QUALITATIVE THOUGHT
by John Dewey
The world in which we
immediately live, that in which we strive, succeed, and are defeated is
preeminently a qualitative world. What we act for, suffer, and enjoy are things
in their qualitative determinations. This world forms the field of
characteristic modes of thinking, characteristic in that thought is definitely
regulated by qualitative considerations. Were it not for the double and hence
ambiguous sense of the term "common-sense," it might be said that
common-sense thinking, that concerned with action and its consequences, whether
undergone in enjoyment or suffering, is qualitative. But since
"common-sense" is also used to designate accepted traditions and is
appealed to in support of them, it is safe at the outset to refer simply to
that thought which has to do with objects involved in the concerns and issues
of living.
The problem of qualitative objects has influenced
metaphysics and epistemology but has not received corresponding attention in
logical theory. The propositions significant in physical science are oblivious
of qualitative considerations as such; they deal with "primary
qualities" in distinction from secondary and tertiary; in actual
treatment, moreover, these primary qualities are not qualities but relations.
Consider the difference between movement as qualitative alteration, and motion
as F=ma; between stress as involving effort and tension, and as force
per unit surface; between the red of the blood issuing from a wound, and red as
signifying 400 trillion vibrations per time unit. Metaphysics has been
concerned with the existential status of qualitative objects as contrasted with
those of physical science, while epistemology, having frequently decided that
qualities are subjective and psychical, has been concerned with their relation
in knowing to the properties of "external" objects defined in
non-qualitative terms.
But a logical problem remains. What is the
relation or lack of relations between the two types of propositions, one which
refers to objects of physical science and the other to qualitative objects?
What, if any, are the distinguishing logical marks of each kind? If it were
true that things as things, apart from interaction with an organism, are
qualityless, the logical problem would remain. For the truth would concern the
mode of production and existence of qualitative things. It is irrelevant to
their logical status. Logic can hardly admit that it is concerned only with
objects having one special mode of production and existence, and yet claim
universality. And it would be fatal to the claims of logic to say that because
qualities are psychical--supposing for the moment that they are--therefore
logical theory has nothing to do with forms of thought characteristic of
qualitative objects. It is even possible that some of the difficulties of
metaphysical and epistemological theory about scientific and ordinary objects
spring from neglect of a basic logical treatment.
A preliminary introduction to the topic may be
found in the fact that Aristotelian logic, which still passes current
nominally, is a logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are
existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this
conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based
on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conducive to clearness--a
consideration that has a good deal to do with the existing dualism between
traditional and the newer relational logics. A more obviously pertinent
consideration is the fact that the interpretation of classic logic treats
qualitative determinations as fixed properties of objects, and thus is
committed to either an attributive or a classicatory doctrine of the import of
propositions. Take the proposition: "The red Indian is stoical." This
is interpreted either as signifying that the Indian in question is
characterized by the property of stoicism in addition to that of redness, or
that he belongs to the class of stoical objects. The ordinary direct sense of
the proposition escapes recognition in either case. For this sense expresses
the fact that the indigenous American was permeated throughout by a certain
quality, instead of being an object possessing a certain quality along with
others. He lived, acted, endured stoically.
If one thinks that the difference between the two
meanings has no logical import, let him reflect that the whole current
subject-predication theory of propositions is affected by the
"property" notion, whether the theory speaks in the language of
attribution or classification. A subject is "given"--ultimately apart
from thinking--and then thought adds to what is given a further determination
or else assigns it to a readymade class of things. Neither theory can have any
place for the integral development and reconstruction of subject-matter effected by the thought expressed in propositions. In effect
it excludes thought from any share in the determination of the subject-matter
of knowledge, confining it to setting forth the results (whether conceived as
attributive or classificatory) of knowledge already attained in isolation from
the method by which it is attained.
Perhaps, however, the consideration that will
appeal to most people is the fact that the neglect of qualitative objects and
considerations leaves thought in certain subjects without any logical status
and control. In esthetic matters, in morals and politics, the effect of this
neglect is either to deny (implicitly at least) that they have logical
foundation or else, in order to bring them under received logical categories,
to evacuate them of their distinctive meaning--a procedure which produces the
myth of the "economic man" and the reduction of esthetics and morals,
as far as they can receive any intellectual treatment at all, to
quasi-mathematical subjects.
Consider for example a picture that is a work of
art and not just a chromo or other mode of mechanical product. Its quality is
not a property which it possesses in addition to its other properties. It is
something which externally demarcates it from other paintings, and which
internally pervades, colors, tones, and weights every detail and every relation
of the work of art. The same thing is true of the "quality" of a
person or of historic events. We follow, with apparently complete
understanding, a tale in which a certain quality or character is ascribed to a
certain man. But something said causes us to interject, "Oh, you are
speaking of Thomas Jones, I supposed you meant John Jones." Every detail
related, every distinction set forth remains just what
it was before. Yet the significance, the color and weight, of every detail is
altered. For the quality that runs through them all, that gives meaning to each
and binds them together, is transformed.
Now my point is that unless such underlying and
pervasive qualitative determinations are acknowledged in a distinct logical
formulation, one or other of two results is bound to follow. Either
thought is denied to the subject matter in question, and the phenomena
are attributed to "intuition" or "genius" or
"impulse" or "personality" as ultimate and unanalyzable
entities; or, worse yet, intellectual analysis is reduced to a mechanical
enumeration of isolated items or "properties." As a matter of fact,
such intellectual definiteness and coherence as the objects and criticisms of
esthetic and moral subjects possess is due to their being controlled by the
quality of subject-matter as a whole. Consideration of the meaning of
regulation by an underlying and pervasive quality is the theme of this article.
What is intended may be indicated by drawing a
distinction between something called a "situation" and something
termed an "object." By the term situation in this connection is
signified the fact that the subject-matter ultimately referred to in
existential propositions is a complex existence that is held together, in spite
of its internal complexity, by the fact that it is dominated and characterized
throughout by a single quality. By "object" is meant some element in
the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is
a distinction. The special point made is that the selective determination and
relation of objects in thought is controlled by reference to a situation--to
that which is constituted by a pervasive and internally integrating quality, so
that failure to acknowledge the situation leaves, in the end, the logical force
of objects and their relations inexplicable.
Now in current logical formulations, the
beginning is always made with "objects." If we take the proposition
"the stone is shaly," theological import of the proposition is treated
as if something called "stone" had complete intellectual import in
and of itself and then some property, having equally a fixed content in
isolation, "shaly" is attributed to it. No such self-sufficient and
self-enclosed entity can possibly lead anywhere nor be led to; connection among
such entities is mechanical and arbitrary, not intellectual. Any proposition
about "stone" or "shaly" would have to be analytic in the
Kantian sense, merely stating part of the content already known to be contained
in the meaning of the terms. That a tautological proposition is a proposition
only in name is well recognized. In fact, "stone," "shaly"
(or whatever are subject and predicate) are
determinations or distinctions instituted within the total subject-matter to
which thought refers. When such propositions figure in logical textbooks, the
actual subject-matter referred to is some branch of logical theory which is
exemplified in the proposition.
This larger and inclusive subject-matter is what
is meant by the term "situation." Two further points follow. The
situation as such is not and cannot be stated or made explicit. It is taken for
granted, "understood," or implicit in all prepositional symbolization.
It forms the universe of discourse of whatever is expressly stated or of what
appears as a term in a proposition. The situation cannot present itself as an
element in a proposition any more than a universe of discourse can appear as a
member of discourse within that universe. To call it "implicit" does
not signify that it is implied. It is present throughout as that of which
whatever is explicitly stated or propounded is a distinction. A quart bowl
cannot be held within itself or in any of its contents. It may, however, be contained
in another bowl, and similarly what is the "situation" in one
proposition may appear as a term in another proposition--that is, in
connection with some other situation to which thought now refers.
Secondly, the situation controls the terms of
thought; for they are its distinctions, and applicability to it is the
ultimate test of their validity. It is this phase of the matter which is
suggested by the earlier use of the idea of a pervasive and underlying quality.
If the quart container affected the import of everything held within it, there
would be a physical analogy; a consideration that may be awkwardly hinted at by
the case of a person protesting to a salesman that he has not received a full
quart; the deficiency affects everything that he has purchased. A work of art
provides an apter illustration. In it, as we have already noted, the quality of
the whole permeates, affects, and controls every detail. There are paintings,
buildings, novels, arguments, in which an observer notes an inability of the
author to sustain a unified attention throughout. The details fall to pieces;
they are not distinctions of one subject-matter, because there is no qualitative
unity underlying them. Confusion and incoherence are always marks of lack of
control by a single pervasive quality. The latter alone enables a person to
keep track of what he is doing, saying, hearing, reading, in whatever
explicitly appears. The underlying unity of qualitativeness regulates
pertinence or relevancy and force of every distinction and relation; it guides
selection and rejection and the manner of utilization of all explicit terms.
This quality enables us to keep thinking about one problem without our having
constantly to stop to ask ourselves what it is after all that we are thinking
about. We are aware of it not by itself but as the background, the thread, and
the directive clue in what we do expressly think of. For the latter things are its
distinctions and relations.1
If we designate this permeating qualitative unity
in psychological language, we say it is felt rather than thought. Then, if we
hypostatize it, we call it a feeling. But to term it a feeling is to
reverse the actual state of affairs. The existence of unifying qualitativeness
in the subject-matter defines the meaning of
"feeling." The notion that "a feeling" designates a
ready-made independent psychical entity is a product of a reflection which
presupposes the direct presence of quality as such. "Feeling" and
"felt" are names for a relation of quality. When, for example,
anger exists, it is the pervading tone, color, and quality of persons, things,
and circumstances, or of a situation. When angry we are not aware of anger but
of these objects in their immediate and unique qualities. In another situation,
anger may appear as a distinct term, and analysis may then call it a feeling or
emotion. But we have now shifted the universe of discourse, and the validity of
the terms of the later one depends upon the existence of the direct quality of
the whole in a former one. That is, in saying that something was felt,
not thought of, we are analyzing, in a new situation having its own immediate
quality, the subject-matter of a prior situation; we are making anger an object
of analytic examination, not being angry.
When it is said that I have a feeling, or
impression, or "hunch," that things are thus and so, what is actually
designated is primarily the presence of a dominating quality in a situation as
a whole, not just the existence of a feeling as a psychical or psychological
fact. To say I have a feeling or impression that so and so is the case is to
note that the quality in question is not yet resolved into determinate terms
and relations; it marks a conclusion without statement of the reasons for it,
the grounds upon which it rests. It is the first stage in the development of
explicit distinctions. All thought in every subject begins with just such an
unanalyzed whole. When the subject-matter is reasonably familiar, relevant
distinctions speedily offer themselves, and sheer qualitativeness may not
remain long enough to be readily recalled. But it often persists and forms a
haunting and engrossing problem. It is a commonplace that a problem stated
is well on its way to solution, for statement of the nature of a problem
signifies that the underlying quality is being transformed into determinate
distinctions of terms and relations or has become an object of articulate
thought. But something presents itself as problematic before there is
recognition of what the problem is. The problem is had or experienced
before it can be stated or set forth; but it is had as an immediate quality of
the whole situation. The sense of something problematic, of something
perplexing and to be resolved, marks the presence of something pervading all
elements and considerations. Thought is the operation by which it is converted
into pertinent and coherent terms.
The word "intuition" has many meanings.
But in its popular, as distinct from refined philosophic usage, it is closely
connected with the single qualitativeness underlying all the details of
explicit reasoning. It may be relatively dumb and inarticulate and yet
penetrating; unexpressed in definite ideas which form reasons and
justifications and yet profoundly right. To my mind, Bergson's contention that
intuition precedes conception and goes deeper is correct. Reflection and rational
elaboration spring from and make explicit a prior intuition. But there is
nothing mystical about this fact, and it does not signify that there are two
modes of knowledge, one of which is appropriate to one kind of subject-matter,
and the other mode to the other kind. Thinking and theorizing about physical
matters set out from an intuition, and reflection about affairs of life and
mind consists in an ideational and conceptual transformation of what begins as
an intuition. Intuition, in short, signifies the realization of a pervasive
quality such that it regulates the determination of relevant distinctions or of
whatever, whether in the way of terms or relations, becomes the accepted object
of thought.
While some ejaculations and interjections are
merely organic responses, there are those which have an intellectual import,
though only context and the total situation can decide to which class a
particular ejaculation belongs. "Alas," "Yes,"
"No," "Oh" may each of them be the symbol of an integrated
attitude toward the quality of a situation as a whole; that it is thoroughly
pitiful, acceptable, to be rejected, or is a matter of complete surprise. In
this case, they characterize the existent situation and as such have a
cognitive import. The exclamation "Good!" may mark a deep
apprehension of the quality of a piece of acting on the stage, of a deed
performed, or of a picture in its wealth of content. The actual judgment may
find better expression in these symbols than in a long-winded disquisition. To many persons there is something artificial and repellent
in discoursing about any consummatory event or object. It speaks so completely
for itself that words are poor substitutes--not that thought fails, but that
thought so completely grasps the dominant quality that translation into
explicit terms gives a partial and inadequate result.
Such ejaculatory judgments supply perhaps the
simplest example of qualitative thought in its purity. While they are
primitive, it does not follow that they are always superficial and immature.
Sometimes, indeed, they express an infantile mode of intellectual response. But
they may also sum up and integrate prolonged previous experience and training,
and bring to a unified head the results of severe and consecutive reflection.
Only the situation symbolized and not the formal and prepositional symbol can
decide which is the case. The full content of meaning
is best apprehended in case of the judgment of the esthetic expert in the
presence of a work of art. But they come at the beginning and at the close of
every scientific investigation. These open with the "Oh" of wonder
and terminate with the "Good" of a rounded-out and organized
situation. Neither the "Oh" nor the "Good" expresses a mere
state of personal feeling. Each characterizes a subject matter. "How
beautiful" symbolizes neither a state of feeling nor the supervening of an
external essence upon a state of existence but marks the realized appreciation
of a pervading quality that is now translated into a system of definite and
coherent terms. Language fails not because thought fails, but because no verbal
symbols can do justice to the fullness and richness of thought. If we are to
continue talking about "data" in any other sense than as reflective
distinctions, the original datum is always such a qualitative whole.
The logic of artistic construction is worth more
than a passing notice, whether its product be a painting, a symphony, a statue,
a building, a drama, or a novel. So far as it is not evidence of conceit on the
part of a specialized class, refusal to admit thought and logic on the part of
those who make these constructions is evidence of the breakdown of traditional
logic. There are (as we previously noted) alleged works of art in which parts
do not hang together and in which the quality of one part does not reinforce
and expand the quality of every other part. But this fact is itself a
manifestation of the defective character of the thought involved in their
production. It illustrates by contrast the nature of such works as are genuine
intellectual and logical wholes. In the latter, the underlying quality that
defines the work, that circumscribes it externally and integrates it
internally, controls the thinking of the artist; his logic is the logic of what
I have called qualitative thinking.
Upon subsequent analysis, we term the properties
of a work of art by such names as symmetry, harmony, rhythm, measure, and
proportion. These may, in some cases at least, be formulated mathematically.
But the apprehension of these formal relationships is not primary for either
the artist or the appreciative spectator. The subject-matter formulated by these
terms is primarily qualitative, and is apprehended qualitatively. Without an
independent qualitative apprehension, the characteristics of a work of art can
be translated into explicit harmonies, symmetries, etc., only in a way which
substitutes mechanical formulae for esthetic quality. The value of any such
translation in esthetic criticism is measured, moreover, by the extent to which
the prepositional statements return to effect a
heightening and deepening of a qualitative apprehension. Otherwise, esthetic
appreciation is replaced by judgment of isolated technique.
The logic of artistic construction and esthetic
appreciation is peculiarly significant because they exemplify in accentuated
and purified form the control of selection of detail and of mode of relation,
or integration, by a qualitative whole. The underlying quality demands certain
distinctions, and the degree in which the demand is met confers upon the work
of art that necessary or inevitable character which is its mark. Formal
necessities, such as can be made explicit, depend upon the material necessity
imposed by the pervasive and underlying quality. Artistic thought is not
however unique in this respect but only shows an intensification of a characteristic
of all thought. In a looser way, it is a characteristic of all nontechnical,
non-"scientific" thought. Scientific thought is, in its turn, a
specialized form of art, with its own qualitative control. The more formal and
mathematical science becomes, the more it is
controlled by sensitiveness to a special kind of qualitative considerations.
Failure to realize the qualitative and artistic nature of formal scientific
construction is due to two causes. One is conventional,
the habit of associating art and esthetic appreciation with a few popularly
recognized forms. The other cause is the fact that a student is so concerned
with the mastery of symbolic or prepositional forms that he fails to recognize
and to repeat the creative operations involved in their construction. Or, when
they are mastered, he is more concerned with their further application than
with realization of their intrinsic intellectual meaning.
The foregoing remarks are intended to suggest the
significance to be attached to the term "qualitative thought." But as
statements they are propositions and hence symbolic. Their meaning can be
apprehended only by going beyond them, by using them as clues to call up
qualitative situations. When an experience of the latter is had and they are
relived, the realities corresponding to the propositions laid down may be had.
Assuming that such a realization has been experienced, we proceed to consider
some further questions upon which qualitative thought throws light.
First as to the nature of the
predication. The difficulties connected with the problem of predication
are of long standing. They were recognized in Greek thought, and the skepticism
they induced was a factor in developing the Platonic theory of the
same-and-the-other and the Aristotelian conception of
potentiality-and-actuality. The skeptical difficulty may be summed up in the
statement that predication is either tautological and
so meaningless, or else falsifying or at least arbitrary. Take the proposition
"that thing is sweet." If "sweet" already qualifies the
meaning of "that thing," the predication is analytic in the Kantian
sense, or forms a trivial proposition in the sense of Locke. But if "sweet"
does not already qualify "that thing" what ground is there for
tacking it on? The most that can be said is that some one who did not know
before that it was sweet has now learned it. But such a statement refers only
to an episode in the some one's intellectual biography. It has no logical
force; it does not touch the question of predication that has objective
reference and possible validity.
When, however, it is recognized that predication--any
proposition having subject-predicate form--marks an attempt to make a
qualitative whole which is directly and nonreflectively experienced into an
object of thought for the sake of its own development, the case stands
otherwise. What is "given" is not an object by itself nor a term
having a meaning of its own. The "given," that is to say the
existent, is precisely an undetermined and dominant complex quality.
"Subject" and "predicate" are correlative determinations of
this quality. The "copula" stands for the fact that one term is predicated
of the other, and is thus a sign of the development of the qualitative whole by
means of their distinction. It is, so to speak, the assertion of the fact that
the distinctions designated in subject and predicate are correlative and work
together in a common function of determination.
A certain quality is experienced. When it is
inquired into or thought (judged), it differentiates into "that
thing" on the one hand, and "sweet" on
the other. Both "that thing" and "sweet" are analytic of
the quality, but are additive, synthetic, ampliative, with respect to each
other. The copula "is" marks just the effect of this distinction upon
the correlative terms. They mark something like a division of labor, and the
copula marks the function or work done by the structures that exhibit the
division of labor. To say that "that thing is sweet" means "that
thing" will sweeten some other object, say coffee, or a batter of
milk and eggs. The intent of sweetening something formed the ground for
converting a dumb quality into an articulate object of thought.
The logical force of the copula is always that of
an active verb. It is merely a linguistic peculiarity, not a logical fact, that
we say "that is red" instead of "that reddens," either in
the sense of growing, becoming, red, or in the sense of making something else
red. Even linguistically our "is" is a weakened form of an active
verb signifying "stays" or "stands." But the nature of any
act (designated by the true verbal form) is best apprehended in its effect and
issue; we say "is sweet" rather than "sweetens," "is
red" rather than "reddens" because we define the active change
by its anticipated or attained outcome. To say "the dog is ugly" is a
way of setting forth what he is likely to do, namely to snarl and bite.
"Man is mortal" indicates what man does or what actively is done to
him, calling attention to a consequence. If we convert its verbal form into
"men die," we realize the transitive and additive force of predication
and escape the self-made difficulties of the attributive theory.
The underlying pervasive quality in the last
instance, when it is put in words, involves care or concern for human destiny.
But we must remember that this exists as a dumb quality until it is symbolized
in an intellectual and prepositional form. Out of this quality there emerges
the idea of man and of mortality and of their existential connection with each
other. No one of them has any meaning apart from the others, neither
the distinctions, the terms, nor their relation, the predication. All
the difficulties that attend the problem of predication spring from supposing
that we can take the terms and their connection as having meaning by themselves. The sole alternative to this supposition is the
recognition that the object of thought, designated propositionally, is a
quality that is first directly and unreflectively experienced or had.
One source of the difficulty and the error in the
classic theory lies in a radical misconception of the treacherous idea of the
"given." The only thing that is unqualifiedly given is the total
pervasive quality; and the objection to calling it "given" is that
the word suggests something to which it is given, mind or thought or
consciousness or whatever, as well possibly as something that gives. In truth
"given" in this connection signifies only that the quality
immediately exists, or is brutely there. In this capacity, it forms that to which
all objects of thought refer, although, as we have noticed, it is never part of
the manifest subject-matter of thought. In itself, it is the big, buzzing,
blooming confusion of which James wrote. This expresses not only the state of a
baby's experience but the first stage and background of all thinking on any
subject. There is, however, no inarticulate quality which is merely buzzing and
blooming. It buzzes to some effect; it blooms toward some fruitage. That is,
the quality, although dumb, has as a part of its complex quality a movement or
transition in some direction. It can, therefore, be intellectually symbolized
and converted into an object of thought. This is done by statement of limits
and of direction of transition between them. "That" and "sweet"
define the limits of the moving quality, the copula "tastes" (the
real force of "is") defines the direction of movement between these
limits. Putting the nature of the two limits briefly and without any attempt to
justify the statement here, the subject represents the pervasive quality as
means or condition and the predicate represents it as outcome or end.
These considerations define not only the
subject-predicate structure of categorical propositions but they explain why
the selective character of all such propositions with respect to the fullness
of existence is not falsifying in character. Idealistic logicians, in calling
attention to the partial or selective character of particular judgments, have
used the fact to cast logical aspersion upon them, and to infer their need of
correction first by transformation into conditional propositions and then
finally into a judgment coextensive with the whole universe, arguing that only
the latter can be truly true. But enough is always enough, and the underlying
quality is itself the test of the "enough" for any particular case.
All that is needed is to determine this quality by indicating the limits
between which it moves and the direction or tendency of its movement. Sometimes
the situation is simple and the most meager indications serve, like the
"safe" or "out" of a baseball umpire. At other times, a
quality is complex and prolonged, and a multitude of distinctions and
subordinate relations are required for its determinate statement. It would have
been logically vicious on one occasion to propound more than "my kingdom
for a horse," while under other circumstances it may need a volume to set
forth the quality of the situation so as to make it comprehensible. Any proposition
that serves the purpose for which it is made is logically adequate; the idea
that it is inadequate until the whole universe has been included is a
consequence of giving judgment a wrong office--an error that has its source in
failure to see the domination of every instance of thought by a qualitative
whole needing statement in order that it may function.
At this point a reference to what is termed
association of ideas is in place. For while the subject is usually treated as
psychological in nature, thinking as an existential process takes place through
association; existentially, thinking is association as far as the latter
is controlled. And the mechanics of thinking can hardly be totally irrelevant
to its logical structure and function. I shall assume without much
argument that "ideas" here signify objects, not psychical entities;
objects, that is to say, as meanings to which reference may be made. When one,
seeing smoke, thinks of fire he is associating objects, not just states in his
own mind. And so when thinking of a hand, one thinks of
grasping or of an organism. Thus, when association takes the form of
thought, or is controlled and not loose day-dreaming, association is a name for
a connection of objects or their elements in the total situation having a
qualitative unity. This statement signifies something different than does a
statement that associated objects are physical parts of a physical whole. It
happens to hold in the case of "hand-organism" and with some
qualifications in the case of "smoke-fire." But a philosophical
student might be led by the thought of hand to the thought of Aristotle on the
ground of a remark made by Aristotle.
In any case an original contiguity (or similarity) is not the cause of an association. We do not associate by contiguity, for recognition of a whole in which elements are juxtaposed in space or in temporal sequence is the result of suggestion. The absurdity of the preposition "by" when applied to similarity is still more obvious. It is the reason why some writers reduce similarity to identity in differences, a position that will be examined later. That by which association is effected, by which suggestion and evocation of a distinct object of thought is brought about, is some acquired modification of the organism, usually designated habit. The conditioning mechanism may not be known at present in detail, but it cannot be an original contiguity because that contiguity is apprehended only in consequence of association. It may well be an organic attitude formed in consequence of a responsive act to things once coexistent or sequential. But this act was unitary; reference to it only accentuates the fact that the quality attending it was spread over and inclusive of the two things in question. That is, it was a response to a situation within which objects were related in space or time.
Given the conditions, the real problem is to say why objects once conjoined in a whole are now distinguished as two objects, one that which suggests, and the other that which is suggested. If I think of a chiffonier, the thought does not call up that of drawers as a distinct idea. For the drawers are a part of the object thought of. So when I originally saw, say a bird-in-a-nest, I saw a single total object. Why then does the sight or thought of a bird now call up that of a nest as a distinct idea? In general, the reason is that I have so often seen birds without seeing a nest and nests without birds. Moreover, it must be remembered that a person often sees a bird or nest, and instead of thinking of any other object, he reacts to it directly, as a man does when shooting at a bird or a boy climbing a tree to get the nest. While there is no association without habit, the natural tendency of habit is to produce an immediate reaction, not to evoke another distinct object of thought or idea. As the ^association of birds and nests in experience shows, this additional factor is some resistance to the attitude formed by the sight of nest-with-a-bird-in-it. Otherwise we should have the case over again of chiffonier and its drawers, or any object and its constitutive parts. Without the resistant or negative factor, there would be no tension to effect the change from a direct response, an immediate act, to an indirect one, a distinct object of thought.
Not only then is there no association by
contiguity, but association is not of two objects separated yet
contiguous in a prior experience. Its characteristic nature is that it presents
as distinct but connected objects what originally were either two parts of one
situational object, or (in the case that a man had previously always seen birds
and nests separately from each other) that it presents in coexistence or
sequence with one another objects previously separated in space and time. This
consideration is fatal to the notion that the associated objects account by
themselves or in their own isolated nature for association. It indicates that
coexistence or sequence as a physical existential fact is not the ground of
association. What alternative remains save that the quality of a situation as a
whole operates to produce a functional connection? Acceptance of this
alternative implies that association is an intellectual connection, thus
aligning association with thought, as we shall now see.
There is nothing intellectual or logical in
contiguity, in mere juxtaposition in space and time. If association were, then,
either of or by contiguity, association would not have any
logical force, any connection with thought.2 But in fact association
of bare contiguities is a myth. There is an indefinite number of particulars
contiguous to one another in space and time. When I think of a nest why does a
bird come into my mind? As a matter of contiguity, there are multitudinous
leaves and twigs which are more frequently and more obviously juxtaposed than
is a bird. When I think of a hammer, why is the idea of nail so likely to
follow? Such questions suggest, I hope, that even in
seemingly casual cases of association, there is an underlying quality which
operates to control the connection of objects thought of. It takes something
else than contiguity to effect association; there must be relevancy of both
ideas to a situation defined by unity of quality. There is coherence of some
sort because of mutual pertinency of both ideas, (or of all ideas in train) to
a basis beyond any of them and beyond mere juxtaposition of objects in space
and time.
The usual notion that association is merely de
facto receives a still more obvious shock in the case of similarity. When I
associate bird with nest, there may have been at least some previous
conjunction in experience of the two objects, even though that conjunction is
not by itself a sufficient condition of the later association. But when
troublesome thought suggests the sting of an insect, or when change of fortune
suggests the ebb and flow of the sea, there is no physical conjunction
in the past to which appeal can be made. To try to explain the matter by saying
that two objects are associated because they are similar is either to
offer the problem as a solution or to attribute causal efficacy to
"similarity"--which is to utter meaningless words. So-called
association "by" similarity is a striking example of the influence of
an underlying pervasive quality in determining the connection essential in
thought.
There is, as far as I am aware, but one serious
attempt to explain such association on some other basis. This is found in the
view that there is in what is called similarity an actual existential identity
among differences and that this identity works and then reinstates differences
by contiguity. I fail to see how the explanation applies in many cases--such as
that of the troublesome thought and the sting of an insect, or Socrates and a
gadfly. "Identity" seems to be the result rather than the antecedent
of the association. But I shall confine the discussion to instances in which it
is claimed to work. Bradley has stated the theory in question most clearly and
I shall use his illustration.3
Walking on the
The only way that form or pattern can operate as
an immediate link is by the mode of a directly experienced quality,
something present and prior to and independent of all reflective analysis,
something of the same nature which controls artistic construction. In
psychological language, it is felt, and the feeling is made explicit or a term
of thought in the idea of another promontory. What operates is not an external
existential identity between two things, but a present immediate quality--an
explanation which is the only one applicable to some cases already cited, and
to being reminded of blotting paper by a certain voice. The priority of
regulative quality of the situation as a whole is especially obvious in the
case of esthetic judgments. A man sees a picture and says at first sight that
it is by Goya or by some one influenced by him. He passes the judgment long
before he has made any analysis or any explicit identification of elements. It
is the quality of the picture as a whole that operates. With a trained observer
such a judgment based on pervasive quality may lead later to definite analysis
of elements and details; the result of the analysis may confirm or may lead to
rejection of the original ascription. But the basic appreciation of quality as
a whole is a more dependable basis of such point by point analysis and its
conclusion than is an external analysis performed by a critic who knows history
and mechanical points of brushwork but who is lacking in sensitiveness to pervasive
quality.
Another instance of Bradley's refers to Mill's
denial that the suggestion of another triangle by a given triangle can be
reduced to contiguity. For, Mill says, "the form of a triangle is not one
single feature among others." Bradley thinks such a view absurd; he
cannot, he says, even tell what is meant. The use of the term
"feature" may be unfortunate. For when we speak of a nose as a
feature of a face, we have in mind one element or part among others. Now
triangularity is not such an isolable element. It is a characteristic of the
disposition, arrangement, or pattern of all elements, and it must be capable of
immediate realization. Even a nose as a feature of a man's face is not
completely isolable. For it is characterized by the whole face as well as
characterizing that face. A better instance is found, however, when we speak of
a man's expression. That assuredly is a total effect of all elements in
their relation to one another, not a "single feature among others."
And so is triangularity. Family resemblances are often detected, and yet one is
totally unable to specify the points of resemblance. Unanalyzed quality of the
whole accounts for the identification as a result, and it is a radically
different thing from identification of a man by finger prints.
The outcome of this brief discussion, in
revealing the significance of dominant qualitativeness in suggestion and
connection of ideas, shows why thinking as an existential process is all one
with controlled association.4 For the latter is not explained by any
merely external conjunction or any external identity in things. If it were,
association would itself be merely another case of existential sequence,
coexistence, or identity and would be lacking in intellectual and logical
import. But selection and coherence determined by an immediate quality that
constitutes and delimits a situation are characteristics of
"association." These traits are different in kind from existential
conjunction and physical sameness, and identical with those of thought. The
case of similarity or resemblance is almost uniquely significant. The problem
of its nature is a crux of philosophies. The difficulty of dealing with it leads
one on the one hand to thinking of it as purely psychical in nature, and, on
the other hand, to the idealistic identification of the ontological and the
logical via the principle of identity in difference. The recognition of
pervasive quality enables us to avoid both extremes. By its means a voice is
assimilated to blotting paper, and in more serious intellectual matters analogy
becomes a guiding principle of scientific thought. On the basis of assimilation
a further explicit recognition of similarity takes place. For assimilation is
not itself the perception or judgment of similarity; the latter requires a
further act made possible by symbols. It involves a proposition. The saying
that there is a "tide in the affairs of men, etc.," does not of
itself involve any direct comparison of human affairs with the ocean and an
explicit judgment of likeness. A pervasive quality has resulted in an assimilation. If symbols are at hand, this assimilation
may lead to a further act--the judgment of similarity. But de facto
assimilation comes first and need not eventuate in the express conception of
resemblance.5
''Assimilation" denotes the efficacious
operation of pervasive quality; "similarity" denotes a relation.
Sheer assimilation results in the presence of a single object of
apprehension. To identify a seen thing as a promontory is a case of
assimilation. By some physiological process, not exactly understood at present
but to which the name "habit" is given, the net outcome of prior
experiences gives a dominant quality, designated "promontory," to a
perceived existence. Passage from this object to some other implies resistance
to mere assimilation and results in making distinctions. The pervasive quality
is differentiated while at the same time these differentiations are connected.
The result is an explicit statement or proposition.
I have touched, as I am well aware, only upon the
fringes of a complex subject. But in view of the general neglect of the
subject, I shall be satisfied if I have turned the attention of those
interested in thought and its workings to an overlooked field. Omitting
reference to ramifications, the gist of the matter is that the immediate
existence of quality, and of dominant and pervasive quality, is the background,
the point of departure, and the regulative principle of all thinking. Thought
which denies the existential reality of qualitative things is therefore bound
to end in self-contradiction and in denying itself. "Scientific" thinking, that expressed in physical science, never gets
away from qualitative existence. Directly, it always has its own qualitative
background; indirectly, it has that of the world in which the ordinary
experience of the common man is lived. Failure to recognize this fact is the
source of a large part of the artificial problems and fallacies that infect our
theory of knowledge and our metaphysics, or theories of existence. With this
general conclusion goes another that has been emphasized in the preceding
discussion. Construction that is artistic is as much a case of genuine thought
as that expressed in scientific and philosophical matters, and so is all
genuine esthetic appreciation of art, since the latter must in some way, to be
vital, retrace the course of the creative process. But the development of this
point in its bearing upon esthetic judgment and theory is another story.
-------------- Endnotes
-------------- 1. The "fringe" of James
seems to me to be a somewhat unfortunate way of expressing the role of the
underlying qualitative character that constitutes a situation-- unfortunate
because the metaphor tends to treat it as an additional element instead of an
all-pervasive influence in determining other contents.
-------------- 2. The assumption that in the case
of contiguity association is of a merely de facto or existential nature
is the root of Lotze's (and others') theory that a priori logical forms
are necessary in order to change juxtaposition of things into coherence of
meaning.
-------------- 3. Logic, Book
II, Part 2,
-------------- 4. Were I to venture into
speculative territory, I might apply this conception to the problem of
"thinking" in animals, and what the Gestalt psychologists call
"insight." That total quality operates with animals and sometimes
secures, as with monkeys, results like those which we obtain by reflective
analysis cannot, it seems to me, be doubted. But that this operation of quality
in effecting results then goes out into symbolization and analysis is quite
another matter.
-------------- 5. Thus, to recur to Bradley's
example, one may pass directly from the promontory in
_______________________________________
From --Qualitative Thought-- by John Dewey, in Philosophy
and Civilization,