Essays in Experimental Logic · John Dewey
FOOTNOTE:
Hence it must be in relation to a knower; it must fall within the "predicament," for "it makes the mind aware of a characteristic of the environment." That it is _used_ (or may be used) to make us aware of some characteristic of the environment, I of course hold. To say that it _is_ an awareness by the mind of a characteristic of the environment is at once to involve a philosopher immediately in the discussion of whether red qualities, or only certain vibrations, are "really" characteristics of the environment. Then, when the authority of physics is invoked in behalf of the latter proposition, the epistemologist (however realistic in his intention) is forced to consider color as a misapprehension of the environment, a case of error or illusion, while the idealist triumphantly flourishes it as a case of the transformative or constitutive efficacy of "mind" in knowing. But if the color is simply a natural event, and if "mind" does not enter except when color is made the basis of inference to some characteristic of the environment, then there is no predicament; and there is no problem of error save as a false inference is made. Moreover, since errors in inference are an undoubted fact, the principle that entities are not to be multiplied beyond need gives a prima facie superiority to any theory which connects all error with inference till adequate evidence to the contrary is produced.
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