or material," out of which everything in the world is composed. This stuff he calls "pure
experience." Knowing, he says, is a particular sort of relation between two portions of pure
experience. The subjectobject relation is derivative: "experience, I believe, has no such inner
duplicity." A given undivided portion of experience can be in one context a knower, and in
another something known.
He defines "pure experience" as "the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our
later reflection."
It will be seen that this doctrine abolishes the distinction between mind and matter, if regarded as
a distinction between two different kinds of what James calls "stuff." Accordingly those who
agree with James in this matter advocate what they call "neutral monism," according to which the
material of which the world is constructed is neither mind nor matter, but something anterior to
both. James himself did not develop this implication of his theory; on the contrary, his use of the
phrase "pure experience" points to a perhaps unconscious Berkeleian idealism. The word
"experience" is one often used by philosophers, but seldom defined. Let us consider for a moment
what it can mean.
Common sense holds that many things which occur are not "experienced," for instance, events on
the invisible side of the moon. Berkeley and Hegel, for different reasons, both denied this, and
maintained that what is not experienced is nothing. Their arguments are now held by most
philosophers to be invalid--rightly, in my opinion. If we are to adhere to the view that the "stuff"
of the world is "experience," we shall find it necessary to invent elaborate and unplausible
explanations of what we mean by such things as the invisible side of the moon. And unless we are
able to infer things not experienced from things experienced, we shall have difficulty in finding
grounds for belief in the existence of anything except ourselves. James, it is true, denies this, but
his reasons are not very convincing.
What do we mean by "experience"? The best way to find an answer is to ask: What is the
difference between an event which is not experienced and one which is? Rain seen or felt to be
falling is experienced, but rain falling in the desert where there is no living thing is not
experienced. Thus we arrive at our first point: there is no experience except where there is life.
But experience is not coextensive with life. Many things happen to me which I do not notice;
these I can