the individual knower may be identical in essence, the objective thought which he recognizes is still trans-subjective to the individual knower, just as much beyond his individual consciousness, as if it were the crass matter of the Natural Dualist; and the question how we reach this trans-subjective, how we transcend the individual consciousness, has still to be faced. The epistemological dualism, in other words, remains in full force, and only if that is satisfactorily surmounted, can we have any guarantee for our metaphysical monism, for the asserted identity of thought and being. Far be it from me to say, however, that Hegel and the neo-Hegelians are the only sinners in this respect. If Hegel swamps Epistemology in Metaphysics, the Realism of Scottish philosophy often errs as much in an opposite direction. In answer to Hume it insists (most rightly, as I think, in principle, though not always happily in point of expression) upon an epistemological dualism of subject and object as the fundamental fact of knowledge. But when it proceeds forthwith to treat this epistemological dualism of knowledge and reality as a metaphysical dualism between mind and matter, between two generically different substances, it falls at once into most unphilosophical crudities. Dualism in knowledge is no more a proof of metaphysical heterogeneity than identity of metaphysical essence in Hegel's sense can be taken as eliminating the epistemological problem.
The problem of knowledge and the Real, then, is the question which Epistemology has to face. As stated by Professor Huxley, and indeed as stated in any form, it is apt to appear fantastical and frivolous to the common-sense mind; but if it were so, it would hardly have formed the central problem of modern philosophy, I am convinced at least that unless it is probed to the bottom, we can have no clearness as to the foundations of knowledge and belief; and without such clearness we can hardly expect to make satisfactory progress in philosophy.
Andrew Seth.
University of Edinburgh.
