Page:Mary Whiton Calkins - Mr. Muscio's Criticism of Miss Calkins's Reply to the Realist (The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1912-10-24).pdf/1

 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 603

to this terminology. Only the critic may be reminded that the appearance is of the extra-bodily object to the intra-bodily subject, and so itself a relation between existences, even if not an existential relation. C. A. Strone. Paris, FRANCE.



HAVE just read with great interest Mr. Muscio’s able and clearly written criticism on my paper, “The Idealist to the Realist.” Muscio’s statement, mainly in my own words, of my argument may be summarized as follows: “What is asserted is that the ‘idealist by examination of objects—he does not (as the realist accuses) —that both sense qualities and relations are mental.’ Hence the question arises: What does Miss Calkins mean by ‘mental’? The answer to this question is best seen from the treatment of sensible qualities. … The ‘idealist’ we are told, ‘rests his case … on the of direct observation coupled with the inability of any observer to make an unchallengeable assertion about sense qualities save in the terms of idealism. To be more explicit: The idealist demands that his opponent describe any immediately perceived sense object in such wise that his description can not be disputed. The realist describes an object as, let us say, yellow, rough, and cold. But somebody may deny the yellowness, the roughness, or the coldness; and this throws the realist back on what he directly observes, what he knows with incontrovertible and undeniable certainty, namely, that described by the terms yellowness, coldness, and the like (an experience which he does not give himself). This statement, and only this, nobody can challenge.’”

Mr. Muscio’s criticisms are two: I. It is impossible to ‘‘describe’’ sense qualities for they are ele- mental, incommunicable (p. 324). II. Miss Calkins uses the term “mental” ambiguously, meaning by mental sometimes (1) the “incommunicable” (p. 324), sometimes (2) “that which is like me” (p. 325). Now, the sense-quality is in truth (1) incommunieable, but is not on this account “mental.”