under varying circumstances, it is to be ob-
served that in order that this judgment shall have weight it must
be assumed that the object under question is the same object in
its different presentations. But what does this assumption really
mean ? It means that in this object there must be certain quali-

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 I46 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [VOL. XI.

ties which remain unchanged, otherwise the object could not

be recognized as identical in diversity. For example, let it be
supposed that the object x presents certain marks a, b, c, d, e, at
one time. Now, in order that it may be recognized, the object
must at a later time present possibly among other marks asf, g,
A, certain of its previous marks as a, b. Now, it must be assumed
that these marks a and b, are really known, and that they are not
purely or even partially subjective. Thus the proof from the
relativity of sense perception breaks down of its own weight,
since it is based on the assumption that certain sensations are
absolute and not relative; but, if it is once admitted that this be
true, where can a line be drawn between those qualities that really
inhere in the object x, and those which are purely or partially
subjective ? And here it may be observed that the distinction be-
tween primary and secondary qualities of matter, which developed
so early in philosophy, and which is made a central point in the
treatment of Locke, is untenable. Extension and hardness are
as purely subjective as color and smell, and if the latter do not
give us a real knowledge of the object, how can the former ?
Passing now to the second point under the empirical proofs
against a knowledge of the external world, we pause for a mo-
ment to notice certain arguments based on discoveries of modern
science. It is said, for example, that we know that what we in-
terpret as color or heat or sound in an object is not color or heat
or sound, but certain vibrations in the atmosphere or ether.
Therefore, no such a thing as color or heat or sound exists in the
object itself, and the common-sense view of the world is here at
fault, and the evidence of our senses is discredited. But how
do we know that what we call color, for example, exists in the
ether as certain mechanical vibrations ? We can find out this
fact certainly in no other way than through the senses which we
seek in other particulars to discredit; but, if our senses err at one
point, what guarantee have we that they will not at another, and
even at that very point that is essential to our proof? Here
again the attack upon the common-sense view of reality rests on
a self-contradiction. ' But surely,' we say, 'our knowledge of
the structure of the human body shows beyond a doubt that

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY I47

many changes take place before the affecting object produces an

effective state in the brain. The stimulus must pass up the affer-
ent nerve before it can reach the cortex, and this stimulus must
be quite different from the object and from the notion which the
individual forms of this object. Hence, between perception and
reality there must be a great gulf, or if the two should chance to
agree, we can have no knowledge of such agreement, and the fact
cannot help us.' Schopenhauer, in his attempt to prove the unre-
ality of the external world, states this argument very clearly
in the second book of Die Welt a/s Wille ulid Vorstellung.
"t The subjective and the objective," writes the philosopher, "1 con-
stitute no continuum, that which is immediately known is limited
by the skin, or rather by the external end of the nerves which
lead out from the cerebral system. Within lies a world of which
we have no other knowledge than through pictures in our head."
Here the subjectivity of the impressions of sense is attempted
to be proved by a process of reasoning based on the construc-
tion of the human body, but, unfortunately for Schopenhauer's
contention, our bodies are impressions from the idealist's stand-
point as purely subjective as the forest, the field, or the sky. It
is evident that such an argument can have weight only when
we assume that we possess a knowledge of the construction of
our bodies not derived through empirical means. Schopenhauer
has credited man with a knowledge of certain things belonging
to the external world (here the brain and the nerves), in order
to prove that the external world is removed entirely from our
knowledge. The same objection to this argument holds, even
if it is not assumed that external reality is completely unknow-
able. If it is unknowable or deceptive in any part, what cri-
terion have we of judging in what part it yields the truth ? Cer-
tainly we have no right to assume that our senses deceive us at
certain points, when at others they reveal reality.
Having thus briefly touched upon certain attempted proofs
from the empirical side to overthrow a thorough-going belief in
the external world, we may pass to the a prior-i side. Here the
aim will not be made to canvass all the arguments, but attention
will be chiefly confined to Kant's great attempt to work out a

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I48 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XI.

satisfactory epistemology-one that would vindicate the claims of

the subject to a constitutive part in the world of phenomena, and
yet, on the other hand, would not reduce the world without to a
mere dream. This attempt resulted in the well-known distinction
between the form and content of knowledge. On the one side
stand the forms of space and time, the categories of the under-
standing, and the ideals of reason; on the other an unknown and
unknowable x, the irreducible surd of knowledge, the sole rep-
resentative of the world of sense. But why does Kant leave the
x, the thing-in-itself in his philosophy? Because to the thing-
in-itself may be attributed, according to his own words, " besides
the property of self-phenomenization, a causality whose effects are
to be met with in the phenomenal world, although it is not itself
phenomenon." But in making this admission, Kant overthrows
his whole epistemological presuppositions; for his doctrine of the
thing-in-itself, a thing out of relation, is a contradiction. Kant's
thing-in-itself is really a thing-in-relation. It is the external
world (thought deprived of most of the qualities which go to
make up our conception of reality) revealed to us through the
causal law. It is the stuff that goes to make up our knowledge,
that which cannot be reduced to a mere subjective quality. It is,
in fact, though hard to recognize at first glance, the remnant of
the common-sense view of the world of which even Kant with
all his logic could not get rid. Like the ghost of Banquo, it
rises unbidden at the feast of reason, and continually demands its
right. Kant would limit the causal law to the work of the
understanding, but he is continually obliged to make it transcend
the individual and pass over to his so-called thing-in-itself. It is
clear where Kant got his notion of the thing-in-itself, being un-
able to limit the causal law to a purely subjective application;
and it is equally clear why he is obliged to keep it in his phil-
osophy, since he does not wish to be classed as a solipsist. Kant,
in his Prolegomena, ? I 3, Remark II, writes the following:
" Inasmuch as the senses never enable us to cognize, not
even in one single point, the things-in-themselves, but only their
phenomena, while these are mere presentations of sensibility; all
bodies, together with the space in which they are found, must be

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY I49

held to be nothing but mere presentations, existing nowhere but

in our thoughts." Now is this not the plainest idealism? It
would seem as if such was the case, and that Kant must of ne-
cessity take a position similar to that of Berkeley or Fichte.
This he would have been forced to do, but for the contradiction
above referred to. He attempts to defend himself from the
charge of idealism as follows:
" Idealism consists in the assertion that there exists none but
thinking entities; the other things we think we perceive in in-
tuition, being only presentations of the thinking entity, to which
no object outside the latter can correspond. I say, on the con-
trary, things are given as objects discoverable to our senses, ex-
ternal to us, but of what they may be in themselves we know
nothing; we know only their phenomena."
This argument may at first seem plausible, but on closer ex-
amination it will be found to be based on a fallacy. If we know
the things that exist at all, we know more than mere phenomena.
The conception of thing is not something so simple that it can
be reduced to an x in philosophy. The real fact seems to be
not that we know phenomena, but that we know things through
phenomena. To sum up in brief, Kant's epistemology, which
consists in a distinction between the thing-in-itself and phe-
nomena, breaks down because he is obliged to pass from pure
subjectivity to objectivity, and does this by the use of the causal
law, a transcendental principle. But if the causal law cannot be
limited to a subjective application, by what right does Kant
impose this restriction upon the forms of space and time and
the categories of the pure understanding ? Kant asks in regard
to space and time, that if they belong to things-in-themselves,
how is it possible to construct their intuition a priori, as is the
case in pure mathematics ? But the question may be raised, on
the other hand, how is it possible for the individual to intuit
objects under these forms if they have not an objective as well
as a subjective reality? The great error in the Kantian point
of view, especially as emphasized and developed by the fol-
lowers of Kant, seems to be that it is assumed that the more the
object is categorized by perception and thought the less real it

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 I50 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XI.

becomes. Is it not more legitimate to assume that the greater

the number of relations, can enter into the object, the more it
reveals its true being ? On the whole, the study of the episte-
mology of the Critique of Pure Reason, instead of overthrowing
the common-sense view of reality, tends to show the necessity
of this view to any consistent theory of knowledge.
In conclusion, a purely logical objection to the common-sense
view of reality may be noticed. The very conception of knowl-
edge, it is urged, implies that a real knowledge is impossible,
since the whole universe divides itself into the two opposing poles
of subject and object, and under such circumstances there can be
only knowledge in relation. This objection has force, however,
only so long as we hold to the doctrine of a thing-in-itself. This
doctrine is in its essence self-contradictory, since our very idea
of thing implies that it is something in relation either actually or
potentially. That which cannot act, cannot enter into a real re-
lation with something else, is indeed nothing. All our notions
of matter, substance, thing, are connected with the thought of
such action. Think this action away, and you think the thing
away. Therefore, it is no objection to real knowledge to know a
thing in relation. In fact, any other knowledge would be really
no knowledge.
It is to be observed that this relation by which a thing is known
is the causal relation, Leibniz's Law of Sufficient Reason. When
this position is taken in regard to reality, the difficulties involved
in the common-sense view of the world disappear to a great ex-
tent. From this standpoint, reality is in proportion to its power
to enter into relation, and real knowledge is knowledge of such
relation. The test then for truth is a test as to the reality of any
supposed relation, and this is a test which the common-sense
view of the world is continually making without a theory of
knowledge.
Finally, the causal law is not only a firm basis for physical knowl-
edge, but for metaphysics as well. The history of philosophy, if
it teaches anything, certainly teaches this, that all fine-spun theo-
ries in regard to ultimate being, however perfect they may be
logically, lack convincing power if they disregard the Law of

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No. 2.] COMMON-SENSE VIEW OF REALITY I 5'

Sufficient Reason. Metaphysics has been only too guilty of

this in the past, and if it ever succeeds in adding anything really
worthy of knowledge, it must be by accepting the fact that
knowledge is knowledge in relation, and that relation finds its
sole content in the causal law. An epistemology that denies the
ultimate validity of this law, or which discredits a relative knowl-
edge, can only confuse, never aid in the search after ultimate truth.
STEPHEN S. COLVIN.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

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