Note 188 — Introductory material

This doctrine of Bradley and Bosanquet is the converse of the epistemological doctrine I have to advocate. Owing to the continuity and relativity of space and time, they say, we are able to construct a systematic world, by judgment and inference, out of that fragmentary and yet necessarily complex existence which is given in sense-perception. My contention is, conversely, that since all knowledge is necessarily derived by an extension of the This of sense-perception, and since such extension is only possible if the This has that fragmentary and yet complex character conferred by a form of externality, therefore some form of externality, given with the This, is essential to all knowledge, and is thus logically à priori. Bradley's argument, if sound, already proves this contention; for while, on the one hand, he uses no properties of space and time but those which belong to every form of externality, he proves, on the other hand, that judgment and inference require the This to be neither single nor self-subsistent. But I will endeavour, since the point is of fundamental importance, to reproduce the proof, in a form more suited than Bradley's to the epistemological question.