Idealism, Realism and Hints of Personalism in C.I. Lewis ∗

: This paper examines the arguments of C.I. Lewis respecting the utility of idealist and realist philosophical categories and ends with a look at his per-sonalist credentials. It is reported that Lewis pared away the outer layer of ideal-ism leaving its utility in explaining perception via his concept of the “given”. This resulted in a fundamentally realist vision with the exception of perceptive theory. It is oﬀ ered that the realist perspective is the more satisfactory metaphysical component of a healthy personalist philosophy, one that Lewis would presumably favor.


Introduction
C.I. Lewis (1883-1964) disliked the absoluteness of the at the time idealistic notions, but neither could he abide the complete realist package.Over time he reduced his involvement with idealism but left it intact in the most prominent position in all his theoretical work -the theory of perception.As a stab at subjective idealism he appears to poke fun at Berkeley's esse est percipi (on the interpretation that things disappear when not observed).As for realism, Lewis noted in particular, that "a philosophy which relegates any object of human thought to the transcendent, is false to the human interests which have created that thought and to the experience which gives it meaning." (35) Of course this can also be interpreted as a back-handed critique of idealism.
A note on Lewis' methodology: like many in the fi eld, he divides metaphysics into the speculative and the refl ective (others may use diff erent terms but they imply roughly the same thing), We observe his remark on the matter: "We may congratulate ourselves [that] this r e f l e c t i v e or phenomenalistic or critical spirit is…characteristic of the present period in philosophy" (15, my stress).Since much of his work is metaphysics, we can off er some of his take: "Any metaphysics," he notes, "which portrays reality as something strangely unfamiliar or beyond ordinary grasp, stamps itself as thaumaturgy, and is false upon the face of it" (10).This, another barb likely also aimed at idealism.Lewis accepts the a priori as fundamental, as well as the categories, which are arrived at by "legislation".He follows Royce in placing emphasis on the community as part and parcel of our knowledge: the human mind is "created by the social process".Truth is social.
The core concept in his philosophy is the e x p e r i e n c e. "The world of experience is not given in experience: it is constructed by thought from the data of sense" (29).This elliptical statement seems intended to reemphasize the point -that actual experience senses what thought creates upon the data given to experience.To add some clarity to his terminology, the data are the "given" (in his sense of the term).The data could be a simple point or a circle on paper, or a sound or touch from a vibrating rod, or whatever.But it could also be a r e l a t i o n or set of them (as is usually the case).This latter we will say constitutes the s t i m u l u s f i e l d, borrowing the notion perhaps from Quine, who employed it to advantage. 1 The fi eld has two components, the focal area (or space) and the background.The focal area constitutes what we are interested in: the data consisting of existents and their relations to the extent they exist and can be sensed, including the kind, quantity and quality of the stimuli.We can summarize by suggesting that in the realist interpretation the stimulus fi eld appears as the mind directly or "immediately" perceives it; instead of "perceives", the idealist will use the verb "constructs", and we can hazard the supposition that the result constitutes "phenomenal reality," or the reality as the mind observes it after the construction.Lewis calls this the "presentation."The total of possible presentations in the full sensory fi eld is, subjectively viewed, the phenomenal world of that moment in time.
Perception consists, as the realist will say, of an identifi cation of the given which includes its recognition, its name and its categories.A projective aspect of perception involves the so-called (pre-meaning) "construction" of the given, but limited (in realist terms) to manipulation of the actual data as they present themselves to the mind.It is the brain making inferences on a minute scale in order to fi ll in contiguous areas relative to the data perceived.This use of the word parallels Lewis' use and this is the only instance in which application of the word to a realist doctrine makes any sense.Whatever else is added is by thought in expanding upon the given in cognition.Lewis will, however, have additional uses of the term.

Idealism v. Realism
I have elsewhere characterized idealism as the representation of an alter-reality favored over the reference reality of the world as it is and appears to us2 .To say that the alter-reality is actually the "true" reality constitutes "weak" idealism; to then deny the existence of part or all of the reference reality is defi ned as "strong" idealism.It is essentially the valuation of an alter-reality over or above the reference reality.As Lewis phrased it, "The description or analysis of the cognitive experience is subordinated to the attempt to establish the superior value of some one type of experience as compared with others" (40).
It is based, generally speaking, in ideology -whether things are independent of, or dependent upon, the mind.Take the latter view, and you will be tempted to praise mind far above the reference reality you live and breathe in.Take the former and you can still acknowledge, for example, quantum mechanics to constitute the "true" reality.Which is fi ne; it is an acceptable hypothesis that may well be correct.The normative ideological outlook is to respect the reference reality for what it is and is not.Do not venture further than weak idealism; leave strong idealism as a negative enterprise.
Oh, but strong idealism is what upholds our faith in God, many will say.But that occurs at the expense of truth.Feeling good is of course a very real f a c t.But philosophy isn't about facts, it is about t r u t h s.All truths presuppose facts; not all facts presuppose truth.The larger point is just that realists can feel just as good about life as any idealist!They take their solace in the truths of reality, including the God who made that reality.While philosophy cannot fi nd evidence to prove a god, it c a n consider the truth that belief has benefi cent results if not abused.Belief is abused when doctrine or ideology violates truths known in common to all.
Occasionally it comes to pass that a truth is advocated by a small minority.That it is a truth is evidenced over the passage of time in which the rest come to favor the same truth as the minority once established as real and valid.Most truths asserted by minorities are not real truths; only the exceptional cases will be found to uphold the minority view, but those are very important considerations to always bear in mind.When a minority asserts an unpopular position as a truth, they are to be accorded respect so long as their truth is not manifestly harmful.And harmful means a real, not a fi ctitious harm.A diff erence of opinion or ideology is not necessarily in itself a harm.As a "harm" it is typically fi ctitious.It is to protect all manner of truths that we have freedom of conscience as a fundamental political right.Today there exist minorities that violate others' rights just so they can feel better about themselves and their own ideology.This is not the right way to pronounce or hold to a truth. 3he other approach is realism, which by and large avoids these errors.Why?Because their understanding of truth is deeper into agreement with that great reference reality.It is pretty much all we have; it is our common source of stability and so it remains our reference world.Quantum mechanics is a part of this reality, but its belief as an ideology is not to bar the respect for the reference reality as we know it.To do that is to betray the whole rationale behind the quantum world!It's also a matter of attitude -which of course refl ects upon fact and truth alike.
In realism what we see (or otherwise sense) is what we get.Once we reach adulthood, the vast majority of what we perceive strikes us spontaneously as the memory trace that identifi es, names and classifi es the object."Like perception, memory as a form of knowledge is an interpretation put upon the presentation" (337).This all but denies the evident role of memory running throughout the process of perception.The realist posits memory in order to realize the given.Beyond that, memory is subsidiary to thought -which, we note, is absent from perception.With realism, the sensory recognition as a sensation of the object is observed by the mind spontaneously with the labelling and classifying process from memory.At this point what we actually have is the gestalt of these elements.This is, in philosophical jargon, the realist version of the "given" or the "presentation".
With few exceptions (color sensation for one) the realist neither immediately nor automatically c o n s t r u c t s anything from or upon anything.What we c o n c l u d e from the identifi cation and naming (including categorial classifi cation), and what we know and expect of the object and of our relation to it we consider to be cognitive thought, that and only that, whereas Lewis accepts these as further constructions upon the "given."But the given for Lewis is the object l e s s a n y k n o w l e d g e w e p o s s e s s.
All that goes by the label "knowledge" is an idealist "construction" upon the given.Again, the given and its construction are together what Lewis refers to as the "presentation."The realist has a "given," the idealist a "presentation."It is idealist because it requires a m e n t a l construction to reach meaning and knowledge.The given is separate from the mind but the knowledge is not direct from the object image but indirect via thought and concept, ergo knowledge.The idealist calls the realist knowledge "immediacy" from permitting knowledge immediate to perception.
Perception should be considered distinct from thought.In thought the realist concludes a meaning from the perception, and by this means we (typically subconsciously) think, predictively, of expectations.By perceptive "constructions" we mean thinking beyond the normal.When realists actually do "construct" it constitutes a projection s u p p l a n t i n g t h e a c t u a l p e r c e p t i o n and is an abnormality produced by the brain in the attempt to understand the perceived reality.No realist denies that perception can, under certain circumstances, be a falsifi cation of the given stimuli (for to deny that would obviously be at variance with, well, r e a l i t y).
I note here, as does Lewis, that the idealist rarely, if ever, denies the actuality of the realists' reality.Nor, as a generality, does the idealist consider mind to invent these rights are still minority views, they have rational grounds for their belief, which the other side does not have the luxury of professing.reality de novo.Their point is the relevance of the mind in getting from an actual and real object to the k n o w l e d g e of it.For them that process cannot be direct but must instead be mediated by mind via thought and concept.In the process mind is likely to be valued as greater than the r e f e r e n c e reality we all live and die in.
To suppose that the mind constructs a phenomenal reality from every perception of a given is to admit to idealism out of the box.It is saying, in essence, that the mind does not or cannot faithfully capture the actual perception and so creates it almost as if de novo, using (or not) the given as a model to copy, but with certain corrections or embellishments.This violates everything that research has off ered us as an explanation of perception.Again, the only so-called "construction" is at the micro level, and is done to get the best reproduction of the given that is possible with the resources at the brain's disposal.
Still today there are writers who are positive that the brain constructs our reality as if de novo in all instances, and oftentimes, if not indeed typically, does so falsely. 4f s/he is implying that the brain utilizes micro inferences, that is one thing -but that does not appear to be their meaning at all.They are implying that perception is predominantly wholesale construction.They don't admit to literal de novo creation by the mind, but they don't precisely deny it either.They never say that they r e construct reality, mind you (at least they choose not to use this term), but frank construction must mean pitifully little except that a fundamental mistake is being foisted onto the unwary reader.There are better ways of approaching these matters.
The only honest way out of this is to admit that this so-called "construction" is, on the whole, actually a very, very well executed r e -c o n s t r u c t i o n.Anyone with normal powers of observation cannot but admit the truth of this.To deny it is to imply an idealist perspective that fully denies whole categories of the reference reality.Thus, the author I have cited tells us in a podcast that the brain doesn't exist, that neurons have nothing whatever to do with his faculties!This is malarky and everyone knows it.It is the kind of thing that gives philosophy a bad reputation.
Lewis, in favoring the construction hypothesis, warns his readers that "failure to recognize and consider this element of construction or interpretation of the mind, will wreck any theory of knowledge.Failure to acknowledge its existence will make it impossible to account for error.And failure to fi nd the ground of its validity will lead inevitably to skepticism" (44).What these remarks do not consider is the likelihood that false or illusory presentations of reality are owing either to altered states of mind or to perceptual arrangements that do not represent natural reality 5 .Authors only too pleased to stress the irrational nature of the mind have forged an industry devoted to locating visual designs that trick the mind into falsifying the sense of length or direction.All of which goes to the point that these are not the kinds of things one will discover as parts of the normal environment.The brain was not developed in order to give these gate-crashers their fodder.
By way of summary, Lewis suggests that between the given and its construction, philosophy has shown a tendency to favor one or the other.Lewis' version, where reality is accepted as veridical, is generally known as "objective idealism" because the "objects" of the world are taken as real.Lewis' basic theoretical commitment is stated as follows: "There is no knowledge merely by direct awareness.Actual experience can never be exhaustive of that 'temporally-extended pattern of actual and possible experience,' projected in the interpretation of the given, which constitutes the real object" (37).And that "projection" is of the actual "construction." However, when speaking of esthetics, "There is such a thing as direct appreciation of the given, and such immediate apprehension of the quality of what is presented must fi gure in all empirical cognition.The object of appraisal is (usually at least) to connect this quality with some thing or context as a matrix of f u r t h e r such experience.That whose value is positive is to be sought; that whose value is negative is to be avoided" (403).But an esthetic judgment will always transcend the given, and thus count as yet another "construction."

Givenness
We can start this next section with an overview, reasonably accomplished by the authors of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The concept, the purely logical pattern of meaning, is an abstraction from the richness of actual experience.It represents what the mind brings to experience in the act of interpretation.The other element, that which the mind fi nds, or what is independent of thought, is the given.The given is also an abstraction, but it cannot be expressed in language because language implies concepts and because the given is that aspect of experience which concepts do not convey.Knowledge is the signifi cance which experience has for possible action and the further experience to which such action would lead. 6is excerpt highlights one of the chief defi ciencies of the idealist approach to knowledge.The given is an abstraction and yet is a real and true object, denuded or denatured so as to pass along no knowledge to the observer, who must reconstruct it from the given and so derive the missing knowledge.But as we have seen, knowledge is not available until the presentation.As he says, "The object can be known only through or by means of that presentation" (414).At that point Lewis says that it requires empirical inquiry to establish knowledge.How does anyone know w h a t to ask? How is it that this knowledge is known to be appropriate to the given?There is nothing in the Lewis account to support the supposition necessary for him to proceed to an idealist-minded requirement for knowledge acquisition.In realism, properly conceived, knowledge is built in the process of arriving at the interpretation of the given; m i n d dose not enter the fray until perception is completed.It's fi rst duty is, via thought processes, to draw the conclusion obtained from perception: this is such and so a thing, etc. Knowledge accretes from the idealist "presentation," which is the given plus the primary construction off ered by the mind to complete what the realist sees as the "given."Lewis will have to admit that the object is also known by means of the given which is due to it (the object), and allow the result to be knowledge.But this is the very "immediate" knowledge which he says is impossible in a realist view.Either I don't at all understand Lewis, or he has made an error somewhere along the way.
Realists tell us that vision, for example, functions by way of analogy with a camera, where the subconscious brain provides the developer chemicals to bring out the image from the fi lm (the stimuli arriving in the auditory area).Lewis calls this the attempt to assume a "direct" linkage to knowledge from the object.In fact it is anything but direct, several layers of processing being required prior to projecting the result upon the screen of the mind.This is the same series of processes that the idealist must likewise rely on to "construct" knowledge for the given.Temporally considered, it takes the same amount of time to construct the presentation as it does to apprehend the object for what it is, the given of the realist.At that point they can each consider from their own perspectives how to deal with the predictions implied.
The realist assumes a parallel series of steps in which hippocampal (or other modality) memory recalls the name associated with the object recognized through the visual process.It is parallel because the two processes run simultaneously.It takes about the same amount of time to obtain and react to a sensory recognition as to recollect the object, roughly 150 milliseconds for each. 7The composite of recall, sensoralization (such as visualization) and object constitute the complete gestalt, the realist's "given," and its rendition of the "presentation." From here we have two stages of what is colloquially "knowledge," one of which is simply "information", which is what the realist's given consists of, whereas actual knowledge goes beyond and associates the information with expectations for the object and our use of it.Lewis' given is essentially a collection of data, of f a c t s from which to build into i n f o r m a t i o n and that into k n o w l e d g e and that in turn into u n d e r s t a n d i n g.This progression is the work of Adler. 8 Here, understanding comprises the interrelations between expectations for the object and our utility of the same, which result in meaningful activity.
Against the realist thesis the idealist rejoins with this: "If the signifi cance of knowledge should lie in the data of sense alone, without interpretation, then this signifi cance would be assured by the mere presence of such data to the mind, and every cognitive experience must be veracious" (39).Well, so long as "veracious" means the accuracy requisite to a successful and adaptive life, then yes, it counts 7 For recall, see "New Scientist, Memory recall works twice as fast as the blink of an eye," (6 Jan 2016).https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930551-900-memory-recall-works-twice-as-fast-as--the-blink-of-an-eye/.For visualization, see H. Hogendoorn, "What you're seeing right now is the past, so your brain is predicting the present," The Conversation (16 Mar 2020).https://theconversation.com/ what-youre-seeing-right-now-is-the-past-so-your-brain-is-predicting-the-present-131913#:~:text=It%20 takes%20several%20dozen%20milliseconds,the%20basis%20of%20that%20information (accessed: 9.02.2023).
8 M. Adler, We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company 1987, pp.25-27.as -veracious.Mistakes in perception are the exceptions, to be dealt with on an individual basis, yet all of them are accounted for by states of mind or confusions in the comprehension of the data received (mainly at the hands of modern nihilists looking to poke holes in nature's most remarkable achievement).
Lewis off ers an overview of the various schools present at the time, from which we can glean information on his idealism.As mentioned, he goes about it by looking at those which overdo the given and those who do likewise with the constructive approach.He notes, fi rst, that the mystics in general, followed by Bergson, overstress the given, the mystics by positing an immediate direct-to-knowledge experience of identifi cation with God, whereas Bergson experiences the "true life", the "Inwardly grasped 'real duration'" (41)."For each mind," writes Lewis, "this is something which is immediate, in his own case, and is to be apprehended in its other manifestations only by empathy or einfühlung.The world of science and common sense Bergson recognizes to be construction or interpretation which the mind imposes upon the data of immediacy" (ibid.).But Lewis views approvingly that this construction is dominated by interests of action and of social cooperation.
Both the mystic and Bergsonian views look to Lewis like intuitionist propositions.The fi rst thing to note is that these are less matters of stressing the given than they are simply c o n s t r u c t i o n s built up in order to achieve the requisite objectives.And, like others who do likewise, Plato as the paradigmatic example, they risk strong idealism in the process.In realist immediacy, Lewis argues that "there is no separation of subject and object [correct].The givenness of immediate data is, thus, n o t the givenness of r e a l i t y and is not knowledge.Hence the idealist may insist that there is no (real) object without the creative activity of thought" (46).Well, subject (interior) and object (exterior) are of course separate but are represented in the mind as one, and this presentation is a species of knowledge, like it or not.It is the knowledge that the object is a such and so, as memory and sensory evaluation dictate.
The idealist will, says Lewis, insist that "There is no apprehension…without construction; hence the distinction of subject and object, act and given, must be w i t h i n thought, and not between thought and an independent something thought about" (47).He can't have the one without the other.In realism, at least, the gestalt composite represents both as one.It is not quite correct, however, that they are within a given "thought," for the gestalt is comprised mainly of the sensory evaluation, a process below thought, and the recollection from the hippocampus (and/or elsewhere) which is also beneath the level of thought.The gestalt is within "proto-thought".Now it happens that Lewis agrees with us that this process is proto-thought, for he defi nes thought as that which puts together or separates distinct "entities" (55).Neither the recollection nor the evaluation accomplishes these tasks.Thus he shouldn't himself talk as if it occurred w i t h i n t h o u g h t.As I stated above and have written of elsewhere, perception and thought represent separate and distinct (though interconnected) processes.9

Perceptual idealism
We have two systems of perception here.In one, a sort of esthesis (a fundament of sensation) is called a "given" and the fi nal appearance is constructed from that.As Lewis describes it one almost gets the impression that it represents Kant's ding an sich (the thing in itself).In the other, the full appearance is evaluated both sensorily and recollectively, resulting in classifi cation, name and recognition.There is processing but little or no construction.Much of what Lewis extols about the idealist perception with construction can be said of the realist position.Thus the naming and recognizing from construction imply inferences into expectations of the object and our utilization of it.The same applies equally to the realist process, absent all or most of the construction.
Lewis believes that the conditions of the gestalt forbid any resulting knowledge, which is a bit hard to swallow.What the realist system provides is "immediate knowledge," something the other cannot claim.It is a knowledge establishing the existence and surface properties of the objects that are the focus of attention.The gestalt entails a theory to account for the phenomenal facts of perception, something the idealist process ignores to its peril.
Lewis is particularly wary of the "new realists," whom he treats to his doublebarreled shotgun: "The dictum of the new realists, that mind and object coincide so far as the object is just now known by this mind and so far as the mind is just now a knowing of this object, is as wrong as possible.So far as mind and presentation coincide, the state of mind is not cognition and the presented object is not known" (135).In fact, he says the same thing of all "presentative" vantages.But saying is not explaining, and he has no explanation.
What he does explain is why the realists have a hold on reality that the idealists don't.He goes to great lengths, devoting an entire chapter to reality a n d i t s i n d e p e n d e n c e f r o m m i n d.This is the primary rationale for accepting a realist standpoint in the fi rst place, whereas the idealist rationales are the dependence of reality upon mind, a n d the mental control of our inner world of received sensations."In terms of experience and knowledge, the independence of reality -its independence of the knowing mind -means, fi rst, the g i v e n n e s s of what is given; our realization that we do not create this content of experience and cannot, by the activity of thinking, alter it" (192-193).What is given is so because it is independent of any mind.That fact i s its g i v e n n e s s.
In fact, he off ers hope of a rapprochement between the two camps."It may be that between a sufficiently critical idealism and a sufficiently critical realism, there are no issues save false issues which arise from the insidious fallacies of the copy-theory of knowledge" (194).Well, now, the copy theory of knowledge is a presupposition of realism, dating to Descartes if not earlier.Direct knowledge all but requires it, for it assumes that what we sense is characterized by p h y s i c a l p a r a m e t e r s (the ultimate composition of the Lewis "givens") whose structures enable our senses to pick them out and represent them -imitate them -recapitulating the order they presuppose from their origins.Duplicating that order in perception is essentially a matter of copying structures and establishing qualia to represent both their constancy and inconstancy.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the so-called copy method or the representational aspect of perception except to an idealist.These days it is more what the idealists deny than what they affirm that characterizes their ideology -which doesn't speak well for the substance of their theories.They all assert that mind is all, exemplifi ed, according to Lewis, by the construction of reality which mind performs upon all manner of perceptions and thought processes, as if "interpretation" is t h e i r property, something they alone "own."'Tis not so.The doctrine of "immediate perception" logically refutes this in its entirety.Realism is fi ne with inductive reasoning and with inferences; the logical positivists were alone the only subgroup denying these, and not all of them did so in any case.And today logical positivism is as dead as a doorstop.

Knowledge I
Lewis moves on to the fi rst two of three chapters concerning a prioris.The relation to idealism is implied by their nature as created entirely from our thoughtwhich is to say our minds -such that all knowledge is derived from this mind-originated ground.By way of background he cites Kant's distinction between the real and the phenomenal.I apologize for a long excerpt but it seems relevant to the understanding of the points to be discussed hereafter: The content of experience is limited by the forms of intuition, which are imposed not by the active interpretation of the mind but by the passive modes of its receptivity.The categories are subjective modes of the mind's interpretation or synthesis of the content of intuition.How, then, can we be assured that they will be valid experience in general?An indispensable part of Kant's answer is that the object in experience must itself be subjective or phenomenal.It must be limited by the very fact of being experienced in such wise as to make universally possible the mind's modes of categorical synthesis.That which can not validly be thought under the categories can not be given in intuition.Thus the objects of knowledge are the objects of experience.(214) Let's assume for the sake of discussion that his interpretation of Kant is broadly correct.The overall takeaway here is that, just as interpretive construction resulting in a presentation is for Lewis the source of all knowledge, here the same idea generates transcendental idealism and again counts, according to Kant, for all knowledge.Along the way, reception of the categories is not an active synthesis but is entirely passive.This reminds us of the mechanism of syntax orchestrating the order of word fl ow in sentences.Here, the mechanism of intuition orchestrates which ideas represent categories, and would appear to be intuition's primary function.Thus thoughts representing the categories are the primary mode of intuition we experience.How can what is evidently subjective represent valid experience in general?
Kant appears to answer that the experienced (perceived) object must likewise be subjective (i.e.phenomenal).The receptive mechanism of perception must accordingly limit input to what is categorial, meaning that all perception becomes phenomenal, which means that all that we experience is subjectively grounded in the a prioris of the categories.What is left out of this explanation is the fact that w e m u s t f i r s t e x p e r i e n c e t h e r e a l i t y w h i c h c o n f o r m s t o t h e c a te g o r i e s i n o r d e r t o i d e n t i f y t h e c a t e g o r i e s a s s u c h.We learn what is a priori through empirical experience.
But this is by immediate knowledge, and the initial work of thought upon the perception is one which denominates the perception as an a priori.Thought draws the conclusion in having named and recognized stimuli for what they are in their meaning to the individual.The fact that we do not require construction to yield the presentation eliminates what Lewis demands be the origin of thought, that is to say, the a priori.The realist opens perception to immediate recognition, naming and categorizing, i.e. knowledge, upon which thought operates, whether to analyze or to synthesize.
Given that much of Kant's theory goes to denying Humean skepticism, we ask how his theory as outlined above confronts skepticism so as to limit or eliminate it.The answer to this seems to me to rest upon the passive aspect of perceiving the categories through the ideas (or the language) representing them.This means in eff ect that nature is imposing itself upon the mind rather than the reverse, which the active mind would likely do in performing an interpretation of the categorial input.The idea is not for mind to decide for every perception what is categorial and what not, but for mind always to allow only what is categorial, which can be accomplished passively, as a sieve or membrane allows only such and such through its pores.It would presume that Kant sees the Humean problem as caused by human interpretation of reality rather than by reality as it actually is.Because Kant's explanation seems to be missing some points of relevance, it is difficult to know whether this is valid or not.
But at any rate, Lewis takes issue with Kant: "And this answer to skepticism is unnecessary, because mind may limit reality (in the only sense which the validity of the categories requires) without thereby limiting experience.The active interpretation by mind imposes upon given experience no limitation whatsoever" (215).This explanation likewise leaves out the actual method by which categories are perceived, namely via experience and passive identifi cation of certain patterns from their core meanings (within the process of perception) and the active judgment that they are fundamental and a priori.
Kant was at least on the right track.Passive receipt, active evaluation is the rule in mental perception and processing.And by passive (a dirty word in today's nomenclature, by the way), I mean only the low-level "activity" involved in collating or sequencing or otherwise organizing stimuli for transfer to the two immediate waystations along the way to the occiput, where it may be the case that a c t i v e e v a l u a t i o n begins."Passive" in the context of neural tissue n e v e r e v e r implies quiescence.It is an issue of what is being done with the stimuli, n o t whether something is active relative to something else.Philosophers of all people should be more mindful of this critical distinction.Active and passive are c a t e g o r i e s, after all, and have been utilized as such for millennia.As with many if not all "polarities", there is some of the one quality in the other; nothing is absolutely active or absolutely passive. 10Passive, in the present context, means that active e v a l ua t i o n is minimal, not that activity is nonexistent.Now Lewis does acknowledge the point I have raised: "But [Kant] omits the real question how we can k n o w that the limitations of experience are due to the mind and are not simply those of an independent reality which experience reveals.How shall we distinguish what mind is responsible for from what independent reality is responsible for" (216)?He answers that the identifi cation of the a prioris by empirical investigation cannot lead to a truth, as any generalization is subject to change over time.Only the a priori avoids this problem: "That is a priori which we can maintain in the face of all experience no matter what.In the case of an empirical law, a mere generalization from experience, if the particular experience doesn't fi t, so much the worse for the 'law.'But in the case of the categorial principle, if experience does not fi t it, then so much the worse for the experience" (224).
Furthermore, with Lewis' system, the a priori can take time to "mature"; it can change over time without damage to principles."The theory presented here… is compatible with the supposition that categorial modes of interpretation may be subject to gradual transition and even to fairly abrupt alteration" (228).Here again are postulates that are not unique to an idealist program.If we consider empirical introductions upon a mental system as features of a framework with limits outside of which the phenomenon is undefi ned, the principle can change within the framework and terminate with the edge of the frame, which encompasses time-out-of-mind for the existing world (a larger framework could cover several lightyears worth of experience).Call these frameworks "immediate" or "extensive."Within the framework there are expected exceptions, but the a priori remains -though altered a bit in accounting for new evidence.Time and space are a prioris that have been modifi ed under an "extended" framework in which Einsteinian relativity works its magic.
The concept of a frame puts Hume's skepticism to rest.It also avoids issues that Lewis implies here: "A l l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f p a r t i c u l a r s a n d a l l k n o wl e d g e o f o b j e c t s i s p r o b a b l e o n l y, however high the degree of it probability.The knowledge of empirical particulars -never is completely verifi ed" (281,  283).When we say that a penny is round, we are stating a categorical fact and we don't appreciate being told that it is nonetheless a matter of mere probability.And we are right to complain!All local facts should be stated with the understanding of a framework assuring an a priori foundation for the obvious truths.Never mind, Lewis asserts that probability notwithstanding, there are still the a prioris remaining unscathed.But this doesn't seem quite right.How can you associate an a priori with what is by defi nition only probable?That would require a frame which Lewis nowhere suggests.
How do we use the mind to assess reality for categorial experiences?We can take an example from Lewis: If relative to R, A is X [relative to a boulder, A is small], and relative to S, A is Y [relative to a pebble, A is large], neither X nor Y is an absolute predicate of A. But "A is X relative to R" and "A is Y relative to S," are absolute truths.Moreover, they may be truths about the independent nature of A. Generally speaking, if A had no independent character, it would not be X relative to R or Y relative to S. ( 168) Table 1.The application of thought on the empirical experience of witnessing the material in brackets, reveals that "small" and "large" are to all intents and purposes a prioris.It makes no diff erence what A is, it must always bear these relations to any R or any S. Concepts which follow from this line of thought and those similar, follow in Table (1).Doubtless there are many more, but this listing gives you an idea of the categorial notions that accompany the naming and recognition of objects (existents, to include everything) and events (experiences, to be inclusive).They can be called "core intuitions" if a name be desired.
Note that many are utilized in language as prepositions.The eight items beginning with "Associative" through "Amalgam" include four metaphysical and four empirical kinds of relations in order of appearance.Note also that experience -empirical observation -is necessary for nearly if not all of these categories.Once we hold a category securely in readily accessible memory, it will typically accompany the given.Otherwise observation and thought are required.
One way to defi ne the a priori is in terms of its utility.Here is Lewis on that point: "Knowledge of such a priori principles requires only self-consciousness because it is simply knowledge of those criteria which we apply in classifying experience in one or another way" (227).

Knowledge II
We have already had an overview of perception and thought; but in his third chapter concerning the a priori he delves more deeply into the perception-thought-knowledge relations.Lewis had referred to "immediate knowledge" and to "immediate experience," and now add that of "immediate awareness", which is defi ned as the apprehending of qualia which could be put into words as, 'This looks round.'Within 150 milliseconds you have sight of the object; at the same time you have recognition of roundness -the category (recall Table 1).
Thought is required for language (not, however, the other way around), so saying to oneself 'This looks round' you have gone beyond perception and into thought.11This, the realist vantage.To the idealist, 'looking round' is a "construction" of thought processes, part of what is required to convert the given into a presentation (there is yet to be a name).On the other hand, saying, 'This is a round penny' does complete the perceptual construction, and thus the presentation.What follows is the post-perceptual thought content, resulting in the same thing as for the realist interpretation, which is simply thought, not really a "construction." It should be noted that Lewis uses two words almost interchangeably, words that should rather be carefully distinguished from one another.These are the words "construction" and "interpretation."In the context of perception, construction is the creation or recreation of a stimulus (a focus) or its fi eld.Correctly used, it is properly a re-creation.An interpretation, in the same context, is one of various possible explanations for a given phenomenon.To say 'This looks round' can be a re-creation of an empirically given form or, as an interpretation, an explanation for the use of the term 'round'.One explanation could be that it imitates or seems exactly like the c a t e g o r y of things that are 'round.'With these distinctions in mind we can try to interpret the following explanation: Immediate awareness is an element i n knowledge rather than a state of mind occurring by itself or preceding conceptual interpretation.The sense in which such immediacy is prior to its interpreta-tion is the sense in which interpretation is subject to change.In the case of such a new interpretation, the immediate awareness is literally and temporally antecedent; but that there is a fi rst moment of such apprehension, in which there is awareness and no interpretation, it is not necessary to believe.In all cases, however, it is the content of the given which determines (in part) the interpretation, not the interpretation which determines the immediate to fi t it.
Predications of the second sort -'This is hard,' 'This penny is round' -express something much more complex.As predications of objective properties, these represent an interpretation put upon the content of immediate awareness which implicitly predicts further experience.Being thus predictive, they are judgments which are subject to verifi cation and liable to error.(276-277)   In the idealist system, thought exists throughout all of perception.In the ideal realist system it exists nowhere in the perceptive process, only thereafter.Lewis nowhere says just where in the perceptive process immediate awareness appears.We can suggest, from what else he says in these two paragraphs, that it may be the initial event in perception.Thus while he criticizes the realists for possessing "immediate knowledge," that is precisely what he is off ering here for the idealist system (immediate awareness is i n knowledge).Of course his point was that the object can yield no knowledge when part of a gestalt, but this is nonsensical.The point is that, functionally, the stimulus makes a beeline from the sensory organ to the brain and the brain takes it up immediately (well, within about 150 milliseconds) as knowledge.
That the immediate awareness can precede any interpretation is an indication that what 'seems round' owes nothing to interpretation, which seems difficult to believe based on what has gone before.This antecedence happens, however, only when the interpretation is apt to change.One would have thought it would be something like 'what seemed rounds is actually slightly elliptical.'But that is ruled out when the awareness of the qualia (roundness) precedes interpretation.In the very next statement he acknowledges what we took to be rational, namely, that we expect interpretation with a n y aspect of perception, and vitiates his last point entirely.
It is only reasonable that the content of the given should direct the interpretation, which can only describe or explain, not alter, that content.Further, any change in interpretation should be owing to a change in the content itself.Now to say, 'This is hard' says nothing any diff erent from saying that the same unnamed object is round."Hard" is another a priori.Yet he places this at the same level as 'This penny is round,' which does seem to meet the condition of a presentation.'This is round' or 'This is hard' describe the givenness.Adding the name elevates it to a presentation.But there is now another problem.He says that the same interpretation that made possible the presentation is the self-same interpretation dealing with expectations.Earlier, it was a separate and distinct interpretation that gave us the expectations and inferences.Observing changes in explanation from chapter to chapter does not give us confi dence that he has his theory in hand.
How does Lewis place the a priori within the context of his interpretations?"(1) 'If this is round, then further experience of it will be thus and so (the empirical criteria of objective roundness)' and (2) 'This present given is such that further experience (probably) w i l l b e thus and so.'The fi rst of these is a priori; the second is our statement of the probable empirical truth about the given object" (285).
He continues the discussion of perception and knowledge in the next chapter as well (The Empirical and Probable) where he begins by restating the central thesis: "Direct awareness is not indubitable knowledge of an o b j e c t, but the content of it is an absolutely given fact.And our awareness of it has not been called 'knowledge,' because with respect to it there can be no error" (310).Again, relating facts together counts as information; where a signifi cant meaning is achieved thereby we have knowledge, and where knowledge is applied eff ectively we have understanding of the circumstances involved.
Here he also makes explicit his reliance on the Kantian analytic and synthetic categories.Bearing in mind that Kant urged "extension" as analytic and weight as synthetic, "amongst universal propositions which refer to nature, we must distinguish between empirical generalizations which are synthetic -such as the law of gravitation, for example -and analytic principles which exhibit the consequences of our concepts, such as those of geometry.The former are probable only.The latter are a priori and certain" ( 312).
An aspect of the empirical (or probable experiences) is that even though the given is an absolute fact, "it does not follow that what is presented is classifi able in some particular category, such as the spatial or the physical, without mistake.Identifi cation of what is presented as an object of a certain type, or a particular kind of reality, is an interpretation put upon the presentation, which is implicitly predictive and hence transcends the given and is subject to verifi cation or falsifi cation by further possible experience" (314).It seems to us that there is no real difference between roundness or hardness as categories and the character of spatiality or physicality.A certain amount of trust is expected to be fulfi lled in the ordinary course of perception, with exceptions due to patterns not of nature or of an altered state of mind.Where the idealist sees this as an inference after the given, and as an interpretation, the realist takes it as a category established with what defi nes the given as such.
Germane to the problem of the probable and the certain is the matter of logical implication and the concept of the class.I apologize for a longish excerpt, but this explication needs a little more content to be reasonably complete in its meaning.
Propositions of the general form "All A is B" may have either of two meanings -but not both at once.They may mean (1) "The concept A includes [entails] or implies the concept B" or (2) "The class, or collection, of A's is included in the class of B's."In the fi rst (the intensional) meaning, such a proposition is a priori true or a priori false.The second meaning is still not quite precise until it is clear how membership in the class of A's is to be determined.
"Empirical knowledge" usually does -and certainly ought to -mean a knowledge of particular things pointed out or otherwise determined in extension [called out one by one].With this meaning, the empirical knowledge that a group of objects called "A's" will have the character of B's does not follow as anything more than probable) from the a priori certainty that the concept A implies the concept B. The diff erence between the a priori, analytic, and intensional, on the one hand, and the empirical and extensional, on the other, is the diff erence between "If this is an A, then necessarily it is a B" and "This is an A; therefore it is a B." The former may be certain but the latter is not.(315-317)   In the fi rst paragraph, Lewis has made a mistake.His fi rst example is not a parallel to the second.That is, the statement that the concept "bird" includes (entails) "certain fl ightless animals" is not analogous with the second option where the class of "birds" is included in the class of "fl ightless birds".We must reverse one of them in order to make the sense of his point clear.Let's reverse the second and say this: "The class, or collection, of B's is included in the class of A's," where the statement is doubtful until we have defi ned the conditions for membership in A. This makes sense.
In the second paragraph the same mistake is continued but here we rearrange both, not just the second.We say this: "If this is a B [one of certain fl ightless animals], then necessarily it is an A [bird]."And this: "This is a B [a certain fl ightless animal]; therefore it is an A [bird]."The inference says that if you have this, you n e c e s s a r i l y have that; the class relation says that if you have a class of fl ightless birds it is t h e r e f o r e the case that it is a member of the larger class of birds.This second requires that we defi ne the class of birds to include fl ightless birds (the ostrich and the penguin).
The concept of frames again resolves these issues of certitude.The class is essentially a frame by way of defi nition.The a priori doesn't require a frame, it applies universally and forever.And how do these observations relate to idealism and realism?It goes back to Humean skepticism and to Kant's method of rejecting the same.It is important to be as certain as possible of Lewis' understanding of the problem at hand.Empirical knowledge depends upon prediction, on an argument from past to future, on the presence of some particular uniformity in experience [a universe of order]; and the general problem of its validity is the same which is posed by Hume's skepticism.How this validity can be assured w i t h o u t a p p e a l t o t h e d e p e n d e n c e o f t h e c o n t e n t o f e x p e r i e n c e u p o n t h e m i n d, or to the limitation of experience in conformity to requirements of intelligibility, or to some other such metaphysical presumption.(319, my stress) His argument is that Kant's ideas parallel his own point that without the universal order there can be no such thing as an experience."The deduction of the categories consist at bottom in this: that without the validity of categorial principles no experience is possible.This means that the proof which Kant attempted in his deduction of the categories may be secured without [his] assumption that experience is limited by modes of intuition and fi xed forms of thought" (320).Now if this is actually the case, it means we eliminate much of the idealist posture from the Kantian system.But we don't see how Lewis' point makes sense.
Even with Kant's agreement on the requirement of validity and order, his suggested process remains rational and even reasonable from a certain vantage.His process seems a lot like Chomsky's "deep grammar", a theory whereby with syntax only the right order of word placement is accepted by the neural processes.The correct order appears as "limited by modes of intuition," resulting in "fi xed forms of thought."As such these are not anathema to realist doctrine.The categories fl ow up through channels as it were, in the form of intuition, as if under syntactic rules, and with a thought-based conclusion result in categories existing as "fi xed thoughts."'This penny is round,' 'Pennies are round,' 'Pennies are hard,'etc.These are all intuitions of categorials existing as "fi xed thoughts." Lewis also mentions that while the principles of interpretation, along with rules of classifi cation and the criteria of the real are all "certain," they are likewise "in advance of experience," leading to the conclusion that "e x p e r i e n c e m u s t, a p r io r i, c o n f o r m t o c e r t a i n p r i n c i p l e s i n o r d e r t o b e p e r t i n e n t t o a n y p a r t i c u l a r i n v e s t i g a t i o n o r t o t h e v a l i d i t y o f a n y p a r t i c ul a r l a w o f n a t u r e." (321, emphasis in original)

Personalism
Historically, personalism has known two phases: below I off er two defi nitions of personalism, the fi rst as it has long been perceived: The empirical, phenomenological and metaphysical study of persons, in body and mind and spirit, to the end that they possess moral and ethical ideals.
And the second, a twentieth century modifi cation we can call n e o personalism: The empirical, phenomenological and metaphysical study of the nature and activities of persons, in all their aspects, presupposing a Weltanschauung based upon stewardship and dignity, both providing for individual, community, national and world-wide well-being.
The objective for today's personalism is to complete the transition to realism and to establish these neopersonalist doctrines as normative to human existence.
The gradual advance from the fi rst to the second follows a trajectory expressed fi rst perhaps by Josiah Royce (1855-1916) the metaphysics which was by and large suggested by Lewis in the generation following the intervening assistance from George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), who presented the ultimate arguments for identifying the person as a social product.Along the way there was also the important personalist William Ernest Hocking (1873-1966), within whose circle we fi nd, in addition to Lewis, William James, Edmund Husserl, George Santayana and Alfred North Whitehead, all of whom were avowed personalists or who spoke profoundly of personhood. 12In 1966 The Personalist ran an article on Lewis' philosophy. 13n example of Royce's personalism is typical of his work: "An individual member of a community can fi nd numerous very human motives for behaving towards his community as if it were not only an unit, but a very precious and worthy being.He becomes devoted to its interests as to something that by its very nature is nobler than himself.In such a case, he may fi nd, in his devotion to his community, his fulfi llment and his moral destiny."14 Where personalism began fundamentally as an idealist and religiously defi ned metaphysic based upon the personhood of God (or in the extended case of e v e r yt h i n g), it developed into something the realist might hopefully envision as appropriate.Lewis can be thanked for off ering the associated metaphysical arguments that have been discussed above.As mentioned, Lewis was a student of Royce and adopted the communitarian elements of Royce's "personalism," 15 but modifi ed the metaphysics in a decidedly realist direction without going quite all the way.He was not even swayed by a devotion to what he called the "spiritual" component of human thought and conduct, especially as it relates to nature.
Apparently it is a native longing of humanity to transcend the bounds of subjectivity; to know our object not only in the pragmatic sense of successful prediction and control but in a deeper sense of somehow coinciding with its nature.
If it is something more than what it means for me, something in itself, then it must mean something f o r itself; it must, in this respect, be of a nature fundamentally like my own.Insight into the true nature of a reality which is independent of me -which has more than a "for me" character -is possible o n l y i f t h a t n a t u r e i s s p i r i t u a l.My immediate experience is clue to it only because, in its character of will, m y n a t u r e c o i n c i d e s w i t h t h e n a t u r e o f a l l r e a l i t y. (410 my emphasis).
The extent to which Lewis has reverted to realism is revealed mainly in d i sm i s s i n g the idealism which refuses to separate mind from reality (the principal defi nition still accepted today), but also, for the idealism that d o e s so separate the two, as in the excerpt above, it "rests upon a dilemma which is real and is, by such idealism, correctly understood: Either knowledge does not mean identity of quality of nature between subject and object, or the only intelligible fashion in which reality in general can be conceived is on some analogy to mind or life, as spiritual.Such idealism chooses the latter alternative.As I have tried to argue, the other is the true one" (411).
Realizing the neopersonalist vantage while advocating a full realism i s possible.If nature is not known to exist instrumentally, neither is it to be known as "knowing itself."Nature is not in possession of her own "will," any more than of her own "purpose."Does that obviate a reliance on spirituality?No, it doesn't.N a t u r e i s s p i r i t u a l b y v i r t u e o f i t s i n h e r e nt p o s s e s s i o n o f d i g n i t y, which elevates it beyond and above, transcendent to, instrumental knowledge.In granting dignity to all of nature we attribute to her something of ourselves, something "spiritual" as a measure of transnatural valuation, which is nothing else but our extended view of dignity itself.
There remains, however, the matter of perceptual idealism.Lewis broaches an error which he says is frequent in realism, namely, "of supposing that a distinction w i t h i n knowledge can depend on a prior one o u t s i d e it" (414).The distinction is between the knowledge (he may possibly have meant "experience") being due to the mind, on the one hand, and the object on the other.The objection is a red herring.The "knowledge" we are interested in occurs the moment the idealist presentation or the realist given are formulated (the experience for both realist and idealist begins with the original approach to the object).The mind's image (in the case of vision) is projected as a superposition over the actual object, where we nearly always fi nd that the mental image is so perfect as to be like a sheet of clear wrap over the object.It is a process caused initially and totally by the object.Where's the problem?There is no problem.
He goes on to note that "mind (as cognitive) can only be known through that "formal" element in experience to which it gives rise" (415).But "mind" and "experience" are both abstract concepts that are at once labels of classes but fi ctious entities that are really placeholders for a content that cannot by the defi nition of class theory even exist.Classes are a range of objects with fi ctitious "content" in common, which defi nes the label denoting the class as a whole.A single, unitary "content" does not exist because it cannot exist.
The labels are a matter of form only if we call the entities "content."Both terms are only placeholders for fi ctional things.We use the labels only to specify aspects of class theory."Form" is n o t how we know either mind or experience.Mind, for example, has the subclasses of consciousness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness, and they in turn have subclasses.The fi rst two classes just mentioned each have the subclasses of feeling, awareness, attention, drowsiness, and cognition in common.The second (subconsciousness) also contains thought, feeling as well as dreaming (some would list dreaming under unconsciousness).Cognition has memory, recall, thought and calculation in common.Thought has language, revery and hallucination in common.Nowhere did we need to mention either form or content.Whatever point Lewis was trying to make is vitiated by his mistake in presuming "form" to have something actual and real to do with the matter under discussion.Mind is known by the members of its class.It is the form, they its content (if we must resort to these labels).

Conclusion
In his chapter "The Pragmatic Element in Knowledge," Lewis extends his doctrine of the predictive character of knowledge into its natural consequence, a "conceptual pragmatism" in the attribution and utilization of the a priori.Here, following Peirce and Royce, he identifi es three elements in knowledge which are separable only by analysis: the element of experience which is given to an agent, the structure of concepts with which the agent interprets what is given, and the agent's act of interpreting what is given by means of those concepts.
This is what happens after the presentation, when the predictiveness inhering in the given is verifi ed in activity.In writing Mind and the World Order, Lewis off ered a user's manual explaining activity from perception and its interpretation through to concepts and the nature of predicted consequences.He remained a steadfast Kantian when it came to the analytic and synthetic concepts and the a priori, which he expanded to include virtually the qualia themselves.Speaking of qualia, Lewis was the fi rst to use the term (Peirce had arrived at quale back in 1866).Lewis introduced it in 1929, most probably in Mind and the World Order. 16n matters related to stewardship and dignity, the grounds of neopersonalism, we learn from the experience of Lewis that there is not just one way of being spiritual.We can equate ourselves after a fashion with nature; or instead identify nature with the same dignity which we attribute to ourselves as a measure of value inherent to a given reality.