THE POSTULATE OF IMMEDIATE 

 EMPIRICISM l 



THE criticisms made upon that vital but still 

 unformed movement variously termed radical 

 empiricism, pragmatism, humanism, functionalism, 

 according as one or another aspect of it is upper 

 most, have left me with a conviction that the 

 fundamental difference is not so much in matters 

 overtly discussed as in a presupposition that re 

 mains tacit : a presupposition as to what experience 

 is and means. To do my little part in clearing 

 up the confusion, I shall try to make my own 

 presupposition explicit. The object of this paper 

 is, then, to set forth what I understand to be the 

 postulate and the criterion of immediate empiri- 



1 Reprinted, with very slight change, from the Journal of 

 Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. II., No. 

 15, July, 1905. 



2 All labels are, of course, obnoxious and misleading. I 

 hope, however, the term will be taken by the reader in the 

 sense in which it is forthwith explained, and not in some 

 more usual and familiar sense. Empiricism, as herein used, 

 is as antipodal to sensationalistic empiricism, as it is to 

 transcendentalism, and for the same reason. Both of these 

 systems fall back on something which is defined in non- 



