-
V. The Epistemologist's Theory of Knowledge (continued)
- document
- Additional Information
I should now like to discuss some points in connection with unreal objects, and the theories of Meinong and Russell, indicating the realistic assumptions which underlie their solutions, and which alone create the problem. This will serve as an introduction to the larger question of denoting, meaning, and context.
There are two questions here involved: that of the existence of unreal objects, and that of the truth or falsity of statements about unreal objects. And again, in the case of unreal objects, there are objects of hallucination, objects of imagination, and objects denoted, but apparently neither believed in nor assumed (the round square). It is chiefly with the last that these two authors are engaged. With regard to all of these types of object I would recall what I have said of the relations of real and ideal, and would urge the following contention: the problem is wholly factitious, and owes its origin to the false assumption of epistemology–the assumption that there is one world of external reality which is consistent and complete: an assumption which is not only ungrounded but in some sense certainly false. Reality contains irreducible contradictions and irreconcilable points of view. How this statement is consistent with a monistic metaphysic I shall endeavour to show in another place.
I wish to touch upon the facts of visual hallucination first because, while the problem is essentially the same as that dealt with by Meinong and Russell, it appears in a more readily apprehensible form, and because it has by some been reduced to a different explanation from that of unreal objects in judgment, whereas I believe the hallucination to be in virtually the same position as the round square; both are non-existent, and both are intended objects. Both assert their reality, though perhaps in a difference of degree. Professor Holt says ( not the distorted image as such, but the distorted image which
The...