Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/59

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MIND AND ITS OBJECTS
53

logy.[1] This impeachment is indicated in the Introduction (p. 16, where Epistemology is significantly coupled with Psychology), and under the title "The Emancipation of Metaphysics from Epistemology" forms the subject of Mr. Walter Marvin's Essay which stands first in the volume. His principal thesis, I take it, is this: "The first and most prominent tenet of the criticist may be stated thus: Inasmuch as all sciences are cases of knowledge the science which investigates knowledge as such is fundamental, and is, both in fact and in right, a critique of all science." (P. 51.) Compare "There must be a science prior to all others, even to Logic, which shows the possibility of knowing." (P. 60, cf. Green, cited below p. 57.) This polemic I suppose to be connected with the attitude taken up in such a statement as the following (Introduction, p. 20). "The Idealist is wont to reason that all philosophy and all science must be built upon the one fact that nobody can make any unchallengeable assertion about anything except his having an immediate experience."

  1. I suppose that this is the "epistemological error which unites": "such writers as Fichte and Berkeley, Mr. Bradley and Professor K. Pearson." "New Realism" (p. 10). The polemic against the ascription of a fundamental position to Epistemology is directed against the "criticist" eo nomine (p. 50 note). But I gather that all of us who acknowledge a considerable debt to Hegel are lumped as "criticists," that is, I understand, as sharing with Kant an attempt to establish a fundamental science, consisting in Epistemology, and prior to Logic and Metaphysics. This identification seems to me quite exactly wrong.