THE FIELD OF LOGIC 323 



means for me something quite different. It means decidedly and 

 unequivocally that in reality, apart from the judging process, things 

 exist and operate just as the judgment declares. If it is claimed that 

 this meaning is illusory, I eagerly desire to know on what solid ground 

 its illusoriness can be established. When the conclusion was reached 

 that gravitation varies directly as the mass and inversely as the 

 square of the distance, it was doubtless reached in an evolutionary 

 and pragmatic way; but it claimed to disclose a fact which prevailed 

 before the conclusion was reached, and in spite of the conclusion. 

 Knowledge has been born of the travail of living, but it has been 

 born as knowledge. 



When the knowledge character of judgment is insisted on, it seems 

 almost incredible that any one would think of denying or overlooking 

 it. Indeed, current discussions are far from clear on the subject. 

 Pragmatists are constantly denying that they hold the conclusions 

 that their critics almost unanimously draw. There is, therefore, a 

 good deal of confusion of thought yet to be dispelled. Yet there 

 seems to be current a pronounced determination to banish the epi- 

 stemological problem from logic. This is, to my mind, suspicious, even 

 when epistemology is defined in a way which most epistemologists 

 would not approve. It is suspicious just because we must always 

 ask eventually that most epistemological and metaphysical question : 

 " Is knowledge true? " To answer, it is true when it functions in a way 

 to satisfy the needs which generated its activity, is, no doubt, correct, 

 but it is by no means adequate. The same answer can be made to 

 the inquiry after the efficiency of any vital process whatever, and is, 

 therefore, not distinctive. We have still to inquire into the specific 

 character of the needs which originate judgments and of the conse- 

 quent satisfaction. Just here is where the uniqueness of the logical 

 problem is disclosed. With conscious beings, the success of the things 

 they do has become increasingly dependent on their ability to discover 

 what takes place in independence of the knowing process. That is the 

 need which generates judgment. The satisfaction is, of course, the 

 attainment of the discovery. Now to make the judgment itself and 

 not the consequent action the instrumental factor seems to me to 

 misstate the facts of the case. Nothing is clearer than that there 

 is no necessity for knowledge to issue in adjustment. And it is clear 

 to me that increased control of experience, while resulting from 

 knowledge, does not give to it its character. Omniscience could idly 

 view the transformations of reality and yet remain omniscient. 

 Knowledge works, but it is not, therefore, knowledge. 



These considerations have peculiar force when applied to that 

 branch of knowledge which is knowledge itself. Is the biological 

 account of knowledge correct? That question we must evidently 

 ask, especially when we are urged to accept the account. Can we, 



