In general terms, then, whatever differing
contents our minds may eventually fill a place
with, the place itself is a numerically identical
content of the two minds, a piece of common
property in which, through which, and over
which they join. The receptacle of certain of
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our experiences being thus common, the experiences
themselves might some day become
common also. If that day ever did come, our
thoughts would terminate in a complete empirical
identity, there would be an end, so far as
_those_ experiences went, to our discussions about
truth. No points of difference appearing, they
would have to count as the same.
VII. CONCLUSION
With this we have the outlines of a philosophy
of pure experience before us. At the outset
of my essay, I called it a mosaic philosophy.
In actual mosaics the pieces are held together
by their bedding, for which bedding of the Substances,
transcendental Egos, or Absolutes of
other philosophies may be taken to stand. In
radical empiricism there is no bedding; it is as
if the pieces clung together by their edges, the
transitions experienced between them forming
their cement. Of course such a metaphor is
misleading, for in actual experience the more
substantive and the more transitive parts run
into each other continuously, there is in general
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no separateness needing to be overcome by an
external cement; and whatever separateness
is actually experienced is not overcome, it
stays and counts as separateness to the end.
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