CHAPTER
II
THE EXISTENCE OF
MATTER
Note 1: Is there a table which has a certain
intrinsic nature, and continues to exist when I
am not looking, or is the table merely a product
of my imagination, a dream-table in a very
prolonged dream? This question is of the
greatest importance. For if we cannot be sure of
the independent existence of objects, we cannot
be sure of the independent existence of other
people's bodies, and therefore still less of
other people's minds, since we have no grounds
for believing in their minds except such as are
derived from observing their bodies.
This is rather
curious, for nothing like this does follow.
Suppose we cannot be sure of the independent
existence of objects. Does it follow we cannot be
sure of the independent existence of other
people's bodies and minds? Surely, one may say and
believe that one is not really certain whether the
table one sees exists apart from one's sensations,
but if one says so at all to someone else, and
means it, it seems that one still believes the
other person one shares this philosophical doubt
with to be there both bodily and mentally. (The
underlying logical point here is that we tend to
doubt the existence of some objects rather than
"of objects" or "of all objects". Furthermore, if
we doubt a certain object or kind of objects, we
generally do not at the same time doubt other
kinds of objects, while normally, whatever doubts
people express, they are not doubtful about the
language and its properties they use to express
their doubts in, nor are they doubtful that
someone else may understand their doubts.)
Next, it seems too
much is made of certainty. Even if we believe we
cannot be sure about something, we generally also
believe that we can make assumptions about the
thing we are not sure of, and test some of these
assumptions. What we will end up with may not be
complete certainty, but it will be based on
experience, and similar, perhaps uncertain,
knowledge has kept millions of men alife. Back.
Note 2: (..) it may be that the whole outer
world is nothing but a dream, and that we alone
exist. This is an uncomfortable possibility; but
although it cannot be strictly proved
to be false, there is not the slightest reason
to suppose that it is true.
This again is rather
curious. First, it is an odd use of 'dream', and
it would have been better to use a term like
'hallucination' or 'delusion'. Second, I fail to
see why this would be "uncomfortable", especially
if there is no way of knowing what is really true:
even if each of us is fundamentally a riddle in an
ocean of doubts and uncertainties, it seems
meanwhile a given fact that we can explain and
understand quite a lot with the common
presumptions we all make, whether they can be
ultimately proven or not. And third, to prove
something false we need to start from something
true, and therefore it seems impossible to prove
anything like "everything we think is mistaken". Back.
Note 3: In fact, whatever else may be
doubtful, some at least of our immediate
experiences seem absolutely certain.
Indeed. This is the
reason behind Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", about
which it is well to quote the great philosopher
Bierce:
...Descartes,
a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated
dictum, Cogito ergo sum - whereby he was pleased
to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human
existence. The dictum might be improved, however,
thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - 'I think
that I think, therefore I think that I am'; as
close an approach to certainty as any philosopher
has yet made." (The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary,
entry Cartesian)
What we hold fast to
is not that "at least of our immediate experiences
seem absolutely certain", because it is not at all
certain what "absolutely certain" should mean
here, but rather that our immediate experiences
are given to us in such a way that to doubt that
we have them as they appear to us does not make
sense.
That is: if what one
sees (or seems to see) is a pink elephant flying
through the sky while trailing a sign saying
"Think rationally and behave reasonably, ye mortal
fools!", then that is what we see (or seem to
see), apart from what is really there (and the
only reason we inserted the bracketed "seem to
see" is that one allows thereby that what one sees
may be other than the full literal and complete
truth of things). Back.
Note 4: Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of
modern philosophy, invented a method which may
still be used with profit -- the method of
systematic doubt. He determined that he would
believe nothing which he did not see quite
clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he
could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt,
until he saw reason for not doubting it. By
applying this method he gradually became
convinced that the only existence of which he
could be quite certain was own. He
imagined a deceitful demon, who presented unreal
things to his senses in a perpetual
phantasmagoria; it might be very improbable that
such a demon existed, but still it was possible,
and therefore doubt concerning things perceived
by the senses was possible.
The first problem
with Descartes' method of systematic doubt is that
it is based on an uncritical faith that one does
not doubt such and such (whatever it may be)
because it seems to be quite clearly and
distinctly true. This apparent truth is apparent,
and may be doubted, and any purported proof of it
may also be doubted. Therefore, if the method is
to work at all it must end or start with something
one does not doubt, and one is well advised to
rather begin with that than systematically doubt
everything else.
Descartes, by using
his process, arrived at the one truth he could not
doubt, namely that Descartes thinks he exists. We
who are not Descartes may very well doubt that,
and turn for more edification to the great
sceptical philosopher Bierce, quoted in the
previous note.
Also, Descartes'
demon is merely a rhetorical device that
corresponds to the possibility of starting or
qualifying every sentence one can think of with "I
doubt that", which may not be a truth about human
psychology, but which is - we shall assume - a
truth about (English) grammar.
Finally, having
arrived at this level of sophistication, it is
well to observe that this grammatical device does
not prove any thing either way, neither logically
nor psychologically: Logically, such a statement
is a mere claim, and psychologically it often is
incredible. Back.
Note 5: But doubt concerning his own existence was
not possible, for if he did not exist, no demon
could deceive him. If he doubted, he must exist;
if he had any experiences whatever, he must
exist. Thus his own existence was an absolute
certainty to him. 'I think, therefore I am, ' he
said (Cogito, ergo sum) (..)
St. Augustine argued
similarly, and did so about 1200 years earlier. He
argued, more plausibly "Fallor, ergo sum" i.e. "I
may be mistaken, so I am".
But in any case, such
arguments do not hold, however plausible they may
seem to be. For if Descartes may be misled by the
devil in believing he sees a fair damsel where
there is none, there is no reason to believe that
the devil may not make an automaton - or some ape
- that mistakenly believes itself to be the
philosopher Descartes, while being no such thing,
and the same may be replied to St. Augstine's more
modest "If I am mistaken about what I think, then
at least I think": No, at best there is some
appearance that appears to say or think this: all
that is logically valid in either Descartes's or
Augustine's arguments is to the effect that if
there is an experience of the so-and-so, there is
an experience - but one may be quite mistaken
about what the experience is an experience of, for
there may be no so-and-so at all.
This is less fanciful
or hardheaded than the reader may believe (who
might incline to "Come on! I know at least that I
exist, whatever you say, for whatever the
explanation, there are my feelings"), because,
like a symphony, the sense of self a person has
may be the product of many interacting
contributors none of which itself is or has a
self. If so, the sense of self may still be useful
and important, or it may be a useless or even - as
the Buddhists and many mystics claim - a harmful
illusion (not so much an optical illusion as an
illusion of the I), but at least in that case what
we hold to be our self is less of a unit than
seems suggested by simple pronouns. Back.
Note 6: When I look at my table and see a certain
brown colour, what is quite certain at once is
not 'I am seeing a brown colour', but
rather, 'a brown colour is being seen'. This of
course involves something (or somebody) which
(or who) sees the brown colour; but it does not
of itself involve that more or less permanent
person whom we call 'I'. So far as immediate
certainty goes, it might be that the something
which sees the brown colour is quite momentary,
and not the same as the something which has some
different experience the next moment.
Indeed. That seems
quite correct to me, though something must be
added: there is or appears to be a difference
between terms like "I" and terms like "brown",
which is that the former is not given in
experience in the same way as the latter. This is
often expressed by saying that a term like "I" is
a theoretical term, meaning by this that what it
means cannot be met directly in one's experience,
for example in the same way as England cannot be
met in experience, though very many of England's
aspects and parts can be, and may provide clear
and reliable clues to the rest, while a term like
"brown" is an empirical term, meaning by this that
what it means can be met directly in one's
experience.
Whether indeed one
cannot meet one's I in one's experience is a
doubtful assumption, but Russell clearly made it,
and we shall follow him for the moment.
There are difficult
problems here, four of which are as follows - and
I shall only mention them, because Russell does
hardly discuss them in his text.
-
First, the Buddhists and many mystics
have claimed the I is an illusion, and it is
interesting to reflect that the great
religions are to a large extent organised
around notions of what human selves
are: non-existent illusions of something that
has only momentary existence, according to the
Buddhists; eternally existing souls, that
spend only an infinitesimal part of eternity
on earth, according to the Christians, Jews
and Muslims.
-
Second, it is possible, especially if
the I is a theoretical term, that one can know
oneself only by bits and pieces, by glimpses
and guesses, and by intuitions and
intimations, but that one is never fully given
to oneself - indeed very much as one's body is
given in one's experience, in which most
things that keep one living happen without
one's knowing it or knowing why and how.
-
Third, there is the problem that
people normally are at least somewhat mistaken
and biased about their own properties,
according to others who know them well, and
that some people believe themselves sincerely
to be quite different from what they really
are, like the many imaginary Napoleons that
are supposed to inhabit mental asylums.In any
case, and apart from insanity, self-knowledge
seems difficult, partial and biased.
-
Fourth, there is
the problem that within our own experience we
distinguish self from non-self: the external
world one experiences and all things that are
not one's body are at least as much part of
one's very own experience as one's own self or
I.
Together these points
strongly suggest that ordinary supposed
self-knowledge is hardly better, and because of
bias and self-interest in some respects worse,
than ordinary supposed knowledge of reality: it
exists, but it is patchy, partial and based on
guesses and fantasies. Back.
Note 7: Thus it is our particular
thoughts and feelings that have primitive
certainty.
With this I am going
to agree, apart from "primitive certainty", and my
preferred way of expressing it is - as before -
that our experiences are given to us in a way
nothing that is not experience is given to us. And
we may doubt that (some of) our experiences are
true of anything, but it seems we can only form
statements to the effect that we doubt the having
of the experiences that are given to us, but that
this will be a psychological falsity, for in
actual fact human being can do no such thing, it
seems.
To extend this to a
madman who claims to be able to prove he is
Napoleon on Descartes' line: "I think I am
Napoleon, therefore I am Napoleon":
No, for all the
Cartesian argument proves is a statement like
"there is experience, so there is experience" -
but what the experience is supposed to be
experience of is quite another issue, and one well
may have experiences without there being
veridical. Back.
Note 8: One great reason why it is felt
that we must secure a physical object in
addition to the sense-data, is that we want the
same object for different people.
Not only do we "want"
this: it seems by far the most sensible assumption
to make to account for the fact that all people in
a room may - in ordinary circumstances - come to
agree quickly and easily about what they see and
don't see in it. Back.
Note 9: Thus it is the fact that different people
have similar sense-data, and that one person in
a given place at different times has similar
sense-data, which makes us suppose that over and
above the sense-data there is a permanent public
object which underlies or causes the sense-data
of various people at various times.
Not quite, for - at
least - the sense-data different people have are
private to them, and may well be dissimilar (in
that - e.g. - your subjective experience of red may
be precisely like my subjective experience of
green, although we may never come to know this).
The real point is that different people may easily
come to agree verbally and in behaviour
about the assumptions they make about their
sense-data.
Also, what they come
to agree on need not be "a permanent public
object" (whatever that means): they may agree the
food is delicious, the jokes very funny, and the
champagne intoxicating, and in each such case what
they agree on is that their different private
experiences agree in these respects.
And there is another
point to be made here: People often seek agreement
about their ethical and aesthetical values, but
need not (and often do not) infer from such
agreements that, therefore, the values they agree
on somehow really exist also if they would not
agree or would not themselves exist. In general,
it seems that 'X really exists' is taken to mean
as 'X exists independently from our beliefs and
values', and we make such judgements not because
we agree intersubjectively about X, but because
this assumption is best able to explain our
experiences of X. Back.
Note 10: (..) if I had no reason to believe
that there were physical objects independent of
my sense-data, I should have no reason to
believe that other people exist except as part
of my dream.
No, that's false.
There have been many people - such as Berkeley,
mentioned before - who believed that there are no
physical objects, but who did believe there were
other people (whom Berkeley believed to be
immortal souls, like himself).
Note here are two
important points in the background: First, all
human beings have been raised by human beings who
believed other human beings to have experiences
like themselves, and second, for this and possibly
other reasons, that there are human persons, in
the sense of things experiencing like ourselves,
seems to be a quite fundamental and common human
assumption. Back.
Note 11: (..) we cannot appeal to the
testimony of other people, since this testimony
itself consists of sense-data, and does not
reveal other people's experiences unless our own
sense-data are signs of things existing
independently of us.
No, that's also
false. If we consider the possibility that the
devil may mislead us (and we've done so before,
when discussing Descartes), we may certainly
consider the possibility that human beings are
immortal souls that may be deceived in very many
ways, but which are always wholly correct about
each other's (non-)existence, for example, because
God in his divine wisdom has made us that way.
(This is not something I believe. What I do
believe is that if we want to reason logically, we
must take account of all possibilities.) Back.
Note 12: There is no logical impossibility in the
supposition that the whole of life is a dream,
in which we ourselves create all the objects
that come before us. But although this is not
logically impossible, there is no reason
whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is,
in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a
means of accounting for the facts of our own
life, than the common-sense hypothesis that
there really are objects independent of us,
whose action on us causes our sensations.
This seems true, and
appeals to the right reason, namely, that the
assumption of the real world is a simpler
hypothesis - in some intuitive sense of "simple",
to be clarified - than the assumption that all our
experiences are completely illusory and are not
about anything real that exists independently from
our experiences. Back.
Note 13: The way in which simplicity comes in from
supposing that there really are physical objects
is easily seen. If the cat appears at one moment
in one part of the room, and at another in
another part, it is natural to suppose that it
has moved from the one to the other, passing
over a series of intermediate positions. But if
it is merely a set of sense-data, it cannot have
ever been in any place where I did not see it;
thus we shall have to suppose that it did not
exist at all while I was not looking, but
suddenly sprang into being in a new place. If
the cat exists whether I see it or not, we can
understand from our own experience how it gets
hungry between one meal and the next; but if it
does not exist when I am not seeing it, it seems
odd that appetite should grow during
non-existence as fast as during existence. And
if the cat consists only of sense-data, it
cannot be hungry, since no hunger but
my own can be a sense-datum to me. Thus the
behaviour of the sense-data which represent the
cat to me, though it seems quite natural when
regarded as an expression of hunger, becomes
utterly inexplicable when regarded as mere
movements and changes of patches of colour,
which are as incapable of hunger as triangle is
of playing football.
This paragraph also
seems true and important, for these indeed are the
basic reasons to assume or infer that there is a
real world independent of our experiences. (There
is one mistake in it this passage: The phrase "if
the cat consists only of sense-data" should be "if
the cat consists only of my sense-data".) Back.
Note 14: Of course similar things happen in dreams,
where we are mistaken as to the existence of
other people. But dreams are more or less
suggested by what we call waking life, and are
capable of being more or less accounted for on
scientific principles if we assume that there
really is a physical world.
I know of no adequate
scientific explanation of dreams, and the reason
to remark upon them here is to note my amazement
about the fact that my dreams seem to be far more
detailed and precise than my waking fantasy is
capable of imagining.
Thus, if one merely
imagines the Acropolis one may have some vague
fantastical image of a huge Greek temple with many
columns standing on a hill, but most people could
not answer questions like "how many columns do you
see in your mental image?". As far as I can tell,
my dreams and those of other people are such that
one can, within a dream of the Acropolis, easily
come to count the columns one sees. Back.
Note 15: (..) every principle of simplicity
urges us to adopt the natural view, that there
really are objects other than ourselves and our
sense-data (..)
Well, yes - except
for the fact that "every principle of simplicity"
is a vague phrase that does not mean much. At
present, it seems best to explain it thus: the
simple number of statements with at most one
binary logical connective - like 'and', 'or',
'if-then', 'if and only if' - we must assume to
deduce the similarities between the (statements
about the) experiences of different people in the
same circumstances is far larger when we do not
assume that they in fact receive the same sort of
stimuli from the same independently existing
things than when we do assume this. Back.
Note 16: Of course it is not by argument
that we originally come by our belief in an
independent external world. We find this belief
ready in ourselves as soon as we begin to
reflect: it is what may be called an instinctive
belief.
I'd like to avoid the
term "instinctive" (although it may be true that
human beings somehow are naturally inclined to
suppose there are other human beings) and prefer,
as before, given. (This sense of being given does
not exclude what seems given to us involved
a lot of learning. In general, all our experiences
are given to us, in that it makes no sense to say
that they are different from what they appear to
be, though it usually does make a lot of sense to
say that what they appear to be experiences of may
be - really - quite different from what we think
it is.) Back.
Note 17: We may therefore admit -- though
with a slight doubt derived from dreams -- that
the external world does really exist, and is not
wholly dependent for its existence upon our
continuing to perceive it.
I agree, apart from
the "slight doubt derived from dreams", because I
hold they are not relevant, since we would have
the same philosophical problems about our ordinary
experiences if we did not dream at all. Besides,
the whole problem arises from our capacity to
fantasize and to suppose that what seems so may
not really be so. Back.
Note 18: All knowledge, we find, must be built up
upon our instinctive beliefs, and if these are
rejected, nothing is left. But among our
instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than
others, while many have, by habit and
association, become entangled with other
beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely
supposed to be part of what is believed
instinctively.
This is vitiated by
the use of "instinctive". I prefer to say, much
more simply, that all knowledge is based on
assumptions, and avoid the assumption of instincts
in contexts like these altogether. Back.
Note 19: Philosophy should show us the hierarchy of
our instinctive beliefs, beginning with those we
hold most strongly, and presenting each as much
isolated and as free from irrelevant additions
as possible. It should take care to show that,
in the form in which they are finally set forth,
our instinctive beliefs do not clash, but form a
harmonious system. There can never be any reason
for rejecting one instinctive belief except that
it clashes with others; thus, if they are found
to harmonize, the whole system becomes worthy of
acceptance.
Again I want to avoid
"instinctive". Also, I see no reason why we should
arrive at a hierarchy of beliefs or at harmonious
beliefs: all I want to arrive at are true or, if
this cannot be had, probable beliefs, together
with reasons why the beliefs I have are true or
probable. And this may also be the place to note
(1) that this position - to seek beliefs that are
true or probable, for reasons that themselves are
true or probable - is quite compatible with
arriving at beliefs that are quite uncertain for
quite good reasons, but difficult to combine with
the more common beliefs that are quite certain for
quite bad reasons, while (2) this involves at
least a two-tier structure of beliefs, namely the
beliefs one desires to establish as true or
probable, which may be any kind of beliefs about
any kind of thing, and the beliefs by which one
establishes that beliefs are true or probable,
which are the kind of beliefs about beliefs that
belong to linguistics, logic, probability-theory,
methodology or philosophy of science.
If one wants to
articulate the most relevant difference between
the two tiers it is that the latter concerns our
knowledge of systems of symbolical representation,
and the former our knowledge of what our
symbolical representations represent. And it is
clear that, e.g. when telling fairy-tales or lies,
one relies on one's knowledge of symbolical
representation to represent something imagined
that is not really so. Back.
Note 20: It is of course possible
that all or any of our beliefs may be mistaken
(..)
It seems not possible
or very improbable that ALL of our beliefs
may be mistaken if we have - as we do - beliefs
about our beliefs. For then the belief that all
our beliefs are mistaken must be a mistake, since
if it were true it would be false. (This type of
argument seems to me more sensible than
Descartes' 'Cogito', that was framed to prove the
same sort of conclusion. Note that the present
argument - that not all our beliefs can be
mistaken, because it is itself a belief, and
therefore if true and believed would show that not
all our beliefs can be mistaken - neither
establishes the existence of the I nor does it
prove more than the belief that some beliefs are
true. Even so, there is a stronger argument, which
I in fact gave in the first note to the first
chapter: when we use language to make any claim
whatsoever, we are in fact making assumptions
about language, meaning, and users of language -
though it is very difficult to say which.) Back.
Note 21: But we cannot have reason to
reject a belief except on the ground of some
other belief. Hence, by organizing our
instinctive beliefs and their consequences, by
considering which among them is most possible,
if necessary, to modify or abandon, we can
arrive, on the basis of accepting as our sole
data what we instinctively believe, at an
orderly systematic organization of our
knowledge, in which, though the possibility
of error remains, its likelihood is diminished
by the interrelation of the parts and by the
critical scrutiny which has preceded
acquiescence.
Apart from
reservations about instincts, this seems
reasonable, except for the fact that we may reject
or adopt beliefs for all sorts of reasons (which
need not be reasonable at all). Most people seem
to arrive at most of their beliefs for no clear
reason at all, whatever they like to think. This
is a curious fact about human beings, which itself
does not prove that the beliefs they reach are
irrational or unreasonable, but only that they
themselves usually cannot completely account for
their beliefs, and have not arrived at them by a
process of reasoning that was fully conscious and
wholly clear, but rather have somehow grown in
them, from a mixture of conscious and unconscious
beliefs and desires. Back.
