Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/97

 84 J. DEWEY I not generally, nor with reference to my own standpoint, but in connexion with this examination of British philosophy, and that the contention of the article is, rather, that what has been an un- conscious presupposition ought to be given a psychological exami- nation and position. So the logical bearing of the second article was not to give recommendations regarding specific methods, but to suggest to those whom Mr. Hodgson calls iny " Germanising friends " that their results will never have a firm basis until they are reached by a psychological method. The article was entitled "Psychology as Philosophic Method," just as Mr. Hodgson might call a portion of his article " Metaphysic as Philosophic Method ". It thus appears to me that the mass of Mr. Hodgson's direct specific criticism is so beside the mark that it is needless to under- take a detailed review of it. But one may always learn much from Mr. Hodgson when he is positively propounding his own views; and certain discussions, as, e,g., regarding the nature of the universal and the individual, and the mutual connexions of science, philo- sophy and psychology, are never beside the mark. I should like briefly to discuss the attempts which Mr. Hodgson kindly makes to fill the "blanks " in my argument. i. First, then, as to the relation of the individual and the universal consciousness, or, more properly speaking, of the individual and the universal in consciousness. The position of Mr. Hodgson, as I understand it, is that I have not duly distinguished between perceptual processes, which give us the individual, and concep- tual processes, which generalise it and give us a result more or less abstract, and that consequently I have erected a generalised notion of my individual consciousness, a logical abstraction into an actual ens, which I call universal consciousness (pp. 480 and 484). The real state of the case, we are to believe, is as follows : There is a " stream of states and changes " which comes to every individual ; this is an individualised stream, and occurs in percep- tual order. Out of it the world of ordinary experience is built. But the individual can think as well as perceive, and he comes gradually to generalise. This process of generalisation he extends even to his own consciousness ; he generalises conscious experi- ence itself. But the generalisation does not give, either in know- ledge or belief, a universal consciousness different in any way from his own. It is merely the logical or conceptual way of representing individuality of what in actual experience is per- ceptual (pp. 480 and 483). A universal self can only be represented in thought as an individual self indefinitely or infinitely magnified (p. 486). The result is that, while we may speak of universal knowledge, the content of consciousness, it is fallacious and self- contradictory to speak of a universal knower, the agent or bearer of consciousness (pp. 484 and 485). The gist of the whole