The Nature of the ‘Given’

Abstract

It is by no means impossible that the discussion of epistemological problems, at the present stage of our understanding of the issues involved, may be futile. But so long as anyone desires to “know” anything at all, just so long it will be impossible for thoughtful men to leave the questions of epistemology alone. So, futile or not, this paper is concerned with an analysis of one of the most fundamental of epistemological problems, namely that of the ‘given.’ It is true, the ‘given’ has recently received an unusual amount of attention from philosophers. What with two of the American Philosophical Association's presidential addresses last year having much to say on the subject, and what with the logical positivists making the ‘given’ the cap-stone of their radical empiricism? All of which, it will be claimed, proves the contention that any attack upon the problems of epistemology, from the standpoint of our present knowledge and understanding of the total situation involved, is condemned to hopeless futility. Why, then, add one more hopelessly futile attempt to those of all the rest? If, despite such initial misgivings, I shall proceed to my own analysis of the ‘given,’ I shall do so, first of all, in recognition of the indisputable fact that everyone of us, even though we should be blind, deaf and dumb, do, as a matter fact, find ourselves confronted with something ‘given’; and, secondly, because it appears to me that, as philosophers, it is still our task seriously to concern ourselves with unsolved problems, even though they may not yet be capable of being so stated that a unanimously acceptable solution for them may be—at present—possible. Even the logical positivists, who, of course, are most critical of what philosophy is or ought to be, insist that “the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.” Since the ‘given’ is a concept (thought) most widely used not only by so-called ‘pseudo-philosophers’ but even by the logical positivists themselves, it certainly cannot be denied that the clarification of the concept of the ‘given’ is decidedly a philosophical task. More than that: it is a necessary philosophical task just so long as there is such wide difference of opinion concerning the ‘given’ among philosophers.