In accordance with this principle, he rejected the testimony of the
senses touching the existence of a world of external things. Do not
the senses sometimes deceive us? And, since men seem to be liable to
error in their reasonings, even in a field so secure as that of
mathematical demonstration, he resolved further to repudiate all the
reasonings he had heretofore accepted. He would not even assume
himself to be in his right mind and awake; might he not be the victim
of a diseased fancy, or a man deluded by dreams?
Could anything whatever escape this all-devouring doubt? One truth
seemed unshakable: his own existence, at least, emerged from this sea
of uncertainties. I may be deceived in thinking that there is an
external world, and that I am awake and really perceive things; but I
surely cannot be deceived unless I exist. _Cogito, ergo sum_--I think,
hence I exist; this truth Descartes accepted as the first principle of
the new and sounder philosophy which he sought.
As we read farther in Descartes we discover that he takes back again a
great many of those things that he had at the outset rejected as
uncertain. Thus, he accepts an external world of material things. How
does he establish its existence? He cannot do it as the empiricist
does it, by a reference to experienced fact, for he does not believe
that the external world is directly given in our experience. He thinks
we are directly conscious only of our _ideas_ of it, and must somehow
prove that it exists over against our ideas.
By his principles, Descartes is compelled to fall back upon a curious
roundabout argument to prove that there is a world. He must first
prove that God exists, and then argue that God would not deceive us
into thinking that it exists when it does not.
Now, when we come to examine Descartes' reasonings in detail we find
what appear to us some very uncritical assumptions. Thus, he proves
the existence of God by the following argument:--
I exist, and I find in me the idea of God; of this idea I cannot be the
author, for it represents something much greater than I, and its cause
must be as great as the reality it represents. In other words, nothing
less than God can be the cause of the idea of God which I find in me,
and, hence, I may infer that God exists.
Where did Descartes get this notion that every idea must have a cause
which contains as much external reality as the idea does represented
reality? How does he prove his assumption? He simply appeals to what
he calls "the natural light," which is for him a source of all sorts of
information which cannot be derived from experience. This "natural
light" furnishes him with a vast number of "eternal truths", these he
has not brought under the sickle of his sweeping doubt, and these help
him to build up again the world he has overthrown, beginning with the
one indubitable fact discussed above.
To the men of a later time many of Descartes' eternal truths are simply
inherited philosophical prejudices, the results of the reflections of
earlier thinkers, and in sad need of revision. I shall not criticise
them in detail. The important point for us to notice is that we have
here a type of philosophy which depends upon truths revealed by the
reason, independently of experience, to carry one beyond the sphere of
experience.
I again remind the reader that there are all sorts of rationalists, in
the philosophical sense of the word. Some trust the power of the
unaided reason without reserve. Thus Spinoza, the pantheist, made the
magnificent but misguided attempt to deduce the whole system of things
physical and things mental from what he called the attributes of God,
Extension and Thought.
On the other hand, one may be a good deal of an empiricist, and yet
something of a rationalist, too. Thus Professor Strong, in his recent
brilliant book, "Why the Mind has a Body," maintains that we know
intuitively that other minds than our own exist; know it without
gathering our information from experience, and without having to
establish the fact in any way. This seems, at least, akin to the
doctrine of the "natural light," and yet no one can say that Professor
Strong does not, in general, believe in a philosophy of observation and
experiment.
61. EMPIRICISM.--I suppose every one who has done some reading in the
history of philosophy will, if his mother tongue be English, think of
the name of John Locke when empiricism is mentioned.
Locke, in his "Essay concerning Human Understanding," undertakes "to
inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge,
together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent."
His sober and cautious work, which was first published in 1690, was
peculiarly English in character; and the spirit which it exemplifies
animates also Locke's famous successors, George Berkeley (1684-1753),
David Hume (1711-1776), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Although
Locke was a realist, Berkeley an idealist, Hume a skeptic, and Mill
what has been called a sensationalist; yet all were empiricists of a
sort, and emphasized the necessity of founding our knowledge upon
experience.
Now, Locke was familiar with the writings of Descartes, whose work he
admired, but whose rationalism offended him. The first book of the
"Essay" is devoted to the proof that there are in the mind of man no
"innate ideas" and no "innate principles." That is to say, Locke tries
to show that one must not seek, in the "natural light" to which
Descartes turned, a distinct and independent source of information,
"Let us, then," he continues, "suppose the mind to be, as we say, white
paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be
furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and
boundless fancy of man has painted on it, with an almost endless
variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To
this I answer in one word, from experience; in that all our knowledge
is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about
the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by
ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the
materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from
whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring." [1]
Thus, all we know and all we ever shall know of the world of matter and
of minds must rest ultimately upon observation,--observation of
external things and of our own mind. We must clip the erratic wing of
a "reason" which seeks to soar beyond such knowledge; which leaves the
solid earth, and hangs suspended in the void.
"But hold," exclaims the critical reader; "have we not seen that Locke,
as well as Descartes (section 48), claims to know what he cannot prove
by direct observation or even by a legitimate inference from what has
been directly observed? Does he not maintain that the mind has an
immediate knowledge or experience only of its own ideas? How can he
prove that there are material extended things outside causing these
ideas? And if he cannot prove it by an appeal to experience, to direct
observation, is he not, in accepting the existence of the external
world at all, just as truly as Descartes, a rationalist?"
The objection is well taken. On his own principles, Locke had no right
to believe in an external world. He has stolen his world, so to speak;
he has taken it by violence. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in the
section above referred to, Locke is not a rationalist of _malice
prepense_. He _tries_ to be an empiricist. He believes in the
external world because he thinks it is directly revealed to the
senses--he inconsistently refers to experience as evidence of its
existence.
It has often been claimed by those who do not sympathize with
empiricism that the empiricists make assumptions much as others do, but
have not the grace to admit it. I think we must frankly confess that a
man may try hard to be an empiricist and may not be wholly successful.
Moreover, reflection forces us to the conclusion that when we have
defined empiricism as a doctrine which rests throughout upon an appeal
to "experience" we have not said anything very definite.
What is _experience_? What may we accept as directly revealed fact?
The answer to such questions is far from an easy one to give. It is a
harder matter to discuss intelligently than any one can at all realize
until he has spent some years in following the efforts of the
philosophers to determine what is "revealed fact." We are supposed to
have experience of our own minds, of space, of time, of matter. What
are these things as revealed in our experience? We have seen in the
earlier chapters of this book that one cannot answer such questions
off-hand.
62. CRITICISM.--I have in another chapter (section 51) given a brief
account of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He called his doctrine
"Criticism," and he distinguished it from "Dogmatism" and "Empiricism."
Every philosophy that transcends experience, without first critically
examining our faculty of knowledge and determining its right to spread
its wings in this way, Kant calls "dogmatism." The word seems rather
an offensive one, in its usual signification, at least; and it is as
well not to use it. As Kant used the word, Descartes was a dogmatist;
but let us rather call him a rationalist. He certainly had no
intention of proceeding uncritically, as we shall see a little later.
If we call him a dogmatist we seem to condemn him in advance, by
applying to him an abusive epithet.
Empiricism, according to Kant, confines human knowledge to experience,
and thus avoids the errors which beset the dogmatist. But then, as
Hume seemed to have shown, empiricism must run out into skepticism. If
all our knowledge has its foundations in experience, how can we expect
to find in our possession any universal or necessary truths? May not a
later experience contradict an earlier? How can we be sure that what
has been will be? Can we _know_ that there is anything fixed and
certain in our world?
Skepticism seemed a forlorn doctrine, and, casting about for a way of
escape from it, Kant hit upon the expedient which I have described. So
long as we maintain that our knowledge has no other source than the
experiences which the world imprints upon us, so to speak, from
without, we are without the power of prediction, for new experiences
may annihilate any generalizations we have founded upon those already
vouchsafed us; but if we assume that the world upon which we gaze, the
world of phenomena, is made what it is by the mind that perceives it,
are we not in a different position?
Suppose, for example, we take the statement that there must be an
adequate cause of all the changes that take place in the world. Can a
mere experience of what has been in the past guarantee that this law
will hold good in the future? But, when we realize that the world of
which we are speaking is nothing more than a world of phenomena, of
experiences, and realize further that this whole world is constructed
by the mind out of the raw materials furnished by the senses, may we
not have a greater confidence in our law? If it is the nature of the
mind to connect the phenomena presented to it with one another as cause
and effect, may we not maintain that no phenomenon can possibly make
its appearance that defies the law in question? How could it appear
except under the conditions laid upon all phenomena? If it is our
nature to think the world as an orderly one, and if we can know no
world save the one we construct ourselves, the orderliness of all the
things we can know seems to be guaranteed to us.
It will be noticed that Kant's doctrine has a negative side. He limits
our knowledge to phenomena, to experiences, and he is himself, in so
far, an empiricist. But in that he finds in experience an order, an
arrangement of things, not derived from experience in the usual sense
of the word, he is not an empiricist. He has paid his own doctrine the
compliment of calling it "criticism," as I have said.
Now, I beg the reader to be here, as elsewhere, on his guard against
the associations which attach to words. In calling Kant's doctrine
"the critical philosophy," we are in some danger of uncritically
assuming and leading others to believe uncritically that it is free
from such defects as may be expected to attach to "dogmatism" and to
empiricism. Such a position should not be taken until one has made a
most careful examination of each of the three types of doctrine, of the
assumptions which it makes, and of the rigor with which it draws
inferences upon the basis of such assumptions. That we may be the
better able to withstand "undue influence," I call attention to the
following points:--
(1) We must bear in mind that the attempt to make a critical
examination into the foundations of our knowledge, and to determine its
scope, is by no means a new thing. Among the Greeks, Plato, Aristotle,
the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Skeptics, all attacked the problem.
It did not, of course, present itself to these men in the precise form
in which it presented itself to Kant, but each and all were concerned
to find an answer to the question: Can we know anything with certainty;
and, if so, what? They may have failed to be thoroughly critical, but
they certainly made the attempt.
I shall omit mention of the long series of others, who, since that
time, have carried on the tradition, and shall speak only of Descartes
and Locke, whom I have above brought forward as representatives of the
two types of doctrine that Kant contrasts with his own.
To see how strenuously Descartes endeavored to subject his knowledge to
a critical scrutiny and to avoid unjustifiable assumptions of any sort,
one has only to read that charming little work of genius, the
"Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason."
In his youth Descartes was, as he informs us, an eager student; but,
when he had finished the whole course of education usually prescribed,
he found himself so full of doubts and errors that he did not feel that
he had advanced in learning at all. Yet he had been well tutored, and
was considered as bright in mind as others. He was led to judge his
neighbor by himself, and to conclude that there existed no such certain
science as he had been taught to suppose.
Having ripened with years and experience, Descartes set about the task
of which I have spoken above, the task of sweeping away the whole body
of his opinions and of attempting a general and systematic
reconstruction. So important a work should be, he thought, approached
with circumspection; hence, he formulated certain Rules of Method.
"The first," he writes, "was never to accept anything for true which I
did not clearly know to be such; that is, carefully to avoid haste and
prejudice, and to include nothing more in my judgments than what was
presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all reason
for doubt."
Such was our philosopher's design, and such the spirit in which he set
about it. We have seen the result above. It is as if Descartes had
decided that a certain room full of people did not appear to be free
from suspicious characters, and had cleared out every one, afterwards
posting himself at the door to readmit only those who proved themselves
worthy. When we examine those who succeeded in passing muster, we
discover he has favored all his old friends. He simply _cannot_ doubt
them; are they not vouched for by the "natural light"? Nevertheless,
we must not forget that Descartes sifted his congregation with much
travail of spirit. He did try to be critical.
As for John Locke, he reveals in the "Epistle to the Reader," which
stands as a preface to the "Essay," the critical spirit in which his
work was taken up. "Were it fit to trouble thee," he writes, "with the
history of this Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends
meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from
this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that
rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without
coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it
came into my thoughts, that we took a wrong course; and that before we
set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to
examine our own abilities, and to see what objects our understandings
were, or were not, fitted to deal with."
This problem, proposed by himself to his little circle of friends,
Locke attacked with earnestness, and as a result he brought out many
years later the work which has since become so famous. The book is
literally a critique of the reason, although a very different critique
from that worked out by Kant.
"If, by this inquiry into the nature of the understanding," says Locke,
"I can discover the powers thereof, how far they reach, to what things
they are in any degree proportionate, and where they fail us; I suppose
it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more
cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop
when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a
quiet ignorance of those things which upon examination are found to be
beyond the reach of our capacities." [2]
To the difficulties of the task our author is fully alive: "The
understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all
other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains
to set it at a distance, and make it its own object. But whatever be
the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry, whatever it be
that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves, sure I am that all the
light we can let in upon our own minds, all the acquaintance we can
make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but
bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search, of
other things." [3]
(2) Thus, many men have attempted to produce a critical philosophy, and
in much the same sense as that in which Kant uses the words. Those who
have come after them have decided that they were not sufficiently
critical, that they have made unjustifiable assumptions. When we come
to read Kant, we will, if we have read the history of philosophy with
profit, not forget to ask ourselves if he has not sinned in the same
way.
For example, we will ask;--
(a) Was Kant right in maintaining that we find in experience synthetic
judgments (section 51) that are not founded upon experience, but yield
such information as is beyond the reach of the empiricist? There are
those who think that the judgments to which he alludes in evidence of
his contention--the mathematical, for instance--are not of this
character.
(b) Was he justified in assuming that all the ordering of our world is
due to the activity of mind, and that merely the raw material is
"given" us through the senses? There are many who demur against such a
statement, and hold that it is, if not in all senses untrue, at least
highly misleading, since it seems to argue that there is no really
external world at all. Moreover, they claim that the doctrine is
neither self-evident nor susceptible of proper proof.
(c) Was Kant justified in assuming that, even if we attribute the
"form" or arrangement of the world we know to the native activity of
the mind, the necessity and universality of our knowledge is assured?
Let us grant that the proposition, whatever happens must have an
adequate cause, is a "form of thought." What guarantee have we that
the "forms of thought" must ever remain changeless? If it is an
assumption for the empiricist to declare that what has been true in the
past will be true in the future, that earlier experiences of the world
will not be contradicted by later; what is it for the Kantian to
maintain that the order which he finds in his experience will
necessarily and always be the order of all future experiences?
Transferring an assumption to the field of mind does not make it less
of an assumption.
Thus, it does not seem unreasonable to charge Kant with being a good
deal of a rationalist. He tried to confine our knowledge to the field
of experience, it is true; but he made a number of assumptions as to
the nature of experience which certainly do not shine by their own
light, and which many thoughtful persons regard as incapable of
justification.
Kant's famous successors in the German philosophy, Fichte (1762-1814),
Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831), and Schopenhauer (1788-1860),
all received their impulse from the "critical philosophy," and yet each
developed his doctrine in a relatively independent way.
I cannot here take the space to characterize the systems of these men;
I may merely remark that all of them contrast strongly in doctrine and
method with the British philosophers mentioned in the last section,
Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill. They are _un-empirical_, if one may
use such a word; and, to one accustomed to reading the English
philosophy, they seem ever ready to spread their wings and hazard the
boldest of flights without a proper realization of the thinness of the
atmosphere in which they must support themselves.
However, no matter what may be one's opinion of the actual results
attained by these German philosophers, one must frankly admit that no
one who wishes to understand clearly the development of speculative
thought can afford to dispense with a careful reading of them. Much
even of the English philosophy of our own day must remain obscure to
those who have not looked into their pages. Thus, the thought of Kant
and Hegel molded the thought of Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) and of
the brothers Caird; and their influence has made itself widely felt
both in England and in America. One cannot criticise intelligently
books written from their standpoint, unless one knows how the authors
came by their doctrine and out of what it has been developed.
63. CRITICAL EMPIRICISM.--We have seen that the trouble with the
rationalists seemed to be that they made an appeal to "eternal truths,"
which those who followed them could not admit to be eternal truths at
all. They proceeded on a basis of assumptions the validity of which
was at once called in question.
Locke, the empiricist, repudiated all this, and then also made
assumptions which others could not, and cannot, approve. Kant did
something of much the same sort; we cannot regard his "criticism" as
wholly critical.
How can we avoid such errors? How walk cautiously, and go around the
pit into which, as it seems to us, others have fallen? I may as well
tell the reader frankly that he sets his hope too high if he expects to
avoid all error and to work out for himself a philosophy in all
respects unassailable. The difficulties of reflective thought are very
great, and we should carry with us a consciousness of that fact and a
willingness to revise our most cherished conclusions.
Our initial difficulty seems to be that we must begin by assuming
_something_, if only as material upon which to work. We must begin our
philosophizing _somewhere_. Where shall we begin? May we not fall
into error at the very outset?
The doctrine set forth in the earlier chapters of this volume maintains
that we must accept as our material the revelation of the mind and the
world which seems to be made in our common experience, and which is
extended and systematized in the sciences. But it insists that we must
regard such an acceptance as merely provisional, must subject our
concepts to a careful criticism, and must always be on our guard
against hasty assumptions.
It emphasizes the value of the light which historical study casts upon
the real meaning of the concepts which we all use and must use, but
which have so often proved to be stones of stumbling in the path of
those who have employed them. Its watchword is analysis, always
analysis; and a settled distrust of what have so often passed as
"self-evident" truths. It regards it as its task to analyze
experience, while maintaining that only the satisfactory carrying out
of such an analysis can reveal what experience really is, and clear our
notions of it from misinterpretations.
No such attempt to give an account of experience can be regarded as
fundamentally new in its method. Every philosopher, in his own way,
criticises experience, and seeks its interpretation. But one may,
warned by the example of one's predecessors, lay emphasis upon the
danger of half-analyses and hasty assumptions, and counsel the
observance of sobriety and caution.
For convenience, I have called the doctrine _Critical Empiricism_. I
warn the reader against the seductive title, and advise him not to
allow it to influence him unduly in his judgment of the doctrine.
64. PRAGMATISM.--It seems right that I should, before closing this
chapter, say a few words about Pragmatism, which has been so much
discussed in the last few years.
In 1878 Mr. Charles S. Peirce wrote an article for the _Popular Science
Monthly_ in which he proposed as a maxim for the attainment of
clearness of apprehension the following: "Consider what effects, which
might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of
our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the
whole of our conception of the object."
This thought has been taken up by others and given a development which
Mr. Peirce regards with some suspicion. He refers[4] especially to the
development it has received at the hands of Professor William James, in
his two essays, "The Will to Believe" and "Philosophical Conceptions
and Practical Results." [5] Professor James is often regarded as
foremost among the pragmatists.
I shall not attempt to define pragmatism, for I do not believe that the
doctrine has yet attained to that definiteness of formulation which
warrants a definition. We seem to have to do not so much with a
clear-cut doctrine, the limits and consequences of which have been
worked out in detail, as with a tendency which makes itself apparent in
the works of various writers under somewhat different forms.
I may roughly describe it as the tendency to take that to be _true_
which is _useful_ or _serviceable_. It is well illustrated in the two
essays to which reference is made above.
Thus, Professor James dwells upon the unsatisfactoriness and
uncertainty of philosophical and scientific knowledge: "Objective
evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but
where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?"
Now, among those things regarding which it appears impossible to attain
to intellectual certitude, there are matters of great practical moment,
and which affect deeply the conduct of life; for example, the doctrines
of religion. Here a merely skeptical attitude seems intolerable.
In such cases, argues Professor James, "we have the right to believe at
our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will."
It is important to notice that there is no question here of a logical
right. We are concerned with matters regarding which, according to
Professor James, we cannot look for intellectual evidence. It is
assumed that we believe simply because we choose to believe--we believe
arbitrarily.
It is further important to notice that what is a "live" hypothesis to
one man need not tempt the will of another man at all. As our author
points out, a Turk would naturally will to believe one thing and a
Christian would will to believe another. Each would will to believe
what struck him as a satisfactory thing to believe.
What shall we say to this doctrine? I think we must say that it is
clearly not a philosophical _method of attaining to truth_. Hence, it
has not properly a place in this chapter among the attempts which have
been made to attain to the truth of things.
It is, in fact, not concerned with truths, but with assumptions, and
with assumptions which are supposed to be made on the basis of no
evidence. It is concerned with "seemings."
The distinction is a very important one. Our Turk cannot, by willing
to believe it, make his hypothesis true; but he can make it _seem_
true. Why should he wish to make it seem true whether it is true or
not? Why should he strive to attain to a feeling of subjective
certainty, not by logically resolving his doubts, but by ignoring them?
The answer is given us by our author. He who lives in the midst of
doubts, and refuses to cut his knot with the sword of belief, misses
the good of life. This is a practical problem, and one of no small
moment. In the last section of this book I have tried to indicate what
it is wise for a man to do when he is confronted by doubts which he
cannot resolve.
Into the general question whether even a false belief may not, under
some circumstances, be more serviceable than no belief at all, I shall
not enter. The point I wish to emphasize is that there is all the
difference in the world between _producing a belief_ and _proving a
truth_.
We are compelled to accept it as a fact that men, under the influence
of feeling, can believe in the absence of evidence, or, for that
matter, can believe in spite of evidence. But a truth cannot be
established in the absence of evidence or in the face of adverse
evidence. And there is a very wide field in which it is made very
clear to us that beliefs adopted in the absence of evidence are in
danger of being false beliefs.
The pragmatist would join with the rest of us in condemning the Turk or
the Christian who would simply will to believe in the rise or the fall
of stocks, and would refuse to consult the state of the market. Some
hypotheses are, in the ordinary course of events, put to the test of
verification. We are then made painfully aware that beliefs and truths
are quite distinct things, and may not be in harmony.
Now, the pragmatist does not apply his principle to this field. He
confines it to what may not inaptly be called the field of the
unverifiable. The Turk, who wills to believe in the hypothesis that
appeals to him as a pious Turk, is in no such danger of a rude
awakening as is the man who wills to believe that stocks will go up or
down. But mark what this means: it means that _he is not in danger of
finding out what the truth really is_. It does not mean that he is in
possession of the truth.
So I say, the doctrine which we are discussing is not a method of
attaining to truth. What it really attempts to do is to point out to
us how it is prudent for us to act when we cannot discover what the
truth is.[6]
[1] "An Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book II, Chapter I,
section 2.
[2] Book I, Chapter I, section 4.
[3] Book I, Chapter I, section 1.
[4] "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology," article "Pragmatism."
[5] Published in 1897 and 1898.
[6] For references to later developments of pragmatism, see the note on
page 312.
V. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES
CHAPTER XVI
LOGIC
65. INTRODUCTORY: THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.--I have said in the first
chapter of this book (section 6) that there is quite a group of
sciences that are regarded as belonging peculiarly to the province of
the teacher of philosophy to-day. Having, in the chapters preceding,
given some account of the nature of reflective thought, of the problems
touching the world and the mind which present themselves to those who
reflect, and of some types of philosophical theory which have their
origin in such reflection, I turn to a brief consideration of the
philosophical sciences.
Among these I included logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics,
metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I did not include
epistemology or "the theory of knowledge" as a separate discipline, and
my reasons for this will appear in Chapter XIX. I remarked that, to
complete the list, we should have to add the philosophy of religion and
an investigation into the principles and methods of the sciences
generally.
Why, it was asked, should this group of disciplines be regarded as the
field of the philosopher, when others are excluded? The answer to this
question which finds the explanation of the fact to lie in a mere
historical accident was declared unsatisfactory, and it was maintained
that the philosophical sciences are those in which we find ourselves
carried back to the problems of reflective thought.
With a view to showing the truth of this opinion, I shall take up one
by one the philosophical sciences. Of the history of philosophy I
shall not speak in this part of the work, but shall treat of it in
Chapter XXIII.
66. THE TRADITIONAL LOGIC.--Most of us begin our acquaintance with
logic in the study of some such elementary manual as Jevons' "Lessons
in Logic."
In such books we are shown how terms represent things and classes of
things or their attributes, and how we unite them into propositions or
statements. It is indicated at length what statements may be made on a
basis of certain other statements and what may not; and emphasis is
laid upon the dangers which arise out of a misunderstanding of the
language in which we are forced to express our thoughts. Finally,
there are described for us the experimental methods by which the
workers in the sciences have attained to the general information about
the world which has become our heritage.
Such books are useful. It is surely no small profit for a student to
gain the habit of scrutinizing the steps by which he has come into the
possession of a certain bit of information, and to have a quick eye for
loose and inconsistent reasonings.
But it is worthy of remark that one may study such a book as this and
yet remain pretty consistently on what may be called the plane of the
common understanding. One seems to make the assumptions made in all
the special sciences, _e.g._ the assumption that there is a world of
real things and that we can know them and reason about them. We are
not introduced to such problems as: What _is_ truth? and Is _any_
knowledge valid? Nor does it seem at once apparent that the man who is
studying logic in this way is busying himself with a philosophical
discipline.
67. THE "MODERN LOGIC."--It is very puzzling for the student to turn
from such a text-book as the one above mentioned to certain others
which profess to be occupied with the same science, and which, yet,
appear to treat of quite different things.
Thus, in Dr. Bosanquet's little work on "The Essentials of Logic," the
reader is at once plunged into such questions as the nature of
knowledge, and what is meant by the real world. We seem to be dealing
with metaphysics, and not with logic, as we have learned to understand
the term. How is it that the logician comes to regard these things as
within his province?
A multitude of writers at the present day are treating logic in this
way, and in some great prominence is given to problems which the
philosopher recognizes as indisputably his own. The term "modern
logic" is often employed to denote a logic of this type; one which does
not, after the fashion of the natural sciences generally, proceed on
the basis of certain assumptions, and leave deeper questions to some
other discipline, but tries to get to the bottom of things for itself.
The tendency to run into metaphysics is peculiarly marked in those
writers who have been influenced by the work of the philosopher Hegel.
I shall not here ask why those who belong to one school are more
inclined to be metaphysical than are those who belong to another, but
shall approach the broader question why the logicians generally are
inclined to be more metaphysical than those who work in certain other
special sciences, such as mathematics, for example. Of the general
tendency there can be no question. The only problem is: Why does this
tendency exist?
68. LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.--Let us contrast the science of arithmetic
with logic; and let us notice, regarding it, the following points:--
It is, like logic, a _general_ science, in that the things treated of
in many sciences may be numbered. It considers only a certain aspect
of the things.
Now, that things may be counted, added together, subtracted, etc., is
guaranteed by the experience of the plain man; and the methods of
determining the numerical relations of things are gradually developed
before his eyes, beginning with operations of great simplicity.
Moreover, verification is possible, and within certain limits
verification by direct inspection.
To this we may add, that there has gradually been built up a fine
system of unambiguous symbols, and it is possible for a man to know
just what he is dealing with.
Thus, a certain beaten path has been attained, and a man may travel
this very well without having forced on his attention the problems of
reflective thought. The knowledge of numbers with which he starts is
sufficient equipment with which to undertake the journey. That one is
on the right road is proved by the results one obtains. As a rule,
disputes can be settled by well-tried mathematical methods.
There is, then, a common agreement as to initial assumptions and
methods of work, and useful results are attained which seem to justify
both. Here we have the normal characteristics of a special science.
We must not forget, however, that, even in the mathematical sciences,
before a beaten path was attained, disputes as to the significance of
numbers and the cogency of proofs were sufficiently common. And we
must bear in mind that even to-day, where the beaten path does not seem
wholly satisfactory, men seem to be driven to reflect upon the
significance of their assumptions and the nature of their method.
Thus, we find it not unnatural that a man should be led to ask; What is
a minus quantity really? Can anything be less than nothing? or that he
should raise the questions: Can one rightly speak of an infinite
number? Can one infinite number be greater than another, and, if so,
what can greater mean? What are infinitesimals? and what can be meant
by different orders of infinitesimals?
He who has interested himself in such questions as these has betaken
himself to philosophical reflection. They are not answered by
employing mathematical methods.
Let us now turn to logic. And let us notice, to begin with, that it is
broader in its application than the mathematical sciences. It is
concerned to discover what constitutes _evidence_ in every field of
investigation.
There is, it is true, a part of logic that may be developed somewhat
after the fashion of mathematics. Thus, we may examine the two
statements: All men are mortal, and Caesar is a man; and we may see
clearly that, given the truth of these, we must admit that Caesar is
mortal. We may make a list of possible inferences of this kind, and
point out under what circumstances the truth of two statements implies
the truth of a third, and under what circumstances the inference cannot
be made. Our results can be set forth in a system of symbols. As in
mathematics, we may abstract from the particular things reasoned about,
and concern ourselves only with the forms of reasoning. This gives us
the theory of the _syllogism_; it is a part of logic in which the
mathematician is apt to feel very much at home.
But this is by no means all of logic. Let us consider the following
points:--
(1) We are not concerned to know only what statements may be made on
the basis of certain other statements. We want to know what is true
and what is false. We must ask: Has a man the right to set up these
particular statements and to reason from them? That some men accept as
true premises which are repudiated by others is an undoubted fact.
Thus, it is maintained by certain philosophers that we may assume that
any view of the universe which is repellant to our nature cannot be
true. Shall we allow this to pass unchallenged? And in ethics, some
have held that it is under all circumstances wrong to lie; others have
denied this, and have held that in certain cases--for example, to save
life or to prevent great and unmerited suffering--lying is permissible.
Shall we interest ourselves only in the deductions that each man makes
from his assumed premises, and pay no attention to the truth of the
premises themselves?
(2) Again. The vast mass of the reasonings that interest men are
expressed in the language that we all use and not in special symbols.
But language is a very imperfect instrument, and all sorts of
misunderstandings are possible to those who express their thoughts in
it.
Few men know exactly how much is implied in what they are saying. If I
say: All men are mortal, and an angel is not a man; therefore, an angel
is not mortal; it is not at once apparent to every one in what respect
my argument is defective. He who argues: Feathers are light; light is
contrary to darkness; hence, feathers are contrary to darkness; is
convicted of error without difficulty. But arguments of the same kind,
and quite as bad, are to be found in learned works on matters less
familiar to us, and we often fail to detect the fallacy.
Thus, Herbert Spencer argues, in effect, in the fourth and fifth
chapters of his "First Principles," as follows:--
We are conscious of the Unknowable,
The Unknowable lies behind the veil of phenomena,
Hence, we are conscious of what lies behind the veil of phenomena.
It is only the critical reader who notices that the Unknowable in the
first line is the "raw material of consciousness," and the Unknowable
in the second is something not in consciousness at all. The two senses
of the word "light" are not more different from one another. Such
apparent arguments abound, and it often requires much acuteness to be
able to detect their fallacious character.
When we take into consideration the two points indicated above, we see
that the logician is at every turn forced to reflect upon our knowledge
as men do not ordinarily reflect. He is led to ask: What is truth? He
cannot accept uncritically the assumptions which men make; and he must
endeavor to become very clearly conscious of the real meaning and the
whole meaning of statements expressed in words. Even in the simple
logic with which we usually begin our studies, we learn to scrutinize
statements in a reflective way; and when we go deeper, we are at once
in contact with philosophical problems. It is evidently our task to
attain to a clearer insight into the nature of our experience and the
meaning of proof than is attainable by the unreflective.
Logic, then, is a reflective science, and it is not surprising that it
has held its place as one of the philosophical sciences.
CHAPTER XVII
PSYCHOLOGY
69. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.--I think I have said enough in Chapter
II (section 10) about what we mean when we speak of psychology as a
natural science and as an independent discipline. Certainly there are
many psychologists who would not care to be confused with the
philosophers, and there are some that regard philosophy with suspicion.
Nevertheless, psychology is commonly regarded as belonging to the
philosophical group. That this is the case can scarcely be thought
surprising when we see how the psychologist himself speaks of the
relation of his science to philosophy.
"I have kept," writes Professor James[1] in that delightful book which
has become the common property of us all, "close to the point of view
of natural science throughout the book. Every natural science assumes
certain data uncritically, and declines to challenge the elements
between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from which its own deductions
are carried on. Psychology, the science of finite individual minds,
assumes as its data (1) _thoughts and feelings_, and (2) _a physical
world_ in time and space with which they coexist, and which (3) _they
know_. Of course, these data themselves are discussable; but the
discussion of them (as of other elements) is called metaphysics and
falls outside the province of this book."
This is an admirable statement of the scope of psychology as a natural
science, and also of the relations of metaphysics to the sciences. But
it would not be fair to Professor James to take this sentence alone,
and to assume that, in his opinion, it is easy to separate psychology
altogether from philosophy. "The reader," he tells us in the next
paragraph, "will in vain seek for any closed system in the book. It is
mainly a mass of descriptive details, running out into queries which
only a metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope successfully to deal with." And in the opening sentence of the preface he informs us that some of his chapters are more "metaphysical" than is suitable for students going over the subject for the first time. |
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