Locke states the realistic definition briefly when he says, of his primary qualities: “The particular bulk, number, etc., of the parts of fire, or snow, are really in them, whether any one’s senses perceive them or no; and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies.” As to the secondary qualities, as he goes on to say: “Take away the sensation of them . . . and all colors, tastes, odors, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease.” Here then is the realistic touchstone, the test of reality. Does the object stay when the knowledge vanishes? The converse of this test, however, also holds true for any realism. For erroneous ideas are possible. Hence, whether the object is or is not, any given idea may be held by anybody that you please. The idea might then persist when the object vanishes, or remain changeless when the object changes.[1]
It is of service to compare these familiar expressions of the classical realistic view with the speech used by an ancient Hindoo system of philosophy, the Sânkhya. The Sânkhya was a realistic doctrine, and very sharply dualistic. Its world consisted of matter and of soul, each of these sorts of realities being, in ultimate nature, totally different from the other. In fact, the salvation of the wise man depends, for the Sânkhya, upon his absolutely distinguishing himself as soul from all material objects,
- ↑ Kant, in his criticism of the Ontological Proof for God’s existence, emphasizes this expression of the realistic test of being. The being of fact, he says, never follows from any mere idea. The that never follows from the what. In other words, whether or no any object exists, your ideas about that supposed being may be whatever they happen to be.
