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Clement of Alexandria, in a passage already referred to, shows that any Ontological or Idealogical argument can only lead us to an "Unknown," which may be "understood" and given meaning "by the Word alone that proceeds from Him;" and he and others of the early Christian writers seem to hint at that distinction between Epistemology and Ontology which has always been the chief enemy of any purely rational theistic argument.
My account is more of a logical definition; Schiller's is more of a psychological description. Both treat an absolutely identical matter of experience, only they traverse it in opposite ways. Possibly these explanations may satisfy M. Hebert, whose little book, apart from the false accusation of subjectivism, gives a fairly instructive account of the pragmatist epistemology.
Thus Confucius undoubtedly had ideas of reform, but he did not interfere with the foundations of feudalism. For the rest, his system consists only of a social order and a moral teaching. Metaphysics, logic, epistemology, i.e. branches of philosophy which played so great a part in the West, are of no interest to him.
And if he did not know his ability to know how would he know the relationship of a couple of relative strangers absolutely. Epistemology was the study of nothing for nothing could be known absolutely no matter how much the brain yearned for certainty. He could sense that the Laotian knew that he liked him as well as the girl.
Thus the special importance of sense-data is in relation to epistemology, not to metaphysics. In this respect, physics is to be reckoned as metaphysics: it is impersonal, and nominally pays no special attention to sense-data. It is only when we ask how physics can be known that the importance of sense-data re-emerges.
This isolation is reflected in the great development of that branch of philosophy known as epistemology the theory of knowledge. The identification of mind with the self, and the setting up of the self as something independent and self-sufficient, created such a gulf between the knowing mind and the world that it became a question how knowledge was possible at all.
The mere existence of the idea, all by itself, if only its results were satisfactory, would give full truth to it, it was charged, in our absurd pragmatist epistemology. The solemn attribution of this rubbish to us was also encouraged by two other circumstances.
All the while Verona and Kenneth Escott held long inquiries into epistemology; Ted was a disgraced rebel; and Tinka, aged eleven, was demanding that she be allowed to go to the movies thrice a week, "like all the girls." Babbitt raged, "I'm sick of it! Having to carry three generations. Whole damn bunch lean on me.
We should, if possible, avoid a false semblance of authority. EPISTEMOLOGY. We hear a great deal at the present day of Epistemology, or the Theory of Knowledge. I have not classed it as a distinct philosophical science, for reasons which will appear below.
The critic's trouble over this seems to come from his taking the word 'true' irrelatively, whereas the pragmatist always means 'true for him who experiences the workings. 'But is the object REALLY true or not? the critic then seems to ask, as if the pragmatist were bound to throw in a whole ontology on top of his epistemology and tell us what realities indubitably exist.
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