The psychological approach to reality / by Francis Aveling.

  • Francis Aveling
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The psychological approach to reality / by Francis Aveling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/272 page 4
    once questionable, disputable and doubtful. No matter at what point we may begin to interrogate Nature or ourselves, we come at length to ask the question: “Is it true ? ” with regard to any answer we may receive. We come to the point at which we must ask : “ What is the value of our knowledge ? How does it arise ; and to what, if anything, does it refer ? ” Stated thus, the problems concerning know¬ ledge are seen to be essentially psychological problems ; for knowledge is itself a mental or psychological event. The act of knowing is a mental—indeed, an entirely personal and incom¬ municable—process ; the object of knowing is an object known, a product—again entirely personal and incommunicable—of the knowing act ; the worth of the object as known can only be tested or evaluated within knowledge itself. It is as personal and incommunicable as either act or object is. We cannot go outside our knowledge in order to examine it. Each one of us must make his examination from within, and for him¬ self ; since there is, and can be, no other way of making it. Nevertheless, though the problems of know¬ ledge, once they are clearly raised, are seen to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3