the question, What language are we to use? is the same as the question, What meanings are we to affirm? And this again is one with the questions, "What are we to think of the object? What, in fact, is it? What are its nature and relations? Thus - the choice of a terminology, because it is a choice of meanings, settles what we shall claim to "know," what will be for us "reality" and "truth."

Now, definition does not help in this predicament at all. The framing of definitions is very valuable for the elaboration and the self-consistent use of a technical language, but the applicability of the language is not thereby determined. At least it is curious to observe how often precisely those thinkers who take most trouble to define "what they mean," end their defining labours by asking gloomily: Is there such a thing? In other words, Does the definition apply to anything? Can the meaning defined be predicated of anything that actually exists or occurs? Can it be referred to reality?* Well may we sigh for ontological arguments to help us attach once more our supposititious meanings to actual reality!

On the other hand, does it help to go back to the "facts" or the "data," to the "experience behind the words"? Hardlyfor "raw, unverbalized experience," as James called it, seems —to judge by the variety of philosophical dialects which flourish side by side-to suffer all dialects with equal patience and indifference. The individual thinker will, no doubt, make his choice, guided by some obscure sense of fitness or by some preference, the motives for which may lie hidden in his subconsciousness, and he will reject the language of his opponents because somehow it does not render for him the total impression which he has gathered cumulatively from all his first-hand use of his own experience. But whilst he can proclaim his disagreement, and give to himself in his own language good reasons for preferring that language to his opponent's, as

For examples of this predicament, see the Symposium on "Cognitive Acts," passim.

expressing more truly the nature of things as he sees them, he cannot demonstratively compel his opponent to acknowledge that his vision and his language are better.

Of course, a philosophical language, like every other language, has to be learnt by practice-practice in the use of it, in thinking. in its terms. To what extent our disagreements and misunderstandings are due to not practising one another's language sufficiently, is a question well worth asking. How, e.g., ought one to express, in one of the several dialects of realism, Mr. Bradley's theory of the divorce of "idea" from "existence"? And, if it cannot be realistically expressed, what conclusion follows for the truth of Mr. Bradley's theory, on the one side, and the truth of the particular realism in question, on the other? At any rate, such experiments in expressing the same point in the languages of rival philosophies might help towards a more reasonable choice. Further, the familiarity which comes with practice will do much to remove the unintelligibility and unconvincingness which belong at first to a strange philosophical language. The practice of different languages and, through them, of different points of view, might be made a much more definite feature of the training which students of philosophy at our Universities receive. And, in general, it would be a valuable contribution to philosophical technique if the main philosophical languages were systematically formulated. The result, I suppose, would be not unlike alternative sets of definitions, axioms, and postulates, such as those with which Spinoza prefaces the successive books of his Ethica. The gain in clearness would, I believe, amply repay the labour,* and might even reveal grounds for a rational preference.

* The only attempt in this direction—and this a fragmentary and not very successful attempt-with which I am familiar is hidden under the title "Relativitätstheorie und euklidische Geometrie," in an article by Dr. Christoph Schwantke, in the Annalen der Naturphilosophie, vol. xiv, 1, pp. 35–48. I owe the reference to Dr. H. M. Sheffer, of Harvard University.

Meeting of the Aristotelian Society at 21, Gower Street, W.C. 1,

on May 1st, 1922, at 8 P.M.

X.-REALISM AND VALUES.

By MARGARET MCFARLANE.

I.

IN his essay on "Realism, a Study in Art and Thought,' Mr. A. McDowell draws attention to the fact that alike in Philosophy and Art there has in recent years been a tendency to dwell upon "values" rather than "ideals." The change is not one of terminology, merely, but expresses a change of attitude. Ideals are constructions of the intellect embodying in abstract form what ought to be; values express an actual relationship to the purposes of the concrete living subject. "You may conceive an ideal perfection and regard it coldly; but it becomes a value if it embodies what you really feel" (p. 251).

The study of values is one of the "growing-points" of philosophy at the present time, and a glance at the literature of the subject is sufficient to show that there is as yet little agreement as to analysis or interpretation of the facts which come under consideration. Differences in treatment depend partly on the general philosophical standpoint of the writer and partly on the complexity of the value situation itself.

What, then, are the factors to be distinguished whenever we find "values"? In the first place, there are the elements which are present in any cognitive process, viz., a knowing mind and an object known. Over and above these are the features peculiar to the value complex,—the subject is not merely a knower, but is also an agent; the object is not merely a thing known, but is also a thing which satisfies a want, or fulfils a purpose of the knower. Accompanying these relations of the subject to the object is the peculiar feeling tone which characterizes the worth situation.

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In the simplest kind of values, mere "likings" and "dislikings" these elements are clear; e.g., "I like peaches implies a knowledge of the fruit through sense perception. means also that peaches satisfy a want which I feel from time to time, and in so doing, have value for me. The statement Peaches are delicious characterizes the same set of facts in a slightly more permanent way.

It implies, as above, that I know the fruit, that it satisfies my desire, and in addition that for me, at least, it always has this value. In other words, by attributing universality to the conditions which are found to give satisfaction, those conditions tend to be regarded as a quality of the object itself. "Deliciousness comes to be thought of as a property of peaches. No one making this statement, however, would seriously challenge an opponent who disagreed with him; the fact of disagreement would merely serve to bring home the subjectivity of the "judgment to both concerned-“ Chacun à son goût." But quite a different attitude would be taken to the man who challenged the beauty of the Demeter, or the truth of a well-established scientific doctrine, for in such cases we claim that the value holds for all minds and at all times. What is the ground of such universality? The answer to this question will depend upon the philosophical standpoint of the thinker.

It is, I think, a question of particular interest to thinkers of the realist school. For realists the cognitive relation is an external one and reality is independent of mind. Values, however, are stubbornly subjective, and yet they are no less real. How then does realism deal with values? As a matter of fact, there is great divergence among realists themselves, and in what follows I wish to discuss the accounts given by Dr. G. E. Moore, Professor R. B. Perry, and Professor Alexander as typical of attempts which this school of thought is making to deal with the problem.

II.

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Perhaps the most thorough-going attempt to treat values objectively is that of Dr. Moore. He boldly maintains that values belong to objects quite apart from mind, and are unaffected by minds or wills. Ideas of goodness, truth and beauty are indefinable. "If I am asked What is good?' my answer is that good is good and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked How is good to be defined?' my answer is that it cannot be defined" (Principia Ethica, p. 6). Again, "If we set ourselves seriously to find out what things are good, we shall see reason to think . . . that they have no other property both common and peculiar to them besides this goodness-that in fact there is no criterion of goodness (pp. 137-138). Further, this unique quality belongs to objects or situations as such and is not dependent upon judgments of minds. When arguing against Sidgwick's restriction of the ultimate practical end for man to Goodness, Perfection or Excellence of human existence, i.e., to characters, of human existence, Dr. Moore puts an extreme case as illustrating his point. He bids us imagine a world exceedingly beautiful, lovely in form and colour and harmony. Then imagine the ugliest world possible, let it be a heap of filth containing everything that is to us most disgusting for whatever reason. He bids us then compare these two worlds. "Supposing them quite apart from any possible contemplation by human beings; still is it irrational to hold that it is better that the beautiful world should exist than the one which is ugly?" (p. 84). His answer is that the only rational view is that the beautiful world is in itself better than the ugly one, "then it follows that however many beings may enjoy it, and however much better their enjoyment may be than it is itself, yet its mere existence adds something to the goodness of the whole: it is not only a means to our end, but is also itself a part thereof " (p. 85). Value being intrinsic in certain objects is as inde