i THE ETHICAL BASIS OF METAPHYSICS 9 



they render. Is it not then a palpable absurdity to deny 

 that this fact makes a stupendous difference? 



Pragmatism then has taken a further step in the 

 analysis of our experience which amounts to an important 

 advance in that self-knowledge on which our knowledge 

 of the world depends. Indeed, this advance seems to be 

 of a magnitude comparable with, and no less momentous 

 than, that which gave to the epistemological question 

 priority over the ontological. 



It is generally recognized as the capital achievement 

 of modern philosophy to have perceived that a solution 

 of the ontological question What is Reality ? is not 

 possible until it has been decided how Reality can come 

 within our ken. Before there can be a real for us at all, 

 the Real must be knowable, and the notion of an un 

 knowable reality is useless, because it abolishes itself. 

 The true formulation therefore of the ultimate question of 

 metaphysics must become Wkat can I know as real? 

 Thus the effect of what Kant (very infelicitously) called 

 the Copernican Revolution in philosophy is that ontology, 

 the theory of Reality, comes to be conditioned by epistem- 

 ology, the theory of our knowledge. 



But this truth is incomplete until we realize all that is 

 involved in the knowledge being ours and recognize the 

 real nature of our knowing. Our knowing is not the 

 mechanical operation of a passionless pure intellect, 

 which 



Grinds out Good and grinds out 111, 

 And has no purpose, heart, or will. 



Pure intellection is not a fact in nature ; it is a logical 

 fiction which will not really serve even the purposes of 

 technical logic. In reality our knowing is driven and 

 guided at every step by our subjective interests and 

 preferences, our desires, our needs and our ends. These 

 form the motive powers also of our intellectual life. 



Now what is the bearing of this fact on the traditional 

 dogma of an absolute truth and ultimate reality existing 

 for themselves apart from human agency ? It must 

 utterly debar us from the cognition of Reality as it is in 



