Page:An introduction to philosophy (IA introductiontoph00flet).pdf/26

2 something of their meaning for life. Our knowledge is not complete, neither is it always exact. Experience discovers to us the incompleteness and inexactness of our knowledge and enables us to enlarge and correct it. We recognize that the man of careful thought and extended practical acquaintance with the world and its affairs is the man whose opinion is of most value; it is most likely to be correct. This is illustrated in the value which we assign to the judgment of the lawyer or the physician of wide reading and large practice, assuming that he is also a man who judges his experiences critically. In a word, reflection upon what has come to us in our commerce with the world of nature and persons and happenings, i.e. a thoughtful reasoned consideration of our experiences, tends to accurate knowledge. In this day of general education, the knowledge of most persons is to no small degree systematized. It is because their knowledge of numbers is to some extent systematized, that the merchant and the farmer are able to calculate the value of goods and produce. The knowledge of the scientist, like that of all others, comes through his experiences; but it differs in some particulars from the knowledge of those who have not pursued critical studies. It comes more largely from reflection upon experiences; and it is more extended, more exact, and better systematized.

Summary: Our intercourse with persons and things gives us experience. Experience impresses us with the reality of the world and ourselves and life, and furnishes us with the content of our consciousness — our feelings and our knowledge. Through it we develop skill in thinking and doing; and our more exact knowledge comes of the reasoned consideration of our experiences.

'''§ 2. Experience and Philosophy. —''' We have seen that we come to assurance of the reality of the world and to