of imagination as conceived by the Mahâyâna was a very difficult thing to realize. Moral responsibility implies a strict observance of the law of karma; what is done cannot be undone. Good or bad, one has to suffer its consequence; for nobody can interfere with it. Arhatship alone, therefore, could be made the goal of those self-disciplining moralists. With the Mahâyâna Buddhists, however, it was different. They came to look at the import of our moral action more from the point of its cosmic relations, or from that of the most intimate inter-dependence that obtains among all sentient beings in their moral, intellectual, and spiritual activities. With this change of the point of view, they could not but come to the conception of a Bodhisatva whose religion was the realization of the doctrine of parinâmana.

In point of fact, there are not two Buddhisms. The Mahâyâna and the Hînayâna are one; the same spirit of the founder of Buddhism breathes through both. Only each has developed in its own way, according to the different surroundings in which it has thrived and grownunderstanding by surroundings all those various factors of life that make up the peculiarities of an individual or a nation. Lack of communication has hitherto prevented the bringing together of Buddhists and the effecting of a complete understanding of each other. But the time is coming nearer when each will fully realize and candidly admit its own shortcomings, though not oblivious of its advantages, and earnestly desire to cooperate with the other in order to bring about a perfect assimiliation into one uniform system of Buddhist thought and Buddhist practice, and to contribute to the promotion of peace and goodwill towards all beings, regardless of racial or national differences.

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO.

DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI.

DEFINITIONS AND METHODOLOGICAL PRIN

IN

CIPLES IN THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.

the following article, I propose to suggest some definitions resulting from the analysis of experience suggested in previous articles, and some methodological precepts which I believe to be useful in the later portions of theory of knowledge. It was scarcely possible to state either the definitions or the precepts until we had decided that the relation of acquaintance is fundamental to experience, for almost all definitions and principles that we can adopt will presuppose this theory.

Subjects have been already defined in a previous article as entities which are acquainted with something, and objects as entities with which something is acquainted. In other words, subjects are the domain, and objects are the converse domain, of the relation acquaintance. It is not necessary to assume that acquaintance is unanalyzable, or that subjects must be simple; it may be found that a further analysis of both is possible. But I have no analysis to suggest, and therefore formally both will appear as if they were simple, though nothing will be falsified if they are found to be not simple.

Cognitive facts will be defined as facts involving acquaintance or some relation which presupposes acquaint

ance.

It is to be observed that we can define cognitive facts, not mental particulars, since we have no reason to assume

that subjects are in fact always or ever of a different kind from other particulars. The distinguishing mark of what is mental, or at any rate of what is cognitive, is not to be found in the particulars involved, but only in the nature of the relations between them. Of these relations acquaintance appears to be the most comprehensive and therefore the most suitable for the definition of cognitive facts.

There is, however, a certain difficulty in defining the word "presuppose" which occurs in the above definition. What is intended is to include such relations as (e. g.) attention and judgment, which seem plainly to involve acquaintance with the object attended to or the objects entering into the judgment. But it is not intended to include relations which merely happen, as an empirical fact, to occur only where there is acquaintance. In the cases which it is intended to include, the fact that acquaintance is involved seems a priori evident, and not merely a statistical occurrence. I do not know what, precisely, is the logical difference between these two kinds of connection, but it seems plain that there is a difference. The kind of connection intended in the definition is what we may call the a priori kind; and since the difficulties of the distinction belong solely to logic, we need not investigate them further at present.

Theory of knowledge, or epistemology, is more difficult to define. To begin with, no definition can be satisfactory which introduces the word "knowledge," both because this word is highly ambiguous, and because every one of its possible meanings can only be made clear after much epistemological discussion. Then again, difficulties arise as regards the relations of epistemology to psychology and to logic respectively. It is obvious that much of epistemology is included in psychology. The analysis of experience, the distinctions between sensation, imagination, memory, attention, etc., the nature of belief or judgment, in

short all the analytic portion of the subject, in so far as it does not introduce the distinction between truth and falsehood, must, I think, be regarded as strictly part of psychology. On the other hand, the distinction between truth and falsehood, which is plainly relevant to the theory of knowledge, would seem to belong to logic, though this is open to some degree of doubt. And in any case, as soon as we reach the theory of judgment, even apart from truth and falsehood, the difficulties encountered are almost entirely logical, and logical discoveries are what are most required for the progress of the subject. It can be shown1 that a judgment, and generally all thought whose expression involves propositions, must be a fact of a different logical form from any of the series: subject-predicate facts, dual relations, triple relations, etc. In this way, a difficult and interesting problem of pure logic arises, namely the problem of enlarging the inventory of logical forms so as to include forms appropriate to the facts of epistemology. It would seem, therefore, that it is impossible to assign to the theory of knowledge a province distinct from that of logic and psychology. Any attempt to mark out such a province must, I believe, be artificial and therefore harmful.

The central problem of epistemology is the problem of distinguishing between true and false beliefs, and of finding, in as many regions as possible, criteria of true belief within those regions. This problem takes us, through the analysis of belief and its presuppositions, into psychology and the enumeration of cognitive relations, while it takes us into logic through the distinction of truth and falsehood, which is irrelevant in a merely psychological discussion of belief. We may define epistemology in terms of this problem, as: The analysis of true and false belief and their presuppositions, together with the search for criteria of true

1

As I have come to know through unpublished work of my friend Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein.

belief. But practically this definition is somewhat wide, since it will include parts of psychology and logic whose importance is not mainly epistemological; and for this reason, the definition must not be interpreted quite strictly.

Data are by no means easy to define, since there are various logically different kinds of data. The simplest kind will be objects: in this sense, a given person's data are those particulars with which he is acquainted. Even in this very narrow sense, there are, as I shall try to show in subsequent articles, still at least three ways in which data may be given, namely in sense, in memory, or in imagination; but these different ways of being given do not involve corresponding differences in the objects given. On the other hand, we can understand universals, and any primitive understanding of a universal (i. e., any understanding not derived from some other understanding) is in a sense a case of acquaintance, and is certainly sufficient ground for calling the universal in question a datum. What is the correct analysis of the understanding of universals is a difficult question, but such understanding must certainly be included among the data of knowledge. Again, perceptions of facts (as opposed to the corresponding judgments) must be included among data; if I see that one thing is to the left of another, or if I observe that the thunder is later than the lightning in a particular case, these perceived facts are certainly among my data. And perceived facts are not always thus particular: general logical facts, for example, are often such as can be perceived. I do not know whether any judgments (as opposed to perceptions) are to be included among the data of knowledge: arguments may be adduced on either side in this question. But certainly all epistemologically legitimate inference demands that both the premise and the connection of premise and conclusion should be data, either for perception or for judgment.