DESCRIPTIVE TECHNIQUES 119 



they are to be used in science they must be made communi- 

 cable and fixed. This is accomplished by the important 

 device of the symbol. 



The initial difficulty in discussing this problem is the 

 fact that direct awareness may, perhaps, never occur apart 

 from symbolic awareness. There is reason to believe that 

 merely attending to an event requires some conception as 

 to what the event is. A pure sense-datum probably never 

 occurs apart from some interpretation. It may be that one 

 cannot be aware of a blue object unless he knows what 

 blueness is, or of a round object unless he knows what cir- 

 cularity is, and — since one could be aware of blueness and 

 circularity only as symbols — the presumption would be that 

 a non-symbolic awareness of events could not exist. It 

 has already been shown that direct awareness without in- 

 ference is of comparatively rare occurrence. Certainly in- 

 ference always involves symbols, and there is probably 

 some truth in the statement that all symbolism involves 

 inference. For example, to symbolize an object as "blue' ! 

 is to attribute to the object all of the meaning of the symbol — 

 its relation to wave lengths, to other shades in the color 

 chart, and so on. Since all of these associations are called 

 to mind immediately in the presence of a blue object, there 

 is reason to doubt whether one ever gets such a pure aware- 

 ness of an uninterpreted object. 



However, although the two types of awareness may never 

 occur in isolation from one another, they do obviously 

 occur in distinction from one another. This is all that is 

 required for purposes of analysis. It is possible in some sense 

 to compare the symbol with the event, and thus to test its 

 adequacy. This act of comparison is accomplished, as has 

 already been seen, through a third distinct type of knowing. 

 What is important is merely that if the symbolic interpreta- 

 tion is more or less automatically applied to the event, error 

 can be detected only by separating the two. Practically, 

 this means that one's interpretations must be deliberate 

 and critical rather than hasty and unreflective. 



