CHAPTER V
NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
The True Relations of Philosophy and Science. Misconceptions and Antagonisms.
§ [39]. In the case of natural science we meet not only with a special human interest, but with a theoretical discipline. We are confronted, therefore, with a new question: that of the relation within the body of human knowledge of two of its constituent members. Owing to the militant temper of the representatives of both science and philosophy, this has long since ceased to be an academic question, and has frequently been met in the spirit of rivalry and partisanship. But the true order of knowledge is only temporarily distorted by the brilliant success of a special type of investigation; and the conquests of science are now so old a story that critical thought shows a disposition to judge of the issue with sobriety and logical highmindedness.
In the seventeenth century a newly emancipated and too sanguine reason proposed to know the whole of nature at once in terms of mathematics and mechanics. Thus the system of the Englishman Hobbes was science swelled to world-proportions, simple, compact, conclusive, and all-comprehensive. Philosophy proposed to do the work of science, but in its own grand manner. The last twenty years of Hobbes's life, spent in repeated discomfiture at the hands of Seth Ward, Wallis, Boyle, and other scientific experts of the new Royal Society, certified conclusively to the failure of this enterprise, and the experimental specialist thereupon took exclusive possession of the field of natural law. But the idealist, on the other hand, reconstructed nature to meet the demands of philosophical knowledge and religious faith. There issued, together with little mutual understanding and less sympathy, on the one hand positivism, or exclusive experimentalism, and on the other hand a rabid and unsympathetic transcendentalism. Hume, who consigned to the flames all thought save "abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number," and "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence"; Comte, who assigned metaphysics to an immature stage in the development of human intelligence; and Tyndall, who reduced the religious consciousness to an emotional experience of mystery, are typical of the one attitude. The other is well exhibited in Schelling's reference to "the blind and thoughtless mode of investigating nature which has become generally established since the corruption of philosophy by Bacon, and of physics by Boyle." Dogmatic experimentalism and dogmatic idealism signify more or less consistently the abstract isolation of the scientific and philosophical motives.
There is already a touch of quaintness in both of these attitudes. We of the present are in the habit of acknowledging the autonomy of science, and the unimpeachable validity of the results of experimental research in so far as they are sanctioned by the consensus of experts. But at the same time we recognize the definiteness of the task of science, and the validity of such reservations as may be made from a higher critical point of view. Science is to be transcended in so far as it is understood as a whole. Philosophy is critically empirical; empirical, because it regards all bona fide descriptions of experience as knowledge; critical, because attentive to the conditions of both general and special knowledge. And in terms of a critical empiricism so defined, it is one of the problems of philosophy to define and appraise the generating problem of science, and so to determine the value assignable to natural laws in the whole system of knowledge.
The Spheres of Philosophy and Science.
§ [40]. If this be the true function of philosophy with reference to science, several current notions of the relations of the spheres of these disciplines may be disproved. In the first place, philosophy will not be all the sciences regarded as one science. Science tends to unify without any higher criticism. The various sciences already regard the one nature as their common object, and the one system of interdependent laws as their common achievement. The philosopher who tries to be all science at once fails ignominiously because he tries to replace the work of a specialist with the work of a dilettante; and if philosophy be identical with that body of truth accumulated and organized by the coöperative activity of scientific men, then philosophy is a name and there is no occasion for the existence of the philosopher as such. Secondly, philosophy will not be the assembling of the sciences; for such would be a merely clerical work, and the philosopher would much better be regarded as non-existent than as a book-keeper. Nor, thirdly, is philosophy an auxiliary discipline that may be called upon in emergencies for the solution of some baffling problem of science. A problem defined by science must be solved in the scientific manner. Science will accept no aid from the gods when engaged in her own campaign, but will fight it out according to her own principles of warfare. And as long as science moves in her own plane, she can acknowledge no permanent barriers. There is then no need of any superscientific research that shall replace, or piece together, or extend the work of science. But the savant is not on this account in possession of the entire field of knowledge. It is true that he is not infrequently moved to such a conviction when he takes us about to view his estates. Together we ascend up into heaven, or make our beds in sheol, or take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea—and look in vain for anything that is not work done, or work projected, by natural science. Persuade him, however, to define his estates, and he has circumscribed them. In his definition he must employ conceptions more fundamental than the working conceptions that he employs within his field of study. Indeed, in viewing his task as definite and specific he has undertaken the solution of the problem of philosophy. The logical self-consciousness has been awakened, and there is no honorable way of putting it to sleep again. This is precisely what takes place in any account of the generating problem of science. To define science is to define at least one realm that is other than science, the realm of active intellectual endeavor with its own proper categories. One cannot reflect upon science and assign it an end, and a method proper to that end, without bringing into the field of knowledge a broader field of experience than the field proper to science, broader at any rate by the presence in it of the scientific activity itself.
Here, then, is the field proper to philosophy. The scientist qua scientist is intent upon his own determinate enterprise. The philosopher comes into being as one who is interested in observing what it is that the scientist is so intently doing. In taking this interest he has accepted as a field for investigation that which he would designate as the totality of interests or the inclusive experience. He can carry out his intention of defining the scientific attitude only by standing outside it, and determining it by means of nothing less than an exhaustive searching out of all attitudes. Philosophy is, to be sure, itself a definite activity and an attitude, but an attitude required by definition to be conscious of itself, and, if you please, conscious of its own consciousness, until its attitude shall have embraced in its object the very principle of attitudes. Philosophy defines itself and all other human tasks and interests. None have furnished a clearer justification of philosophy than those men of scientific predilections who have claimed the title of agnostics. A good instance is furnished by a contemporary physicist, who has chosen to call his reflections "antimetaphysical."
"Physical science does not pretend to be a complete view of the world; it simply claims that it is working toward such a complete view in the future. The highest philosophy of the scientific investigator is precisely this toleration of an incomplete conception of the world and the preference for it, rather than an apparently perfect, but inadequate conception."[120:1]
It is apparent that if one were to challenge such a statement, the issue raised would at once be philosophical and not scientific. The problem here stated and answered, requires for its solution the widest inclusiveness of view, and a peculiar interest in critical reflection and logical coördination.
The Procedure of a Philosophy of Science.
§ [41]. One may be prepared for a knowledge of the economic and social significance of the railway even if one does not know a throttle from a piston-rod, provided one has broad and well-balanced knowledge of the interplay of human social interests. One's proficiency here requires one to stand off from society, and to obtain a perspective that shall be as little distorted as possible. The reflection of the philosopher of science requires a similar quality of perspective. All knowledges, together with the knowing of them, must be his object yonder, standing apart in its wholeness and symmetry. Philosophy is the least dogmatic, the most empirical, of all disciplines, since it is the only investigation that can permit itself to be forgetful of nothing.
But the most comprehensive view may be the most distorted and false. The true order of knowledge is the difficult task of logical analysis, requiring as its chief essential some determination of the scope of the working conceptions of the different independent branches of knowledge. In the case of natural science this would mean an examination of the method and results characteristic of this field, for the sake of defining the kind of truth which attaches to the laws which are being gradually formulated. But one must immediately reach either the one or the other of two very general conclusions. If the laws of natural science cover all possible knowledge of reality, then there is left to philosophy only the logical function of justifying this statement. Logic and natural science will then constitute the sum of knowledge. If, on the other hand, it be found that the aim of natural science is such as to exclude certain aspects of reality, then philosophy will not be restricted to logical criticism, but will have a cognitive field of its own. The great majority of philosophers have assumed the latter of these alternatives to be true, while most aggressive scientists have intended the former in their somewhat blind attacks upon "metaphysics." Although the selection of either of these alternatives involves us in the defence of a specific answer to a philosophical question, the issue is inevitable in any introduction to philosophy because of its bearing upon the extent of the field of that study. Furthermore there can be no better exposition of the meaning of philosophy of science than an illustration of its exercise. The following, then, is to be regarded as on the one hand a tentative refutation of positivism, or the claim of natural science to be coextensive with knowable reality; and on the other hand a programme for the procedure of philosophy with reference to natural science.
The Origin of the Scientific Interest.
§ [42]. Science issues through imperceptible stages from organic habits and instincts which signify the possession by living creatures of a power to meet the environment on its own terms. Every organism possesses such a working knowledge of nature, and among men the first science consists in those habitual adjustments common to men and infra-human organisms. Man is already practising science before he recognizes it. As skill it distinguishes itself early in his history from lore, or untested tradition. Skill is familiarity with general kinds of events, together with ability to identify an individual with reference to a kind, and so be prepared for the outcome. Thus man is inwardly prepared for the alternation of day and night, and the periods of the seasons. He practically anticipates the procession of natural events in the countless emergencies of his daily life. But science in the stricter sense begins when skill becomes free and social.
Skill as Free.
§ [43]. Skill may be said to be free when the essential terms of the action have been abstracted from the circumstances attending them in individual experiences, and are retained as ideal plans applicable to any practical occasion. The monkey who swings with a trapeze from his perch on the side of the cage, counts upon swinging back again without any further effort on his own part. His act and its successful issue signify his practical familiarity with the natural motions of bodies. We can conceive such a performance to be accompanied by an almost entire failure to grasp its essentials. It would then be necessary for nearly the whole situation to be repeated in order to induce in the monkey the same action and expectation. He would require a similar form, color, and distance. But he might, on the other hand, regard as practically identical all suspended and freely swinging bodies capable of affording him support, and quite independently of their shape, size, time, or place. In this latter case his skill would be applicable to the widest possible number of cases that could present themselves. Having a discerning eye for essentials, he would lose no chance of a swing through looking for more than the bare necessities. When the physicist describes the pendulum in terms of a formula such as t = 2π√l/g he exhibits a similar discernment. He has found that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pendulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration due to gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike represent a knowledge that is free in the sense that it is contained in terms that require no single fixed context in immediacy. The knowledge is valid wherever these essential terms are present; and calculations may be based upon these essential terms, while attendant circumstances vary ad infinitum. Such knowledge is said to be general or universal.
There is another element of freedom, however, which so far has not been attributed to the monkey's knowledge, but which is evidently present in that of the physicist. The former has a practical ability to deal with a pendulum when he sees it. The latter, on the other hand, knows about a pendulum whether one be present or not. His knowledge is so retained as always to be available, even though it be not always applicable. His knowledge is not merely skill in treating a situation, but the possession of resources which he may employ at whatever time, and in whatever manner, may suit his interests. Knowing what he does about the pendulum, he may act from the idea of such a contrivance, and with the aid of it construct some more complex mechanism. His formulas are his instruments, which he may use on any occasion. Suppose that a situation with factors a, b, and c requires factor d in order to become M, as desired. Such a situation might easily be hopeless for an organism reacting directly to the stimulus abc, and yet be easily met by a free knowledge of d. One who knows that l, m, and n will produce d, may by these means provide the missing factor, complete the sum of required conditions, abcd, and so obtain the end M. Such indirection might be used to obtain any required factor of the end, or of any near or remote means to the end. There is, in fact, no limit to the complexity of action made possible upon this basis; for since it is available in idea, the whole range of such knowledge may be brought to bear upon any individual problem.
Skill as Social.
§ [44]. But knowledge of this free type becomes at the same time social or institutional. It consists no longer in a skilful adaptation of the individual organism, but in a system of terms common to all intelligence, and preserved in those books and other monuments which serve as the articulate memory of the race. A knowledge that is social must be composed of unequivocal conceptions and fixed symbols. The mathematical laws of the exact sciences represent the most successful attainment of this end so far as form is concerned. Furthermore, the amount of knowledge may now be increased from generation to generation through the service of those who make a vocation of its pursuit. Natural science is thus a cumulative racial proficiency, which any individual may bring to bear upon any emergency of his life.
Science for Accommodation and Construction.
§ [45]. Such proficiency as science affords is in every case the anticipation of experience. This has a twofold value for mankind, that of accommodation, and that of construction. Primitively, where mere survival is the function of the organism as a whole, the value of accommodation is relatively fundamental. The knowledge of what may be expected enables the organism to save itself by means of its own counter-arrangement of natural processes. Construction is here for the sake of accommodation. But with the growth of civilization construction becomes a positive interest, and man tends to save himself for definite ends. Accommodation comes to take place for the sake of construction. Science then supplies the individual with the ways and means wherewith to execute life purposes which themselves tend to assume an absolute value that cannot be justified merely on the ground of science.
Method and Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science. The Descriptive Method.
§ [46]. If natural science be animated by any special cognitive interest, this motive should appear in the development of its method and fundamental conceptions. If that interest has been truly defined, it should now enable us to understand the progressive and permanent in scientific investigation as directly related to it. For the aim of any discipline exercises a gradual selection from among possible methods, and gives to its laws their determinate and final form.
The descriptive method is at the present day fully established. A leading moral of the history of science is the superior usefulness of an exact account of the workings of nature to an explanation in terms of some qualitative potency. Explanation has been postponed by enlightened science until after a more careful observation of actual processes shall have been made; and at length it has been admitted that there is no need of any explanation but perfect description. Now the practical use of science defined above, requires no knowledge beyond the actual order of events. For such a purpose sufficient reason signifies only sufficient conditions. All other considerations are irrelevant, and it is proper to ignore them. Such has actually been the fate of the so-called metaphysical solution of special problems of nature. The case of Kepler is the classic instance. This great scientist supplemented his laws of planetary motion with the following speculation concerning the agencies at work:
"We must suppose one of two things: either that the moving spirits, in proportion as they are more removed from the sun, are more feeble; or that there is one moving spirit in the centre of all the orbits, namely, in the sun, which urges each body the more vehemently in proportion as it is nearer; but in more distant spaces languishes in consequence of the remoteness and attenuation of its virtue."[129:2]
The following passage from Hegel affords an interesting analogy:
"The moon is the waterless crystal which seeks to complete itself by means of our sea, to quench the thirst of its arid rigidity, and therefore produces ebb and flow."[129:3]
No scientist has ever sought to refute either of these theories. They have merely been neglected.
They were advanced in obedience to a demand for the ultimate explanation of the phenomena in question, and were obtained by applying such general conceptions as were most satisfying to the reasons of their respective authors. But they contributed nothing whatsoever to a practical familiarity with the natural course of events, in this case the times and places of the planets and the tides. Hence they have not been used in the building of science. In our own day investigators have become conscious of their motive, and do not wait for historical selection to exclude powers and reasons from their province. They deliberately seek to formulate exact descriptions. To this end they employ symbols that shall serve to identify the terms of nature, and formulas that shall define their systematic relationship. These systems must be exact, or deductions cannot be made from them. Hence they tend ultimately to assume a mathematical form of expression.
Space, Time, and Prediction.
§ [47]. But science tends to employ for these systems only such conceptions as relate to prediction; and of these the most fundamental are space and time. The first science to establish its method was the science of astronomy, where measurement and computation in terms of space and time were the most obvious means of description; and the general application of the method of astronomy by Galileo and Newton, or the development of mechanics, is the most important factor in the establishment of modern science upon a permanent working basis. The persistence of the term cause, testifies to the fact that science is primarily concerned with the determination of events. Its definitions of objects are means of identification, while its laws are dynamical, i. e., have reference to the conditions under which these objects arise. Thus the chemist may know less about the properties of water than the poet; but he is preëminently skilled in its production from elements, and understands similarly the compounds into which it may enter. Now the general conditions of all anticipation, whereby it becomes exact and verifiable, are spacial and temporal. A predictable event must be assigned to what is here now, or there now; or what is here then, or there then. An experimentally verifiable system must contain space-time variables, for which can be substituted the here and now of the experimenter's immediate experience. Hence science deals primarily with calculable places and moments. The mechanical theory of nature owes its success to a union of space and time through its conceptions of matter and motion.[132:4] And the projected theory of energetics must satisfy the same conditions.
The Quantitative Method.
§ [48]. But, furthermore, science has, as we have seen, an interest in freeing its descriptions from the peculiar angle and relativity of an individual's experience, for the sake of affording him knowledge of that with which he must meet. Science enlightens the will by acquainting it with that which takes place in spite of it, and for which it must hold itself in readiness. To this end the individual benefits himself in so far as he eliminates himself from the objects which he investigates. His knowledge is useful in so far as it is valid for his own indefinitely varying stand-points, and those of other wills recognized by him in his practical relations. But in attempting to describe objects in terms other than those of a specific experience, science is compelled to describe them in terms of one another. For this purpose the quantitative method is peculiarly serviceable. With its aid objects permit themselves to be described as multiples of one another, and as occupying positions in relation to one another. When all objects are described strictly in terms of one another, they are expressed in terms of arbitrary units, and located in terms of arbitrary spacial or temporal axes of reference. Thus there arises the universe of the scientific imagination, a vast complexity of material displacements and transformations, without color, music, pleasure, or any of all that rich variety of qualities that the least of human experiences contains. It does not completely rationalize or even completely describe such experiences, but formulates their succession. To this end they are reduced to terms that correspond to no specific experience, and for this very reason may be translated again into all definable hypothetical experiences. The solar system for astronomy is not a bird's-eye view of elliptical orbits, with the planets and satellites in definite phases. Nor is it this group of objects from any such point of view, or from any number of such points of view; but a formulation of their motions that will serve as the key to an infinite number of their appearances. Or, consider the picture of the ichthysauria romping in the mesozoic sea, that commonly accompanies a text-book of geology. Any such picture, and all such pictures, with their coloring and their temporal and spacial perspective, are imaginary. No such special and exclusive manifolds can be defined as having been then and there realized. But we have a geological knowledge of this period, that fulfils the formal demands of natural science, in so far as we can construct this and countless other specific experiences with reference to it.
The General Development of Science.
§ [49]. Science, then, is to be understood as springing from the practical necessity of anticipating the environment. This anticipation appears first as congenital or acquired reactions on the part of the organism. Such reactions imply a fixed coördination or system in the environment whereby a given circumstance determines other circumstances; and science proper arises as the formulation of such systems. The requirement that they shall apply to the phenomena that confront the will, determines their spacial, temporal, and quantitative form. The progress of science is marked by the growth of these conceptions in the direction of comprehensiveness on the one hand, and of refinement and delicacy on the other. Man lives in an environment that is growing at the same time richer and more extended, but with a compensatory simplification in the ever closer systematization of scientific conceptions under the form of the order of nature.
The Determination of the Limits of Natural Science.
§ [50]. At the opening of this chapter it was maintained that it is a function of philosophy to criticise science through its generating problem, or its self-imposed task viewed as determining its province and selecting its categories. The above account of the origin and method of science must suffice as a definition of its generating problem, and afford the basis of our answer to the question of its limits. Enough has been said to make it clear that philosophy is not in the field of science, and is therefore not entitled to contest its result in detail or even to take sides within the province of its special problems. Furthermore, philosophy should not aim to restrain science by the imposition of external barriers. Whatever may be said of the sufficiency of its categories in any region of the world, that body of truth of which mathematics, mechanics, and physics are the foundations, must be regarded as a whole that tends to be all-comprehensive in its own terms. There remains for philosophy, then, the critical examination of these terms, and the appraisal as a whole of the truth that they may express.
Natural Science is Abstract.
§ [51]. The impossibility of embracing the whole of knowledge within natural science is due to the fact that the latter is abstract. This follows from the fact that natural science is governed by a selective interest. The formulation of definitions and laws in exclusively mechanical terms is not due to the exhaustive or even preëminent reality of these properties, but to their peculiar serviceableness in a verifiable description of events. Natural science does not affirm that reality is essentially constituted of matter, or essentially characterized by motion; but is interested in the mechanical aspect of reality, and describes it quite regardless of other evident aspects and without meaning to prejudice them. It is unfortunately true that the scientist has rarely been clear in his own mind on this point. It is only recently that he has partially freed himself from the habit of construing his terms as final and exhaustive.[137:5] This he was able to do even to his own satisfaction, only by allowing loose rein to the imagination. Consider the example of the atomic theory. In order to describe such occurrences as chemical combination, or changes in volume and density, the scientist has employed as a unit the least particle, physically indivisible and qualitatively homogeneous. Look for the atom in the body of science, and you will find it in physical laws governing expansion and contraction, and in chemical formulas. There the real responsibility of science ends. But whether through the need of popular exposition, or the undisciplined imagination of the investigator himself, atoms have figured in the history of thought as round corpuscles of a grayish hue scurrying hither and thither, and armed with special appliances wherewith to lock in molecular embrace. Although this is nonsense, we need not on that account conclude that there are no atoms. There are atoms in precisely the sense intended by scientific law, in that the formulas computed with the aid of this concept are true of certain natural processes. The conception of ether furnishes a similar case. Science is not responsible for the notion of a quivering gelatinous substance pervading space, but only for certain laws that, e. g., describe the velocity of light in terms of the vibration. It is true that there is such a thing as ether, not as gratuitously rounded out by the imagination, with various attributes of immediate experience, but just in so far as this concept is employed in verified descriptions of radiation, magnetism, or electricity. Strictly speaking science asserts nothing about the existence of ether, but only about the behavior, e. g., of light. If true descriptions of this and other phenomena are reached by employing units of wave propagation in an elastic medium, then ether is proved to exist in precisely the same sense that linear feet are proved to exist, if it be admitted that there are 90,000,000 × 5,280 of them between the earth and the sun. And to imagine in the one case a jelly with all the qualities of texture, color, and the like, that an individual object of sense would possess, is much the same as in the other to imagine the heavens filled with foot-rules and tape-measures. There is but one safe procedure in dealing with scientific concepts: to regard them as true so far as they describe, and no whit further. To supplement the strict meaning which has been verified and is contained in the formularies of science, with such vague predicates as will suffice to make entities of them, is mere ineptness and confusion of thought. And it is only such a supplementation that obscures their abstractness. For a mechanical description of things, true as it doubtless is, is even more indubitably incomplete.
The Meaning of Abstractness in Truth.
§ [52]. But though the abstractness involved in scientific description is open and deliberate, we must come to a more precise understanding of it, if we are to draw any conclusion as to what it involves. In his "Principles of Human Knowledge," the English philosopher Bishop Berkeley raises the question as to the universal validity of mathematical demonstrations. If we prove from the image or figure of an isosceles right triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles, how can we know that this proposition holds of all triangles?
"To which I answer, that, though the idea I have in view whilst I make the demonstration be, for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular triangle whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles, of what sort or bigness soever. And that because neither the right angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is true the diagram I have in view includes all these particulars; but then there is not the least mention made of them in the proof of the proposition."[140:6]
Of the total conditions present in the concrete picture of a triangle, one may in one's calculations neglect as many as one sees fit, and work with the remainder. Then, if one has clearly distinguished the conditions used, one may confidently assert that whatever has been found true of them holds regardless of the neglected conditions. These may be missing or replaced by others, provided the selected or (for any given investigation) essential conditions are not affected. That which is true once is true always, provided time is not one of its conditions; that which is true in one place is true everywhere, provided location is not one of its conditions. But, given any concrete situation, the more numerous the conditions one ignores in one's calculations, the less adequate are one's calculations to that situation. The number of its inhabitants, and any mathematical operation made with that number, is true, but only very abstractly true of a nation. A similar though less radical abstractness appertains to natural science. Simple qualities of sound or color, and distinctions of beauty or moral worth, together with many other ingredients of actual experience attributed therein to the objects of nature, are ignored in the mechanical scheme. There is a substitution of certain mechanical arrangements in the case of the first group of properties, the simple qualities of sense, so that they may be assimilated to the general scheme of events, and their occurrence predicted. But their intrinsic qualitative character is not reckoned with, even in psychology, where the physiological method finally replaces them with brain states. Over and above these neglected properties of things there remain the purposive activities of thought. It is equally preposterous to deny them and to describe them in mechanical terms. It is plain, then, that natural science calculates upon the basis of only a fraction of the conditions that present themselves in actual experience. Its conclusions, therefore, though true so far as they go, and they may be abstractly true of everything, are completely true of nothing.
But Scientific Truth is Valid for Reality.
§ [53]. Such, in brief, is the general charge of inadequacy which may be urged against natural science, not in the spirit of detraction, but for the sake of a more sound belief concerning reality. The philosopher falls into error no less radical than that of the dogmatic scientist, when he charges the scientist with untruth, and attaches to his concepts the predicate of unreality. The fact that the concepts of science are selected, and only inadequately true of reality, should not be taken to mean that they are sportive or arbitrary. They are not "devices" or abbreviations, in any sense that does not attach to such symbolism as all thought involves. Nor are they merely "hypothetical," though like all thought they are subject to correction.[142:7] The scientist does not merely assert that the equation for energy is true if nature's capacity for work be measurable, but that such is actually the case. The statistician does not arrive at results contingent upon the supposition that men are numerable, but declares his sums and averages to be categorically true. Similarly scientific laws are true; only, to be sure, so far as they go, but with no condition save the condition that attaches to all knowledge, viz., that it shall not need correction. The philosophy of science, therefore, is not the adversary of science, but supervenes upon science in the interests of the ideal of final truth. No philosophy of science is sound which does not primarily seek by an analysis of scientific concepts to understand science on its own grounds. Philosophy may understand science better than science understands itself, but only by holding fast to the conviction of its truth, and including it within whatever account of reality it may be able to formulate.
Relative Practical Value of Science and Philosophy.
§ [54]. Though philosophy be the most ancient and most exalted of human disciplines, it is not infrequently charged with being the most unprofitable. Science has amassed a fortune of information, which has facilitated life and advanced civilization. Is not philosophy, on the other hand, all programme and idle questioning? In the first place, no questioning is idle that is logically possible. It is true that philosophy shows her skill rather in the asking than in the answering of questions. But the formal pertinence of a question is of the greatest significance. No valid though unanswered question can have a purely negative value, and especially as respects the consistency or completeness of truth. But, in the second place, philosophy with all its limitations serves mankind as indispensably as science. If science supplies the individual with means of self-preservation, and the instruments of achievement, philosophy supplies the ideals, or the objects of deliberate construction. Such reflection as justifies the adoption of a fundamental life purpose is always philosophical. For every judgment respecting final worth is a judgment sub specie eternitatis. And the urgency of life requires the individual to pass such judgments. It is true that however persistently reflective he may be in the matter, his conclusion will be premature in consideration of the amount of evidence logically demanded for such a judgment. But he must be as wise as he can, or he will be as foolish as conventionality and blind impulse may impel him to be. Philosophy determines for society what every individual must practically determine upon for himself, the most reasonable plan of reality as a whole which the data and reflection of an epoch can afford. It is philosophy's service to mankind to compensate for the enthusiasm and concentration of the specialist, a service needed in every "present day." Apart from the philosopher, public opinion is the victim of sensationalism, and individual opinion is further warped by accidental propinquity. It is the function of philosophy to interpret knowledge for the sake of a sober and wise belief. The philosopher is the true prophet, appearing before men in behalf of that which is finally the truth. He is the spokesman of the most considerate and comprehensive reflection possible at any stage in the development of human thought. Owing to a radical misconception of function, the man of science has in these later days begun to regard himself as the wise man, and to teach the people. Popular materialism is the logical outcome of this determination of belief by natural science. It may be that this is due as much to the indifference of the philosopher as to the forwardness of the scientist, but in any case the result is worse than conservative loyalty to religious tradition. For religion is corrected surely though slowly by the whole order of advancing truth. Its very inflexibility makes it proof against an over-emphasis upon new truth. It has generally turned out in time that the obstinate man of religion was more nearly right than the adaptable intellectual man of fashion. But philosophy, as a critique of science for the sake of faith, should provide the individual religious believer with intellectual enlightenment and gentleness. The quality, orderliness, and inclusiveness of knowledge, finally determine its value; and the philosopher, premature as his synthesis may some day prove to be, is the wisest man of his own generation. From him the man of faith should obtain such discipline of judgment as shall enable him to be fearless of advancing knowledge, because acquainted with its scope, and so intellectually candid with all his visions and his inspirations.
FOOTNOTES:
[120:1] Ernst Mach: Science of Mechanics. Translation by McCormack, p. 464. No one has made more important contributions than Professor Mach to a certain definite modern philosophical movement. Cf. § [207].
[129:2] Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. I, p. 289. Quoted from Kepler: Mysterium Cosmographicum.
[129:3] Quoted by Sidgwick in his Philosophy, its Scope and Relations, p. 89.
[132:4] The reader is referred to Mr. Bertrand Russell's chapters on matter and motion in his Principles of Mathematics, Vol. I. Material particles he defines as "many-one relations of all times to some places, or of all terms of a continuous one-dimensional series t to some terms of a continuous three-dimensional series s." Similarly, "when different times, throughout any period however short, are correlated with different places, there is motion; when different times, throughout some period however short, are all correlated with the same place, there is rest." Op. cit., p. 473.
[137:5] That the scientist still permits himself to teach the people a loose exoteric theory of reality, is proven by Professor Ward's citation of instances in his Naturalism and Agnosticism. So eminent a physicist as Lord Kelvin is quoted as follows: "You can imagine particles of something, the thing whose motion constitutes light. This thing we call the luminiferous ether. That is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of, and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether." Vol. I, p. 113.
[140:6] Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction. Edition of Fraser, p. 248.
[142:7] The reader who cares to pursue this topic further is referred to the writer's discussion of "Professor Ward's Philosophy of Science" in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. I, No. 13.
PART II
THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF
PHILOSOPHY
CHAPTER VI
METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
The Impossibility of an Absolute Division of the Problem of Philosophy.
§ [55]. The stand-point and purpose of the philosopher define his task, but they do not necessarily prearrange the division of it. That the task is a complex one, embracing many subordinate problems which must be treated seriatim, is attested both by the breadth of its scope and the variety of the interests from which it may be approached. But this complexity is qualified by the peculiar importance which here attaches to unity. That which lends philosophical quality to any reflection is a steadfast adherence to the ideals of inclusiveness and consistency. Hence, though the philosopher must of necessity occupy himself with subordinate problems, these cannot be completely isolated from one another, and solved successively. Perspective is his most indispensable requisite, and he has solved no problem finally until he has provided for the solution of all. His own peculiar conceptions are those which order experience, and reconcile such aspects of it as other interests have distinguished. Hence the compatibility of any idea with all other ideas is the prime test of its philosophical sufficiency. On these grounds it may confidently be asserted that the work of philosophy cannot be assigned by the piece to different specialists, and then assembled. There are no special philosophical problems which can be finally solved upon their own merits. Indeed, such problems could never even be named, for in their discreteness they would cease to be philosophical.
The case of metaphysics and epistemology affords an excellent illustration. The former of these is commonly defined as the theory of reality or of first principles, the latter as the theory of knowledge. But the most distinctive philosophical movement of the nineteenth century issues from the idea that knowing and being are identical.[150:1] The prime reality is defined as a knowing mind, and the terms of reality are interpreted as terms of a cognitive process. Ideas and logical principles constitute the world. It is evident that in this Hegelian philosophy epistemology embraces metaphysics. In defining the relations of knowledge to its object, one has already defined one's fundamental philosophical conception, while logic, as the science of the universal necessities of thought, will embrace the first principles of reality. Now, were one to divide and arrange the problems of philosophy upon this basis, it is evident that one would not have deduced the arrangement from the general problem of philosophy, but from a single attempted solution of that problem. It might serve as an exposition of Hegel, but not as a general philosophical programme.
Another case in point is provided by the present-day interest in what is called "pragmatism."[151:2] This doctrine is historically connected with Kant's principle of the "primacy of the practical reason," in which he maintained that the consciousness of duty is a profounder though less scientific insight than the knowledge of objects. The current doctrine maintains that thought with its fruits is an expression of interest, and that the will which evinces and realizes such an interest is more original and significant than that which the thinking defines. Such a view attaches a peculiar importance to the springs of conduct, and in its more systematic development[152:3] has regarded ethics as the true propædeutic and proof of philosophy. But to make ethics the key-stone of the arch, is to define a special philosophical system; for it is the very problem of philosophy to dispose the parts of knowledge with a view to systematic construction. The relation of the provinces of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics cannot, then, be defined without entering these provinces and answering the questions proper to them.
The Dependence of the Order of Philosophical Problems upon the Initial Interest.
§ [56]. Since the above terms exist, however, there can be no doubt but that important divisions within the general aim of philosophy have actually been made. The inevitableness of it appears in the variety of the sources from which that aim may spring. The point of departure will always determine the emphasis and the application which the philosophy receives. If philosophy be needed to supplement more special interests, it will receive a particular character from whatever interest it so supplements. He who approaches it from a definite stand-point will find in it primarily an interpretation of that stand-point.
Philosophy as the Interpretation of Life.
§ [57]. There are two sources of the philosophical aim, which are perennial in their human significance. He, firstly, who begins with the demands of life and its ideals, looks to philosophy for a reconciliation of these with the orderly procedure of nature. His philosophy will receive its form from its illumination of life, and it will be an ethical or religious philosophy. Spinoza, the great seventeenth-century philosopher who justified mysticism after the manner of mathematics,[153:4] displays this temper in his philosophy:
"After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness."[153:5]
In pursuance of this aim, though he deals with the problem of being in the rigorous logical fashion of his day, the final words of his great work are, "Of Human Freedom":
"Whereas the wise man, in so far as he is regarded as such, is scarcely at all disturbed in spirit, but, being conscious of himself, and of God, and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, never ceases to be, but always possesses true acquiescence of his spirit. If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."[154:6]
Philosophy as the Extension of Science.
§ [58]. On the other hand, one who looks to philosophy for the extension and correction of scientific knowledge will be primarily interested in the philosophical definition of ultimate conceptions, and in the method wherewith such a definition is obtained. Thus the philosophy of the scientist will tend to be logical and metaphysical. Such is the case with Descartes and Leibniz, who are nevertheless intimately related to Spinoza in the historical development of philosophy.
"Several years have now elapsed," says the former, "since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences."[155:7]
Leibniz's mind was more predominantly logical even than Descartes's. He sought in philosophy a supreme intellectual synthesis, a science of the universe.
"Although," he says retrospectively, "I am one of those who have worked much at mathematics, I have none the less meditated upon philosophy from my youth up; for it always seemed to me that there was a possibility of establishing something solid in philosophy by clear demonstrations. . . . I perceived, after much meditation, that it is impossible to find the principles of a real unity in matter alone, or in that which is only passive, since it is nothing but a collection or aggregation of parts ad infinitum."[155:8]
The Historical Differentiation of the Philosophical Problem.
§ [59]. Though these types are peculiarly representative, they are by no means exhaustive. There are as many possibilities of emphasis as there are incentives to philosophical reflection. It is not possible to exhaust the aspects of experience which may serve as bases from which such thought may issue, and to which, after its synthetic insight, it may return. But it is evident that such divisions of philosophy represent in their order, and in the sharpness with which they are sundered, the intellectual autobiography of the individual philosopher. There is but one method by which that which is peculiar either to the individual, or to the special position which he adopts, may be eliminated. Though it is impossible to tabulate the empty programme of philosophy, we may name certain special problems that have appeared in its history. Since this history comprehends the activities of many individuals, a general validity attaches to it. There has been, moreover, a certain periodicity in the emergence of these problems, so that it may fairly be claimed for them that they indicate inevitable phases in the development of human reflection upon experience. They represent a normal differentiation of interest which the individual mind, in the course of its own thinking, tends to follow. It is true that it can never be said with assurance that any age is utterly blind to any aspect of experience. This is obviously the case with the practical and theoretical interests which have just been distinguished. There is no age that does not have some practical consciousness of the world as a whole, nor any which does not seek more or less earnestly to universalize its science. But though it compel us to deal abstractly with historical epochs, there is abundant compensation in the possibility which this method affords of finding the divisions of philosophy in the manifestation of the living philosophical spirit.
Metaphysics Seeks a Most Fundamental Conception.
§ [60]. To Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, is commonly awarded the honor of being the founder of European philosophy. If he deserve this distinction, it is on account of the question which he raised, and not on account of the answer which he gave to it. Aristotle informs us that Thales held "water" to be "the material cause of all things."[157:9] This crude theory is evidently due to an interest in the totality of things, an interest which is therefore philosophical. But the interest of this first philosopher has a more definite character. It looks toward the definition in terms of some single conception, of the constitution of the world. As a child might conceivably think the moon to be made of green cheese, so philosophy in its childhood thinks here of all things as made of water. Water was a well-known substance, possessing well-known predicates. To define all nature in terms of it, was to maintain that in spite of superficial differences, all things have these predicates in common. They are the predicates which qualify for reality, and compose a community of nature from which all the individual objects and events of nature arise. The successors of Thales were evidently dissatisfied with his fundamental conception, because of its lack of generality. They seized upon vaguer substances like air and fire, for the very definiteness of the nature of water forbids the identification of other substances with it. But what is so obviously true of water is scarcely less true of air and fire; and it appeared at length that only a substance possessing the most general characters of body, such as shape, size, and mobility, could be thought as truly primeval and universal. In this wise a conception like our modern physical conception of matter came at length into vogue. Now the problem of which these were all tentative solutions is, in general, the problem of metaphysics; although this term belongs to a later era, arising only from the accidental place of the discussion of first principles after physics in the system of Aristotle. The attempt to secure a most fundamental conception which attaches some definite meaning to the reality including and informing every particular thing, is metaphysics.
Monism and Pluralism.
§ [61]. It must not be supposed that metaphysics is dogmatically committed to the reduction of all reality to a unity of nature. It is quite consistent with its purpose that the parts of reality should be found to compose a group, or an indefinite multitude of irreducibly different entities. But it is clear that even such an account of things deals with what is true of all reality, and even in acknowledging the variety of its constituents, attributes to them some kind of relationship. The degree to which such a relationship is regarded as intimate and essential, determines the degree to which any metaphysical system is monistic,[159:10] rather than pluralistic. But the significance of this difference will be better appreciated after a further differentiation of the metaphysical problem has been noted.
Ontology and Cosmology Concern Being and Process.
§ [62]. It has already been suggested that the test of Thales's conception lay in the possibility of deriving nature from it. A world principle must be fruitful. Now an abstract distinction has prevailed more or less persistently in metaphysics, between the general definition of being, called ontology, and the study of the processes wherewith being is divided into things and events. This latter study has to do primarily with the details of experience enumerated and systematized by the natural sciences. To reconcile these, or the course of nature, with the fundamental definition of being, is the problem of cosmology. Cosmology is the construing of the prima facie reality in terms of the essential reality. It is the proof and the explanation of ontology. Since the most familiar part of the prima facie reality, the part almost exclusively noticed by the naive mind, is embraced within the field of the physical sciences, the term cosmology has come more definitely to signify the philosophy of nature. It embraces such an examination of space, time, matter, causality, etc., as seeks to answer the most general questions about them, and provide for them in the world thought of as most profoundly real. Such a study receives its philosophical character from its affiliation with ontology, as the latter would find its application in cosmology.
Mechanical and Teleological Cosmologies.
§ [63]. But in addition to the consideration of the various parts of nature, cosmology has commonly dealt with a radical and far-reaching alternative that appeared at the very dawn of metaphysics. Differences may arise within a world constituted of a single substance or a small group of ultimate substances, by changes in the relative position and grouping of the parts. Hence the virtue of the conception of motion. The theory which explains all differences by motions of the parts of a qualitatively simple world, is called mechanism. Another source of change familiar to naive experience is will, or the action of living creatures. According to the mechanical theory, changes occur on account of the natural motions of the parts of matter; according to the latter or teleological conception, changes are made by a formative agency directed to some end. Among the early Greek philosophers, Leucippus was an exponent of mechanism.
"He says that the worlds arise when many bodies are collected together into the mighty void from the surrounding space and rush together. They come into collision, and those which are of similar shape and like form become entangled, and from their entanglement the heavenly bodies arise."[161:11]
Anaxagoras, on the other hand, was famed for his doctrine of the Nous, or Intelligence, to whose direction he attributed the whole process of the world. The following is translated from extant fragments of his book, "περὶ φύσεως":
"And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by the Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be and that were, and all things that are not now and that are, and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air and the ether that are separated off."[162:12]
Dualism.
§ [64]. It is clear, furthermore, that the doctrine of Anaxagoras not only names a distinct kind of cause, but also ascribes to it an independence and intrinsic importance that do not belong to motion. Whereas motion is a property of matter, intelligence is an originative power working out purposes of its own choosing. Hence we have here to do with a new ontology. If we construe ultimate being in terms of mind, we have a definite substitute for the physical theories outlined above. Such a theory is scarcely to be attributed to any Greek philosopher of the early period; it belongs to a more sophisticated stage in the development of thought, after the rise of the problem of epistemology. But Anaxagoras's sharp distinction between the material of the world on the one hand, and the author of its order and evolution on the other, is in itself worthy of notice. It contains the germ of a recurrent philosophical dualism, which differs from pluralism in that it finds two and only two fundamental divisions of being, the physical, material, or potential on the one hand, and the mental, formal, or ideal on the other.
The New Meaning of Monism and Pluralism.
§ [65]. Finally, the alternative possibilities which these cosmological considerations introduce, bear directly upon the general question of the interdependence of the parts of the world, a question which has already appeared as pertinent in ontology. Monism and pluralism now obtain a new meaning. Where the world process is informed with some singleness of plan, as teleology proposes, the parts are reciprocally necessary, and inseparable from the unity. Where, on the other hand, the processes are random and reciprocally fortuitous, as Leucippus proposes, the world as a whole is an aggregate rather than a unity. In this way uniformity in kind of being may prevail in a world the relations of whose parts are due to chance, while diversity in kind of being may prevail in a world knit together by some thorough-going plan of organization. Thus monism and pluralism are conceptions as proper to cosmology as to ontology.
But enough has been said to demonstrate the interdependence of ontology and cosmology, of the theory of being and the theory of differentiation and process. Such problems can be only abstractly sundered, and the distinctive character of any metaphysical system will usually consist in some theory determining their relation. Philosophy returns to these metaphysical problems with its thought enriched and its method complicated, after becoming thoroughly alive to the problems of epistemology, logic, and ethics.
Epistemology Seeks to Understand the Possibility of Knowledge.
§ [66]. Epistemology is the theory of the possibility of knowledge, and issues from criticism and scepticism. If we revert again to the history of Greek philosophy, we find a first period of enterprising speculation giving place to a second period of hesitancy and doubt. This phase of thought occurs simultaneously with the brilliantly humanistic age of Pericles, and it is undoubtedly true that energy is withdrawn from speculation largely for the sake of expending it in the more lively and engaging pursuits of politics and art. But there are patent reasons within the sphere of philosophy itself for entailment of activity and taking of stock. For three centuries men have taken their philosophical powers for granted, and used them without questioning them. Repeated attacks upon the problem of reality have resulted in no consensus of opinion, but only in a disagreement among the wise men themselves. A great variety of mere theories has been substituted for the old unanimity of religious tradition and practical life. It is natural under these circumstances to infer that in philosophy man has overreached himself. He would more profitably busy himself with affairs that belong to his own sphere, and find a basis for life in his immediate relations with his fellows. The sophists, learned in tradition, and skilled in disputation, but for the most part entirely lacking in originality, are the new prophets. As teachers of rhetoric and morals, they represent the practical and secular spirit of their age; while in their avoidance of speculation, and their critical justification of that course, they express its sceptical philosophy.
Scepticism, Dogmatism, and Agnosticism.
§ [67]. In their self-justification certain of the sophists attached themselves to a definite doctrine maintained by those of their predecessors and contemporaries who were atomists, or followers of that same Leucippus whom we have quoted. This doctrine was the result of an attempt to construe perception in terms of the motion of atoms. Outer objects were said to give off fine particles which, through the mediation of the sense organs, impinged upon the soul-atom. But it was evident even to the early exponents of this theory that according to such an account, each perceiver is relegated to a world peculiar to his own stand-point. His perception informs him concerning his own states as affected by things, rather than concerning the things themselves. Upon this ground the great sophist Protagoras is said to have based his dictum: Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος,—"Man is the measure of all things." This is the classic statement of the doctrine of relativity. But we have now entered into the province of epistemology, and various alternatives confront us. Reduce thought to perception, define perception as relative to each individual, and you arrive at scepticism, or the denial of the possibility of valid knowledge. Plato expounds this consequence in the well-known discussion of Protagoras that occurs in the "Theætetus."
"I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his book on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things; then he might have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of him by informing us at the outset that while we were reverencing him like a God for his wisdom, he was no better than a tadpole, not to speak of his fellow-men—would not this have produced an overpowering effect? For if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern another's feelings better than he, or has any superior right to determine whether his opinion is true or false, but each, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom? . . . The attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, if to each man his own are right; and this must be the case if Protagoras's Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book."[167:13]
This is the full swing of the pendulum from dogmatism, or the uncritical conviction of truth. A modified form of scepticism has been developed in these later days under the influence of natural science, and is called agnosticism or positivism. It accepts the Protagorean doctrine only in the sense of attributing to human knowledge as a whole an incapacity for exceeding the range of perception. Beyond this realm of natural science, where theories can be sensibly verified, lies the unknowable realm, more real, but forever inaccessible.
The Source and Criterion of Knowledge According to Empiricism and Rationalism. Mysticism.
§ [68]. It is important to note that both scepticism and agnosticism agree in regarding perception as the essential factor in knowledge. So far at any rate as our knowledge is concerned, the certification of being consists in perceivability. Knowledge is coextensive with actual and possible human experience. This account of the source and criterion of knowledge is called empiricism, in distinction from the counter-theory of rationalism.
The rationalistic motive was a quickening influence in Greek philosophy long before it became deliberate and conspicuous in Socrates and Plato. Parmenides, founder of the Eleatic School, has left behind him a poem divided into two parts: "The Way of Truth" and "The Way of Opinion."[168:14] In the first of these he expounds his esoteric philosophy, which is a definition of being established by dialectical reasoning. He finds that being must be single, eternal, and changeless, because otherwise it cannot be thought and defined without contradiction. The method which Parmenides here employs presupposes that knowledge consists in understanding rather than perception. Indeed, he regards the fact that the world of the senses is manifold and mutable as of little consequence to the wise man. The world of sense is the province of vulgar opinion, while that of reason is the absolute truth revealed only to the philosopher. The truth has no concern with appearance, but is answerable only to the test of rationality. That world is real which one is able by thinking to make intelligible. The world is what a world must be in order to be possible at all, and the philosopher can deduce it directly from the very conditions of thought which it must satisfy. He who would know reality may disregard what seems to be, provided he can by reflective analysis discover certain general necessities to which being must conform. This is rationalism in its extreme form.
The rationalism of Socrates was more moderate, as it was more fruitful than that of Parmenides. As is well known, Socrates composed no philosophical books, but sought to inculcate wisdom in his teaching and conversation. His method of inculcating wisdom was to evoke it in his interlocutor by making him considerate of the meaning of his speech. Through his own questions he sought to arouse the questioning spirit, which should weigh the import of words, and be satisfied with nothing short of a definite and consistent judgment. In the Platonic dialogues the Socratic method obtains a place in literature. In the "Theætetus," which is, perhaps, the greatest of all epistemological treatises, Socrates is represented as likening his vocation to that of the midwife.
"Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs, but differs in that I attend men, and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And, like the midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. . . . It is quite clear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making."[171:15]
The principle underlying this method is the insistence that a proposition, to be true of reality, must at least bespeak a mind that is true to itself, internally luminous, and free from contradiction. That which is to me nothing that I can express in form that will convey precise meaning and bear analysis, is so far nothing at all. Being is not, as the empiricist would have it, ready at hand, ours for the looking, but is the fruit of critical reflection. Only reason, overcoming the relativity of perception, and the chaos of popular opinion, can lay hold on the universal truth.
A very interesting tendency to clothe the articulations of thought with the immediacy of perception is exhibited in mysticism, which attributes the highest cognitive power to an experience that transcends thought, an ineffable insight that is the occasional reward of thought and virtuous living. This theory would seem to owe its great vigor to the fact that it promises to unite the universality of the rational object with the vivid presence of the empirical object, though it sacrifices the definite content of both. The mystic, empiricist, and rationalist are in these several ways led to revise their metaphysics upon the basis of their epistemology, or to define reality in terms dictated by the means of knowing it.
The Relation of Knowledge to its Object According to Realism, and the Representative Theory.
§ [69]. But within the general field of epistemology there has arisen another issue of even greater significance in its bearing upon metaphysics. The first issue, as we have seen, has reference to the criterion of knowledge, to the possibility of arriving at certainty about reality, and the choice of means to that end. A second question arises, concerning the relation between the knowledge and its object or that which is known. This problem does not at first appear as an epistemological difficulty, but is due to the emphasis which the moral and religious interests of men give to the conception of the self. My knowing is a part of me, a function of that soul whose welfare and eternal happiness I am seeking to secure. Indeed, my knowing is, so the wise men have always taught, the greatest of my prerogatives. Wisdom appertains to the philosopher, as folly to the fool. But though my knowledge be a part of me, and in me, the same cannot, lightly at any rate, be said of what I know. It would seem that I must distinguish between the knowledge, which is my act or state, an event in my life, and the known, which is object, and belongs to the context of the outer world. The object of knowledge would then be quite independent of the circumstance that I know it. This theory has acquired the name of realism,[173:16] and is evidently as close to common sense as any epistemological doctrine can be said to be. If the knowledge consists in some sign or symbol which in my mind stands for the object, but is quite other than the object, realism is given the form known as the representative theory. This theory is due to a radical distinction between the inner world of consciousness and the outer world of things, whereby in knowledge the outer object requires a substitute that is qualified to belong to the inner world. Where, on the other hand, no specific and exclusive nature is attributed to the inner world, realism may flourish without the representative theory. In such a case the object would be regarded as itself capable of entering into any number of individual experiences or of remaining outside them all, and without on either account forfeiting its identity. This view was taken for granted by Plato, but is elaborately defended in our own day. During the intervening period epistemology has been largely occupied with difficulties inherent in the representative theory, and from that discussion there has emerged the theory of idealism,[175:17] the great rival theory to that of realism.
The Relation of Knowledge to its Object According to Idealism.
§ [70]. The representative theory contains at least one obvious difficulty. If the thinker be confined to his ideas, and if the reality be at the same time beyond these ideas, how can he ever verify their report? Indeed, what can it mean that an idea should be true of that which belongs to a wholly different category? How under such circumstances can that which is a part of the idea be attributed with any certainty to the object? Once grant that you know only your ideas, and the object reduces to an unknown x, which you retain to account for the outward pointing or reference of the ideas, but which is not missed if neglected. The obvious though radical theory of idealism is almost inevitably the next step. Why assume that there is any object other than the state of mind, since all positive content belongs to that realm? The eighteenth century English philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, was accused by his contemporaries of wilful eccentricity, and even madness, for his boldness in accepting this argument and drawing this conclusion:
"The table I write on I say exists; that is, I see and feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odor—that is, it was smelt; there was a sound—that is, it was heard; a color or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things, without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi; nor is it possible that they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking thing which perceives them."[176:18]
Phenomenalism, Spiritualism, and Panpsychism.
§ [71]. In this paragraph Berkeley maintains that it is essential to things, or at any rate to their qualities, that they be perceived. This principle when expressed as an epistemological or metaphysical generalization, is called phenomenalism. But in another phase of his thought Berkeley emphasizes the perceiver, or spirit. The theory which maintains that the only real substances are these active selves, with their powers and their states, has been called somewhat vaguely by the name of spiritualism.[176:19] Philosophically it shows a strong tendency to develop into either panpsychism or transcendentalism. The former is radically empirical. Its classic representative is the German pessimist Schopenhauer, who defined reality in terms of will because that term signified to him most eloquently the directly felt nature of the self. This immediate revelation of the true inwardness of being serves as the key to an "intuitive interpretation" of the gradations of nature, and will finally awaken a sense of the presence of the universal Will.
Transcendentalism, or Absolute Idealism.
§ [72]. Transcendentalism, or absolute idealism, on the other hand, emphasizes the rational activity, rather than the bare subjectivity, of the self. The term "transcendental" has become associated with this type of idealism through Kant, whose favorite form of argument, the "transcendental deduction," was an analysis of experience with a view to discovering the categories, or formal principles of thought, implied in its meaning. From the Kantian method arose the conception of a standard or absolute mind for the standard experience. This mind is transcendental not in the sense of being alien, but in the sense of exceeding the human mind in the direction of what this means and strives to be. It is the ideal or normal mind, in which the true reality is contained, with all the chaos of finite experience compounded and redeemed. There is no being but the absolute, the one all-inclusive spiritual life, in whom all things are inherent, and whose perfection is the virtual implication of all purposive activities.
"God's life . . . sees the one plan fulfilled through all the manifold lives, the single consciousness winning its purpose by virtue of all the ideas, of all the individual selves, and of all the lives. No finite view is wholly illusory. Every finite intent taken precisely in its wholeness is fulfilled in the Absolute. The least life is not neglected, the most fleeting act is a recognized part of the world's meaning. You are for the divine view all that you know yourself at this instant to be. But you are also infinitely more. The preciousness of your present purposes to yourself is only a hint of that preciousness which in the end links their meaning to the entire realm of Being."[178:20]
The fruitfulness of the philosopher's reflective doubt concerning his own powers is now evident. Problems are raised which are not merely urgent in themselves, but which present wholly new alternatives to the metaphysician. Rationalism and empiricism, realism and idealism, are doctrines which, though springing from the epistemological query concerning the possibility of knowledge, may determine an entire philosophical system. They bear upon every question of metaphysics, whether the fundamental conception of being, or the problems of the world's unity, origin, and significance for human life.
FOOTNOTES:
[150:1] The post-Kantian movement in Germany—especially in so far as influenced by Hegel. See [Chap. XII].
[152:3] E. g., the system of Fichte. Cf. § [177].
[153:4] See [Chap. XI].
[153:5] Spinoza: On the Improvement of the Understanding. Translation by Elwes, p. 3.
[154:6] Spinoza: Ethics, Part V, Proposition XLII. Translation by Elwes, p. 270.
[155:7] Descartes: Meditations, I. Translation by Veitch, p. 97.
[155:8] Leibniz: New System of the Nature of Substances. Translation by Latta, pp. 299, 300.
[157:9] Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy, p. 42.
[159:10] No little ambiguity attaches to the term "monism" in current usage, because of its appropriation by those who maintain that the universe is unitary and homogeneous in physical terms (cf. § [108]). It should properly be used to emphasize the unity of the world in any terms.
[161:11] Burnet: Op. cit., p. 358.
[162:12] Burnet: Op. cit., p. 284.
[167:13] Plato: Theætetus, 161. Translation by Jowett. References to Plato are to the marginal paging.
[168:14] Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 184, 187.
[171:15] Plato: Theætetus, 150 B. Translation by Jowett.
[173:16] Much ambiguity attaches to the terms "realism" and "idealism" in current usage. The first had at one time in the history of philosophy a much narrower meaning than that which it now possesses. It was used to apply to those who, after Plato, believed in the independent reality of ideas, universals, or general natures. Realists in this sense were opposed to nominalists and conceptualists. Nominalism maintained the exclusive reality of individual substances, and reduced ideas to particular signs having, like the name, a purely symbolical or descriptive value. Conceptualism sought to unite realism and nominalism through the conception of mind, or an individual substance whose meanings may possess universal validity. Though this dispute was of fundamental importance throughout the mediæval period, the issues involved have now been restated. Realism in the old sense will, if held, come within the scope of the broader epistemological realism defined above. Nominalism is covered by empirical tendencies, and conceptualism by modern idealism.
The term idealism is sometimes applied to Plato on account of his designation of ideas as the ultimate realities. This would be a natural use of the term, but in our own day it has become inseparably associated with the doctrine which attributes to being a dependence upon the activity of mind. It is of the utmost importance to keep these two meanings clear. In the preferred sense Plato is a realist, and so opposed to idealism.
The term idealism is further confused on account of its employment in literature and common speech to denote the control of ideals. Although this is a kindred meaning, the student of philosophy will gain little or no help from it, and will avoid confusion if he distinguishes the term in its technical use and permits it in that capacity to acquire an independent meaning.
[176:18] Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I, Fraser's edition, p. 259.
[176:19] To be distinguished from the religious sect which bears the same name.
[178:20] Quoted from Professor Josiah Royce's The World and the Individual, First Series, pp. 426-427.
CHAPTER VII
THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND THE PROBLEMS OF RELIGION
The Normative Sciences.
§ [73]. There are three sets of problems whose general philosophical importance depends upon the place which metaphysics assigns to the human critical faculties. Man passes judgment upon that which claims to be true, beautiful, or good, thus referring to ideals and standards that define these values. Attempts to make these ideals explicit, and to formulate principles which regulate their attainment, have resulted in the development of the three so-called normative sciences: logic, æsthetics, and ethics. These sciences are said to owe their origin to the Socratic method, and it is indeed certain that their problem is closely related to the general rationalistic attitude.[180:1] In Plato's dialogue, "Protagoras," one may observe the manner of the inception of both ethics and logic. The question at issue between Socrates and the master sophist Protagoras, is concerning the possibility of teaching virtue. Protagoras conducts his side of the discussion with the customary rhetorical flourish, expounding in set speeches the tradition and usage in which such a possibility is accepted. Socrates, on the other hand, conceives the issue quite differently. One can neither affirm nor deny anything of virtue unless one knows what is meant by it. Even the possession of such a meaning was scarcely recognized by Protagoras, who was led by Socrates's questions to attribute to the various virtues an external grouping analogous to that of the parts of the face. But Socrates shows that since justice, temperance, courage, and the like, are admittedly similar in that they are all virtues, they must have in common some essence, which is virtue in general. This he seeks to define in the terms, virtue is knowledge. The interest which Socrates here shows in the reduction of the ordinary moral judgments to a system centering in some single fundamental principle, is the ethical interest. But this is at the same time a particular application of the general rationalistic method of definition, and of the general rationalistic postulate that one knows nothing until one can form unitary and determinate conceptions. The recognition which Socrates thus gives to criteria of knowledge is an expression of the logical interest. In a certain sense, indeed, the whole labor of Socrates was in the cause of the logical interest. For he sought to demonstrate that belief is not necessarily knowledge; that belief may or may not be true. In order that it shall be true, and constitute knowledge, it must be well-grounded, and accompanied by an understanding of its object. Socrates thus set the problem of logic, the discovery, namely, of those characters by virtue of the possession of which belief is knowledge.
The Affiliations of Logic.
§ [74]. Logic deals with the ground of belief, and thus distinguishes itself from the psychological account of the elements of the believing state.[182:2] But it is not possible sharply to sunder psychology and logic. This is due to the fact that the general principles which make belief true, may be regarded quite independently of this fact. They then become the most general truth, belonging to the absolute, archetypal realm, or to the mind of God.[182:3] When the general principles of certainty are so regarded, logic can be distinguished from metaphysics only by adding to the study of the general principles themselves, the study of the special conditions (mainly psychological) under which they may be realized among men. In the history of human thought the name of logic belongs to the study of this attainment of truth, as the terms æsthetics and ethics belong to the studies of the attainment of beauty and goodness.[183:4] It is evident that logic will have a peculiar importance for the rationalist. For the empiricist, proposing to report upon things as they are given, will tend on the whole to maintain that knowledge has no properties save those which are given to it by its special subject-matter. One cannot, in short, define any absolute relationship between the normative sciences and the other branches of philosophy.
Logic Deals with the Most General Conditions of Truth in Belief.
§ [75]. Logic is the formulation, as independently as possible of special subject-matter, of that which conditions truth in belief. Since logic is concerned with truth only in so far as it is predicated of belief, and since belief in so far as true is knowledge, logic can be defined as the formulation of the most general principles of knowledge. The principles so formulated would be those virtually used to justify belief or to disprove the imputation of error.
The Parts of Formal Logic. Definition, Self-evidence, Inference, and Observation.
§ [76]. What is called formal logic is animated with the hope of extracting these formulations directly from an analysis of the procedure of thought. The most general logical principles which have appeared in the historical development of formal logic are definition, self-evidence, inference, and observation. Each of these has been given special study, and each has given rise to special issues.
Definition has to do with the formation of concepts, or determinate and unequivocal meanings. The universality of such concepts, and their consequent relation to particular things, was, as we have seen, investigated at a very early date, and gave rise to the great realistic-nominalistic controversy.[184:5] A large part of the logical discussion in the Platonic dialogues is an outgrowth of the earlier "eristic," a form of disputation in favor with the sophists, and consisting in the adroit use of ambiguity.[184:6] It is natural that in its first conscious self-criticism thought should discover the need of definite terms. The perpetual importance of definition has been largely due to the great prestige in modern philosophy of the method of geometry, which was regarded by Descartes and Spinoza as the model for systems of necessary truth.
Self-evidence is the principle according to which conviction of truth follows directly from an understanding of meaning. In the practice of his intellectual midwifery, Socrates presupposed that thought is capable of bringing forth its own certainties. And rationalism has at all times regarded truth as ultimately accredited by internal marks recognizable by reason. Such truth arrived at antecedent to acquaintance with instances is called a priori, as distinguished from a posteriori knowledge, or observation after the fact. There can be no principles of self-evidence, but logicians have always been more or less concerned with the enumeration of alleged self-evident principles, notably those of contradiction and identity. A philosophical interest in the mathematical method has led to a logical study of axioms, but with a view rather to their fruitfulness than their intrinsic truth. Indeed, the interest in self-evident truth has always been subordinate to the interest in systematic truth, and the discovery of first principles most commonly serves to determine the relative priority of definite concepts, or the correct point of departure for a series of inferences.
The greater part of the famous Aristotelian logic consists in a study of inference, or the derivation of new knowledge from old knowledge. Aristotle sought to set down and classify every method of advancing from premises. The most important form of inference which he defined was the syllogism, a scheme of reasoning to a conclusion by means of two premises having one term in common. From the premises "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man," one may conclude that "Socrates is mortal." This is an instance not only of the syllogism in general, but of its most important "mood," the subsumption of a particular case under a general rule. Since the decline of Aristotle's influence in philosophy there has been a notable decrease of interest in the different forms of inference; though its fundamental importance as the very bone and sinew of reasoning or deductive thinking has never been challenged. Its loss of preëminence is in part due to the growth of empiricism, stimulated by the writings of Lord Bacon in the seventeenth century, and fostered by the subsequent development of experimental science.
Observation is the fundamental logical principle of empiricism. For a radical empiricism, knowledge would consist of descriptive generalizations based upon the summation of instances. That branch of logic which deals with the advance from individual instances to general principles, is called inductive logic. It has resulted in the announcement of canons of accuracy and freedom from preconception, and in the methodological study of hypothesis, experiment, and verification. Rules for observation directed to the end of discovering causes, constitute the most famous part of the epoch-making logic of J. S. Mills.[187:7]
Present Tendencies. Theory of the Judgment.
§ [77]. There are two significant tendencies in contemporary logic. Theories of the judgment have arisen in the course of an attempt to define the least complexity that must be present in order that thought shall come within the range of truth and error. It is evident that no one either knows or is in error until he takes some attitude which lays claim to knowledge. Denoting by the term judgment this minimum of complexity in knowledge, an important question arises as to the sense in which the judgment involves the subject, predicate, and copula that are commonly present in its propositional form.
Priority of Concepts.
§ [78]. But a more important logical development has been due to the recent analysis of definite accredited systems of knowledge. The study of the fundamental conceptions of mathematics and mechanics, together with an examination of the systematic structure of these sciences, furnishes the most notable cases. There are two senses in which such studies may be regarded as logical. In the first place, in so far as they bring to light the inner coherence of any body of truth, the kind of evidence upon which it rests, and the type of formal perfection which it seeks, they differ from formal logic only in that they derive their criteria from cases, rather than from the direct analysis of the procedure of thought. And since formal logic must itself make experiments, this difference is not a radical one. The study of cases tends chiefly to enrich methodology, or the knowledge of the special criteria of special sciences. In the second place, such studies serve to define the relatively few simple truths which are common to the relatively many complex truths. A study of the foundations of arithmetic reveals more elementary conceptions, such as class and order, that must be employed in the very definition of number itself, and so are implied in every numerical calculation. It appears similarly that the axioms of geometry are special axioms which involve the acceptance of more general axioms or indefinables.[189:8] Logic in this sense, then, is the enumeration of conceptions and principles in the order of their indispensableness to knowledge. And while it must be observed that the most general conceptions and principles of knowledge are not necessarily those most significant for the existent world, nevertheless the careful analysis which such an enumeration involves is scarcely less fruitful for metaphysics than for logic.
Æsthetics Deals with the Most General Conditions of Beauty. Subjectivistic and Formalistic Tendencies.
§ [79]. Æsthetics is the formulation, as independently as possible of special subject-matter, of that which conditions beauty. As logic commonly refers to a judgment of truth, so æsthetics at any rate refers to a judgment implied in appreciation. But while it is generally admitted that truth itself is by no means limited to the form of the judgment, the contrary is frequently maintained with reference to beauty. The aphorism, De gustibus non est disputandum, expresses a common opinion to the effect that beauty is not a property belonging to the object of which it is predicated, but a property generated by the appreciative consciousness. According to this opinion there can be no beauty except in the case of an object's presence in an individual experience. Investigators must of necessity refuse to leave individual caprice in complete possession of the field, but they have in many cases occupied themselves entirely with the state of æsthetic enjoyment in the hope of discovering its constant factors. The opposing tendency defines certain formal characters which the beautiful object must possess. Evidently the latter school will attribute a more profound philosophical importance to the conception of beauty, since for them it is a principle that obtains in the world of being. This was the first notable contention, that of Plato. But even with the emphasis laid upon the subjective aspect of the æsthetic experience, great metaphysical importance may be attached to it, where, as in the case of the German Romanticists, reality is deliberately construed as a spiritual life which is to be appreciated rather than understood.
As in the case of logic, a strong impulse has manifested itself in æsthetics to deal with groups of objects that lie within its province, rather than directly with its concepts and principles. The first special treatise on æsthetics, the "Poetics" of Aristotle, belongs to this type of inquiry, as does all criticism of art in so far as it aims at the formulation of general principles.
Ethics Deals with the Most General Conditions of Moral Goodness.
§ [80]. Ethics, the oldest and most popular of the normative sciences, is the formulation, as independently as possible of special subject-matter, of that which conditions goodness of conduct. Ethics is commonly concerned with goodness only in so far as it is predicated of conduct, or of character, which is a more or less permanent disposition to conduct. Since conduct, in so far as good, is said to constitute moral goodness, ethics may be defined as the formulation of the general principles of morality. The principles so formulated would be those virtually employed to justify conduct, or to disprove the imputation of immorality.
Conceptions of the Good. Hedonism.
§ [81]. The student of this science is confronted with a very considerable diversity of method and differentiation of problems. The earliest and most profound opposition of doctrine in ethics arose from the differences of interpretation of which the teaching of Socrates is capable. His doctrine is, as we have seen, verbally expressed in the proposition, virtue is knowledge. Socrates was primarily concerned to show that there is no real living without an understanding of the significance of life. To live well is to know the end of life, the good of it all, and to govern action with reference to that end. Virtue is therefore the practical wisdom that enables one to live consistently with his real intention. But what is the real intention, the end or good of life? In the "Protagoras," where Plato represents Socrates as expounding his position, virtue is interpreted to mean prudence, or foresight of pleasurable and painful consequences. He who knows, possesses all virtue in that he is qualified to adapt himself to the real situation and to gain the end of pleasure. All men, indeed, seek pleasure, but only virtuous men seek it wisely and well.
"And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, call some pleasant things evil and some painful things good?—for I am rather disposed to say that things are good in as far as they are pleasant, if they have no consequences of another sort, and in as far as they are painful they are bad."[192:9]
According to this view painful things are good only when they lead eventually to pleasure, and pleasant things evil only when their painful consequences outweigh their pleasantness. Hence moral differences reduce to differences of skill in the universal quest for pleasure, and sensible gratification is the ultimate standard of moral value. This ancient doctrine, known as hedonism, expressing as it does a part of life that will not suffer itself for long to be denied, is one of the great perennial tendencies of ethical thought. In the course of many centuries it has passed through a number of phases, varying its conception of pleasure from the tranquillity of the wise man to the sensuous titillations of the sybarite, and from the individualism of the latter to the universalism of the humanitarian. But in every case it shows a respect for the natural man, praising morality for its disciplinary and instrumental value in the service of such human wants as are the outgrowth of the animal instinct of self-preservation.
Rationalism.
§ [82]. But if a man's life be regarded as a truer representation of his ideals than is his spoken theory, there is little to identify Socrates with the hedonists. At the conclusion of the defence of his own life, which Plato puts into his mouth in the well-known "Apology," he speaks thus:
"When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing."[194:10]
It is plain that the man Socrates cared little for the pleasurable or painful consequences of his acts, provided they were worthy of the high calling of human nature. A man's virtue would now seem to possess an intrinsic nobility. If knowledge be virtue, then on this basis it must be because knowledge is itself excellent. Virtue as knowledge contributes to the good by constituting it. We meet here with the rationalistic strain in ethics. It praises conduct for the inherent worth which it may possess if it express that reason which the Stoics called "the ruling part." The riches of wisdom consist for the hedonist in their purchase of pleasure. For the rationalist, on the other hand, wisdom is not coin, but itself the very substance of value.
Eudæmonism and Pietism. Rigorism and Intuitionism.
§ [83]. Rationalism has undergone modifications even more significant than those of hedonism, and involving at least one radically new group of conceptions. Among the Greeks rationalism and hedonism alike are eudæmonistic. They aim to portray the fulness of life that makes "the happy man." In the ethics of Aristotle, whose synthetic mind weaves together these different strands, the Greek ideal finds its most complete expression as "the high-minded man," with all his powers and trappings. But the great spiritual transformation which accompanied the decline of Greek culture and the rise of Christianity, brought with it a new moral sensibility, which finds in man no virtue of himself, but only through the grace of God.
"And the virtues themselves," says St. Augustine, "if they bear no relation to God, are in truth vices rather than virtues; for although they are regarded by many as truly moral when they are desired as ends in themselves and not for the sake of something else, they are, nevertheless, inflated and arrogant, and therefore not to be viewed as virtues but as vices."[195:11]
The new ideal is that of renunciation, obedience, and resignation. Ethically this expresses itself in pietism. Virtue is good neither in itself nor on account of its consequences, but because it is conformable to the will of God. The extreme inwardness of this ideal is characteristic of an age that despaired of attainment, whether of pleasure or knowledge. To all, even the persecuted, it is permitted to obey, and so gain entrance into the kingdom of the children of God. But as every special study tends to rely upon its own conceptions, pietism, involving as it does a relation to God, is replaced by rigorism and intuitionism. The former doctrine defines virtue in terms of the inner attitude which it expresses. It must be done in the spirit of dutifulness, because one ought, and through sheer respect for the law which one's moral nature affirms. Intuitionism has attempted to deal with the source of the moral law by defining conscience as a special faculty or sense, qualified to pass directly upon moral questions, and deserving of implicit obediences. It is characteristic of this whole tendency to look for the spring of virtuous living, not in a good which such living obtains, but in a law to which it owes obedience.
Duty and Freedom. Ethics and Metaphysics.
§ [84]. This third general ethical tendency has thus been of the greatest importance in emphasizing the consciousness of duty, and has brought both hedonism and rationalism to a recognition of its fundamental importance. Ethics must deal not only with the moral ideal, but also with the ground of its appeal to the individual, and his obligation to pursue it. In connection with this recognition of moral responsibility, the problem of human freedom has come to be regarded in the light of an inevitable point of contact between ethics and metaphysics. That which is absolutely binding upon the human will can be determined only in view of some theory of its ultimate nature. On this account the rationalistic and hedonistic motives are no longer abstractly sundered, as in the days of the Stoics and Epicureans, but tend to be absorbed in broader philosophical tendencies. Hedonism appears as the sequel to naturalism; or, more rarely, as part of a theistic system whose morality is divine legislation enforced by an appeal to motives of pleasure and pain. Rationalism, on the other hand, tends to be absorbed in rationalistic or idealistic philosophies, where man's rational nature is construed as his bond of kinship with the universe.
Ethics has exhibited from the beginning a tendency to universalize its conceptions and take the central place in metaphysics. Thus with Plato good conduct was but a special case of goodness, the good being the most general principle of reality.[198:12] In modern times Fichte and his school have founded an ethical metaphysics upon the conception of duty.[198:13] In these cases ethics can be distinguished from metaphysics only by adding to the study of the good or of duty, a study of the special physical, psychological, and social conditions under which goodness and dutifulness may obtain in human life. It is possible to attach the name of ethics, and we have seen the same to be true of logic, either to a realm of ideal truth or to that realm wherein the ideal is realized in humanity.
The Virtues, Customs, and Institutions.
§ [85]. A systematic study of ethics requires that the virtues, or types of moral practice, shall be interpreted in the light of the central conception of good, or of conscience. Justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage were praised by the Greeks. Christianity added self-sacrifice, humility, purity, and benevolence. These and other virtues have been defined, justified, and co-ordinated with the aid of a standard of moral value or a canon of duty.
There is in modern ethics a pronounced tendency, parallel to those already noted in logic and æsthetics, to study such phenomena belonging to its field as have become historically established. A very considerable investigation of custom, institutions, and other social forces has led to a contact of ethics with anthropology and sociology scarcely less significant than that with metaphysics.
The Problems of Religion. The Special Interests of Faith.
§ [86]. In that part of his philosophy in which he deals with faith, the great German philosopher Kant mentions God, Freedom, and Immortality as the three pre-eminent religious interests. Religion, as we have seen, sets up a social relationship between man and that massive drift of things which determines his destiny. Of the two terms of this relation, God signifies the latter, while freedom and immortality are prerogatives which religion bestows upon the former. Man, viewed from the stand-point of religion as an object of special interest to the universe, is said to have a soul; and by virtue of this soul he is said to be free and immortal, when thought of as having a life in certain senses independent of its immediate natural environment. The attempt to make this faith theoretically intelligible has led to the philosophical disciplines known as theology and psychology.[199:14]
Theology Deals with the Nature and Proof of God.
§ [87]. Theology, as a branch of philosophy, deals with the proof and the nature of God. Since "God" is not primarily a theoretical conception, the proof of God is not properly a philosophical problem. Historically, this task has been assumed as a legacy from Christian apologetics; and it has involved, at any rate so far as European philosophy is concerned, the definition of ultimate being in such spiritual terms as make possible the relation with man postulated in Christianity. For this it has been regarded as sufficient to ascribe to the world an underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates of perfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each proof of God has defined him pre-eminently in terms of some one of these his attributes.
The Ontological Proof of God.
§ [88]. The ontological proof of God held the foremost place in philosophy's contribution to Christianity up to the eighteenth century. This proof infers the existence from the ideal of God, and so approaches the nature of God through the attribute of perfection. It owes the form in which it was accepted in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of the eleventh century. He argued from the idea of a most perfect being to its existence, on the ground that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would contradict its perfection. It is evident that the force of this argument depends upon the necessity of the idea of God. The argument was accepted in Scholastic Philosophy[201:15] largely because of the virtual acceptance of this necessity. Mediæval thought was under the dominance of the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and through them rationalism had come to be the unquestioned starting-point for all thought. For Plato reality and rationality meant one and the same thing, so that the ultimate reality was the highest principle of rationality, which he conceived to be the idea of the good. In the case of Aristotle the ideal of rationality was conceived to determine the course of the cosmical evolution as its immanent final cause. But in itself it was beyond the world, or transcendent. For Plato perfection itself is reality, whereas for Aristotle perfection determines the hierarchical order of natural substances. The latter theory, more suitable to the uses of Christianity, because it distinguished between God and the world, was incorporated into the great school systems. But both theories contain the essence of the ontological proof of God. In thought one seeks the perfect truth, and posits it as at once the culmination of insight and the meaning of life. The ideal of God is therefore a necessary idea, because implied in all the effort of thought as the object capable of finally satisfying it. St. Anselm adds little to the force of this argument, and does much to obscure its real significance.
In stating the ontological argument the term perfection has been expressly emphasized, because it may be taken to embrace both truth and goodness. Owing to a habit of thought, due in the main to Plato, it was long customary to regard degrees of truth and goodness as interchangeable, and as equivalent to degrees of reality. The ens realissimum was in its completeness the highest object both of the faculty of cognition and of the moral will. But even in the scholastic period these two different aspects of the ideal were clearly recognized, and led to sharply divergent tendencies. More recently they have been divided and embodied in separate arguments. The epistemological argument defines God in terms of that absolute truth which is referred to in every judgment. Under the influence of idealism this absolute truth has taken the form of a universal mind, or all-embracing standard experience, called more briefly the absolute. The ethical argument, on the other hand, conceives God as the perfect goodness implied in the moral struggle, or the power through which goodness is made to triumph in the universe to the justification of moral faith. While the former of these arguments identifies God with being, the latter defines God in terms of the intent or outcome of being. Thus, while the epistemological argument does not distinguish God and the world, the latter does so, assuming that independent reality can be attributed to the stages of a process and to the purpose that dominates it.
The Cosmological Proof of God.
§ [89]. The cosmological proof of God approaches him through the attribute of creative omnipotence. The common principle of causal explanation refers the origin of natural events to similar antecedent events. But there must be some first cause from which the whole series is derived, a cause which is ultimate, sufficient to itself, and the responsible author of the world. Because God's function as creator was a part of the Christian teaching, and because explanation by causes is habitual with common sense, this argument has had great vogue. But in philosophy it has declined in importance, chiefly because it has been absorbed in arguments which deal with the kind of causality proper to a first cause or world-ground. The argument that follows is a case in point.
The Teleological Proof of God.
§ [90]. The teleological proof argues that the world can owe its origin only to an intelligent first cause. The evidence for this is furnished by the cunning contrivances and beneficent adaptations of nature. These could not have come about through chance or the working of mechanical forces, but only through the foresight of a rational will. This argument originally infers God from the character of nature and history; and the extension of mechanical principles to organic and social phenomena, especially as stimulated by Darwin's principle of natural selection, has tended greatly to diminish its importance. When, on the other hand, for nature and history there are substituted the intellectual and moral activities themselves, and the inference is made to the ideal which they imply, the teleological argument merges into the ontological. But the old-fashioned statement of it remains in the form of religious faith, and in this capacity it has had the approval even of Hume and Kant, the philosophers who have contributed most forcibly to its overthrow as a demonstration of God. They agree that the acknowledgment of God in nature and history is the sequel to a theistic belief, and an inevitable attitude on the part of the religious consciousness.
God and the World. Theism and Pantheism.
§ [91]. Another group of ideas belonging to philosophical theology consists of three generalizations respecting God's relation to the world, known as theism, pantheism, and deism. Although, theoretically, these are corollaries of the different arguments for God, two of them, theism and pantheism, owe their importance to their rivalry as religious tendencies. Theism emphasizes that attitude to God which recognizes in him an historical personage, in some sense distinct from both the world and man, which are his works and yet stand in an external relationship to him. It expresses the spirit of ethical and monotheistic religion, and is therefore the natural belief of the Christian. Pantheism appears in primitive religion as an animistic or polytheistic sense of the presence of a divine principle diffused throughout nature. But it figures most notably in the history of religions, in the highly reflective Brahmanism of India. In sharp opposition to Christianity, this religion preaches the indivisible unity of the world and the illusoriness of the individual's sense of his own independent reality. In spite of the fact that such a doctrine is alien to the spirit of Christianity, it enters into Christian theology through the influence of philosophy. The theoretical idea of God tends, as we have seen, to the identification of him with the world as its most real principle. Or it bestows upon him a nature so logical and formal, and so far removed from the characters of humanity, as to forbid his entering into personal or social relations. Such reflections concerning God find their religious expression in a mystical sense of unity, which has in many cases either entirely replaced or profoundly modified the theistic strain in Christianity. In current philosophy pantheism appears in the epistemological argument which identifies God with being; while the chief bulwark of theism is the ethical argument, with its provision for a distinction between the actual world and ideal principle of evolution.
Deism.
§ [92]. While theism and pantheism appear to be permanent phases in the philosophy of religion, deism is the peculiar product of the eighteenth century. It is based upon a repudiation of supernaturalism and "enthusiasm," on the one hand, and a literal acceptance of the cosmological and teleological proofs on the other. Religions, like all else, were required, in this epoch of clear thinking, to submit to the canons of experimental observation and practical common sense. These authorize only a natural religion, the acknowledgment in pious living of a God who, having contrived this natural world, has given it over to the rule, not of priests and prophets, but of natural law. The artificiality of its conception of God, and the calculating spirit of its piety, make deism a much less genuine expression of the religious experience than either the moral chivalry of theism or the intellectual and mystical exaltation of pantheism.
Metaphysics and Theology.
§ [93]. The systematic development of philosophy leads to the inclusion of conceptions of God within the problem of metaphysics, and the subordination of the proof of God to the determination of the fundamental principle of reality. There will always remain, however, an outstanding theological discipline, whose function it is to interpret worship, or the living religious attitude, in terms of the theoretical principles of philosophy.
Psychology is the Theory of the Soul.
§ [94]. Psychology is the theory of the soul. As we have already seen, the rise of scepticism directs attention from the object of thought to the thinker, and so emphasizes the self as a field for theoretical investigation. But the original and the dominating interest in the self is a practical one. The precept, γνῶθι σεαυτόν, has its deepest justification in the concern for the salvation of one's soul. In primitive and half-instinctive belief the self is recognized in practical relations. In its animistic phase this belief admitted of such relations with all living creatures, and extended the conception of life very generally to natural processes. Thus in the beginning the self was doubtless indistinguishable from the vital principle. In the first treatise on psychology, the "περὶ Ψυχῆς" of Aristotle, this interpretation finds a place in theoretical philosophy. For Aristotle the soul is the entelechy of the body—that function or activity which makes a man of it. He recognized, furthermore, three stages in this activity: the nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls, or the vegetable, animal, and distinctively human natures, respectively. The rational soul, in its own proper activity, is man's highest prerogative, the soul to be saved. By virtue of it man rises above bodily conditions, and lays hold on the divine and eternal. But Plato, who, as we have seen, was ever ready to grant reality to the ideal apart from the circumstances of its particular embodiment, had already undertaken to demonstrate the immortality of the soul on the ground of its distinctive nature.[209:16] According to his way of thinking, the soul's essentially moral nature made it incapable of destruction through the operation of natural causes. It is evident, then, that there were already ideas in vogue capable of interpreting the Christian teaching concerning the existence of a soul, or of an inner essence of man capable of being made an object of divine interest.
Spiritual Substance
§ [95]. The immediate effect of Christianity was to introduce into philosophy as one of its cardinal doctrines the theory of a spiritual being, constituting the true self of the individual, and separable from the body. The difference recognized in Plato and Aristotle between the divine spark and the appetitive and perceptual parts of human nature was now emphasized. The former (frequently called the "spirit," to distinguish it from the lower soul) was defined as a substance having the attributes of thought and will. The fundamental argument for its existence was the immediate appeal to self-consciousness; and it was further defined as indestructible on the ground of its being utterly discontinuous and incommensurable with its material environment. This theory survives at the present day in the conception of pure activity, but on the whole the attributes of the soul have superseded its substance.
Intellectualism and Voluntarism.
§ [96]. Intellectualism and voluntarism are the two rival possibilities of emphasis when the soul is defined in terms of its known activities. Wherever the essence of personality is in question, as also occurs in the case of theology, thought and will present their respective claims to the place of first importance. Intellectualism would make will merely the concluding phase of thought, while voluntarism would reduce thought to one of the interests of a general appetency. It is evident that idealistic theories will be much concerned with this question of priority. It is also true, though less evident, that intellectualism, since it emphasizes the general and objective features of the mind, tends to subordinate the individual to the universal; while voluntarism, emphasizing desire and action, is relatively individualistic, and so, since there are many individuals, also pluralistic.[211:17]
Freedom of the Will. Necessitarianism, Determinism, and Indeterminism.
§ [97]. The question of the freedom of the will furnishes a favorite controversial topic in philosophy. For the interest at stake is no less than the individual's responsibility before man and God for his good or bad works. It bears alike upon science, religion, and philosophy, and is at the same time a question of most fundamental practical importance. But this diffusion of the problem has led to so considerable a complication of it that it becomes necessary in outlining it to define two issues. In the first place, the concept of freedom is designed to express generally the distinction between man and the rest of nature. To make man in all respects the product and creature of his natural environment would be to deny freedom and accept the radically necessitarian doctrine. The question still remains, however, as to the causes which dominate man. He may be free from nature, and yet be ruled by God, or by distinctively spiritual causes, such as ideas or character. Where in general the will is regarded as submitting only to a spiritual causation proper to its own realm, the conception is best named determinism; though in the tradition of philosophy it is held to be a doctrine of freedom, because contrasted with the necessitarianism above defined. There remains indeterminism, which attributes to the will a spontaneity that makes possible the direct presence to it of genuine alternatives. The issue may here coincide with that between intellectualism and voluntarism. If, e.g., in God's act of creation, his ideals and standards are prior to his fiat, his conduct is determined; whereas it is free in the radical or indeterministic sense if his ideals themselves are due to his sheer will. This theory involves at a certain point in action the absence of cause. On this account the free will is often identified with chance, in which case it loses its distinction from nature, and we have swung round the circle.
Immortality. Survival and Eternalism.
§ [98]. There is similar complexity in the problem concerning immortality. Were the extreme claims of naturalism to be established, there would be no ground whatsoever upon which to maintain the immortality of man, mere dust returning unto dust. The philosophical concept of immortality is due to the supposition that the quintessence of the individual's nature is divine.[213:18] But several possibilities are at this point open to us. The first would maintain the survival after death of a recognizable and discrete personality. Another would suppose a preservation after death, through being taken up into the life of God. Still another, the theory commonly maintained on the ground of rationalistic and idealistic metaphysics, would deny that immortality has to do with life after death, and affirm that it signifies the perpetual membership of the human individual in a realm of eternity through the truth or virtue that is in him. But this interpretation evidently leaves open the question of the immortality of that which is distinctive and personal in human nature.
The Natural Science of Psychology. Its Problems and Method.
§ [99]. So far we have followed the fortunes only of the "spirit" of man. What of that lower soul through which he is identified with the fortunes of his body? When philosophy gradually ceased, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to be "the handmaid of religion," there arose a renewed interest in that part of human nature lying between the strictly physiological functions, on the one hand, and thought and will on the other. Descartes and Spinoza analyzed what they called the "passions," meaning such states of mind as are conditioned by a concern for the interests of the body. At a later period, certain English philosophers, following Locke, traced the dependence of ideas upon the senses. Their method was that of introspection, or the direct examination by the individual of his own ideas, and for the sake of noting their origin and composition from simple factors. The lineal descendants of these same English philosophers defined more carefully the process of association, whereby the complexity and sequence of ideas are brought about, and made certain conjectures as to its dependence upon properties and transactions in the physical brain. These are the three main philosophical sources of what has now grown to be the separate natural science of psychology. It will be noted that there are two characteristics which all of these studies have in common. They deal with the experience of the individual as composing his own private history, and tend to attribute the specific course which this private history takes to bodily conditions. It is only recently that these investigations have acquired sufficient unity and exclusiveness of aim to warrant their being regarded as a special science. But such is now so far the case that the psychologist of this type pursues his way quite independently of philosophy. It is true his research has advanced considerably beyond his understanding of its province. But it is generally recognized that he must examine those very factors of subjectivity which the natural scientist otherwise seeks to evade, and, furthermore, that he must seek to provide for them in nature. He treats the inner life in what Locke called "the plain historical method," that is to say, instead of interpreting and defining its ideas, he analyzes and reports upon its content. He would not seek to justify a moral judgment, as would ethics, or to criticise the cogency of thought, as would logic; but only to describe the actual state as he found it. In order to make his data commensurable with the phenomena of nature, he discovers or defines bodily conditions for the subjective content which he analyzes. His fundamental principle of method is the postulate of psycho-physical parallelism, according to which he assumes a state of brain or nervous system for every state of mind. But in adopting a province and a method the psychologist foregoes finality of truth after the manner of all natural science. He deals admittedly with an aspect of experience, and his conclusions are no more adequate to the nature of the self than they are to the nature of outer objects. An admirable reference to this abstract division of experience occurs in Külpe's "Introduction to Philosophy":
"For the developed consciousness, as for the naive, every experience is an unitary whole; and it is only the habit of abstract reflection upon experience that makes the objective and subjective worlds seem to fall apart as originally different forms of existence. Just as a plane curve can be represented in analytical geometry as the function of two variables, the abscissæ and the ordinates, without prejudice to the unitary course of the curve itself, so the world of human experience may be reduced to a subjective and an objective factor, without prejudice to its real coherence."[215:19]
Psychology and Philosophy.
§ [100]. The problems of psychology, like those of theology, tend to disappear as independent philosophical topics. The ultimate nature of the self will continue to interest philosophers—more deeply, perhaps, than any aspect of experience—but their conception of it will be a corollary of their metaphysics and epistemology. The remainder of the field of the old philosophical psychology, the introspective and experimental analysis of special states of mind, is already the province of a natural science which is becoming more and more free from the stand-point and method of philosophy.
Transition from Classification by Problems to Classification by Doctrines. Naturalism. Subjectivism. Absolute Idealism. Absolute Realism.
§ [101]. Reminding ourselves anew that philosophical problems cannot be treated in isolation from one another, we shall hereinafter seek to become acquainted with general stand-points that give systematic unity to the issues which have been enumerated. Such stand-points are not clearly defined by those who occupy them, and they afford no clear-cut classification of all historical philosophical philosophies. But system-making in philosophy is commonly due to the moving in an individual mind of some most significant idea; and certain of these ideas have reappeared so frequently as to define more or less clearly marked tendencies, or continuous strands, out of which the history of thought is forever weaving itself. Such is clearly the case with naturalism. From the beginning until now there have been men whose philosophy is a summation of the natural sciences, whose entire thought is based upon an acceptance of the methods and the fundamental conceptions of these disciplines. This tendency stands in the history of thought for the conviction that the visible and tangible world which interacts with the body is veritable reality. This philosophy is realistic and empirical to an extent entirely determined by its belief concerning being. But while naturalism is only secondarily epistemological, subjectivism and absolute idealism have their very source in the self-examination and the self-criticism of thought. Subjectivism signifies the conviction that the knower cannot escape himself. If reality is to be kept within the range of possible knowledge, it must be defined in terms of the processes or states of selves. Absolute idealism arises from a union of this epistemological motive with a recognition of what are regarded as the logical necessities to which reality must submit. Reality must be both knowledge and rational knowledge; the object, in short, of an absolute mind, which shall be at once all-containing and systematic. This rationalistic motive was, however, not originally associated with an idealistic epistemology, but with the common-sense principle that being is discovered and not constituted by thought. Such an absolute realism is, like naturalism, primarily metaphysical rather than epistemological; but, unlike naturalism, it seeks to define reality as a logical or ethical necessity.
Under these several divisions, then, we shall meet once more with the special problems of philosophy, but this time they will be ranged in an order that is determined by some central doctrine. They will appear as parts not of the general problem of philosophy, but of some definite system of philosophy.
FOOTNOTES:
[182:2] The Socratic distinction between the logical and the psychological treatment of belief finds its best expression in Plato's Gorgias, especially, 454, 455. Cf. also § [29].
[182:3] Thus, e. g. Hegel. See § [179]. Cf. also §§ [199], [200].
[184:6] The reader will find a good illustration of eristic in Plato's Euthydemus, 275.
[187:7] The reader can find these rules, and the detail of the traditional formal logic, in any elementary text-book, such as, e. g., Jevons: Elements of Logic.
[189:8] What is called "the algebra of logic" seeks to obtain an unequivocal symbolic expression for these truths.
[192:9] Plato: Protagoras, 351. Translation by Jowett.
[194:10] Plato: Apology, 41. Translation by Jowett.
[195:11] Quoted by Paulsen in his System of Ethics. Translation by Thilly, p. 69.
[199:14] Concerning the duty of philosophy to religion in these matters, cf. Descartes: Meditations, Dedication. Translation by Veitch, p. 81.
[201:15] The school-philosophy that flourished from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, under the authority of the church.
[209:16] Especially in the Phædo.
[211:17] Schopenhauer is a notable exception. Cf. §§ [135], [138].
[213:18] It is interesting, however, to observe that current spiritualistic theories maintain a naturalistic theory of immortality, verifiable, it is alleged, in certain extraordinary empirical observations.
[215:19] Translation by Pillsbury and Titchener, p. 59.
