Capítulo 7. Chapter VII.—Of The Criterion ‟According To Which”
[2.7.70] Let us consider next the Criterion ‟According to which,” as they[193] say, objects are judged. In the first place, then, we may say this of it, that ‟presentation” is inconceivable. They declare that ‟presentation” is an impression on ‟the regent part.”[194] Since, then, the soul, and the regent part, is breath or something more subtile than breath,[195] as they affirm, no one will be able to conceive of an impression upon it either by way of depression and eminence, as we see in the case of seals, or by way of the magical ‟alteration” they talk about;[196] for the soul will not be able to conserve the remembrance of all the concepts that compose an art, since the pre-existing concepts are obliterated by the subsequent ‟alterations.”
[2.7.71] Yet even if ‟presentation” could be conceived, it would still be non-apprehensible; for since it is an affection of the regent part, and the regent part, as we have shown,[197] is not apprehended, neither shall we apprehend its affection.
[2.7.72] Further, even were we to grant that the ‟presentation” is apprehended, objects cannot be judged according to it; for the intellect, as they assert, does not make contact with external objects and receive presentations by means of itself but by means of the senses, and the senses do not apprehend external real objects but only, if at all, their own affections.[198] So then the presentation will be that of the affection of the sense, which is different from the external reality; for honey is not the same as my feeling of sweetness nor gall the same as my feeling of bitterness, but a different thing.
[2.7.73] And if this affection differs from the external real object, the presentation will not be that of the external reality but of something else which is different therefrom. If, therefore, the intellect judges according to this, it judges badly and not according to reality. Consequently, it is absurd to say that external objects are judged according to the presentation.
[2.7.74] Nor, again, is it possible to assert that the soul apprehends external realities by means of the affections of sense owing to the similarity of the affections of the senses to the external real objects. For how is the intellect to know whether the affections of the senses are similar to the objects of sense when it has not itself encountered the external objects, and the senses do not inform it about their real nature but only about their own affections, as I have argued from the Modes of Suspension?[199]
[2.7.75] For just as the man who does not know Socrates but has seen a picture of him does not know whether the picture is like Socrates, so also the intellect when it gazes on the affections of the senses but does not behold the external objects will not so much as know whether the affections of the senses are similar to the external realities. So that not even on the ground of resemblance will he be able to judge these objects according to the presentation.
[2.7.76] But let us grant by way of concession that in addition to being conceived and apprehended the presentation is also such that it admits of objects being judged according to it, although the argument points to an entirely opposite conclusion. In this case we shall either believe every presentation, or impression, and judge according thereto, or some one impression. But if we are to believe every impression, clearly we shall believe also that of Xeniades[200] according to which he asserted that all impressions are un untrustworthy, and our statement will be reversed and made to say that all impressions are not of such a sort that objects can be judged according to them.
[2.7.77] And if we are to believe some, how shall we decide that it is proper to believe these and disbelieve those? For if they say we are to do so without presentation, they will be granting that presentation is superfluous for judging, inasmuch as they will be stating that objects can be judged without it; while if they say ‟by the aid of presentation,” how will they select the presentation which they are adopting for the purpose of judging all the other presentations?
[2.7.78] Once again they will need a second presentation to judge the first, and a third to judge the second, and so on ad infinitum. But it is impossible to judge an infinite series; and therefore it is impossible to discover what sort of presentations we ought to employ as criteria, and what we ought not. Seeing, then, that, even should we grant that one ought to judge objects according to presentations, whether we adopt the alternative of trusting all as criteria or that of trusting some and distrusting others, in either case the argument is overthrown, and we are forced to conclude that we ought not to adopt presentations as criteria for the judging of objects.
[2.7.79] This is enough to say now, in our outline sketch, with reference to the criterion ‟According to which,” as it was said, objects are judged. But one should notice that we do not propose to assert that the criterion of truth is unreal[201] (for that would be dogmatism); but since the Dogmatists appear to have established plausibly that there really is a criterion of truth, we have set up counter-arguments which appear to be plausible; and though we do not positively affirm either that they are true or that they are more plausible than their opposites, yet because of the apparently equal plausibility of these arguments and of those propounded by the Dogmatists we deduce suspension of judgement.