Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers 3031244362, 9783031244360

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Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18

Joel Katzav Krist Vaesen Dorothy Rogers   Editors

Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers

Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences Volume 18

Series Editors Ruth Edith Hagengruber, Department of Humanities, Center for the History of Women Philosophers, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany Mary Ellen Waithe, Professor Emerita, Department of Philosophy and Comparative Religion, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA Gianni Paganini, Department of Humanities, University of Piedmont, Vercelli, Italy Editorial Board Luka Borsic, Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia Antonio Calcagno, Philosophy Department, King’s University College, London, ON, Canada Sabrina Ebbersmeyer, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, København S, Denmark John Conley, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA Karen Green, University of Melbourne, St Kilda, VIC, Australia Sarah Hutton, University of York, London, UK Katerina Karpenko, Philosophy, Kharkiv National Medical University, Kharkiv, Ukraine Klaus Mainzer, Technical University Munich, München, Germany Ronny Miron, Bar-Ilan University, Ganey Tikva, Israel Marie-Frederique Pellegrin, Université Jean Molin Lyon III, Lyon, France Sandra Plastina, Department of Culture Education, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy Dorothy Rogers, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir, Department of Philosophy, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland George N. Vlahakis, Open Hellenic University, Athens, Greece Elizabeth Minnich, Association of American Colleges & Universities, Charlotte, NC, USA

Paola Rumore, Department of Di Filosofia, Universita degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy Mariafranca Spallanzani, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Tamara Albertini, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA Dorota Dutsch, Santa Barbara, USA Romana Bassi, Padova, Italy Massimo Mazzotti, Berkeley, CA, USA

As the historical records prove, women have long been creating original contributions to philosophy. We have valuable writings from female philosophers from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and a continuous tradition from the Renaissance to today. The history of women philosophers thus stretches back as far as the history of philosophy itself. The presence as well as the absence of women philosophers throughout the course of history parallels the history of philosophy as a whole. Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir, the most famous representatives of this tradition in the twentieth century, did not appear from nowhere. They stand, so to speak, on the shoulders of the female titans who came before them. The series Women Philosophers and Scientists published by Springer is of interest not only to the international philosophy community, but also for scholars in history of science and mathematics, the history of ideas, and in women’s studies.

Joel Katzav · Krist Vaesen · Dorothy Rogers Editors

Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers

Editors Joel Katzav University of Queensland Brisbane, QLD, Australia Dorothy Rogers Department of Educational Foundations Montclair State University Montclair, NJ, USA

Krist Vaesen Department of Philosophy and Ethics Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant The Netherlands

ISSN 2523-8760 ISSN 2523-8779 (electronic) Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences ISBN 978-3-031-24436-0 ISBN 978-3-031-24437-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Joseph Berkovitz, Eric Olson and, especially, Christopher S. Hill, who made it possible for me to work as a philosopher. —Joel Katzav To Mary Ellen Waithe, Therese Boos Dykeman, and in memory of Sue Weinberg, who welcomed me to the world of women-in-philosophy. —Dorothy Rogers To Jaap Van Brakel, who introduced me to classical pragmatism, and thereby to the consolation of philosophy. —Krist Vaesen

Series Foreword

Women Philosophers and Scientists The history of women’s contributions to philosophy and the sciences dates back to the very beginnings of these disciplines. Theano, Hypatia, Du Châtelet, Agnesi, Germain, Lovelace, Stebbing, Curie, Stein are only a small selection of prominent women philosophers and scientists throughout history. The Springer Series Women Philosophers and Scientists provides a platform for publishing cutting-edge scholarship on women’s contributions to the sciences, to philosophy, and to interdisciplinary academic areas. We therefore include in our scope women’s contributions to biology, physics, chemistry, and related sciences. The Series also encompasses the entire discipline of the history of philosophy since antiquity (including metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, etc.). We welcome also work about women’s contributions to mathematics and to interdisciplinary areas such as philosophy of biology, philosophy of medicine, sociology, etc. The research presented in this series serves to recover women’s contributions and to revise our knowledge of the development of philosophical and scientific disciplines, so as to present the full scope of their theoretical and methodological traditions. Supported by an advisory board of internationally esteemed scholars, the volumes offer a comprehensive, up-to-date source of reference for this field of growing relevance. See the listing of planned volumes. The Springer Series Women Philosophers and Scientists will publish monographs, handbooks, collections, anthologies and dissertations.

Paderborn, Germany Cleveland, USA Vercelli, Italy

Editors-in-Chief Ruth Hagengruber Mary Ellen Waithe Gianenrico Paganini

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Contents

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American Women Philosophers: Institutions, Background and Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel Katzav, Dorothy Rogers, and Krist Vaesen

Part I

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The Nature of Philosophy

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen

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The Nature, Types, and Value of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Whiton Calkins

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Ethics and Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Walsh

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The Poetic Use of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Walsh

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Relativism and Philosophic Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marjorie Glicksman

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Part II

Knowledge and Perception

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel Katzav

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Mr. G. E. Moore’s Discussion of Sense Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marie Collins Swabey

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Appearance and Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grace Andrus de Laguna

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10 Pragmatism and the Form of Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grace Andrus de Laguna and Theodore de Laguna

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11 The General Nature of Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Marie Collins Swabey Part III The Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge 12 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen 13 Probability as the Basis of Induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Marie Collins Swabey 14 Sociological Analysis of Cognitive Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Thelma Zeno Lavine 15 Cultural Relativism and Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Grace Andrus de Laguna 16 Philosophical Implications of the Historical Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Dorothy Walsh Part IV Mind and Matter 17 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Joel Katzav 18 Excerpts from Washburn’s The Evidence of Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Margaret Floy Washburn 19 Dualism in Animal Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Grace Andrus de Laguna 20 The Empirical Correlation of Mental and Bodily Phenomena . . . . . . 209 Grace Andrus de Laguna 21 The Personalistic Conception of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Mary Whiton Calkins Part V

Time

22 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Joel Katzav 23 Time as Related to Causality and to Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Mary Whiton Calkins 24 The Time-Process and the Value of Human Life (Part II) . . . . . . . . . . 261 Ellen Bliss Talbot 25 The Philosophy of Henri Bergson (Part I & II, Excerpts) . . . . . . . . . . 275 Grace Neal Dolson

Contents

Part VI

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Freedom and the Individual

26 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Joel Katzav and Dorothy Rogers 27 Individuality and Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Ellen Bliss Talbot 28 Bergson’s Conception of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Marjorie Silliman Harris 29 The Freedom of the Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Grace Andrus de Laguna Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Chapter 1

American Women Philosophers: Institutions, Background and Thought Joel Katzav, Dorothy Rogers, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract This chapter provides the background to the American women philosophers’ works that are introduced and collected in Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers. We describe the institutional context which made these works possible and their methodological and theoretical background. We also provide biographies for their authors.

1.1 Introduction Attention to women in philosophy since the publication of Mary Ellen Waithe’s fourvolume History of Women Philosophers in the 1980s has led to a large number of recovery projects. Recent scholarship includes the current work; a special issue in Australasian Philosophical Review; Springer’s new book series on women in philosophy and the sciences; forthcoming Oxford handbooks on women philosophers; a series of articles on women in the history of philosophy initiated by the American Philosophical Association (APA); and an academic journal dedicated to research on

J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] D. Rogers Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Vaesen Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_1

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women in the history of philosophy.1 In addition, a number of institutional initiatives are in place to enhance and examine women’s role in philosophy. In recent years, the APA has introduced programs and grant funding to support gender representation in the discipline. The British Philosophical Association collaborated with the Society of Women in Philosophy to conduct a study about the status of women in the profession—a ten-year follow-up to the organization’s research in 2011. Similarly, the Canadian Philosophical Association recently examined the representation of women in philosophy programs, which remain relatively low at all levels, from undergraduate enrolments to senior faculty positions (20–30%). Both the British and Canadian studies recognize the recent expansion of research on women philosophers as a positive development that may help advance gender inclusion in the discipline in the future.2 Yet the women-in-philosophy movement has also contributed to the development of a parallel track, as it were, in the discipline, with women’s contributions running alongside the work of canonical male figures. This phenomenon has led to others: women are considered only auxiliary figures who had little impact in the discipline, during their own time or in our own; women’s ideas are often validated in and through their similarities to masculine philosophers’ thought; canonical male figures continue to be at the center of philosophy and their work taken as the starting point for the majority of our discussions. In the American context, these tendencies coincide with a long-held myth that in the twentieth century analytic methods and claims emerged to challenge and ultimately to undermine philosophical idealism and speculative traditions, both of which had been dominant in the U.S.A. and Canada for decades. With this volume, we aim to continue to contribute to recognising the place of women in twentieth century philosophy. We aim, to begin with, to do so by offering a resource for diversifying the curriculum. The work—mostly articles but also some book chapters—collected here is on topics standardly covered in knowledge and reality courses and is by more or less forgotten American women philosophers who were active from at least the early decades of the twentieth century. We also aim to offer a resource for the history of philosophy. We are providing materials for a history of philosophy that includes women as originators of what turned out later to be historically important philosophy as well as explorers of significant but relatively neglected avenues of thought. To some extent, this counters the parallel track 1

The Australasian Philosophical Review edition includes articles on Grace Andrus de Laguna, co-curated by Krist Vaesen and Dorothy Rogers https://aap.org.au/APR; the Springer series is Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, edited by Marie Ellen Waithe, Ruth Hagengruber, and Gianni Paganini https://www.springer.com/series/15896; the Oxford handbooks include Lydia Moland and Alison Stone’s edited collection (2021) on nineteenth-century American and British women philosophers, and Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar’s edited collection (2021) on nineteenth-century women philosophers in the German tradition; the series of articles on women in the history of philosophy is published by The Journal of the American Philosophical Association https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-american-philosophicalassociation/women-in-the-history-of-philosophy; the new journal is Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (Brill) https://brill.com/view/journals/jhwp/jhwp-overview. xml. 2 For a synopsis and links to each study, see Weinberg (2021). See also Rogers (2009).

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narrative and enables a women-first narrative. Finally, we aim to contribute to a more complex perspective on the development of American philosophy. On this perspective, positions and methods associated with analytic philosophy were developed not primarily as a critical reaction to idealism in America and Britain but by idealists and those expanding the idealist tradition under the umbrella of speculative philosophy. The distinctiveness of the tradition of analytic philosophy was not really novelty on matters of substance but in its narrowing down of philosophy solely to its analytic side (Katzav, 2018; Katzav & Vaesen, 2022). Pragmatism also emerged, largely within the speculative wing of philosophy and, with philosophy more broadly, intersected with other fields of thought, science, education and moral/religious discourse in particular. Fields that were once under the purview of philosophy, such as psychology and anthropology, were established as new disciplines, largely because their leaders embraced empirical research. The recovery of the contributions of women philosophers is central to this project of correcting the narrative. Most of the authors covered here were developing the idealist tradition even while, as already indicated, some of them were contributing ideas that later became part of analytic philosophy. Given the goals of this book, our hope is that it will be of use to scholars and students in philosophy, intellectual history, American studies, and gender studies. Within each of this volume’s parts, readers will find an introduction, followed by selections from the writings of some of the women who contributed to the philosophical questions covered in the part. Each part’s introduction offers a framing of the content of the subsequent selections in the part using terminology familiar within contemporary analytic philosophy. Further, each introduction uses this framework to situate the subsequent work in relation to some key debates, mostly within the analytic tradition. While some might find our approach anachronistic in places, we hope it will facilitate the integration of the work collected here into exciting courses in philosophy, the development of women-first narratives and a better understanding of who developed analytic ideas and arguments. In Parts II and III (Knowledge and Perception and The Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge, respectively), the introductions and subsequent material primarily illustrate key positions and arguments that precede prominent equivalents in the analytic tradition. In Part I (The Nature of Philosophy), the introduction and subsequent material primarily illustrate relatively unfamiliar positions and arguments. The same is the case with regard to Parts V and VI (Time and Freedom and the Individual, respectively). Part IV (Mind and Matter) mixes positions that became familiar in later philosophy with relatively unfamiliar positions. Thus, in Knowledge, we find Grace Andrus de Laguna and Mary Collins Swabey critiquing the idea of sense data and supporting aspects of coherentism about knowledge, much as analytic philosophers would later critique the sense-data based foundationalism of some early analytic figures, including of Bertrand Russell. In The Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge, we find the same women, as well as Thelma Zeno Lavine and Dorothy Walsh, developing sophisticated treatments of science that, despite belonging to the early decades of the twentieth century, fit well into postlogical empiricist philosophy of science. By contrast, in The Nature of Philosophy,

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the views of philosophy offered by key analytic figures are contrasted with the speculative view of philosophy Mary Whiton Calkins presents as well as with Marjorie Silliman Harris’ related, metaphysics-driven approach to ethics. Marjorie Glicksman Grene’s contribution to the same part neatly illustrates the methodological pluralism of the time in American speculative philosophy. Similarly, in Time, the views on time covered by Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot and Grace Neal Dolson do not comfortably fit more recent, familiar categorisations of views about time. In Freedom and the Individual, we present the distinction between compatibilist and libertarian views of freedom and find Talbot, Harris and de Laguna developing relatively unfamiliar versions of libertarianism. In Mind and Matter, we find Margaret Floy Washburn and de Laguna engaging in an exchange which juxtaposes, in a way familiar from later philosophy of mind, dualism with functionalist treatments of the mental. Yet, in the same part, Calkins offers us an absolute idealist position, a kind of position that never became prominent within the analytic tradition. We emphasise that the work included in this volume is by no means an exhaustive collection of the significant work by our contributors. Additional, though still incomplete, information about their work is provided below. So too, there are other early twentieth century American women philosophers who, partly because of our focus on providing a resource for teaching about knowledge and reality, do not have work in this volume. Such women include, among others, Christine Ladd-Franklin, Katherine Gilbert, Helen Huss Parkhurst and Isabelle Stearns. The end of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries saw American philosophy changing rapidly. During this period, academic philosophy underwent a wave of professionalisation. This stage of professionalisation encompassed institutional, methodological and theoretical developments. Institutional developments included (a) the creation of standardised graduate programs from the 1890s, (b) the creation of dedicated professional journals, including The Philosophical Review in 1892 and The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods in 1904, and (c) the creation of an association for academic philosophers, the APA, in 1900 (Auxier, 2005; Katzav & Vaesen, 2022). Further discussion of the institutional background to the work of women philosophers collected here is provided in Sect. 1.2 of this introduction. The methodological and theoretical developments included the development of widely shared frameworks that delineated the methodological approaches and theoretical tasks of academic philosophers, frameworks that helped to differentiate philosophy from related academic fields, especially from theology and psychology, which were also professionalising in similar ways (Auxier, 2005; Katzav & Vaesen, 2022). Further discussion of the methodological and theoretical developments during the period under consideration is found in Sect. 1.3. Section 1.4 provides a brief summary of the work of each of the authors collected in this volume.

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1.2 Institutional Background Women began entering academia at the end of the nineteenth century, and their careers and scholarly work were simultaneously facilitated and constrained by this. Women began earning doctorates in philosophy at progressive institutions: Cornell (1880), Smith College (1888), University of Michigan (1891), Yale (1896), and University of Chicago (1900). They also flourished as scholars by contributing to academic journals, by all accounts on an equal footing with men. Egalitarian male colleagues deserve credit in this regard. Cornell and the University of Chicago were founded with the intention of being institutions that were open to all, and faculty were hired with the understanding that this would be the case. The University of Michigan began accepting women in 1870 and was among the first to provide women with opportunities for graduate study—significantly while John Dewey taught philosophy there along with George Sylvester Morris. Yale allowed women to earn degrees in some graduate programs at this early period, although it remained closed to female undergraduates until the late 1960s. Yale’s philosophy department chair, George T. Ladd appears to have had egalitarian views, corresponding with early (1896) doctoral degree earner, Anna Alice Cutler. Particularly important for what follows, Jacob Gould Schurmann and James Edwin Creighton developed the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University in the 1890s. Both adopted the egalitarian goals of the Cornell family in founding the University, something reflected in the fact that the School was more successful than other schools at the time in training and subsequently placing women philosophers in academic positions. Creighton supervised five of the women whose work is included in this volume. Schurmann and Creighton (The Philosophical Review) and James Eugene Woodbridge and James McKeen Cattell (The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods) set new standards for scholarship in philosophy, and by including women, they followed a precedent set by William Torrey Harris a generation earlier in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867–1893). Finally, regarding the new academic networks that developed at this time, women were charter members of both the western and eastern branches of the APA. This is at a time when membership in the APA was by nomination. In the Western Division, we see two women among forty-six men on the earliest membership lists. In the Eastern Division, there were eight women and fifty-seven men at the organization’s first meeting. Correspondence of Harry Norman Gardiner, one of the APA’s founders and leading figures, demonstrates that he was genuinely a champion of women’s participation in philosophy, and in 1920, we see his fellow faculty member at Smith College, namely Alice Anna Cutler, serving on the Eastern APA’s executive committee—the first woman to serve in that capacity. Yet barriers continued to exist. Although universities were becoming more open to women, many elite institutions maintained men-only admissions policies. For instance, Johns Hopkins and Harvard gained notoriety by withholding doctorates from Christine Ladd-Franklin (1882) and Mary Whiton Calkins (1895), respectively.

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And even the most egalitarian men often passed over women as teaching assistants in graduate programs or for faculty positions at co-educational colleges and universities. They simply assumed that men were more suited for leadership positions in their own institution and that women belonged at women’s colleges—or a “petticoat regime” as William James once put it. Working at women’s colleges, in turn, likely restricted opportunities for research and publication (James, 1986).3 The first woman on record to earn a doctorate in philosophy and hold a full-time position at a co-educational college was Marietta Kies (Michigan Ph.D., 1891; Butler College Faculty, 1896– 1899). Finally, women often gravitated toward areas of study within philosophy that were branching off into independent disciplines. These fields included education, religion, and—notably for our purposes, psychology and anthropology.

1.3 Theoretical Background One of the key theoretical goals that helped shape the field of philosophy, including that of the philosophers whose work is collected here, was that of engaging closely with the established special sciences—including the natural sciences but also psychology, sociology and humanistic fields such as history—in order to illuminate and learn from them (Cohen, 1910; Creighton, 1902, 1912; Katzav & Vaesen, 2022; Morris, 1935). For many working in, or in the wake of, the idealist tradition, such engagement should include a critique of the sciences that brings out some of their limitations (de Laguna, 1951; Katzav & Vaesen, 2022). The tradition that grew through such philosophical engagement with science that aimed to go beyond science is the speculative tradition. Moreover, it was the function of reflecting on science in a systematic way which partly helped to differentiate philosophy from the sciences. The requirement that philosophy engage with science broadly construed is clearly realised in the articles collected in the present volume. Calkins’ ‘The Nature, Types and Value of Philosophy’ (1907, pp. 3–13, this volume, ch. 3), included in The Nature of Philosophy, tells us that philosophy should always start its investigations by reflecting on available scientific information. The two main pieces in Knowledge and Perception are parts of broader projects that reflect on science. One of these, ‘Pragmatism and the Form of Thought’ (this volume, ch. 10), by de Laguna and her husband, Theodore, is a chapter from the book Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy (1910). This chapter provides a general understanding of knowledge that is part of the book’s empirical investigation of scientific knowledge. Swabey’s ‘The General Nature of Reason’ (this volume, ch. 11) is from her book Logic and Nature (1930) and is a general account of knowledge that fits into the book’s rationalist account of scientific knowledge. All the pieces in The Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge focus specifically on investigating scientific knowledge. (Grace) de Laguna’s ‘Dualism in Animal Psychology’ (1918a, this volume, ch. 19) and Washburn’s ‘The Evidence of Mind’ (1917, pp. 27–37, this volume, ch. 18), both 3

See also Rogers (2020).

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in Mind and Matter, present opposed perspectives on how psychology should investigate mental phenomena. These pieces also explore the nature of mental phenomena, partly in light of what the sciences teach us about these. Such exploration is further found, in the same part, in de Laguna’s ‘The Empirical Correlation of Mental and Bodily Phenomena’ (1918b, this volume, ch. 20) and Calkins’ ‘The Personalistic Conception of Nature’ (1919, this volume, ch. 21). While engagement with the special sciences was generally important to philosophy, engagement with evolutionary ideas was particularly important. This was so partly because of Hegel’s idealist, evolutionary account of the development of ideas, according to which thought’s evolution is driven by logical tensions between ideas and the goal of developing a coherent system of ideas. So too, the idea of evolution was important because of Charles Darwin’s subsequently developed theory of evolution, according to which biological evolution is driven by variation and natural selection (de Laguna & de Lagnua, 1910). In light of these evolutionary views, American philosophers developed a variety of views of the nature of evolution as well as of how knowledge evolved. De Laguna’s already mentioned empirical treatment of knowledge, to which Swabey objects, was an evolutionary one. A common theme of evolutionary theories of knowledge was that they took understanding types of cognitive states such as, e.g., belief or perception, to be a matter of understanding the type of function for which they had evolved (de Laguna & de Laguna, 1910; Pearce, 2020). De Laguna’s theory of mind treats mental states as functional states, while Washburn and Calkins object to such treatments. Philosophical engagement with science aimed not only to illuminate the nature and limits of scientific knowledge but also to illuminate what science tells us about reality as well as reality itself. In some cases, the immediate goal was to better understand what kinds of entities a special science was committed to as well as what it presupposed about how these interact and change. Here, the philosopher engaged in what might be called regional ontology. This goal is exemplified by the discussion of the nature of mental states noted in the previous paragraph but also in Walsh’s ‘Philosophical Implications of the Historical Enterprise’ (1937, this volume, ch. 16). Further, these regional ontologies were to be imaginatively fit together to develop a more systematic metaphysics or vision of reality that finds a place for human beings in it and goes beyond established opinion. This search for a vision of reality is illustrated in the already mentioned discussions in Mind and Matter. In these studies, a key question is how material, mental and other phenomena fit together. Similarly, figuring out how humans fit in with an overall vision of reality drives the articles in Freedom and Time, where the question is what the human individual is and how human freedom might be reconciled with our being subject to historical, social and physical causation. The articles in Time and the Individual consider the nature of time but do so in relation to humans and their experience of time. Thus far, we have looked at some of the methodological aspects of American academic philosophy during our period of interest. There were, however, also specific visions of reality which were particularly influential at the time and which helped to shape philosophical discussion. Most important was the influence of absolute or Hegelian idealism. Idealism is most commonly understood to be the view that

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everything is, ultimately or fundamentally, mental or psychological. There is, on this view, nothing independent of mind. One variant of idealism thus construed identifies the mental with experience. One understanding of what it means to say that, fundamentally, everything is mental is that it is to say that everything either is a mental phenomenon, e.g., a self or experience, or is an abstraction from the mental. Alternatively, saying that, fundamentally, everything is mental can be thought of as saying that everything either is mental or is what it is/exists in virtue of the mental. Absolute idealism is sometimes presented as adding to the kind of idealism just discussed, the claim that all things are ultimately one. Thus understood, absolute idealism is the view that all things are ultimately the mental or psychological states of one experience or mind-like being, the Absolute (Connelly & D’Oro, 2019; Creighton, 1917). The Absolute is called ‘the Absolute’ because everything supposedly depends on it, while it depends on nothing. This version of absolute idealism can be termed psychological absolute idealism. Calkins was a proponent of psychological absolute idealism. On Calkins’ view, reality comprises a single person, of which all other things, including ourselves, are parts (1907; McDaniel, 2017). A second version of absolute idealism, non-psychological absolute idealism, tends to accept that experience is fundamental but denies that experience is ultimately to be understood in mental or psychological terms. On this view, all experience essentially involves a subjective or psychological as well as a material pole, and neither is more fundamental than the other. Indeed, for some advocates of this form of absolute idealism, experience is also essentially social. Objective experience is possible only for a subject experiencing a material object within a broader social setting. Further, according to non-psychological absolute idealism, what makes any phenomenon revealed in experience real, and indeed what makes it what it is, is its function, that is, its meaning, value or aim. Finally, the value of phenomena comprises being a part of the total, coherent system of meaning. The Absolute, here, is the concrete, unified system of meaning (Creighton, 1917; Sabine, 1925; Swabey, 1920). Creighton was a proponent of non-psychological absolute idealism. (Marjorie) Harris, Swabey and Talbot, all Creighton’s students, were also absolute idealists of this kind. Absolute idealists agree that everything, including the human individual or self, is to be understood in terms of its dependence on the Absolute. This supposed dependence meant that not only, for the reasons given above, did philosophers need to address the question of what the sciences imply about the self and its freedom but also what absolute idealism implied about these. How could our choices be free if, ultimately, what we are is fully dependent on the Absolute? Similarly, the concern with time reflects absolute idealist concerns. Since all phenomena depend on the Absolute, time too must do so. But how can time be explained by something else, something that, since it explains time, cannot itself be temporal and thus cannot change? More broadly, in taking all phenomena to be dependent on the Absolute, absolute idealists were pressed to explain what this dependence amounts to. One challenge posed by history is of particular concern for absolute idealism in its non-psychological variety. If aspects of reality are real by virtue of having some function in the total scheme of things, there should be nothing in history that does not have some broader function. History, however, suggests that not everything that happens makes sense, as part of a broader scheme of things.

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The challenges within absolute idealism led to its further development as well as to the development of rival visions of reality. Thus, while some, like Calkins, Harris, Swabey and Talbot, continued to defend absolute idealism, others, such as de Laguna and her student, Walsh, shared the speculative approach to philosophy with the absolute idealists but did not endorse an absolute idealist vision of reality. Dolson, though arguing in a way that is suggestive of an absolute idealist position, does not leave enough work to determine her vision of reality. Washburn was largely a psychologist and does not offer an overall philosophical vision, so it is hard to situate her in a philosophical context beyond noting that her psychology incorporates a form of mind-body dualism. The most prominent rival to absolute idealism in America was (classical) pragmatism, which was made prominent at the end of the nineteenth and the start of the twentieth centuries by William James and John Dewey. Pragmatists shared with absolute idealists the view that philosophy needs to engage with science, and especially the theory of evolution, to learn about ourselves and reality. Pragmatists also agreed that reality, ultimately, is to be identified with experience. However, pragmatists denied that experience is a single unified system. Rather, on their view, experience comprises relatively fragmentary episodes in which tensions arise between the elements of experience, e.g., between expectations and events, and consciousness and reason are activated to resolve these tensions. Success at doing so amounts to making a judgement that guides future behaviour in a way that does not give rise to further tensions within experience. Here, it is the success of an individual judgement in guiding behaviour that is the criterion for its truth rather than its function in the entire system of experience. Moreover, a successful judgement is thus just a successful adaptation to a local, problematic situation. Pragmatists took themselves to be taking their cue from evolutionary theory here. On their view, judgements were adaptations to specific circumstances in the same way as evolved behaviours generally were such adaptations (Pearce, 2020). The pragmatist view of experience does not imply that all aspects of experience have some function within broader experience. Experience is, for them, evolving and potentially unpredictable. This led pragmatists to different views of scientific knowledge, of the self and of other phenomena than absolute idealist ones. Scientific knowledge can, for example, more easily be viewed primarily as a tool for managing what is experienced rather than as a theoretical system that aims to fit all of experience together. Nor, given that judgement does not ultimately aim at a systematisation of all experience, is there a need to assume that everything can be explained in psychological, or other, terms. From amongst our authors, Thelma Zeno Lavine was a pragmatist. Calkins, de Laguna and Talbot were critics of pragmatism, though de Laguna was also influenced by pragmatism. Some pragmatists, it is important to emphasise, not only rejected absolute idealism but also the speculative approach to philosophy that came with it. For them, pragmatism did not come with a metaphysics but focused on a view of knowledge and problem resolution (Katzav & Vaesen, 2022). A similar rejection of speculation was part of the realist, analytic response to the issues with absolute idealism, a response developed by, for example, Edwin Bissett Holt, George Edward Moore, Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones, Ralph Barton Perry and Bertrand Russell. This response

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was primarily characterised by a rejection of the speculative tendency to go beyond established opinion in making claims about reality (Katzav, 2018; Katzav & Vaesen, 2017). Non-American influences on American women philosophers writing during the first half of the twentieth century were also significant. European philosophers were, during this period, reacting to Kantian and Hegelian philosophies. Moreover, many of these reactions involved a concern with the meaning of human experience as well as other concerns shared with American philosophers. Thus, in the early decades of the twentieth century, some American philosophers, including Talbot and Harris, developed their views in dialogue with the work of Henri Bergson, who sympathised with the pragmatist view that reason was primarily a practical instrument but, unlike the pragmatists, took us to have direct intuitive knowledge of our own natures and of time. Later in the century, some American philosophers engaged in dialogue with, and sometimes joined, the existentialist and phenomenological tradition. Here too, Americans found philosophers engaged in understanding experience and the role of the subject in experience. Among our authors, de Laguna and Grene were particularly engaged with phenomenology and existentialism, with Grene identifying these as her primary influences.

1.4 Individual Thought 1.4.1 Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930) Mary Whiton Calkins studied at Smith College, earning a BA in 1885 and an MA (in classics and philosophy) in 1887. She continued her graduate studies at Harvard, under William James, Josiah Royce and Hugo Münsterberg, but had to do so unofficially, given that the university refused formally to admit women. Her dissertation was entitled Experimental Research on the Association of Ideas. Despite never officially being conferred with a Harvard degree, she became an associate (1896) and subsequently full professor (1898) in philosophy and psychology at Wellesley College. Calkins published much in both fields of study. Her work on memory in psychology is still influential today (McDonald, 2005). She became the first woman to serve as the President of both the American Psychological Association (1905) and the American Philosophical Association (1918). Calkins identified philosophy with metaphysics and took the results of the special sciences to be the starting point of metaphysics. Metaphysics aims, on her view, to explain these results and in doing so to investigate the fundamental nature of things, especially of all-that-there-is. At the same time, she thought that science deals with abstractions and thus that the metaphysicians’ engagement with science should involve criticism of it. The system of metaphysics she constructed was a form of personal absolute idealism. On her view, ultimately, all phenomena are reducible to selves and aspects of selves, where selves are conceived of as immaterial. Moreover,

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all finite selves are part of a single, all-encompassing self (1907). Importantly, Calkins posits a hierarchy of selves, from complex ones such as human selves, to simple ones, such as single-celled animals. The material world comprises the experiences of immaterial selves, including even of earth worms and amoeba (1919). Calkins was a sharp critic of the opponents of idealism, including, for example, of early analytic philosophy, along with its realism (1911, 1925) and of pragmatism (1925), and offered, in addition to her absolute idealism and criticism of opposing philosophies, a psychology and an ethics. Her psychology is centered on understanding the self with the aid of introspection; she defends such a view against forms of behaviourism that were dominant at the time (1901, 1921). Her ethics builds on her metaphysics and psychology, proposing a view of the good as the community of all selves (1918). She wrote numerous articles. Her major books are An Introduction to Psychology (1901), The Persistent Problems of Philosophy (1907) and The Good Man and the Good (1918).

1.4.2 Grace Andrus de Laguna (1878–1978) Grace Andrus de Laguna received a BA (1903) and a Ph.D. (1906) from Cornell, the latter based on a dissertation, entitled The Mechanical Theory in Pre-Kantian Rationalism, a study that was supervised by James E. Creighton. De Laguna moved to Pennsylvania, where she taught at Bryn Mawr College until her retirement. She held a position as an assistant professor from 1912 to 1919, as an associate professor from 1922 to 1929, and as a full professor from 1929 onwards. She became chair of the philosophy department at Bryn Mawr in 1930, and President of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division 1941–1942. After retiring (1944), she continued to be a prolific writer. De Laguna was one of the most original American philosophers of the early twentieth century as well as a significant contributor to linguistics and psychology. Her work in linguistics played an important role in the development of pragmatic linguistics (Nerlich, 2023). Her work in psychology strongly influenced Edward C. Tolman (1922), a key figure in the development of cognitive psychology (Carroll, 2017). In philosophy, she produced work in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language and political philosophy. Many of the positions and arguments she developed, including, for example, a critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, meaning holism, a private language argument, functionalism about the mental and a modal ontology, were later to become central to analytic philosophy, though the precise channels of her influence are yet to be explored and though, as she notes, analytic philosophy opposed her speculative approach to philosophy (Katzav, 2023). De Laguna’s metaphysics, which was at the heart of her philosophy, aims to give us a vision of reality in its totality. She takes the world to comprise many distinct, ontologically fundamental individuals. Some individuals are purely material but, contrary to materialism, idealism and mindbody dualism, others have irreducible physical, biological, psychological and social

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aspects. All individuals, further, have an irreducible teleological side, an aim. Individuals are, finally, thought by her as being irreplicable and qualitatively unique in a way that transcends what can be described in language and thus science. Her philosophy of science, in line with her metaphysics, takes the different special sciences to reveal different aspects of individuals using theories that are partially true or trueenough for the purposes to which they are put. Her epistemology of science is an evolutionary one that takes theory evaluation to be moderately holistic and relative to paradigm or research program success. Her evolutionary, dispositionalist view of properties is used to underpin a functionalist, teleological theory of the mental and the social (Katzav, 2022, 2023). She wrote many articles. Her published books are Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy (1910), Speech: Its Function and Development (1927) and On Existence and the Human World (1966).

1.4.3 Grace Neal Dolson (1874–1961) Grace Neal Dolson earned her BA (1896), MA (1897) and Ph.D. (1899) at Cornell, with a master’s thesis on the philosophy of Henry More and a dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought. She was one of the first six women to earn a doctoral degree at Cornell, where she studied under Jacob G. Schurman and James E. Creighton. She taught at Wells College (1901–1911) and at Smith College (1911– 1915). She was a charter member of the American Philosophical Association and was also a member of the American Psychological Association. In 1915, she gave up her faculty position to enter a religious order. There she adopted the name Sister Hilary. Dolson was primarily an interpreter of the works of other philosophers and most of what she wrote focused on the works of More, Nietzsche and Henri Bergson. Nevertheless, her philosophical temperament does emerge in her selection of authors, and in her treatment, including her criticism, of these (Rogers, 2021, pp. 82–86). Dolson complains (1897) about More’s limited ability to produce an argued system, which was not unrelated to his mysticism and thus to his ultimate rejection of reason. She is similarly dissatisfied with Nietzsche’s lack of systematicity and his associated emphasis on the primacy of feeling over reason in guiding action. Thus, she appreciates the value of a position, such as Nietzsche’s, that takes scepticism to its extreme, arguing that all judgement is in the end an individual expression of the will to power, but notes that, as a theory, such a position can but be judged by general rather than individual standards (1901, pp. 65–66). Similarly, she appreciates the originality of Nietzsche’s version of egoism, but laments its arbitrariness (1901, pp. 100–103). Dolson’s critique of Bergson is her most extensive critique. As she reads him, he has the view that the intellect is purely an instrument that guides action and that, in doing so, distorts the truth. True knowledge, in turn, is only possible through intuition and involves an identity between the subject and the object. Here, Dolson objects that knowledge is only possible if there is a distinction between subject and object. Instinct, further, is not deserving of the title ‘knowledge’ (1910). Dolson’s books

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were The Ethical System of Henry More (1897) and The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1901). Her key articles are “The idealism of Malebranche” (1906), “The Philosophy of Henri Bergson I” (1910) and “The Philosophy of Bergson II” (1910).

1.4.4 Marjorie Glicksman (later Glicksman Grene) (1910–2009) Marjorie Glicksman Grene studied zoology at Wellesley College, before turning to philosophy (1931). She travelled to Germany to study with Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Radcliffe College (1935) for a dissertation on Existenzphilosophie. She took up various temporary jobs (as an instructor and assistant) and was out of academia from 1944–1957. She continued to do work in philosophy, however, and met Michael Polanyi, with whom she would closely collaborate. In 1965 she became a professor in philosophy at the University of California Davis. She held this position until her retirement in 1978. From 1988 onwards, she was an Honorary University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Virginia Tech. Grene was important in introducing the work of key European philosophers, such as Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre, to America during the middle decades of the twentieth century. She is sympathetic to Heidegger’s goal of providing an understanding of human beings as embedded in the world but worries that his humans are not situated biologically or, except in an abstract way, historically. Sartre does better in understanding our situatedness but, in the end, also fails appropriately to illuminate how it meshes with our freedom. It is, on her view, Maurice Merleau-Ponty who, building on Heidegger’s ideas about human being, gives us a way of appropriately accounting for the biological and historical aspects of the human as well as its unique freedom (La Caze, forthcoming). Grene was, further, a philosopher of science. She argues against the reductionist view that all of science did, or could, share a single subject matter or methodology. She thus, for example, rejects the view that reality is ultimately physical, insisting instead that biology is an autonomous science (1966, ch. 8; 2002). With Polanyi, in a way that sits neatly with her work on European philosophy, she argues that scientific practice is grounded in a free commitment by individual scientists to a vision of the real and that scientific knowledge involves at least partly tacit clues that direct attention to objects in the world (ibid.). Grene was, further, an historian of philosophy and wrote on Aristotle, Descartes, Malebranche and Spinoza. She proposes that philosophical ideas should be articulated in a dialogue with past philosophers, a dialogue which understands them partly in relation to their historical contexts and partly in relation to their role in the broader philosophical dialogue (ibid.). Her books include, among others, Dreadful Freedom: A Critique of Existentialism (1948), The Knower and the Known (1966) and The Understanding of Nature: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology (1974).

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1.4.5 Marjorie Silliman Harris (1890–1976) Marjorie Silliman Harris earned her BA at Mount Holyoke College in 1913, where she studied under Ellen Bliss Talbot. She completed her Ph.D. in philosophy in 1921 at Cornell University, with a dissertation on Auguste Comte, under the supervision of James E. Creighton. She spent most of her academic career at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia (1922–1958), from 1930 onwards as a full professor. She served as a president of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (1940) and the Virginia Philosophical Association (1946). Harris took the primary goal of philosophy to be that of exposing the limitations of our interpretations of experience and, in doing so, exploring the meaning of life and adapting our behaviour to experience. She took the attempt to offer a systematic interpretation of experience to be a suitable way of fulfilling this primary goal (1923) but also recognised the importance of a more problem-oriented approach to philosophy (1960). Her work focuses on a number of key philosophers, especially August Comte, Henri Bergson and Francisco Romero. She criticises Comte’s positivism from a Hegelian perspective, for example, for failing to realise that science is not limited to knowledge of the phenomenal or subjective, and that reason must in the end aim at a vision that synthesises the subjective and the objective (1923). She expresses sympathy with Bergson’s treatment of time and the individual, though she also criticises his irrationalism (1937). It is in discussion with Bergson that she develops her own idealist conception of the self and its freedom (1933, this volume, ch. 28). In the 1950s and 1960s, she developed a focus on South American philosophy and, especially, looked to Romero as a continuer of the idealist tradition and as a starting point for developing a philosophy of culture that helped to address the need for a new shared vision of reality for humanity (1960). Her books include The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1923), Sub Specie Aeternitatis (1937) and Francisco Romero on Problems of Philosophy (1960).

1.4.6 Thelma Zeno Lavine (1915–2011) Thelma Zeno Lavine earned a BA from Radcliffe College in 1936, and an MA (1937) and Ph.D. (1939) from Harvard University. She graduated with a dissertation entitled The Naturalistic Approach to Theory of Knowledge, studying with Ralph B. Perry and David W. Prall, and later with Clarence I. Lewis. She was a professor in philosophy at Brooklyn College (1946–1951), the University of Maryland (1955–1965), George Washington University (1965–1985) and George Mason University (1985– 1988). She was awarded an Outstanding Faculty Member award at the University of Maryland, and an Outstanding Professor award at George Washington. Lavine thought of philosophy as aiming to critically and systematically interpret the meanings we humans produce in the various compartments of knowledge production. The method of philosophy thus conceived she called ‘verstehen’, but she

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recognised that it was just the method of traditional philosophy, including of idealistic dialectic (1953). She thought of pragmatism, and especially of John Dewey’s pragmatism, as the best hope for continuing the tradition of the Enlightenment, with its aim of rationally improving the human lot (1988), while also adequately updating enlightenment thought for the twentieth century and beyond. Her espousal of pragmatism and verstehen thus conceived came along with a criticism of the positivist and logical empiricist form of naturalism according to which there is only one valid method of gaining knowledge, namely the inductive method (1953). She was equally critical of the postmodernist strand of European philosophy which, on her view, went too far in its critique of reason, leaving no room for constructive philosophy or interventions in society that aim to assist the marginalised (1988). Alongside her engagement with rival approaches to philosophy, Lavine also argued for a form of naturalism that extended to all aspects of knowledge. On her view, even the question of how evidence justifies theory should be subjected to the empirical, interpretative method; there is no a priori examination of the logic of justification (1944, this volume, ch. 14). Lavine wrote the book From Socrates to Sartre: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (1984). Her key articles include, among others, “Naturalism and the Sociological Analysis of Knowledge” (1944), “What Is the Method of Naturalism?” (1953) and “The Interpretive Turn from Kant to Derrida: A Critique” (1989).

1.4.7 Marie Collins Swabey (1890–1966) Marie Collins Swabey received her BA at Wellesley College (1913), studying under Mary W. Calkins. She also earned an MA at the University of Kansas (1914) and a Ph.D. at Cornell University (1919), studying under James E. Creighton. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled Some Modern Conceptions of Natural Law. At New York University, Swabey was an instructor (1924–1928), an assistant professor (1928– 1934), and an associate professor (1934–1956). She was a member of the American Philosophical Association and the Association for Symbolic Logic. Swabey swam against the tide of the philosophy of her time. While empiricism and naturalism dominated American philosophy, she developed a sophisticated form of rationalism. Further, her rationalism underpinned the other aspects of her philosophy, including her metaphysics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. Her epistemology took reason to be a human capacity for grasping the nature of the world as a whole, one which, as such, can be thought of as supernatural. This capacity, in her view, makes possible a priori knowledge of logic and, via this a priori knowledge, of metaphysics and thus of the fundamental nature of reality. We have, on her view, synthetic a priori knowledge that the entities in our world are atoms, in that they are discrete entities with discrete quantifiable qualities. But these entities nevertheless have their qualities, and are governed by the laws of nature, by virtue of being part of a unified system of meanings, the universe or absolute. It is the job of philosophy to study the universe as a whole. Our ability to grasp reality as a whole, further, allows us to justify fundamental aspects of reasoning in science, including the use

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of induction (Katzav & Vaesen, 2022; Swabey, 1920, 1930). Her rationalism carries over to her treatment of knowledge in the special sciences, for example, to her defence of a rationalist view of historical inquiry and criticism of then fashionable forms of relativism or scepticism about science (1954). Her defence of political liberalism involves showing that rationality justifies democracy in the same way that it justifies science (1937). Similarly, on her view, the comic involves recognition of an inconsistency and thus of impossible truth against a background assumption that the world exhibits a moral and rational order (1961). Swabey’s books include Some Modern Conceptions of Natural Law (1920), Logic and Nature (1930), Theory of the Democratic State (1937), The Judgment of History (1954) and Comic Laughter: A Philosophical Essay (1961).

1.4.8 Ellen Bliss Talbot (1867–1968) Ellen Bliss Talbot first studied at Ohio State University, where she earned a BA in 1890. She then earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell University in 1898, with a study of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. This made her one of the first six women who managed to earn doctoral degrees in philosophy at Cornell before 1900. Her supervisor was James E. Creighton. In 1900, she became professor of philosophy at Mount Holyoke College, a position she held until 1936. At Mount Holyoke, she served as a chair of the philosophy department for over thirty years. Talbot was one of the first female members of the American Philosophical Association and one of seven women who also were members of the American Psychological Association. Talbot was primarily a metaphysician. She focused on the nature of the human individual, its freedom and its relationships with time and value (see, e.g., her 1906, 1909, 1915, this volume, ch. 24). She also aimed to understand how and why objective value has come to be realised in our world (1906, pp. 119–122). Her explanation, which was not articulated fully, at least not in print, was a form of non-psychological absolute idealism. She believed in the fundamental reality of individuals developing in time (1915, this volume, ch. 24; 1917). She also believed, however, that this development to some extent realises, and aims to realise, the Absolute, conceived of as some form of ultimate value in which all oppositions found in actuality are unified (1906, p. 67). Her vision of reality is largely an interpretation of that of Fichte (Talbot, 1906, 1907). She was, however, critical of Fichte’s treatment of the Absolute. Fichte, on her reading, thought of the actual world of finite consciousnesses as all that is actual, though this actuality, on his view, strives to realise the Absolute. This, in her view, raises the worry of whether Fichte had an adequate explanation of the extent to which we are forced to adapt to external constraints (1907). She criticises pragmatism’s equation of reality with malleable experience on similar grounds (1907) and, indeed, argues against the pragmatist view that a theory’s truth is its workability in favour of the view that its truth is its correspondence to the facts (1917). She wrote a single monograph, The Fundamental Principle of Fichte’s Philosophy (1906). Key articles of hers include “The Philosophy of Fichte in its Relation to Pragmatism”

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(1906), “Individuality and Freedom” (1909), “The Time-Process and the Value of Human Life. II” (1915) and “Pragmatism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth” (1907).

1.4.9 Dorothy Walsh (1901–1982) Dorothy Walsh first studied in Canada, receiving a BA from University of British Columbia in 1923 and an MA from the University of Toronto in 1924, before moving to Bryn Mawr in the U.S., where she earned her Ph.D. in 1926. Her doctoral dissertation was supervised by Grace A. de Laguna, and addressed the objectivity of the judgment of aesthetic values. In 1935 she became an assistant professor at Smith College, where she taught until her retirement in the early 1960s. She was a member of the American Philosophical Association throughout her career and remained professionally active into the 1970s. Like her teacher, de Laguna, Walsh put metaphysics at the heart of philosophy. And, again like de Laguna and others working in the wake of absolute idealism, Walsh thinks of metaphysics as aiming to offer a vision of reality as a whole (1938, p. 76, this volume, p. 54). She, however, presented no fully developed system, but wrote on diverse issues within metaphysics, including the nature of facts, historical events, causation, modality and, especially, the objects of literature and, more broadly, art. She also wrote of diverse kinds of knowledge, including, especially, those provided by philosophy, history and art. It is through the investigation of types of knowing and experience that she developed her metaphysical theses. Walsh’s study of fact gives us a glimpse of a metaphysics according to which reality comprises non-deterministic processes in which possibilities are selected for actualisation. Facts, as opposed to processes, are epistemic rather than entities to which beliefs correspond. Factual knowledge is ultimately the givenness of certain processes to the largely volitional self (1943a, pp. 649–651). Art, on her view, provides a type of knowledge that is distinct from that of philosophy or the sciences. A work of art is a sensuous, selfsufficient structure that aims to mirror a kind of possible order, one characterised by “plenitude and richness with structural self-sufficiency” (1943b, p. 449). Literature, more than science, gives us ultimate knowledge, knowledge that is true to certain structures of experience, comes from living through events rather than inference and is redemptive in the face of the transitoriness of experience (1969). Walsh’s monographs include The Objectivity of the Judgment of Aesthetic Value (1936) and Literature and Knowledge (1969). Some of her significant papers are “Philosophical Implications of the Historical Enterprise” (1937), “The Poetic Use of Language” (1938), “Fact” (1943a) and “The Cognitive Content of Art” (1943b).

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1.4.10 Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939) Margaret Floy Washburn studied psychology, first at Vassar College and Columbia University, then at Cornell, to become the first woman at the university to receive a Ph.D. in psychology (1894). Washburn was a charter member of the American Philosophical Association. She was also a member of the American Psychological Association and served as its president in 1921. She taught psychology (and philosophy) at Wells College (1894–1900); part-time at Cornell, while also serving as a “warden” of women (1900–1902); the University of Cincinnati (1902–1908), and, during most of her career, as a full professor at Vassar (1908–1937). She was a prolific writer and still is one of the most cited psychologists of the twentieth century. Washburn argued, contra some forms of behaviourism and in accord with the introspective approach of her teacher Edward B. Titchener, that essentially subjective mental states are an appropriate object of study for psychology, in addition to behaviour. This view is applied in her use of inductive reasoning, on the basis of shared anatomical structure and behaviour, to investigate the kinds of subjective mental states of dozens of kinds of animals, including microscopic organisms (1917). Her view that psychology should concern itself with the subjective and the physiological reflected a firm commitment to psycho-physical dualism (1919, Woodworth, 1948, p. 281). Her dualism went along with a dualistic treatment of consciousness, perception and learning. She argued that the subjective experience of consciousness is the result of the inhibition of one tendency to behaviour by another such tendency (1930). Perception involved two aspects, the having of subjective sensory impressions and motor preparation for action in relation to the object perceived. Learning, on her view, was a form of association between such states of motor readiness. In some cases, association between these states brought with it the association of ideas (1930, Woodworth, 1948, pp. 282–283). Washburn was, however, not primarily a theoretician. She was an experimentalist, performing experiments on skin sense, depth perception, after images, memory of emotional experience and more (Woodworth, 1948, pp. 279–280). Her books include The Animal Mind: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology (1908) and Movement and Mental Imagery: Outlines of a Motor Theory of the Complexer Mental Processes (1916).

References Auxier, R. A. (2005). Creighton, James Edwin. In J. R. Shook (Ed.), The dictionary of modern American philosophers (pp. 549–554). Thoemmes. Calkins, M. W. (1901). An introduction to psychology. Macmillan. Calkins, M. W. (1907). The persistent problems of philosophy: An introduction to metaphysics through the study of modern systems. Macmillan. Calkins, M. W. (1911). The idealist to the realist. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 8(17), 449–458. Calkins, M. W. (1918). The good man and the good. The Macmillan Company.

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Calkins, M. W. (1919). The personalistic conception of nature. The Philosophical Review, 28(2), 115–146. Calkins, M. W. (1921). The truly psychological behaviorism. The Psychological Review, 28(1), 1–18. Calkins, M. W. (1925). The persistent problems of philosophy: An introduction to metaphysics through the study of modern systems (5th ed.). Macmillan. Carroll, D. W. (2017). The legacy of Edward Chace Tolman. In Purpose and cognition: Edward Tolman and the transformation of American psychology (pp. 211–231). Cambridge University Press. Cohen, M. R. (1910). The conception of philosophy in recent discussion. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 7(15), 401–410. Connelly, J., & D’Oro, G. (2019). British idealism: Green, Bradley, McTaggart. In J. Shand (Ed.), A companion to nineteenth century philosophy (pp. 365–388). Wiley. Creighton, J. E. (1902). The purposes of a philosophical association. The Philosophical Review, 7(3), 219–237. Creighton, J. E. (1912). The determination of the real. The Philosophical Review, 21(3), 301–321. Creighton, J. E. (1917). Two types of idealism. The Philosophical Review, 26(5), 514–536. de Laguna, G. A. (1918a). Dualism in animal psychology. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 15(23), 617–627. de Laguna, G. A. (1918b). The empirical correlation of mental and bodily phenomena. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 15(20), 533–541. de Laguna, G. A. (1951). Speculative philosophy. The Philosophical Review, 60(1), 1–19. de Laguna, T., & de Laguna, G. (1910). Dogmatism and evolution: Studies in modern philosophy. The Macmillan Company. Dolson, G. N. (1897). The ethical system of Henry More. The Philosophical Review, 6(6), 593–607. Dolson, G. N. (1901). The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Macmillan. Dolson, G. N. (1910). The philosophy of Henri Bergson, II. The Philosophical Review, 20(1), 46–58. Gjesdal, K., & Nassar, D. (2021). Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century. The German Tradition. Oxford University Press. Grene, M. G. (1966). The knower and the known. Basic Books. Grene, M. G. (2002). Intellectual autobiography. In R. E. Auxier & L. E. Hahn (Eds.), The philosophy of Marjorie Grene (pp. 3–28). Open Court. Harris, M. S. (1923). The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte. The Case, Lockwood and Brainard Co. Harris, M. S. (1933). Bergson’s conception of freedom. The Philosophical Review, 42(5), 511–520. Harris, M. S. (1937). Sub Specie Aeternitatis. Edwards Brothers Inc. Harris, M. S. (1960). Francisco Romero on problems of philosophy. Philosophical Library. James, W. (1986). Letter to George Holmes Howison. In F. J. D. Scott (Ed.), William James, selected unpublished correspondence (p. 171). Ohio University Press. Katzav, J. (2018). Analytic philosophy, 1925–1969: Emergence, management and nature. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26(6), 1197–1221. Katzav, J. (2022). The de Lagunas’ dogmatism and evolution, overcoming modern philosophy and making post-Quinean analytic philosophy. In E. Schliesser (Ed.), Neglected classics of philosophy (pp. 192–214). Oxford University Press. Katzav, J. (2023). Grace de Laguna’s speculative and analytic philosophy. Australasian Philosophical Review. Katzav, J., & Vaesen, K. (2017). Pluralism and peer review in philosophy. Philosophers’ Imprint, 17(19), 1–20. Katzav, J., & Vaesen, K. (2022). The rise of logical empiricist philosophy of science and the fate of speculative philosophy of science. The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 12(2), 327–358. La Caze, M. (Forthcoming). Marjorie Glicksman Grene and existentialism’s important truths. In A. Calcagno & Christian Lotz (Eds.), Continental philosophy and the history of thought.

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Lavine, T. Z. (1944). Naturalism and the sociological analysis of knowledge. In Y. H. Krikorian (Ed.), Naturalism and the human spirit (pp. 183–209). Columbia University Press. Lavine, T. Z. (1953). Note to naturalists on the human spirit. The Journal of Philosophy, 50(5), 145–154. Lavine, T. Z. (1988). American pragmatism: Transference and Aufhebung. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 24(4), 469–486. McDaniel, C. (2017). The idealism of Mary Whiton Calkins. In T. Goldschmidt & K. L. Pearce (Eds.), Idealism: New essays in metaphysics. Oxford University Press. McDonald, D. N (2005). Calkins, Mary Whiton (1863–1930). In J. R. Shook (Ed.), The dictionary of modern American philosophers (pp. 413–416). Thoemmes. Moland, L., & Stone, A. (Forthcoming). Oxford handbook of American and British women philosophers in the nineteenth century. Oxford University Press. Morris, C. W. (1935). Some aspects of recent American scientific philosophy. Erkenntnis, 5, 142– 151. Nerlich, B. (2023). Grace Andrus de Laguna: A perspective from the history of linguistics. Australasian Philosophical Review. Pearce, T. (2020). Pragmatism’s evolution: Organism and environment in American philosophy. The University of Chicago Press. Rogers, D. (2009). The other philosophy club: America’s first academic women philosophers. Hypatia, 24(2), 164–185. Rogers, D. (2020). Women philosophers, volume I: Education and activism in nineteenth-century America. Bloomsbury Academic. Rogers, D. G. (2021). Women philosophers, volume II: Entering academia in nineteenth-century America. Bloomsbury Academic. Sabine, G. H. (1925). The philosophy of James Edwin Creighton. The Philosophical Review, 34(3), 230–261. Swabey, M. C. (1920). Some modern conceptions of natural law. Longmans, Green and Company. Swabey, M. C. (1930). Logic and nature. The University of New York Press. Swbey, M. C. (1937). The theory of the democratic state. Harvard University Press. Swabey, M. C. (1954). The judgment of history. Philosophical Library. Swabey, M. C. (1961). Comic laughter: A philosophical essay. Yale University Press. Talbot, E. B. (1906). The fundamental principle of Fichte’s philosophy. The Macmillan Company. Talbot, E. B. (1907). The philosophy of Fichte in its relation to pragmatism. The Philosophical Review, 16(5), 488–505. Talbot, E. B. (1909). Individuality and freedom. The Philosophical Review, 18(6), 600–614. Talbot, E. B. (1915). The time-process and the value of human life. II. The Philosophical Review, 24(1), 17–36. Talbot, E. B. (1917). Pragmatism and the correspondence theory of truth. In G. H. Sabine (Ed.), Philosophical essays in Honor of James Edwin Creighton (pp. 229–244). The Macmillan Company. Tolman, E. C. (1922). A new formula for behaviorism. The Psychological Review, 29(1), 44–53. Walsh, D. (1938). The poetic use of language. The Journal of Philosophy, 35(3), 73–81. Walsh, D. (1943a). Fact. The Journal of Philosophy, 40(24), 645–654. Walsh, D. (1943b). The cognitive content of art. The Philosophical Review, 52(5), 433–451. Walsh, D. (1969). Literature and knowledge. Wesleyan University Press. Washburn, M. F. (1917). The animal mind (2nd ed.). The Macmillan Company. Washburn, M. F. (1919). Dualism in animal psychology. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 16(2), 41–44. Washburn, M. F. (1930). A system of motor psychology. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Psychologies of 1930 (pp. 81–94). Clark University Press. Weinberg, J. (2021). Women in philosophy: Recent reports. Daily Nous. https://dailynous.com/ 2021/11/16/women-in-philosophy-recent-reports/ Woodworth, R. S. (1948). Biographical Memoir of Margaret Floy Washburn. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, XXV, 275–295.

Part I

The Nature of Philosophy

Abstract Part I of this book introduces and collects work on the nature of philosophy by Mary Whiton Calkins, Dorothy Walsh and Marjorie Glicksman.

Chapter 2

Introduction Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen

Abstract This chapter uses the distinction between speculative and analytic philosophy as a background against which to present the summaries of the articles on the nature of philosophy by Mary Whiton Calkins, Dorothy Walsh and Marjorie Glicksman. Calkins and Walsh (in her first contribution) examine the relationship between philosophy and metaphysics: Calkins identifies philosophy with speculative metaphysics while Walsh argues that any ethical theory requires some underlying speculative metaphysics. In Walsh’s second contribution, she further argues that philosophical language rightly is characteristically different from the languages of science, logic and poetry. Glicksman, finally, addresses the question how to deal with the multiplicity of views concerning the nature of philosophy.

2.1 Introduction Analytic philosophy, one of the main strands of twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy, provides a still popular answer to the question of the nature of philosophy. Analytic philosophy is characterised by the assumption that philosophy should be a critical rather than speculative enterprise. Whereas speculative philosophy ultimately aims to go beyond established opinion in order to make substantive claims about reality as a whole (humanity, the universe) and often aims to criticise science and common sense, critical philosophy aims to avoid, as far as feasible, going beyond established opinion. Instead, it aims to answer its questions by making explicit and/or reconstructing existing scientific or common-sense commitments on the assumption J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] K. Vaesen Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_2

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of the overall truth of some portion of these commitments (Katzav, 2018). Such critical analyses typically proceed in a piecemeal fashion, focusing on portions of reality or some of our knowledge of it. Speculative philosophers see the value of piecemeal and critical work but think of it as preliminary to the pursuit of systematic visions of all-that-there-is. George E. Moore’s work nicely illustrates the critical and piecemeal approach characteristic of analytic philosophy. In his Principia Ethica, he claims that the substantive disagreements found in the history of philosophy are principally due to one cause, namely the fact that philosophers have tried to answer their questions without first clarifying them. In many cases, he tells us, such clarification will lead to answering the questions (1903, p. vii). Clarifying questions can involve their disambiguation and discerning the order in which they need to be answered. More importantly, it involves analysing the questions’ concepts, that is, figuring out what they stand for. One does this by seeing what the indubitable propositions involving the concepts share or imply (ibid., pp. xii, 1–6). Thus, for example, the Principia Ethica is concerned specifically with the questions of ethics. One of the primary questions of ethics is, ‘What kinds of actions ought we to perform?’ Moore argues that this question cannot be answered without first answering the question, ‘What kinds of things are good in themselves?’ and that answering this last question involves analysing the concept of being good and thus what ‘good in itself’ refers to in the world. In order to provide such an analysis, in turn, one need only analyse what we already know to be indubitably true propositions about the good, e.g., to see what they share or imply about the good (1903, pp. xiii, 1–6). Moore’s answer about the concept of the good is that it is not reducible to other concepts, so that ‘being good’ corresponds to a simple–in the sense of ‘having no constituents’–property or quality. Moore’s main reason for this view is an objection to identifying being good either with any natural property or with any supernatural property. A natural property is one that, like pleasure or the fulfilment of desire, might be revealed to us by empirical observation. A supernatural property is one that, perhaps like being in accord with one’s true self, is not empirically observable. According to Moore, if we define ‘being good’ in a way that identifies being good with some natural or supernatural property, we are identifying being good with something about which it makes sense to ask, ‘Is that good?’ That this question remains open indicates that we have failed to explain our indubitable knowledge about what is good and thus adequately to define ‘being good’ (ibid., pp. 15–16, 112–114). Note that Moore here criticizes another important strand of twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy, namely, naturalism. Naturalism aims to use empirical methods in order to answer philosophical questions and, accordingly, to formulate its theses in terms of natural properties. When applied to ethical questions, naturalism aims to use empirical evidence to teach us about the nature of the good. If Moore is correct, however, and the good is simple, empirical evidence can teach us nothing about the good itself. To claim that it can is what Moore called ‘the naturalistic fallacy’ (ibid., p. 16). Moore is also arguing against metaphysical theories of the good, which for him means analyses that identify being good with supernatural properties.

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Thus, ethical truths are, according to Moore, autonomous. They are truths which are incapable of proof but are rather self-evident (i.e., they are intuitions). Also in this, Moore distances himself from some forms of naturalism, in particular from naturalist views which tell us that moral statements are non-cognitive (viz., have no truth conditions and truth values) in virtue of being, for example, merely expressions of affective responses in people. One of the most influential naturalists in the analytic tradition was Willard V Quine. He (1981) argues that ethical statements, in contrast with scientific ones, are not responsive to empirical evidence. Given this, ethical statements are not statements of fact; they lack cognitive content.1 In fact, Quine was generally critical of non-naturalist approaches to philosophy, including the program of Moore and the logical empiricists. His naturalism makes philosophy a branch of science, in the sense that it, like science, is and should be informed by observation. Quine reaches this conclusion partly by arguing, in his paper ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951), against a distinction that earlier analytic philosophy relied on to distinguish between philosophy and science, namely the distinction between analytic truths (truths that are true by virtue of meaning) and synthetic truths (truths that are true by virtue of some matter of fact). Analytic philosophers had tended to suppose that philosophy, like mathematics, is solely concerned with analytic truths, while the special sciences are concerned with synthetic truths. With this distinction being rejected, Quine believes, philosophy cannot but be an empirical form of investigation, like science. Although Quine was critical of non-naturalist approaches to analytic philosophy and arguably offered a systematic philosophy, his philosophy is a form of critical philosophy. Philosophy, according to Quine, should aim to minimise the extent to which it goes beyond what our best science tells us about the world. Metaphysics, according to Quine, proceeds by examining the logical implications of our best science regarding what exists. If, for example, our best science’s use of mathematics implies that numbers exist, we should include numbers in our metaphysics. Epistemology (the theory of knowledge and its development) is taken to be the empirical investigation of how what we know depends on evidence. This moves analytic philosophy closer to the earlier naturalism developed by speculative thinkers. However, Quine still thinks of epistemology as being relatively distant from empirical considerations and as proceeding by seeing what established, relevant science, mostly psychology, teaches us about human cognitive development rather than by going beyond such science, never mind by criticising it (Katzav, 2022; Kelly, 2014).

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This is not to say that all twentieth-century Anglo-American naturalists thought that ethical statements lack cognitive content. See, e.g., the moral functionalism of Jackson and Pettit (1995) and the Cornell realism of Richard Boyd (1988).

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2.2 The Nature of Philosophy According to Mary Whiton Calkins Mary W. Calkins’ position on the nature of philosophy, as expressed in her ‘The Nature, Types, and Value of Philosophy’ (taken from her book The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, 1907), is a speculative one. Although she, like Quine, thinks that philosophy starts with an examination of science, philosophy also aims to go beyond science and its implications in developing a vision of the real. Whereas science has as its object of study single facts or groups of facts and does not properly tackle the question of the ultimate or fundamental nature of these, philosophy properly investigates the ultimate nature of some fact or group of facts and, ideally, the ultimate nature of all-that-there-is (ibid., pp. 3–4; this volume, pp. 35–36). Thus, whereas the biologist is interested in characterizing, say, a living cell in terms of its internal and external biological processes, the philosopher aims to determine whether such processes are, at an ultimate level, biological or something else, e.g., psychical. Further, in going beyond the scientific focus on specific domains of fact to investigate all there is, the philosopher aims to uncover that ultimate reality into which all else can be resolved and which cannot be resolved into anything else. Calkins does not say much about what she means by ‘ultimate nature of reality’ here, describing an ultimate fact as one that is irreducible and not a manifestation of anything else (1907, p. 5; this volume, pp. 36–37). Elsewhere (see her paper in Part V: ‘Time’) she suggests that it can be thought of as referring to fully concrete or real phenomena, as opposed to abstract or idealised ones; we have already noted the concept of the ultimate or fundamental (the Introduction: ‘American Women Philosophers’), as well as noted that ultimate phenomena can also be thought of as being those upon which the existence/natures of everything else depends. Since science cannot properly investigate what is ultimate or properly investigate the all-that-there-is, according to Calkins, she is clear that philosophy cannot hope to answer its questions by unpacking what science teaches but must go beyond science in its inquiries. To use Calkins’ own metaphysics as an example, it tells us not only that what science treats as purely material objects have a psychological side that is hidden from science but that their material side is explicable in terms of that psychological side and, ultimately, in terms of the absolute person. Calkins is an absolute idealist (see the Introduction and Part IV: ‘Mind and Matter’). We can add that, given her systematic view of reality, philosophy cannot solely be approached in the piecemeal way in which analytic philosophy typically approaches it. To say that philosophy starts with an examination of science means, according to Calkins, that it uses as raw materials the individual facts discovered by any of the sciences. Calkins thinks the history of philosophy provides a similar starting point for philosophy. History of philosophy, she believes, is a study of facts; it attempts to discover what previous philosophers have meant with what they have said and, subsequently, to critically engage with their views (1907, p. 7; this volume, p. 38). Further, to say that philosophy is continuous with science implies that philosophy

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cannot be distinguished from science in terms of the analytic/synthetic distinction: philosophical knowledge is, just like scientific knowledge, synthetic. Calkins’ identification of philosophy with metaphysics is also evident in her overview (see Sect. 2.3 of her text) of existing philosophical systems. Her approach here is to classify such systems according to their metaphysical portrayal of all-ofreality. Numerically monistic, for instance, are those systems which, like her absolute idealism, tell us that the all-there-is is ultimately numerically one; numerically pluralistic, in contrast, regard reality as comprising multiple distinct fundamental entities. And so forth. Throughout the chapter, Calkins remains modest about what philosophy can achieve. She acknowledges that philosophical inquiry might be open ended and yield questions rather than substantive answers about the nature of all-there-is. Still, philosophy might be able to tell us, or make progress towards telling us, whether ultimate reality is one mind or many, mind, matter or something else. Moreover, these issues, according to Calkins, have a bearing on personal life: one’s philosophical system typically affects one’s conduct and moulds one’s personal relations. This suffices to make philosophy a privilege and a duty (ibid., pp. 12–13; this volume, p.41). Again, Calkins’ own philosophyCalkins’ own philosophy is illustrative here. It surely matters to how we act if we sincerely believe, with Calkins, that ultimately all beings, including those we ordinarily think of as mere matter, are selves.2 “The more adequate the philosophy,” Calkins concludes her paper, “the more consistent the life may become” (1907, p. 13; this volume, p. 41). In this way, philosophy aims “[t]o provide sound theoretical foundation for noble living, to shape and to supplement conduct by doctrine” (1907, p. 13; this volume, p. 41). Metaphysics, for the philosopher, is thus not just a goal in itself but a goal in service of the good life.

2.3 Dorothy Walsh on the Relationship Between Ethics and Metaphysics In her article ‘Ethics and Metaphysics’ (1936), Dorothy Walsh addresses the nature of ethics. More specifically, she develops the view that ethics is dependent on metaphysics. So, like Calkins, she insists on the primacy of metaphysics in philosophical inquiry and, as we will see, on the speculative view that metaphysics goes beyond scientific fact. Walsh’s argument proceeds primarily by criticizing alternative views, views she shows fundamentally require a metaphysics. Walsh starts out by targeting two ethical theories, Moore’s and empirical naturalism. Whereas Moore grounds ethics in purportedly simple, undefinable ideas, such as ‘goodness’, empirical naturalism seeks to ground ethics solely on reliable empirical observations of a wide diversity of humans. Consider empirical naturalism first. One option is to base empirical ethical theories on observations of human moral 2

It is thus not surprising to find that Calkins’ ethical system takes our moral duties to be to the community of all conscious beings (1918).

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behaviour. According to Walsh, however, this would require interpreting observed behaviour in light of a metaphysical idea (ibid., p. 463; this volume, pp. 44–45). If, for example, we observed behaviour that did not fit our ethical theory, that is, if humans were behaving in ways our theory deems unethical, we would have to interpret the behaviour as not reflecting the true or ultimate nature of humans. Another option is for the naturalist to attempt to base a moral theory on direct observation of human nature. But here too, a metaphysical idea would be needed to interpret what is observed. Only with such an idea would we be able to decide which of the many potentialities of humans are those that ought to be selected by our ethical theory as those that ought to be promoted (ibid., pp. 463–464; this volume, p. 45). Given such difficulties, some philosophers, including Moore, have tried to build an ethics based on notions that are ethical from the start. We have seen that, according to Moore, knowledge about moral truths is arrived at via intuition, i.e., the perception and recognition of self-evident simple ideas; he thinks he can build his ethics without reliance on empirical data. Walsh’s criticism of Moore’s ethics, now, is that it either resolves into a solipsistic position, and is thus not really a theory at all, or must be underpinned by a systematic metaphysics. Walsh notes that, if ‘goodness’ expresses a simple idea, for someone to tell us that their intuition of something is that it is good, is no more informative than for them to say “‘good’ applies to that” and thus leaves us without a shared understanding of ‘good’. Solipsism about what is good would be the case. To overcome this difficulty, Moore needs to offer a theory of the good which tells us which kinds of things, e.g., aesthetic enjoyment, pleasure or virtue, are good. And here, contrary to Moore’s intention, we would need empirical evidence to show that ‘good’ and the kinds of things an individual’s intuition says it is predicated of generally do co-occur. Moore’s position thus requires a metaphysics for the same reasons that naturalism does. Indeed, his position is worse off than naturalism. First, naturalism openly recognises the need to collect empirical evidence about what is good. Second, generalization is possible only regarding kinds of things. If we want to say that a class of things are good, we need to be able to identify diverse things as all sharing in goodness. And that, says Walsh, is not possible if all we are intuiting are unique, unrepeatable simples. The simples need to be recognised as being of a kind, in some way or another (1936, p. 466; this volume, p. 46). Equally, if Moore is correct, it is impossible to relate one moral concept with another. How could one, for instance, pass from ‘good’ to ‘ought’? The relationship between these simples is either one of genuine entailment or is a fundamental presupposition about moral experience. In the first case, ‘good’ and ‘ought’ are no longer primitives but interrelated concepts grounded in a conception of reality. We would thus have to go on to develop a metaphysics. In the second case, one is already acknowledging the need for some metaphysical explanation of moral experience, for example, a theory according to which humans, as children of God, are free but invited to do the good (ibid., pp. 466–467; this volume, pp. 46–47). One might, Walsh notes, agree with her that naturalism and Moore’s theory necessitate a recourse to metaphysics, but insist that there is yet another alternative that does not necessitate this. She is here thinking of ethical theories that treat notions

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such as ‘good’ and ‘ought’ not as undefinable simples (as Moore did) but as undefined ideas, i.e., ideas that cannot be defined in terms of one another, but that must be explained in terms of the context in which they occur. Walsh finds this unsatisfactory because an examination of the history of ethics shows that the two terms are conceptually tied to each other. So, ethics is, and should be, concerned with the interrelation of ‘good’ and ‘ought’. It is one of the ethicist’s principal tasks to provide an answer to questions, such as, “What is the good in doing what one ought to do?” and “Why ought one pursue the good?” (1936, p. 468; this volume, pp. 47–48). Some ethical theories—ones that Walsh objects to—resist connecting obligations to the good. They might, for example, identify moral agents with those agents who, given the context they find themselves in, correctly perceive their direct and unconditional obligations, and act accordingly. According to such a picture, obligations can be understood without reference to the good. Walsh, however, contends that such a picture implicitly assumes that being a moral agent, specifically doing one’s duty, is the supreme, intrinsic good. Any other assumption about the agent, violates what is most important about the self. Conversely, some ethical theories tell us that we pursue the greater or greatest good. Such theories assume that we must be able to rank the various goods we find in our world and that we, as agents who have this ability, ought to pursue the greater or greatest good (1936, pp. 469–470; this volume, pp. 48–49). Since an ethics must recognise the conceptual interdependence of the concepts of the good and of ethical obligation, it must also explain this interdependence. If the good were a simple property, for example, it could not be intimately related to moral obligation. And if moral obligation were simple, it could not be intimately related to all the other values. Such an explanation, however, requires an adequate portrayal of the nature of the moral agent. The good, including moral obligation, need to be recognised as an interrelated set of values of the self, so that ethics needs to concern itself with the self. More in particular, one needs to understand what moral agents actually are (less than they ought to be), and what they possibly are (in principle already everything that they ought to be). Questions about actuality and possibility are at the heart of metaphysics. For example, metaphysical inquiry might reveal that human nature is, in actuality, egoistic but, in possibility, altruistic. It is only with reference to such claims that one can characterize moral agency (most likely, it will be expressed in terms of altruism) and, subsequently, in light of such characterizations, determine the intrinsic goodness of moral agency. Further, all ethical theories recognise that humans must be moral. Morality is not optional in the way that, say, becoming a musician is. So, ethical theories need to explain what it is about our nature that grounds this necessity. And they can only make sense of it by reference to our total, fundamental nature (1936, p. 471; this volume, p. 49). Walsh does not explicitly address Moore’s worry about metaphysical definitions of ‘being good’, but her position answers this worry. Her proposal is not for metaphysics to reduce the concept of being good to some other concept, e.g., to that of acting in accord with one’s true nature, thus identifying being good with some other property. Rather, a metaphysical theory should explain the conceptual connections between the concept of being good and other concepts, such as of being obligatory and being a self.

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Metaphysics will thus recognise, and explain what underpins, necessary connections between being a self and other distinct properties. So, if we understand what the self really is in the way Walsh suggests, we will understand that it has a moral aspect and thus why some selves are, while others are not, good. Walsh does, at the end of her paper, explicitly address two other objections to the idea that ethics is dependent on metaphysics. The first is that metaphysics is as much dependent on intuition and common sense as ethics is and that, accordingly, there is no added value in approaching ethics via a metaphysical detour. Walsh agrees that intuition and common sense play a crucial role in metaphysics. Yet, ethical theories are not derived only from the data of the moral life, but from the general material of experience (which includes but is not exhausted by moral experience). In other words, “man, as a moral agent, cannot be understood except as a consequence of some [metaphysical] view of man in his total ontological setting” (1936, p. 472; this volume, p. 49, italics added). The second objection is that metaphysics is too uncertain an enterprise for ethical theory to wait for its answers. Walsh agrees that action goes on because it must and must go on based on the best ethical insights present. Thus, she does not require that ethical action wait on an adequately developed ethics or metaphysics. But, she insists, ethical theory cannot be adequate without an explicit metaphysical foundation (1936, p. 472; this volume, p. 50).

2.4 Dorothy Walsh on the Poetic Use of Language In another paper, entitled ‘The Poetic Use of Language’ (1938), Walsh is concerned with the approach to language that philosophy ought to take. She wonders about the type of language philosophy should rely on. In answering this question, she compares the natures of the technical language of the sciences and logic, poetic language, and philosophical discourse. Walsh starts by defending the perhaps counter-intuitive claim that the languages of the sciences and of logic are intentionally ambiguous, whereas the essence of poetry is linguistic precision. Because natural languages constantly undergo transformation, and science, for the purposes of generality, needs a stable frame of reference, scientific language is constructed as a closed, rationally organized system, in which technical terms are clearly defined by means of other well-defined technical terms. Walsh contends that such terminological precision is not the same as linguistic precision. The scientist’s technical terms are about ideal entities and their relationships. For example, many theories in classical physics (Newtonian gravitation, classical electromagnetism) rely on the notion of a point particle, which is defined as a physical object that lacks spatial extension. The term point particle would be linguistically precise if it were intended to refer to an abstract entity. But the scientist, in talking about ideal entities, is referring to specific natural ones. Talk about point particles refers to specific, extended parcels of matter. As a result, the scientist’s expressions are ambiguous (ibid., pp. 74–75; this volume, pp. 52–53). Scientific

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expressions provide “understanding of what is meant but what is said is not identical with what is meant” (1938, p. 75; this volume, p. 53). The expressions specify a type of event but not the specific events the scientist is referring to. Accordingly, Newtonian gravitation theories describe types of events, but leave unspecified the specifics of particular gravitation events. Such ambiguity is not a weakness, but a strength of scientific language. After all, the ambition of science is to offer generalizations about classes of events; its expressions must be applicable in different contexts in which specific events, belonging to a given class, take place. Moreover, modelling and making predictions about classes of events across different contexts requires, given the complexity of the world, idealisation. In a similar vein, the language of symbolic logic is ambiguous, at least if it has any meaning at all. Logic aims for clarity but does so at the price of only referring to the most general structural relationships and providing minimal information about these. On one interpretation, the structure logic refers to is that of reality. Logic may then rest on undefinable primitive ideas about reality that can only be understood in some inarticulable way. And if its primitive ideas can be defined, then this will involve offering logic a metaphysical interpretation (e.g., claims about the kinds of togetherness expressed by ‘and’ or about the ultimate nature of negation will have to be made). But whether the primitives are undefinable or are just actually undefined, logic itself means more than it says because of the limited information it provides about the reality it refers to (1938, pp. 75–76; this volume, p. 53). Logic, to be sure, may not be about reality. Perhaps logic just specifies the internal structure of a consistent language; it tells us about what such consistency amounts to. In such a case, logic is not an abstraction from actual languages but a normative scheme—to which, for purposes of consistency, actual languages ought to conform. In this case, the expressions of logic are in fact meaningless; they refer to nothing (1938, p. 76; this volume, pp. 53–54). Poetry, by contrast, represents the ideal of linguistic precision. Poetry, more than other forms of linguistic expression, means everything it says and says everything it means. Here the idea is that poetry, rather than referring to reality as such, refers to reality that is already linguistically experienced. The poet is thus not interested in capturing the world as it is but rather the world as it is found in language. Poetry, then, can only be successful when it does not lead us beyond what it says, so that what it says coincides with what it refers to. In this way, contrary to what is commonly thought, what poetry presents is a completed thing not something that is to elicit, on the part of the reader, associations and further thought about the world (1938, pp. 77–79; this volume, pp. 54–56). So where does that leave philosophical language? Walsh claims, much as we have seen Calkins argue, that philosophy is interested in the expression of total reality. Further, philosophical language should not be ambiguous because its aim is to correctly communicate meaning (i.e., concrete, total reality). Language, however, is abstract and thus is inadequate in its ability to fully capture total reality. The language of the philosopher, therefore, can only be suggestive of all-that-there-is. What the philosopher says is always less than what they mean; their object always transcends what they can say about it. For this reason, philosophical discourse benefits from

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the re-expression of meaning with the help of a variety of linguistic expressions. Given that poetic language aims to be complete, and philosophical language aims to suggest more than it can say, the philosopher ought to avoid relying on poetry in her attempts at capturing the all-of-reality (1938, pp. 76–77; this volume, p. 54). Walsh’s position substantively differs from the positions of Moore and Quine. To begin with, Moore’s piecemeal approach conflicts with the aim that Calkins and Walsh attribute to philosophy, that is, a systematic investigation of total reality. And Moore assumes that any philosophical concept has a single and determinate meaning, and that the philosopher can and should find the adequate expression of it. Walsh, by contrast, argues that philosophy benefits from various re-expressions of the complete meaning it wants to capture, each of them inadequate. Something similar applies to Quine. Recall that Quine believes philosophy (and thus philosophical language) to be continuous with science (and thus scientific language). According to Walsh, however, scientific language aims to sacrifice concreteness in favour of linguistic precision; it ambiguously refers to parts of reality. Philosophical language, in an incomplete and suggestive fashion, aims to characterise the concrete totality of being. So, philosophy deliberately sacrifices linguistic precision in order to capture reality.

2.5 Glicksman on Relativism and Philosophical Pluralism Given the differences we have noted between the approaches of Calkins, Walsh, Moore and Quine and between the numerous metaphysical systems that Calkins discusses at the end of her chapter, questions arise as to how to deal with philosophical disagreement. Should different metaphysical systems be treated as exclusive, only one being true, or should we endorse some form of relativism? Wouldn’t relativism undermine the aims and value of philosophy? Marjorie Glicksman addresses these questions in her paper ‘Relativism and Philosophic Methods’ (1937). Glicksman starts her paper by noting that, at least since William James, philosophers have come to realize that their preferred philosophical system might not be the one true system; they have come to acknowledge that philosophical analysis is tainted by their own personal preferences and temperament. What is worrying, according to Glicksman, is that philosophers, having acknowledged relativism of philosophic methods, that is, that there are different, valid ways of doing philosophy, often nevertheless tend to forget about it, treat their own system as absolute, and criticize other systems from within their own perspective. They regard the premises of other systems either as being also true within their own system or, if the premises are inconsistent with their own system, as false. But, Glicksman argues, if the philosopher were to take into account the fact that premises might be arrived at by different methods, she would or should realize that the conflict is not one of disagreement, that is, it is not a conflict between truth and falsehood. Rather, she should consider the ‘competing’ premises as simply irrelevant to her own system (ibid., p. 655; this volume, p. 64) and the competing system as (perhaps) equally valid as her own.

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Glicksman substantiates these points by evaluating, one against another, three traditional methods of philosophical reasoning, namely, the atomic, genetic and logical methods. The atomic method analyses complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler units that can be built up again into complex units. The genetic method analyses phenomena by looking at their development. It emphasizes growth and starts from, e.g., historical units. The logical method, finally, aims to uncover general principles or presuppositions which organize experience. Genetic propositions, which pertain to temporal stages of history, cannot be absorbed into an atomic system. Whereas, in genetic systems, the unit of analysis is change, the unit of analysis in atomic systems are constants. To explain, in genetic terms, how knowledge evolved out of something that is not knowledge and did so in a way that allows addressing problems we confront is to say very little from the atomist perspective. According to the atomist, knowledge is built up of isolated, invariable bits (e.g., beliefs based on sense data) whereas the genetic analysis of knowledge identifies no such units (1937, pp. 651–653; this volume, pp. 60–62). This difference does not imply the falsity or truth of any of the two contentions about knowledge; none of the two contentions can be meaningfully assessed from a perspective other than the one from which it arose. Both systems make, based on different fundamental assumptions about reality, (possibly) valid claims about the same world (1937, pp. 654–655; this volume. pp. 63–64). The propositions of genetic methods are also incongruous with the propositions arrived at via logical analysis. Although the structural principles of logical methods may sometimes pertain to change, their units are structures of change not change qua change. Regarding knowledge, for instance, logical methods abstract away from the historical processes leading to it, and define knowledge as a function of, say, concept and given. We know, on such views, when concepts apply to a corresponding given. From a genetic perspective, such definitions will refer to abstractions and thus falsifications (ibid., p. 653; this volume, p. 63). Given the two approaches’ assumptions about what the relevant units of analysis are, one approach cannot be brought into accord with the other if they are treated as absolute, but neither is more ultimate than the other and thus deserves such treatment (1937, pp. 654–655; this volume, pp. 63–64). Another incongruity—and Glicksman discusses a couple more—is between atomic and logical methods. Atomic propositions refer to actual homogeneous units. Logical propositions, in contrast, are expressed in terms of functions, which may but need not correspond to actual existent units. A logical approach might tell us that knowledge is a function of concept and given, without concept and given ever being actually instantiated in reality (1937, p. 653; this volume, pp. 62–63). To reiterate, according to Glicksman such incongruities do not show the truth or falsity of propositions that are arrived at in any of the three systems. Rather, each system describes the world in a different way, and has a different kind of objectivity; its propositions should be assessed according to its own standards of objectivity. Glicksman’s pluralism conflicts with many of the views we have encountered above. It conflicts with Calkins’ and Walsh’s contention that philosophy should only be concerned with the ultimate nature of part or all of reality. From Glicksman’s

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perspective, it seems, there is no single ultimate nature of reality. Further, according to Calkins, science typically breaks up and studies bits of reality (an atomistic approach); philosophy, by contrast, is and should be speculative, a logical enterprise that engages with the structural relationships between such individual facts. Glicksman recognises, for example, that the historical genetic approach is a viable philosophical approach even though it is not concerned with what is ultimate. Walsh draws another lesson from the claim that philosophy is and should deal with all-thatthere-is. Given language’s incompleteness, all-that-there-is cannot but be approached with a language that is suggestive. From Glicksman’s perspective, such a conclusion is optional. Glicksman’s account also conflicts with those of Moore and Quine. Moore favours an atomistic program to the exclusion of other approaches, and Quine excludes any approach that is not continuous with the sciences.

References Boyd, R. (1988). How to be a moral realist. In G. Sayre-McCord (Ed.), Essays on moral realism (pp. 181–228). Cornell University Press. Calkins, M. W. (1907). The persistent problems of philosophy: An introduction to metaphysics through the study of modern system (2nd revised ed.). MacMillan & Co. Calkins, M. W. (1918). The good man and the good: An introduction to ethics. The Macmillan Company. Glicksman, M. (1937). Relativism and philosophic methods. The Philosophical Review, 46(6), 649–656. Jackson, F., & Pettit, P. (1995). Moral functionalism and moral motivation. The Philosophical Quarterly, 45(178), 20–40. Katzav, J. (2018). Analytic philosophy, 1925–69: Emergence, management and nature. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26(6), 1197–1221. Katzav, J. (2022). The de Lagunas’ dogmatism and evolution, overcoming modern philosophy and making post-Quinean analytic philosophy. In E. Schliesser (Ed.), Neglected classics of philosophy II. Oxford University Press. Kelly, T. (2014). Quine and epistemology. In G. Harman & E. Lepore (Eds.), A companion to W.V.O. Quine (pp.17–34). Wiley-Blackwell. Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia ethica. At University Press. Quine, W. V. (1951). Two Dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60(1), 20–43. Quine, W. V. (1981). Theories and things. Harvard University Press. Walsh, D. (1936). Ethics and metaphysics. International Journal of Ethics, 46(4), 461–472. Walsh, D. (1938). The poetic use of language. The Journal of Philosophy, 35(3), 73–81.

Chapter 3

The Nature, Types, and Value of Philosophy Mary Whiton Calkins Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract This chapter is Mary Whiton Calkins’ discussion of, and support for, the identification of philosophy with speculative metaphysics.

3.1 The Nature of Philosophy When Socrates, in the immortal conversation at the house of Cephalus, defined the philosopher as lover of the vision of the truth, he was describing, not the metaphysician, but the seer. For philosophy, in the more technical sense, differs from the mere love of wisdom; it is reasoned knowledge, not pure insight, and the philosophic lover of the vision must work out the blessed way to realized truth. With philosophy in this more restricted meaning of the term, a meaning which Plato and Aristotle fixed by adopting it, this chapter and this book will principally deal. Philosophy, once conceived as reasoning discipline, is not, however, completely defined. Thus regarded, philosophy is indeed distinguished, as reflective, from everyday experience which accepts or rejects but does not reflect on its object; and is distinguished, as theoretical, from art which creates but does not reason. In both these contrasts, however, philosophy resembles natural science, for that also reflects and reasons. The really important problem of the definition of philosophy is consequently this: to distinguish philosophy from natural science. Evidently, philosophy differs from science negatively in so far as, unlike science, it does not seek and classify facts, but rather takes its materials ready-made from the sciences, simply reasoning about them and from them. But if this constituted the only contrast, then philosophy would Mary Whiton Calkins: First published in 1907 as the first chapter of M. W.Calkins’ The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, Macmillan Publishers. This version is taken from the 1912 edition. M. W. Calkins (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_3

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be a part, merely, of science, not a distinct discipline. For science does not stop at observation, though it begins with it; in truth, science as well as philosophy reasons and explains. Philosophy, therefore, if conceived simply as the process of reasoning about scientific phenomena, would be merely the explanatory side of science. There are, however, in the view of most students, two important contrasts which hold between science and philosophy: philosophy must take as its object the utterly irreducible nature of some reality; and philosophy may take as its object the ultimate nature not only of a single fact or group of facts, but of all-that-there-is, “the ultimate reality into which all else can be resolved and which cannot itself be resolved into anything beyond, that in terms of which all else can be expressed and which cannot itself be expressed in terms of anything outside itself.”1 In both respects a natural science differs from philosophy. To begin with the character last named: philosophy, as has been said, may concern itself with the all-of-reality—and an adequate philosophy will certainly seek to discover the nature of the all-of-reality; a science, on the other hand, studies facts of one order only, that is, it analyzes merely a limited group of phenomena. Again, philosophy, whatever its scope, always concerns itself with the irreducible nature of some reality; whereas a science does not properly raise the question whether these, its phenomena, are in the end reducible to those of another order. These distinctions may be readily illustrated. The physiologist, for example, does not inquire whether or not the limited object of his study, the living cell, is in its fundamental nature a physical or a psychical phenomenon—whether, in other words, protoplasm reduces, on the one hand, to physical energy, or, on the other hand, to consciousness. On the contrary the physiologist, properly unconcerned about the completeness or about the utter irreducibleness of his object, confines himself to analysis within arbitrary limits of his living cells, leaving to the philosopher the questions: What is the real nature of these psychical and these physical processes? Is reality ultimately split up into psychical and physical? Is the division a final one, or is the psychical reducible to the physical? Is thought a function of brain activity? Or, finally, is the physical itself reducible to the psychical; that is, is matter a manifestation of conscious spirit? More than this, the physicist links fact with fact, the rising temperature with the increased friction, the spark with the electric contact. The philosopher, on the other hand, if he take the largest view of his calling, seeks the connection of each fact or group of facts—each limited portion of reality—with the adequate and complete reality. His question is not, how does one fact explain another fact? But, how does each fact fit into the scheme as a whole? Both characters of the object of philosophy are indicated by the epithet “ultimate,” of which frequent use is made in this book. Because the object of philosophy is entirely irreducible and because the object of philosophy may be the all-of-reality— for both these reasons, it is often called ultimate and is contrasted with the proximate 1

R.B. Haldane “The Pathway to Reality,” I., p. 19. Cf. also Hegel, “Encyclopedia,” I., “Logic,” Chapters 1, 2, 6, for discussion of the nature of philosophy; and cf. infra, Chapter II, pp. 369 seq. for consideration of Hegel’s view that no irreducible reality can be limited, and that consequently the object of philosophy is, of necessity, the all-of-reality.

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realities of natural science. It is ultimate because it is utterly irreducible and is not a mere manifestation of a deeper reality; it is ultimate, also, in so far as there is nothing beyond it, in so far, that is, as it includes all that exists. It follows, from the utter irreducibleness and from the absolute completeness which an adequate philosophy sets before itself, that philosophy is rather a search, a pursuit, an endeavor, than an achievement. This character is widely recognized. Stumpf for example, conceives philosophy as the question-science; James defines metaphysics as the unusually obstinate effort to ask questions; and Paulsen says that philosophy is no “closed theory” but a “problem.” All these characters assigned to philosophy may finally be gathered up into one definition: Philosophy is the attempt to discover by reasoning the utterly irreducible nature of anything; and philosophy, in its most adequate form, seeks the ultimate nature of all-that-there-is.

3.2 The Approach to Philosophy The preceding discussion, brief as it is, of the nature of philosophy, has disclosed certain perils which menace the student of philosophy. Because the systematic observation of phenomena is the peculiar province not of philosophy but of science, the student of philosophy is tempted to deal in vague abstractions, in lifeless generalities, often, alas, in mere bloodless words and phrases. And because he admits that his own study is, at the beginning, a setting of problems, a questioning, not a dogmatic formulation, he is tempted not to press for a solution of his problems, to cherish his questions for their own sake. The only way of avoiding both these pitfalls is to approach the philosophical problems by the avenue of scientific investigation, and from time immemorial, the great philosophers have emphasized this truth. Hegel heaped scorn upon the common view that philosophy consists in the lack of scientific information, and had no condemnation too severe for the “arm-chair philosophy” which makes of metaphysic a “rhetoric of trivial truths”; and, in the same spirit, Paulsen recently writes, “A true philosopher attacks things (ein rechtschaffener Philosoph macht sich an die Dinge selbst).” The philosopher, Paulsen continues, “must at some point, touch bottom with his feet…. He may freely choose his subject from the psychological or from the physical sciences; for as all roads lead to Rome, so among the sciences, all paths lead to philosophy, but there are no paths through the air.” Paulsen’s assertion that philosophy may be reached by way of any one of the sciences is confirmed by the experience of the great philosophers. Descartes and Leibniz and Kant were mathematicians and physical scientists as well as philosophers; and Locke, Berkeley, and Hume were psychologists. But though metaphysics may be approached from any point on the circumference of the sciences, it is not to be denied that certain inconsistencies and even fallacies have often characterized the systems of mathematicians and natural scientists who turn to philosophy.2 2

Cf. Appendix, pp. 518 seq., and Chapter II, pp. 398 seq.

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It is equally certain that these defects have been due to a confusion of scientific with philosophical ideals, of scientific with metaphysical standards. Indirectly, these confusions suggest the value of still another entrance to philosophy, the approach by way of what is ordinarily called the history of philosophy. Such a study has two definite advantages, and one of these is distinctive. In common with the natural sciences, this study of philosophical texts shares the advantage of being a study of facts. Its facts, to be sure, are second-hand transcripts of reality, not direct experiences (and herein lies the disadvantage of the method); but nobody who hammers out the meaning of Spinoza, of Kant, or of Aristotle, who compares passages to get at their common significance or divergence, who estimates the different statements of a philosopher with reference to the date of their formulation—no student of texts, in a word, can be accused of floating about vaguely in a sea of abstractions. The more characteristic advantage of this approach to philosophy is the fact that it forces the student to take different points of view. Spinoza’s monism challenges the dualism of Descartes, and Leibniz’s emphasis on individuality throws into relief the problem neglected by Spinoza. The student of pre-Kantian philosophy may turn out dualist or monist or pluralist, but he cannot accept any one hypothesis in a wholly uncritical and dogmatic way, as if no other alternative could be seriously considered. Even the scrupulous and rigorous study of any one great philosophical system must reveal the means for the correction of its own inconsistencies. Hume, for example, implies the existence of the self which he denies, for he employs the I to make the denial; and Kant’s admissions concerning the moral consciousness, if applied as they logically should be to all experience, would solve his paradox of self-consciousness. All this suggests the requirements of an adequate study of philosophical texts. It is, first and foremost, the duty of the student to find out what the philosopher whom he studies says and means. This is not always an easy task. If, for example, one is studying Kant or Hegel, one has virtually to learn a new language. It makes no difference how much German one knows, Kant and Hegel do not always speak in German, and Kant does not even always use the same language for two consecutive sections. This bare text criticism, indispensable as it is, is however a mere preliminary to the real expository process, the re-thinking of a philosopher’s argument, the sympathetic apprehension of his thought. This means, of course, that one reads and re-reads his text, that one outlines his argument and supplies the links that are evidently implied but verbally lacking, and that one combines the arguments of his different philosophical works. Only when this task of interpretation is completed can one fairly enter upon the criticism of a metaphysical system. But the criticism, though chronologically later, is a necessary feature of the study. We do not read philosophy in order to become disciples or to adopt, wholesale, anybody’s views. We must, therefore, challenge a philosopher’s conclusions and probe his arguments. The only danger in the process is that it will be premature; in other words, that we oppose what we do not fully understand. Both interpretation and criticism, to be of value, must be primarily first-hand. The curse of the study of literature and of philosophy alike is the pernicious habit of reading books about books, without reading the books themselves.

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Interpretation and criticism, finally, have for their main purpose the development of one’s own capacity to think constructively, or at any rate, independently. One’s first object in reading philosophy is, to be sure, the discovery of what philosophers mean, but this is not one’s main purpose. For of the great teacher of philosophy that must be true which Herder said of Kant in the early years of his teaching, “He obliged me to think for myself; for tyranny was foreign to his soul.” Independent thought about the problems of ultimate reality is, thus, the goal of philosophical study.

3.3 The Types of Philosophy Philosophical systems are best grouped from the standpoint of the object of a complete philosophy. Regarding this object, the irreducible all-of-reality, two questions suggest themselves: First, what exactly is the nature of the universe when it is reduced to the fundamentally real; to what sort or sorts of reality does it, in other words, reduce? And second, is this ultimate reality one being or many beings; is it simple or complex? To the second of these questions one of two answers may obviously be given: the all-of-reality is one, or else it is more-than-one, that is, many. Systems of philosophy which give the first answer may be called numerically monistic; theories which regard the all-of-reality as ultimately a manifold are numerically pluralistic. But neither answer gives us information of the nature of the all-of-reality; that is, neither answers the first of the questions of philosophy. Whether the universe consist of one being, or of many, still the student of philosophy demands the nature of this one real, or of these many reals. At first, this problem, also, is a question of one or many. The universe, even if it consist of many beings, may be all of a kind; and on the other hand, if it be one, that one may conceivably have a plural nature. The first is a qualitatively monistic, the second a qualitatively pluralistic conception. (It thus appears that monism is a doctrine which teaches that ultimate reality has a unity in some sense fundamental to its plurality, and that pluralism is a doctrine which denies this fundamental unity.) One problem remains: that of describing or naming the ultimate kind, or kinds, of reality. And to facilitate this description we must distinguish two kinds of reality: the universe may be of the same nature as my consciousness of it; or it may be radically and absolutely unlike my consciousness. Philosophic systems are idealistic or non-idealistic as they give the first or the second answer to this question; and idealistic systems are again distinguished according as they regard consciousness as mere succession of ideas (and in this case they are phenomenalistic or ideistic); or as they mean by consciousness a self or selves being conscious (and these systems are called spiritualistic or personalistic). The various chapters of this book will explain these terms more fully and will seek to show that all modem systems of philosophy are naturally grouped in harmony with these distinctions. In the following scheme this grouping is indicated:—

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3.4 The Value of Philosophy The effort has been made to show that there is room for a philosophy fundamental to science, and that it need not be a vague or abstract study. An outline of the main types of philosophic thought has been offered and all seems propitious for our metaphysical venture. And yet we are perhaps reluctant to embark. Certain questions about the value of metaphysics press upon us: Is the study of philosophy of supreme importance? Is it worth while to attempt to know the nature of the irreducible, and of the all-of-reality, while one is still so ignorant of many of the facts of science? May one not, with greater advantage, devote oneself to the scientific study of certain well-defined groups of phenomena, instead of losing oneself in a nebulous search for ultimate truth—a quest which promises nothing, which sets out from a problem, without assurance of being able to solve it? For some of us, it must be admitted, the time for asking these questions is long gone by. The passion for the highest certainty, the most inclusive and irreducible reality, has taken possession of our souls; and we could not check ourselves, if we would, in even a hopeless pursuit of ultimate reality. The prophecy of disappointment avails nothing against such a mood. But even the fact that we must be philosophers, whether we will or not, need not deter us from the effort to estimate correctly, to judge dispassionately, the value of philosophical study. It is, above all things, necessary to advance no false claim, and to recognize resolutely that the study of metaphysics holds out no promise of definite results. “Philosophy,” said Novalis, “can bake no

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bread, but she can give us God, freedom, and immortality.” But though one agree with Novalis’s disclaimer of any narrowly utilitarian end for philosophy, one must oppose with equal vigor his assertion that philosophy gives us God, freedom, or immortality. Philosophy, in the first place, gives us nothing; we wrest from her all that we gain; and it is, furthermore, impossible at the outset to prophesy with certainty what will be the result of our philosophic questioning, our rigorously honest search for the irreducible and complete reality. We may not, therefore, enter on the study of philosophy for any assurance of definite results. Let us face the worst. Let us suppose that our metaphysical quest is an endless one, that we never reach a satisfying conclusion of thought, that no results withstand the blasting force of our own criticism; even so, the true lover of philosophy will claim that there is at least a satisfaction in the bare pursuit of the ultimate reality, a keen exhilaration in the chase, an exceeding joy in even a fleeting vision of the truth. In less figurative terms: if philosophy is no more than a questioning, at least it formulates our questions, makes them consistent with each other; in a word, makes us capable of asking intelligent questions. It is good to know; but even to know why we do not know may be a gain. But I cannot honestly leave the subject here. My experience and my observation alike persuade me that the patient and courageous student gains more from philosophical study than the mere formulation of his problem. It is indeed true that the finite thinker is incapacitated from the perfect apprehension of absolutely complete reality. But though he may not, in the nature of the case, gain the complete solution of his problem, he can scarcely help answering some questions and discovering that others cannot rationally be asked. More than this, he may well learn the terms in which the solution of his problem is possible, may be assured whether ultimate reality is one or many, spirit or matter. To one who grants this as a probable, or even a possible, outcome of metaphysical investigation, philosophy becomes not merely a privilege but a duty, since the philosophical conclusion has, inevitably, a bearing on the personal life. Artificially, and by an effort, it is true, one may divorce one’s life from one’s announced philosophy—may hold, for example, to egoistic hedonism as the justified philosophical system while one lives a life of self-sacrifice, or may combine the most arrant self-indulgence with a rigorous ethical doctrine. Ideally, however, as we all admit, and actually always to a certain degree, our philosophy “makes a difference”3 ; it affects conduct; it moulds the life of personal relations. Philosophy is in other words, a phase of life, not an observation of life from the outside; and the more adequate the philosophy, the more consistent the life may become. To provide sound theoretical foundation for noble living, to shape and to supplement conduct by doctrine, becomes, thus, the complete aim of the philosopher, whose instinct and whose duty alike impel him to the search for ultimate truth.

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F. C. S. Schiller, “Humanism,” p. 197.

Chapter 4

Ethics and Metaphysics Dorothy Walsh Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Dorothy Walsh argues that any ethical theory requires an underlying speculative metaphysics.

What is the relation of dependence of ethics upon metaphysics? This question cannot be asked of those who deny the reality of such a subject matter as metaphysics. If, however, metaphysics be accepted as that synthesis of doctrine which expresses what is ontologically prior in any philosophical system, then it will be readily admitted that not only ethics but every field of investigation has its metaphysical presuppositions. The question initially raised, however, intends to ask more than this. It intends to inquire concerning the degree of dependence of ethics upon metaphysics. Is the position of ethics similar, for example, to that of mathematics or physics or logic, fields of inquiry which, although involving metaphysical assumptions, are nevertheless relatively autonomous and internally intelligible; or is the relation of dependence in the case of ethics so complete that none of the fundamental ethical problems can be solved without prior solution of metaphysical issues and that ethics, as a subject matter, is not even intelligible except as delineated against the background of a metaphysic? A survey of the historical material seems to support this latter view. Ethical systems have usually been formulated in relation to acknowledged metaphysical postulates. Such systems are the practical application of some view of the nature of reality to the field of human conduct. It is for this reason that the historical material of ethics is fairly readily organized into types or schools and that this classification receives general accord. But it is also for this reason that the advocates of the different schools are Dorothy Walsh: First published in 1936 in The International Journal of Ethics, 46(4), 461–472. D. Walsh (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_4

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divided from one another so radically by the nature of their pre-ethical postulates that it seems impossible, within the field of ethics, to arbitrate their differences. Consider, for example, the difficulty of formulating precisely and arbitrating effectively the diversity of opinion between David Hume and Nicolai Hartmann. It is, however, generally admitted that arbitration of ethical diversity must somehow be effected. Radical differences of opinion on ethical questions cannot be simply asserted. For a solution of this difficulty two alternatives present themselves. First, it may be assumed that ethics is peculiarly dependent upon metaphysics to the extent that its problems are not intelligible except in relation to metaphysical issues. If this is the case, the fact should be candidly acknowledged and the task of arbitrating ethical diversity, in terms of metaphysical doctrine, begun. Second, it may be maintained that any apparent dependence of ethics upon metaphysics should be interpreted as symptomatic of the fact that the real task of ethical analysis has scarcely been attempted. According to this view ethics, when fully developed, could be a relatively independent field of inquiry, internally intelligible and capable of furnishing a ground within itself for the solution of its problems. If this is the case, the task of formulating the basic concepts of such an independent ethic cannot be too soon undertaken. In other words, there seems to be a definite need for the delineation either of a metaphysics of ethics or of an autonomous ethics. Since the dependence of ethics upon metaphysics can be shown to be a real necessity and not merely a historical accident only if there are serious theoretical difficulties in the way of an independent ethics, this latter possibility should be discussed first. If, putting aside metaphysical systems, we ask where we should seek material for the construction of an ethical theory, two possible sources present themselves. These might be exploited independently or in conjunction. There is, first, what may be called the general moral experience of mankind. This might provide the basis for a naturalistic empirical theory. There are, second, the basic ethical concepts of the good and the ought. These, accepted as undefined or as indefinable, might provide the primitive ideas for an autonomous field of ethical inquiry. The initial difficulty of employing the moral experience of mankind for the purposes of ethical theory is, of course, that of knowing where to look for its expression. This is followed by the problem of interpreting that expression without recourse to metaphysical notions. One might examine social custom and moral practice, particularly as it is embodied in institutions, or one might look directly to the empirical nature of man as such for the determination of norms. Reliable information regarding moral behavior can be obtained. Ethics, however, is not the report of moral behavior, but the theory of morality, which theory, as philosophy, must have universality. The material of anthropological or sociological study, in order to serve as the basis of an ethics, must yield one of two results. Either it must show a substantial unanimity of moral idea and practice of all races and cultures, or it must show an unmistakable development dominated throughout by the same teleological principle. To exhibit either of these results, however, the empirical data of the social sciences must be “edited” by some philosopher who seeks, in historical process, exemplification of a preconceived idea. This preconceived idea is a metaphysical idea. If, on the other hand, one attempts the more direct procedure of seeking the data of ethical theory

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in the nature of man as such, the situation is also difficult. The man to be examined cannot be an active intellect or a windowless monad or a transcendental self or even a child of God, for these interpretations are all the outcome of metaphysical theories. He must be the empirical man of daily experience or of psychological science. Of course a great deal can be discovered about this man—for example, that he is social and that he has certain desires and needs. But can one deduce an ethical theory from this? Ethical literature is full of attempts to list the goods of life in scales of ascending value and, upon such a basis, to work out social rules which will permit greatest satisfaction for all. But what is involved in the construction of such a scale? Such a scale is never the simple report of majority evaluation. It is supposed to reflect the accumulated wisdom of mankind or of those who know best. In other words, a scale of values which can be of use to an ethical theory must be legislative. It seems clear that a legislative scale of values must be based on some theory which includes a reference to what man can be as well as to what he empirically is. In reply to this it may be urged that the knowledge of what man can be may be derived exclusively from a knowledge of what he is by considering the possibility of the full development of his potentialities. This does not meet the difficulty, since, on purely empirical grounds, we have no basis for the selection of certain potentialities as superior. The selection, for example, of man’s social nature as his most significant trait might provide the concept of an integrated social order as a criterion of moral value. Such emphasis, however, is arbitrary and leaves unsolved all the ethical problems of social philosophy concerning the rights of individuals as such. All this has, of course, been frequently mentioned and needs no further emphasis. It is chiefly a consideration of the difficulties of naturalism which has led many philosophers to believe that ethical theory cannot be constructed out of simple amoral factual material but must begin with notions which are essentially of moral import. It has frequently been assumed, however, that ideas such as “good” and “ought” may be treated in isolation from any metaphysical system and accepted as primitive notions for the construction of an autonomous ethics. This is not the case. Quite apart from the question of whether good and ought are actually simple indefinable notions, the attempt to treat them as such for the purposes of ethical inquiry must be unsuccessful. No intelligible and consistent ethical theory can be constructed on such a basis. The acceptance of good or ought, or both, as primitive ideas provides no ground for systematic development. Such ideas, since they are assumed to have no internal complexity, are atomic units subject only to such relationships as may be imposed externally. The occurrence of good as an atomic term in such a system does not mean that the notion of good is clarified since the uniform substitution of any other term for good leaves the system of relationships unaltered. In the Principia ethica, G. E. Moore insists that there are three questions on this subject which must be differentiated. What is the nature of the term “good”? What things are good? How is the good to be achieved in conduct? Moore places great emphasis upon the importance of determining the nature of good apart from the ascription of good to things. Nevertheless he is not successful in this. Ultimately, he cannot give meaning to good except in terms of those things which are good. Moore’s initial attempt is to present the notion of good as an absolutely indefinable simple.

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But a judgment which predicates good of something in this sense cannot be taken as increasing in any way our knowledge of that thing. Such a judgment is either an act of pure denotation, “lo good,” or an act of ascription, “this is that.” The latter may claim to express an observed difference. But what does such a judgment mean? At the very utmost such a judgment expresses the fact of simple and inexplicable conjunction of diverse entities in the experience of a particular individual. Since the notion of good, taken as indefinable, has no internal meaning, the possibility of elaborating an ethical theory depends upon the importation of content by the formulation of a doctrine concerning what sort of things are good. This involves the integration of the idea of good in relation to some general theory of the concrete nature of reality. The manner in which Moore and his disciples achieve this is by reliance upon unacknowledged empirical data. It is the method of empirical naturalism which is surreptitiously employed to obtain meaning for the good. This explains the curious fact that agreement regarding the indefinable and simple nature of good does not ensure agreement as to the sort of things which have this character. Moore mentions aesthetic enjoyment and personal affection. Ross finds that the only intrinsic goods are virtue, pleasure, and insight. Since the relation between goodness and aesthetic experience, for example, is external, the ground for the relationship cannot be determined by a consideration of the meaning of either term. Belief in the association must, therefore, rest on the empirical evidence of customary conjunction. Since, however, the empirical basis for such generalization is not acknowledged, this theory is inferior to a candid naturalism in two important respects. First, no necessity is felt to furnish evidence for the occurrence of events. If, however, the only ground for belief that a thing is good is that it has been experienced as such, some evidence for the occurrence of that constant conjunction of character and thing must be provided. Failing this we have no general theory and are committed to solipsism. Second, no regard is shown for the conditions under which empirical generalization is meaningful. There can be no generalization regarding a character which is particular. Even granting the complete validity of Moore’s insight on each occurrence of his contact with good, we are able to conclude nothing because we do not have here a kind of good, which might be identified on a later occasion, but a unique non-repeatable simple. Without either rational ground or empirical evidence it is impossible to provide for any general connection between character and thing or between two exemplifications or instances of a character. Equally it is impossible to provide for relationship between concepts. It is difficult to see how “good,” as a simple idea, can be related in any meaningful way to the notion of “ought.” The impossibility of passing from the simple idea of good to other ideas, notably the idea of obligation in connection with this good, has been recognized by realists who are in sympathy with Moore’s point of view. But this difficulty cannot be met by accepting ought as a second primitive idea and attempting to construct an ethical theory on these two. It has been suggested by Laird that the basic moral intuition is the perception of a synthetic relation between maximum possible good and obligation to achieve it. How is this synthetic relation to be interpreted? Does it mean that perception of such a good does always, as a matter of fact, arouse the idea of obligation? If so, the claim that certain natural events occur must be substantiated by evidence.

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Even if substantiated, such a conjunction of ideas must be interpreted as symptomatic of some deeper reality before it can be of value to an ethical theory. Perhaps what is intended is that the idea of such a good ought to arouse the sense of obligation. But on what is this obligation to the notion of obligation grounded? The only possible answer seems to be either that there is a relation of genuine entailment between good and ought or that the synthetic relationship of these terms must be acknowledged as a necessary presupposition of moral experience. In the first event, good and ought cannot be treated as simple notions but must have internal content and meaning. In the second event, the metaphysical basis for ethics is already acknowledged. Either of these views necessitates the explanation of ethical concepts in relation to the general theory of reality. The argument may be summarized as follows. The development of an ethical theory which is to furnish ethical knowledge necessitates that one be able to predicate good or any other ethical notion, such as ought, of reality in a meaningful fashion. There are only two methods by which to effect the integration of ethical concepts in relation to the concrete nature of the real. One is the method of empirical naturalism, the other is the method of metaphysics. The good is either that which has, as a matter of fact, been valued as such, or that which, because of its intrinsic nature, is related in meaning to good whether this relationship has always been recognized or not. The difficulties of naturalism have been indicated above. Metaphysical synthesis remains as the only alternative. It is necessary to discuss one further point in this connection. It might be held that a rejection both of naturalism and of the atomic treatment of ethical notions, such as good and ought, as indefinable simples need not necessitate recourse to metaphysics. Perhaps it might still prove possible to develop a significant ethical theory independently of the prior determination of metaphysical problems. Such a theory would accept as basic the ethical notions of good and ought, regarding them not as indefinable simples but as undefined ideas. Such ideas would supposedly require no definition for two reasons. First, because their nature would be in some sense already known to everyone. Second, because the ethical discourse developed on their basis would be, indirectly, explanatory of them. Nothing is more characteristic of philosophy than this method of dealing with ideas. Such an idea as that of “being,” for example, must ultimately be explained and understood in terms of its context. It is, however, extremely doubtful if the ethical notions of good and ought are sufficiently ultimate to permit of clarification by such a procedure. The evidence for this is to be found in a consideration of the history of ethical speculation itself. The literature of ethics reveals a sharp contradiction and opposition between those theories which have accepted the idea of good as basic and those which maintain that what is fundamental is the notion of obligation, or the ought. In all controversy on this matter, the final impasse is reached when it is asked, on the one hand, “What is the good of doing what is right?” and, on the other, “Why ought one to pursue the good?” Anyone genuinely desirous of ethical knowledge must insist on an answer to both questions. An examination of the ethical theories involved reveals the mutually implicative character of the good and the ought. Every ethical theory based upon one of these concepts contains also an unacknowledged dependence upon the other. The

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interrelation of good and ought should be the very heart of ethical theory, but it is not discussed in most ethical speculation for the reason that its intelligible discussion takes one out of the field of ethics to the consideration of the metaphysical problem of the ontological status of the moral agent. It is not the purpose of this paper to develop a metaphysics of ethics but rather to suggest its necessity. I shall, therefore, attempt merely to indicate briefly, through a discussion of ethical theory, the point at which such theory, if it is to contribute to ethical knowledge, requires metaphysical completion. The ethics of duty maintains that a moral agent is one who is capable of feeling a direct and unconditional obligation to behave or to will in a certain fashion as soon as he understands the situation in which he finds himself. He may behave or judge in an unfortunate manner through a misunderstanding of the social situation, but he can do wrong only by refusing to meet the obligatory claim of duty or to obey the voice of conscience. Hence this type of ethical theory develops obligation upon two levels: first, a moral agent ought to do his duty, which is to follow the dictates of his conscience; second, a moral agent ought to make every effort to improve the accuracy and delicacy of his moral perception. Virtue implies a conscientiousness both in the cultivation of conscience and in the obedience to conscience. The advocates of this type of ethical theory have vigorously resisted any attempt to reduce the notion of ought to that of good. The whole force of moral obligation is that it makes a direct and unconditional demand upon the agent quite independently of any consideration of good which may result to himself or to another because of the action. It is regarded as unnecessary to ask, “What is the good involved in doing what is right?” Yet, if the matter be urged, the answer will have to be that man ought to fulfil duty because only so can he be a moral agent and because there is some intrinsic good attached to the being of a moral agent as such. A moral situation makes a direct claim on some element in man which he has by virtue of his moral activity. The rejection of this claim violates the self in its most valuable aspect. Thus the ethics of duty necessarily contains a dependence on the concept of the good. This concept is present in the form of a theory of value to the effect that the integrity of man, considered as a moral agent, is the only intrinsic good. Such a good, therefore, takes precedence over all others and hence is independent of any consideration of good relating to the social consequences of moral action. The case is similar with regard to ethical theories constructed on the basis of the concept of the good. All such theories contain an implicit reliance on the notion of ought. It is true that man naturally pursues the good or, at least, something taken to be good. However, one must insist that knowledge of the comparative value of goods is essential to the moral life and that the moral agent is, as such, under obligation to pursue the greater or the greatest good. The moral life may be oriented toward one ultimate and intrinsic good such as happiness or pleasure or beatitude. On the other hand, the task of ethical reflection may be to effect the most harmonious and inclusive arrangement of relatively independent but compossible goods within the framework of a given actual world. In either case there is an obligation upon man to undertake this task of knowledge and pursuit of the greatest good. It is highly doubtful if this obligation can be explained away or reduced to anything else. It expresses the

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unconditional duty to be a wise man rather than a fool, and furnishes the basis for that paradoxical obligation to happiness which is inherent in all hedonistic theories. Since good and ought are thus interdependent, ethical theory must not only recognize the fact but must explain it. As is evident from our discussion, no intelligible synthesis can result from the attempt to treat these concepts as simple ideas, externally related. Such ethical concepts must be connected in some meaningful way to the nature of the moral agent. The good, if it is to be obligatory, cannot be regarded as an isolated quality or simple occurrence but must be integral to the being of the self which experiences obligation. Moral obligation, on the other hand, if it be valuable or a good, must be related to the other values of the self. Ethics, then, must explain the moral agent. But the moral agent cannot be explained without raising the question of his ontological status and his metaphysical reality. The necessity for this lies in the fact that the moral agent, considered merely as such, is a paradoxical and contradictory being. Such a being is in actuality less than he ought to be, yet in possibility he must already be everything that he ought to be. His nature cannot be made intelligible without raising, at the very least, the question of possibility and actuality in relation to reality. This leads one to the heart of metaphysical discourse. Furthermore, there is a fact concerning the moral agent, generally admitted by all ethical theories, which requires the consideration of this abstracted aspect of the self in relation to the complete concrete self. The moral role is a requirement. Man, for example, may be a musician but man must be a moral agent. Yet the ground for such necessity cannot be exhibited within an ethical theory which remains merely an ethical theory. It is because man is what he is that he must assume the role of moral agent. His significance in that role can be evident only in the light of his total ontological nature. This is so even though one’s knowledge of man as moral agent is contributory to one’s theory of him as metaphysical entity. I shall conclude by attempting to meet two objections which naturally arise. The first is partly the result of a misunderstanding. It protests that an ethical theory is not constructed from metaphysical doctrines. It asks from whence one derives one’s metaphysical doctrines if not from common-sense experience, and further suggests that not only ethical theory but metaphysical theory, doctrines of the nature of reality or the being of man, are dependent on the knowledge revealed in moral intuition. It is not the intention of the view here advocated to deny this. All philosophical knowledge is dependent upon common-sense experience of which the experience of the moral life is among the most significant. What is here maintained is that an ethical theory, at the philosophical level, is not derived directly from the data of the moral life but, rather, indirectly from metaphysical doctrines which themselves depend on the general material of experience, including the moral experience. This indirect procedure is necessary because man, as a moral agent, cannot be understood except as a consequence of some view of man in his total ontological setting. In maintaining that ethical theories must be thus indirectly achieved, it is, of course, freely admitted that such theories, along with the metaphysical doctrines from which they are derived, must be such as to save the phenomena of the moral life and to illuminate common-sense experience.

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The second objection protests that ethical problems can be solved independently of metaphysical problems. One is reminded of the uncertain character of metaphysics and the fact that its dearest preoccupation is with so-called insoluble problems. It is felt that if ethical wisdom must wait upon metaphysics then we shall never achieve such wisdom. Surely, it is urged, we are not to be condemned to the embarrassment of the early skeptics, who, holding to the Socratic principle that action depends on knowledge and despairing of knowledge, were obliged to counsel an impossible passivity. The point of view here maintained makes no such preposterous claim as that the individual actually first determines his metaphysics, from this develops his ethics, and, on the basis of this, decides his moral problems. The fact, of course, is that action goes on because it must, making the best of whatever understanding is present. Moral practice may show all degrees of ethical insight, and ethical theory all degrees of metaphysical illumination. What is here maintained is that, ultimately, no ethical theory can be adequate without the explicit statement of its metaphysical beliefs.

Chapter 5

The Poetic Use of Language Dorothy Walsh Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Dorothy Walsh examines the natures of the language of science and logic, the language of poetry, and the language of philosophy. She argues that each of these languages has its own distinct form of excellence.

Language is a medium of communication and of thought. Everyone has at his disposal some language and yet it is a notable fact that the use of language as a medium for significant communication and for living thought remains persistently difficult. Without a relentlessly sustained creativity of effort language rapidly becomes a dead form which can be used with safety only in situations which are so stereotype that a mere gesture might suffice. If our ordinary social intercourse were not sustained by our common orientation toward multiple objects, intrinsically significant, we should be more painfully aware of the inadequacies of our language and we should recognize the fact that we are alternately the victims of fragmentary expression and of over-elaborate but meaningless verbal habits. As soon as we become ambitious, however, to attempt a full exploitation of language we are faced with the question, what is the ideal of linguistic expression? Shall we be poetical? Shall we be technical? Shall we move towards the ascetic rigor of symbolic logical notation? Further, what is the linguistic usage appropriate to philosophical discourse? Now it has been suggested that there is an easy and obvious answer to these questions. It has been said that one’s use of language must be determined by the effect one wishes to create. If, for example, you wish to indicate the richness and depth of concrete experience, let your language be poetical, let it be infinitely suggestive but deliberately vague and intentionally ambiguous. If, on the Dorothy Walsh: First published in 1938 in The Journal of Philosophy 35(3), 73–81. D. Walsh (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_5

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other hand, you desire precision, even at the cost of abstraction, let your language be technical. A philosopher may be defined as an incorrigible person who wants everything and philosophical language will, therefore, be conceived as anything at all which serves this greedy purpose, alternately technical and poetic according as attention is now directed towards the relatively abstract and now towards the relatively concrete. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that this easy and obvious answer is incorrect, that it rests upon a misinterpretation of language and, if taken seriously as a guide to practice, is capable of trivializing science, destroying poetry, and corrupting philosophy. The initial mistake is to suppose that poetry is ambiguous, though rich, that technical expressions are precise though barren, and that, since these represent the extremes, any other use of language must be a judicious or an injudicious mixture of both. In opposition to this point of view I wish to maintain that poetry is linguistically precise, that the technical expressions of science and the symbolic notations of logic are significant because they are intentionally ambiguous and that the language of philosophical discourse, so far from being a mixture of science and poetry, is, at its best, a scrupulous avoidance of both. The essence of poetry is linguistic precision. Poetry, more nearly than any other form of expression, says inclusively what it means and means exclusively what it says. In maintaining this, however, I am not arguing that therefore poetry is the only adequate use of language. Language serves different purposes. There are cases, therefore, in which an adequate use of language means a non-poetic use of language. As examples of the latter let us consider, briefly, the language of science, of logic, and of philosophy. Initially, there appears to be something paradoxical if not perverse in ascribing linguistic precision to poetry when the technical expressions of science and the symbolic notations of logic owe their existence to a passion for precision which cannot be satisfied by that natural language out of which poetry is created. Scientists and logicians alike are aware that a living language, constantly undergoing transformation and growth, has a vitality of its own. Its vocabulary and its syntactical structure do not provide a neat, fixed, stable system of symbols which has been rationally organized from the beginning; rather, the language has grown to be what it is more in the manner of an organism or a plant. There is, therefore, a constant danger that such a language will assert itself, will speak for itself, and speak, moreover, in the unmistakable accent of, for example, German or English. Science attempts a partial remedy of this situation. It accepts the syntactical structure and most of the vocabulary of some language, but it coins or selects a special vocabulary of obedient, reliable words the presence of which, at crucial points in the discourse, is intended to have a general disciplinary effect. Since the value of these technical terms is supposed to lie in their lack of ambiguity, they must be defined and, if possible, they must be defined in other reliable words. Hence it is that every mature science, in its ultimate theoretical synthesis, tends to become a closed system, the major concepts of which may be defined in terms of one another. But it is important to note that what is here achieved is not linguistic precision at the cost of abstraction and loss

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of content but, rather, convenient formulae through the convention of deliberately incompleted statement. Science becomes trivial if it can be convicted of genuine abstraction. The theoretical superstructure is valueless if it floats loose, if it has really cut free from its roots in empirical data. The technical terms are actually formulae which, as such, are precise but which are not linguistically precise. What is said is the indispensable clue to the understanding of what is meant but what is said is not identical with what is meant. The theoretical scientist speaks about ideal entities and their relationships but he means to refer to the concrete world of empirical happening. The technical terms would be linguistically precise if they were intended to refer to abstract ideas which had an independent status and being on their own account. They would be linguistically ambiguous, in the unfortunate sense, if they were intended to refer exclusively to some one specific natural phenomenon. Actually, such expressions are more properly characterized as intentionally restricted and useful ambiguities. They are generalized descriptions which have no meaning except as understood to characterize empirical events. The type of event is indicated but the specific event is carefully unspecified. An instructed scientist is capable of reading these uncompleted statements correctly because he is capable of supplying the appropriate values for these variables. Modern symbolic logic represents a radical departure from customary language through the invention of a special notation. It has undergone a sacrificial discipline in the interests of clarity. It is willing to denote only the most general forms of structural relationships and to ascribe to these only the starkest minimum of connotation. Logic apparently says something about structure. The structure of what? Logic is revelatory either of the structure of reality, or of the structure of language which is also the structure of reality. In the former case, logic rests upon the undefined primitive ideas. The clarity of logic is purchased by a declared refusal to answer certain questions. Logic, in this case, can not represent the ideal of linguistic precision. It can not say all that it means because, either the primitive ideas are real indefinables and so can not be expressed but must be intuitively and inarticulately understood, or the primitive ideas are merely undefined and logic should be completed by metaphysical speculation which will raise such questions as, what is the real nature of negation? what are the possible kinds of togetherness expressed by “and”? and so forth. There is, however, another interpretation of logic. It may be maintained that logic presents the structure of internally consistent language and since man, as distinct from God, is irrevocably committed to dealing with reality through logic and language, logic represents the principles of consistent order per se. Logic, however, is not a science of language. It is not an abstraction from actual languages. It provides a normative pattern to which, it is held, languages, in the interests of rigorous consistency, ought to conform. It is maintained that such patterns of consistently-ordered symbols may be imposed upon the confusion of ordinary language for the elimination of ambiguity and verbalism. But for this very reason such patterns can not themselves constitute a language. They are not expressions of meaning. They say nothing. For this reason such a logician is forced to use ordinary language to recommend the value

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of his logical scheme. When such language is itself translated into the formal pattern it has ceased to be a statement and has become a diagram. The language of philosophical discourse I believe to be intentionally suggestive rather than precise. Paradoxical as it may appear, this sacrifice of linguistic selfsufficiency, of linguistic precision, is necessitated by the desire for correct communication of meaning. The philosopher, as metaphysician, is interested in total concrete reality. Language can never be adequate to the complete articulation of this. The language of philosophical discourse must, therefore, communicate unmistakably the fact that what is said is always less than what is meant. The philosopher is aware of more than, strictly speaking, he knows and he knows or means more than at any time he manages to articulate. Philosophical discourse is, therefore, the use of language to indicate a meaning which always transcends the expressed meaning. It is the business of such language to imply more than it says. It is the highest ambition of these words to be transparent, to be invisible and inaudible. Such language is flexible, fluid, suggestive, rich in multiple possibilities. For these reasons philosophical expression readily lends itself to re-expression. Of course, in practice, a point may be reached when the philosopher will refuse the effort of re-expression through fatigue or through a despair of finding at that time a more adequately suggestive expression, but theoretically there is no limit to this process. The sense of the endlessness of such discourse is sometimes trying. For this reason it frequently happens that an artistically-gifted philosopher such as Plato or Santayana or Bergson yields to the temptation to seek alleviation through the illegitimate finality of a poetic expression. Illegitimate, that is, from the point of view of his task, since, when poetry is being written, philosophical discourse, as such, ceases. Poetry is the crystallization, the solidification, of language. So far from being an assistance to explanation and discussion, a poetic utterance raises at once an impassible barrier. A philosopher who indulges in poetry escapes behind his language. He can no longer be reached by argument. He wins an apparent victory by giving up the game. The danger of becoming poetical is, for the philosopher, far more serious than the danger of becoming technical or abstruse. We come at last to a consideration of poetry. My thesis is that, although poetry is not the only adequate use of language, poetry does represent the ideal of linguistic precision. I have already described a linguistically precise statement as one which means exclusively what it says and which says inclusively what it means, in other words, an expression which is self-luminous, an expression the full meaning of which is internal to it, an expression which requires no reference beyond itself for the completion of its meaning. Non-poetic language, on the other hand, never means merely what it says and never says all that it means. This is not its deficiency but its utility. When non-poetic language is successfully employed it indicates its own incompleteness. It recognizes its deliberate and intentional sacrifice of linguistic precision and self-sufficiency. The scientist indicates as far as possible the range and locus of the unspecified references which would complete his meaning. The philosopher hints, suggests, and indirectly invokes those further regions of unexpressed meaning which he can not completely articulate.

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When we come to consider the general nature of language, we are struck by the fact that it is a mysterious if not an incredible thing that we should have poetry at all. Language is, in its essence, symbolic. That our total meaning should everywhere escape, overflow, and transcend such limited symbolic expression as is available to us is perfectly credible. There is no mystery about non-poetic language since nothing is more obvious than that one should always mean and suggest more than one actually says. Poetry is the mystery which requires explanation. To the question, how is poetry possible? my answer is that poetry is possible only because what is meant in poetry is something which, in its essence, is so completely verbalized that its whole nature consists in its being a thing to be said. Since this is a difficult matter to explain I hope I may be pardoned an apparent digression for the sake of illustration by analogy. The analogy is between the poet and the pictorial artist. As is commonly known, it is not at all easy or natural for the ordinary person to see things pictorially. For the non-artist it is an achievement which requires deliberate effort. Normally, objects and spatial relationships within the visual field are not enjoyed for their own sake but are perceived as clues to action or to further meaning. We look through these objects. Perceived objects are, in this sense, analogous to nonpoetic expressions. They are not things but clues. It is the business of the pictorial artist, however, to prevent this looking through. A competent artist makes his picture opaque. Every fragment of the space within his picture must be completely filled. It is, of course, obvious that in this sense, so-called empty space may not really be empty. A well-constructed picture is a set of dynamic relations with a center of gravity. Everything is as far as possible determined by everything else and everything relevant is contained within the whole. It is the purpose of the artist to leave nothing to the mediocre imagination of the spectator. If an effort is required of the spectator, as is usually the case, it is an effort to see and not to invent. Esthetic success necessitates that the observer remain persistently outside and before the picture. Of course there is no power on earth which can prevent an incompetent observer from looking right through a well-constructed composition. This looking through may take the form of non-esthetic revery or of that type of private artistic invention in which we all indulge when confronted with a kind of art which we are unprepared to perceive. We may raise the question, how is pictorial art possible? If we knew this we might have a clue to the explanation of how poetry is possible. I suggest that art is never really constructed out of non-artistic raw material. Artists are individuals naturally predisposed toward the artistic ordering of reality under one or another of the art forms. This means that, in their capacity as artists, their perception of reality is selective from the very beginning. The pictorial artist is such because, besides the possession of technique, he has the capacity for seeing the world pictorially. If he saw only pictures pictorially he would be uncreative. The poet, as poet, is similarly selective. He is a poet because he is capable of feeling, thinking, and living inside a language, some specific language. He is peculiarly sensitive to articulated experience. In fact, only that experience which is linguistic from the very beginning is the possible raw material of his art. The poet’s interest is in language and language has meaning as well as sound. He is interested, therefore, in the reality to which language refers, in life, death, human destiny, emotional states, and the natural world.

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But, and this seems to me to be the essential point, however much as a man he may be interested in these directly, as a poet his interest is indirect. Only as reality has issued in articulated utterance can it stimulate that primitive poetic excitement out of which the poet creates. It is not what happens that is here important but what is said about what happens. Thus the raw material of his art is not directly the world nor his own private experience but what has been said, what is being said, and what may be said about either. The poet’s field of perception and his range of sensitivity are specialized. Just as the pictorial artist is capable of perceiving and selecting those elements of the world which, for him, lend themselves to pictorial arrangement, so the poet is capable of concentrating upon those experiences which, for him, lend themselves peculiarly to linguistic expression. Approaching the world not directly, but through a preoccupation with some particular language, the object of his passionate interest is not simply reality and not simply words but the complete identity of the two. This is no more than is commonly emphasized in saying that poetry is metaphorical. It may be objected at this point that all language and not merely poetry is metaphorical. But here it is very important to remember that dead metaphor is, strictly speaking, not metaphor at all. It has become transparent, non-poetic, and ceases to mean what it says. In ordinary conversation when we speak of “the legs of the table” we do not really mean what we say. We mean the wooden or metal parts which support the top. But if this were, as it perhaps once was, a living metaphor, a poetic expression, we should mean just what we say, namely, “the legs of the table.“ Poetry is literal. It is really non-poetic language which is figurative. Dead, that is to say transparent, metaphor, which is a mere clue to further meaning, similes, loose analogies, and comparisons are the devices of non-poetic language. In these cases the language and the object of its reference fall apart. But the poet is not content to use language as merely instrumental for the approximate denotation of a wider reality. He wishes to avoid the whole bifurcation between a thing or an event and the words which refer to it. For the achievement of this he is willing to sacrifice, to take only what, for him, already in some sense speaks. The poet, unlike the philosopher, is not anxious to explain the world, no matter how vaguely. Unlike the scientist or the logician, he is not willing to refrain from completed statement in the interest of generality. He is anxious to express completely what he says. He will permit himself to say only what he can say with definitive finality. A poem, like a picture, must be solid and opaque. This opacity is not easy to achieve. It requires sustained creativity to keep a language thick, full-bodied, inescapably present and to prevent the completed meaning which is expressed from suggesting further possible meanings not expressed which might be multiple and over which the poet has no control. For poetry, like all art, is the attempt to present a completed thing and not to provide a stimulus for free associations or for further thought. Poetry, when successful, is thus a fixed precise, unalterable whole in which what is expressed is completely expressed. For this reason, no separation can be made between what is said and how it is said. No re-expression is possible and no translation is possible.

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This fact presents a problem. Everyone is aware that poetry which is precise is often difficult to understand just as pictorial compositions which are precise are often difficult to perceive. The sensitive reader is aware of that recalcitrant and resistant power in a good poem which blocks the way and effectively announces a limitation of understanding. Art, unlike nature, is not patient of multiple interpretation. It is the work of art itself which makes us aware of the insufficiency of our esthetic perception. How can this be improved? Obviously, there can be no direct explanation of artistic content. A poem can not be explained if what it means is exactly what it says neither more nor less. Nevertheless there is a place for non-poetic discourse concerning a poem. This is never explanation of what the poem says. It is explanation of related things such as the possible meaning of single words, or of certain social phenomena, or of different prosodic patterns, or of changing literary traditions the prior understanding of which may enable one better to hear what a poem says. A great deal of intellectual information of this sort may be necessary and the failure to provide it for a whole generation often results in the death of what was once a poem. The general conclusion may be stated somewhat as follows. Man’s language is so intimately a part of his life that enormous emotional satisfaction attaches to a linguistic utterance in which what is said and how it is said are so completely fused that no separation can be contemplated. For once language is precise in being completely self-luminous in internality of meaning. Man has been able to combine into one self-sufficient whole, his experience and his linguistic expression of it. But poetic value provides no exception to the general rule that achievement of value involves selectivity and rejection. The poetic use of language necessitates that language can no longer be regarded as a pliant instrumental convenience to be dominated and exploited by man in his effort to know and to communicate reality. Rather, man must be willing to submit to language—not to work through it but to work within it. That reality which can find precise poetic articulation must be a reality created by language itself.

Chapter 6

Relativism and Philosophic Methods Marjorie Glicksman Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Marjorie Glicksman argues that the validity of philosophical positions is relative to philosophical methodology.

It was the happy fortune of the philosophers of former ages to be, each of them, eternally and uniquely right. Their metaphysical insights seemed to involve a final intimacy with the very heart of things that turned every one else’s insights into error. These fortunate boon companions of Being have had distinguished lineal descendants; but beside them and against them have arisen a chorus of humbler voices, from whom is heard more of postulates and working hypotheses than of Eternal Truth. With the admission of categories like William James’s “tough- and tenderminded” into philosophic literature there enters into the background of speculation a suspicion that no system, even one’s own, is the system. The assumption, seldom explicitly formulated, but not therefore less to be reckoned with, of a dependence of philosophic analysis on the attitude, likings, purposes of the analyst enters into the philosophic picture. Beyond, perhaps, some very general assumptions common to all analyses, the choice of premises in a philosophic system seems to depend on personal preference, on “temperament”. It may seem possible, as in Peirce’s schematization,1 to reduce the types of metaphysical theory to a small number, on the basis of those of the fundamental aspects of phenomena that are emphasized. Or, as Dewey does, one may take philosophies as varying more or less gradually with the historical

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C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.77 ff.

Marjorie Glicksman: First published in 1937 in The Philosophical Review, 46(6), 649–656. M. Glicksman (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_6

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circumstances that produce them.2 But in any case, unique and ultimate explanation gives way to selective and relative description. The common assumption is that for any phenomenon or group of phenomena a plurality of descriptions can be executed, each of which has some justification in the observed nature of that phenomenon or group of phenomena. Different points of view, it is held, reveal different aspects of or patterns in the material of experience; but neither one attitude nor all of them together produce a description exhaustive of experience as a whole. It appears, in brief, that there are more true propositions than any one system includes, and that no one body of judgments says all that can be said about anything. But not only does it not say all that can be said—it does not say what it does say the only way it can be said. There is a plurality of philosophic methods, as well as of materials. A certain method of analysis may be preferable for certain purposes, but it has no unique appropriateness for all situations. This relativistic implication contained in many contemporary views is, it seems to me, frequently lost sight of, with disastrous, though actually avoidable results. The theorist, engrossed in the developments of his own method, forgets that one of his premises allows for the possible validity of other methods. When confronted, therefore, with a proposition from another system, he neglects to inquire into the method by which it has been obtained, interprets it simply as a proposition in his own system, and, if it fails to exhibit consistency with that context, declares it false. Thus there appears to be a disagreement between the two systems when in fact the difference consists in the use of divergent methods—a difference which the presence in both systems of a relativistic premise should have rendered innocuous. I should like to enumerate a few of the traditional methods of philosophic analysis—which may be called the atomic, the genetic, and the logical methods—and to indicate briefly the kind of apparent disagreements in which this fallacy may involve their supporters, together with the resolution of such disagreements that results from the recognition of the non-unique status of all the methods.3 A. Hume’s dictum that what is different is distinguishable and what is distinguishable is separable is the cornerstone of the atomic method. It is a sort of bricksand-mortar method, by which entities are broken down into simpler units and built up again into complex ones. In Hume’s use of the method, it was the units of perception in isolated bits that served as elements. In some modern 2

Cf. The Quest for Certainty (New York, 1929), Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York, 1920), etc. Professor Lewis’s theory of alternative logics (“Alternative Systems of Logic,” Monist, 1932 (Vol. 42), pp. 481 ff.) seems to involve a similar relativism. Cf. also Mind and the World Order (New York, 1929), p. 23. Even a metaphysician as “absolutist” in scope and speculative daring as Professor Whitehead holds “that the true method of philosophical construction is to frame a scheme of ideas, the best that one can, and unflinchingly to explore the interpretation of experience in terms of that scheme” (Process and Reality, New York, 1929, p. x). It is the psychological attitude back of the phrase ‘the best that one can’ to which I refer as the relativistic premise characteristic of contemporary philosophies. 3 Perhaps the assertion of my thesis involves the vicious circle fallacy; perhaps a relativistic premise cannot be applied to the system of which it is a premise. But since such application does often seem to be intended, I should like, tentatively at least, to indicate the result of taking this intention seriously.

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realisms, it is not a term simply, but a relational complex that is the unit. In Perry’s system of values, for instance, the unit (an interest) can be analyzed into governing propensity, mediating judgment, etc., or combined with similar units, and with cognitive units, in the construction of the complex ‘personality’.4 For this method, which was enunciated as a general mode of operation in the article on independence in The New Realism,5 analysis and synthesis are actually taking apart and putting together. Reflection operates by means of the manipulation of simples and complexes. The atomic method has the advantage of a superior Anschaulichkeit over other methods. Its units are easily and neatly handled; the structure that results is definitely outlined. B. The genetic method insists on the importance of growth, from which the atomic method in its purity is likely to abstract. True, British empiricism in Locke opens with a combination of the two, in which the synthesis of perceptual atoms is intended to tell the history of knowledge. In their contemporary forms, however, the atomic and genetic methods have been more in opposition than alliance. Locke operated, historically, in terms of atomic constants; but the units of contemporary geneticism are themselves historical. Knowledge, for Dewey’s pragmatism, is a product generated from non-knowledge. What is analyzed in terms of what it used not to be—with an eye to the possibility of what it may become. The genetic method has on its side the intimacy with which it clothes phenomena—what we can grasp as a becoming seems closer to us. If we interpret knowledge as a stage on our way of life, concepts as histories, we feel that we have out-idealized the idealists, and reunited thought and being in a more intimate and satisfying fashion than they had done. To submerge the results of analysis in the plastic medium of experience is to give knowledge its roots—to remind ourselves that “all its balloons are tied-down ones”. C. But suppose that instead of breaking down experience into quasi-spatial atomic units, or into the temporal stages of history, we examine a rather large crosssection of experience, and analyze out, not the grouping of similar units, nor the succession of differing ones, but the principles that seem to be universally involved. Something like this is the logical method. Its fundamental principle is the “distinction of reason” that Hume rejects; it evidently rests on the procedure of distinguishing without separating. The neo-Kantianism of Cassirer or Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism illustrates this method. For Lewis, knowledge is evidently a function of concept and given. Perhaps, indeed, there is no pure given to be discerned in any single moment of experience, but that question is in fact irrelevant; the problem is not to build up experience bit by bit, but, for experience in general, to formulate some broad principles which will serve to organize it “intensionally”. The idea is not to “triangulate” experience,6 but to cut through it. Similarly, Cassirer would analyze experience into a set of functional equations, in which things are values of dependent variables. The ultimate 4

Cf. General Theory of Value (New York, 1926). New York, 1912, pp. 99 ff. 6 C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World Order, 10. 5

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in such a system is not a unit or res, but a principle or general equation. The logical method shares with the atomic its neatness of formulation, while the generality of its first principles would seem to allow it an especially wide range of application. Now assume that we have given a system (e.g., a theory of knowledge) formulated by each of these methods. If each system contains a relativistic premise, the theories of the other two will evidently be admitted by any one as possibly legitimate in their respective logical contexts. But if that premise be disregarded, apparent conflicts may arise, such that the premises of one system may seem to imply the falsity of propositions from another system. 1.

2.

7

How does a genetic proposition stand up if the attempt is made to absorb it into an atomic system? The core of the genetic method is change. But the unit of the atomic method is a constant. Viewed in the light of atomic premises, a proposition from an historical system, since it contains no constant terms, with which the additive process of atomic synthesis can be executed, appears virtually without content. It evaporates into vagueness and is rejected as meaningless. A logical proposition, with respect to an atomic system, fares no better. Even though all logical distinctions should be ultimately reducible to existential ones, the propositions of logical analysis, in the generality of their statement, cannot be immediately equated to existential propositions. But the attempt so to equate them is a fallacy frequently committed by atomic analysts. It is evidently this fallacy that Morris Cohen calls reification:7 the fallacy of reducing the terms of any proposition, without prior analysis, to the status of a res. But the terms themselves, in a general proposition, may be relations or complexes of relations, such that no actual existent unit corresponds to them. Atomic description is in terms of homogeneous actual units. But logical or structural description is in terms of functions, which are not necessarily exemplified in isolated existent objects. Knowledge may be described as a function of concept and given, for instance, even though neither a pure concept nor an instance of pure givenness is actually found at any moment. The proposition: knowledge is a function of the given and the conceptual, is not equivalent to: knowledge is the sum of sensations and ideas or images. But when propositions from logical systems are atomically interpreted, it is such results that follow—and I should not be surprised if a good many of the apparent absurdities in some doctrines of the universal, etc., resulted from the reification by the critic of a logical distinction by the theorist. I am not holding a brief for “intensional propositions” as ultimates—but for their status as complex general propositions, which cannot without falsification be immediately converted into propositions about individual objects.

Reason and Nature (New York, 1931), 302.

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3. and 4. In a genetic system, on the other hand, the propositions of either atomic or logical analysis appear equally incongruous. If the existential units of the one or the structural principles of the other are interpreted as purporting to represent events in an historical becoming, they must evidently be branded as ‘falsifications’. As a matter of fact, both of the more formal methods may consciously abstract from the flux of becoming without denying it. Plato, in answering the Heracliteanism of the Sophists, does not return to Parmenides, but advances to an analysis of flux as structured, as participating in the Forms. But it is true that if becoming qua becoming, not becoming qua structured, is the object of description, then the emphasis on element or form appears as an unjustified distortion. 5. Judged immediately with reference to a logical system, moreover, atomistic propositions often appear irritatingly trivial. The atomic method in its most flexible form approaches what one may call the perceptual method— for its units are to be determined by discovering what elements actually enter into perceptive experience. But this basic procedure (although, ultimately, it is likewise basic in the genesis of his own system) is condemned by the formulator of general principles as ‘psychologism’. For if he tries to absorb its propositions immediately into his system, he finds that it would intrude detailed introspective data into that generalized structure. The logical method, on the other hand, would set down the broadest possible set of universal principles, and from these deduce a set of theorems which may then be interpreted to fit a wide variety of phenomena. And to introduce what should be a tiny ramification of its broad consequences into the system itself seems logically irrelevant and aesthetically disturbing. 6. For the logical as for the atomic system, finally, the genetic method suffers from too great fluidity. Though he may admit the changing character of experience, the whole purpose of the logical analyst is to abstract from that character. His business is to outline set structural relations, without reference to the fluid nature of the terms. For him, too, then, as for the atomist, historical ‘explanations’ may seem to resolve themselves into intangible mistiness. Now all these incompatibilities are genuine as long as each system thinks itself absolute. Thus Kant, believing in the uniqueness of his doctrine of the a priori, deals shortly with the atomic-genetic method of the “celebrated Locke”: “This attempted physiological deduction, which really cannot be called a deduction at all, since it concerns a questionem facti, I shall therefore call the explanation of the possession of pure knowledge. It is thus clear that of the latter alone there could be only a transcendental deduction and by no means an empirical one, and that the latter (i.e., empirical deductions) are, with respect to the pure a priori concepts, nothing but vain attempts, with which only that person can concern himself who has not understood the peculiar nature of this knowledge.”8 8

Critique of Pure Reason, A 87, B 119.

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But Kant’s philosophical descendants have dethroned the goddess of Reason, have admitted the variability of the categories and the relativity of knowledge. The tenet, moreover, with which the atomic method of neo-realism was introduced, that an entity may be classified in a plurality of ways, would indicate a similar relativism in that corner. And certainly the insistence on the centrality of purposive attitudes in knowledge, with which geneticism is identified, would imply an admission that all knowledge is partial and selective, and that consequently the genetic system itself has no unique claim to truth. Thus each of these methods would seem to have conceded that philosophic analysis, including the brands they sponsor, consists not in unique explanation but in more or less adequate though incomplete description. Such a reduction, however, necessitates the admission by one system of the possible validity of others. A system admittedly dependent on the point of view of its author contains no guarantee that this point of view is the only fruitful one; the assumption is rather that, more probably than not, there are others of equal usefulness. But if there is a plurality of justifiable descriptive systems, then every proposition must be tested by its consistency, not with one given system standard for all, but with the set in which it itself occurs. Suppose we have given two systems A and B, each of which contains a relativistic premise, ra or rb ; and suppose a proposition am of A is examined for its possible place among the theorems b1 , b2 , … bn of B. What is the status of am with respect to B? If the premises α1 , α2 , … αn , ra are identical with, are included in, or include the premises β1 , β2 , … βn , rb , then (if we take internal consistency as a criterion of system) am must be either compatible with b1 , b2 , … bn , or incompatible with a1 , a2 , … an , and therefore invalid. Suppose, however, that the elements and procedure of A differ essentially from the elements and procedure of B. In that case am simply cannot be judged as to its status with respect to B, since the system A to which am belongs neither includes nor is included in B, but is simply outside it, and since, moreover, it follows from rb that systems beyond the scope of B may possibly be significant. Thus am is, with respect to B, not false or invalid, but simply irrelevant. A recognition of this relation of neutrality among the propositions of different systems would, I believe, expose the non-existence of a good many such apparent disagreements as I have indicated above. There are many cases in which an examination of the system in which a proposition occurs would reveal its irrelevance to the system sponsored by its critic—and thus, in view of the relativistic premise asserted by both systems, the fatuity of condemning it within the boundaries of the latter system. But once we have accepted a method for our own analysis, we seem to forget the relativistic postulate we had assumed, and to criticize all other propositions in the light of our own premises; as if they were, after all, not relative to our aims and preferences, but unique. Hence perhaps the frequent beginning of arguments with, ‘I know it’s only my prejudice, but—’ —where the ‘but’ is followed by absolutisms that Hegel himself might have envied. Could we remember that opening concession, we might be able to examine more justly the consequences of postulates other than our own. As it is we sometimes act, instead, as if on hearing a foreign language

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spoken, we tried to interpret the sounds heard in terms of our own language—and therefore declared them to be meaningless. As a matter of fact, the other language may be as good a system of symbolism as ours, and may even express better than we can certain shades of meaning that escape the capacities of the medium to which we are accustomed. Similarly, if the plurality of possible systems be remembered as well as initially recognized, it may become evident that those propositions which happen to be incompatible with my premises may very well retain their validity when viewed in the light of your premises. If logical analysis provides an elegant and convenient structure of wide scope, still the material of experience is all in some sense psychological, and certainly historical; and thus the ‘psychologism’ of the more detailed atomic method and the fluidity of genetic descriptions are likewise justifiable. And if the atomic and logical methods are, in their skeleton-like patterns, unsuited to relate concreter histories, they have their use for other purposes. Various methods of description may touch the surface of the same world in different ways; no one goes ‘deeper’, none is more ‘ultimate’. Take an analogy from a neighboring field: the apparent conflict between the scientific and aesthetic attitudes. The submersion in the quality of moments of experience which forms the essence of the aesthetic experience, and the systems of broader ramification, with a maximal abstraction from immediate quality, that characterize science, have simply different kinds of ‘objectivity’. They are complementary, not conflicting. The development of modern physics, in depriving qualities of their status as ultimates in the scientific world, did not make experience colorless and soundless: the autumn foliage is as scarlet as it ever was, and the nightingale’s song as sweet. Knowledge abstracts from the quality that aesthetic experience clings to, but it does not destroy it. Nor does the persistence of quality render knowledge invalid. It reminds one of cognitive abstractness—but abstractness is not falsity; it is a scheme for the broadening of truth, a way from facts to more facts. That joy is joy and sorrow sorrow in the face of a physiological theory of the emotions is not a refutation of the theory. In fact it is to such perceptions that theory constantly returns for verification and suggestion; the relation is one of supplementation, not contradiction. And similarly, the analysis into or synthesis of constant experiential units, the tracing of historical developments, the postulation of and inference from general principles of structure, are all legitimate methods of philosophic description, which may exist peacefully side by side as long as their proponents remember the perspectivism they have all initially admitted. Many an apparent incompatibility would vanish if philosophers would but practise seriously the relativism they preach.

Part II

Knowledge and Perception

Abstract Part II of this book introduces and collects work on knowledge and perception by Grace Andrus de Laguna, Theodore de Laguna and Mary Collins Swabey.

Chapter 7

Introduction Joel Katzav

Abstract I introduce the key ideas of foundationalist, coherentist and pragmatist theories of knowledge. I then use these ideas as background for presenting the work on knowledge and perception in this part, work by Grace Andrus de Laguna and Marie Collins Swabey. We will see that these authors critique the idea of sense data that was central to the foundationalist theories of knowledge of Bertrand Russel and other early analytic thinkers, though de Laguna’s critique leads to perspectivism about perception and knowledge while Swabey rejects perspectivism. So too, we will see that de Laguna and Swabey develop epistemologies with strong coherentist elements, much as did their idealist teacher James Edwin Creighton. De Laguna’s, developed jointly with her husband, Theodore de Laguna, is a sophisticated form of naturalism that is built on a critique of pragmatist naturalism and is similar to the one made famous later by Willard V. Quine. Swabey rejects all forms of naturalism, arguing that knowledge requires an a priori foundation in reason.

7.1 Introduction Foundationalism about justification is the view that some of the items we are justified about, e.g., some of our ideas, beliefs or judgements, are justified without argument or inference. Moreover, these non-inferentially justified items are the foundations for the rest of what we are justified about. Anything that is inferentially justified is justified by inference from non-inferentially justified items. Coherentism about justification is the view that none of the items we are justified about are justified without inference. On such a view, our beliefs, say, are justified by being part of a coherent set of beliefs; beliefs are inferentially related to each other and thus support each other, and our beliefs are justified because they together form a system of mutually supporting beliefs. The relationship between knowledge and justification is complex but, in J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_7

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what follows, we shall assume that when our justified items fulfill certain conditions, such as being true, they comprise knowledge. Thus, foundationalism/coherentism about justification is supposed to come with foundationalism/coherentism about knowledge. Many absolute idealists working at the turn of the twentieth century were coherentists (about justification and knowledge). The absolute idealist, James Edward Creighton, is an example. On his view, whenever we make a new judgement, we are bringing some new item of experience into an inferential relation with all our previous judgements and testing our new judgement against all those previous judgements (Creighton, 1898; Katzav, 2022). The turn of the twentieth century also saw the emerging analytic tradition providing a foundationalist alternative to the idealist, coherentist epistemology. Two of the most influential analytical figures were George E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. Russell thought that our beliefs about material objects are inferentially justified. Moreover, on his view, these beliefs are justified by our immediate perception of sense data (Irvine, 2004). On such a view, we are immediately aware of how things appear or seem and these seemings comprise sense data, for example, patches of colour, short stretches of sound and tactile sensations of smoothness. On the basis of this data, we justifiably infer the existence of material objects, e.g., the chair we are sitting on or a friend. Moore and other early members of the analytic tradition, such as Alfred J. Ayer and Charles D. Broad, endorsed the idea of sense data (Hatfield, 2021). Intuitively, the fact that material objects often look differently from the way they are, suggests that we cannot perceive them directly but only indirectly on the basis of sense data. Another rival to absolute idealist coherentism came from pragmatists such as John Dewey and William James (de Laguna & de Laguna, 1910). The pragmatists shared the view that human cognition is a tool that evolved to handle concrete problems in specific circumstances. As a result, a proper understanding of philosophical and scientific problems is to be found in the guidance they offer to behaviour in specific circumstances. Beliefs are thus to be thought of as concrete guides to behaviour, linking specific stimulus conditions, that is, specific perceptions, with specific behaviours. On such a view, beliefs are not justified by their fit within a system of beliefs or by their being supported by foundational beliefs. Rather, a belief is justified by its ability to resolve uncertainty about how to behave in a specific situation. In the first pair of essays in this part, Marie Collins Swabey and Grace Andrus de Laguna focus on how to understand perception and, to some extent, on how perception relates to knowledge. They both critique the idea that perception involves sense data, though de Laguna’s critique comes with a perspectivist view of knowledge and perception while Swabey rejects perspectivism. In the second set of essays, the same authors look more directly at the broader question of the nature of knowledge. This set of essays counters foundationalism and pragmatism. However, de Laguna’s rejection of these positions, which we will see is developed with her husband, Theodore, is naturalistic while Swabey rejects all forms of naturalism. Naturalism tells us that human knowledge is to be investigated by the same empirical means as all phenomena. Swabey’s position is supernaturalistic, emphasizing

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the importance of knowledge of reality that is a priori, that is, knowledge of reality possessed independently of sense perception. Importantly, the four essays by the two speculative women are part of a broader, idealist and pragmatist inspired, critique they and other women and men offer of the idea that knowledge is built on the foundation of a non-inferentially given (see, e.g., de Laguna & de Laguna, 1910; (Grace) de Laguna 1916; Swabey 1930; Katzav, 2023). Within the analytic tradition, the critique of the idea of an epistemically given starts later, with Otto Neurath in the late 1920s, and only really gains force towards the middle of the twentieth century, with authors such as John L. Austin and Wilfred Sellars (Hatfield, 2021; Uebel, 2021). Perhaps the most influential rejection of foundationalism within that tradition came with Willard V. Quine’s work in the middle of the twentieth century. As we will see, he reprises ideas from de Laguna, while Swabey’s critique of naturalism is reprised by critics of Quine’s naturalism.

7.2 Swabey on Perception and Knowledge In ‘Mr. G. E. Moore’s Discussion of Sense-Data’ (1924), Swabey considers what role sense data might have in justifying beliefs. She explores this question through an examination of Moore’s paper, ‘The Status of Sense-Data’ (Moore 1914, pp. 357–358). One of Moore’s main questions there is: what is the relationship between sensibles—Moore called sense data ‘sensibles’—and physical objects? He aimed to answer this question by assuming that we know, with certainty, that certain claims about sensibles are true and figuring out what interpretation of the claims explains their truth and certainty. The interpretation that explains their truth and certainty, according to Moore, is the correct one (ibid., 370–373). Thus, for example, Moore assumes that, when seeing two circular coins lying on the ground at a distance, it is true that our sense data are of two coins rather than of images or hallucinations, and that the coins are circular, though their sense-data are elliptical. We are to ask how these truths might be interpreted so as to explain their truth and our certainty about them. Swabey, however, disagrees with Moore that we are entitled to assume that such common sense truths are known with certainty (1924, 467–469; this volume, pp. 82– 83). Her first objection is that, in order to relate a sensible to a physical object, one must identify the sensible as a certain type of sensible, e.g., as a sensible of a physical object rather than an image or hallucination. But such identification is always subject to correction by subsequent experience. So too, our ‘certainty’ regarding sense data is merely psychological, reflecting our inability to control them rather than their evidential veracity. She thus rejects Moore’s view that knowledge starts with certainty about sense data and, by implication, his assumption that we should develop a theory of knowledge by analysing certainties about sense data. She proposes instead that our minds are not passive. Knowledge is not simply an “acquiescence” to sense experience, as many foundationalists would have us believe. In her view, our theory

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of knowledge needs to recognize the active role of our minds in drawing conclusions about the nature of reality. Yet she recognizes that this leaves open the question of how to understand the relationship between sensibles and physical objects. She, accordingly, considers the four options presented by Moore in his paper, of which we consider the two main ones. The first main option, which she rightly notes was popular at the time, is phenomenalism and tells us that claims about physical objects are to be analysed using conditionals of the form “if certain conditions were fulfilled, I or some other person, should directly apprehend certain other sensibles” (1924, p. 469; this volume, p. 84). Talk about the existence of the coins I can perceive is then to be analysed in terms of talk about the coin-related sensations we would have when, e.g., walking into the room. One worry here is that, when it comes to affirming the existence of objects prior to their being perceived, we would be interpreting what we say about the past in a way that is strongly contrary to what we mean. Thus, saying that certain coins existed before our perception of them would be interpreted as saying that if certain unrealized conditions were realized, certain sensations would be had that we did not actually have. But the statement that the coins existed does not really say how physical objects differ from mere sensibles and thus does not say that the physical object has to do with possible but not actual sensibles. Another worry about the conditional analysis is that saying that objects existed before being perceived does not tell us anything about the conditions under which any sensations would be had. So, the analysis in such cases really is that if certain unspecified conditions were fulfilled and if we had certain sensibles, they would be of a certain sort (the sort associated with coins). And there is no justification for asserting this conditional. We have no idea what to expect in unspecified conditions. Moore, Swabey notes, agrees that we should reject such an interpretation of assertions about physical objects (1924, pp. 469–470). The second main option considered by Swabey and Moore is representational realism, which is standardly attributed to John Locke. On representational realism, our sense data are caused by physical objects and, in some respects but not others, resemble physical objects. Typically, it is assumed that the resemblance extends to extension and shape but not to colour. Swabey takes Moore to be non-committal but to have an inclination to prefer this view over the others he considers. She, however, rejects it as it seems to imply that we can never know whether physical objects exist, never mind exist and resemble our ideas of them. After all, representational realism tells us that we are never directly aware of physical objects and thus implies that we are never in a position to compare our sense data with their physical causes (1924, pp. 470–471; this volume, pp. 84–85). Fortunately, Swabey proposes a position not considered by Moore. On her view, what makes an object an object is that, by its nature, it is subject to the laws of thought and to laws of nature. This, she argues, means that the natures of objects are such that they will, if they exist, feature in a network of interrelationships with each other, a network that exhibits uniform patterns. Crucially, sensibles, whatever their nature, will also be subject to the laws of thought and to laws of nature. Thus, the apparently subject-relative or non-objective sense data are subsumed in an objective order, one

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that in fact makes no essential reference to subjects or experience, and that exhibits permanence. Sense data, conceived of as private objects of immediate awareness are thus excluded from Swabey’s ontology (Swabey, 1924, pp. 471–473; this volume, pp. 85–86; 1930, pp. 258–259). In summary, Swabey rejects the idea, then popular among analytic philosophers, that knowledge is justified by perception of sense data. Perceptual knowledge is always fallible and ultimately tested by how it stands up in a system of judgements. Indeed, Swabey is elsewhere clear that justification is always inferential and is, ultimately, a matter of systematicity (1930, pp. 83, 153–159). There is, nevertheless, a non-coherentist element in Swabey’s view of knowledge. On her view, what justifies our inferences about perceivable objects is in part a priori knowledge that these objects do feature in a logic and law-abiding universe. Empirical judgement thus has a foundation that is a priori. A priori judgements are at the same time justified by their coherence with each other (see Part III: ‘Scientific Knowledge’).

7.3 De Laguna on Appearance and Knowledge In ‘Appearance and Orientation’ (1934) de Laguna addresses the nature of perception and of knowledge. Moreover, she too, like Swabey, rejects the idea of sense data, albeit on different grounds. De Laguna’s solution to the puzzle of how we manage to perceive objects themselves despite the fact that they look, or more broadly appear, differently to different perceivers is to turn to perspectivism, a move that is especially fitting for a philosopher who crossed disciplinary boundaries, particularly between philosophy and anthropology. In philosophy, perspectivism has an important place in the phenomenological tradition and, in the last few decades, has become an important position in the philosophy of science (Berghofer, 2020). A version of it was introduced in anthropology by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro in the 1990s, as an alternative to relativism and continues to be under discussion within the social sciences (Heywood, 2020). In her discussion of perspectivism, de Laguna asserts that knowledge, including as a special case perception, is always from a standpoint (1934, pp. 72–73; this volume, pp. 87–88). We never know things in themselves, but only aspects of things from our own perspectives. Perception is one such perspective. Recognizing that she has affirmed a kind of relativism, de Laguna further asserts that the reality of perspective itself is objective, because perspectives are objective, insofar as they always have objects as constitutive ingredients, and because the characteristics of objects revealed in perspectives really belong to the objects. The perspective belongs to the subject and to the object in tandem. It is a relationship between the two that is constitutive of each—percipient and perceived. The object is inherently something that appears thusly to agents with the appropriate apparatus and the converse is the case for the agent. Perception itself is thus not mere presentation/appearance. Instead, it is apprehension of an object/entity from a given standpoint. Neither is perception simply a set of circumstances or “external fact” in which a person encounters the object/entity before them.

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Instead, perspective is “a factor internal to perception” (1934, p. 73; this volume, p. 88). De Laguna underscores this point. Perspective/standpoint is not an object-asit-presents-itself (an outdated metaphysical claim about sensation/experience), but instead is the object-as-experienced by a percipient. De Laguna further establishes (1934, p. 73; this volume, p. 88) her own position on the nature of experience/perception: (1) Everything is apprehended from a standpoint. There are no “sensibles” as in Moore’s system—no “bare given,” no “datum” that is unmediated, then cognitively synthesized by us. (2) A given percipient perceives from a standpoint, which may mean they perceive only aspects of an object/entity, yet they do perceive how the object really is, from their own standpoint. And in this sense, their knowledge is unique. While Swabey’s motivation for rejecting sense data is epistemological, de Laguna’s, at least in this article, is conceptual (1934, p. 74; this volume, pp. 88– 89). The sense datum theorist wants to distinguish between the real circular shape of, say, a penny and the penny’s apparent one. When we see a circular penny from an angle, for example, we do indeed see that it is circular but, says the sense datum theorist, what is really going on here is that we are immediately aware of an ellipse and our imagination recognizes this ellipse as belonging to a series of shapes that are the various appearances of a circle. Such a theory is conceptually untenable because an ellipse too appears differently from different angles, so that our imagination would be required to identify the ellipse as being part of a series of appearing shapes. We are thus led to an infinite regress of imaginings and, at no point can we make sense of an immediate apprehension of anything. Thus, although we make use of analogies like “ideas” or “images” in our discussion of perception/knowledge, de Laguna is clear that perceptions are not ideas or images in the traditional sense within epistemology. Instead, they are psychological representations, which are not “before” our mind (which would be to characterize the mind as passive) but are relations constitutive of perceptual states. In her view, this establishes the mind as an active entity that engages with other entities in the world, perceives and makes sense of reality. De Laguna concludes by considering why it is that, despite the fact that all perception is perspectival, we mistakenly tend to think of only one perspective as giving us the real shape of what is perceived. Here, she acknowledges that there is a privileged standpoint in perception but offers a psychological explanation for this rather than one that appeals to what is real. When we say that a penny is circular, we do implicitly refer to a perspective, namely that in which the penny appears right in front of us and in a plane perpendicular to the line of our vision. We ordinarily suppress reference to this perspective because it is a perspective in which objects are best perceived, because it is one in which we are well balanced and because it is the one from which we cannot ‘catch’ an apparent shape. None of this, claims de Laguna, indicates that the privileged perspective is the one real or ontologically privileged perspective (1934, pp. 74–76; this volume, pp. 89–90). One might be tempted to respond to de Laguna that science provides us with a privileged perspective. For example, it can tell us what the shape of the penny is using measurements, and thus vindicates the view that some perceptual perspectives

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are ontologically preferred. But this would be to beg the question against de Laguna. She thinks that the different sciences also provide no more than perspectives. She argues that when scientists evaluate their claims they only do so for specific purposes and thus only reveal aspects of reality relevant to those purposes (de Laguna & de Laguna, 1910; Katzav, 2022). In summary, de Laguna’s critique of the idea of sense data supplements Swabey’s critique. And thus, although de Laguna is not primarily concerned with what serves to justify our beliefs in presenting her view of perception, it does bring with it a critique of the kind of foundationalism found in the writings of Russell. However, de Laguna’s commitment to perspectivism also indicates that she and Swabey disagree fundamentally and thus must ultimately develop their theories of knowledge in different directions. While Swabey’s epistemology indicates that, on her view, what we are developing is a single, unified understanding of nature as governed by a single set of laws, de Laguna’s perspectivism indicates that no such single perspective is to be had. In particular, no further development of science can eliminate the perspective of perception.

7.4 De Laguna’s Naturalistic Critique of, and Alternative to, Pragmatism In Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy (1910), de Laguna and her husband co-authored a critique of pragmatism. A particularly important part of this critique is found in the chapter ‘Pragmatism and the Form of Thought’, which is included here. In this chapter, the de Lagunas target the core pragmatist claim that thought has as its function addressing concrete problems in specific circumstances. An important implication of this general claim is the claim that formal logic cannot provide general rules for reasoning and thus does not allow evaluating instances of reasoning for validity apart from how these instances guide behaviour in the specific circumstances in which they occur. Reasoning, according to the pragmatist, does not have some kind of intrinsic validity (ibid., pp. 202–203; this volume, pp. 93–94). We here follow Katzav (2022) in presenting the de Lagunas’ position and argument. As the de Lagunas understand the pragmatist view, it tells us that each concept is merely a function that links specific stimuli with specific responses. A concept merely tells us that, in such and such external circumstances, such and such actions should be taken to attain such and such a goal. The de Lagunas agree that part of the meaning of a concept has to do with its import, that is, with how it links stimuli and behaviour. However, they think this link is not direct, so that the meaning of a concept has another dimension, its content. On their view, the content of a concept is fixed by the concept’s place in a system of concepts, more specifically by the logical relations it bears to other concepts. As they put it, the reference of a concept to a mode of conduct is never direct. The concept never directly bridges the gap between stimulus and response. On the contrary, thought is a long-circuiting

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Thus, in order to understand the concept of a coat, we need to understand other concepts, such as those of clothing, bodies, arms, sleeves, shirt and the like. In turn, an understanding of these concepts, requires an understanding of yet further concepts. And our understanding of a system of concepts includes our ability to see how they are related, e.g., to see that if something is a coat, it is an item of clothing or can be used as protection from the elements. What this implies is that a concept only links stimuli and a response via a host of assumptions or beliefs. The view that the meaning of a concept depends on the system of concepts to which it belongs is called meaning holism. Meaning holism implies that there is no simple correlation of stimuli and response. Instead, [a] concept is never univocal in its reference to a mode of conduct; that is to say, its meaning is never limited to the correlation of a certain type of stimulus with a certain response. On the contrary, its import invariably embraces a variety of actions. (1910, p. 205; this volume, p. 95)

Meaning holism also, according to the de Lagunas, implies confirmation holism, the view that our beliefs are tested in systems rather than individually. Moreover, confirmation holism implies fallibilism, that is, the view that all our beliefs, including those of logic itself, are tentative. Why so? When our behaviour does not lead to the results we expect, we can in principle blame any of the assumptions we made that led to that behaviour, so that it is the system of relevant assumptions that is effectively tested by the frustration of our expectations. Similarly, because no belief is tested in isolation, no belief is immune from revision. In the de Lagunas’ own words: [e]very concept involves an indefinite number of problems; and these cannot be stated except in terms which themselves in turn involve indefinite series of problems. Nowhere is there an absolute given, a self-sufficient first premise. From this, as well as from the indirect and equivocal nature of the reference of thought to conduct, it follows that the confirmation or invalidation of a concept by the result of the conduct which it serves to guide can itself be no more than tentative. (1910, p. 206; this volume p. 96)

A further implication of the de Lagunas’ argument is that there is, after all, a non-pragmatic element to evaluating our hypotheses. While they acknowledge that all beliefs are revisable in light of experience, and thus that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as truth by virtue of meaning, they note that the indirect nature of thought implies that thought must have a structure that is relatively independent of our future behaviour. Only if the logical relations between concepts are relatively stable, can our conceptual system guide our behaviour across a diversity of contexts. Indeed, we need something like formal logic if reasoning is to work at all. As they put it, with respect to thought and conduct it must be said that the very indirectness and equivocality of the reference of the former to the latter gives thought a character of its own, which is as independent of aught beyond as can well be imagined (1910, p. 207; this volume, p. 96).

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Thus, already in 1910, (Grace) de Laguna rejects foundationalism for a view that gives coherence within a system of beliefs centrality in all justification. Her 1934 arguments against sense data discussed above are a more specific critique of foundationalism than her 1910 criticism of it. Indeed, the appeal to coherence in 1910 is also more radical, given that even the beliefs of logic are revisable. At the same time, de Laguna may not be offering a purely coherentist view of justification. Perhaps she agrees with the pragmatist that a concept’s actual success in guiding behaviour, which is captured by its import, also has a role in determining whether it is justified. As Katzav (2022) points out, de Laguna here articulates a sophisticated alternative to foundationalism that later came to be associated with Quine’s influential 1951 paper ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism.’ But, as Katzav also points out, de Laguna goes beyond Quine’s paper in a variety of ways. For example, while Quine does not explain why logic has, despite everything, a special status, de Laguna’s critique of pragmatism comes with such an explanation.

7.5 Swabey’s Critique of Naturalism Swabey contributed to the discussion of realism, naturalism, and pragmatism with a chapter on ‘The General Nature of Reason’ in her book Logic and Nature (1930). She opens by asserting that reason must be understood either as one of/as a function of several natural capacities, or as a distinctive capacity that gives us “supremacy over nature” (ibid., p. 33; this volume, p. 103). The first of these options was preferred by many of the philosophers in America in the early decades of the twentieth century, including by the pragmatists, and by de Laguna and some of the other women philosophers working before Swabey, women such as Eliza Ritchie.1 Swabey divides her critique of naturalism into two, one targeting a more extreme form of naturalism (‘extreme naturalism’) and one targeting a more sophisticated version of naturalism (‘sophisticated naturalism’).2 According to Swabey, extreme naturalism posits that all action, including that of reason, is a response to a specific environment, a response that serves the evolved function of self-preservation and that can be explained as an evolutionary adaptation. Since this form of naturalism takes reason to be an adaptive response to specific evolutionary circumstances, it “denies the pretensions of reason to envisage genuinely formal and universal, as opposed to material and particular, objects. Concepts or generic notions are accounted as nothing more than “generalizations”; while theoretical grounds and reasons are denied efficacy, being considered as idle compensatory “rationalizations” after the event” (1930, p. 40; this volume, p. 105). The reader will quite clearly recognize that, here, Swabey’s target includes de Laguna’s 1910 target, namely pragmatism.

1

See Eliza Ritchie, asserting that we are physical and psychological entities with a fixed nature, in The Problem of Personality (Ithaca: Andrus & Church, 1889), pp. 30–33. 2 In what follows, we borrow from Katzav’s (2020) discussion of Swabey.

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One of Swabey’s objections to extreme naturalism is that it takes the mind to be akin to a biological adaptation but that “the chief mark of most biological tools is the fact that they are bound up with the structure and locus of the organism” and “require some direct contact with the environment for any experience or knowledge of it” (1930, p. 42; this volume pp. 106–107). Reason, by contrast, is not obviously constrained in this way by direct contact. It has the ability to envision possibilities and theorize about what it will never have contact with. Swabey recognizes that the naturalist might respond with scepticism about such abilities, but she worries that, then, the naturalist will have to be skeptical about much of science and thus about what they themselves rely on in developing their own positions (1930, pp. 43–44; this volume, p. 107). More, fundamentally, however, Swabey worries that extreme naturalism is, by its own lights, a kind of idle, compensatory rationalization. The hypothesis that life has the teleological function of maintaining life is “a teleological-metaphysical theory about the world which goes far beyond the warrant of direct experience, yet which seemingly must be granted if the results of the sciences are to be construed by it as either trustworthy or significant” (1930, p. 41; this volume, p. 106). The problem here, according to Swabey, is that naturalism of this kind presupposes, but cannot justify, its own truth. Swabey thus rejects the pragmatist middle ground between foundationalism and coherentism. Any adequate theory of knowledge will have to allow that reason is capable of more than local solutions to problems. Sophisticated naturalism does allow this. According to it, reason is still a proper part of nature but is distinguished by its ability to address general problems. Reason makes use of abstract schemas of objects without grasping them as particulars and is able to do this because of the relational nature of its concepts (1930, pp. 45–46; this volume, p. 106). Another mark of reason, on this form of naturalism, is that it tends to organise data into systems, thus disclosing previously unknown relations between objects. Further, [i]n conformity with this inclination, understanding never apparently accepts a “fact” offhand at its face value or takes an isolated judgement as more than provisional; but requires that each shall be confirmed by linkage with other facts and judgments which mutually sustain and support it. (1930, pp. 46–47; this volume, p. 108)

In the end, although reasoning presumably never realizes the ideal which is that of a single, all-inclusive system with no grounds outside of itself, it is customary to assume that, other things being equal, the more comprehensive a coherent body of judgments is and the richer in interconnections, the more reliable it is likely to be (1930, p. 47; this volume, p. 108). Swabey, however, thinks that sophisticated naturalism, no less than extreme naturalism, undermines itself. On her view, if we assume that our minds are proper parts of nature, we will be committed to the paradoxical assumption that the human intellect is “both the source and the product of nature” (1930, pp. 48–49; this volume, p. 108). She offers a number of supporting arguments for this claim. Here is one: if our minds are proper parts of nature, then any theory of nature will always extend beyond what experience might by itself support. In particular, experience will then

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never be able to provide any reason to suppose that survival value is a test of the truth of our theories. So, the naturalist will be forced to conclude that nature is, contrary to his or her initial assumption, a construct rather than a cause of our minds (1930, pp. 51–52; this volume, pp. 109–110). Another of Swabey’s supporting arguments tells us that even the distinction between theory and fact will have to be taken to be a construct of the mind once the naturalist accepts that “our contact with facts is always in the context of theory” (1930, p. 49; this volume, pp. 108–109). Sophisticated naturalism bears a striking resemblance to the naturalism developed by de Laguna and her husband. They too recognize that the simple stimulus–response model of reason is inadequate and that reason needs, in any adequate account of human knowledge, to be supposed to have a substantial degree of autonomy from specific problem situations. Moreover, they too take systematicity to be a hallmark of reason. Sophisticated naturalism also resembles more recent forms of naturalism, such as that of Quine. He too thought that there is no a priori justification for our claims about reality and that the only way to evaluate the criteria of success of science is to do so empirically. Indeed, one of the important lines of response to Quine is akin to Swabey’s critique. Barry Stroud and Michael Williams, like Swabey, think that a rejection of a priori knowledge of reality will, when applied to itself, lead to scepticism (Stroud 1981; Williams 1996). How, then, would the de Lagunas respond to Swabey’s worries about what happens when our minds are assumed to be proper parts of nature? They would respond that Swabey’s ideal of knowledge is unattainable. As we have seen, their view is that all claims, including those of logic are, in principle, revisable and subject to criticism. So, they accept that it is not possible to justify any criterion of truth. In a sense, then, it has been misleading when we have, above, described them as offering a theory of justification—they do not think we can give positive reasons to believe in the truth of our claims. Nevertheless, on their view, it is possible to subject our system of knowledge, including its standards of knowledge, to criticism and thus potentially to learn how we are wrong even at the most fundamental level (see Part III: ‘Scientific Knowledge’).

References Berghofer, P. (2020). Scientific perspectivism in the phenomenological tradition. European Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 10, 30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-020-00294-w Creighton, J. E. (1898). An introductory logic. The MacMillan Company. De Laguna, T., & de Laguna, G. (1910). Dogmatism and evolution: Studies in modern philosophy. The MacMillan Company. De Laguna, G. A. (1916). Sensation and perception II: The analytic relation. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, 13(23), 617–630. De Laguna, G. A. (1934). Appearance and orientation. The Journal of Philosophy 31(3), 72. https:// doi.org/10.2307/2016645 Hatfield, G. (2021). Sense data. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), E. N. Zalta (Ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/sense-data/

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Heywood, P. (2020). “All the difference in the world”: The nature of difference and different natures. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 50(6), 543–564. Irvine, A. D. (2004). Russell on method. In G. Link (Ed.), One hundred years of Russell’s paradox (pp. 481–500). Walter de Gruyter. Katzav, J. (2020). Marie Collins Swabey’s critique of naturalism. Blog post on Digressions and Impressions. https://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2020/ 07/marie-collins-swabeys-critique-of-naturalism-guest-post-by-joel-katzav.html Katzav, J. (2022). The de Lagunas’ Dogmatism and Evolution, overcoming modern philosophy and making post-Quinean analytic philosophy. In E. Schliesser (Ed.), Neglected classics of philosophy. Oxford University Press. Katzav, J. (2023). Grace de Laguna’s analytic and speculative philosophy. Australasian Philosophical Review, 6(1). Moore, G. E. (1914). The status of sense-data. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New series (Vol. 14, pp. 355–405). Quine, W. V. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60(1), 20–43. Stroud, B. (1981). The significance of naturalized epistemology. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 6, 455–471. Swabey, M. C. (1924). Mr. G.E. Moore’s discussion of sense-data. The Monist, 34(3), 466–473. Swabey, M. C. (1930). Logic and nature. University Press. Uebel, T. (2021). On the empiricism of logical empiricism. Getlung, 1(1), 1–25. Williams, M. (1996). Unnatural doubts: Epistemological realism and the basis of scepticism. Princeton University Press.

Chapter 8

Mr. G. E. Moore’s Discussion of Sense Data Marie Collins Swabey Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this chapter, Mary Collins Swabey critiques G. E. Moore’s discussion of sense data.

Whatever one’s point of view in philosophy, one can hardly fail to respect the spirit in which Mr. G. E. Moore discusses its problems. Rarely are to be found such high standards of earnestness, lucidity and scrupulousness as he brings to philosophical writing; and whether or not one agrees with the narrower program of investigation, to which such a method as he seems to propose might limit philosophy if adopted to the exclusion of other methods, one can not but acknowledge that his ideal is, in point of scientific rigor, unbiased candor and precision, worthy of philosophy in the truest sense. Yet admiration of Mr. Moore’s powers of acute analysis need not act as a deterrent to others from engaging the same problems, even though they may despair ever of achieving his subtlety in drawing distinctions, for the very genuineness and impartial spirit of his inquiry rather provokes and invites further scrutiny of the problems to which he calls attention. It is, then, in the hope of exploring perhaps some further possibility that I shall undertake to consider Mr. Moore’s discussion of sense data in his recent collection of essays,1 and in particular the manner in which sense data may be related to physical objects. Let us suppose, as Mr. Moore supposes, that I am looking at two coins, one a half-crown, the other a florin, both lying on the ground some distance away. As both are situated obliquely to my line of sight, the visual sense data (or “sensibles” as Mr. Moore calls them) which I “directly apprehend” in looking at them are elliptical rather than circular. In addition, the half-crown is farther away than the florin so that its 1

Moore, G. E., Philosophical Studies (1922), Ch. V.

Marie Collins Swabey: Originally published in 1924 in The Monist, 34(3), 466–473. M. C. Swabey (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_8

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sensible is visibly smaller than that of the florin. Now without bothering to define, if we could, what we mean here by physical objects, and without describing “sensibles” further than by saying that: they are all those entities, whether experienced or not, which are of the same sort as those that are experienced in experiences of images, sensations proper, the sensory part of dreams, “after-images” and hallucinations, let us see if there are any propositions which can be asserted as true about these physical objects, and if so, in what sense they are true, and in what manner the objects are related to certain sensibles. To begin with, Mr. Moore assumes that he knows the following propositions to be true, since “no one,” he says, “will deny that we can know such propositions to be true,”2 although there are very different views as to their meaning: (a) that I am really seeing two coins; an assertion which at least amounts to the statement that the visual experiences constituting my direct apprehension of the two elliptical patches of color are “sensations proper” and not hallucinations or mere images; (b), (c), (d), (e) that the upper sides of the coins are really approximately circular, although the visual sensibles are merely elliptical; that the coins have another side, though I don’t see it; that the upper side of the half-crown is really larger than that of the florin, although its visual sensible is smaller than that of the florin; lastly, that both coins continue to exist even when I turn away my head and shut my eyes. Obviously all these propositions, which we have here grouped together have to do in one way or another with my certainty that there is a distinction between sensibles and the physical objects themselves; while the last especially emphasizes my certainty that the objects continue to exist even when the experience of the sensations proper ceases. But let us stop to consider whether one is really justified in assuming that he knows the foregoing propositions to have absolute certitude. First of all, am I right in assuming, as Mr. Moore assumes, that I know the proposition to be true that (a) I am really seeing two coins in the sense of experiencing sensations proper? Can I, in any given experience, accept as absolutely certain that the sensibles I “directly apprehend” are those of sensation rather than of hallucination or mere image? On the contrary, as it seems to us, the evidence clearly indicates the very opposite, viz., that one has no right to assume that he knows any proposition to be true, in which statement is made distinguishing the sensibles of a present experience as of one specific type rather than another. All sorts of considerations bear this out. There is the evidence, for instance, of certain psychological experiments that, under proper circumstances, even trained observers are unable to distinguish in their experience between sensations and mere images. Thus it was found that if under elaborately controlled conditions, an observer was asked to fixate a certain point and to imagine a banana, while at the same time the outline of a banana faintly colored by a projection lantern was presented to him at that point on a dark screen, he almost invariably mistook the perceived outline of the banana for the mere image of his imagination.3 Most of us can recall analogous examples from our own experience, as, for instance, where we have asked ourselves whether a barely discriminable pain was real or imaginary, or again (to borrow an illustration from Mr. Russell) 2 3

Ibid., p. 186. Perky, C. W., American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 418–454.

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when we have stood listening to a horse trot away along a hard road. For a time the listener’s “certainty” that he still hears the hoofbeats is very strong; but there comes a moment when certainty merges into uncertainty, when he thinks perhaps it is only his imagination or his own heartbeats. Indeed, it seems probable that there are far more experiences than we suspect in which we are really incapable of distinguishing between sense data of different types; but, however that may be, the very fact that there are some, shows that we have no right to assume as unqualifiedly true a proposition which asserts that the sensibles occurring in a specific experience are exclusively of a particular sort. It may well be that what defines sensibles is fundamentally some common property shared among them; but whether, in experiencing a given sensible, that sensible is “directly apprehended” by me specifically as a sensation proper or as a mere image would seem to be a matter determined not by the experience of the sensible itself but through the formulation of some judgment or proposition about it, which attempts to express the status of the particular sensible with respect to physical objects, to which status extremely different interpretations may be given. Indeed, it may be questioned on other grounds whether we are ever justified in affirming that we know a proposition to be true respecting particular sensibles of our experience, not merely because we are always liable to be mistaken as to the specific type of data in the experience, but also because it is a mistake to believe that the subjective “certainty” which we feel in our direct apprehension of sensibles can afford any ground for asserting the objective truth of the proposition in which the experience is described. The mere fact that mind seemingly acquiesces in the incursions of the data of sensory experience (neither volition nor intellect having the power to banish them) is something very different, of course, than if sensory experience carried in it some universal and necessary evidence of its veracity, which alone would entitle the mind to assume the truth of a proposition affirming the existence of certain particular sensibles in experience. The foregoing considerations apply equally well, moreover, when we pass to the group of propositions (b, c, d, and e) which assert in one form or another the distinction between sensibles and physical objects. For as these propositions have also to do with affirming certain sensibles to be of a specific type, we can not justifiably assume their truth, since any proposition which classifies the sensibles of a particular experience as of a certain kind is always open to falsity, and the “truth” which I ascribe to them is rather the expression of my subjective belief, arising from the unquestioning receptivity and submissiveness of the mind to sense data, itself a form of psychological response, and qualitatively quite different from the apprehension of valid relations between entities. But even if, unlike Mr. Moore, we find ourselves unable to assume that we know any of the foregoing propositions to be true, we may none the less proceed to ask if there is any possible way in which the relation of sensibles to physical objects can be truly stated? Mr. Moore suggests four possible ways (which, however, finally reduce to two) in which sensibles can be related to physical objects, and these we may briefly consider. The first sense in which I might conceivably be able to affirm true propositions about physical objects would be provided they expressed the notion that “if certain conditions were fulfilled, I or some other person, should directly

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apprehend certain other sensibles.”4 Thus, on this interpretation, what is meant by saying that I really see two coins is some such thing as that “if I were to move my body in certain ways, I should directly apprehend certain other sensibles, this time tactual, which I should not apprehend as a consequence of these movements, if these present visual experiences of mine were mere hallucinations.” If this view be accepted, the truth of propositions concerning physical objects is to be construed in terms of the hypothetical experiencing of certain hypothetical sensibles. Now although at the present time this form of explanation undoubtedly enjoys great vogue, the whole body of scientific laws being frequently so interpreted, there remains against it one serious objection: the expressions describing the coins and other physical objects as existing before I saw them can only be really true on this interpretation, if they are understood in an outrageously Pickwickian sense. In other words, the only possibly true construction of them will have to be one not only most uncommon but in which we are privileged to say one thing and mean another, and even to state under the form of fact something, for the present at least, quite contrary to fact. if indeed not outright contradictory. Thus all I can mean when I know that the coins existed before I saw them is that “if certain unrealized conditions had been realized, I should have had certain sensations that I have not had.”5 The difficulties here are readily apparent, since, on the one hand, the assertion that the coins exist really tells us nothing that would distinguish the objects themselves from the mere sensibles; while, on the other hand, it embodies a statement not only contrary to fact but resting upon unknown conditions, so that I am really declaring that “if certain unknown and unfulfilled conditions were fulfilled, and if I were then to experience sensibles which I do not, they would be sensibles of a certain sort,”—an assertion whose truth I have absolutely no grounds for affirming. For these reasons it would appear to us, as it also seemingly appears to Mr. Moore, that the interpretation of propositions about physical objects in terms of the hypothetical experience of sensibles would have to be rejected. This rejection would carry with it, moreover, dismissal of the second and third possibilities suggested by Mr. Moore, since they, too, are shown finally to fall back upon a hypothetical and Pickwickian interpretation.6 The fourth and last possibility offered 4

Moore, op. cit., p. 189. Ibid., p. 191. 6 One of these is the view that would interpret each particular physical object as being the “cause” of the experience of certain sensibles. But exception may obviously be taken to this, on the ground of its involving hopeless complexity, since in the example of the half-crown, for instance, the events which happen between the half-crown and my eyes, as well as events in my eyes and optic nerves, are just as much causes of my experience of the sensibles as is the coin itself. If an endeavor be made to meet this objection by saying that the half-crown has a particular kind of causal relation to my experience of certain sensibles, being, in fact, their “source” (and a source either “spiritual” or “unknown” in its nature), still nothing is really gained by this, since the only possible sense in which the physical object can here be said to have qualities is in the last analysis that of the Pickwickian interpretation. Another possible view would be frankly to describe the “source” of our experience of sensibles themselves; these latter existing even when not experienced. Nevertheless, under the proper conditions these unexperienced sensibles would be the source of our experiencing certain sensibles, etc., but since this seems all their meaning we here recognize only another variation of the Pickwickian theme (pp. 192–194). 5

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by Mr. Moore is one which he describes as “roughly identical with Locke’s view.” According to it, physical objects with certain qualities exist (in the natural sense) prior to my experience of them. Although not composed of sensibles, physical objects do really resemble some sensibles in respect of the “primary qualities” which the latter have. The sensibles themselves, however (whether experienced or unexperienced) can never exist as parts of the objects or “anywhere in space” or “in the mind.” Against this view, the most serious objection is that it does not make clear how we can ever come to know that sensibles have a “source” at all, or that this “source” may resemble sensibles as regards their primary qualities. Such knowledge, if we have it, would seem to have to be immediate. Yet can we know this kind of thing immediately? Our first argument certainly assumed that the only possible kind of immediate knowledge is that which we have in the direct apprehension of sensibles and in the perception of relations between directly apprehended sensibles. It follows from this that, if we believe we know facts other than these, and which can not have been learnt immediately, our belief must be a mere prejudice. Still, on the other hand, how can it be shown that our belief, that the only facts we can know immediately are sensibles and their relations, is not itself a mere prejudice? Certainly we have all of us, like Hume, a “strong propensity to believe” that physical objects exist in a simple and “natural” sense, and not merely in a Pickwickian one. And while this propensity to believe may be really only a prejudice, its strength seems so much greater than that of the prejudice that opposes it as to incline Mr. Moore apparently in its favor and in favor of the fourth view, which follows Locke’s interpretation. In conclusion, encouraged by the fact that Mr. Moore has sedulously left the question open, we may venture to suggest a further possibility. To us the first three views appear untenable because of the contradictions involved in any attempt to construe physical objects in terms of the hypothetical experience of sensibles under hypothetical suppositions and unexperienced conditions; while the fourth seems hardly more satisfactory, since it rests apparently on a simple “propensity to believe” in certain things on trust without being able to adduce rational justification of our belief; and although we may repose in such belief in certain moods of common sense, we seem liable to withdraw our assent in moments of critical reflection. Would there not be possible, however, a view of physical objects which should center in necessary and indubitable considerations? For there are certain incontrovertible elements common to all interpretations of physical objects, which, as it seems to us, might well be taken as constituting the sense in which the existence of physical objects in any sense (and that we do in some sense is here assumed without discussion), we must at least affirm their subsistence as entities to which the “laws of thought” and the principle of uniformity7 apply. In other words, physical objects can not be assumed at all without at least according them “being” in the minimal sense of assuming them to be what they are and that they behave uniformly. But if “existence” means fundamentally this, it 7

If physical objects are subject to the laws of thought, they are certainly also subject to the principle of uniformity, since it would be nothing less than a denial of identity and the assertion that a thing need not be what it is to suppose that under the same conditions an object could behave in different ways.

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may be said, it has no specific meaning, for the laws of thought apply to all entities in the universe, and hence existence as a predicate fails to denote one thing more than another; in this sense, sensibles, for instance, would exist exactly as precisely as much as do physical objects. The whole question is so hedged with difficulties that we can only venture certain tentatives. It seems, however, that when we compare sensibles in their ordinary meaning with physical objects, they do not have identity in the same full sense as the latter. For although the laws of thought always apply to sensibles, sensibles, as compared with physical objects, are always relatives; they do not seem to have an identity of their own fundamental to their relations, but what they are is determined by what they are related to. With physical objects in general, however, this would not ultimately seem to be the case. We conceive their nature as in some sense being and remaining what it is fundamental to their connections, in spite of the fact that our particular views about physical objects are undoubtedly modified by taking them in these different connections. Whereas mere sensibles would seem to be defined relative to possible experience, to be capable of an endless variety of interpretations and without anything fixed and binding in their content, the physical world itself, on the other hand, would appear to be at bottom something necessary and determinate. What the mind ultimately seeks and finds in such a world is uniformities, necessary connections, in a word, an “order of nature.” Sensibles, in so far as deductions and systematic meanings can be discovered through them, may be said to be reclaimed from their prima facie status as relatives whose opposite seems always possible to a place in an order that holds of all possible worlds. When I look at the two coins, for example, I apprehend certain sensibles which I recognize as relative to an indeterminate number of factors of experience, and as liable (through some slight alteration in these factors) at any moment to utter change. At the same time, I recognize that there are universal conditions governing these sensibles which determine them to be as they are and that any event that occurs under conditions with which its operation is connected universally. Insofar therefore as I refer these sensibles to determination through a totality of necessary conditions, I may be said to refer them to a physical order. Although I have no right to affirm that there actually are two physical objects of a certain kind in existence which resemble and correspond to these sensibles, I have at least the right to refer these sensibles with assurance to some general basis in a universal, orderly arrangement.

Chapter 9

Appearance and Orientation Grace Andrus de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this chapter, Grace Andrus de Laguna presents and argues for perspectivism about perception.

Despite the divergencies in contemporary epistemological theory there is one point that is rarely questioned. This is the assumption that something, or somewhat, is immediately given in cognition. If it is not the object itself, as all but the neo-realists agree, then it must be a matter, or datum of some sort which is given. If cognition can not itself be immediate, for reasons with which the dualists have made us familiar, then it must be mediate, i.e., must involve a process of mediation. But how can mediation occur and knowing take place unless there be something immediate to be mediated? The conclusion seems inescapable—as it is, provided the alternatives are exhaustive. But may it not be possible to analyze cognition in other terms, and to deny that knowledge is immediate without being committed to the doctrine that it consists in a process of mediation? A possible theoretical alternative is suggested by perspectivism, although it has not, so far as I am aware, been formulated by the advocates of perspectivism themselves. According to this doctrine, the percipient—and in an extended sense, the knower—apprehends things from a particular standpoint. This means that what he knows is not things in themselves, but aspects of things as determined by the perspective in which they stand with reference to the percipient. This is admittedly a relativism, but inasmuch as perspectivity is itself objective, and since a character ascribable to an object in a given perspective really belongs to it in that perspective, the relativism is held to be objective. Now there is a certain ambiguity in this doctrine Grace A. de Laguna: Originally published in 1934, in Journal of Philosophy, 31(3), 72–77. De Laguna notes that the article was first read at the meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Amherst College, December, 1933. G. A. de Laguna (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_9

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which is the cause of considerable confusion of thought. What the perspectivist should assert is that perception does not consist in the presentation of an appearance, but in the apprehension of an object from a standpoint. What he often seems to hold, however, is that aspects are somehow given in perception as bare appearances, and the problem with which he is concerned seems to be the construction of the object from these appearances. In short, he seems to treat the standpoint of the percipient as a merely external fact, a circumstance to be noted by the outside observer, and not as a factor internal to perception itself. Yet it is surely evident that it is meaningless to talk of the apprehension of an aspect unless it be from a standpoint. It is only the reference to standpoint which can make possible the objectivity of what is perceived. The apprehension of what is relative can be objective only if it be apprehended as relative, and not as simply given. The theoretical implications of perspectivism are then, I think, more radical and more far-reaching than has usually been recognized. Standpoint, or orientation, is not merely a fact about perception; it is a factor internal to perception. From this it follows: first, that whatever is apprehended is apprehended from a standpoint; there is no bare given as such; a datum is not immediately presented and then referred or synthesized. Secondly: while the percipient perceives from a standpoint, he does not perceive his standpoint. To borrow the terminology of Hobhouse, standpoint is “in consciousness” but not “for consciousness.” The distinction between content and orientation is thus an ultimate one for epistemology; orientation is a factor in perception which is irreducible to content. Let us consider the specific case of the visual perception of shape. According to traditional theory, an object placed below or at one side of us, as, for example, the familiar penny lying on the table, presents an apparent shape which is other than its real shape. The penny appears elliptical, although it is perceived as it really is, as round. Our perception of its roundness is supposed to be in some way mediated by the immediate apprehension of its apparent shape. The ellipse is given in some sense in which the circle is not. If one asks just how and in what sense it is given, however, the answer is not simple. We see the penny quite unquestionably as round; we must make a distinct effort to catch the apparent ellipse. Seeing appearances is an art we acquire in childhood when we learn to draw. Yet common sense, as well as traditional theory, regards the apparent ellipse we catch by an effort as somehow there, in a sense in which the real circle is not. An adequate epistemological theory must account for this natural belief a well as for the psychological phenomenon. A real shape differs from an apparent shape, let us assume, precisely in the fact that it presents a determinate set of appearances. A circle, for example, might be defined as that figure which presents a determinate series of apparent ellipses as its position relative to the observer is changed in a determinate manner. To perceive the penny as round as its position is varied must mean, then, not merely that a particular ellipse is given, but that it is apprehended as a member of the circle-series. If the ellipse is given as matter it must be synthesized by the imagination in accordance with the formal law. But this account will not do. It presupposes that the circle presents the appearance of an ellipse. But an ellipse can no more be identified with a given appearance than can a circle. An ellipse, too, is a figure that presents a determinate series of appearances

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other ellipses—in a determinate series of positions. Thus we seem committed to an endless regress in which the merely given appearance constantly recedes. On the other hand, if we succeeded in overtaking the given as such it would be a mere phantom. An appearance which is not an appearance of something is nothing at all. And yet there is some meaning in the statement that the round penny appears elliptical. The fact that we can and do make the distinction between real and apparent shape demands explanation. The statement that the penny on the table appears elliptical is in truth a condensed statement. We should say that it appears as an elliptical penny would appear if it were straight in front and in a plane perpendicular to the line of vision. We omit the reference to position because the position in question (which will be termed the O-position) is a peculiarly privileged one. It is so privileged, indeed that we tend to identify the appearance of the round penny in this position with its real shape, and to say that a circle seen thus is seen as it really is. Now there are, of course, psychological reasons for this; we see more clearly what is straight in front, for one thing, and for another, the pose of the body is one of organic equilibrium, a most favorable orientation. Moreover, we never “catch” from this standpoint an apparent shape, as we are able to do from other standpoints. But this psychological state of affairs does not justify the epistemologist in identifying the real circle with its appearance from this privileged standpoint, and thus ignoring the reference to standpoint altogether. What happens when, by an effort, we catch from other standpoints the apparent ellipse, is that our normal orientation is shifted and partly suppressed, so that we see the penny as if straight front. The apparent shape is due to its reference to the O-position. Yet this reference can not be complete or unequivocal, since we never actually mistake the penny lying below and to one side for an elliptical one at O. The ellipse is seen by us as an illusion in that it gives us no sense of reality; when we catch the elliptical shape we seem to have lost sight of the penny, and the shape appears as a mere shape curiously disembodied. Moreover, we do not see it as actually straight front, but still vaguely below and to one side, although it is flat and unsubstantial and at no determinate distance away. Now all this may be explained, I think, as due to a change in orientation, and a partial reversion to the privileged O-standpoint resulting in an incomplete and distorted localization of the object such that it is implicitly referred to the O-position. That such a reference actually occurs is evident from the fact that the representation of the appearances of things that we draw is intended to be looked at straight front. The ellipse drawn on paper to reproduce the appearance of the circular object must be held straight in front else it too will present an “appearance” representable as a thinner or shorter ellipse than the one originally presented by the circular object. No representation, however faithful and photographically exact, ever literally reproduces what it represents. The identity between the structural pattern of the representation and the pattern of what is represented, which is essential to representation, is exhibited only when the representation is regarded from the proper standpoint, and this is, of course, not itself contained in the representation. We are here concerned with

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perception and perceptual representation, but it may be suggested that something analogous is true of conceptual representation or symbolism. It might seem that all this is too obvious to need pointing out, much less arguing. But it is precisely this necessary reference to standpoint, this irreducible factor of orientation, that theories of presentationism, and in particular the theory of representative ideas, neglect entirely. The representative idea, or image was originally conceived, of course, after the analogy of the physical representation, like a picture just there before the mind’s eye, as it were, where it could be seen for what it was. But ideas are not, after all, it was recognized, like “pictures on a panel,” and they came to be regarded as pure psychical representations. An idea, it was held is given directly as no object could ever be given; it is no longer conceived as before the mind, but within the mind, and so completely is it apprehended that its very being is its being perceived. In brief, the very notion that there remains any vestige of externality or objectivity, or that any standpoint of the mind with reference to such an immediate idea is possible, is vigorously repudiated. Nevertheless, because the essential reference of a representation to the standpoint from which it is to be regarded is not recognized, the idea is still confusedly conceived as a representative image. So far we have argued that orientation is an irreducible factor in all perception and that reference to standpoint is essential to the apprehension of anything as objective. The fact that we can apprehend things only from a standpoint ceases to imply a limitation to mere relativity and subjectivity just in so far as our orientation is adequate and complete, and so far as the reference to it in our apprehension is explicit. In Hegelian terms, reference to standpoint involves transcendence of standpoint. It has, however, been evident that, at least in the ease of visual perception, there is one particular standpoint that is privileged; that the distinction between reality and appearance is dependent on this fact, and that furthermore there is a tendency to identify reality with appearance from this standpoint, and thus to ignore the reference to standpoint altogether. Various important questions present themselves: granted that orientation always occurs and that some reference to standpoint is involved in all cognition, in what sense may this reference be more or less explicit? Again, is the existence of a privileged standpoint peculiar to visual perception, or is it characteristic not only of all perception, but of all cognition, and is the tendency to ignore it in reflective thought and to identify reality with appearance from a privileged standpoint a permanent source of confusion? These questions I shall not attempt to answer here. There is, however, one further consequence of the recognition of orientation, to which attention must be called. It has just been stated that reference to standpoint is a condition of objectivity. But it is also true that if we necessarily apprehend things in reference to a standpoint, there must be a certain indetermination in our knowledge of them. Objects which are different from one another are indistinguishable with relation to a given referent. Differing figures yield identical projections. However complete our orientation, and however explicit the reference to standpoint, it would still remain true that things really different must appear alike. The penny in the privileged O-position, for example, is indistinguishable from the end of a long cylindrical copper bar. Shall it then be said that we see only appearance and never reality? No; for appearance

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must be the appearance of something, else it is nothing at all. Although we can not be sure that what we see straight front is really a penny, or the end of a bar, or even a shaved-off slice of a penny, we actually do—in most cases—see it as a penny and we must see it as an object. We do not and can not see a mere surface which is not the surface of a solid. Our perception then is liable to error, but it is not and can not be the indubitable apprehension of a mere given.

Chapter 10

Pragmatism and the Form of Thought Grace Andrus de Laguna, Theodore de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this chapter, Grace Andrus de Laguna and Theodore de Laguna critically examine the pragmatist theory of knowledge and offer their own alternative to it.

We propose to bring together in this chapter certain considerations bearing upon the contempt for formal logic which prevails among pragmatists. It appears to us, and we shall try to establish the contention, that this contempt and the hostility which it has inspired have no reasonable excuse; that they have arisen from an unwarranted exaggeration of the legitimate consequences of the pragmatist theory of truth. The general position which we are to criticise may be briefly indicated as follows. Consciousness is a function of the animal organism which has developed by reason of its utility in various types of situations. The intelligent study of consciousness will not attempt to separate it from the conditions under which its present characteristics have been acquired and to which its various structural relations owe all their functional importance. To make such a separation is to be committed to a formalism as shallow as that of an engineer who should analyze and describe a complicated machine without reference to the work for which it was designed and by which the proportions and interconnections of all its parts were determined. If consciousness is not to be studied as a thing-in-itself, still less is logical thought. For the latter is but an episode in the life of feeling. It has its rise in the unpleasant strain occasioned by the failure of an habitual mode of behavior; and it has its normal conclusion in the satisfaction attendant upon successful readjustment. All real thought is essentially practical, in the sense that it is devoted to the solving of Grace A. de Laguna and Theodore de Laguna: Originally published in 1910, in Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy, by Theodore de Laguna and Grace A. de Laguna G. A. de Laguna (B) · T. de Laguna School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_10

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problems arising out of the exigencies of conduct, and that when a solution is reached behavior is modified accordingly. Thought is therefore not to be studied to greatest advantage in those of its manifestations where it is as nearly as possible idle—where needs are fictitious, interest lax, effort subliminal, and the entire operation is scarcely more than the repetition of a form of words. When thought is seen at work, the meaning of logical validity is clear. Valid thought is efficient thought, thought that accomplishes its function of controlling conduct in accordance with the needs of the organism. The notion, that apart from its proper function thought may possess a peculiar intrinsic, or formal, validity, is delusive. A form of thought, as distinguished from its content, there is none. Hence the futility of formal logic. It is the physiology of a corpse—of thought which is without function and without life. Even the Hegelian dialectic is better; for in spite of willful abstraction one cannot think the categories without surreptitiously bringing in something of their concrete significance, and it is to this that whatever insight is therein displayed is due. But formal logic, the science of every thought and none, is at the limit of possible insignificance. Any access of sense is rigorously cut off. This judgment of the supposed science of thought is strongly confirmed by an examination of the specific content which it has accumulated. We find a body of formulae, which are fitly expressed, not in words with their wide and shifting associations, but in bare and simple algebraic symbols. Do these formulae constitute a description of any actual thought? Who knows? The logician, as logician, does not care—except that he would like to think that his logic itself is logical, i.e., conforms to its own canons; but this he knows he cannot show. But the intention of the formulae is not to describe actual thought (which may be logical or illogical) but a certain type of ideal thought. Whether any such thought has occurred or will ever occur, is a secondary consideration. The most striking characteristic of the ideal thought is the absolute fixity of its terms. A is A, and A is not not-A, are classic expressions of this feature. The most striking characteristic of actual human thought, at least to the observation of the trained student of human nature, is the more or less limited fixity and stability of its terms. They are products of an evolution which still proceeds. And though we cannot in many instances distinguish, or even imagine, the particular changes that may have taken place within the period of human history, and must even grant that certain concepts have, in all probability, remained substantially unchanged for ages, we cannot avoid recognizing at least the possibility of their future modification. In no case have we sufficient warrant to guarantee the permanent fixity of the existing forms; and, in fact, it is only within the domain of the mathematical sciences that such fixity could be claimed with any show of reasonableness. Of the great mass of our concepts we can scarcely doubt that they are changing now more rapidly than ever before. But where concepts are undergoing an evolution, a precise clearness cannot be expected. Where distinctions are hardening and melting away again and shifting generally, it is impossible that dividing lines should be shadowless and unbroken. Bacon’s aphorism, that ultimately satisfactory definitions belong, not to the initial

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stages, but to the consummation of the sciences, is significant to us as the description of a never to be attained ideal. The conviction of clearness is common enough. But we have well learned that there is no more suspicious indication of shallowness of mind. The nearer any concrete reasoning approaches the mathematical type, the readier we are to condemn it as doctrinaire. The weakness of the syllogism, that supposed universal form of thought, is now evident. The possibility of drawing a conclusion depends upon the exact identity of the middle term in the two premises. But who shall vouch for this? Not to the satisfaction of common sense alone, but in accordance with the canons of the syllogism itself? For by these canons the least variation constitutes a quaternio, and no valid inference is then possible. In fact, so far from being an absolutely certain mode of inference, the syllogism is dangerously deceptive, just because it effectually conceals the evidences of its weakness. The syllogistic axiom, the dictum de omni et nullo, pretending to represent the essential form of thought in abstraction from all particularity of content, is, in reality, without application to any content whatsoever; for its terms require just that fixity and clearness which the thoughts of men can never claim. The pragmatist theory, that all meanings refer ultimately to correlations of stimulus and response, can be accepted only with certain reservations, which may be summed up in the statement, that such reference is never direct and never univocal. Let us consider the latter qualification first. A concept is never univocal in its reference to a mode of conduct; that is to say, its meaning is never limited to the correlation of a certain type of stimulus with a certain response. On the contrary, its import invariably embraces a variety of actions under different circumstances. To take a simple example, the concept of the straight line means that when we wish to look at one object we must take care that a second does not stand in the way; a circumstance which, when it occurs, may be obviated by moving either of the objects, by standing aside, or by changing the attitude of the body. It also means that in order to hit an object with a missile we must throw it in its direction; that in order to reach a destination with the greatest promptitude, we must travel directly toward it; that in order that a rope may not sag it must be stretched taut; and so on, practically ad infinitum. So also an apple means to us the eating of it, if it be sound and sweet and our appetite be so inclined; the paring and coring of it, if need be; the removal of a worm or bruised spot perhaps. And the case is not different with such concepts as joy and sorrow, pity and scorn. We may add that even when the particular situation is given, the concept never determines a specific appropriate adjustment. The immediate one-to-one correlation does not fall within the function of thought. That remains the function of older and simpler agencies. Our thoughts direct our conduct, and it is in this service that their meaning ultimately consists; but every concept means both more and less than any particular application of it contains. To this we have added that the reference of a concept to a mode of conduct is never direct. The concept never directly bridges the gap between stimulus and response. On the contrary, thought is a long-circuiting of the connection, and its whole character depends upon its indirectness, its involution, if we may use the term. Though concepts, apart from the conduct which they prompt, mean nothing, yet their

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meaning is never analyzable except into other concepts, indirect like the first in their reference to conduct. But does not this really do away with the reference altogether? It certainly would, if concepts were ever (in the rationalist’s sense) perfectly clear, if their implications ever became perfectly explicit. But as thought always arises as a problem, so it always remains more or less problematic, for that is what lack of clearness amounts to. Every concept involves an indefinite number of problems; and these cannot be stated except in terms which themselves in turn involve indefinite series of problems. Nowhere is there an absolute given, a self-sufficient first premise. From this, as well as from the indirect and equivocal nature of the reference of thought to conduct, it follows that the confirmation or invalidation of a concept by the result of the conduct which it serves to guide can itself be no more than tentative. But this does not mean that it is unreal or unessential to the nature or development of thought. These considerations, however, have a decided bearing upon the pragmatist contention, that apart from its reference to conduct thought has no form. This is naturally understood to imply that the nature of thought may be exhaustively described in the statement of its relation to conduct. Now it is very probable that the statement of the relation between two terms may be indefinitely developed, so as to include any assignable attribute of the terms in question. But at any stage of scientific progress all this remains an abstract possibility; and the degree in which the statement of a relation is actually comprehensive of the otherwise known content of its terms is capable of indefinite variation. And with respect to thought and conduct it must be said that the very indirectness and equivocality of the reference of the former to the latter gives thought a character of its own, which is as independent of aught beyond as can well be imagined. The more meaning is read into this particular doctrine, the less truth there is in it. Apart from the reference of thought to conduct, that is to say, in the limitless interrelations of concepts with each other, thought has as distinctive a form as any abstractly considered entity whatsoever. What, then, shall be said of logical validity? Is it true that this does not attach to thought considered in abstraction from the control of conduct—that its only test is the practical one, the cessation of thought itself when its task of readjustment is done? For the reasons just given we cannot assent to this. The very indirectness of the reference of concepts to modes of reaction implies that the interrelations of concepts which mediate the ultimate practical reference must have a character of rightness or wrongness in themselves. To say that without the ulterior test of workability all other rightness or wrongness would be fictitious is to interpose an idle objection. For the point precisely is that without a characteristic organization of the content of thought the practical significance of thought would itself disappear. The fact is that according to the common pragmatist view a chain of reasoning would be altogether impossible. For in such a chain each link must be valid if the whole is to have any strength. But the test of practice obviously cannot apply to the separate links; it can only indicate in a general way the profitableness of the whole procedure. If the test fails, that alone does not determine where the difficulty lies. It is, indeed, implied, that each valid link, if separately tested—or if tested in a variety

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of connections, such as would throw its own strength or weakness into relief— would lead to satisfactory results. But in the chain of argument no such procedure is ordinarily contemplated. On the contrary, each conclusion reached in the course of the argument is regarded as proceeding immediately from its premises; and it is upon that supposition that the reasoner advances to the later conclusions. But it is not only the chain of reasoning that cannot be accounted for on the pragmatist basis. The simplest conceivable argument, in which premise and conclusion are distinguished, becomes equally inexplicable; and this can be shown from an example which is in constant reference by the pragmatists themselves. Let us suppose that the truth of a general hypothesis has been tested in the case of a particular instance, and has been found in want of correction. Here, on the basis of the hypothesis under consideration, something is inferred as to the results of acting in a certain way under certain circumstances; and this conclusion, as compared with the observed results, is found to be false. What now constitutes the validity of the inference which led to the admittedly false conclusion? The whole procedure depends upon this point, and yet just this point is submitted to no practical test. To be sure it may be said that similar inferences have in the past been found to be correct. But, in the first place, it is probably not on the basis of such a comparison that the untrue conclusion is accepted as correctly derived. That is seldom a matter for reflection. And, in the second place, we must observe that the pragmatist theory fails equally to explain the correctness of an inference from true premises. In a word, the theory does not distinguish between the correctness of an inference and the truth of its premises, and hence virtually eliminates the former altogether. So far as we are aware, this result can only be avoided by an interpretation of pragmatism in which its opposition to formal logic is given up. It is pointed out that the acceptance of a conclusion as satisfactorily derived, with consequent passing on the drawing of further inferences is itself a piece of conduct in which earlier thought finds its extinction; and that the meaning which we ascribe to the term ‘validity’ is exhausted in its reference to such conduct. To this we have no objection; but we think it necessary to call attention to several important features of the argument. In the first place, the conduct just mentioned is not to be confused with the conduct to which implied reference is made in the conclusion. Suppose, for example, that it has been demonstrated by the methods of elementary geometry, that a triangle is determined by the length of its three sides. This is a most useful principle in many lines of activity, very conspicuously in building. It means, for one thing, that a triangular structure made of stiff material is non-collapsible, even though its corners be hinged, and, consequently, that such a structure has no need of further bracing. The rectangle is known not to have this property; and accordingly a frame of that shape is frequently given greater rigidity by constructing a triangle in one of its corners. Now it is in its reference to such practical applications as this that the meaning of the proposition consists; and its truth is confirmed by the satisfactory issue of the conduct thus prompted. The point to which special attention must be called, is that, according to the interpretation of the pragmatist doctrine which we are now considering, this is not the conduct in reference to which the validity of the demonstration itself has its meaning. The meaning of ‘validity’ is found in the characteristic mental procedure

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involved in accepting the conclusion as warranted by the premises, and which would be generically the same, whether the premises (and accordingly the conclusion) were regarded as true, as probable, as possible, or even as contrary to fact. Here, as elsewhere, of course, no single definite act can be pointed out as unequivocally referred to by the concept; but that fact offers no greater difficulty here than in the case of physical behavior. In the second place, it is implied that apart from the interest attaching to the environmental situation which indirectly prompted the whole argument, there is likewise a specific interest attaching to the logical situation as such. This situation is formulated in a problem, the solution of which is contained in the acceptance of the conclusion as correctly derived. That such a specific interest exists is very commonly believed, and is by no means an untenable hypothesis. Logical validity is thus recognized as a kind of value depending upon a specific sentiment and as in so far comparable to esthetic and moral values. In the third place, the special point which we have had in view throughout this digression is now readily established,—namely that the opposition of pragmatism to merely formal logic has no solid basis. The familiar pragmatist doctrine, that thought has no validity apart from its function in controlling conduct, seems like a subterfuge when we reflect that the conduct to which logical validity refers is logical procedure itself. It is no subterfuge, however, but only the result of an afterthought which reestablishes what at first sight seemed done away with. And after all, though the negative result proved deceptive, the positive results which may be safely enumerated are not small. It is no small gain to have learned, that in so far as thought has a distinctive form, it must be viewed as purposive behavior animated by a distinctive human interest. It surely is not a less welcome, because a somewhat unexpected, outcome of the pragmatist philosophy, that theoretical values as such are restored to their ancient position of dignified independence of more narrowly ‘practical’ needs. Let it be noted that in asserting against the pragmatist the indispensability of the conception of a form of thought as such, we do not commit ourselves to any dogma as to the universality or permanence of this form. We need assert no greater claims for the form of thought (however it be expressed) than we are ready to assert for the fundamental laws of mechanics. In either case, if an absolute exist we can never know it; and any ascription of qualities to the unknowable is sheer play of fancy. The form of thought as we know it, though fairly clear in certain respects, is sadly obscure in some others. Our conceptions of it have undergone some very decided modifications in the past, and no doubt will be profoundly modified in the future. The assertion, then, that thought has a universal form, could we but know it, is without scientific significance. And to assert absolute universality for any statement of its form which we can make, is to lapse into indefensible rationalism. Nor, for similar reasons, are we committed to any dogma with regard to the relation of the form of thought to its content. We must, however, frankly admit one necessary assumption,—namely, that hypothetically to recognize any definite form of thought at all is hypothetically to recognize it as a universal under which various contents are subsumed without change in itself. But the self-contradiction—if such there be—is no greater than is involved in any general proposition whatsoever. For no proposition

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can contain the confession of its own impermanence. And it is of no avail to object that ‘form,’ as distinguished from ‘content,’ is a category of ignorance or of imperfect knowledge; for so are all our other categories. Herein, though we have departed from the letter of the pragmatist doctrine, we believe we have remained true to its deeper spirit. Our criticism is, indeed, that it has contained a vital inconsistency. In the theory of inference that inconsistency appears as a denial of the reciprocality of determination, as exemplified in the relation of premise and conclusion. Whereas rationalism had made the former prior in authority, pragmatism has simply reversed the order of dependence and made the conclusion prior to the premise. Thus, for pragmatism as for rationalism, the inference has ultimately vanished altogether. It is not necessary for us to examine at length the specific criticisms which the pragmatist urges against the traditional schema of the form of thought, namely, the syllogism. It is true that the formula of the syllogism does imply that the terms are distinct and fixed in meaning, at least so far as to ensure the universality of the major premise and to exclude a quaternio terminorum; and it is possible that this condition is not satisfied in any real deduction. But the answer is, that deduction is a thought-process in which ideas are regarded as if they were fixed and distinct; and an ample justification of the process is the fact that ideas must be so regarded if their specific obscurities and self-contradictions are ever to be exhibited and removed. It is by working our ideas for all that they are worth, that their limitations are brought to light. Is the syllogism a true account of the deductive process as it goes on in our minds? We cannot say that; for, in the first place, it would claim for the doctrine of the syllogism an absolute certitude which we are not disposed to claim for any knowledge whatsoever; and, in the second place, we know in a general way that obscurity and vacillation everywhere pervade our thought. But in a specific instance, the syllogism may well enough describe our thought, so far as our perception of its significance yet extends; and when that perception becomes deeper, we no longer call the total process, as thus distinguished, deduction. And furthermore, at any stage of progress, the syllogism is the form which the clearest of our thought appears to take. In so far, the rationalist was undoubtedly right in his conception of deductive certainty as the ideal of science. He did not see, however, that it is an ideal which can only be progressively realized,—that its absolute realization would, indeed, be the extinction of thought altogether. If there were any such assured knowledge as the rationalist dreamed of—final, irreducible, modifiable only by accretion—his logic would have been unanswerable. It is our sense of the universal process that for us limits the truth of his account to a temporal cross-section of knowledge, regarded as if it were eternal. Very similar must be our comment upon the pragmatist’s treatment of the conception of fundamental categories of thought. Despite its lack of finality the conception has a very considerable degree of usefulness. Kant is popularly believed to have been one of the most wanton of theorists, exceeded in this respect only by his romantic successors,—a self-centered recluse who unrestrainedly piled speculation upon speculation, with the slenderest basis of observed fact. The student of Kant knows that this is not true,—that among all philosophers ancient and modern he is unsurpassed

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both for the breadth of scientific observation which went to the forming of his views, and for the rigid faithfulness with which he persisted in his observations and refused to indulge in gratuitous hypothesis. To adopt a phrase of the nature-poets, never was there a man who more invariably wrote “with his eye on the object.” It is, indeed, in consequence of impartial fidelity to matter-of-fact, that the volumes of his critical philosophy are unusually full of naked paradox—short of formal contradiction, no consideration could lead him utterly to exclude a well attested datum of experience. To this general character of his thought, the doctrine of the categories assuredly presents no exception. If we can no longer accept that doctrine in its historical form, our dissent is due neither to faulty observation in the premises nor to fallacy in the reasoning, but to a radical transformation in the whole body of logical theory in which the conception of categories has its place. To the array of tolerably evident facts which the Kantian doctrine represents a respectful interpretation must still be given. These facts may be briefly enumerated as follows. We are in possession of a number of very general principles, to which we attribute a truth that is not conceived as open to correction by any experience; inasmuch as all the particulars of experience are interpreted in accordance with these principles, and any observation which apparently contradicted them would rather itself be denied than cause a modification in these principles. These principles are obviously synthetic, and thus open to formal questioning, and no demonstration of their truth can be given; but they constitute the most comprehensive organization of our experience, and it is in this function that their validity consists. The reality of phenomena in our experience has no further assignable meaning than their conformity to these most general conditions of experience. How these facts were interpreted by Kant need not now concern us, except to note that in that interpretation the possibility of an evolutionary explanation of them was definitely excluded. Herein Kant remained a rationalist. Thought, for him, must operate with concepts, to which the laws of contradiction and of the excluded middle applied absolutely and without reservation. That, measured by such a standard, the fundamental categories of the understanding should be false—that the unity of experience which they mediated should be imperfect—was not for him a real possibility. His problem did not include it. Thus the scepticism which he refuted was one which left the analytical judgment unquestioned. It was only the fact of synthesis that suggested doubt, and this only in so far as universality was claimed for it. The very enterprise with which the Transcendental Analytic sets out—the formation of a definitive and complete list of categories, as if that were a thinkable performance—is sufficient to indicate his attitude in the matter. And the completeness of the list in which the metaphysical deduction issues is an important premise in the later argument. It is upon this that the indispensability, and hence the unquestionable validity, of the categories depends. These and no others must perform the function which they perform—because there are no others. In place of this persistent dogmatism, we would rather observe that when a succession of concepts appears, each of which has arisen as a modification of the preceding complex, a certain relative stability belongs to the earlier members. Not as if temporal

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priority gave a logical priority in the ordinary sense of the term; for the later does not come as a mere accretion to the earlier, but as a modification of it which goes to the formation of a more complex unity. But the earlier has nevertheless this preference: that, as the further revision of the complex becomes necessary, this takes place, as far as possible, in the later elements; and only such portion of the correction as cannot be made here is passed back farther and farther, until the disturbing conditions are satisfied. This, indeed, appears to be a general characteristic of all evolution, and forms a part, at least, of what is commonly alluded to as the ‘continuity’ of the process. It may, therefore, naturally be expected, that among our concepts there are certain ones which are not observably affected in the course of ordinary experience, and thus stand to the whole of our thought as nearly as possible in the relation of an a priori ground. Such we may well enough designate the ‘categories’ of our thought; but they will obviously lack certain of the important characteristics that have traditionally been associated with this term. They are not forms of thought as distinguished from its content; they are not final or unmodifiable; we cannot affirm that they are true of all possible experience. In short, they are to be distinguished by no hard and fast line from the other concepts of the understanding. What, then, is the practical use of the distinction? Simply this: that, when we try to give an account of the concepts which appear to be fundamental in all our thinking, we find that they form a quite closely articulated system—not so perfect, doubtless, as the absolute idealist would have had us believe, but still a system, and the most permanent factor in our thought. If we, then, regard our present knowledge as a cross-section of an evolutionary process—a loose procedure, if judged by too scrupulous a standard, for our present knowledge continues its development while we inspect it; but none the less a necessary procedure—the system of categories stands out as an a priori element in our thinking, a pure form of thought, logically prior to all the particularity of experience. That is to say, we find ourselves virtually at the standpoint of the critical philosophy—with this exception, indeed, that we do not regard it as an ultimate standpoint, and hence no longer expect a self-sufficient completeness in the view of reality which it affords. In the sense of this exception, the critical standpoint has, we believe, been transcended; but we must still return to it for observations of the utmost scientific importance. It is in this light that we must regard the logical researches of Kant’s successors, and in particular those of Hegel. We have already expressed our reasons for the opinion, that, in spite of important divergences, Hegel’s epistemology is still fairly to be classed as a form of rationalism. Although more to him than to any other man is due the elaboration of the logical conceptions which appertain to general evolutionary theory; and though he applied these conceptions with wonderful insight to the study of the development of thought; yet that development, as he conceived it, was a movement within a system, not of a system, for the system as such was completely determined by its absolute end. For this reason he could not dispense with the essentially rationalistic conception of pure—that is to say, a priori—thought, and whatever may be conceived to have been the psychological history of his logic, it stands in its full rounded completeness as a schema to which nature and spirit universally conform. But, when the extravagances to which his absolutism led him

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are, as well as may be set aside, and the Science of Logic is viewed as a provisional solution of a problem, which, from the terms in which it is stated, can never be adequately solved, it becomes a treasurehouse of inestimable wisdom, which the pragmatist, of all men, cannot afford to despise.

Chapter 11

The General Nature of Reason Marie Collins Swabey Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this chapter, Marie Collins Swabey critiques naturalism and defends a rationalistic conception of knowledge.

11.1 The Naturalistic Interpretation The relation of reason to its natural setting, of knowing to the physical world, furnishes philosophy with one of its most crucial and difficult problems. To begin with, reason may be regarded from two different points of view. On the one hand, it may be considered simply as one of several natural capacities (or as a function of them) marking by its presence a tendency of the organism toward abstraction, comparison, and reflection. As such, it may be taken as standing on a level with sensation, feeling, or will, and as differentiated from them only in degree, by virtue of its superior organizing and synoptic power. Or, on the other hand, reason may be regarded from a non-naturalistic standpoint as something preeminent and unique, as a capacity qualitatively distinct from, and authoritative over, the special aptitudes, and as lending man his peculiar supremacy over nature. Reserving discussion of this latter view for the time being, let us begin with an examination of reason as naturalistically conceived. The developments of modern science seem to have shown, at least to the empiricist’s satisfaction, that man’s mind no less than his body is wholly of animal extraction and a part of the world of nature. If this be assumed, the same great evolutionary processes and laws (physical, chemical, biological) that account for the rest of the physical world are held to explain exhaustively the constitution of man. Just as Marie Collins Swabey: First published in 1930 in Marie Collins Swabey, Logic and Nature (New York: New York University Press), 33–64. M. C. Swabey (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_11

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animal life is definable in terms of its physical and chemical constituents, hereditary tendencies, and environmental situation, so likewise human activities, including knowledge, are held to be fully interpretable as functions of these same conditions. Accordingly, from this point of view, what appears to be the mind’s free selectivity, its power of abstracting certain features from the stream of experience, and of noting their likenesses and differences, is really nothing more than a mechanical response of the organism to its physical surroundings. In other words, the organism is said to abstract or select just those features of the total situation which impinge upon it with greatest strength and intensity; thus we inevitably react to the brightest colors and the loudest sounds, or at any rate to whatever stirs most strongly our organic needs and impulses. What looks at first sight like a process of self-determination in thinking turns out to be only, broadly speaking, a mechanism of natural selection; and all man’s so-called intellectually creative and constructive “action” proves, on closer inspection, to resolve into so many kinds of “reaction.” The tendency to irritability, to motor response, apparently constitutes, from this standpoint, the fundamental differentia of life in all its varying forms. At the basis of life, we are told, stand the class of substances known as protoplasm, which are extremely unstable compounds. Given these unstable compounds of C, H, O, N, P, S, and so forth, with their propensity to variation, then, by an inevitable process of interaction with the environment, certain of them break down; whereas others, better adapted to the surrounding physico-chemical conditions persist and win relative equilibrium and stability. This tendency of compounds to maintain their equilibrium as against their surroundings, their “inertia” or resistance to change, comes to be distinguished at the organic level as a definite propensity of things to “persist in their own being” (conatus essendi) or as a specific impulse to self-preservation. Accordingly, all the actions of living beings are to be interpreted, in this view, not merely as physical and chemical reactions but also specifically as “saving reactions,” as mechanisms directed upon the preservation of protoplasm as protoplasm, of life as life. But if this account be correct in its essentials, the reasoning and intellectual life of man are nothing but so many determinate resultants of physico-chemical laws. Even the most complicated activities of the most highly developed nervous systems have to be accounted for purely in mechanistic terms. Of course, owing to the incompleteness of scientific knowledge at the present time regarding the processes involved, wide differences in emphasis and detail are to be expected among empirical explanations. In certain quarters, for instance, chief stress is laid upon the concept of the reflex arc as the unit of functional activity; and all higher manifestations of organisms are reduced to the compounding of such arcs. Other hardy empiricists prefer to dilate especially upon recent discoveries connected with the ductless glands and the astonishing variations in psychic life apparently attributable to their over-development or atrophy. Through this means, they find a way to explain man’s reflective activities in terms of the chemistry of the body and its internal secretions. Still others incline to stress photo-chemical changes known in lower forms of life as “tropisms.” The turning of the sunflower to the sun or the flight of the moth to the candle they take as expressive of the essential principle of behavior-reaction to which man in the highest reaches of his thought must conform. But since, despite various unbridged gaps and

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divergences in detail, these hypotheses agree in holding all activity to be explicable as a conditioned response to a particular stimulus, they are obliged to construe rational knowledge also (as a form of activity) as the expression of a positive or negative reaction on the part of an organism toward some definite physical obstacle or incitement in the environment.

11.2 The Impossibility of Universal Knowledge from the Standpoint of Naturalism From this point of view, man’s most magnificent inferences, his dreams and theories, his scientific laws, his engineering feats, and modification of species have all to be interpreted as so many complex adumbrations of fundamental organic needs, as ingenious adaptations or working devices accidentally evolved in the struggle for existence. In the last analysis, we are led in fact to believe that the sole abiding worth of man’s religious, scientific, and aesthetic constructions is to be found in their contributory function to life as life. And although this extreme conclusion is sometimes overtly disavowed by evolutionary naturalists, the implications of their doctrine are such that nothing else can well be meant. Theories, no less than claws, wings, and tails, are finally evaluated in terms of the generic problems of survival which they help to solve. The reason or intellect, no less than the leg or arm, is taken as, in structural principle, only another weapon of refined musculature wherewith to wrest subsistence from a recalcitrant world. Upon these assumptions, knowledge is essentially preservative rather than creative, a defence or acquisitive reaction to a particular stimulus, rather than an originative enterprise for reshaping the materials of experience to some pattern of the ideal. But if man and his capacities are wholly part of nature, and if nature is an aggregate of sensuous particulars, then clearly man can claim no genuine knowledge other than of particulars or knowledge that rises above them. Hence when reflection seems to soar above the world of special de facto considerations and to concern itself with cosmic problems as if it were a universal spectator, let us not be deceived, says the empiricist, but let us remember that man is simply an animal like other animals, a chemical compound like other compounds (for there is no element entering into his composition which is not common to the inorganic world), and that as such he is constitutionally oriented, first and last, upon his organic needs and the maintenance of the stability of his physical system. Accordingly, naturalism denies the pretensions of reason to envisage genuinely formal and universal, as opposed to material and particular, objects. Concepts or generic notions are accounted as nothing more than “generalizations”; while theoretical grounds and reasons are denied all efficacy, being construed as idle, compensatory “rationalizations” after the event. The real forces guiding thought and action are held to be those of our physico-chemical constitution; yet because we are unaware of this control, we often mistakenly attempt to justify our irresistible motor tendencies by conjuring up post facto speculative grounds and

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ideal explanations of them. The plain fact is, according to naturalism, not only that man is unable to envisage true universals, but that (even if he could) he would be incapable of responding to such ideas as a stimulus. Accordingly, he must reconcile himself to being merely the product of certain specific, mechanical conditions; and must comprehend his moments of apparent initiative, spontaneity, and origination as only the effects of deeper-lying causes in the order of nature. In the extreme form in which it is here represented, naturalism is open to obvious criticisms. The chief objection to be offered is, of course, that these ends (life for life’s sake and the maintenance of the equilibrium of systems, etc.) upon which nature is said to be directed, are themselves metaphysical and teleological constructions of man’s reasoning about his supposed animalism, chemical constitution, and so on. Here is more than a suggestion of paradox. For naturalism, despite its disclaimers of all but the strictest empirical and scientific accounts of nature, must find that its very position, if systematically adhered to, constitutes a teleological-metaphysical theory about the world which goes far beyond the warrant of direct experience, yet which seemingly must be granted if the results of the sciences are to be construed by it as either trustworthy or significant. Furthermore, question may well be raised regarding the view of thought as a biological instrument, on the ground that, even if one grant that it has in certain contexts an instrumental aspect, abstract thinking is so different in kind from the sense organs, from legs and arms, and from other particulars of organic equipment, as to be hardly comparable with them. The chief mark of most biological tools is the fact that they are bound up with the structure and locus of the organism. The leg, for instance, is attached to the body, and where the body cannot go, the legs cannot go; and similarly with the other members. In other words, the organ apparently requires some direct contact with the environment for any experience or knowledge of it. Thus, even in the case of an instrument of distance-reception like sight, the environment has to come to it. That is, specific vibrations must be given off by the object visioned, must be transmitted by the ether, strike the retina, be carried to the optic nerve, and so on; in short, the experience seems to presuppose something like adjacent or contact action through space between the stimulus-object and the responding organ. In thinking, on the other hand, such direct conjunction or overlapping appears unnecessary; and, as a result, questions of motion from place to place and bodily behavior become far less important. A thinker may presumably sit quietly with closed eyes and conceive events in Betelgeux or what will happen in the year 3,000 a.d., or review the age of reptiles in prehistoric evolution. In such cases, reflection claims to grasp objects in the past, present, or future environment with which the organism has not, and in all probability will never have, any direct sensible contact. In thus prospectively delineating a state of non-experienced experience and retrospectively describing what the world looked like when there was nobody to look at it, mind seemingly assumes its power to transcend the narrow boundaries of direct acquaintance which circumscribe the organism. and to make use of an organon of knowledge distinct from a particular form of bodily behavior. Of course, it may be flatly objected by some that thought is simply mistaken in its presuppositions; and that, being only as it were a feeble chemical glow of an animal sensorium on a minor planet, it cannot

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possibly reliably envisage such remote and transcendent objects. Yet if this be so, and if reflection cannot be trusted to mean what it claims to mean as regards its basic postulates, the entire structure of knowledge seems threatened, with the result that not merely thought itself but the whole body of its discoveries (including planets, sensoria, organisms, and environments) appear thrown open to question. Before taking up these difficulties more fully, however, let us note the existence of certain modified forms of naturalism of wider scope than the foregoing. Many of these broader interpretations recognize the genuineness of reason as a distinctive aptitude and, though still denying its supremacy, nevertheless admit its parity with the other functions of mind.

11.3 Admissions of a More Liberal Naturalism From the standpoint of a more liberal naturalism, one of the most striking marks of reasoning as compared with the other capacities of mind is its range of comprehensiveness coupled with an apparent economy of effort. Thus, the objects of reason do not require full pictorial representation in consciousness as do, for instance, objects of memory, imagination, or perception. These latter are held to be trustworthy only when they can be presented as particular existences before the mind in considerable detail. Yet, if we credit current psychology, our range of attention is limited to the apprehension of some five or six discrete objects simultaneously, so that we are plainly handicapped in processes like memory, imagination, or perception, by the time and effort required to marshal a small number of presentations on and off the stage of consciousness. Fortunately, however, there is another aptitude that is largely free of this requirement. Reason or understanding has the power to arrive at conclusions regarding its objects without the laborious, time-wasting necessity of grasping them as particular existences and holding them individually before attention. This is because it is able to lay hold of the form or abstract schema of objects as distinct from their particular content. Thus reason with its capacity for representation through the relational structure of ideas rather than their matter, seems to offer quite incredible resources for the enlargement of knowledge; vastly wider possibilities of synthesis, in fact, than could be won presumably by memory in history or imagination in art.1 This greater scope is also, as was said, correlated with greater saving of time and energy. Were it not, indeed, possible for reasoning to dispense with most of the details of presentation in consciousness, we should sit and perish while seeking to arrive at a small number of conclusions. Another mark of reason duly recorded by a broader naturalism is the propensity to organize data into systems and to disclose interrelationships among objects hitherto apparently disconnected. Indeed, some have even gone so far as to define reasoning as just this tendency to interconnection persistently applied. In conformity with this 1

Of course, this does not deny that rational activity may include and make use of memory and imagination, but only stresses that it can never be identical with them.

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inclination, understanding never apparently accepts a “fact” offhand at its face value or takes an isolated judgment as more than provisional; but requires that each shall be confirmed by linkage with other facts and judgments which mutually sustain and support it. My belief, for instance, that “This azalea is red” appeals for tacit corroboration to the body of my sensory judgments, to their power of correcting and supplementing one another, to the verdict of competent witnesses, and so forth. Moreover, each group of consilient judgments seems to lead on to other groups. In the end, although our reasoning presumably never realizes its ideal, which is that of a single, all-inclusive system with no grounds outside itself, it is customary to assume that, other things being equal, the more comprehensive a coherent body of judgments is, and the richer in interconnections, the more reliable it is likely to be. No other capacity of mind appears comparable to reasoning in respect of this power of organizing the data of experience on the one hand, and, on the other, of performing the equally valuable negative function of exposing contradictions.

11.4 The Ultimate Weakness of Naturalism and the Assumption of Transcendentalism But even such broad, eclectic descriptions of reason as the foregoing are open to the charges preferred against naturalism, as it seems to me, in so far as they deny the priority of reason to experience. It is not enough to distinguish reasoning from the other capacities merely in degree, or to note its superior aptitude for synoptic and symbolic representation as compared with them. Its supremacy over the rest of mind must also be recognized, together with its power of illuminating the objective order of things. Only by supplementing the foregoing views with a second view of reason, regarded as logically prior to experience and in so far possessed of a supra-natural character, can the contradictions of naturalism be avoided. The paradox of naturalism rests, if I am not mistaken, in its assumption that the rational mind and its constructions can be wholly included as a finite part within the sphere of nature. For any attempt to explain the mind and reason as the product of a naturalistic process must tacitly allow the self-refuting assumption that the process described is itself the product of reasoning. In other words, despite itself the intellect comes to be admitted as both the source and the product of nature. Nor is the contradiction to be avoided by taking refuge in the distinction between the facts of nature and the theory about them, and by claiming that only the latter is the mind’s creation: for this very distinction is itself a construction of mind. Had not the mind been adequate to comprehend evolution as a theory, we should have no reason whatever to believe in evolution as a process. Moreover, once naturalism can be brought to see that the nature of nature (i.e. its laws and operations) is disclosed only to intelligence, and that our contact with facts is always in a context of theory (admittedly of the mind’s creation) it surely cannot deny, in the absence of all negative

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instances, that nature as the object of thought is inseparable from the activity and construction of thought which reveals it. Apparently, the only way in which thought can escape the contradiction of conceiving the intellect as both the source and product of evolution is through the frank recognition of the self-transcendent competency of reasoning to raise itself above the natural order and to be the spectator of its own development in experience. But if, on the contrary, we accept the naturalistic account of mind and endeavor to limit our thinking rigidly to these assumptions, the riddle becomes insoluble how so fragile, uncertain, and accidental a phenomenon as intelligence should be qualified to pronounce a verdict or draw credible conclusions regarding the nature of things in general. What warrant can we have of the reliability of the human mind as a criterion, when, by its own admission, it is so deficient and circumscribed in power and extent? What guarantee have we of the strictness of its leading or the veracity of its conclusions? Broadly speaking, the tenets of naturalism as apparent in present philosophy may be summarized somewhat as follows: First, all knowledge is derived from experience by methods ultimately empirical; and nothing can be said to exist save what is definable in terms of experience. Second, the favorable maintenance of existence and of the stability of systems appears to be a fundamental tendency of natural processes. Third, the basic order of nature is temporal and causal and there is no separate order discoverable of logical dependence. Fourth, intellect or reasoning is only a proper part of nature, and, as such is always less than and included within the whole of it. Our contention, on the contrary, is that naturalism, wherever it adheres strictly to the implications of these propositions, involves itself in a self-refuting position whereby knowledge itself becomes impossible. The only plausible escape from this predicament, as we see it, is through acceptance of the transcendent competence of reasoning and the recognition of its capacity as an infinite part to encompass the whole, by which means alone the paradox of intellect (its inclusion within the object revealed by it) seems resolvable. For if, as naturalism maintains, all knowledge is limited to experience, man can hardly claim to arrive at any accurate estimates of universal processes of the world order; since in the nature of the case, his organism can never wholly traverse or sensibly examine all parts of the environing totality, or even, for that matter, a single aspect of it.2 Yet, if this be so, clearly man can have no assurance of the trustworthiness 2

Thus, the propositions “All water is H2 O” or “Ammonia is NH3 ” make assertions that go far beyond the empirical evidence of the cases examined, since only a very limited number of samples have actually been analyzed. Clearly mere experience is not entitled to authorize a pronouncement here as to the nature of the non-experienced cases. To this, the empiricist may reply that the proposition means only that “So far as experience has gone, such has been the case; and, therefore, man has an empirically justified tendency to expect that future experiences will resemble past ones.” But that mere experience entitles us to make this kind of generalization involving past and future is precisely what the rationalist questions. Both past and future for the radical empiricist, he maintains, must be constructions from the immediately present “given” of the organism; and, as such, they never fall within the limits of actual experience at any given time. What we call the past, for instance, is really the work of memory, which constantly selects and arranges sensory

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of the second proposition of naturalism, that survival-value is the ultimate scale by which everything is tested. Such an assertion not only transcends the scope of empirical verification, but also expresses a metaphysical insight into the nature of the universe, which is precisely the sort of knowledge which naturalism disclaims as impossible. In the third place, when naturalism denies the reality of the logical order and reduces all processes to those of temporal succession, it conflicts with science and even contradicts its own conclusions in so far as derived from science. For, wherever science establishes an hypothesis regarding nature, it does so by means of a reflective analysis working in reverse order from that of the temporal genesis assumed to hold in the natural process itself. Furthermore, the very formulation of the law or theory seems to imply that it is revealed to a logical spectator or disembodied intelligence which is able in a single coup d’oeil to survey the sequence of events in time and space. Acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis plainly presupposes the power of mind to raise itself above the natural order. That is, unless we suppose the competence of intellect to outflank and encompass the natural process (unless we assume the part as equal to the whole), it appears impossible to credit as trustworthy this same intellect’s account of the world-process including its claim to be itself a product of it. The logical status of intellect must, if genuine knowledge is possible, be assumed to be independent of the conditions of the emergence of mind in the space–time order; since, on the one hand, the primacy and priority of reason must be granted in a logical sense before, on the other, the evolutionary account of its late appearance in phenomenal history becomes credible. Here, as elsewhere in the system of knowledge, the relation of causal sequence may run directly counter to the order of logical dependence.

11.5 Can the Act of Measuring Be Itself Part of the System Measured? But naturalism, in its zeal to construe man as wholly part of nature, apparently overlooks both the inconsistencies in its own premises and the presuppositions of scientific method. That the transcendence of mind over nature is tacitly granted by science in its procedure, seems to us something that can hardly be denied, considering the logic of its assumptions. For only by presuming the adequacy of intellect to embrace the phenomenal course of events, is science able to place confidence in its own results. Were this power of transcendence denied, the belief in uniformity, the belief that the past and future are as they are thought to be—for that matter, the whole of inferred history and scientific hypothesis—would be undermined. material in reverse order, daubing it with the light and shade of imaginative emphasis and, in general, creating an extraordinary fiction of experience as it was never experienced. Even more obviously, the futures which figure in our predictions are fictions respecting non-existent experiences, since, strictly speaking, we cannot by any twist of interpretation claim actually to have lived through future futures.

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Moreover, scientists themselves are to-day calling attention to the limitations involved in the strictly empirical or observational standpoint. Recent discoveries have emphasized the enormous biological and physical handicaps to which man is subject in laboratory experimentation. Owing to the fact that the scientific observer is always planted in a human body upon a larger planetary body, from both of which he is powerless to detach himself, universality and objectivity can hardly be claimed for a particular set of observations made from a particular standpoint. For where the locus and activity of the observer are themselves part of what is observed, absoluteness can hardly attach to the individual results, which are bound to be colored by naturalistic peculiarities. Introspective methods in psychology, for instance, and experiments like those of Michelson and Morley in physics would seem to have shown by their negative results the impossibility of determining the behavior or movement of a system by observations within the system.3 Yet at the same time that science to-day recognizes that the observer cannot jump out of his skin in a natural sense, it nevertheless admits that he can stand outside his private viewpoint intellectually. That is, although we remain imprisoned within the confines of our sensori-motor system and chained to its locus as regards our immediate perceptions, we are still able by means of theoretical reckoning and calculation to discount these impediments through correlating the standpoints of different observers with one another according to definite rules, so that the laws of nature or ideal relationships disclosed may be freed from dependence upon the accidental features of individuality and hold not merely for one but for a plurality of systems. This is only another way of saying, as I understand it, that science admits the competence of reason (although a part) to step outside itself, as it were, and to assess the whole in which it is contained. On any other assumption, the possibility of obtaining genuinely universal propositions would almost certainly have to be denied; yet science seems to assert just such universal propositions. For instance, anyone who affirms that “all bodies gravitate” is himself possessed of a body, and, as such, claims to come under the law that he enunciates. Now, from the standpoint of naturalism, it follows that, if the formulator of a law falls within its scope, the law is open to suspicion. For, since naturalism denies the possibility of transcendence, it can hardly do otherwise—when confronted with a clear case of the inclusion of the part which does the measuring within the whole which is measured—than question the authenticity of the results. Nor is the difficulty to be avoided by saying that Newton or the observer did not mean to include his own body under the principle of gravitation; since, in that case, he did not say what he meant. If, by “all bodies,” he did not mean “all bodies” but made an important exception of his own, then the vaunted universality of the law is unfounded. Similar contradictions are discoverable in the principle of the conservation of energy, so long as it is interpreted on naturalistic assumptions. That is, either the formulation of the principle must aim to cover even the particular amount of energy required in the enunciation of the law (in which case, we have admission of the self-transcendence

3

Cf. [Swabey, Logic and Nature], pp. 271–272; also 269–270.

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of the part to include the whole) or else, if not intended to be included, the pretensions to universality are false. And the same thing holds of evolution. Man, when he formulates the proposition that “all life evolves,” plainly claims that he himself falls within the process. And what is this but to declare his body, mind, and whole scale of measurement part of the object measured? Yet, if this be so, what credence can be placed in the theory itself, in the feeble attempt of the creature to embrace the creative process, of the effect to reabsorb the cause? Acceptance of the naturalistic account of evolution with its emphasis upon the tardy, trivial, and casual appearance of mind in the cosmic sequence, seems here in conflict with the assumed priority of reason as a presupposition of scientific knowledge. Our conclusion is, therefore, that so long as mind and reason continue to be used as the master-key to unlock the riddles of nature, unequivocal recognition should be given to the logical supremacy of the instrument over the object and its adequacy to compass the task.

11.6 The Transcendental Interpretation Only by admitting the transcendental character of reason, its capacity to raise itself above the natural order and to survey the spectacle in which it moves as a spectator, only so can we gain some notion of an organon that might comprehend the universe. When inquiry is made as to the outstanding features of reflection viewed as a selftranscendent process, the answer is often that it places the significance of everything in its referable and inferable character. By this is meant that nothing is considered purely in itself or on its own account, but that everything is taken as the sign of something else. In other words, the reasoning mind does not assume its object to be a bare datum; but, on the contrary, takes what is given as the representation of something not given, which serves as its evidence or support. The deliverances of sense, imagination, and feeling, on the other hand, take their stand primarily upon immediate experience, not sharing the assumption of reflection that data derive their significance from a source outside them. In the language of empirical procedure, “everything is precisely what it is given as, and is not to be explained away in terms of something else.” So long as we stand within the actual sensuous, emotional, or imaginative experience, it raises no doubts as to the object, but treats it as so much given fact devoid of extraneous implications. Now, although in most of the enterprises of knowledge both rational and empirical factors are so interwoven as to be scarcely separable, it is nevertheless possible to contrast the two in a broad way by equating them with the methods of induction and deduction as ordinarily interpreted. In the one case, description, in the other, explanation, becomes the ideal of knowledge. Wherever we aim primarily at acquaintance with particulars, and are satisfied to learn about “some” without knowing about “all” members of a class, the empirical way of looking at things is of the greatest value. Under these circumstances, observation, enumeration of instances, experiment, and practice play an important part. When, however, our intention is rather to obtain universal insights into the nature of

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orders or groups as wholes, the standpoint of concrete experience becomes insufficient, and has to be supplemented by some super-experiential means. Considering, as we must, the inexhaustibility of our world, the countless number of beings of any kind that one cares to mention (amoebae, crystals, stars, men), and the impossibility of our encompassing more than a trifling fraction of any given class empirically, it becomes clear that, if we are to claim the right to frame universal laws and to deal with infinite kinds, we must employ some method whereby a limited amount of direct acquaintance can be made to suffice for a more or less adequate theoretical knowledge of the whole.4 In other words, sooner or later, knowledge is forced to fall back upon deduction, upon the symbolic representation of whole by part, and the methods of rationalism. An illustration from Leibniz may help to enforce the contrast here between the capacity of rational procedure to master an infinite subject matter and the impotence of empirical procedure to cope with other than a strictly limited material. When, for instance, we consider the series of squares of the natural whole numbers (1, 4, 9, 16, etc.), we may discover by direct examination that the difference between each square and its predecessor is an odd number, and that these differences, when arranged successively, appear to form the progressive series of the odd numbers. On the basis of this knowledge, we are led to expect that, if we take a given member from the series of squares (e.g., 9) and add to it the corresponding number from the series of odd numbers (i.e., 7), the result will be the next higher square in the series of squares (i.e., 16). This expectation, however, is based upon merely empirical considerations; so that, no matter in how many instances we find that it holds good, it still remains possible that, at some further point in the number series, the correlation will be interrupted. Only by adopting a rational deductive approach, in place of an empirical inductive one, is it possible to obtain evidence of a universal and necessary connection between the series of squares and that of the odd numbers. Such an approach discards particular numbers with their peculiar properties, and instead takes number in general; thus n is conceived as any natural whole number. By means of n, the difference between any square and its predecessor may be expressed algebraically as (n + 1)2 – n2 , a difference which is 2n + l or the value of an odd number. Thus, the universal, non-empirical formula (n + 1)2 – n2 = 2n + 1, shows conclusively that the difference between the squares of any two successive numbers must, in every case, be an odd number; and that a fixed connection subsists between the progression of squares and that of the odd numbers, so that (by means of the formula) the position of any given odd number can be definitely determined with reference to the series of squares. In brief, the totality of squares and that of odd numbers are shown to be linked together as parts of one system, each side of which can be known through the other. So long as numbers continued to be treated empirically and individually, no such discovery was possible; and they remained in a merely external, unexplained correspondence. Once an equation expressive of their essential relation was deduced, however, empirical tests involving the multiplication of instances were rendered 4

Cf. [Swabey, Logic and Nature, pp. 285–287], Ch. VII, Sect. IV, for further discussion.

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superfluous. By the analysis of such examples, the incapacity of empirical methods to comprehend a universal object is made plain, together with the striking capacity of deductive procedure to compass an infinite subject-matter.

Part III

The Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract Part III of this book introduces and collects work on the objectivity of scientific knowledge by Marie Collins Swabey, Thelma Zeno Lavine, Grace Andrus de Laguna and Dorothy Walsh.

Chapter 12

Introduction Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen

Abstract This chapter introduces the articles by Marie C. Swabey, Thelma Z. Lavine, Grace A. de Laguna and Dorothy Walsh on the objectivity of scientific knowledge. We will see Swabey placing herself outside the historicist traditions of (later) authors (e.g., Thomas Kuhn), and arguing that the rationality and objectivity of science are grounded in synthetic a priori justified logical principles. Lavine and de Laguna, by contrast, embrace socio-historical approaches to the study of science, thus anticipating later developments in philosophy of science. Still, whereas Lavine embraces a relativist notion of objectivity, de Laguna argues that science, at least in some respects, actually is universally valid. Walsh, finally, like Swabey, believes in context-independent objectivity that is grounded in metaphysics, but like de Laguna and Lavine, contends that such objectivity is discipline-specific.

12.1 Introduction One view about the nature of scientific rationality is that it rests on confirmation or justification, that is, the use of observation and inductive reasoning to confirm or justify propositions about the world. A particularly prominent form of the view that scientific rationality rests on justification was put forward by twentieth-century logical empiricists (Hempel, 1966). They held that propositions are either analytic, that is, true by virtue of meaning, or synthetic, that is, true by virtue of the way the world is. Further, they held that, since analytic propositions are true irrespective

J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] K. Vaesen Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_12

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of how the world is, they can be known a priori, that is, independently of experience. Synthetic propositions, by contrast, are supposed to be known only a posteriori, that is, only on the basis of experience. Further, in order to establish general hypotheses, scientists operate in a hypothetico-deductive manner: they formulate general hypotheses, deduce observable consequences from these hypotheses, and finally attempt to inductively confirm the hypotheses by comparing the predicted consequences with observations. A key challenge for those who take scientific justification to be inductive is the problem of induction. Suppose we have observed, in many cases and in a wide variety of circumstances, that sunlight and plant growth go together. We might take this as evidence for a law-like relation between sunlight and plant growth. But which principle justifies us in generalizing from our past observations? What grounds do we have for thinking that our next observations will not diverge from the law-like regularity? It appears that such inductive reasoning cannot be justified either using deductive reasoning and thus a priori (because inductive reasoning is ampliative) or inductively and thus a posteriori (because doing so would lead either to circularity or to a regress). An alternative view is that the rationality of science comprises openness to criticism (Irzik, 2014). On this view, science learns not by trying to justify its claims but by subjecting them to criticism, that is, to procedures that are designed to uncover error. A prominent version of the view that science proceeds by criticism was put forward by Karl Popper (1957). According to Popper, we test general hypotheses by comparing their deductive consequences with observations. If the consequences agree with observations, the hypothesis has survived attempted criticism, though we cannot say that the hypothesis is more probable. If the consequences do not agree with observations, then our hypothesis has been falsified: from the acceptance of an observation that contradicts a general hypothesis we can deductively infer, via modus tollens (H → O, O ⇒ H ), the falsity of the antecedent hypothesis. A key challenge for the view that the rationality of science is based on openness to criticism is formulating appropriate rules for accepting criticism. Normally, predictions are derived from a large number of assumptions, including the tested hypothesis, and not just from this hypothesis. Moreover, deductive logic does not tell us which of the assumptions used to derive a prediction should be blamed when the prediction fails. Thus, additional general rules for accepting criticism are needed if we are to come to a decision about when to reject tested hypotheses. The worry is that appealing to such general rules is ultimately going to be arbitrary unless they are justified. At least in their classical formulations, the views just discussed have taken all scientific knowledge to be subject to the same rules of rationality and, further, to be fully determined by these rules. For Popper, for example, the rules for when to accept the falsification of an hypothesis are solely determined by considering what is required in order to learn from criticism. However, the existence of historically invariant, rationally evaluated modes of reasoning has been questioned by scholars in the historicist tradition (Nickles, 2021). According to them, the question how scientists achieve objective knowledge cannot be answered independently of the particular setting the knowledge is generated in. A well-known proponent of the

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historicist position is Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn used historical evidence to argue that science is organized around paradigms which change over time (1962). These are ways of doing science that comprise not just theories but also, among other things, standards of justification and criticism. What the history of science reveals, according to Kuhn, is that the modes of reasoning that are supposed to be characteristic of science in general are in fact historically conditioned. What qualifies as an adequate way of scientifically investigating the world, that is, an adequate paradigm, has varied and will vary over time. Further, since scientific reason is conditioned in this way, it does not provide a neutral base on which we can decide between the claims of different paradigms. Social factors fill in the gap and play a role in these decisions. A challenge to Kuhn’s view is that it seems to imply relativism about justification and knowledge, specifically, that all justification and knowledge is relative to one’s paradigm, and thus threatens to be self-refuting.

12.2 Swabey’s Solution to the Problem of Induction Marie Collins Swabey’s ‘Probability as the Basis of Induction’ (an excerpt from her 1930 book Logic and Nature) aims to ground the rationality and objectivity of science in logical principles. In this, she places herself in the non-historicist tradition to which Popper and the logical empiricists also belong. But, in contrast with these scholars, she believes the relevant logical principles are synthetic and justified a priori. One of the specific problems that Swabey addresses is the still standing problem of induction. Swabey suggests that the ultimate warrants for induction do not come from experience. Rather, they originate in universal laws of thought, more specifically, in the laws of probability (ibid., p. 289; this volume, p. 132). The particular law that she believes grounds simple forms of induction—in which one reasons from particular instances to all instances—is the principle of induction, which is the principle that [r]epeated correlations or sequences in our experience of phenomena may be taken as rough indications of deductive probability, expressing the ratio between the number of ways in which an event can happen and the total number in which it can theoretically happen or fail to happen. (1930, p. 289; this volume, p. 132)

Suppose one were to ask what the probability of a standard six-sided die falling on a number other than 4 is. Swabey’s answer is that, if we have in the past (in a sufficient number of cases) observed numbers other than 4 in 5 out of 6 cases, we can conclude that the probability in question is 5/6. The probability we should ascribe depends on the observed frequency of one class of events (getting any number other than 4) relative to another (getting some number from 1 to 6). And we can add that the number of ways in which the event falling on a number other than 4 can happen is 5. The number of ways in which the event can theoretically happen or fail to happen is 6. Why are we justified in assigning a probability of 5/6 here? In the words of Swabey,

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it is a deductive principle that the members of kinds that are actually more numerous in a large varied collection have a greater number of ways of combining, and hence more chances of occurring than those members of kinds that are less numerous in the whole collection. (1930, p. 290; this volume, p. 132)

The more numbers other than 4 are found in sequences of numbers in a sufficiently large collection, the more ways in which we can get numbers other than 4 and thus the more likely that we will find such numbers. This deductive principle, Swabey claims, holds for the experienced world (viz., the sample of our individual observations, or the part) just as much as for the non-experienced world (viz., the entire population from which our sample is drawn, or the whole). Accordingly, a sequence that is most probable in experience is–provided adequate sampling (1930, p. 294; this volume, p. 133)–what is most probable in nature, so that “our most frequent experiences [are] a logical (although partial) representation of the whole” (1930, pp. 290–291; this volume, p. 132). But, one might ask, what justifies our belief that what holds a priori (in the ideal world of probability) also holds in the world of experience? According to standard empiricism, the answer is that logic and mathematics, including the kind of probabilistic principle Swabey is concerned with, comprise analytic truths and thus truths that hold quite apart from how the world is. Swabey, as we will see, argues that even the simplest logical truths have implications about the structure of reality. This means that, if what we insist on is a justificationist view of rationality, the empiricist is left with the proposal that experience can itself justify the continued application of any general principle, including of those of logic and mathematics. Swabey, though, rightfully notes the circularity of such an empiricist move: it relies on an inductive inference to ground induction. An alternative empiricist response, that logic and mathematics cannot be justified but are rational by virtue of being criticisable, will be considered below, in Sect.12.4. Swabey’s response is a rationalist one. The belief that the a priori and a posteriori coincide must ultimately be grounded in our assumption that the universe is logical. This substantive claim about the nature of reality is itself justified by reason rather than by an appeal to experience (i.e., it is synthetic a priori). Roughly, Swabey supports it as follows. After arguing that logic is known a priori to apply to nature, because a world to which it does not apply is inconceivable (1930, Chapter 1), she claims that the simplest applications of logic to nature involve distinguishing between ‘this-element’ and ‘not-this-element’, between elements that are the same or different (in some respect) and, ultimately, between different groups of elements. This, she further argues (1930, pp. 275–276), means that our knowledge of the applicability of logic to nature guarantees that its elements will conform to a theory of combinations and permutations, so that we will be able to make true claims about how different classes of entities combine (e.g., the class ‘objects that undergo friction’ overlaps for ninety percent with the class ‘hot objects’). In brief, we know a priori that nature will have a structure that conforms to the laws of logic and probability. That the rules of probability apply a priori, however, does not by itself completely solve the problem of induction. Even if, as per Swabey’s deductive principle, some kind has a certain probability in a total population, we cannot be confident that it

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will be more frequent in our observed sample. The frequency in our observed sample need not match the overall probability. For our sample might be biased, the events in our sample might not be independent, the sample might be atypical and so on. When exploring nature, we often do not even know what the theoretical space of possibilities is, unlike the case of the die where there are only six options. So, even if we know the rules of probability apply, any particular application of these rules might turn out to be wrong. Swabey’s response is that if we have relied on our a priori knowledge of nature in carrying out our investigations about the world, e.g., if we have examined the die and associated conditions, and have conducted many trials, etc., this gives us some reason to be optimistic and is the best we can do (1930, pp. 278–283). She adds, further, that in such a situation the onus of proof is on the sceptic to prove that what we have concluded is wrong (1930, p. 299). Roughly, if the world is known a priori to be explicable using a limited collection of independent quantities and empirical evidence based on this assumption leads us to some conclusion, it is the onus on those who disagree with us to show that we are wrong. Although its actual influence on subsequent work on induction is difficult to trace, Swabey’s idea that samples ‘match’ their populations later became central in so-called ‘combinatorial’ solutions to the problem of induction (Williams 1947; Campbell & Franklin, 2004; for further references, see Henderson, 2018). Like Swabey, these authors hope to ground the match between part (viz., sample) and whole (viz., population) in deductive principles of probability (see, e.g., Williams’ 1947 statistical syllogism). Swabey’s idea that relying on induction is the best we can do is also one appealed to by Hans Reichenbach in his later (1938) pragmatic vindication of induction. Like her, he argues that only if certain assumptions about the world are correct, will we be able to learn about the regularities it exhibits. But, unlike Swabey’s solution, the combinatorial and pragmatic solutions do not ground the applicability of the principles guiding induction in synthetic a priori knowledge. Combinatorial solutions assume that analytic a priori derivations can bring us from samples to populations. The pragmatic solution simply tells us induction will work if anything does. This means that the resources the combinatorial and pragmatic solutions have for responding to the sceptic, and thus saving the view that scientific rationality is a matter of empirical justification, are comparatively meagre. They might claim to know the laws of probability a priori but not that the world is amenable to treatment by these laws.

12.3 Lavine on Relativism and the Sociology of Science Thelma Z. Lavine wrote her article ‘Sociological Analysis of Cognitive Norms’ (1942) at a time of great unrest among philosophers and sociologists of science, unrest partly provoked by Karl Mannheim’s book Ideology and Utopia (1936).1 1

Note that Lavine’s paper contains problematic terminology that reflects its time.

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In that book, Mannheim argued that knowledge is tainted by social factors, most notably, by whom (which class, which generation) and where the knowledge was produced. These social factors, according to Mannheim, did not merely affect what was selected as objects of knowledge, but also the contents and validity of this knowledge. Mannheim, thus, endorsed a form of relativism, according to which the validity of knowledge is not universal but relative to social circumstances. The sociology of knowledge, Mannheim believed, ought to reckon with this. The responses to Mannheim’s book were predominantly negative (see the references in fn. 1 of Lavine’s text, p. 342; this volume, p. 137), perhaps understandably, given that it was (read as) an attack on the possibility of objective knowledge. Lavine, in contrast, argues, as Mannheim did, that the sociology of knowledge should indeed subject the norms of knowledge, including the norm of validity, to socio-historical analysis. Still, whereas Mannheim was hesitant to relativize scientific knowledge (Seidel, 2011), Lavine was not. Lavine thinks the investigation of knowledge should proceed naturalistically, guided by the principle of the continuity of analysis, that is, “that the investigation into all problems in all subject matters employ the methods of the special sciences or methods which may be incorporated by the special sciences” (1944, p. 184, italics added). This, according to Lavine, implies that the sociology of knowledge must empirically analyse the social genesis of all elements of thought: knowledge itself just as much as the validity of knowledge. As she points out, “objective validity is an historical norm which has undergone historical modifications in the service of the special sciences” (1942, p. 346; this volume, p. 140). As such, it must be amenable to empirical investigation. Importantly, she introduces a threefold distinction, viz., between (1) the norm of validity, which establishes criteria and determines the procedure of validation; (2) the validation act itself (i.e., the scientist, following the procedures of validation of (1)), assessing the validity of a specific empirical claim; and (3) the actual, resultant validity of the claim. Lavine contends that, given the careful stipulations of (1), (2) can be executed virtually automatically. Accordingly, deviations from (2), are, if anything, the subject of psychological rather than sociological inquiry. Determining, as in (3), the ‘truth’ or ‘falsity’ of a claim made by a science under investigation is not a matter for the sociologist of science. It is (1) that is of sociological interest. Lavine considers a central argument against the sociological analysis of validity, namely the argument that, if validity norms were socially relativized, the sociology of knowledge itself would not be in a position to generate ‘objectively valid’ knowledge about the social genesis of such norms. Sociological analysis of validity is, on pain of self-refutation, a mistake. But Lavine points out that this charge is premised on a limited, and according to her mistaken, view of validity, a view that defines objective validity in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. The hint of self-refutation, Lavine contends, disappears if validity is defined along pragmatist lines. On her pragmatist account, any cognitive element (e.g., proposition, sign, meaning) has the function of determining order within human experience (1942, p. 347; this volume, p. 141). The elements which command such order of experience are the norms of cognition; these include, in addition to validity-norms, presentational

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norms, regulative norms and so forth (1942, pp. 347–349; this volume, pp. 142–143). Generally, these norms are responsive to social demands. In particular, they need to meet three types of demands: the establishment of some form of meaningful structure within the historical and institutional segmentation of experience, which in turn entails both responsiveness to empirical reality, and (thirdly) the responsiveness to the social state of affairs. (1942, p. 352; this volume, p. 145)

The adequacy of cognitive norms, including validity-norms, is to be assessed accordingly, that is, relative to their actual contribution to the fulfilment of particular, historically situated demands. The validity norms of hunter-gatherers will be different from the validity norms of physicists (say, very roughly, valid knowledge is knowledge that is effective in the coordination of collective hunts versus valid knowledge is knowledge that accurately predicts the future states of the universe). Given the importance of considering the socio-historical context in which validity norms arise, it is only natural that it is the sociologist of knowledge should take up these issues. How does Lavine’s pragmatist account of validity norms help to overcome the selfrefutation of relativism? She realizes that she must provide some absolute foundation but denies that such a foundation comes from a logical absolute. Rather, she maintains that cognitive norms function as an absolute frame of reference, what she calls a ‘functional absolute’, for those who rely on them to order their particular experiences (1942, p. 351; this volume, p. 144). Science, including the sociology of science, for instance, is geared towards ordering experience in a particular way, a way that is responsive to certain, particular socio-historical demands. Its associated particular socio-historical normative framework, including its validity-norms, legislate how that ordering should proceed. Conformity to such legislation is what makes its claims objective. How, to conclude, should we situate Lavine in discussions about the rationality of scientific knowledge? She clearly puts herself outside the non-historicist tradition (of, among others, Popper and the logical empiricists) that aims to reveal principles that have, invariantly, served scientists in their attempts at rationality. For Lavine contends that evaluative standards, including logical validity, have changed (in meaning), and this relative to the social circumstances in which they arose. In this, she taps into the historicist tradition initiated by Mannheim, and substantially extends it, by infusing it with pragmatist ideas and by clearly including scientific knowledge in the sociological analysis of knowledge. Further, she presages several ideas that became central during the ‘revival’ of the historicist tradition in the 1960s and 1970s. Most notably, in Kuhn and the ‘strong programme’ in the sociology of scientific knowledge we see manifestly reappear the idea that evaluative standards and methodologies and, accordingly, scientific knowledge, are, to a considerable extent, responsive to social processes. Of course, there is a clear disconnect between Lavine’s and Swabey’s accounts. Lavine apparently thinks that all elements of thought ought to be relativized. Swabey, by contrast, believes that there are certain principles, such as the principle that every entity is identical to itself and different from others, that must be presupposed by anyone, irrespectively of social–historical settings, in order to get any intelligible account of nature at all.

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12.4 De Laguna on Relativism and Science At about the same time Lavine published her paper about the sociological relativization of (scientific) knowledge, Grace Andrus de Laguna published her article ‘Cultural Relativism and Science’ (1942).2 As indicated by the title of her piece, de Laguna here reflects on the bearing of cultural relativism on science. Her paper is prompted not so much by the realization, by Mannheim and Lavine (for instance), that (scientific) knowledge is partly determined by social factors (e.g., class, generation, location) as by the realization, by anthropologists at the time (e.g., Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict), that different cultures should be understood in terms of their own specific purposes and their own characteristic standards of value. Such cultural relativism implies that “no concepts are universally applicable and no standards objectively valid” (ibid., p. 146; this volume, p. 153). In this sense, the anthropological theory of cultural relativism, just like theories of sociological relativism, risks being self-refuting. De Laguna frames the difficulty in terms of a paradox: If cultural relativism is true in the objective sense, it must be applicable to itself as a cultural element. But in that case, it can, like all cultural modes of thought, be significant and valid only in relation to the culture to which it belongs. On the other hand, if it is merely relative to our own culture, it is not universally applicable to all cultures, as the anthropologist assumes, and no objective science of anthropology is possible. (1942, p. 147; this volume, p. 153)

In her paper, de Laguna takes up the challenge of showing that a universally valid science of anthropology in fact is possible, by reflecting on some of the characteristic features of science in general. De Laguna’s strategy here is to argue that there might be something wrong with the anthropological hypothesis underlying cultural relativism, viz., the idea that a culture is an integrated individual whole the traits of which are always relative to it, and the corresponding idea that it only makes sense to talk about individual cultures (rather than about culture as such). She suggests that science, including anthropology, is a cultural trait that transcends the boundaries of the culture it is part of, is universal and unique in virtue of this, and might reveal features that belong to human culture as such. De Laguna rejects C. I. Lewis’s proposal that all rational thought operates with analytic, a priori categorial schemata, schemata that define what constitute the real objects of thought and thus which distinguish the ‘real’ from the ‘unreal’. De Laguna objects that Lewis misses what is unique about science, namely that its categories are relatively synthetic, so that they are relatively modifiable through self-criticism (1942, p. 150; this volume, pp. 155–156). While the systems of thought of the cultures that the anthropologist studies are fixed, relatively impervious to experience, change and criticism, science welcomes such things on principle. If an experiment repeatedly fails to agree with the predictions of a given principle and does so in surprising ways, the scientist is prepared to modify the principle rather than explain the experimental data away. 2

Note that de Laguna’s paper contains problematic terminology (e.g., ‘primitive peoples’) that reflects its time.

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But the truth is that it is not merely, or even primarily, data that drives the scientist to modify her fundamental categories. The scientist accepts, in addition to the methodology that is characteristic of science (its experiments, careful observation and so forth), a particular metaphysical assumption about reality: she accepts the fundamental intelligibility of being, or, that “an infinite network of possible relationships interconnects every item with all others” (1942, p. 153; this volume, p. 157). Any scientist can only deal with particular portions of this unified order. They can only connect selected points in the infinite network. Accordingly, science will always remain incomplete. But the belief in the infinite network of connections drives the scientist to seek out new experiences, potentially relevant to what she knows. The scientist then ventures into those potentially relevant areas of the (assumed to be) allinclusive order of being; she is driven “to push out into the unknown” and to modify and extend her original theories. The progressive growth of science thus depends on scientists’ metaphysical assumption that, although the ideal of a complete picture of nature will always remain out of reach, there actually is a place for everything in the infinite network of being: “[i]t is not the discovery of facts contradicting accepted theory that is vital to science, but the ability to recognize the irrelevant as potentially relevant” (1942, p. 155; this volume, p. 159). At this point, de Laguna notes that this, what she calls, regenerative thinking might itself be considered a cultural phenomenon, one that is unique to “Western civilization”. But, she suggests, this cultural relativist charge might be mistaken. For she sees the capacity for regeneration and self-transcendence in other cultures too. Every culture maintains itself by regenerating in the face of changing physical and social conditions; all human culture is characterized by such capacity for inventiveness and self-modification. These, thus, are features that are characteristic of human culture as such, rather than exclusively of “Western culture”. Although, on her view, only the latter has produced science, science is a product of a universally shared, human cultural propensity. Science’s demand that all of being be included in the purview of the investigator leads, finally, to the demand that culture itself, including science, its metaphysics and its norms, become an object of investigation and criticism. Science thus leads, according to de Laguna, to philosophy (1942, p. 166; this volume, p. 166). The philosopher aims to articulate and criticise the metaphysical assumptions of the sciences, partly by viewing these as part of the natural world. This goal includes that of articulating and criticising the normative assumptions of the sciences. Here, de Laguna suggests that science, as an enterprise of free inquiry, should be conditioned on the acceptance of universally valid moral standards, standards thus that are not relative to any particular culture. Ethnologists, most obviously, must, in approaching another culture, show “respect and tolerance for men as members of all races and all cultures” (1942, p. 165; this volume, p. 165); the ethnologist must act according to the standards that are the basis for all human relationship. But, the same plausibly holds true for other scientific disciplines. Science that does not show respect and tolerance for humankind “must eventually wither like a plant cut at the roots” (1942, p. 166; this volume, p. 166). Philosophy is the safeguard of such respect and tolerance.

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Let us summarize de Laguna’s position in debates about rationality. She is sympathetic to historicist accounts, as those of Lavine and Kuhn, that emphasize the role of contextual (viz., cultural) factors in knowledge production. Yet, in rebutting charges of self-refutation addressed at cultural relativism, she diverges from those authors (Lavine in particular), and maintains that there is also a sense in which scientific knowledge is universal: science shares the capacity for inventiveness and self-modification with all conceptual thought and is/should be conditioned on the acceptance of universally shared moral standards, including respect and tolerance for every human being. Further, her contention that science progressively modifies its theories in virtue of self-criticism and an ability to accommodate such criticism resonates well with the views of later writers who emphasized the progressive, and accordingly rational, nature of scientific development (including Lakatos [1970] and the later Kuhn [1970]). Further, her account parallels the view of Popper that science develops through criticism.3 However, contrary to Popper, de Laguna is clear that what is vital to science is not the discovery of facts that contradict established theory but scientists’ metaphysical assumption that being is fundamentally intelligible and their related ability to recognise that facts that appeared to be irrelevant to their knowledge are relevant after all. Further, while Swabey takes the metaphysics of science to be justified a priori and once and for all by philosophy, de Laguna takes it to be subject to criticism by philosophy as part of its goal of systematising all human knowledge. For de Laguna, the metaphysics of science is supposed to be a posteriori, as far as philosophy is concerned, though it is a priori for the scientist. Although de Laguna is not explicit about this here, she elsewhere makes clear that even logic is tentative and open to revision in light of experience (Katzav, 2022a; Part 1: “Knowledge and Perception”).

12.5 Walsh on Historical Writing During the 1930s and early 1940s, the history of philosophy was a hotly debated topic in northern American philosophy (Dewulf, 2018). There were at least four competing approaches to the question of the nature of the historical enterprise. First, there were those who, like Walsh, conceived of history as fundamentally resting on metaphysics (see, e.g., Lamprecht, 1936; Lovejoy 1939; Tapper, 1937). Second, there were those who worked in the naturalistic tradition, who were sceptical of the idea that history could discover generalizations but who still thought that history writing was nothing more than an extension of the application of empirical methods to the human past (see e.g., Hook, 1939; Wiener, 1941). Then, third, there was the Neo-Kantian tradition, which regarded history as a scientific enterprise the transcendental presuppositions of which differed from those of the natural sciences (Reis & Kristeller, 1943). And, finally, there was an emerging logical-empiricist tradition, 3

Interestingly, de Laguna developed such an epistemology in 1910 (de Laguna & de Laguna, 1910), well before Popper did.

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according to which history’s aim is to establish laws that govern historical events (Hempel, 1942). The thesis that Dorothy Walsh develops in “Philosophical Implications of the Historical Enterprise” (1937) is that the historian’s interest in the historic past is both metaphysical and humanistic. To reach that conclusion, she starts by arguing that the historian generally takes a realistic position regarding history’s subject matter: the historian treats the past as objectively knowable and as having reality apart from knowledge. Walsh here explicitly rejects epistemic relativist theses, according to which knowledge of the past is always coloured by some present, and what she calls ontological transformativist theses, according to which the past has no ontological status except for its effects on the present. So what, according to Walsh, is the specific nature of the past that the historian aims to acquire knowledge of? The true unit of historical discourse is not just a series of events, but rather a situation organized with reference to an event, the situation “relating historical possibility to historical actuality” (1937, p. 59; this volume, p. 169). The event is a realization of one from among various ontological, and thus objective, possibilities that were available to human agents in the situation; the event could have been different than it is, or not have happened at all. “Its meaning and value”, Walsh contends, “depend on its genuine alternatives” (1937, p. 62; this volume, p. 171). The reason that there are such alternatives is that historical events are the product of conscious or unconscious human volition and goals. If not for such human choice, the succession of events is a process rather than history. The historical situation has further characteristics that are important for the historian as such. For one thing, the event being studied reflects a general condition of the time of its occurrence. In other words, the event is representative of the time of its occurrence. For another thing, the meaning and value of the event depend on how it has impacted subsequent events in significant ways (1937, p. 59; this volume, p. 169). In light of the above, history writing is, according to Walsh, motivated by metaphysical and humanistic interests. History is a record of reality, that is, of completed reality (metaphysical), and at the same time a record of man (humanistic). Regarding the latter, Walsh emphasizes, it is not a particular theory of humans that history reveals; its concern is with the concrete, with concrete individuals and their concrete completed realizations. Although Walsh, like those within the historicist tradition, conceives of historical events as unique, she acknowledges that the historian’s concrete observations might be useful to test the validity of theories about humans, more specifically, theories developed in ethics and psychology. Walsh’s stance on objectivity is tied to the metaphysics she develops of historical events. Objective knowledge of an historical event requires the correct demarcation of the relevant situation and possibilities, and of how the situation fits into a broader hierarchy of historical situations. Walsh maintains that such demarcation is not arbitrary or subjective (e.g., relativized to the historian’s present); rather, historical insight is objective in virtue of understanding the significance of an event relative to its real alternatives, its significant effects and how its situation fits in with the hierarchy of historical situations.

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Because Walsh’s argument is fairly abstract, consider the following example. Suppose the historian wishes to record the life of Seneca. How should this be approached? How does the historian select which elements should be included in the story? A historian should be interested in those events in Seneca’s life in which he made life choices, that were symptomatic of his time and that were determinative of later stages of his life and other future situations. The events are then to be understood in terms of the network of events which they were symptomatic of, the ontological possibilities available to Seneca at the time of the events and the significance of the events for the subsequent development of his life and society. The historian will only be concerned with natural processes (e.g., Seneca’s natural ageing until his death) insofar as they impinge upon the possibilities available and on subsequent events. By implication, the historian should avoid approaching events in Seneca’s life primarily for their significance relative to the historian’s or society’s present concerns (e.g., their significance for understanding their own Christian faith or present-day Christianity). Seneca’s practice of poverty, for instance, is representative of his time and significant for his life. It was an exemplar of a wider response to life and gave form to his life. Still, he might have not; it is an ontological possibility that, as a revolt against his teacher, he ended up living like a hedonist. A non-genuine alternative would be that Seneca lived according to the Sunnah (given that Islam had not yet arrived). Further, the actual occurrence of the possibility (i.e., Seneca’s actual Stoic lifestyle) is significant in its influence on later events (e.g., its influence on developments in the early Christian Church). Given the above, Walsh believes, contrary to Lavine and Kuhn, and at least as far as it concerns historiography, in the existence of context-independent objectivity; past events are knowable independently of the historian’s particular frame of reference. Yet, her project also resembles the projects of these authors, in the sense that it develops a discipline-specific account of objectivity; its underlying metaphysics is in any case different from the metaphysics underlying her ethical views (see Part 1: “Nature of Philosophy”). Walsh also markedly differs from those who wish to ground objectivity in logical principles (logical empiricists, Swabey). Still, Walsh’s account accords with Swabey’s in the sense that it ties objectivity to metaphysics. As to the particular metaphysics Walsh develops, it seems, prima facie, that it is at least compatible with the ones of Swabey and of de Laguna. The exact relationships between their respective views definitely deserve further scrutiny.

References Campbell, S., & Franklin, J. (2004). Randomness and the justification of induction. Synthese, 138(1), 79–99. de Laguna, T., & de Laguna, G. A. (1910). Dogmatism and evolution: Studies in modern philosophy. MacMillan Company. De Laguna, G. A. (1942). Cultural relativism and science. Philosophical Review, 51(2), 141–166. Dewulf, F. (2018). Revisiting Hempel’s 1942 contribution to the philosophy of history. Journal of the History of Ideas, 79(3), 385–406.

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Hempel, C. G. (1942). The function of general laws in history. Journal of Philosophy, 39(20), 35–48. Hempel, C. G. (1966). Philosophy of natural science. Prentice-Hall. Henderson, L. (2018). The problem of induction. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/. Aaccessed 16th of February 2021. Hook, S. (1939). Dialectic in social and historical inquiry. Journal of Philosophy, 36(14), 365–378. Irzik, G. (2014). Critical rationalism. In M. Curd & S. Psillos (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the philosophy of science (pp. 70–78). Routledge. Katzav, J. (2022). The de Lagunas’ Dogmatism and Evolution, overcoming modern philosophy and making post-Quinean analytic philosophy. In E. Schliesser (Ed.), Neglected classics of philosophy (pp. 192–214). Oxford University Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). Postscript—1969. In T. S. Kuhn (Ed.), The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed., pp. 174–210). University of Chicago Press. Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In Lakatos and Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 91–195). Cambridge University Press. Lamprecht, S. (1936). Philosophy of history. The Journal of Philosophy, 33(8), 197–204. Lavine, T. Z. (1942). Sociological analysis of cognitive norms. Journal of Philosophy, 39(13), 342–356. Lavine, T. Z. (1944). Naturalism and the sociological analysis of knowledge. In Y. H. Krikorian (Ed.), Naturalism and the human spirit (pp. 183–209). Columbia University Press. Lovejoy, A. (1939). Present standpoints and past history. Journal of Philosophy, 36(18), 477–489. Mannheim, K. (1936). Ideology and utopia. Routledge. Nickles, T. (2021). Historicist theories of scientific rationality. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition) (Ed., E. N. Zaltaed). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/ent ries/rationality-historicist/. Popper, K. R. (1957) The logic of scientific discovery. Routledge Classics. Reis, L., & Kristeller, P. O. (1943). Some remarks on the method of history. Journal of Philosophy, 40(9), 225–245. Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and prediction: An analysis of the foundations and the structure of knowledge. University of Chicago Press. Seidel, M. (2011). Relativism or relationism? A mannheimian interpretation of Fleck’s claims about relativism. Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 42(2), 219–240. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10838-011-9163-z. Stove, D. C. (1986). The rationality of induction. Clarendon Press. Swabey, M. C. (1929). Reason and nature. The Monist, 39, 395–417. Swabey, M. C. (1930). Logic and nature. University of New York Press. Tapper, B. (1937). The problem of historical or cultural reality in contemporary thought. Journal of Philosophy, 34(3), 65–73. Walsh, D. (1937). Philosophical implications of the historical enterprise. Journal of Philosophy, 34(3), 57–64. Wiener, P. P. (1941). On methodology in the philosophy of history. Journal of Philosophy, 38(12), 309–324. Williams, D. C. (1947). The ground of induction. Harvard University Press.

Chapter 13

Probability as the Basis of Induction Marie Collins Swabey Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Marie Collins Swabey discusses the problem of induction and offers her response to it.

In an earlier chapter, we expressed ourselves as of the opinion that induction is inverse deduction. In other words, even our thinking about particulars is always under the control of some tentative universal or latent major premise; and our aim in collecting concrete data is rather to test this universal major by subsuming crucial cases under it, than any notion that the mere multiplication of instances may heighten certainty. In the series of investigations that led to the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, for instance, successive inquirers were dominated by the general idea that “heat is a form of motion” long before it was possible to confirm this hypothesis by exact observation and particular experiments showing that when motion is introduced into an otherwise isolated system a corresponding amount of heat appears (and that when it is not introduced, heat does not appear). But this whole explanation of induction as inverse deduction may still seem to many, despite what was said earlier, to leave unsolved the problem as to what entitles us to assume the tentative universal or major premise in the first place. By what right do we translate our individual experiences into illustrations of a general law? The entire difficulty of passing from some to all is bound up with this issue of our right to the universal. Hence, this is the question that we must particularly try to answer. In addition to the uniformity of nature and the postulate of simplicity or system, which have already been mentioned as lying at the basis of natural knowledge, there is also another extremely important notion sometimes referred to as the “principle Marie Collins Swabey: First published in 1930, in Logic and Nature. New York: The University of New York Press, pp. 287–302. M. C. Swabey (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_13

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of induction.” Stated in the simplest terms, this principle declares that “the oftener things are found together, the more probable it is that they will go together.” At first glance, this may look like nothing more or less than an expression of the empirical law of association. But closer examination reveals its basis in a priori theory. Its import is that repeated correlations or sequences in our experience of phenomena may be taken as rough indications of deductive probability, expressing the ratio between the number of ways in which an event can happen and the total number in which it can theoretically happen or fail to happen. Thus, when we predict the likelihood of a close correlation (or causal sequence) between friction and heat or lightning and thunder in the future, on the basis of the fact that they have gone together in our past limited experience, we are not relying merely upon blind animal faith or a natural habit of expectation engendered in the organism through the repetition of stimuli, but upon the deductive principle that the members of kinds that are actually more numerous in a large varied collection have a greater number of ways of combining, and hence more chances of occurring than those members of kinds that are less numerous in the whole collection. And, since this mathematical necessity holds not only of the world of experience but of the non-experienced world, we are led to reason inversely that what occurs most often in experience is also most numerous in the whole collection of nature, and that what is less frequent here is also less frequent there. In other words, we recognize that some events are more probable than others because certain classes of combinations have more members than others; and, furthermore, we assume that what occurs most often in experience is likely to be what is most probable in nature, so that we take our most frequent experiences as a logical (although partial) representation of the whole. Moreover, as the number of concomitants noted increases, the probability of their occurring in further cases is held to increase; for although no exact correlation can ordinarily be established in detail between the number of instances observed and the degree of probability of the induction, it is generally admitted that the larger the range of “samples” examined, the greater the chances that our predictions will be fulfilled. The truth of this may be illustrated as follows. If the number of observations already made is n, and the number of observed correlations between two given phenomena is the same (n), the likelihood that the association will occur in the next observation is to be estimated as (n + 1)/(n + 2). (That is, the ratio is calculated as the number of favorable cases of the event’s happening, plus one more possibility, divided by the total number of happenings with the favorable and unfavorable chances of one more case added to it.) Thus, as the number of concomitants observed increases, the fraction will grow larger, while the probability of the same association’s occurring in the next case approaches nearer and nearer to unity (1/1) or certitude. The great problem in dealing with nature is, of course, to find a means of compassing her infinite variety and myriad forms. Faced with her inexhaustible fecundity and the endless succession of individuals that embody every type (bacteria, dew-drops, stars, numbers), the range of possible experience and knowledge by direct acquaintance shrinks to a mere pinpoint in comparison. Oppressed by an overpowering subject-matter largely beyond the reach of experimental methods, we are, as

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we have said, almost inevitably forced to have recourse to deductive theory, although our assurance as to its adequacy to the data is purely formal. Yet, although the difficulties of the method are often too great for our powers, at least we cannot doubt its universality of scope or that the perplexities that arise are due rather to our own lack of skill than to anything inherent in the relations of the subject-matter. Thus, if these brief suggestions are not mistaken, the basis of the transition from some to all, and of our right to appropriate universal premises in dealing with nature, is not an ungrounded leap of faith but the application to phenomena of the formal principles of combinations and probability. And once considerations of probability are recognized as fundamental, the process of “sampling” or what might be called logical representation of whole by part becomes central in the method of induction. When, for instance, we estimate the prospects of an unopened mine by picking up specimens of rock or ore scattered in the vicinity, or when we sample a carload of wheat by examining handfuls from different parts of the shipment, we rely upon the principle that smaller groups, if chosen impartially and at random from a larger group, tend to have the character of the larger group. Having discovered from the probability-curve that the combinations or chances which give us the mean character of a collection are more numerous than those which represent its extremes, we naturally conclude that those examples which appear most frequently in experience are more likely to depict the dominant character of the whole than any others. This same idea of representation of whole by part, as we have said, governs our predictions regarding causal sequences. That is, the associations of phenomena that occur with the greatest frequency in the “sampling” (or the smaller group of events that marks our experience) are taken as tending, as a rule, to provide a correct description of the correlations that characterize the larger, unexperienced group of natural phenomena. And, although the method of sampling is never beyond risk of error, its mistakes often cancel out, and the process tends to better itself. Broadly speaking, the larger the range and number of samples, the smaller the margin of error; the greater the proportion of a given type of correlation, the greater the chances that we have discovered a genuine law of nature. But once more, in conclusion, it should be pointed out that the method of sampling does not rely fundamentally upon experience as experience, or upon the simple induction per enumerationem simplicem of Mill, but rather rests upon the laws of probability and the interpretation of concretely observed cases as illustrations of them. Perhaps the analysis of a simple example of sampling may serve to bring home more clearly its assumption that the members of a kind (or sub-group) that is more numerous have a greater number of ways of combining (and hence better chances of being chosen) than have the members of a kind that is less numerous in a varied collection. Suppose, for instance, that I have five apples in my pocket, of which two (p and q) are red, and three (x, y, and z) are green. In such a case, if I undertook to draw them out two at a time (replacing them after each drawing) and attempted to judge the color and proportions of the apples in the collection on the basis of these drawings, what would be the chances of my judging right rather than wrong? In the first place, the number of possible combinations by pairs would be ten; that is, there could be three pairs of green apples (xy, xz, yz), one pair of red apples (pq),

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and six pairs composed of one of either color (px, qx, py, qy, pz, qz). Accordingly, if all possible pairs were drawn successively and independently, a preponderance of the judgments would correctly describe the collection as a mixed one, since the mixed couples would outnumber the unmixed couples in the ratio 3/2. Furthermore, the chances of my drawing a mixed couple (i.e., a sample of the largest sub group, which ought therefore to have the most ways of combining) would be six-tenths or three-fifths; while my chances of drawing a pair of green apples at any given draw would be only three-tenths, and that of a couple of red apples (or samples of the smallest subgroup), one-tenth. Broadly transposing the figure, we may conceive of nature herself as the bulging pocket and man as the judicious sampler who is forced to draw forth combinations of phenomena from the hidden depths of the rerum natura; for, at his peril and in order to survive, man is compelled to draw general conclusions from his meager experience, and to predict the future in the light of his restricted past. And everywhere, whether he predicts crops according to the vague lore of common sense or the birthrate on the basis of social statistics, or derives the gravitational correlation of space, time, and mass from the results of a few experiments, he relies upon the same principle of the valid substitution of the part (or sample) for the whole, and the notion that what happens most frequently in experience is his most probable or best clue to the nature of nature in that respect. But an objection is sure to be offered at this point by certain students of probability. Granted the justice of the assumption that what there is more of in nature has more ways of combining, and therefore ideally more ways of happening than what there is less of, this does not in the least prove, they will say, that actually in experience what there is most of really will happen most often. In other words, on this view, a saltus mortalis exists between the theoretical probabilities in question and the actual statistical frequency-ratios gleaned from experience. In other words of Venn1 : How do we know that cases which have the most numerous causes, that is, which can be brought about in the greatest variety of different ways, will in consequence occur with most frequency, except upon grounds of experience?

Although it is usually admitted that the practical science of empirical probabilities and statistics depends upon there being a close correlation between the purely logico-mathematical theory and the actual behavior of things, no satisfactory explanation of this correspondence can really, on this view, be given. Why should the a priori and a posteriori keep step with each other? The only justification that can be offered, according to the empiricists, for our continued confidence that the results of experience and theory will generally coincide, is that derived from the record of experience itself. It is only, they say, because past experience has shown us that empirical frequency-ratios tend in the long run to approximate to the demands of deductive mathematical theory, that we are entitled to believe that they will correspond in the future. But this, as it seems to us, is just the old empirical fallacy over again of arguing that “the future must resemble the past.” To maintain that “What 1

Venn, J., The logic of chance, 2nd ed., p. 94.

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has been must be, because it has been,” is equivalent to saying, “A must be B, for the reason that A is A.” Plainly, a begging of the question is involved where the effort to bridge the gap between the experienced (past) and the non-experienced (future) is argued solely on the testimony of experience itself. As we see it, the burden of proof rests rather upon the objectors. That the statistical results derived from such data as ore, wheat, stars, deaths, and the molecular movements of gases should, on the whole, tend to conform to the a priori requirements of combinations and probabilities is presupposed, as it seems to us, in our ultimate assumption that the universe is logical. The mere fact that the results of a priori theory cannot always be shown to be exactly confirmed in experience in the particular case, need not alter the necessity of the laws or their supremacy over empirical data, any more than the fact that the seemingly improbable happens at every moment, can be said to constitute a violation of the laws of probability.2 Yet, while the universal applicability of the general principles remains unchallengeable, a gulf appears between what is theoretically conceivable by means of them and what is practically attainable through our limited resources of direct acquaintance. We may know that a given statement is correct or incorrect (e.g., that there either are or are not canals on Mars), and yet not know which alternative is really the more probable. We may know that the chances of a penny’s falling heads or tails at every throw are theoretically 50/50, yet in the actual case be uncertain whether the possibilities are equally likely or that one throw is independent of another. We cannot be sure that the given penny is a perfect coin with equal, circular sides and its center of gravity in the middle; or that it is tossed strictly “at random” each time with either side held alternately upward in the palm and without any favoring twist of the wrist. Because of this ineradicable ignorance of conditions governing the particular case, our difficulties regarding the relation of fact and theory can never apparently be wholly removed. Nevertheless, the fact that, in an extensive series of trials, the results of practice usually approximate quite closely to the requirements of theory, may be taken to illustrate the possibility that they can be reconciled in principle. In dealing with more complicated situations than that of the simple game of chance, the effort to formulate the demands of mathematical theory and to test facts by it becomes immensely more difficult. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to estimate all the possibilities involved or to know in advance that they are independent of one another. In calculating, for instance, the death-rate from respiratory diseases in a given year and state, it is practically certain that many cases of mal-diagnosis and the complication of diseases figure in the statistics, that not all deaths have been recorded, and so on. It ought not to be surprising, therefore, considering the limitations of our knowledge of particulars, that empirical results and mathematical prediction rarely coincide exactly in the individual case. At the same time, since we know of the existence of these restrictions and difficulties, the discrepancy can hardly be construed as refuting any possible conformity under more favorable conditions. 2

From the point of view of the universe-at-large, with its endless variety of possible systems and arrangements, the probability of the occurrence of one event rather than another would appear to be 1/∞.

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A contributing factor to the divergence may also be the opposite ways in which the results of fact and theory are obtained: statistical frequencies take their start from the fait accompli—from a plurality of complex events that have already happened— and attempt to estimate from the proportion of given coincidences in these events the likelihood of similar occurrences in future; whereas a priori theory, on the other hand, is directed upon a single ideal event in relation to a system and the ratio of the number of ways it could conceivably come about compared to the logical totality of ways in which it might happen or fail to happen.

Chapter 14

Sociological Analysis of Cognitive Norms Thelma Zeno Lavine Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Thelma Zeno Lavine argues that the sociology of knowledge should subject the norms of knowledge to socio-historical analysis.

The institution of philosophy survives the obsolescence of many of its ends and interests. The objective of this essay is to render obsolete a specific philosophical problem: the bearing of the sociology of knowledge upon the concept of validity. The argument is in behalf of an unrestricted sociological analysis of knowledge. Ten representative critics of the sociology of knowledge sustain a marked convergence of views which is singular by contrast with the disparity of their positions in other connections.1 They are agreed that the sociological analysis of the elements of cognition be restrained from extension to “reason” or to the “logical schema of proof” or to “validity.” The terms of this restriction vary insignificantly. 1 (1) Alexander von Schelting, review of Ideologie and Utopie by Karl Mannheim (Bonn, 1930), American Sociological Review, Vol. I (1936), pp. 664–674; (2) Maurice Mandelbaum, The Problem of Historical Knowledge: An Answer to Relativism (New York, 1938); (3) Arthur O. Lovejoy, “Reflections on the History of Ideas,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. I (1940), pp. 3–23; (4) C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World-Order (New York, 1929); (5) Gerard De Gre, “The Sociology of Knowledge and the Problem of Truth,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. II (1941), pp. 110–115; (6) Hans Speier, “The Social Determination of Ideas,” Social Research, Vol. V (1938), pp. 182– 205; (7) Max Weber; cf. Talcott Parsons, review of von Schelting’s Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre, American Sociological Review, Vol. I (1936), pp. 675–681; (8) Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (New York 1937); (9) George H. Sabine, “Logic and Social Studies,” Philosophical Review, Vol. XLVIII (1939), pp. 155–176; (10) Robert K. Merton, “The Sociology of Knowledge,” Isis, Vol. XXVII (1937), pp. 493–503.

Thelma Zeno Lavine: First published in 1942 in The Journal of Philosophy, 39(19), 342–356. T. Z. Lavine (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_14

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So general and so complacent an opposition to the sociological analysis of validity gives one pause. Obviously, it is unaffected by the partisan philosophical and methodological differences of its members. Some may regard this fact as one of the surest indications of the presence of truth. Must it not be that this problem locates some fundamental cleavage in the nature of the universe, or in knowledge, or in the human sphere? Refuge in such fundamentality is premature and gratuitous, so long as the concept of validity has not been subjected to scrutiny. However jealous for the integrity of valid knowledge are the arguments of the opposition against sociological analysis of validity, “logical” analysis of validity is always acceptable, and has, in fact, become institutionalized as one of the major divisions of philosophy. The distinctions which characteristically emerge in “as such”2 discussions of logical and methodological matters are not likely, however, to be of marked service to the particular special science in its hour of methodological need.3 This discussion will concern itself with some clarifications concerning validity which are drawn with reference to the peculiar requirements of the present problem of the sociology of knowledge. The function of this discussion is to establish the meaning and the legitimacy of sociological analysis of cognitive validity. The distinction which is of first importance in connection with this special problem appears nowhere in the literature of the opposition which has here been taken as representative. It is the distinction between “the validity” of a specific proposition, or of a cognitive element in the widest sense, and the standard, or norm, or ideal, of validity in terms of which validation takes place, and which alone bestows meaningfulness upon any predication of “validity.” To speak of “the validity” of a cognitive element, whether statement, proposition, concept, idea, schema, or theory, is to indulge in a commonly sanctioned ellipsis which is for most purposes innocuous. Failure to apprehend this ellipticity, however, may result in gratuitous confusion as to the interests of the sociology of knowledge in validity. It is imperative to distinguish the following: the norm which establishes criteria and determines the procedure of validation; the validating act; and the resultant established validity of a specific proposition. The restraint of sociological analysis from extension to the norms which formulate criteria and establish the procedure of validation is significant, although misguided; the same restriction in connection with the validation-act itself misses its mark. For, given a clear articulation of the definitions and criteria which constitute the validitynorms of a specific set of phenomena, the validating of the specific proposition is of slight interest to the sociologist of knowledge. The reason for this is not that the act is affirmed a priori to have no social significance,4 but rather that, with the developing articulateness and precision of scientific method, the act of validation, channelized 2

Mannheim’s term. Cf. Ideology and Utopia (New York, 1936), pp. 261, 273, 275. Conversely, the distinctions which are formulated by methodologists within the special sciences rarely receive recognition in philosophical discussions, although the special methodologies frequently address similar, if not the same, problems, and with a cogency of treatment which comes of empirical orientation. Cf. e.g., Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, chs. 1–3, and passim. 4 The pursuance or non-pursuance of the act of validation with regard to a specific claim is, of course, of the greatest sociological significance. 3

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in terms of carefully constructed criteria and formalized techniques, approaches, as to a limit, a state of automatism. Two examples may elucidate the distinction between norm and act. The construction of the concept of time by relativity physics rests upon the setting and synchronizing of clocks at distant places: “It is a fundamental postulate that the adjustment of the clocks is to be accomplished by signal lights. The synchronization of the clocks is now simple enough. We merely demand that light signals sent from the master clock at intervals of one second arrive at any distant clock at intervals of one second as measured by it, and we change the rate of the distant clock until it measures these intervals as one second. After its rate has been adjusted, the distant clock is to be so set that when a light signal is dispatched from the master clock at its indicated zero of time the time of arrival recorded at the distant clock shall be such that the distance of the clock from the master clock divided by the time of arrival shall give the velocity of light, assumed already known. This operation involves a measurement of the distance of the distant clock, so that in spreading the time coordinates over space the measurement of space is involved by definition, and the measurement of time is therefore not a self-contained thing.”5 Just as classical physics does not dispute these formalized processes of signaling, recording, and calculating, since these techniques are among the perfected tools of the physicists, so the sociology of knowledge is likewise not concerned with the “operations” forming the validating basis6 of the four-dimensional manifold, but concentrates upon the marshalling concept of a time system spread all over space. Similarly, in Otto Klineberg’s celebrated study of the intelligence of “national” and “racial” groups in Europe, it is not the details of his use of standardized PintnerPatterson series of nonlanguage performance tests, nor his application of the standard criteria of Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean types, which interests the sociologist of knowledge,7 but the significance of the refinement of the central norm of “representative” samples of racial and national groups. Such are the validity-norms in which sociological analysis is interested. On this view, aberrations in the validation-act, in so far as they occur, are more fruitful ground for psychological than for sociological investigation8 ; and in fact, what may be construed as a social aberration in connection with a case of validating (e.g., as an important group construed the establishment of guilt in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial) will in most instances be more significantly regarded as the positive functioning

5

P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York, 1928), pp. 73–74. Sociological analysis of the formalizations, which may be termed procedural norms, is, of course, possible. 7 Although the norms of these procedures are themselves susceptible of sociological analysis. 8 A similar point constitutes the basis for Mannheim’s distinction between “particular” and “total” ideology: “The particular conception of ‘ideology’ makes its analysis of ideas on a purely psychological level. If it is claimed for instance that an adversary is lying, or that he is concealing or distorting a given factual situation, it is still nevertheless assumed that both parties share common criteria of validity…” Ideology and Utopia, p. 50. 6

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of a further set of criteria, i.e., as the functioning of an additional validity-norm.9 From these considerations it will follow that “the validity” of a given proposition, as the end-product of the validation-procedure, is not an object of interest to the sociology of knowledge. The “truth” or “falsity” of a proposition is only the product of a formalized validation-process; it is the determining norms which are the object of sociological interest. These distinctions are obscured by the characteristic assertion that “the social genesis of thought has no necessary bearing on its validity or falsity.”10 Sociology of knowledge does not dispute “the truth of cognitive achievements”11 ; its concern is with the norms which establish both the criteria of the object, e.g., its location among current categorial divisions or special sub-frames of reference, and the formal procedure of its validation, i.e., its discrimination and identification. The next requisite clarification concerning “validity” in relation to the problem under consideration is somewhat expedited by this first set of distinctions. The sociological “attack” upon “objective validity” has been charged12 with circularity, on the ground that the analysis itself must “assume the possibility” of “objective validity” in order to state its case. “Objective validity” has significance within the present context in two senses: as a special type of validity-norm, and as a possible predication, in terms of this norm, of given cognitive elements. As has been indicated above, the latter sense is of minor concern; the focus of interest is upon the norm of objective validity, rather than upon the consequent objective validity of certain selected propositions. Objective validity is an historical norm which has undergone historical modifications in the service of the special sciences.13 Its constant function, however, has been the maintenance of standards of discrimination for the objects of attention, and for their interconnections.14 The obligations of the sociology of knowledge with regard to this general norm are discharged by recognition of the norm and by its thorough socio-historical analysis. There remains the interesting task of ascertaining the basis of the charge of circularity. The arguments of the opposition rely chiefly upon repeated cheerful discoveries that the sociologist of knowledge must acknowledge the objective validity of scientific facts. The force of this coup is not turned aside by the above distinction between 9

The determining of the cognitive value of such validity-norms is a distinct question. It is not, however, susceptible of a priori resolution. 10 Cf. Merton, op. cit., p. 493. 11 Cf. von Schelting, op. cit., p. 674. 12 Notably, by von Schelting and Mandelbaum. 13 Professor Louis Wirth presents some suggestions concerning the role of the social sciences in these modifications. Cf. his Preface, Ideology and Utopia, pp. xx–xxi. 14 The psychological possibility of objective experience, which may be assumed, in conjunction with other capacities, to be necessary to the survival of the species, must not be confused with the relatively recent abstracting of a scientific objective validity norm. It may be noted that the philosophical concern, most notably that of Kant, with the requirements for objective experience, did not antedate the acuteness of the problem within the special sciences. The objectivity-norm is considered below in connection with a further development of the discussion. Cf. pp. 354–355.

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“the objective validity” of specific facts and the determining objective-validity norm. The functioning of a validity-norm is perceived by the opposition. The norm of objective validity which the opposition recognizes and upon which they rest their case is the philosophical correspondence theory of truth. This is the occasion for von Schelting’s triumph: But we have not yet exhausted the implications of Mannheim’s theory. It also implies . . . [sic] the “traditional” concept of truth! For there would obviously be no meaning at all in basing the value of social conceptions upon their role in the social process, unless it is presupposed that this very role can be ascertained in a way that necessarily carries conviction, on the basis of historical facts, and by the means of logic … This presupposition carries the assertion that there is a possibility of objective cognition of historical facts and their relationships. Mannheim himself explicitly declares that it is possible to ascertain the contribution to historical development of every “utopia,” every “social-historical conception.”15

The basis of the charge of circularity is now revealed. Any objection to the correspondence theory of truth which relies upon objectively valid knowledge for its demonstration thereby relies upon the correspondence theory as the presupposition of objective validity. The viciousness of the circularity of sociological analysis of the objective validity norm consists in its rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. This viciousness is aggravated16 by the attempted delineation of a social factor in the regions restricted by traditional tenets for the solitude of pure reality. Definition of the term “validity-norm” need no longer be delayed. The term “norm” appears frequently in diverse contexts in the literature of ethics and sociology, and has made its way into the opposition literature concerning the sociology of knowledge.17 The sociological analysis of knowledge requires initially a general category of relatively autonomous meaningful cognitive elements18 ; the further discrimination of the cognitive element as concept, proposition, statement, sign, or meaning is not relevant to this problem.19 The theoretical importance of this category lies in the fact that all cognitive elements have the function of determining order within human experience. This legislation of order has no connections with any specific doctrine concerning the nature of that which is ordered; the latter will remain a merely residual category. By an easy extension of sociological and ethical usage, it 15

von Schelting, op. cit., p. 668. Cf. also Mandelbaum, op. cit., pp. 81–82: “… he [Mannheim] assumes the objectivity of our knowledge of the stylistic structure of thought. But this also implies an objective knowledge of the conditions which produced it if it is to be considered as a resultant of historico-social processes.” Mandelbaum’s stand concerning the correspondence theory of truth may be cited again: “It is clear when we examine actual historical works that they all presuppose a correspondence theory of truth, no matter how relativistic the theories of the historians themselves may be” (p. 185). 16 The circularity charge in itself really constitutes a general attack upon the critics of the correspondence theory, and has no special significance for the sociology of knowledge. 17 Cf. von Schelting, op. cit., p. 674. 18 Relations are included in the category. 19 The abstraction “concept” will be most frequently employed in the present discussion, partly because the issues underlying the formulation of the other abstractions are not directly relevant to the problem, and partly because the literature under discussion most commonly uses “concept” as an analytical element.

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is possible to regard the elements which command and sustain the structure or order of experience as the norms of cognition. Then the classes of cognitive elements and of cognitive norms are co-extensive.20 The normative function of one class of cognitive elements has historically received slight attention. These are the cognitive elements which have the initial function of rendering determinate and meaningful some segment of experience. They are thus the primary instruments of order; in respect of their Gestalt-determining function, they may alternatively be regarded as presentational norms. Identification of presentational norms is a requisite for comparative anthropology, which has laid bare the realist error of assuming that there is a class of crucial experiential “facts” such, for example, as are marked by our presentational norm “year,” which are universally perceived. (“Focus of attention,” in terms of which the realist usually accounts for cases which negate such universality, realism of course takes as an ultimate.) Muzafer Sherif relates an instructive instance of the absence of any presentational norm to correspond with our “year”: There are people in the world who do not keep track of the years. Thus Kober gives us a concrete case ...: “The California Indian did not record the passage of long intervals of time. No one knew his own age …” If we commence our study of such a people with a study of their whole culture, and grasp the concepts they use and the classifications they possess in common ... we shall ... avoid the stupidity of including in our tests such an item as “How old are you?” which comes as an alternative item for “five-year-old intelligence” in the Stanford revision of the Binet test.21

The genesis of a presentational norm is carefully treated by Sherif in his well-known study of the formation of a frame of reference for the judgment of “distance” in the perception of the (unstructured) autokinetic effect, both by the individual and by the group. What has obscured the normative instrumentality of this class of cognitive elements has been the universal acknowledgment of the function of a further distinct class of cognitive elements as rules, or principles, determining validity. The contents of the class of cognitive elements which have achieved the status of explicit rules or principles, have varied historically, dependent in part upon the era and the interests of the specific inquiry. The quarrel which the sociology of knowledge has with this situation does not concern the selection of any particular cognitive elements as rules or principles.22 It is that the increasing sophistication of the special sciences with regard to the status of their formalized legislation for inquiry remains provincial. For 20

Cf. the interpretationism of C. I. Lewis: “Thus all concepts, and not simply those we should call ‘categories’ function as criteria of reality. Every criterion of classification is criterion of some particular sort. There is no such thing as reality in general; to be real, a thing must be a particular sort of real … What is fixed datum and must be conformed to, is only that welter of the given in which not even the distinction of real and unreal is yet made. The rest is completely and exclusively our problem of interpretation” op. cit., pp. 262–265. 21 Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms (New York, 1936), p. 8. 22 On the contrary, once the normative significance of all cognitive elements is seen, the distinction becomes the significant differentiation of two of the several types of cognitive norms: validity-norms and presentational norms.

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it has not been extended to the class of cognitive elements which render meaningful the innumerable “facts” of scientific and common-sense experience, but which do not happen to have yet had their validity called into question by the special interests of a given inquiry or a crucial non-scientific situation. The fine flower of a self-conscious positivism is insupportably rooted in a sterile and unexamined realism of large areas of scientific and common-sense definition. All cognitive elements, not merely those which contingently engage our attention, are norms of the order of our experience. Interest in the possibility of sociological analysis of knowledge throws into sharp relief this customarily neglected characteristic function of cognitive elements.23 The sociology of knowledge is concerned to subject to sociohistorical analysis the several types of norms which are operative in the construction of objectively valid knowledge: the regulative, or directional norm, which establishes basic categorial distinctions; the validity-norm, which legislates the criteria of concrete types of phenomena and the requirements involved in their verification; the procedural norm, which establishes for certain modes of inquiry general methods of identification, measurement, corroboration, etc.; the presentational norm, which provides for the apprehension as a meaningful structure of that which is experienced; the objectivitynorm, which legislates for all the special sciences the general principles of the precise discrimination of the object of interest. A normative schema has, for the sociology of knowledge, the dual advantages of demanding an account of the situation generating the norm, and an account of the cognitive function of the norm itself. For the concept of norm (disengaged from transcendentalism) entails the notions of responsiveness to a state of affairs requiring control, and legislation of a specific type of order. Order as the characteristic cognitive function is seen by this schema as significant only in respect of an answer to the question: order for what, in response to what? The objective of the sociology of knowledge is the systematic analysis of the types of distinctively social responsiveness of cognitive order as established by the class of cognitive norms. The concept of normative legislation throws light upon the tenacity of the absolutism maintained by those opposing the sociology of knowledge. However divergently that absolutism has been formulated, its logical basis is the significant apprehension that relativism entails the logical paradox of relativizing its own arguments unless absolute provision is made for the legitimacy of its conceptions. The various overlapping restrictions placed upon sociological analysis of cognition mark the general boundaries of what the opposition has been pleased to isolate as the absolute which is essential to the logical integrity of knowledge of social phenomena. Some principles, they say, must be kept independent of social relativization if an infinite regress upon relata is to be avoided. Unless the core of soundness of this logical ground of objection is unwaveringly apprehended, no defense of the sociology of knowledge can maintain itself. No alternative defense on other grounds can be made adequate in its stead. Such an unhappy 23

It has not been neglected by C. I. Lewis. One of the principal contributions of Mind and the World-Order is its cogent presentation of this argument. Cf. also Muzafer Sherif, op. cit.

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defense is attempted by C. Wright Mills in a courageous article24 advancing the cause of sociology of knowledge. His argument (on this score) is foredoomed, because it can not meet the only sound objections and just demands which the opposition can muster. In response to their demands for an absolute upon which social relativism might logically depend, Dr. Mills makes the unpardonable offer of a probability: These anti-relationistic arguments ... assume the existence of an absolute truth having no connection with inquiry; and they are significant only from an absolutist viewpoint. The imputations of the sociologist of knowledge may be tested with reference to the verificatory model generalized, e.g., by Peirce and Dewey. Their truthfulness is then in terms of this model. Granted that this model is no absolute guaranty, it seems the most probable we have at present.25

It is not the aim of the present discussion to exploit the delights of dilemma. A normative schema provides, in the concept of the normative function of cognitive elements, the absolute logical foundation demanded of social relativism. The absolute function of the norm makes possible the compatibility of a logical absolute with a thorough-going, unrestricted sociological relativization. The ordering of experience is absolute from the standpoint of the persons who are engaged in the establishment of that order. This fact holds regardless of whether order is established by means of presentational norms alone, or more reliably, by reference to appropriate validity-norms. This fact holds also in the face of conscious recognition that the norm employed can not furnish more than the probability, relative to the data at hand, of the predication ventured; the legislation of meanings, procedures, and verifications is taken as absolute in the establishment of any probability-judgment. This fact holds still again despite the developmental nature of thought, since no degree of awareness of the possibilities of the fertility of scientific imagination or of increase in exactitude can challenge the absolutism of the specific cognitive norm requisite to the apprehension of a given situation. The normative function of all cognitive elements constitutes a functional absolute.26 The demands for an absolute have been supplied from the heart of the cognitive situation itself. This arrangement will not be acceptable to those who conceive of the norm, its function and its implications, as necessarily non-naturalistic. The latter dispute is happily to be considered only inferentially here. From the standpoint of the present discussion the logical issue between the sociology of knowledge and its absolutistic opponents has been settled by the identification of an internal cognitive absolute. This view of the internal cognitive absolute as consisting in the normative 24

“Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XLVI (1940), pp. 316–330. 25 “Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” op. cit., p. 323. 26 I am indebted to Professor Margaret Dey of Vassar College for the suggestion of this term and for her sympathetic criticism of the entire paper. Cf. C. I. Lewis’s Mind and the World-Order, ch. VIII, “The Nature of the a Priori and the Pragmatic Element in Knowledge,” for a similar point of view. Cf. also the following statements by Mannheim, who does not, regrettably, pursue their implications: “Relating individual ideas to the total structure of a given historico-social subject should not be confused with a philosophical relativism which denies the validity of any standards and of the existence of order in the world” (Ideology and Utopia, pp. 254 f.).

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function of cognitive elements facilitates the account of the social responsiveness of the order which they institute. The independence of the norm is not endangered by its social analyzability, since the independence which this discussion has established for the norm is a functional independence, not an analytic ultimacy. There remains the task of determining the criterion of cognitive value on the part of the cognitive norms themselves. The problem must be articulated, and thus limited, by the commitments of the preceding discussion. The criterion of the cognitive value of cognitive norms must be such as to take cognizance of the types of demands to which the specific norms are responsive. The interests of this discussion have confined examination of the types of demand upon the cognitive norm to three: the establishment of some form of meaningful structure within the historical and institutional segmentation of experience, which in turn entails both the responsiveness to empirical reality, and (thirdly) the responsiveness to the social state of affairs. Each of these demand-types is itself susceptible of distinctions into sub-types, depending upon the interests of analysis.27 The only criterion that suggests itself to be at once sufficiently broad to cover this complexity of reference and sufficiently familiar in methodological contexts to seem appropriate, is that of adequacy; the principal disadvantage of this term is its association with the limited conception of the demands upon adequacy which is characteristic of pragmatism. The adequacy of the cognitive norm is thus conditional upon the fulfillment of many requirements.28 There are two misapprehensions of some interest upon which this notion of adequacy as the criterion of cognitive value has bearing. One is the opposition’s concern, expressed chiefly by von Schelting and de Gre, with the presumption of the sociology of knowledge in offering, or in threatening to offer, “truth-value judgments” or “sociological truth concepts.” It can not be denied that there is ground for this concern, most conspicuously in the bold indiscretions of Ideology and Utopia. Were anyone to maintain seriously that truth is determined exclusively by social phenomena, he would be ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than were he to maintain some more time-honored naive monism. The mutually exhaustive truisms that truth is determined by laws of the mind, that truth is determined by independent existence, that truth is determined by society, have their correlates in the three types of demand upon cognitive adequacy which have been discriminated above. A demand-type is sharper and more meaningful than a monism, precisely because its scope does not exhaust all possible meanings. Thus it is the specificity of interaction and adjustment 27

Throughout this discussion the term “social” is taken in a very broad sense which includes “economic” and “political,” unless some one of these is specifically discriminated. Also, the interest of the present discussion is in the significance, for a concept of cognitive value, of the plurality of demand types and the nature of a few of them. It does not extend to the further problem of the relations which may be discovered among them, as is expressed, e.g., in the distinction between “superstructure” and “basis” among the “categories” which contribute analyses of social phenomena, and which constitutes the inquiry into social causation. 28 It will be noted that the analysis of adequacy is undertaken only in respect of the “responsiveness” aspect of the norm, and not its normative function. “Adequacy” is not predicable of the normative function as such because this function is logical and absolute, insusceptible, while it is sustained, of degrees, emendations, or demands.

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of separate demands, mental, existential, and social, which furnishes the key to the understanding of concrete cognitive adequacy (as well as to the understanding of any other human phenomena). However, the opposition’s point is not taken against a social monism, but against the view that truth is responsive to social demands; in this fashion is betrayed the traditional hypostatization of normative function and the curtailment of positive science which has been examined above. The second misapprehension is the logical criticism of Mannheim’s attempt to establish a particular social group as the criterion (not as the exclusive determinant) of cognitive adequacy. But if the adequacy of a cognitive norm is conditional in part upon its responsiveness to concrete social demands, then it must be granted that the sociologist of knowledge is in a position, through his historical study of cognition, to point out the optimum social conditions for the development of specific types of interest and inquiry. The factual question concerning the soundness of Mannheim’s suggestion of a sozialfreischwebende Intelligenz as constituting such an optimum condition for the contemporary development of political theory is a further question which can not be examined here.29 The establishment of the sociology of knowledge upon a schema entailing social responsiveness and absolute normative function is not subsumable under the general heading of anti-intellectualism. The sensational exposé of social determinants of knowledge is not the goal of sociological analysis. That this should be considered as its prime objective, however, is highly significant as characterizing the thought of the opposition. For the presence of so-called “extra-theoretical30 factors” in cognition implies the anti-intellectualistic conclusion that all thought is illusion and all action irrational only on the premise that rationality entails unconditional general immunity from analysis in terms of the elements of positive science. It has been one of the arguments of the present discussion that the only legitimate concession which need be made to the requirement of a cognitive absolute is the concept of the ultimacy of normative function. The immunization of cognitive elements from positive analysis in any further sense must be viewed either on logical grounds as a gratuitously involved conception of the requirements of a logical absolute, or on non-logical grounds, to be positively determined, as a specific interest in the qualitative uniqueness of a concrete set of cognitive elements.31 29

For its solution this question requires not only the analysis of the sociology of knowledge, but also the findings of the inquiry into social causality. 30 Obviously, a question-begging term. 31 Narrowness in conceiving the possibilities, either in types of social responsiveness or in areas where they may be fruitfully pursued has no logical grounds. On the latter score, cf. such related scientific interests as: (a) the abundant research into the social responsiveness of language-types; (b) the concept of speech itself as the response to a set of concrete evolutionary social demands; this reference is especially to Grace Andrus de Laguna, Speech, Its Function and Development (New Haven, 1927), which is one of the genuine contributions of the twentieth century to the inquiry into cognitive phenomena by means of the categories of positive science; (c) the Gestalt principle concerning perception fructified by the concept of the social responsiveness of specific types of gestalts as the “norms,” or “frames of reference,” of perceptual knowledge; cf. Muzafer Sherif, op. cit.

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The modern version of cognitive “purity” which entails among other remedial measures, the de-socialization of scientific meanings by means of exclusively operational definitions, has in common with the more venerable versions of purity a disregard of the socio-historical medium. The objectivity-norm of the special sciences, it may be readily granted, has increasingly refined the means of discriminating between personal idiosyncrasy or “community-centrism”32 and the phenomenon under examination. What is thereby achieved is not the de-socialization of the concepts employed, but a rigorous and self-conscious account of the institutionally established criteria and modes of procedure both of which entail the functioning of validity-norms susceptible of sociological analysis. There is no more promising source of increased discriminatory power for the objectivity-norm than the sociology of knowledge,33 which brings to self-consciousness the social demands to which scientific methodologies may respond. This process of refinement of the objectivity-norm is not the simple problem of safeguarding against cultural “infiltrations”34 or distortions. Beyond “communitycentrism,” there are the centrisms which constitute the norms of the science, and its role within the institutional structure of the society which sustains it. Which centrisms become formulated 35 as self-conscious scientific principles, and which are the targets of the discrimination rules of the objectivity-norm, is itself a problem determined by a series of socio-historically responsive cognitive norms. The attempt to circumvent the cultural, socio-linguistic, or historical responsiveness of cognition by an operational theory of meaning results most successfully in an operational transcription of the forms of procedure established by validitynorms; apart, however, from the function of the historically responsive directional and validity-norms, there could be no carefully channelized formal procedure to receive the benefit of operational restatement and no “proper” scientific meanings to come to the rescue of rival operational definitions of the “same” scientific terms.36

32

This term is offered by Muzafer Sherif: “Indeed, psychologists are no exception to the rule about the impress of cultural forces; their norms and their mentalities are to a large extent products of the cultural group of which they are members. Whenever they study human nature, or make comparisons between different groups of people, without first subjecting their own norms to a critical revision in order to gain the necessary perspective, they force the absolutism of their subjectivity or their community-centrism upon all the facts, even those laboriously achieved through experiment” (op. cit., p. 9). 33 Cf. C. Wright Mills, “Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” loc. cit., esp. pp. 328–330. 34 Cf. Carroll C. Pratt, The Logic of Modern Psychology (New York, 1939), ch. V. This is perhaps the most complete available development of the operationist position. Cf. also its predecessor, P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York, 1928). For further accounts of operationism in psychology, cf. J. R. Kantor, “The Operational Principle in the Physical and Psychological Sciences,” Psychological Record, Vol. II (1938), pp. 3–32; S. S. Stevens, “The Operational Definition of Concepts,” Psychological Review, Vol. XLII (1935), pp. 517–527. 35 Together, of course, with the several other types of demands upon the cognitive norm. 36 Cf., e.g., Pratt’s criticism of Stevens’ operational definition of the concept of tonal density. The operations which Stevens uses to define tonal density are finger-reactions; tonal density, then, is defined by certain types of finger-reaction. Pratt vigorously rejects this definition as not “proper”

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Operationism at best is a transcription of established formulae; and at worst, an attempt to direct inquiry.37 Cognitive purity at the expense of socio-historical responsiveness is untenable, whether it is urged in behalf of a nobler realm or in behalf of the events which occur in scientific laboratories. The sociology of knowledge repudiates such cavalier treatment of historical phenomena, by offering a socio-historical analysis of the factuality of cognitive norms. The tenacity of the opposition to an unrestricted sociology of knowledge must in the end be analyzed on grounds other than the logical ones which have been offered above. Such an analysis falls within the field of sociology of knowledge, and can not be attempted here. It follows that in the contemporary historical situation the present discussion can do no more. It has met the opposition on logical grounds, and has presented the possibility of a sociological analysis of all cognitive norms which provides for a rigorous cognitive absolute without compromise of either logical or scientific integrity. The sociological analysis of the arguments of the opposition, and the general development of sociological analysis of cognition, especially in conjunction with other modes of inquiry, may be expected to constitute far more serious strains upon the staying powers of the opposition than can discussions, such as the present one, upon the logical and methodological level. Too simplistic a conception of the issues involved can not fail to produce in the sociologist of knowledge and in the sympathetic social scientist a sense of futility and discouragement; on the broader view, they will perform their chosen tasks and commit the conflict into the hands of the socio-historic future.

(op. cit., p. 107). The point of interest for this discussion is the ground of an operationist’s certainty of a “proper” definition. 37 Operationism presents many facets for interesting sociological analysis, e.g., as a “theory” of meaning, and as a protest movement against certain forms of traditionalism. This latter aspect is very pronounced in the literature of operationism in psychology. These comments are concerned only with a specially selected aspect of the theory; they do not pretend to be an account of the total position.

Chapter 15

Cultural Relativism and Science Grace Andrus de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Grace Andrus de Laguna examines cultural relativism and its bearing on science.

The relativism of human knowledge and of human standards has been held in some form since the beginnings of reflective thought. Each age since that of the Sophists has furnished its own version, and each fresh version has been attacked by the legitimate descendants of Socrates and Plato. The ground of attack has always been essentially the same: that the current version of relativism is committed to inherent contradictions. It is indeed so easy to show that a complete relativism is impossible because it is essentially self-refuting, that the really perplexing problem is why the doctrine of relativism continues to survive, or to arise like the phoenix from each successive destruction. We all know not merely that we are ignorant, but that we are incurably liable to error. In recognizing this we show ourselves to be truly wise and we justly claim indubitable knowledge. Hegel criticized Kant’s phenomenalism by asserting that in recognizing the limitations of human knowledge we have already transcended them. In so doing he expressed a profound truth; yet it is only half the truth. For the limitations still remain as limitations despite our recognition of them. Even though with Socrates we may be wise in the knowledge of our ignorance, we still remain Grace Andrus de Laguna: First published in 1942 in The Philosophical Review, 51(2), 141–166. The presidential address to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Vassar College, December 30, 1941. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Ruth Benedict and to Dr. Frederica de Laguna for their helpful discussion of anthropological problems and for their criticisms of this address, the manuscript of which they were both kind enough to read. Neither of them is, however, to be held responsible for the views expressed or the conclusions reached. G. A. de Laguna (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_15

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ignorant of what we would know. And if we escape error in asserting our liability to error, we have not thereby gained security against further error. And even though the recognition of our fallibility involves the acknowledgment of a standard of truth through the use of which each successive error is corrigible, it does not follow that we can escape error in the philosophic enterprise of formulating those very standards we implicitly acknowledge; still less in our attempts to apply them. If the absolutism of the Great Tradition is justified in what it means to claim, sceptical relativism is also justified in its criticism of each absolutistic system as itself inescapably relative to time and circumstance in its actual version of that claim. An adequate system of metaphysics must, as Hegel pointed out, be circular; it must exhibit itself as epistemologically both possible and necessary. But such a system could exist only for infinite thought, which as such is incapable of error. A philosophy of finite human thinkers must be a critical philosophy in a more radical way than Kant or his followers have envisaged. It must, paradoxically, exhibit itself as essentially incomplete and tentative by providing for its own internal regeneration. A system of philosophy, like an individual living thing, contains the seeds of its own death within it; yet like living things it may partake of immortality through its own internal power of continued regeneration. But my theme tonight is not the reconciliation of relativism with absolutism. That is too vast an undertaking. What I propose to discuss with you is the more particular and concrete problem set by the modern version of scepticism, cultural relativism, in its bearing on science. The contemporary doctrine of cultural relativism is closely akin to the older doctrine of historical relativism. But it is both more fundamental and more universal in its claims. Anthropology is probably the most liberalizing, as it is the most recent, of the sciences. On the one hand, anthropology has shown that the time-honored belief in the inherent superiority of the white race rests on no evidence that withstands criticism. If one race differs from another in native endowments and aptitudes, science has so far been unable to discover just what these may be, or how to distinguish differences in native racial endowment from differences due to the cultural conditions of breeding and education. In the radical criticism to which the whole concept of race has been subjected, it has become increasingly evident that there is no ground for any hierarchical gradations of peoples into ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’. On the other hand, what anthropology has done in liberalizing our ideas about race is matched by its influence on our ideas concerning differences in culture. Along with the abandonment of eighteenth-century ideas of ‘progress’ and the discrediting of the nineteenth-century belief in ‘social evolution’, has gone our conviction that our own civilized culture marks the highest stage in a universal process of development through which all societies and all peoples are passing. The differences in social institutions and ways of life which distinguish one people from another, modern anthropology regards as differences of culture and not differences in culture. Although the terms, ‘higher’ and ‘lower’, ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’, are still used, these denote only differences in the possession of mechanical inventions, the use of written language, or in the complexity and integration of social organization, and profess to carry no connotation of superiority or inferiority. ‘Primitive’ peoples are

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not backward peoples who have been delayed in the natural and inevitable course of cultural development. Although our own civilization is an historically later outgrowth from an earlier uncivilized state, it is equally true that every existing culture has its own age-old history of development behind it. Cultures have been headed in many different directions and have travelled by different roads to different places. Moreover, each culture has selected its own specific purposes and has set up its own characteristic standards of value. If these are not intrinsically incommensurable, at least it is true that any attempt on our part to rank cultures in terms of value must inevitably reflect the particular standards inherent in our own culture. It is indeed precisely with regard to standards of life and thought that the intimate studies of primitive peoples have cast more light on human nature than all the reflections of sages or the painstaking investigations of laboratory scientists. On the one hand, they have shown concretely and vividly the universal kinship of mankind, abstractly recognized by the Stoics and accepted as an article of Christian faith; on the other hand, they have revealed a wealth of human diversity and a variety of human standards and of modes of feeling and thinking hitherto unimagined. The “horrid practises of the savage” have shown themselves to the intimate and unprejudiced study of the field ethnologist at once more amazing and more understandable than romance had painted them. The wider sympathy with men and the deeper insight into human nature which these studies have brought have done much to shake our complacent estimate of ourselves and our attainments. We have come to suspect that even our own deepest beliefs and our most cherished convictions may be as much the expression of an unconscious provincialism as are the fantastic superstitions of the savage. The step to a universal relativism has been made easy and natural. It is the concept of culture itself which provides the theoretical basis for our modern version of relativism. As the anthropologist conceives it, a culture is an integrated individual whole. It is a complex of all that belongs to a common way of life. On its material side it includes, for example, dwellings and their mode of construction, tools and techniques, articles of food, modes of dress, etc. Equally constitutive of a culture are the form of social organization, language and myth, religious ceremonial and belief, moral standards and ideals, and all common modes of thought. All these fall into a distinctive pattern characteristic of the particular culture. All these traits, both material and immaterial, are mutually dependent and interrelated. Every culture is thus a more or less functional whole, a going concern, self-sustaining and selfperpetuating. There is an implicit nominalism in modern anthropological thought: it is the individual cultures which are real, while culture tends to be regarded as an abstraction. Just as the meaning of words, the distinction of parts of speech, the function of grammatical forms, are relative to the particular language to which they belong, so the traits of any culture are relative to it. It is not merely that their existence within the culture is causally conditioned by the culture as a whole, but that their nature and significance—their essence, if you please—is involved in the essential pattern of the culture. All cultures, for example, have some form of social organization within which there are husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters. But what it is to be a husband, or a child, or a brother, depends upon the particular form

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of social organization. The elements which compose one culture are not identical with those of another; there is no one-to-one correspondence of the traits of one culture with those of another. What the ethnologist studies is thus, primarily at least, particular cultures and not ‘culture’ as such. He endeavors to analyse each culture into its specific elements and their distinctive pattern of interrelationships. He is not oblivious to the fact that no culture exists in splendid isolation, or unmodified by its contacts with other cultures; on the contrary, one of his chief interests has been the study of cultural contacts and the resulting modifications of the cultures concerned. He finds that when there is such contact, each culture is highly selective in its susceptibility to influence. If it borrows a trait, whether a folktale, an article of food, a technical process, or an idea, it does not incorporate this item ‘raw’, but transforms it by a sort of assimilation to make it fit into its own cultural organism. Even such an item as the bow and arrow, which has passed into so many cultures, has not only become physically modified in the process, but it has been adapted to a distinctive role in each new setting. What it is to be a bow and arrow varies with the cultural complex of which it is a member. Indeed, it is the study of cultural contacts which offers perhaps the most convincing evidence of the essential relativity of all traits to the individual culture to which they belong. As a word or phrase changes its significance in a new linguistic context, so the attributes and worship of a god, or a Catholic saint, take on strange and unexpected form when they are adopted by an alien culture. Now the traits most fundamental to the life of any culture are the beliefs and valuations of the individuals who are its bearers. The basic ideas and modes of thought, the accepted standards and ideals of human life—these are the very warp and woof of the fabric of any culture. Let these be strained and disrupted, as those of primitive people have so often been in the shock of contact with our own civilization, and the culture loses its vitality, drags on a degenerate existence, or perishes altogether. For these standards of value and the conceptual basis on which they rest are relative to the culture. They have grown up with the culture as a whole; on the one hand, they have been determined by the form of cultural organization; on the other hand, they direct and in turn determine the course of cultural growth, and give definitive meaning to all traits, indigenous and borrowed. Cultural relativism, it is important to recognize, is not simply a doctrine limited to holding that the existence of a mode of thought is causally determined by cultural conditions, as one might say, for example, that a particular fertility rite could arise only among people who practised agriculture. Cultural relativism is a doctrine concerning essence as well as existence. Beliefs as meanings, and standards as valuations, are determined by, and relative to, the cultures to which they belong, as the meaning of a word or phrase is determined by its linguistic context. The concepts in terms of which the members of one culture think are significant only within and with reference to the frame of that culture. They accordingly constitute a peculiar and untranslatable idiom of thought. Nor are they applicable to the institutions and customs of another culture except in so far as the two cultures are alike. In so far as cultures are individual wholes, the members of one culture cannot understand in the terms of their own concepts the beliefs and differing

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ways of thought of an alien culture. The logical conclusion, then, to which a consistent and thoroughgoing cultural relativism inevitably leads, is that no concepts are universally applicable and no standards objectively valid. Actually I know of no anthropologist who has attempted to carry through the doctrine of cultural relativism to its logical conclusion, or who is willing to accept this conclusion when confronted with it. Yet the doctrine is implicit in much of current writing, especially in much of the criticism passed not only on the missionaries who endeavor to introduce their own religious beliefs and ideals among primitive peoples, but on the essentially similar attitude taken by most former writers on such people. What they have done, it is pointed out, and what we all do unless truly enlightened, is to judge these people in terms and by standards which have meaning and validity only for the civilized culture of western Europe. Even if we do not pass judgment on their morals and manners, we do what is just as bad: we naively suppose we can understand their modes of thinking and feeling in terms of our own. We uncritically assume, as arrogantly and provincially as do most other peoples, that our own standards and modes of thought are natural and inevitable and absolute. It is, however, only in the long perspective and the wide range of vision that ethnology alone can furnish, that we are enabled to see our own civilization as just one culture among others. Because our culture is perhaps more complex than others, or because it is now dominant over the greater part of the earth, or even because it has gained an unparalleled control over physical nature, we cannot justly conclude that our standards of life or the conceptual pattern of our thought have any superior claim to universality or objective validity. Yet it is just this claim to the objective validity of his own thought that the cultural relativist is forced to make. As a scientist he is committed to a belief in an objective truth which science is peculiarly competent to discover. It is this inevitable commitment and the paradox in which the relativist is involved that sets our problem. The concept of culture and the relativism implied in it is assumed by the relativist to be itself universally applicable and objectively valid. It must then apply to his own civilization and the science which characterizes it. Yet the whole notion of anthropology as an empirical science and the basic concepts which it employs belong to the particular pattern of our own culture. Hence the paradox: if cultural relativism is true in the objective sense, it must be applicable to itself as a cultural element. But in that case, it can, like all cultural modes of thought, be significant and valid only in relation to the culture to which it belongs. On the other hand, if it is merely relative to our own culture, it is not universally applicable to all cultures, as the anthropologist assumes, and no objective science of anthropology is possible. It is undoubtedly true that there is a certain relativism entertained today among scientists generally. They make little pretension to have attained any final or absolute truth. They accept their scientific doctrines tentatively, and hold them subject to constant correction even in their more basic concepts. This is especially true of anthropologists, all of whose scientific concepts, including that of ‘culture’ itself, are selfconsciously fluid. Yet, as scientists, they trust their science, and like you and me, they harbor the conviction that science is a mode of thought inherently superior to that of any of the so-called primitives. We all do believe that science, for all its shortcomings, and despite its tentativeness, yields genuinely objective truth. Above

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all others the anthropologist must trust to the objectivity of his special science, since he undertakes through it to reach an understanding of the life of alien peoples and the standards and beliefs on which this life rests. Yet he also knows that this very science is the unique fruit of our own civilization. Men of other cultures may be as intelligent and endowed with the same rationality as ourselves, but they have not produced science. Moreover, no other culture could borrow our scientific outlook without being utterly transformed in the process. One might teach a native of New Guinea or a Navajo Indian mathematics or formal logic without thereby disqualifying him from membership in his own group. But one could not teach him empirical science without introducing him into our own society and inculcating in him so much of our own standards and modes of thought that he could never again live among his own people as one of them or fully participate in his native culture. The problem that is raised by these considerations is, of course, not merely anthropological. If it were, for me to discuss it with you here would be mere impertinence. How culture is to be conceived, is a scientific question to be answered in the light of the “stubborn and irreducible facts” which only the anthropologist is competent to determine. As philosophers we share the faith of the scientist and his respect for the facts which he discovers. The anthropologist is concerned with science as a cultural phenomenon; the standards of science, like all other standards exemplified in the diverse beliefs of mankind, he must study as matters of objective fact, and refrain from all judgments of value upon them. Yet he cannot continue to carry on his scientific enterprise without a critical appraisal of the standards he employs in this enterprise. All science, it is doubtless true, must make philosophical assumptions, of which it is led from time to time in the course of its own development to become selfconscious and critical. But anthropology is faced in a peculiar way with the necessity of reconciling its basic concepts and its inherent standards of value. How is science as a cultural phenomenon possible? or, conversely, How is science, as an objectively valid mode of thought, possible as a cultural phenomenon, is a problem of vital importance for both philosophy and anthropology. If our culture alone has produced science, and if it alone possesses an organization of which the scientific mode of thought is an integral factor, then it cannot adequately be regarded as merely one particular culture among many. Nor is it sufficient to recognize that its possession of science validates the claim that it is superior to other cultures in an objective way. It is, rather, that the existence of science casts doubt upon the hypothesis that a culture is a merely individual organization. For science is a mode of thought the nature and significance of which is not to be understood simply in terms of its relation to the particular pattern of our own social organization. In the achievement of science our culture has found a means of transcending its own limitations, of embracing ideally all cultures within itself. Our culture thus shows itself as at once unique and universal. But this is to talk in vague terms. We must ask more specifically: what is the distinctive structure of the scientific mode of thought? We must inquire not in what its essential truth lies, but what its characteristic conceptual organization is, which makes possible its transcendence of the limitations of the particular culture of which it is a factor.

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Science, as we all recognize, rests upon the systematic collection of observable data. From the study of these the scientist discerns, or thinks he discerns, some constant relationships; he discovers, or invents, a conceptual schema into which his data fit with a measurable exactness. This schema he proceeds to test by further observation and experiment. If it does not continue to provide a place for the fresh data, the schema is modified, or even abandoned, in favor of some rival hypothesis. As a scientist he accepts his observations as stubborn and irreducible facts, and he strives, on principle, to distrust his theoretical generalizations. Newton, it will be recalled, repudiated the making of any explanatory ‘hypotheses’, and professed as a scientist merely to describe the relationships exhibited by the observed phenomena. But this, you, as philosophers, may doubtless hold, is not an adequate account of the actual structure of science. You will admit that modern science did arise as a selfconscious revolt against the dominant Aristotelian tradition of the Middle Ages, and you will recall that in rejecting final causes, and the belief in a universe qualitatively diversified in logical genera and species, science felt it was revolting against an a priori dogmatism. But those empiricists who believed that in so doing they had attained a complete freedom were deluding themselves. In rejecting the Aristotelian schema, you will point out, they were already embracing another a priori conception of the ground plan of the universe, and committing themselves to a new dogmatism which threatened to become as rigid as the old. Only a generation ago, you will remember, leading scientists still living in the Newtonian era could believe that all that remained for the aspiring experimentalist to discover were a few minor constants. The scientist, you may further urge, is no observer of pure facts, and can make no use of data which are not themselves determined by some form of a priori categorizing. The empirical generalizations which are tested by observation are merely possible alternatives, all equally consistent with the categoreal schema of the science. Observation and experiment can determine only which of these alternatives is to be accepted; they cannot yield the theoretically possible alternatives themselves. A true analysis of the structure of science shows that theory and fact are mutually dependent. What distinguishes science, then, it may be urged, is primarily its distinctive a priori categoreal schema, which provides a greater range of possible theoretical alternatives and thus makes possible a correspondingly greater wealth of observable data. In this connection one may refer to Professor C. I. Lewis’s brilliant theory of the a priori as essentially definitory. In accordance with this theory, some a priori structure is necessary to rational thought, but a variety of such structures is possible. What the a priori provides are definitory terms of what shall constitute the ‘real’ as the object of thought; but it does not, as Kant held, organize the given as merely experienced. We may, that is, experience as ‘given’ what does not correspond to the defining categories of thought; but whatever is thus experienced is automatically discarded—it falls into a sort of waste basket of the ‘illusory’, or merely subjective. The first requisite of rational thought is thus some a priori schema which operates selectively to separate all experience into the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’. That this theory of Professor Lewis contains important truth, must, I think, be admitted. For my part I should agree with him that there is a variable and relative a priori essential to all thought. But these variable categories of thought must, I

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think, be distinguished, as material, from the purely formal a priori logical structure which is independent of them, but which can function only through the content mediated by them. We may find an illuminating analogy in the structure of language. Every language must have a grammar which provides for the fundamental distinctions essential to intelligible communication. But this may be done in a great variety of ways; hence there are many different families of languages, each with its own distinctive grammatical structure. As each grammar has its own peculiar categories which constitute the specific a priori for each individual language, so thought must operate through a specific conceptual structure which is not the pure form of logical relationship, but which is yet an a priori condition of all actual thinking. It is this variable and relative a priori which forms the conceptual pattern distinctive of differing cultures, and which is at once determined by and determinative of the cultural life. It is, accordingly, to the variable and material a priori that we must look for the distinctive character of scientific thought. Now, aside from purely epistemological difficulties which one might find in Professor Lewis’s theory (and which are not our present concern), it fails, so far as I can discover, to provide an adequate basis for what is uniquely characteristic of science. According to his theory, the conceptual schema of science may be a more highly integrated system than the vaguer ideas of primitive thought, and it may be pragmatically superior. But these are only differences in degree. Scientific thought differs in kind; it is unique. What above all else distinguishes science and constitutes its uniqueness is its capacity for progressive modification through self-criticism. A moment ago we referred to the dogmatism of the science of Kant and Newton, and to the fact that, in the last generation it seemed to have reached a dead end. Yet it promptly took on a new life and arose like a phoenix from its own ashes. It is this power of regeneration which distinguishes scientific thought, and it is just this that requires some deeper explanation than we have yet discovered. Such a theory as Professor Lewis’s applies better, one may venture to think, to some forms of primitive thought than to science. If the religious ceremonial of the Navajo, for example, fails to bring the hoped for blessing or cure, this does not raise any doubt of the beliefs on which the ceremonial is based. The Navajo can always explain away the failures. Nor is he upset by the inventions of modern science, as Professor Gladys Reichard will point out in her forthcoming work on the religion of the Navajo. The concepts of Navajo thought are such, she holds, that nothing can be new to them; all the answers are fixed in advance by the terms of their mythological thought. Compared with science, primitive systems of thought are, as Lévy-Brühl and others have pointed out, relatively impervious to experience. They remain ‘true’ ‘no matter what’ experience offers. They are provided in advance with adequate conceptual waste-baskets for all rubbish. To be sure, such systems do suffer change and do become modified with time and circumstance. But they change in spite of themselves, and from external pressure. Science, on the contrary, welcomes change on principle, and develops from an inner source of life. It is of course true that the scientist, like the medicine man, has a means of explaining away the failure of an experiment. The proverbial demonstrator may say to his class: “Gentlemen, the experiment has failed, but the principle still holds good.” But if the experiment continues to yield unexpected results the scientist

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is prepared to modify his principle. He must have his waste-baskets for rubbish, but they can hold only what falls within the margin of error. Or rather, it should be said that science maintains a universal economy in which all rubbish is potentially useful. Yet, despite its internal changes and through its revolutionary crises, science is continuous; it persists as science. It is like a state with a constitution that determines the conditions under which specific laws may be enacted as circumstances demand, and which furthermore provides for its own modification through amendment by due process of law. As a state with such a constitution has a means of providing for indefinite change in its own structure without disintegration, so science through its methodology is enabled constantly to revise its own theories and the concepts in terms of which they are framed. Compared with science other systems of thought are like societies which rest upon the sanctity of ancient tradition or upon the arbitrary will of a temporary dictator. Once the tradition is broken or the dictator deposed, such a society has nothing to fall back upon, and no means of reorganization except the slow growth of a new tradition from the ruins of the old. But if science has a methodology which gives it security and which it accepts as valid, it must be committed to some positive beliefs regarding the nature of that with which it deals. For a method will work only if it is adapted to its subject-matter and reflects within itself the very structure of that matter. To accept the methodology of science as valid is to assume the fundamental intelligibility of being. For the methodology of science implies that all that is belongs within a single all-inclusive order. Within this order there can be no fixed and final divisions such as primitive thought finds between the commonplace and the wonderful, or between the phenomenal and the real such as Plato found, nor can there be any shred or trace of sheer irrationality such as Aristotle admitted. The intelligibility of being demands that a place must be found for every item; there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which does not belong within and is not essential to the universal order. Whatever is, lies within a continuum such that it is possible to pass from any point to any other. An infinite network of possible relationships interconnects every item with all others. But while the methodology of science implies this as an ideal, and while science rests upon a final faith in a completely unified order, it is forced to operate from day to day with some particular and partial version of this order. Science has always conceived of a uniformity of nature manifesting itself in a system of laws, although the very conception of ‘law’ has itself undergone great modification in the course of time. Formerly it was supposed that the laws of nature formed a single hierarchy, and that one might pass deductively from some ultimate universal downward to the particulars which were its logical consequents. Or alternatively, that the scientist must begin with particulars and find his way back by some sort of inductive procedure from particular uniformities through the more and more general to the universal. If a more sophisticated philosophy of science finds such modes of thought naive, it still recognizes that science is committed to the task of formulating the order of nature in terms of law. If no system of laws is a literal transcription of, or revelatory of, a natural order, it must still be assumed that being is indefinitely amenable to such representation. Science still confidently pursues its aims of establishing systems of intelligible communication between all that is observable.

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We may compare scientific laws to systems of roads which serve to connect the habitations of men. There are the great arterial highways which run between important centers. These are like the fundamental laws of physical science; from them branch roads lead out to smaller centers and to scattered hamlets. As men push out and settle in the remote hinterland, new roads must be laid out to connect with the existing system, and the old system may be altered by the necessary extension. An old system of wagon-roads which served for local needs may be superseded by a modem system with its cloverleaf intersections to unite the outlying districts with the great centers and so indirectly with one another. As roads are built between settlements already established, so new settlements spring up and become consolidated along established routes of communication. However well designed a system of roads there may be, there will always remain localities off across country which are potential habitations. Roads, like lines which lie in a plane, can connect and determine only those sets of points which lie on them. Analogously, the laws of science can connect only those instances to which they are applicable. If, like the earlier pathways and trails, they originally grew up between the things of common life, they become replaced by the direct highways laid out by engineers, which may by-pass towns in order to provide more extensive and rapid intercommunication. But however extensive and well integrated the system of the sciences may become, its laws, like roads, can connect only selected points. Established and exact scientific laws tend to determine or define their own ideal instances, as established routes of travel tend to determine men’s places of business. But natural science must apply to the real world of common experience. Whether, as the formulae of exact science, the laws determine and connect ideal instances, or, as the generalizations of empirical science, they seek to connect observed facts, laws, like roads, are essentially linear. It is only to what is relevant, and so, significant, that laws can apply. What is irrelevant must be ignored by the scientific observer. And there always is the irrelevant to be ignored. At every stage the effective conceptions of science determine a zone of relevancy, they define what is the ‘real’ for the science, as Professor Lewis has pointed out. Science must operate with some selective set of a priori concepts and principles which at once define and organize its subject-matter. But, if any such set could constitute a complete system, whatever appeared as irrelevant would be absolutely irrelevant, unreal, and utterly insignificant. Actually, if such ideal completeness were realized by science, it would be because nothing scientifically irrelevant could appear even to sense-perception. It is because science is incomplete and is aware of it that it undergoes constant change. It is able to recognize its own limitations because it holds an ideal of completeness; because it rests upon the implicit belief that whatever is or can appear to sense belongs within the single all-inclusive order of being. The scientist may ignore what is irrelevant to the purpose of his inquiry, but he actually perceives it as irrelevant. And if he is a genuine scientist he is painfully aware that what he thus ignores may be relevant. The archaeologist, for example, is not content with written notes of what he observes as he excavates; he photographs his site at frequent stages in order to preserve a more direct and objective record. But even this is not enough, and he scrupulously leaves a part of his site undisturbed for later excavators. He knows that future knowledge will throw fresh light and reveal as significant and relevant much that has escaped his own most

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careful observation. Nothing, no record, however full, and no set of photographs, can take the place of fresh direct observation of the concrete. At the opposite extreme from archaeology is the laboratory experimentation of exact science. In the ideal experiment, as we learned from textbooks on logic, the conditions are all known and analysed; the ideal experimenter knows exactly what he is doing in setting up his experiment or in altering condition A to condition B. Hence the experiment can yield an exact and final result such as is impossible to mere uncontrolled observation. But actually there are no ideal experiments; the experimentalist knows that for all his efforts he has not noted or analysed all the conditions under which he works. Like the mere observer he too must have his eye out for details of potential relevance, hitherto unrecognized. If experiments were ideal, all that empirical science could accomplish would be to exclude predetermined alternatives. It is not the discovery of facts contradicting accepted theory that is vital to science, but the ability to recognize the irrelevant as potentially relevant. It is the recurrent pioneering and settling in the uncharted wilderness that creates the demand for new means of communication and forces the modification of older systems. Science always has its frontiers, and maintains its own life through constantly extending them. But the scientist is ready to push out into the unknown because he is assured that the unexplored region is also habitable, and that means of communication may always be found to connect it with the known and settled. It is this living sense of a beyond which is yet continuous with the here and now, of an unfamiliar with which we may become intimate, of an unknown which is knowable, that marks off scientific thought from so-called primitive or mythological thought. If primitive thought may also cherish the belief in some ordered scheme of things, it identifies this outright with its traditional and fixed mythology. Dr. Ruth Benedict has pointed out to me that the Hupa Indians of northern California, for example, believe that everything in the world was assigned its own proper place at the beginning, and that there is a specific formula, the possession of which will bring each thing or set of things under control. But such a world-arrangement is not a rationally intelligible order; the formulae are specific and ad hoc, and constitute no system of interrelationships. Anthropologists generally agree that despite the great differences which distinguish the thought of one primitive culture from that of others, modes of primitive thought are alike in making a distinction between the ordinary and commonplace on the one hand, and the extraordinary and wonderful on the other, the things and events which manifest unusual powers, which one may fear or hope in some way to control. Dr. Ernst Cassirer has argued that this distinction between the commonplace and the extraordinary is a fundamental characteristic of mythological thought; it provides the basis for the division of the sacred from the profane, and of the supernatural from the natural. So long as such a cleavage cuts athwart the world, it obviously cannot be brought within a single intelligible order. As Dr. Cassirer points out, the world of mythological thought does not lie within the single infinite homogeneous space of Kantian theory and Newtonian science. Its regions are qualitatively diverse and discontinuous. The river Styx is not crossed by ordinary means or by living men; the Garden of Eden is guarded by angels with flaming swords; and the fairyland of our own myths is reached by climbing a magic beanstalk or falling down a dream

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rabbit-hole. Similarly there is no single continuous time with even and measurable flow. The familiar and commonplace present in which we live was preceded by an epoch of mythical origins such as is represented in our own “Bible times” when God still performed miracles. The “once upon a time” which introduces our own fairy-tales is no historical period to be dated, but that “long ago and far away” from which our own times are separated by an impassable gulf. Yet the epoch of myth is not clearly an epoch which literally ‘preceded’ the familiar and commonplace present. For primitive thought it may rather be another and enduring present into which one may still enter in moments of ‘vision’ or by some magical means. The barriers which separate the commonplace and profane from the extraordinary and sacred may not always be those of spatial or temporal discontinuities. Within the confines of the everyday region there are sacred places which one should pass with fear, or which one may dare to enter only after appropriate rites of purification. And similarly the familiar course of time is interspersed with sacred times and seasons which may bring blessing if properly celebrated, or curse if profaned by improper acts. Thus even within regions which are spatially and temporally continuous, there are dynamic discontinuities and a breach of causal order. The very enterprise of science can become possible only so far as men’s imaginations are freed from the fetters of such mythological thought. The world of the scientist must be a world through which he can range freely, in which there are no impassable gulfs fixed and no unsurmountable barriers. The means by which he moves through the realm of the familiar must be the very means which can carry him beyond into the unexplored. Primitive thought accepts the commonplace without wonder; it marvels only at the extraordinary. Science, on the contrary, ponders the familiar and finds in the commonplace a new and inexhaustible source of wonder, because the scientist conceives it as one with an infinite and glorious order. Like Moses, the scientist has stood upon the mount and heard the voice of God; and if, like Moses, he knows that he may not look upon the face of Divinity and live, what he does behold he knows to be the hinderparts of God himself. If science has repeatedly violated the sacred by laying profane hands upon it, it has itself undergone purification in the process. Science formerly supposed that the world could be made intelligible in terms of classical atomism with its sensuously imaginable mechanism of impact. But the belief in atoms, which Tyndall could describe as “the building stones of the universe which persist throughout the ages unworn and unchanged”, fettered the imagination as surely as the superstitious fear of demons. It is true that science abandoned the theory of classical atomism in the face of stubborn and irreducible facts, but it is also true that science could admit such facts because its atomism was only a theory and not a faith in which its security was founded. The primitive thinker cannot abandon his belief in the myths of his people because he has nothing in reserve on which he can fall back. If science, unlike primitive thought, is hardheaded, it is because it is supported by an unassailable faith in the universal order in which all facts have their place. The science of every age can say with Job: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” It is this faith in a universal order that is the source of the regenerative life of scientific thought. This faith must, however, be embodied in a set of specific concepts.

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Science is both a mode of thinking, a methodology, and a body of partially organized theories and accepted matters of fact. If we take a cross-section of science at any period we find a distinguishable body of accredited doctrine such as may be contained in a textbook. This has altered from age to age, and we confidently expect that the science of the future will differ from what is contemporary doctrine. The pattern of each cross-section is characteristic of its own age; its style reflects and expresses the style of contemporary culture, although it may equally presage that of the future. In so far as science is such a body of organized doctrine shifting from age to age, the theory of cultural relativism is justified. But science is not revealed by any series of cross-sections; it is a continuous stream of living thought. Its universality and objective validity does not rest upon the ‘truth’ of the particular scientific doctrines of any age; it rests, on the contrary, in its implicit philosophy, in what we have called the underlying faith that makes the distinctive enterprise of science possible. Yet this very mode of regenerative thinking with its implied philosophic basis is itself a cultural phenomenon. It may have had other abortive or premature births in other cultures, but it is only in the culture of Western civilization that it has been able to maintain itself and to develop. If one culture has been able to produce a mode of thought with such a capacity for continuous self-transcendence, the question arises whether the concept of culture itself does not need modification. We may ask whether the capacity not merely for growth and change but for continuous regeneration and self-transcendence, does not belong to human culture as such and distinguish it from the common way of life of the other social animals. Historically the culture which has produced science developed from a group of cultures each based upon a diverse but equally ‘primitive’ mode of thought. We need not invoke the discredited doctrine of a general evolution of culture, or of universal stages in cultural development. Whether culture had a single or a multiple origin, it has taken many directions and assumed diverse and individual forms. Yet culture is as universally characteristic a human trait as erect posture and differentiated hands and feet. We may suppose that the structure of some cultures, like that of some species of organism, has limited the possibility of further development. Some cultures, like some organic species, may be able to persist for ages, perpetuating themselves with a minimum of modification. But the continuance of such forms is dependent on relatively fixed conditions. It is only the capacity for internal modification that can give security in changing conditions. How culture is basically to be conceived is, of course, an anthropological and not a philosophical problem. That different types of culture differ widely in their capacity for the acculturation of borrowed traits is well recognized. What the conditions for such acculturation are is a problem of contemporary interest to anthropologists. If a culture is to maintain itself under changing physical and social conditions, it is evident that it must have the capacity not merely for borrowing traits but for what we may call inventiveness. It is equally evident that inventiveness is conditioned both on the existing richness of culture and, more importantly, on an attitude of mind and a pattern of beliefs and standards which permit and invite the admission of the new. On the one hand, it is the structure of social organization which determines the capacity for and the direction of cultural change; on the other hand, it is the

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pattern of thought and the ideals of living that both support the existing organization and determine its specific capacity for change. As all human culture is characterized by the unique inventiveness of human beings, so all conceptual thought has some inherent potentiality for self-modification, however inhibited this may be by the forms in which it crystallizes. If it is only in the mode of science that thought has found a medium for free and unlimited procedure, then we should expect to find in the culture which has produced science, and to which it belongs, a correlative capacity for internal and continuous self-transformation. If only our own culture has produced science, upon what cultural conditions has this depended, and within what form of human organization can science as a mode of thought continue to enjoy free extension and development? We can hope to find no answer to our question by a mere description of the traits of our own culture. For, while the civilization of the Western world does constitute a culture, it is rather a congery or cluster of cultures loosely and precariously held together. If it is united by common interests and shares to some degree a common way of life, it is frightfully disrupted by the conflict of interests and unreconciled beliefs and ideals of life. Science, to be sure, has so far been able to maintain itself, but it has done so against strong opposing forces. Even where it is supported by strong community sentiment, the form this support takes too often hampers the spirit of free inquiry. As Professor Dewey has so forcibly argued, the present crisis in our culture reflects the deep cleavage between the scientific mode of thought and the uncritical and discordant beliefs and standards manifested in our way of life. What the specific forms of cultural pattern may be which can adequately support the scientific mode of thought we cannot pretend to tell. We must, however, suppose that it is only within a culture provided with some organized instrumentality for self-direction and internal self-transformation that science can flourish. Legislative procedure and scientific method have a common root and grow in the same soil. But while it is not within the province of philosophy to determine what types of political and social organization reflect the basic mode of scientific thought, it is a matter of vital importance to philosophy to inquire whether the enterprise of free inquiry is conditioned upon the acceptance of universally valid moral standards. This is to raise one of the oldest of philosophic problems: what is the relation of the pursuit of knowledge to the attainment of the good? It is not only Platonists who have held the two to be vitally connected. Even those philosophers who, like Bacon, have been most emphatic in the rejection of final causes, have urged, on the one hand, the benefits of science to mankind, and, on the other hand, the need for the establishment of an ideal society in order that science might be successfully carried on. I shall not attempt to discuss with you tonight the relation of wisdom and virtue on abstract philosophical grounds, but shall conclude by bringing to your attention certain reflections on the necessary conditions for empirical anthropological research. The doctrine of cultural relativism has found its clearest and most unequivocal expression with respect to moral standards. The Christian missionary who attempts to impose upon the natives of New Guinea or the Plains Indians our own standards of sexual morality or property rights, and who condemns their customs and practises as immoral, is acting from ignorance and provincial intolerance. For, the anthropologist

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argues, the condemned practises and the standards on which they are based are integral to the ordered existence of the people concerned. To attempt to introduce the customs and standards of our own culture is like introducing a wrong type of blood into the lifestream; such a transfusion of alien ideas and standards can only result in literal demoralization and disease. Anthropology has shown how great is the diversity in types of personality tolerated and admired in different cultures. The hero or saint emulated or venerated by one people may be ignored or despised by another people. Even if the really good man of any culture must be, as Plato held, the man who has attained an inner harmony, the organization of desire in conformity with standard, this internal harmony may be attained in many different ways. Furthermore, virtue is not something which the individual can possess or enjoy independently of his relation to his fellows. A man can become and can be truly a man only in and through his participation in a culture. The inner harmony which constitutes his virtue must belong to the larger harmony of his life with others. The standards of virtue everywhere must accordingly be relative to culture, and this applies as fully to our own distinctions of right and wrong, good and bad, as it does to the standards of any primitive people. As a scientist the anthropologist is of course committed to the study of alien customs and attitudes with the same objective detachment as the entomologist, for example, enjoys in his study of insect behavior. He must abstain from all praise or blame, and he must not be shocked by native rites and practices, however monstrous these might appear to a member of his own civilized culture imbued with its own moral ideals. Now the fieldworker can obviously attain such objectivity and detachment as is demanded only if he is truly ‘emancipated’. He must, that is, recognize that his own traditional attitudes are merely relative to his own culture with no more prima facie claim to universal validity than those of the Dyaks of Borneo or the pygmies of Africa. Does his emancipation then mean that he must prosecute his scientific enterprise as a man from Mars, or a pure intellect in literal detachment from all human ties and obligations? It may be argued that as a scientist he makes only judgments of fact, and that such judgments are logically independent of judgments of value. Even if he is psychologically unable to achieve the complete detachment desirable, it still remains a scientific ideal for him. To argue in this fashion is indeed to invoke dualism with a vengeance. It may seem plausible that the physicist or chemist can pursue his research with such ideal detachment, and that his conduct as a husband and father, or a friend and citizen, has no bearing on his efficiency as a man of science. But the field ethnologist cannot approximate such detachment even as an ideal. His science has taught him that no man can attain essential humanity, much less become a scientist, except as a member of a culture, and only so far as the standards and concepts basic to that culture are internalized as integral to his own individual maturity. If he could perform the psychological feat of severing the ties and loosing the obligations which bind him to his culture, he would lose his mind and destroy his very soul. This the anthropologist is bound to admit on the theoretical grounds of his own science. But let us look at the practical conditions under which he must work. The ethnologist goes into his chosen field as a member of his own profession equipped with the technique he has learned and with the current concepts he has acquired in his

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scientific education. Moreover he must maintain an effective membership in his own professional community and continue to fulfil his obligations to his colleagues and the wider public at home. To abandon his position in his own culture and profession and ‘go native’ would be to cut off his scientific enterprise at its roots. The visiting scientist is in effect a representative of his profession, and his activity in the field constitutes a special form of intercultural contact. But this is only one side of the picture. It may be asked: if the fieldworker must act as a member of his own culture and subject to the obligation it imposes, does not this very fact free him from any possible obligations to the people whose alien culture he is studying? Does not his very acceptance of the standards of his own culture render him indifferent to the standards of the alien group and thus provide him with the requisite objectivity and detachment in his dealing with them? Is he not justified in the pursuit of science in treating his human subjects with the same indifference to their interests that the entomologist may show toward the subjects of his experimentation? Now there may have been field ethnologists who adopted this very attitude, and returned home to exhibit the sacred objects they had stolen for their museum and to report their prowess in the violation of native confidence. But such conduct in the field is not approved; it not only shocks the feelings of his fellow scientists, but it meets with the most unhesitating condemnation on strictly professional grounds. For it is no better than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs; it effectively puts a stop to any further research in that field. Ethnological research cannot be conducted as a series of forays or buccaneering raids; it must, like trading for mutual profit, be conducted in such a way as to make its continuance possible. In order to carry on his work the ethnologist must live among and with his subjects. He must acquire some status in their community, and this must in some way be provided for within the structure of the culture. He must find suitable informants and establish both formal and personal relations with them. Moreover, the position which he gains is not one from which he has merely to observe their behavior from without. Nor will it suffice to observe a mere outward conformity to their customs and show an external respect for their standards. If he is to gain a genuine understanding of their culture he must achieve an imaginative sympathy with their ways of thought and feeling. He must enter into actual communication with them, and this is possible only on a basis of some common values and attitudes. He must to some extent become a member of the community while yet remaining a representative of his own culture. The particular terms on which he may accomplish this, and even the degree to which it is possible, will certainly vary with the individual culture he studies. He must adapt himself to the life of the community, but he must also adapt the alien ways and those of his own culture to each other, and effect some sort of reconciliation and modus vivendi. Now he can do this only on terms which are already provided within the culture and compatible with it. What the nature of the role he plays is, will differ from one culture to another; if he must to a large extent create and improvise the particular role he is to play, he must find some accepted form of status within the group that he can adapt to his specific purpose. For he cannot gain the information he needs unless he makes his purpose in some measure intelligible to his informants and associates.

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His purpose can be achieved only through a form of genuine intercultural contact. Yet the reciprocity this involves is only partial; as a scientist he has a basis for reaching an understanding of their ways of feeling and thinking that has no counterpart in their own cultural pattern. Science provides a unique means of genuine cultural transcendence. In the double role the ethnologist must play he is bound to meet many specific problems of conduct. He finds himself under obligations and subject to demands from his new associates which conflict with those he owes his family and friends. He is caught in an unavoidable moral conflict, and this, like all moral conflicts, can only be resolved by an appeal to fundamental principles and universal standards. He inevitably becomes a critic of his own traditional code of conduct; he is led to make a distinction between those standards of human relationship which are valid within the frame of his own particular culture and remain relative to it, and those which, as universal, constitute the basis and norm for all human relationship. The recognition and acknowledgment of such universal standards and objective values is thus a necessary condition of anthropological research and the understanding of the nature of man. These universal standards are not easy to formulate; perhaps they admit of no final or precise formulation. They constitute what we call humanitarianism; they are expressed in the Stoic and Christian ideal of the brotherhood of man; they were at least partially formulated in Kant’s principle that man must always be treated as an end and never merely as a means. They imply a respect for man not merely as a rational being, but both respect and tolerance for men as members of all races and all cultures. Yet these principles as universal are abstract and formal. Of themselves they can provide no particular solution of any specific problem. They are a variable which may be satisfied by more than one constant of cultural organization. If no existing culture completely satisfies them, they, like all universals, provide a form of procedure by which cultural problems may be solved and with reference to which specific solutions may be tested. Our argument has been that while anthropology is justified in regarding the specific and varying moral standards of different cultures as relative to these cultures, its own scientific procedure involves the acceptance of standards which are universal and objective. The acceptance of universal moral standards is a necessary condition of ethnological research. But what of other sciences, and of scientific enterprise generally? Even if our thesis be admitted as regards the science of man, or as applicable to the Geisteswissenschaften, is there any ground for extending it to the natural sciences? Can it be claimed that the pursuit of physics or chemistry is conditioned upon the acceptance of universal moral standards? Do we not actually see these sciences being carried on with terrifying success by a people openly committed on principle to contempt and disregard of human rights as such? Our whole argument has gone to show that however widely the sciences may differ in subject-matter and specific techniques, they all, as science, are engaged in empirical research. They all spring from and rest upon a common mode of thought. Scientific method is one, and depends upon the acceptance of a universal order of being. It belongs to the very nature of science both continuously to transform and

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regenerate itself, and to expand. The historical process by which one field after another has been subjected to scientific inquiry has been no accident. It is essential to the life of the scientific mode of thought that it extend itself to every domain of being. As essentially self-critical, science must inevitably concern itself not only with man as a living organism, but with the distinctive forms of human relationship and with the human achievement of culture. It must come full circle and include itself as a form of being. That it can accomplish this without a correlative development of philosophy as the enterprise which seeks to formulate and thus lay open to criticism the standards and concepts which, as science, it implicitly accepts, is impossible. But if the scientific mode of thought can sustain itself only through continuous growth and self-regeneration, it can survive only in a social order permeated by its own philosophic faith and itself capable of cultural transcendence. Physical science deprived of these conditions must eventually wither like a plant cut at the roots.

Chapter 16

Philosophical Implications of the Historical Enterprise Dorothy Walsh Edited by Joel Katzav, and Krist Vaesen

Abstract In this chapter, Dorothy Walsh examines the nature of historical inquiry.

It has been customary to differentiate the philosophy of temporal process from the philosophy of history which is the explanation of the historian’s record of such process. The latter subject, however, embraces at least two distinct inquiries each of which provides a basis for the elucidation of the record of history. Both of these take the fact of history as datum, but in one case the question asked is, What is the import of history? and, in the other, What is the nature of the historical enterprise? The first question is the one which most commonly interests philosophers. Their method of answering it is to seek, in the concrete detail of historical record, evidence of progress or of regress or of cyclical return. Such a treatment involves the selective use of historically recorded material both as illustration of and as evidence for some theory regarding teleological development. History is then conceived as important in reflecting man’s knowledge of his spiritual life and as a revelation of ultimate ends … an occasion for a discourse on human destiny. If this type of investigation is carefully distinguished from the writing of history itself it may, because of its larger perspective, provide genuine insight of philosophical significance. Too often, however, it results in the artificial imposition upon the historical material of some value-pattern of ethical, social, or theological character. As such, it is merely the bad re-writing of history from secondary sources by non-historians. The second of the questions mentioned above can be answered only in terms of a reference wider than the datum of recorded history. It must also include the historian. Such a philosophical investigation is an attempt to explain history not merely as a Dorothy Walsh: First published in 1937 in the Journal of Philosophy, 34(3), 57–64. D. Walsh (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_16

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body of information, but as an autonomous theoretical enterprise with self-imposed methods and criteria. On the assumption that history is the result of such unique effort to achieve insight into the nature of reality, there is an intrinsic philosophical value in understanding the historical enterprise merely as such. The present paper deals with this subject. An attempt will be made to present the fundamental philosophical assumptions involved in historical writing. No question will be raised, however, regarding the ultimate validity of these assumptions. Historical investigation always has reference both to the past and to man. Man, however, is an object of discourse other than the historical. Science, philosophy, and art may have such reference. Therefore, if history seeks some special revelation of man the peculiar character of that insight must be understood through an understanding of the significance, for the historian, of the historic past as such. It is only because this past is regarded as having an intrinsic nature and an importance on its own account that it can have, in relation to man, such profound import. The explanation of the historical enterprise necessitates, therefore, some discussion of the historian’s assumptions regarding the past in its relatively abstracted aspect as formal structure. The historian regards the past as possessing an intrinsic nature which makes it objectively knowable and capable of having reality apart from knowledge. History, therefore, stands in sharp contrast to all investigations which treat the past as merely instrumental for the illumination of the present or the future. Such denial of the intrinsic nature of the past has taken the form of a doctrine of epistemological relativity or, more radically, of ontological transformation. In the former case this means that, although the past is irrevocably what it is, knowledge of the past, which is history, must always be colored and determined by the perspective from some present. Accordingly, history must always be re-written because such knowledge is essentially relative. But the historian, like everyone else, adopts a realistic position in relation to his subject-matter. He assumes that if every historical investigation is oriented by reference to some contextual setting of interest on the part of the investigator, such orientation is either capable of objective expression or is such as to necessitate thorough-going epistemological relativity. In the latter case, historical knowledge can be invalidated only by means of a doctrine which renders all knowing impossible. The theory of ontological transformation is much more radical and serious. It means either that the past has no ontological status at all except in its effects, operative in a present, or that the past is actually what it is taken to be because of an assumed identity of the known and the real. The rejection of both of these views seems to be necessitated by the general belief of historians that the historic past, which is the object of their investigations, is both objectively knowable and is such that it has attained an ontological completeness which renders it independent of the present. On the basis of this assumption historians themselves are very willing to admit that history must always be re-written. But by this they mean only that they are not perfect and that historical knowledge is capable of growth through recovery of unknown documents and through new insight into material already known.

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Historians, however, not only recognize the past as an objective and independent reality, in addition they differentiate between the past in general and the historic past in particular. This differentiation is to some extent determined by the humanistic reference indicated above. But this reference is in itself not sufficient to demarcate the historic past. Not everything which man does, not even everything which is the result of his voluntary choice, is historically significant. The historic past which is the object of discovery on the part of historians, is differentiated by an organization and structure peculiar to itself. Historical discourse is the attempt to report this unique structure correctly and in detail. It is commonly supposed that historical discourse deals with the nature and interrelationship of events. This, in a sense, is true. But closer scrutiny of the truly historical character of such discourse reveals the fact that the mere sequential recounting of events however carefully selected is not enough. The true unit of historical discourse is more properly described as a situation organized with reference to an event. Such a situation is an integral structure relating historical possibility to historical actuality. In spite of this inclusion of possibility, an historical situation is nevertheless regarded as circumscribed and definite and also completely objective. The necessity for this larger unit of reference for the historical interpretation of reality can be shown through an analysis of the nature of the historical event as such. An historical event has at least three important characteristics. It is, in its own nature, absolutely definite and it is, in relation to other events, both representative and determinative. The definite character of an historical event is due to the fact that it is completely past. Its being is the result of closure and fulfillment of ontological significance. It is irrevocably the precise thing it is. Such an event, however, could not be genuinely historical if it were an isolated occurrence. It must be related to other events. These relations are representative and determinative. Such an event is, therefore, one which stands as symptomatic of a general condition, it is a “sign of the times.” Further, it is determinative of the events following it. It has to some extent “altered the course of history.” This means that an historical event, in addition to being a definite occurrence, is a significant occurrence. It is indicative of its own past and future. But this past and future to be relevant must be limited and demarcated with reference to the event. The total result of this is that the historical event is necessarily embedded in a temporal stretch. Its immediately significant future must itself be past. Any historical event is, therefore, the middle event of a temporal stretch containing directional reference from past to future but yet, as total stretch, completely past. It might appear that this characterization of the historical event scarcely suffices to differentiate it from the event in general, but the full significance of these representative and determinative relations, designated as historical, becomes evident in relation to the nature of historical possibility. The historic past can not be viewed merely as a series of events. Although the historical event is definite, part of its essential nature consists in the fact that it might have been other than it is. This notion of alternatives is essential to the historical point of view. As the realization of one among various possibilities, part of an event’s significance lies in an implicit reference to these possibilities. The range of such alternatives is, however, always limited. Any

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treatment of events which completely denies possibility or which implies an unlimited range of possibility is, therefore, to be clearly differentiated from the historical approach. Complete absence of possibility would preclude a plurality of genuine historical events. If any event were completely determinative of the future we should have, not the development of history through real time but all history compressed into one initial historical event from which everything could be deduced, an event such as the choice of the best of all possible worlds on the part of Leibniz’ God. Complete freedom of possibility, on the other hand, would result in a series of events which were atomic units only externally related as next-to-next. Each event might be determinative of its own future up to the next event, but each event must be a complete novelty … a renewed miracle. God sustains or recreates the world from moment to moment. History, from such a point of view, would not reveal any real connectedness of events, but could only be the purely descriptive biography of God. Historical discourse as we know it, however, is an attempt to deal with the problem of independence and interrelationship. Historical possibility can not be equivalent to epistemological ignorance. Neither can it be completely undetermined. Historical possibilities must be created and destroyed in the course of temporal development. An historical event must be regarded as a crucial culmination the appearance of which is the result of definite selectivity from among relevant possibilities of its past. Its occurrence, in turn, results in the creation and nullification of possibilities in its immediate future. This significant selected and selective character of the historical event is not evident unless such an event is regarded as embedded in a texture of relevant potentialities … historical possibilities. The minimal unit in terms of which the historic past is organized is therefore seen to be not simply the event, but what has been called an historical situation oriented by an event. It is because such situations are basic in the objective structure of the historic past itself that they provide the natural units of historical discourse. Whatever may be the nature of the past in general, the historic past in particular consists of situations interrelated in both serial and hierarchical order. Historical insight consists in the correct perception of situational demarcation and relationship. In other words, historical writing is the attempt to present intelligibly the continuity of an episodic movement. A situation, in terms of its intrinsic structure, is, of course, dynamic, if it is a movement of selectivity and culmination. In relation to other situations which follow it, which include it, or which are included within it, it appears as a relatively discontinuous closure. The fact that situations may be included within one another does not mean that a situation is an arbitrary or subjective division imposed at the convenience of the historian. It means only that history can be correctly recorded in more or less detail. What is implied in these assumptions, however, is that historical writing is necessarily selective and evaluative. It is a mark of complete misunderstanding of the historical enterprise to deplore the selective character of historical discourse. To believe that historians are selective only because of an unfortunate inability to know or to report everything is to miss the whole significance of historical insight. History is not invention but discovery. The objective reality which the historian seeks to record is itself the result of ontological selectivity. To understand it the historian must know not only what has occurred but the significance of what

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had occurred in the light of its alternatives and its results. He selects and evaluates in order to report correctly. It is now possible to summarize the main assumptions of the historian regarding the nature of the past. The past is objectively real and independent of the present, independent both as regards the being of the present and knowledge from the present. The past is further demarcated into the historic past which shares the above characteristics but which has in addition a unique structure. The basic unit of this structure is the historical situation. Such a situation may be described as an historical event in its relevant setting. Every historical event has a relevant setting in two respects. It is embedded in a temporal stretch all of which is past. Through this it gains freedom from the present. It achieves the ontological status of completed fact. Such an event is further embedded in a context of historical possibility. Its meaning and value depend on its contrast to its genuine alternatives. Through this it achieves the ontological status of selected value. An historical event is, therefore, at once a matter of fact and a matter of value. In the light of these assumptions it is now possible to understand the humanistic reference of history. The process of selectivity out of which events issue is important to the historian only in so far as it can be regarded as due, however indirectly, to human volition. The historical interest is an interest in the past as that has been determined by human choice and purpose. This reference to human volition does not mean that the historical event is always the result of ends consciously formulated and deliberately pursued. Frequently such an event is the result of the summation of human purposes otherwise conceived. Nevertheless whether the effect achieved be the intended effect or not, it is always the consequence of activity deliberately willed. So-called natural events, such as climatic changes, enter into the context of history only in so far as they are instrumental in providing an environment for human selection. Without choice there is process but no history. History deals with the interconnected organization of events which are at once the product and the record of man’s activity. Since, however, it is frankly admitted by the historian that the historical results of human activity are not necessarily or even usually those deliberately foreseen or intended, this emphasis upon the role of man seems to require additional explanation. The historic past is a realm of completed Being. But it has been created through temporal process. Because these events are events resulting from deliberate human action, they are the record of what man, whether he has intended it or not, has contributed towards the creation of reality. History is, therefore, at once the record of concrete reality and the record of man. The metaphysical and the humanistic interests are combined in the historical. We may now attempt a statement of the general significance of history. The passionate concern for the concrete is shared by the artist, the metaphysician, and the historian. Nevertheless there exists among them a minimum of sympathetic understanding. Plato, in the Republic, mentions the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Aristotle, in the Poetics, indicates the quarrel between history and poetry. Aristotle sides with poetry, but only on the ground that it more nearly approaches a third thing, namely, philosophy. What is the basis for this diversity which at best expresses itself as mutual indifference and at the worst as mutual distrust? If the artist,

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the metaphysician, and the historian were really engaged in the same enterprise one would expect by now the gradual disappearance of these “old quarrels.” The hypothesis which naturally suggests itself is that they seek different things but claim the same ontological status for the things they seek. Initially, however, there is a difficulty in maintaining this, since it would seem to be the nature of the concrete to be one, just what it is. If this were so, however, differences in characterization would then be purely epistemic. Yet such epistemological differences ought to provide the ground for that rational discussion directed toward the elimination of disagreement which is now lacking. The root of the embarrassment is to be found in a too narrow conception of concreteness. The search for a concrete reality is not the search for a fact, but the search for a value realized in the fact. The concrete is a realization. It must be “given” but it must be given with self-sufficiency and completion. What is sought is reality in such a form that it has achieved a phase of completion entitling it to immortality. This immortality is, of course, other than the eternality of universals. Eternality is merely lack of temporal reference. Except for the mystic eternality is largely negative. Immortality, however, is something achieved in the very heart of process. In respect to such achievement, it is instructive to compare the procedure of the artist and the historian. Since concrete being is more than sheer matter-of-fact, being also realized value, such value may have alternative realization. The only universal necessity is that the concrete be grounded in selectivity and sacrifice. The artist foregoes the connectedness of existential nature. It becomes for him merely raw material open for artistic exploitation. The concrete being of the esthetic individual, which is the work of art, depends on its isolation. Its claim to immortality is its freedom from the context of temporal reference. “Was sich nie und niergens hat gegeben, das allein veraltet nie.” In absolute contrast, the historian is passionately interested in the thing that has actually happened. Positive position in the connectedness of temporal context is the means of concrete realization. The realm of art is, from this point of view, merely a realm of free non-historical possibilities. With reference to its search for a form of completed reality the historical interest is, therefore, one phase of that general passion for the concrete which also motivates metaphysical and artistic activity. But whereas art differs from philosophy in aiming at direct presentation of the real rather than at knowledge about it, history differs from both in that it is a search for the real as that has been achieved through human activity. No other field of imaginative speculation has such an exclusive and profound humanistic reference as history. Science, philosophy, and art inevitably transcend that reference. It is commonly recognized that science can deal with man only as he is part of nature. If it has sometimes mistakenly been supposed that philosophy or art is predominantly preoccupied with man, this is due to a too exclusive concern with neo-idealistic philosophy, in the one case, and with literature, in the other. This restricted reference of history is the source of its peculiar power and fascination. It is also the explanation of the fact that a sense of history is of all influences the most civilizing. History is a revelation of man. But its special importance is that it is a revelation in a peculiarly oblique and indirect fashion. It is man and his affairs

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as concretely realized rather than a theory of man that is presented. One’s experience concerning man has been vastly enlarged, but one is permitted to draw one’s own conclusions. In contrast, all scientific information must be accepted in the light of those theories and hypotheses with which it is necessarily associated. Dramatic poetry, indeed, presents “men in action” with the same apparent independence of theory. But poetry has created these events and is exploiting them for the production of a special experience rather than for the general enlargement of insight into humanity. Man has a deep need for knowledge of his own nature and that of his fellows. Theory about man, whether it be ethics or psychology, attempts to explain. All this is valuable, but how shall we test the validity of such theory except in terms of concrete experience of men? History is the effort to extend such concrete experience. The immortal historic past provides an object the knowledge of which satisfies a special need. This need is the expression of a peculiar synthesis of metaphysical and humanistic interest. If the concrete historic past did not have an intrinsic value on its own account as a manifestation of the real, it could not have revelatory value in relation to man. On the assumption, which underlies this whole discussion, namely, that history constitutes a unique enterprise of insight into the nature of reality, there is philosophical importance in the attempt to explain the historical interest. The philosophy of temporal process can, of course, be developed without regard to the activity of historians. An inclusive philosophy of history, however, will have to take account of it at least to the extent of determining whether the nature of time in general and of temporal process in particular justifies or fails to justify the implicit metaphysics of the historical enterprise.

Part IV

Mind and Matter

Abstract Part IV of this book introduces and collects work on mind and matter by Mary Whiton Calkins, Grace Andrus de Laguna and Margaret Floy Washburn.

Chapter 17

Introduction Joel Katzav

Abstract This chapter briefly presents some of the key responses to the mind-body problem as well as some of the issues these responses raise. The presentation serves as a background to the articles on the mind-body problem by the psychologist Margaret Floy Washburn and by the speculative philosophers Grace Andrus de Laguna and Mary Whiton Calkins. This chapter also summarises these articles. We will see that Washburn articulates a dualistic approach to psychology, while de Laguna objects to such an approach on methodological grounds, including with a private language argument. In a separate paper, de Laguna critiques type physicalism through an appeal to what came to be called ‘multiple-realisability’ and develops a functionalist theory of mind. Calkins defends idealism.

17.1 The Mind-Body Problem We ordinarily assume that there are mental substances/things, that is, selves or persons, as well as mental properties of things, including thoughts and beliefs, desires and passions, pleasures and pains, awareness and lack of awareness and so forth. We also ordinarily assume that there are physical things and physical properties. Among the physical things, we find, for example, solar systems, planets, continents, human organisms, brains and atoms. Among the physical properties, we find location, mass-energy, gregariousness, bipedalism and charge. The mind-body problem is the problem of how mental and physical phenomena, whether these be things or properties, depend on each other. Particularly important here is which is fundamental, in the senses of ‘fundamental’ introduced in the introduction to the papers on the nature of philosophy (Part I: ‘The Nature of Philosophy’). One view, called substance dualism, tells us that there are two fundamental kinds of things, the physical ones and the mental ones. Physical things have physical J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_17

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properties and mental things have mental properties. Another view, called property dualism, tells us that although there is only one fundamental kind of thing, namely the physical one, some physical things, including humans, have two fundamental kinds of properties, namely physical and mental ones. Thus, on this view, while human beings are physical they also have mental properties among their fundamental properties. Opposed to substance and property dualism, there are materialism (also sometimes called physicalism) and idealism (which we called psychological idealism in this book’s introduction). According to idealism, all phenomena are ultimately mental phenomena, that is, either selves or experiences. Idealism, further, implies that physical phenomena are either not real or are ultimately mental. Thus, for example, one might hold, with Mary Whiton Calkins, that (a) all things, even inorganic ones, are ultimately selves or aspects of selves and (b) that the physical properties of things are collections of experiences of selves. According to materialism, all things and properties are ultimately physical. Materialism implies that mental phenomena are either not real or are ultimately physical. A first influential form of materialism, type physicalism, tells us that each mental type is a type of brain or neural state. For example, it has been proposed that pain is one type of state of central nervous systems. A second influential form of materialism, token physicalism, takes each instance or token of a mental type, e.g., a particular pain or belief, to be identical with some token physical state, e.g., some state of a particular brain. Token physicalism can be combined with the rejection of type physicalism, allowing the materialist to accept that the same type of mental state can be realised by different types of physical states, e.g., that beliefs can be realised by biological and silicone brains. In the past, token physicalism was adopted with logical behaviourism, the view that all mental states can be analysed in terms of dispositions to behaviour. On this combined view, for example, to have a belief is just to have a certain kind of disposition to behaviour and each instance of a kind of disposition is an instance of some physical property or another. Token physicalism is now often adopted with functionalism. According to functionalism, what makes a particular type of mental state the type of mental state it is are its sensory causes, its effects on behaviour and its causal relations with other types of mental state. If functionalism is correct, one cannot analyse what it is to possess a belief in terms of dispositions to behaviour, one also needs to note the causes of belief and the relationships of beliefs to other kinds of mental state. Still, the functionalist can hold that each instance of a type of mental state is identical with some token physical property or another. Two important features that mental states can possess are key to understanding the mind-body problem and the responses to it. The first of these features is the qualitative, what-is-it-like to be in those states, aspect that at least some, and perhaps all, mental states possess. When we have an experience, there is something that it is subjectively like to have that experience, e.g., there is something that it is like to see a beautiful sunset or to smell the aroma of coffee. The what-it-is-like aspects of mental states, which are sometimes called qualia (singular quale), are thought to be a challenge to materialism because they just seem entirely different from anything physical, thus making it difficult to identify them with anything physical.

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A second key feature of some, and perhaps all, mental states is their aboutness. Thoughts and beliefs, for example, are about something. My thought that it is hot today is about the heat. Somehow, my thought points to or represents the heat today. My belief that 2 + 2 = 4 is about adding 2 and 2. And so on. Physical states relate to each other causally but do not appear to be about each other, so it is not clear how we might generally identify mental states with physical states. Qualia are also an issue for dualism and idealism. Our knowledge of our own qualia appears to be immediate. I am usually aware of my own pain, it appears, without any inference. The pain is simply given directly to me. At the same time, if dualism or idealism are true, there is no prospect of reducing qualia to something physical and thus to something which others can directly observe. Your qualia appear to be essentially private, so that it is only via inference that it might be possible for others to know about them. The problem then is that our supporting evidence for thinking that some quale, e.g., a pain quale, is associated with some pattern of behaviour, and thus that the behaviour is an indication of the existence of the quale in others, seems to be thin indeed: each of us only has one case, her or his own, to base any such generalisations upon. Standard histories of the mind-body problem in the twentieth century tend roughly to go as follows (see, e.g., Lycan & Prinz, 2007): logical behaviourism was dominant among philosophers in the first half of the century, in the wake of the work of behaviourist psychologists such as Barrhus F. Skinner and John B. Watson. Important logical behaviourists include Carl G. Hempel, Gilbert Ryle and, arguably, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Behaviourism, however, ceased to be popular among philosophers in the wake of 1950s criticism, including the work of Herbert Feigl and Ullin T. Place. They are taken to have first articulated type physicalism. In the 1960s and 1970s, Jerry Fodor and Hilary Putnam developed the (to be explained below) multiplerealizability-based critique of type physicalism as well as articulated the functionalist alternative to type physicalism. Functionalism then emerged as the dominant position in the philosophy of mind, though key issues, such as the apparently nonfunctional nature of qualia, remained much discussed challenges to functionalism. In what follows, however, we will see that the key positions and arguments developed by analytic philosophers were already being articulated fifty years earlier and that women, especially the speculative philosopher Grace Andrus de Laguna, had key roles in doing so. We will also see, however, a defence of idealism by the speculative philosopher, and absolute idealist, Mary Whiton Calkins. Criticism of this kind of position is how early analytic philosophers, such as George E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, made names for themselves.

17.2 Washburn’s Dualistic Psychology In her book Dualism in Animal Psychology, Margaret Floy Washburn raises the question of when researchers in psychology are entitled to infer that some organism has a mind, conceived of as a thing with a subjective, qualitative side, from observations of

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the organism’s behaviour and physical structure. She is thus addressing the question of the basis for believing in other minds on the assumption that some form of dualism is true. Her response begins by noting that inorganic things not only react to stimuli but also do so in a variable way. For example, atoms in a chemical reaction withdraw from some stimuli but are drawn to others. On this basis, she concludes that mere reaction, even where it is variable, cannot be a basis for inferring that a thing has a mind. Indeed, she notes that where the response is uniform, there is reason to conclude that the cause of the response is unconscious. Relatively uniform responses in humans, e.g., digestion, are not generally conscious and behaviours that are initially conscious tend to be unconscious when they become habitual. Variability in response, then, seems to be necessary for the presence of consciousness or awareness. But even great variability is not a clear indicator of consciousness. In humans, the sources of irregular behaviour are often physiological (consider, for example, the factors which affect how clearly we are thinking or how irritable we are) (1917, pp. 27–30; this volume, pp. 189–191). According to Washburn, the most widely used basis for inferring the existence of consciousness from behaviour is that consciousness is present in an organism when a change in its behaviour is the result of learning from experience (1917, pp. 30–31; this volume, p. 191). But it is only if the learning is fast enough that we can conclude that consciousness is present. After all, it is only in cases in which humans quickly learn complex tasks that we are confident that their learning was based on conscious recollection. Moreover, if we did not exclude slow processes from providing evidence for consciousness, we would have to count parallels in the inanimate world, e.g., the way in which the violin’s reaction to the bow changes over the years, as expressions of consciousness (1917, pp. 32–34; this volume, pp. 192–193). Nevertheless, Washburn claims that it would very probably be a mistake to suppose that animals that learn too slowly for us to infer that their learning is due to recollection are not conscious. Morphological evidence, that is, evidence relating to the structure of animals, specifically to the resemblance of an animal’s nervous system to ours as well as of their sense organs to ours, is also relevant to assessing whether they are conscious. Sufficient similarity between our nervous system and that of an animal suggests some degree of consciousness in the animal. At the same time, we must admit that we do not know what degree of similarity is needed here and thus that we cannot dismiss offhand the possibility that extremely simple creatures are conscious (1917, pp. 35–37; this volume, pp. 193–194). Washburn is interested in the basis for inferring conscious behaviour in animals because, on her view, psychology has as an aim the study of the nature of their consciousness (1917, pp. 1–26). She is even interested in learning about the subjectivity of simple animals. What, for example, might the mind of an Amoeba be like? In other terms, what might it be like to be an Amoeba? According to Washburn, if an Amoeba has a mind, it is unlikely that it can qualitatively discriminate between more than three or four types of processes. For the Amoeba only exhibits four characteristic reactions. We look at three of these. The Amoeba gives a uniformly negative reaction (involving a checking of motion at the point of stimulus) to all forms of

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strong simulation, with the exception of food. This suggests that at most one kind of sensation corresponds to the negative reaction characteristic of cases not involving food. The response to food is different and thus can be thought of as corresponding to a different, special form of quale, one replacing our far more complex and diverse sensations of smell and taste. This gives us a second potential type of sensation in the Amoeba. Should we, however, differentiate between sensations involved in the positive and negative response to food? The positive response of the Amoeba (resulting in a reaching out at the stimulated point) is not to a different kind of stimulus but to a weak stimulus, whether it be a weak mechanical or food one. In us, it is only in the case of temperature and vision that a change in intensity corresponds to a different form of sensation. It is thus not clear that we have here a third, distinct sensation (1917, pp. 44–45; this volume, pp. 194–195). That said, the reduced intensity of the stimulus could produce different affective qualities or feelings, with moderate intensities corresponding to some kind of diffuse, bodily feeling of well-being and stronger intensities to another kind of diffuse, bodily feeling of ill-being (1917, p. 46; this volume, p. 195). Washburn emphasises that the consciousness of the Amoeba will, unlike ours, not be about anything definite, will lack mental imagery (ideas), involves no memory, reasoning or imagination, and is perhaps intermittent, like flashes of light in the dark (1917, pp. 47–52; this volume, pp. 196–198).

17.3 De Laguna’s Critique of Dualism in Psychology and Functionalist Treatment of Mind De Laguna’s ‘Dualism in Animal Psychology’ is a response to Washburn’s book, just discussed above. De Laguna’s focus is criticising the conception of psychology that Washburn presents. The task of psychology, given Washburn’s dualist view of mind, is to describe animal behaviour and to interpret it on the basis that like behaviour results from like mental states. The challenge for doing this is that of putting our own selves in the place not only of animals such as horses but also of wasps or worms (1918a, pp. 617–618; this volume, pp. 199–200). De Laguna does not see how we might put ourselves in place of simple creatures such as wasps or worms and, further, notes the difficulty we have of imaginatively placing ourselves in the position of more complex creatures, say, of a dog’s enjoying the smell of an owner. More fundamentally, de Laguna poses the question of the scientific meaning of terms which, from the dualist’s perspective, designate private aspects of experience, terms such as ‘red’ and ‘anger’. De Laguna asks whether, in science, such terms really do refer to aspects of experience which can only be known immediately, by direct acquaintance, and thus which are incommunicable (1918a, p. 619; this volume, p. 201). She responds, to begin with, that one can understand a language fully even if one cannot see, so that the theoretical understanding of other people’s perceptual states cannot require sharing similar experiences. She adds that, if any terms did

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denote private aspects of experience, their meanings would have to be fixed and conveyed in something like the following manner: the scientist would refer to a private aspect of experience using some term, e.g., ‘red’, and describe that aspect in terms of its relations to what stimulates it and to behaviour. Such a description would, by hypothesis, not by itself capture what the term means and refers to but would supposedly allow others to identify similar subjective experiences they have and thus to grasp what is being referred to (1918a, pp. 619–620; this volume, pp. 201– 202). According to de Laguna, however, this is not how the meaning of terms is, or can be, fixed in science. Consider colour terms, to begin with. When a psychologist studies colour discrimination, she/he sets up an experiment in standardised conditions. In order to study the complementary of a shade of red, for example, she/he may set up an experimental situation to look for a uniform response to a coloured paper of a standard make and grade under standardised illumination conditions (1918a, p. 620; this volume, p. 202). As a result, [t]he psychological uniformities holding of sensation-qualities of color, such as the laws of color contrast, relation of brightness and saturation, etc., are all formulations of uniformities of discriminative responses to objectively standardized conditions. (1918a, p. 620; this volume, pp. 201–202)

In effect, the phenomena psychologists study and refer to become functions of the experimental setup. What differentiates psychology from the other sciences is, then, not that it studies essentially private states but that it is interested in special standardised conditions, those that are relevant to producing uniform effects in subjects (1918a, pp. 620–621; this volume, p. 202). Similar considerations apply to mental phenomena other than sensation-qualities, e.g., to emotions and pleasantness. In the case of anger, de Laguna points out that the criteria by which we identify anger, and by which the term is first learnt, are no more first-person criteria than thirdperson criteria. We may recognise anger first in others, e.g., in a parent, and we often recognise anger in ourselves after it is pointed out to us by others. De Laguna further supports her position by developing what, under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s much later version of the argument (1953), came to be called a ‘private language’ argument. According to de Laguna, if a scientist were to try to fix the meaning of ‘anger’ by labelling some essentially subjective mental state, she/he would fail even to identify the phenomenon. First, we are very limited in our ability to recall memories for the purpose of comparison. Second, the scientist would probably find she/he is using the term in arbitrary ways that cannot be verified by others (1918a, pp. 621–622; this volume, p. 203; 1919, p. 297). The main challenge de Laguna recognises for her position is one which those she calls ‘mechanical behaviourists’ have not taken on. Mechanical behaviourists deny that we learn anything from introspection. De Laguna, however, takes such a stance to be implausible. Her arguments merely show that what we can learn from introspection cannot be some inherently subjective fact about our mental states, even if such a fact might exist. And it still seems to be the case that introspection teaches us about colours, pains and so on. De Laguna thus sees it as a key challenge for her position to

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tell us what introspection reveals. Moreover, psychology must make learning from introspection a reliable way of learning, one which like all scientific learning involves objective standards for assessing claims. The challenge is to find a way of making empirically respectable the form of investigation involving introspection without endorsing dualism (1918a, pp. 626–627; this volume, p. 207). Washburn responds to de Laguna’s article and, in doing so, expresses perplexity about how de Laguna aims to construe introspection (1919). In a response to Washburn’s response, de Laguna clarifies that, in introspection, we identify features of the objective world and, further, that the psychologist’s task is to interpret the introspective report objectively as a function of the conditions in which it occurs (1919, p. 299).

17.4 De Laguna’s Critique of Type Physicalism While de Laguna’s ‘Dualism in animal psychology’ criticises dualism and mechanical behaviourism, her ‘The Empirical Correlation of Mental and Bodily Phenomena’ criticises what came to be called ‘type physicalism’. Recall, type physicalism tells us that types of mental state are types of state of the brain or nervous system. De Laguna’s first argument against such a position appeals to the nature of the central nervous system in humans. She notes that the primary function of this organ is an evolved one and consists in guiding human behaviour in light of dangers and goods, including social dangers and goods. Thus, she claims, the organ should not be thought of primarily as a physiological organ. By implication, if we are to understand its states, we should not characterize them in neurological terms but, instead, in terms of their function in guiding behaviour (1918b, p. 536; this volume, p. 211). One striking example de Laguna offers in support of the idea that brain states are to be understood in terms of their social function or goal is taken from one of the already mentioned behaviourists, Watson. Watson, de Laguna notes, distinguishes between mental illnesses for which we can find a physiological cause and those for which we cannot. He calls the latter ‘habit complexes’ and says that they cannot properly be called mental illnesses. “Such a case,” writes de Laguna, might be, for example, an individual who ordinarily comported himself in conventional fashion, but whom religious service, instead of inspiring to appropriate devotional attitude and behavior, irresistibly impelled to the loud utterance of outrageous and ribald remarks. (1918b, p. 536; this volume, p. 212)

De Laguna points out that the failure of the cortex to function appropriately in this case is not a physiological matter but a social one. She accordingly draws the conclusion that, in such cases, inappropriate behaviour of the nervous system is to be understood in terms of social function (1918b, p. 536; this volume, p. 212). A second argument de Laguna offers against type physicalism appeals to what, about fifty years later, was introduced into analytic philosophy as the phenomenon of multiple realizability. She argues that the same type of mental state can, to use modern terminology, be realised by a wide variety of physiologies. For example, fear

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can be found across many kinds of animal species and, accordingly, in a wide variety of differing nervous processes and states. Thus, there arguably is not to be found, at the physiological level, any similarity between tokens of fear across all species. Similarly, she argues, the neurological correlates of perception vary substantially across different species. But if a single type of mental state is correlated with a wide variety of types of physiological state, one cannot identify that type of mental state with a type of physiological state. Being in a state of fear is not being in some type of physiological state. Similarly, being in a perceptual state is not being in a certain type of physiological state. Again, de Laguna concludes, if we are to understand brain states, these states need to be characterised in terms of the functions they fulfill in guiding behaviour (1918b, pp. 537–539; this volume, pp. 212–214). What de Laguna takes herself to have shown thus far is that the brain is to be understood in (teleological) functional terms. However, she puts this together with her observation, supported similarly to the way it was supported in ‘Dualism in animal psychology’, that mental states are also to be characterised functionally (1918b, pp. 540–541; this volume, pp. 214–215). It is worth offering an example of such a characterisation of hers. On her view, we are to understand beliefs as conditional determinants of behaviour. By this she means that beliefs are states which (when we are functioning properly) lead us to develop perceptual expectations and to behave conditionally on largely socially determined sets of presumptions that we hold. Notice that de Laguna’s position here is similar to that of modern functionalism and incompatible with logical behaviourism. Contrary to logical behaviourism, beliefs are not characterised solely in behavioural terms. What it is to be a belief is characterised in terms of beliefs’ causal roles in relation to stimuli, effects and other mental states. However, while the functions of modern functionalism are merely causal roles, her functions are causal and teleological ones. Beliefs are to be understood in terms of their role in a properly functioning human being within a social context (This view is developed in de Laguna’s book Speech: Its Function and Development [1927]. For a more detailed exposition of her view, see Katzav [2023]). How does de Laguna’s position help us with the mind-body problem? Once we realise that mental states and brain states are to be characterised in the same ways, we are well on the way to resolving the mind-body problem. Since the two types of states are the very same types of states, there is no mystery about how they might interact and thus about how they relate to each other (1918b, pp. 535–536; this volume, p. 211).

17.5 Calkins’ Idealist Reduction of Matter to the Self Washburn is a dualist. De Laguna recognises psychological, physiological and other kinds as fundamental (Katzav, 2023). Calkins, by contrast, thinks that there is only one fundamental kind in the world, namely the mental kind. More specifically, Calkins adopts a personalist version of idealism. Personalism tells us that (a) there are innumerable selves, (b) our world ultimately consists wholly in these selves and (c) we

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count much of the physical world as non-mental because we fail to distinguish and recognise the simpler types of selves in our world. Here, selves are to be understood as things that are conscious. Selves are thus experiencing things; there is something that it is to be like each self. Importantly, the personalist does not deny that there are physical phenomena but insists that they are reducible to mental phenomena. Electrons, single-celled creatures and planets are all conscious beings or, at least, parts of such beings (1919, pp. 122–123; this volume, pp. 217–218). Calkins motivates personalism in steps and begins by providing an argument for idealism: we are certain about how we experience reality. Thus, if we assert that the sea is blue, we are certain about facts such as that we have the experience of blue, of foam, of glinting and so on. But, what we are certain about, e.g., an instance of blueness, cannot be mind-independent because we cannot be certain about anything mind-independent. The realist, then, has to accept that mind-independent reality is something inferred. Moreover, the realist must accept that the properties of such an inferred reality differ from those immediately revealed in experience–that is, from colours, sounds, shapes, solidity and so on. Mind-independent reality thus turns out to be, if it exists, of an entirely unknown nature and entirely irrelevant to our ordinary concerns (1919, pp. 123–124; this volume, pp. 218–219 and, in more detail, 1911, pp. 453–454). Calkins’ argument is, of course, challenged by de Laguna’s arguments for the view that mental states are known by their functions. If, as de Laguna argues, we do not have knowledge of essentially private mental states, then it seems we do not have certainty about such states and thus cannot contrast our knowledge of them with our knowledge of the mind-independent world. Calkins’ argument for idealism, however, also challenges de Laguna’s position. De Laguna acknowledges that she is obliged to account for introspective knowledge. Calkins adds to this the suggestion that de Laguna needs to account for the certainty we have about our own mental states. De Laguna, to be more explicit, must reconcile the certainty introspection seems to afford with her view that introspective claims are about objective phenomena and thus are presumably fallible. Undermining the suggestion that we have certainty of our mental states are her and Mary Collins Swabey’s discussions of sense data (Part II: ‘Knowledge’), and the critique of Washburn’s dualism discussed above. Let us return to the case for personalism. Why accept that, in addition to experiences, there is also a subject of experience? Why not suppose, with what is commonly called ‘phenomenalism’, that reality just comprises actual and possible immediate experiences? Calkins responds that, as René Descartes argued, we immediately know that it is not possible for there to be an experience without someone who has the experience and because even denying that there is a subject presupposes the existence of a subject (1919, p. 125; this volume, p. 219). Indeed, she claims, we are also aware that we are finite, limited creatures. It is part of our experience that our experiences are only a portion of reality and that our purposes are sometimes frustrated. But if we know of our own limitedness, we know that there is more to reality than ourselves. And given that our knowledge is only of selves and their experiences, we know that this ‘more’ comprises other selves (1919, p. 127; this volume, pp. 220–221).

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The rest of nature must thus also be taken to comprise selves. How, however, are we to make sense of the idea of selves that are substantially simpler than us? Calkins’ response is that we can conceive of a range of forms of consciousness, from passive, inattentive and inactive selves to those which, like us, are active, attentive, discriminating, comparing, relating and controlling. In order to imagine what it is like to be a relatively simple self she suggests, following Leibniz, recalling the moment of awakening. At that moment, we can be unaware of where we are and of what we might be aiming to do. So too, we might have little awareness of an extended past or of the future (1919, pp. 130–131; this volume, pp. 222–223). Here, of course, Calkins could make use of Washburn’s description of the Amoeba’s subjectivity in support of the idea that we can conceive of simple selves. Calkins takes her discussion of the moment of awakening to suggest that we can make sense of a wide variety of grades of self, including even of selves that are more inactive and inattentive than we are at our sleepiest. The simplest selves, which Calkins calls ‘uncommunicating selves’, impinge on us through our senses but do not respond to us in any way that indicates that they are selves; for this reason, on her view, we cannot tell whether inorganic phenomena are single, multiple or parts of selves (1919, pp. 132–134; this volume, pp. 224–225). A final aspect of personal idealism which Calkins considers is its position on the relation between physical phenomena and the self. How are we (1919, pp. 135– 136; this volume, p. 226) to conceive of the relationship between my self and, as Calkins puts it, “the body which is tagging me around”? The personalist claim is that the body is a complex of sensations or experiences, so that the relation between mind and body is no more mysterious than the relation between selves and their experiences. The experiences which constitute my body include the experiences that are only available to me, e.g., a stabbing pain in the foot. The experiences also include the experiences other selves have of my body, e.g., their visual perception of me. Finally, Calkins recognises that there are parts of our bodies that might not be experienced by any human, e.g., one’s brain or spleen. Here Calkins notes that there are two options available to the personalist: either these inferred organs are taken to be merely potential experiences, or the inferred organs are taken to be selves, albeit selves which are in some sense subordinate to us body owners (1919, pp. 135–138; this volume, pp. 226–228). One challenge to personalism that Calkins addresses is the worry that personalism’s assumption that the self is free is not compatible with the uniformity observed in nature. She responds, first, that the personalist can accept that the self is subject to deterministic laws, that is, to laws that describe universal correlations between types of phenomena. Second, if the personalist wishes to hold that the self is not subject to deterministic laws, she can do so. She can suppose that laws of nature are statistical. More explicitly, she can suppose that the laws describe the probabilistic behaviour of aggregates of individuals (1919, p. 142; this volume, p. 231). A second challenge to personalism is that it is an unfruitful metaphysics. It tells us that non-human phenomena are all expressions of selves but tells us precious little about what to conclude on this basis about what it is like to be the subjects responsible for those phenomena. No guidance is, for example, provided about how to translate

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the facts of chemistry into facts of subjectivity. Calkins seems to concede this but adds that whenever we talk about the inorganic world, we inevitably do so in terms of the self. Even when talking about atoms, we are forced to talk about their own unique activities, e.g., we talk about them emitting energy or exerting force. We thus vaguely regard them as active, initiating selves (1919, p. 144; this volume, p. 232).

References Calkins, M. W. (1911). The idealist to the realist. The Journal of Philosophy, 8(17), 449–458. Calkins, M. W. (1919). The personalistic conception of nature. The Philosophical Review, 28(2), 115–146. De Laguna, G. A. (1918a). Dualism in animal psychology. The Journal of Philosophy, 15(23), 617–627. De Laguna, G. A. (1918b). The empirical correlation of mental and bodily phenomena. The Journal of Philosophy, 15(20), 533–541. De Laguna, G. A. (1919). Dualism in animal psychology: A rejoinder. The Journal of Philosophy, 16(11), 296–300. De Laguna, G. A. (1927). Speech: Its function and development. Yale University Press. Katzav, J. (2023). Grace de Laguna’s analytic and speculative philosophy. Australasian Philosophical Review. Lycan, W. G., & Prinz, J. J. (2007). Introduction. In W. G. Lycan & J. J. Prinz (Eds.), Mind and cognition (pp. 3–13). Wiley-Blackwell. Washburn, M. F. (1917). The animal mind (2nd ed.). The Macmillan Company. Washburn, M. F. (1919). Dualism in animal psychology. The Journal of Philosophy, 16(2), 41–44. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe & R. Rhees, Eds., G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Blackwell.

Chapter 18

Excerpts from Washburn’s The Evidence of Mind Margaret Floy Washburn Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract This chapter includes Margaret Floy Washburn’s discussion of the basis of inferences about animal minds and her discussion of what it is like to be an amoeba.

18.1 The Evidence of Mind1 Inferring Mind from Behavior In this chapter we shall try to show that there exists no evidence for denying mind to any animals, if we do not deny it to all; in other words, that there is no such thing as an objective proof of the presence of mind, whose absence may be regarded as proof of the absence of mind. To begin with, can it be said that when an animal makes a movement in response to a certain stimulus, there is an accompanying consciousness of the stimulus, and that when it fails to move, there is no consciousness? Is response to stimulation evidence of consciousness? In the case of man, we know that absence of visible response does not prove that the stimulus has not been sensed; while it is probable that some effect upon motor channels always occurs when consciousness accompanies stimulation, the effect may not be apparent to an outside observer. On the other hand, if movement in response to the impact of a physical force is evidence of consciousness, then the ball which falls under the influence of gravity and rebounds on striking the floor is conscious. Nor is the case improved if we point out that the movements which animals make in response to stimulation are not the equivalent in energy of the stimulus applied, but involve the setting free of energy stored in the animal as well. True, when a microscopic animal meets an obstacle in its swimming, and darts backward, the movement is not a mere rebound; it implies energy contributed by the 1

From the chapter ‘The Evidence of Mind’ as it appeared in the 1917 edition of The Animal Mind, pp. 27–37. M. F. Washburn (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_18

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animal’s own body. But just so an explosion of gunpowder is not the equivalent in energy, of the heat of the match, the stimulus. Similarly it is possible to think of the response made by animals to external stimuli as involving nothing more than certain physical and chemical processes identical with those existing in inanimate nature. If we find that the movements made by an animal as a result of external stimulation regularly involve withdrawal from certain stimuli and acceptance of others, it is natural to use the term “choice” in describing such behavior. But if consciousness is supposed to accompany the exercise of choice in this sense, then consciousness must be assumed to accompany the behavior of atoms in chemical combinations. When hydrochloric acid is added to a solution of silver nitrate, the atoms of chlorine and those of silver find each other by an unerring “instinct” and combine into the white precipitate of silver chloride, while the hydrogen and the nitric acid similarly “choose” each other. Nor can the fact that behavior in animals is adapted to an end be used as evidence of mind; for “purposive” reactions, which contribute to the welfare of an organism, are themselves selective. The search for food, the care for the young, and the complex activities which further welfare, are made up of reactions involving “choice” between stimuli; and if the simple “choice” reaction is on a par with the behavior of chemical atoms, so far as proof of consciousness goes, then adaptation to an end, apparent purposiveness, is in a similar position. Thus the mere fact that an animal reacts to stimulation, even selectively and for its own best interests, offers no evidence for the existence of mind that does not apply equally well to particles of inanimate matter. Moreover, there is some ground for holding that the reactions of the lowest animals are unconscious. This ground consists in the apparent lack of variability which characterizes such reactions. In our own case, we know that certain bodily movements, those of digestion and circulation, for example, are normally carried on without accompanying consciousness, and that in other cases where there is consciousness of the stimulus, as in the reflex kneejerk, it occurs after the movement is initiated, so that the nervous process underlying the sensation would seem to be immaterial to the performance of the movement. These unconscious reactions in human beings are characterized by their relative uniformity, by the absence of variation in their performance. Moreover, when an action originally accompanied by consciousness is often repeated, it tends, by what is apparently one and the same process, to become unconscious and to become uniform. There is consequently reason for believing that when the behavior of lower animals displays perfect uniformity, consciousness is not present. On the other hand, an important reservation must be made in the use of this negative test. It is by no means easy to be sure that an animal’s reactions are uniform. The more carefully the complexer ones are studied, the more are variability and difference brought to light where superficial observation had revealed a mechanical and automatic regularity. It is quite possible that even in the simple, apparently fixed response of microscopic animals to stimulation, better facilities for observation might show variations that do not now appear. This matter of uniformity versus variability suggests a further step in our search for a satisfactory test of the presence of mind. Is mere variability in behavior, mere

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irregularity in response, to be taken as such a test? Not if we argue from our own experience. While that portion of our own behavior which involves consciousness shows more irregularity than the portion which does not, yet the causes of the irregularity are often clearly to be found in physiological conditions with which consciousness has nothing to do. There are days when we can think clearly and recall easily, and days when obscurities refuse to vanish and the right word refuses to come; days when we are irritable and days when we are sluggish. Yet since we can find nothing in our mental processes to account for this variability, it would be absurd to take analogous fluctuations in animal behavior as evidence of mind. So complicated a machine as an animal organism, even if it be nothing more than a machine, must show irregularities in its working. Behavior, then, must be variable, but not merely variable, to give evidence of mind. The criterion most frequently applied to determine the presence or absence of the psychic is a variation in behavior that shows definitely the result of previous individual experience. “Does the organism,” says Romanes, “learn to make new adjustments, or to modify old ones, in accordance with the results of its own individual experience?” (641, p. 4). Loeb declared that “the fundamental process which occurs in all psychic phenomena as the elemental component” is “the activity of the associative memory, or of association,” and defines associative memory as “that mechanism by which a stimulus brings about not only the effects which its nature and the specific structure of the irritable organ call for, but by which it brings about also the effects of other stimuli which formerly acted upon the organism almost or quite simultaneously with the stimulus in question.” “If an animal can be trained,” he continued, “if it can learn, it possesses associative memory,” and therefore mind (429, p. 12). The psychologist finds the term “associative memory” hardly satisfactory, and objects to the confusion between mental and physical concepts which renders it possible to speak of a “mechanism” as forming an “elemental component” in “psychic phenomena,” but these points may be passed over. The power to learn by individual experience is the evidence which Romanes, Morgan, and Loeb will accept as demonstrating the presence of mind in an animal. Does the absence of proof that an animal learns by experience show that the animal is unconscious? Romanes is careful to answer this question in the negative. “Because a lowly organized animal,” he says, “does not learn by its own individual experience, we may not therefore conclude that in performing its natural or ancestral adaptations to appropriate stimuli, consciousness, or the mind element, is wholly absent; we can only say that this element, if present, reveals no evidence of the fact” (641, p. 3). Loeb, on the other hand, wrote as if absence of proof for consciousness amounted to disproof, evidently relying on the principle of parsimony, that no unnecessary assumptions should be admitted. “Our criterion,” he remarked, “puts an end to the metaphysical ideas that all matter, and hence the whole animal world, possesses consciousness” (429, p. 13). If learning by experience be really a satisfactory proof of mind, then its absence in certain animals would indeed prevent the positive assertion that all animals are conscious; but it could not abolish the possibility that they might be. Such a possibility might, however, be of no more scientific interest than any one of a million wild, possibilities that science cannot spare time to disprove. But we

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shall find that learning by experience, taken by itself, is too indefinite a concept to be of much service, and that when defined, it is inadequate to bear the whole weight of proving consciousness in animals. Such being the case, the possibility that animals which have not been shown to learn may yet be conscious acquires the right to be reckoned with. The first point that strikes us in examining the proposed test is that the learning by experience must not be too slow, or we can find parallels for it in the inanimate world. An animal may be said to have learned by experience if it behaves differently to a stimulus because of preceding stimuli. But it is one thing to have behavior altered by a single preceding stimulus, and another to have it altered by two hundred repetitions of a stimulus. The wood of a violin reacts differently to the vibrations of the strings after it has “experienced” them for ten years; the molecules of the wood have gradually taken on an altered arrangement. A steel rail reacts differently to the pounding of wheels after that process has been long continued; it may snap under the strain. Shall we say that the violin and the rail have learned by individual experience? If the obvious retort be made that it is only in living creatures that learning by experience should be taken as evidence of mind, let us take an example from living creatures. When a blacksmith has been practising his trade for a year, the reactions of his muscles are different from what they were at the outset. But this difference is not merely a matter of more accurate sense-discrimination, a better “placing” of attention and the like; there have been going on within the structure of his muscles changes which have increased their efficiency, and with which consciousness has had nothing to do. These changes have been extremely slow compared to the learning which does involve consciousness. In one or two lessons the apprentice learned what he was to do; but only very gradually have his muscles acquired the strength to do it as it should be done. Now among the lower animal forms we sometimes meet with learning by experience that is very slow; that requires a hundred or more repetitions of the stimulus before the new reaction is acquired. In such a case we can find analogical reasons for suspecting that a gradual change in the tissues of the body has taken place, of the sort which, like the attuning of the violin wood or the slow development of a muscle, have no conscious accompaniment. We must then ask the question: What kind of learning by experience never, so far as we know, occurs unconsciously? Suppose a human being shut up in a room from which he can escape only by working a combination lock. As we shall see later, this is one of the methods by which the learning power of animals has been tested. The man, after prolonged investigation, hits upon the right combination and gets out. Suppose that he later finds himself again in the same predicament, and that without hesitation or fumbling he opens the lock at once, and performs the feat again and again, to show that it was not a lucky accident. But one interpretation of such behavior is possible. We know from our own experience that the man could not have worked the lock the second time he saw it, unless he consciously remembered the movements he made the first time; that is, unless he had in mind some kind of idea as a guide. Here, at least, there can have been no change in the structure of the muscles, for such changes are gradual; the change must have taken place in the most easily alterable portion of the organism, the nervous system; and further, it

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must have taken place in the most unstable and variable part of the nervous system, the higher cortical centres whose activity is accompanied by consciousness. In other words, we may be practically assured that consciousness accompanies learning only when the learning is so rapid as to show that the effects of previous experience are recalled in the guise of an idea or mental image of some sort. But does even the most rapid learning possible assure us of the presence of an idea in the mind of a lower animal? Where the motive, the beneficial or harmful consequence of action, is very strong, may not a single experience suffice to modify action without being revived in idea? Moreover, animals as high in the scale as dogs and cats learn to solve problems analogous to that of the combination lock so slowly that we cannot infer the presence of ideas. Are we then to conclude that these animals are unconscious, or that there is absolutely no reason for supposing them possessed of consciousness? Yerkes has criticised the “learning by experience” criterion by pointing out that “no organism… has thus far been proved incapable of profiting by experience.” It is a question rather of the rapidity and of the kind of learning involved. “The fact that the crayfish need a hundred or more experiences for the learning of a type of reaction that the frog would learn with twenty experiences, the dog with five, say, and the human subject with perhaps a single experience, is indicative of the fundamental difficulty in the use of this sign” (814). Nagel has pointed out that Loeb, in asserting “associative memory” as the criterion of consciousness, offers no evidence for his statement (524). The fact is that while proof of the existence of mind can be derived from animal learning by experience only if the learning is very rapid, other evidence, equally valid on the principle of analogy, makes it highly improbable that all animals which learn too slowly to evince the presence of ideas are therefore unconscious. This evidence is of a morphological character. Inferring Mind from Structure Both Yerkes and Lukas urge that the resemblance of an animal’s nervous system and sense organs to those of human beings ought to be taken into consideration in deciding whether the animal is conscious or not. Lukas suggests that the criteria of consciousness should be grouped under three heads: morphological, including the structure of the brain and sense-organs, physiological, and teleological. Under the second rubric he maintains that “individual purposiveness” is characteristic of the movements from which consciousness may be inferred; that individual purposiveness pertains only to voluntary acts, and that voluntary acts are acts “which are preceded by the intention to perform a definite movement, hence by the idea of this movement.” We have reached the same conclusion in the preceding paragraph. The third test of the presence of consciousness, the teleological test, rests on the consideration: “What significance for the organism may be possessed by the production of a conscious effect by certain stimuli?” (445). This test, however, being of a purely a priori character, would seem to be distinctly less valuable than the others. Yerkes proposes “the following six criteria in what seems to me in general the order of increasing importance. The functional signs are of greater value as a rule than the structural; and within each of the categories the particular sign is usually of

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more value than the general. In certain cases, however, it might be maintained that neural specialization is of greater importance than modifiability. I. Structural Criteria 1. General form of organism (Organization). 2. Nervous system (Neural organization). 3. Specialization in the nervous system (Neural specialization). II. Functional Criteria 1. General form of reaction (Discrimination). 2. Modifiability of reaction (Docility). 3. Variability of reaction (Initiative)” (814). The terms “discrimination,” “docility,” and “initiative” in this connection are borrowed from Royce’s “Outlines of Psychology” (649). If resemblance of nervous and sense-organ structure to the human type is to be taken along with rapid learning as co-ordinate evidence of consciousness, it is clear that here also we have to deal with a matter of degree. The structure of the lower animals differs increasingly from our own as we go down the scale. At what degree of difference shall we draw the line and say that the animals above it may be conscious, but that those below it cannot be? No one could possibly establish such a line. The truth of the whole matter seems to be this: We can say neither what amount of resemblance in structure to human beings, nor what speed of learning, constitutes a definite mark distinguishing animals with minds from those without minds, unless we are prepared to assert that only animals which learn so fast that they must have memory ideas possess mind at all. And this would conflict with the argument from structure. For example, there is no good experimental evidence that cats possess ideas, yet there is enough analogy between their nervous systems and our own to make it improbable that consciousness, so complex and highly developed in us, is in them wholly lacking. We know not where consciousness begins in the animal world. We know where it surely resides—in ourselves; we know where it exists beyond a reasonable doubt—in those animals of structure resembling ours which rapidly adapt themselves to the lessons of experience. Beyond this point, for all we know, it may exist in simpler and simpler forms until we reach the very lowest of living beings.

18.2 The Mind of the Simplest Animals2 The Mind of Amoeba

2

From the chapter ‘The Evidence of Mind’ as it appeared in the 1917 edition of The Animal Mind, pp. 44–52.

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Now what light does the behavior of Amoeba throw upon the nature of the animal’s possible consciousness? The first thought which strikes us in this connection is that the number of different sensations occurring in an Amoeba’s mind, if it has one, is very much smaller than the number forming the constituent elements of our own experience. We human beings have the power to discriminate several thousand different qualities of color, brightness, tone, noise, temperature, pressure, pain, smell, taste, and other sensation classes. Thus the content of our consciousness is capable of a great deal of variety. It is hard to see how more than three or four qualitatively different processes can enter into the conscious experience of an Amoeba. The negative reaction is given to all forms of strong stimulation alike, with the single exception of food. We shall in the following chapter discuss more fully the nature of the evidence that helps us to conjecture the existence of different sensation qualities in an animal’s mind; but it is clear that where an animal so simple in its structure as the Amoeba makes no difference in its reactions to various stimuli, there can be no reason for supposing that if it is conscious, it is aware of them as different. The reaction to edible substances is, however, unlike that to other stimulations. The peculiarity of edible substances which occasions this difference must be a chemical one. In our own case, the classes of sensation which result from the chemical peculiarities of food substances are smell and taste; evidently to a water-dwelling animal smell and taste would be practically indistinguishable. We may say, then, that supposing consciousness to exist in so primitive an animal as the Amoeba, we have evidence for the appearance in it of a specific sensation quality representing the chemical or food sense, and standing for the whole class of sensations resulting from our own organs of smell and taste. The significance of the positive reaction is harder to determine. It seems to be given in response not to a special kind of stimulus, but to a mechanical or food stimulus of slight intensity. In our own experience, we do not have stimuli of different intensity producing sensations of different quality, except in the cases of temperature and visual sensations. We do, however, find that varying the strength of the stimulus will produce different affective qualities; it is a familiar fact that moderate intensities of stimulation in the human organism are accompanied by pleasantness, and stronger intensities by unpleasantness. The motor effects of pleasantness and unpleasantness in ourselves are opposite to each other in character. Pleasantness produces a tonic and expansive effect on the body, unpleasantness a depressive and contractive effect. In the Amoeba, the positive and negative reactions seem to be opposed. The essential feature of the negative reaction is the checking of movement at the point stimulated; that of the positive reaction is the reaching out of the point stimulated in the direction of the stimulus. This much evidence there is for saying that besides a possible food sensation, the Amoeba may have some dim awareness of affective qualities corresponding to pleasantness and unpleasantness in ourselves. It should, however, be borne in mind that wide differences must go along with the correspondence. In us, pleasantness brings a thrill, a “bodily resonance,” due to its tonic effect upon the circulation, breathing, and muscles; unpleasantness has also its accompaniment of vague organic sensation, without which we can hardly conceive what it would be like. In an Amoeba, it is clear that this aspect, as found in human

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consciousness, must be wholly lacking. Again, in the human mind pleasantness and unpleasantness are connected with various sensation qualities or complexes; we are pleased or displeased usually “at” something definite. The vagueness of the affective qualities in an Amoeba’s consciousness can only be remotely suggested by our own vague, diffused sense of bodily well-being or ill-being; and this is undoubtedly given its coloring in our case by the structure and functioning of our internal organs. As for the peculiar behavior of an Amoeba suspended in the water and deprived of solid support, the stimulus for this must lie within the cell body itself. If any consciousness accompanies it, then the nearest human analogy to such consciousness is to be found in organic sensations, and these, as has just been said, must necessarily be in the human mind wholly different in quality from anything to be found in an animal whose structure is as simple as the Amoeba’s. A consequence of this lack of qualitative variety in the sense experiences of an Amoeba is a lack of what we may call complexity of structure in that experience. The number of stimulus differences which are in the human mind represented by differences in the quality of sensations is so great that at any given moment our consciousness of the external world is analyzable into a large number of qualitatively different sensations. At the present instant the reader’s consciousness “contains,” apart from the revived effects of previous stimulation, many distinguishable sensation elements, visual, auditory, tactile, organic, and so on. The Amoeba’s consciousness, if it possesses one, must have a structure inconceivably simpler than that of any moment of our own experience. A second point in which the mind of an Amoeba must, if it exists, differ from that of a human being, consists in its entire lack of mental imagery of any sort. Not only has the Amoeba but three or four qualitatively different elements in its experience, but none of these qualities can be remembered or revived in the absence of external stimulation. How may we be sure of this? If our primitive animal could revive its experiences in the form of memory images, it would give some evidence of the influence of memory in its behavior. Indeed, as we shall learn, it is possible, in all probability, for an animal’s conduct to be influenced by its past experience even though the animal be incapable of reviving that experience in the form of a memory image. Therefore, if we find no evidence that the Amoeba learns, or modifies its behavior as the result of past stimulation, we may conclude a fortiori that it does not have memory images. Now it would be stating the case too strongly to say that past stimulation does not affect the behavior of Amoeba at all. In the first place, this animal shows, in common with all other animals, the power of “getting used” to certain forms of stimulation, so that on long continuance they cease to provoke reaction. “Thus,” Jennings says, “Amoebae react negatively to tap water or to water from a foreign culture, but after transference to such water they behave normally” (378, p. 20). Such cessation of reaction occurs when the continued stimulus is not harmful. In a sense, it may be called an effect of experience; but there is clearly no reason for supposing that it involves the revival of experience in the form of an idea or image. We have parallel phenomena in our own mental life. A continued stimulus ceases to be “noticed,” but the process involves rather the disappearance of consciousness

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than the appearance of a memory image. Jennings, however, is inclined to think that preceding stimulation may modify the Amoeba’s behavior in a way more nearly suggesting memory in a higher type of mind. He describes an interesting observation to illustrate this. A large Amoeba, c, had swallowed a smaller one, b, but had left a small canal open, through which the swallowed one made efforts to escape, which were several times foiled by movements on the part of the large Amoeba toward surrounding it again. Finally it succeeded in getting completely out, whereupon the large Amoeba “reversed its course, overtook b, engulfed it completely again, and started away.” The small Amoeba contracted into a ball and remained quiet until through the movements of the large one there chanced to be but a thin layer of protoplasm covering it. This it rapidly pushed through, escaped completely, and was not pursued by the large Amoeba (378, pp. 17–18). Of this performance Jennings says: “It is difficult to conceive each phase of action of the pursuer to be completely determined by a simple present stimulus. For example … after Amoeba b has escaped completely and is quite separate from Amoeba c, the latter reverses its course and recaptures b. What determines the behavior of c at this point? If we can imagine all the external physical and chemical conditions to remain the same, with the two Amoebae in the same relative positions, but suppose at the same time that Amoeba c has never had the experience of possessing b—would its action be the same? Would it reverse its movement, take in b, then return on its former course? One who sees the behavior as it occurs can hardly resist the conviction that the action at this point is partly determined by the change in c due to the former possession of b, so that the behavior is not purely reflex” (378, p. 24). If it is true that an Amoeba which had not just “had the experience of possessing b” would not have reversed its movement and gone after b when the latter escaped, still we cannot think it possible that c’s movements in so doing were guided by a memory image of b. It may be supposed that the recent stimulation of contact with b had left a part of c’s protoplasm in a condition of heightened excitability, so that the weak stimulus offered perhaps by slight water disturbances due to b’s movements after escaping produced a positive reaction, although under other circumstances no reaction would have been possible. (Compare the observation of Schaeffer, just quoted, on Amoeba’s ability to react to objects not in contact with it.) In any case, there is no evidence that Amoeba’s behavior is influenced by stimulation occurring earlier than the moments just preceding action; no proof of the revival of a process whose original effects have had time to die out; and it is upon such revival that the memory images which play so much part in our own conscious life depend. Let us consider for a moment some of the results of the absence of this kind of material in the possible mental processes of Amoeba. In the first place, such a lack profoundly affects the character of the experiences which the animal might be supposed to receive through external stimulation. If we call the possible conscious effect of a mechanical stimulus upon the Amoeba a touch sensation, the term suggests, naturally, such sensations as we ourselves experience them. In normal human beings touch sensations are accompanied by visual suggestions, more or less clear, of course, according to the visualizing powers of the individual, but always present in some degree. Fancy, for example, one of us entering a room in the dark and groping about

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among the furniture. How constantly visual associations are brought into play! Not once is a mere touch impression apprehended without being translated into visual terms; the forms and positions of the articles encountered are thought of immediately as they would appear if the room were lighted. The difficulty we have in thinking of a touch sensation with no visual associations illustrates the difference between our sense experience and that of an animal incapable of recalling images of past sensations. It is equally obvious that in the absence of memory ideas, not only must the Amoeba lack processes of imagination and reasoning, but there can be nothing like the continuous self-consciousness of a human being, the “sense” of personal identity, which depends upon the power to revive past experiences. It is even possible that the “stream of consciousness” for an Amoeba may not be a continuous stream at all. Since its sensitiveness to changes in its environment is less developed than that of a human being, and there are no trains of ideas to fill up possible intervals between the occurrences of outside stimulation, the Amoeba’s conscious experience may be rather a series of “flashes” than a steady stream. And for the Amoeba, again, we must remember that even such a series would not exist as such; the perception of a series would involve the revival of its past members. Each moment of consciousness is as if there were no world beyond, before, and after it. Another consequence of that simplicity of structure which results both from the rudimentary powers of sensory discrimination and from the absence of memory ideas in the Amoeba’s mind is that there can be no distinction, within a given mental process, between that which is attended to and that which is not attended to, between the focus and the margin of consciousness. Given a consciousness which at a certain moment is composed of the qualitatively different elements A, B, C, and D, we can understand what is meant by saying that A is attended to, is in the foreground of attention, while B, C, and D remain in the background. But given, on the other hand, a creature whose conscious content at a certain time consists wholly of the qualitatively simple experience A, it is evident that attention and inattention are meaningless terms. Different moments of its consciousness may differ in intensity; but attention, involving, as it does, clearness rather than intensity, arises only when mental states have become complex and possess detail and variety within their structure.

References Jennings, H. S. (1906). Behavior of the lower organisms. Columbia University Press. Loeb, J. (1900). Comparative physiology of the brain and comparative psychology. Putnam. Lukas, F. (1905). Psychologie der niedersten Thiere. Wien und Leipzig. Nagel, W. A. (1899). Review of Loeb: Vergleichende Gehirnphysiologie u. s. w. zool. Cent., Bd. 6, S. 11. Romanes, G. J. (1885). Jellyfish, starfish and sea-urchins. D. Appleton & Co. Royce, J. (1903). Outlines of psychology. Macmillan. Yerkes, R. M. (1905). Animal psychology and criteria of the psychic. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 2(6), 141–149.

Chapter 19

Dualism in Animal Psychology Grace Andrus de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract This chapter is Grace Andrus de Lagunas’ discussion of Margaret Floy Washburn’s The Animal Mind.

The second edition of Professor Washburn’s text-book in animal psychology indulges as little as the first in controversy over matters of general theory.1 Indeed the chief purpose for which the book was written (as the author stated in the Introduction to the first edition) was to bring together, and make available for the ordinary student, the simple facts whose discovery is the result of experimental method in comparative psychology. And it is the rapid accumulation of such facts discovered since the first appearance of The Animal Mind in 1908, that has led the author to prepare a second edition, a task which involved the rewriting of more than half of the earlier volume. Of the growth of theoretical controversy which has accompanied this rapid advance in comparative psychology during this decade, little intimation appears in the text. Textbooks are not, of course, the place to discuss such subjects. Yet the reader who peruses the pages of The Animal Mind with the issues of current controversy in the back of his head may well find food for philosophical reflection. For the interesting facts of animal behavior which the author sets before us in so orderly and clear a manner are not, after all, presented merely as interesting facts. They are selected and ordered that they may serve as evidence from which the animal mind—or minds— may be deduced. As the author herself remarks in the Introduction, the book might properly be entitled The Animal Mind as Deduced from Experimental Evidence. It is the conception of the object of psychology, implied in this title and explicitly laid down in the opening chapters, which gives pause to the theoretically-minded reader. 1 M. F. Washburn, The Animal Mind, second edition, revised. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917.

Grace Andrus de Laguna: First published in 1918 in The Journal of Philosophy, 15(23), 617–627. G. A. de Laguna (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_19

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The conception is a familiar one. The only mind which the psychologist, or any individual, can know is his own mind; and this he knows directly and immediately. The only way in which the psychologist can learn to know the mind of another conscious being is to ask himself how he would feel and think in the other’s place. Just in so far as he is able to answer this question, can he gain any insight into the other’s mind. It evidently follows that each of us can know the conscious processes of others only in so far as they are like our own. In so far as they differ from our own they must remain a sealed book to us. Furthermore, the feelings and thoughts of others to be understood must not only be like our own; they must also express themselves in similar words or acts. It is a fundamental postulate of all psychology, human and animal, that like behavior is evidence of like conscious processes. There are thus great difficulties lying in the path of the comparative psychologist. He may perhaps hope to reconstruct imaginatively the feelings of the questing dog or the racing horse; but to put himself in the place of the buzzing wasp or the wriggling worm is beyond his powers. Nevertheless, precarious and devious as the path of the comparative psychologist must be, it is the only way open, and some progress is possible, and has, indeed, already been made. Thus, according to this conception, two distinct but equally important tasks confront the investigator of the animal mind: first, the discovery and description of the facts of animal behavior; second, the psychological interpretation of those facts. In order successfully to accomplish the first, training is necessary to distinguish the simple facts from the interpretation of them—what is actually seen from what is merely inferred. But since what can be observed is only external behavior, i.e., physical movements, the peculiar task of the psychologist, as distinct from the biologist, remains to be performed: the inference as to what conscious processes, if any, accompany these acts. The frank and clear-cut statement of this familiar position which is given in the opening chapters raises squarely a number of fundamental problems. What is the aim of psychological science? Is the goal of the psychologist the imaginative reconstruction of the experience of the conscious being he is studying? Surely not, since the pursuit of science is essentially a social enterprise, and the body of facts and theories constituting a science is a common object. Psychology, in so far as it is a science, we should all agree, consists in the description of the facts concerning minds, and the statement of the systematic interconnection of these facts. What Professor Washburn and others of her school evidently mean to claim is that it is only in so far as we can imagine the sensations and feelings of another that we are prepared to give a psychological account of them, or understand the account given by any one else. Now this claim, while it is so plausible that to question it may seem mere perversity, I find great difficulty in admitting. For one thing, it carries with it the acceptance of a whole body of logical doctrine to which there are grave objections. This is too large a subject to enter upon here. Viewed more directly and empirically, the claim raises equally serious doubts. The old objection, that, if our knowledge of the sensations and emotions of animals depended on the possibility of translating them into terms of our sensations and emotions, no psychology of the lower animals would be possible, seems to me unanswerable. That after so staggering

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a presentation of the difficulties of comparative psychology as our author gives us in the first chapter she can yet believe in the fruitfulness of the enterprise, is an arresting observation. One is compelled to ask whether the enterprise be, after all, the sort of intellectual adventure it is pictured as being. Let us examine it a little more closely. When I see my dog running along the walk with his nose to the ground, and I know one of the children went that way to school a half-hour ago, I describe his experience as an attentive discrimination of the odor of the child with a feeling tone of pleasurable excitement. This is a description which has an intelligible and fairly definite meaning to any one of us. And yet no one of us ever had such a total experience nor even, perhaps, experienced a single one of the essential elements entering into it. The individual human being has for us no distinctive odor when he is clean, whereas we know that for the dog each person of his acquaintance has an unmistakable odor, and that the characteristic odor of his master is highly agreeable in a peculiar way. To me, as I suppose to most of us, the idea of a distinctive odor attaching to a person is unpleasant. Even if this were not so, I could not imagine an odor having the peculiar emotional coloring which the odor of his master has for the dog—which leads him, for example, to find solace and contentment in lying on an old glove or other article of clothing. It is true I have had various experiences of pleasurable excitement attaching to odors. The smoke of a locomotive always had a peculiarly delightful exciting quality; but it does not seem to me that my understanding of the experience of the dog who follows the child so eagerly is brought about by calling up this pleasurable excitement and translating the dog’s experience in terms of that. It even seems to me very improbable that the description of the dog’s experience would be unintelligible to me even though some accident had deprived me in youth of all sense of smell. Is Helen Keller debarred from entering into an intelligent discussion as to whether the white rat has color-vision, because she can not imagine red and blue? That her blindness would entail serious disadvantages to her psychological study of vision is undoubtedly true; but that it would make the psychology of vision unintelligible to her is not credible. The crucial question is: What do such psychological terms as red and anger and unpleasantness and space-perception mean? Does each denote a “this,” an incommunicable bit of private experience, which each one of us identifies to himself by calling it up in imagination? If so, how can we manage to be mutually comprehensible? Perhaps our author would answer that while I do denote such a “this” by red or anger, I may enable you to identify a similar “this” by describing it in terms of the external relations it bears to stimulus on the one hand and response on the other, just as a description may be used to indicate the denotation of any proper name. What red or anger denotes is a bit of private feeling, and it is this that the psychologist studies. To this contention the reply is that such a merely private and incommunicable somewhat can not become the object of scientific investigation. And if this reply seem a piece of a priori dogmatism, we may point to the empirical facts themselves. The psychological uniformities holding of sensation-qualities of color, such as the laws of color-contrast, relation of brightness and saturation, etc., are all formulations of uniformities of discriminative responses to objectively standardized conditions. Does the psychologist wish to determine the complementary of a certain shade of

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red? He selects a piece of colored paper of a standard make and grade, gives it a determinate illumination, places a normal observer in a standard relation to it, etc., etc. In short, what he is studying is no “this;” it is the standard paper in a certain complex set of relations to the observer. The importance and the significance of the introduction of experimental method in psychology lies precisely in the fact that it provides a means for the determination of psychological phenomena. The phenomena thus investigated become in effect functions of the factors constituting the standardized conditions of the experiment. It must not be suggested, however, that this means the identification of psychological research with either physical or biological science. The psychological standardization of the conditions of experiment is almost never equivalent to a physical or mechanical standardization of them. What may constitute a wide variation in conditions mechanically considered, may well fall within the limits of psychological constancy for the particular experiment in hand. Nor is this determined by an unchecked introspection that a given variation does not “look” or “feel” different, but by further experiments which act as mutual checks.2 In short, one of the most important tasks of the psychologist is the determination of what constitutes the standardization in typical cases. What has just been said refers primarily, of course, to the investigation of sensation-qualities, which is one of the fields where experiment has proved most fruitful. But it is not less true that other psychological terms such as those mentioned above—anger, unpleasantness, space-perception—denote phenomena which can be determined only by the relations which they bear to stimulus and response. What the psychologist actually means by anger, for example, is an emotional attitude which manifests itself in a certain characteristic mode, or rather modes, of behavior. It is often asserted that anger is first known as a peculiar inner state by each individual, which is later ejectively attributed to others as a result of inference from behavior. Now as a genetic account of the empirical origin of our idea of anger, this seems to me to be on a par with the explanation of simple spatial ideas as due to inferences made in early childhood from differences in sense-data. The child surely perceives his nurse’s anger as immediately as he does her position between the chair and the table—nay, even more directly, since he instinctively responds to her loud threatening tones and her scowling face, while he must learn by experience what modifications of response the position between chair and table call for. But neither the perception of anger nor that of position is the result of inference, but of something much simpler and more direct. Later on, when anger is discriminated by name, it is as likely to denote the attitude Daddy will have if one is naughty, as one’s own feelings when one throws a toy across the room or slaps sister. It is an experience which all of us must sometime have had, to be suddenly accused of being angry in the midst of eager discussion. After the first tendency toward 2

For example, an illumination may be psychologically constant, even though there be mechanically measurable variation. But a mechanical variation which is too slight to be directly discriminated may nevertheless count as a psychological variation. If it should be found that such a change in degree of illumination was followed by a constant variation in the results of observations of minimal changes in grays, or that the rate of eye fatigue varied with the change in illumination, such change would be classed as truly psychological.

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indignant denial, we may, perhaps, recognize the justice of the accusation. Now on what is such recognition based? Is it not largely because we catch the echo of our own raised voice, or become aware of our menacing attitude toward our companion? Sometimes, indeed, we may be frankly doubtful whether we were angry or not, if there be no manifest evidences of it. It is, of course, very difficult to make a reliable introspection; one is inevitably prejudiced. But it seems clear to me that what we mean by “being angry” is not the enjoyment of a subjectively identifiable mental process. No psychologist, I venture to assert, ever discriminated such a process and mentally labelled it “anger” for purposes of scientific reference and comparison. Suppose he had done so, and tried to classify later experiences as “anger” or “notanger” by comparison with this. He would find himself in serious perplexity, first, because it is very difficult to recall a past emotional state for purposes of comparison; and second, because he would probably find himself using the term in an arbitrary way, and making statements which could not be verified by others. As a matter of fact “being angry” seems to cover a somewhat indefinite range of feeling. Cold, still anger is a somewhat different feeling from hot, passionate anger; nor does it seem probable that a psychologist continues to classify them as varieties of a common species because of any identical element in the two experiences. What psychology has done, indeed, just as what every science must do, is to take over classifications and distinctions from common sense and gradually to reconstruct and systematize them. In the case of the emotions, psychology has as yet made but slight progress. Anger and fear as used by psychologists are practically common-sense terms. They can be made scientific, i.e., be given that definiteness of denotation and connotation which science demands, only as they are formulated as determinate functions of behavior. If the foregoing contention is just as regards emotion, it is more evidently so as regards such a phenomenon as space-perception. Space-perception, unlike red or anger, is no particular conscious experience. Rather it designates a class under which practically all our sensory experiences fall. It can not be said of space-perception, as it is said of a sensation-quality or an emotion, that it is something we first become acquainted with in our own experience and then attribute to others. In one sense of that much-abused term “acquaintance” I am indeed acquainted with space-perception, since my experience includes or involves it; but this sort of acquaintance does not take me very far toward my goal of scientific identification and description. Just what are the specific differentiae of space-perception? The attempts to answer this question constitute a long chapter in psychological controversy. Professor Washburn judiciously speaks of it as “involving the simultaneous awareness of a number of sensations consciously referred to different points in space.” But what is a conscious reference to different points in space? It must include the experience of the two-yearold child who persistently tries to put the largest block of his nest of blocks into the smallest, and the experience of the skillful dressmaker, who after a brief inspection of an illustration of a complicated garment cuts a pattern for it offhand. “Conscious reference,” or “localization,” would seem to stand in need of further analysis before it can be made the basis of definite and hence fruitful inquiry regarding the experience of the sea-urchin or the stickleback. That a scientific study of different levels or types of

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space-perception and of their relationship to each other can be made without constant dependence on standardization in terms of stimulus and response does not seem possible. Space-perception is not an inner mental state whose relations to behavior are merely external. On the contrary, psychology is forced to treat the relationship to response as constitutive and determinative of the phenomena it studies. At this point it seems well worth while to raise the following question: How different in actual procedure and in results is a study of animal mind and behavior carried out from the standpoint of such a dualism as our author’s, from a similar study made by a behaviorist? The bulk of The Animal Mind is taken up with an investigation of the number and kind of sensory elements which enter into animal consciousness at different levels. There is first a chapter on sensory discrimination in general, dealing with the problem as to what constitutes evidence for the presence of distinct sensory qualities. This is followed by chapters on the special senses: the chemical sense (including taste and smell), hearing, and vision. Later chapters deal with space-perception, modification of conscious processes by experience, and lastly attention. In the chapter on the criteria of sensory discrimination, the author argues that the fact that an animal responds in some way to a given stimulus, e.g., sound waves, is not evidence that the animal consciously discriminates such a stimulus as qualitatively distinct. “It is not,” she writes (p. 57) “the number of stimuli to which an animal reacts that can be taken as evidence of the qualitative variety of its sensations, but the number of stimuli to which it gives different reactions.” Even this, however, we are told, is probably too simple a statement of the case. A given type of stimulus, e.g., sound waves, may be perceived as qualitatively distinct even though it brings out no specific direct reaction. If it brings out distinctive modification of other reactions we give it a place among the sensation-qualities of the animal’s experience. Now while the language used is different, and while the problems set for investigation are differently formulated, the difference between the treatment given in this and the succeeding chapters, and a frankly behavioristic treatment is far less radical than one might suppose. To ask: “Does the white rat have color-sensations, and if so which ones?” is not practically different from asking: “Does the white rat specifically discriminate chromatic wave-length?” And the case is similar throughout the whole range of sensory discrimination. The actual concrete problems which the dualistic psychologist is interested in investigating are essentially the same problems which the behaviorist is led to study. What the dualist does in effect is to add on an interpretation which can be only characterized justly as “metaphysical.” By this I mean that just in so far as the dualist claims to infer from the facts of behavior the existence of an inner order of being, related in an inscrutable manner to those facts, he is stepping outside the bounds of scientifically verifiable hypothesis and entering upon purely metaphysical speculation in the bad sense of the term. To the actual empirical investigation of animal psychology such an attempted interpretation adds no significance. The “epiphenomenal” character of such interpretation comes out clearly in the treatment of various topics. Indeed the treatment of the criteria of the presence of consciousness itself is a case in point. In the early chapter on the Evidence of Mind the

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author argues that none of the proposed tests for the inference of mind from structure or behavior is conclusive. Her conclusion is that no evidence exists for either denying or affirming the presence of consciousness in animals below the very highest, and that “for all we know it may exist in simple forms until we reach the very lowest of living beings” (p. 37). Such a position is, it seems, to me, inevitable so long as one conceives consciousness as a superadded thing related to behavior in a purely external way. For the presence or absence of such a metaphysical entity there can be no evidence. But, on the other hand, the hypothesis that such an entity is or is not present can make no difference in the scientific treatment of the concrete phenomena of animal psychology. Thus when the question is asked whether an animal discriminates the visual qualities “red” and “blue,” the actual answer of the dualistic psychologist is no whit different from that of the behaviorist. “No evidence of discrimination between two stimuli on an animal’s part,” writes Professor Washburn (p. 53), “can do more than show us that for the animal they are different; just what the quality of the sensation resulting from each may be, whether it is identical with any sensation quality entering into our own experience, we can not say. The light rays which to us are red and blue may for an animal’s consciousness also differ from each other, and yet if our experience could be exchanged for the animal’s, we might find in the latter nothing like red or blue as we know them.” The same might of course be said of the sensory discrimination of a fellow man, even though he were a trained introspectionist. To assert: “A experiences the sensation qualities red and blue,” and “A has the capacity for discriminatory response to the corresponding wave-lengths,” are not descriptions of two different facts, but merely different descriptions of one and the same fact. The belief of the dualist that there is really a difference between the two facts is a belief which, by Professor Washburn’s own admission, could only be justified by an appeal to a supernatural insight. For the supposition that “if our experience could be exchanged for the animal’s we might find in the latter nothing like red or blue as we know them,” is essentially an appeal to a sort of knowledge which only a God might enjoy, or perhaps a mortal blessed with a magic power. One might, if it were worth while, take up one after another the particular problems of sensory discrimination discussed by our author and show that the so-called psychological interpretation of the facts of behavior is either a pure piece of metaphysical speculation, or else merely such a classification of them as a behaviorist might make. The positive scientific conclusions reached in each case differ only in mode of formulation. Let one more instance suffice—the case of what is called by the dualist the “sense of hearing” in frogs and by the behaviorist the “auditory response” of frogs. The case has been of interest to investigators because frogs under experimental conditions have not given evidence of hearing, i. e., specific response to noises. Frogs do, however, possess specialized auditory apparatus and in their native habitat appear to respond to the croaking of their fellows. Observation by Yerkes3 revealed the apparent fact that they depend almost wholly upon visual stimuli for avoidance of danger. Upon experiment it was found that while no direct specific 3

Cited by Professor Washburn, op. cit., p. 130, and by Professor John B. Watson, Behaviorism, p. 387.

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response was given to auditory stimuli, such stimulation had a specific indirect effect in modifying reaction to other stimuli, which was particularly marked during the mating season, and which ceased when the auditory nerve was cut. On this evidence the dualist decides that probably the frog does possess a sense of hearing or have “true auditory sensations,” while the behaviorist is content to ascribe merely a capacity for “limited auditory response.” But unless the dualist distinguishes his conclusion as one verifiable only by supernatural insight, he must be content to equate it with that of the behaviorist. And yet in spite of what seems to me the fatal weakness of the dualist’s position, his protest against the claims of mechanistic behaviorism must be granted a large justification. As against the claims of a Bethe or a Loeb, the dualism of Professor Washburn is indeed inevitable. And such a formulation as theirs of the behaviorist position is apparently the only alternative to dualism considered by our author. The behavior of animals, in her view as in the view of the mechanists, is adequately describable as a series of physico-chemical processes, so that if psychological science can not legitimately infer inner psychical states as the accompaniment of these processes, it must confine itself to the observation and measurement of these purely physical phenomena themselves. Accordingly we find our author writing: “If a physiologist perfected an instrument by which he could observe the nervous process in my cortex that occurs when I am conscious of the sensation red, he would see nothing red about it; if he could watch the bodily movements that result from this stimulation, say, for instance, the slight contraction of the articulatory muscles that occurs when I say “red” to myself, he would not see them as red. The red is in my consciousness, and no devices for observing and registering my movements will ever observe the red, though they may easily lead to the inference that it exists in my consciousness. And precisely the same is true of all my sensations, thoughts, and feelings” (pp. 23–24; italics mine). If certain behaviorists had not actually laid themselves open to the charge of identifying red with a form of nervous discharge, it would be incredible that such a doctrine should be deemed worthy of serious criticism. Need it be pointed out that not even mechanics confines itself to existents that can be observed? As well might a metaphysical physicist declare that since no observation of physical changes yielded a glimpse of energy, he must either deny its existence outright or else assign it to a transcendental realm. The behaviorist surely can claim the same theoretical advantages enjoyed by scientists in other fields. It is open to him to assert of the subject’s red—as the physical chemist asserts of the electrical charge of the ion—that it is a function of directly observable phenomena; in this case, of discriminative responses to a set of standardized conditions. What the red may be “in itself” or for a supernatural insight with which he may imagine himself to be endowed, the psychologist has no more concern than the physicist. That such a theoretical formulation accords with the actual empirical procedure of psychology has already been argued. What stands in the way of such a formulation is the status of introspection as a psychological method. The mechanistic behaviorist would either ignore it or consign it to the scrap-heap without further consideration; while for the dualist it is enshrined as the indispensable and sacred method of the true faith. But as a matter of fact the

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one rejects it and the other clings to it for the same reason. It is because both alike regard it as a sort of observation wholly different from the observation of objective phenomena engaged in by the behaviorist, an immediate vision of an inner world hidden from all but one. The mechanistic behaviorist is led by this preconception to deny the value of the empirical fruits of introspection; the dualist, made confident by the attested value of the empirical fruits, entrenches himself the more obstinately in his theoretical conceptions. But we may ask: May not behaviorism find a place for much of the empirical procedure which is labelled introspection; and may not one be convinced of the fruitfulness of introspective investigation without becoming a dualist? That is for me the critical question of psychological methodology.

Chapter 20

The Empirical Correlation of Mental and Bodily Phenomena Grace Andrus de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract This chapter is Grace Andrus de Laguna’s discussion of the relationship between mind and brain.

Since the days when Descartes placed the soul in the pineal gland to deflect at will the course of the animal spirits and his successors formulated in return the elusive dogma of parallelism, mankind’s conceptions of the soul and its relation to the body have remained fundamentally unchanged. The modern substitute for the Cartesian view is framed, it is true, in the light of a riper knowledge of the physiological structure of brain and nerve; but the difference between a soul which controls the mechanical action of the brain through a pineal gland and one which operates more obscurely at the synapses, raising and lowering the resistance to nervous discharge, to effect its purposes, is not a fundamental one. Nor, on the other hand, has the advance in science essentially altered the conception of parallelism. Upon the familiar and dreary round of argument and counter-argument through which the long controversy between interactionism and parallelism has worn itself out, we shall not enter. The issue is not decided but it is no longer a living one. A growing sense of its futility has come upon us. It has survived so long because the only alternative to the conception of mind as a being or activity distinct from the body which has seemed possible has been the identification of the mental with the physical. In the last few years, however, changed perspectives have brought into fresh relief the unsurmounted, and, I venture to say, unsurmountable difficulties which oppose the belief in a transcendent soul, or a conscious existence sui generis. The conviction has gained ground among us that such a belief is a survival of older modes of thought, in other fields happily outgrown. But to cherish this conviction is to face the task of finding new terms in which to read the empirical facts which the older conception imperfectly embodied. The newer movements of our own day, pragmatism, neo-realism, behaviorism, have Grace Andrus de Laguna: First published in 1918 in the Journal of Philosophy, 15(20), 533–541. G. A. de Laguna (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_20

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all been, in part at least, motivated by the need for such philosophic and scientific reformulation. And amid all the confusion of present-day controversy there is to be discerned, we believe, a measure of common achievement, not yet consummated, nor capable of precise definition, but the foundation for an intellectual advance as momentous possibly as that marked by the philosophy of Descartes. It is the purpose of this paper to examine how psychological phenomena such as emotion and perception are empirically correlated with the functioning of the nervous system. The alternatives with which we are familiar are either that for every change in conscious experience there is to be found a corresponding change in the chemical, and physical processes taking place in the cerebrum; or else, that while many of the simpler conscious processes may be initiated by cerebral changes and in turn modify such changes, no general or complete, correlation is to be made out between conscious experience and nervous action. These alternatives are not, as I shall try to show, exhaustive, nor is either of them an adequate description of the empirical facts. What they both falsely presuppose is that, if there is any systematic correlation between conscious experience and the functioning of the nervous system, it must be between psychical processes and the physical or chemical changes taking place in the brain. Or, in other words, it is taken for granted that the nervous system is adequately describable as a physiological organ and its functioning as a complex set of physical processes. We find this point of view most clearly expressed in such nineteenth-century thinkers as Huxley or Tyndall. Both scientific investigators of the first rank, they were deeply impressed by the fact that research into the processes of organic matter reveals nothing but natural forces. Even the nervous impulse is nothing but chemical reaction. We do not, says Tyndall, possess the organ, nor the vestige of an organ, which enables us to pass from the mechanics of the brain to the corresponding feeling. Thus he was led to a parallelism which could point to a possible connection between a left-hand spiral motion and the emotion of love. This undoubtedly was a bit jocose, but it fairly represents the categories to which the speculation of his generation was limited. Bound to such limitations what, indeed, is left but an Ignorabimus before a final mystery? It is in keeping with this mode of thought to speculate further as to the consequences of producing in a test tube the highly complex and unstable molecules of a brain cell and stimulating them to reactions identical to those occurring in the brain of a living being. Might there not at the same time be produced a throb of simple consciousness? If such speculations as these have not been often openly indulged in, it has been common sense and not theoretical insight which has prevented. Even so modern a writer as Münsterberg is able to postulate an ultimate conscious element, simpler than the sensation, and corresponding to the reaction of a single cerebral cell as its compound, the sensation, corresponds to the reactions of a localized group of cells. This view of Münsterberg’s, however, may properly be said to represent an alternative interpretation of the correspondence theory. We may distinguish it from the psycho-physical parallelism of Tyndall, by the title psycho-physiological parallelism. According to this more cautious interpretation, the correlative of a specific mental

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process is not a geometrical figure of the dance of brain atoms, nor even necessarily a particular chemical reaction, but the occurrence of similar physiological processes in definite physiological structures. The classic doctrine of specific energy is an example in point, and indeed a large part of what goes under the head of physiological psychology belongs to this view of the mind-body relation. This form of parallelism offers certain advantages over the cruder psycho-physical formulation. It is less doctrinaire. It does not commit one to the extremes of kinetic mechanism; and it has far more regard for empirical facts. Theoretically, however, such a doctrine as that of specific energy leaves us face to face with as final a mystery as that which confronted Tyndall. And as I shall try to show it is not verified, nor verifiable, by available empirical evidence. In a sense the contention of parallelism is acceptable. For every change in psychical processes there doubtless is a change in the processes going on in the cortex. But it is equally true that for every change in psychical processes there is a change in atmospheric currents. To make the concomitancy of psychical and cortical change a significant correspondence, which is what parallelism claims, it is necessary to establish that the characteristic groupings, or phenomena, which the one presents are traceable in the other also, and that a repetition of a feature of the one matches a repetition of the corresponding feature of the other. What makes parallelism in whatever form so paradoxical a doctrine is the fact that it assumes the phenomena of nervous action to be individuated and determined by an entirely different set of principles from those by which the supposedly corresponding phenomena of conscious experience are individuated and determined. That there is a correspondence of some sort between the phenomena of conscious life and the functioning of the nervous system we should all admit. The question is: Of what nature is it? In what terms are the phenomena of nervous function which correspond to the phenomena of conscious life to be described? What the mind body problem demands for its solution is the exhibition of a principle of individuation and classification common to the two. To accomplish this would in truth be not to solve the problem but to show that its very formulation depends on untenable assumptions. For to show that two supposedly disparate systems of phenomena are individuated and classified by a common set of principles is to exhibit them not as two but as one single system of phenomena. The clue of which we are in search lies, I believe, close at hand. It is to be found in the simple insight that the central nervous system is not primarily a physiological organ. Its function is only secondarily to maintain the inner equilibrium of bodily processes which constitutes the living as opposed to the dead being. Its primary function is the adjustment of the behavior of the individual as a whole to the outer world of goods and dangers which constitutes his environment. It is in the performance of this wider function that we must find the correlate of feeling and thought, rather than in the stimulation of neurone and ganglion. It is true that each act in the performance of this function is controlled by the stimulation of neurone and ganglion. But the uniformities of function, the characteristic phenomena which correspond to psychological uniformities are not describable in physiological terms. This has been strikingly, although perhaps unintentionally illustrated for us by Professor John Watson in a recently published article, “On Behavior and the Concept

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of Mental Disease.” A distinction is commonly made by alienists, so Professor Watson tells us, between such mental disorders as are conditioned by cortical lesions, or physiological disturbance of cortical function, and those for which no physiological cause can be assigned. These last are commonly called mental or “strictly mental” disease. Such a case might be, for example, an individual who ordinarily comported himself in conventional fashion, but whom religious service, instead of inspiring to appropriate devotional attitude and behavior, irresistibly impelled to the loud utterance of outrageous and ribald remarks. What Professor Watson urges is that such cases as these are not purely mental in the sense that there is no correlative misfunctioning of the central nervous system. Many such cases he describes as wrong “habit complexes.” Now inappropriateness of habitual behavior is evidently not to be identified with physiological disturbance, although it is as evidently due to the failure of the cortex to function properly. If Professor Watson is right, it is evident—though he himself apparently does not draw the conclusion—that normal and abnormal functioning of the cerebral cortex may be distinguished, not on the basis of any determinable physiological differences, but by the relative appropriateness of the cerebrally controlled behavior to environmental—say even social—conditions. The characteristic uniformities which the functioning of the cortex exhibits to our observation, and according to which it may be intelligently analyzed, are not, then, uniformities of organic process or muscular contraction. They are uniformities of behavior in a larger sense. In the light of this conception let us turn to the examination of some of the simpler typical mental phenomena and their bodily correlates. We shall consider first the case of emotion, using fear as an example. Research has so far failed to localize this and other emotions in the cortex or in the lower centers. Yet fear, like other primary emotions, has markedly characteristic bodily expressions. It manifests itself, in fact, in a variety of ways: in flight, in hiding, in shrinking, sometimes in “freezing,” or a complete paralysis of all activity, even vocal utterance. Sometimes it impels the individual to seek the protection of some other individual, as the child flees to it’s mother’s skirts; or, again, it inspires to frantic attacks on the inciting objects. All these characteristic responses are found in man; and to these we may add the “expressive” reactions—such physiological disturbances as pallor, trembling, increased heart-beat, excitation of the ductless glands, etc. If we include the species we find even greater variety of congenital and acquired responses. Now what is the common denominator of these varied modes of behavior? There must be considerable diversity in nervous activity to issue in such diversity of response. For not only are the characteristic response different on different occasions; the stimuli which inspire fear congenitally, and as a result of simple experience, differ at least as widely. These widely differing stimuli, and the widely differing responses to which they lead, must be connected by a great diversity of central stimulation. Although various theories have been advanced, we can point to no cortical or sub-cortical “center” of fear, nor to any characteristic set of paths followed by the excitations set up by stimuli responded to as “fearful.” And while recent researches have shown that an important part is played in emotional disturbance by the activity of the ductless glands, they have failed to discover in

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such physiological activity any specific correlate to a specific emotion. Yet these varied modes of response and the differing cortical action leading to them mediate a common experience—fear. What the various stimuli have in common is no set of similar physical characteristics. It is the common relation in which they all stand to the individual, the relation of being dangerous. Similarly the varied responses fall into a single group because of the common function in averting the threatened danger. The response actually elicited on any particular occasion may, it is true, fail to avert the danger, but the normal function of such behavior remains the same. The variety of fear responses exhibited by a species are undoubtedly evolutionary modifications of much simpler reactions, possibly even the primitive avoiding reaction. But the modifications of reaction which have been selected in the race, as in the individual, have been selected and preserved because of their success in performing this function, just as the stimuli which evoke it are selected because of their dangerousness. Consequently we find civilized man not only persisting in the congenital and simpler types of reaction to danger, but acting in indefinitely varied and indirect modes as well. It is their common ancestry and the community of function in the economy of life which serves to unite the varied responses into a single phenomenon. So, too, it is the identity of the part played in this economy by the differing cortical and sub-cortical processes exciting these responses that determines the identity of the correlated conscious experience. Even if research should discover a “fear center” to which all “fearful” stimuli are transmitted and whence all fear responses are indirectly excited, the case would not be essentially altered, for we should point to the stimulation of this center as the correlate of the emotion fear precisely because of its function in coordinating such responses to such stimuli. We are now prepared to consider the ease of perception. This is more complicated than emotion since perception covers so wide a range of phenomena, and since meaning is so largely involved. Thus we may perceive a total situation, a single object, a relation, or a quality. But in none of these cases, except possibly the last, have we grounds for supposing that “sameness” of perception is conditioned by sameness of physiological process. My perceptions of my dog on different occasions, since they are perceptions of this same familiar dog, are in so far alike. But the sensory excitations from eye and ear and hand, if compared on any two occasions, would probably be found to contain no single common factor, nor is there evident reason to suppose that the perception of my dog excites any invariable motor response. Perceptual experiences are commonly classed as like or different because of identity of meaning, rather than because of likeness of sensory content, and, as is well known, physiological psychology ventures to say very little concerning the physiological basis of meaning. When we come to perception of simple sense-qualities, such as color, tone, odor, etc., however, the case is very different. Such experiences seem to be classed, both by common sense and psychology, wholly on the basis of immediately felt identities and differences, without any reference to meaning. And it is these psychological phenomena to which definitely localized cortical excitations correspond. Thus there is a well-defined visual center in the occipital lobe, etc. In short, perception of sense

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qualities is the field where the evidence for psycho-physiological, if not psychophysical correlation is most convincing. In the phenomena of vision, in particular, research has established beyond dispute that specific physiological structures condition the experiencing of the different visual qualities. Various color theories, it is true, continue to dispute the field, but all unite in the unquestioned assumption that the experience of color qualities is mediated by the functioning of correspondingly different physiological structures. Take the case of “red,” for example. Here, as in the case of other visual and auditory qualities as well, we find a definite physical correlate of the sense quality “red,” viz., specific wave-length. In order that a physical stimulus of this sort should excite the corresponding sensory quality, it must initiate a specific process in retinal end-organ, which must in turn set up processes in the cortical cells of the visual center. Now, according to the traditional view, the excitement of such specific processes in the visual center is the essential and sufficient condition for the experiencing of the quality “red.” What we have to ask is whether this view adequately represents the relevant empirical facts, or whether it is a result of the same theoretical preconceptions which dominated the thought of Tyndall’s generation. That the excitation of specific processes in the visual center is a necessary condition of experiencing “red,” is, of course, to be admitted; but that such excitation constitutes the essential and sufficient condition is not, I submit, a conclusion warranted by empirical evidence, nor is it a conclusion which any available empirical evidence could suffice to establish. For what sort of empirical evidence is adducible? The evidence from behavior only. That an individual is or is not capable of experiencing a given sense quality can be determined only by his capacity to discriminate the quality by appropriate behavior. It is only on the basis of evidence from behavior that any conclusions as to the cerebral function can be drawn. Now the ability to discriminate a sense quality like red depends not simply upon the excitation of specific processes in the sensory center, but upon the existence of an extensive system of sensory and motor connections. For such a system of connections is implied in the very act of attention itself by which the quality is perceived. Consequently, what the empirical evidence points to as the neural correlate of the sensation “red,” is not the occurrence of specific processes in the visual center, but the functioning of that center as a member of a complicated system. To suppose that excitation of the visual cells could mediate the experience of sense quality red if their functional connections with other centers were interrupted, is to make an assumption for which no possible evidence is available and which must rank accordingly as futile speculation. Let us turn to the consideration of the psychological correlates. It is often urged that the analysis and description of mental phenomena must be carried out in the last resort on the basis of introspection. “Fear” is something I first became acquainted with in my own experience, and afterwards learn to associate with its external manifestations. Red is a felt quality, knowable only in its immediacy. So all our feelings and sensations, if not our thoughts and beliefs, are something immediately and directly experienced, something whose intrinsic qualities are the private possession of each of us. I may, indeed, on the strength of the dubious argument from analogy, attribute to my fellow beings the enjoyment of inner experiences like to mine. But all that is

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open to my observation is his like behavior. It may be true, since the argument from analogy falls so far short of proof, that your feeling of fear is more like my sadness, or my anger, than it is like the fear I feel, or it may be something altogether akin to my experience. This hidden feeling of yours, unknowable by me, is like mine, indeed, in that it leads you to actions such as mine excites in me, but this likeness is merely one of external relationships. Or, again, although we both agree in calling blood red, and finding it in this respect like strawberries or the alternate stripes on the American flag, and although we both place it similarly on the color pyramid, and agree in calling it warm and the color of passion, etc., it may be that what you enjoy as “red” I enjoy as “blue,” and that only in their relations are our two reds identical. Indeed, we may go further and suppose that the whole course of your experience as immediately enjoyed by you is utterly different in felt quality from mine. Such a supposition can not be refuted—nor can it be established—for the simple reason that it is beyond the reach of any argument whatsoever. It is an essentially unintelligible supposition concerning wholly unknowable things-inthemselves. Mental phenomena, like any other phenomena, can be subjects of intelligent discourse only in so far as they are identified and described in significant terms. In what terms then can mental phenomena be significantly and intelligibly described and analyzed? If the examples which we have chosen from the fields of emotion and perception are typical, it is only by reference, direct or indirect, to their function in securing the adjustment of the individual to his environment, physical and social. The fear which the psychologist studies is not a hidden feeling cherished within his breast; it is precisely that feeling which is inspired by determinate objective conditions, and which impels him to characteristic expressions and acts. He can identify a given experience to himself as “fear” only in so far as it sends cold shivers down his back or gives him a sinking in the pit of his stomach or makes his knees shake beneath him. But even these private earmarks are phrases whose significance is set by common usage. If the foregoing contentions are just, the conclusion we have to draw is that the mental and bodily phenomena whose empirical correlation sets us our problem are not phenomena belonging to two distinct orders of nature, but phenomena which actually are, and only can be individuated and classified by common principles. Both the bodily correlates of mental processes, and the mental processes themselves, are individuated as phenomena only on the basis of their function in adjusting the individual to his environment.

Chapter 21

The Personalistic Conception of Nature Mary Whiton Calkins Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract This chapter is Mary Whiton Calkins’ articulation and defense of the personalistic conception of reality.

II The conception of the world,achieved in the first division of this paper, as made up in part, at least, of conscious beings, or selves, is not yet a fully personalistic conception of nature. For a completely personalistic doctrine must maintain, not that selves exist along with other real though non-mental beings, but that the world consists wholly of persons, or selves; and that so large a part of the world is accounted impersonal simply because the selves in whom it consists are undistinguished and uncomprehended. This paper espouses the fully personalistic conception of the universe as consisting in innumerable selves, or persons, of different levels and degrees, more or less closely related to each other. To establish this conception would demand the proof (1) that supposedly non-mental beings are really mental; (2) that mental beings are inevitably personal; (3) that more than one self may be known to exist. In negative terms, the thorough-going personalist, before he has a philosophic right to his cosmology, must successfully maintain (1) idealism against both dualism and materialism; (2) personalism against ideistic idealism; (3) a non-solipsistic, a non-subjective, form of personalism. The limits of this paper prohibit the adequate carrying out of any part of this program, but the following may serve to suggest the main outlines of the personalistic argument. 1. The personalist as idealist begins by protesting against the common practice of dismissing his case before it is heard—in other words against the naive assumption Mary Whiton Calkins: Extract, first published in 1918 in The Philosophical Review, 28(2), pp. 122– 146. Portions of this paper were read as the President’s address at the eighteenth annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association held at Harvard University, December 27–28, 1918. M. W. Calkins (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_21

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that the physical world as we know it by observation is material in the sense of being non-mental and independent of mind. The idealist, like every other metaphysician, unreservedly accepts at their face value facts of every description—facts such as redness, hotness and oscillation as well as facts such as likeness, connectedness and uniformity. He therefore begins where “common sense and science … begin, without any doubts concerning the reality of the world.”1 Whoever, however, identifies the statement that the physical world is real with the assertion that it is ipso facto nonmental is not, the idealist insists, arguing against idealism; he is simply postulating or assuming the conclusion which the idealist insists on putting to metaphysical test. By idealism is here meant frankly what is sometimes called mentalism, the doctrine that any reality—electron, brain, protoplasm as well as self or purpose—is mental.2 Stripped of unessential features3 the argument for mentalism emphasizes the fact, never disproved nor seriously disputed, that the only unchallengeable assertions about alleged material, i. e., non-mental, reality are assertions of somebody’s way of being conscious. I say for example, that the sea is blue; you insist that it is green; my only certainty, but an impregnable certainty, is that I have the experience which I call seeing blue, not the experience which I call seeing green! This argument, oddly enough, has never been better stated than by that peculiarly omniscient neo-realist, Bertrand Russell. In the third lecture of his Scientific Methods of Philosophy for example, in the effort to tell “what is known … without any element of hypothesis,” Russell says definitely: “What we know by experience,” in viewing a table, “what is really known, is a correlation of muscular and other bodily sensations with changes in visual sensations.” This is, in its essence, precisely the basal position of idealism. Russell, to be sure, at once supplements his “really known” sensations by extra-mental sense-data.4 And other neo-realists cavalierly dispose of the argument that unchallengeable statements about physical objects are all in mental terms by the remark that some unchallengeable assertions are trivial.5 They do not, however, offer any proof that the idealist’s unchallengeable assertion belongs with the trivial certainties. Accordingly, the idealist is still free to urge his fundamental thesis. If, he insists, the attempt to reach irrefragable certainty about alleged non-mental reality inevitably issues in mental and not in non-mental certainties, the philosopher is in honor bound first, to stop identifying the physical with the non-mental and second, 1

Cf. J. E. Creighton, “Two Types of Idealism,” this REVIEW, 1917, XVI, p. 525. Cf. p. 5332 ff. This conception of idealism is sharply opposed to the ‘objective idealism,’ as it is sometimes called, which consists in the “direct acceptance of things as having value or significance.” Cf. Creighton, op. cit., p. 5152 . 3 In the face of contemporary criticism it is important to remind the reader that no serious idealist from Berkeley downward rests his case either (i) on the primary-secondary qualities argument or (2) on the argument from illusion. The first of these, the idealist is well aware, may cut either way. (Cf. Berkeley, Principles, XV, and May Sinclair, A Defense of Idealism, p. 1752 .) The second he regards as decisive against many forms of realism, not as conclusive for idealism. 4 His only argument, so far as I can find, for the existence of the sense datum, is based on the involuntariness of sensation (Op cit., p. 76.) The argument is indecisive since the involuntariness is stateable in personalistic terms also. 5 Cf. The New Realism, pp. 19–20. (Macmillan Co., 1912.). 2

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to set down the alleged non-mental as, at the least, negligible for plain man and philosopher alike. 2. The personalist has next to argue for personal idealism. The idealistic conception of the world as mental does not, in the view of all philosophers, imply that it is also personal. On the contrary, a group of idealists—impersonal idealists, ideists or phenomenalists as they are called—follow Hume in conceiving the universe as through and through mental but impersonal, as consisting of a succession of mental contents or processes, psychic items or states. According to Karl Pearson and Ernst Mach, for example, well-known representatives of the school of mechanistic idealists, the world of nature with which science deals reduces to the ordered succession of ideas in the scientist’s mind; and the laws of nature are the scientist’s way of grouping and predicting phenomena. Pearson, for example, describes matter as a “union of immediate sense impressions with associated impressions.”6 The personalist has therefore to justify his rejection of ideism, this conception of the world as a great complex of succeeding mental states. The basal objection to the theory is that, thoroughly understood, it implies the very conception which it opposes. For when, accepting at its face value the ideistic theory, one asks the meaning of the statements: “This or that nature object is a complex idea”; “the course of nature is a series of ideas;” “the law of nature is an experienced routine”—one finds that there are no really, independently existing ideas, that an idea, that is, a mental experience, always is part of a self, who has the idea, who experiences. In a word, the selfless or impersonal idea, like the impersonal value, is an abstraction from the concretely real self. The world, as mental, inevitably is a world made up not of ideas, or mental processes, but of selves. The personalist is well aware that the foregoing paragraph constitutes no argument. Indeed, in the nature of the case, no argument is possible. As ultimately real, the self cannot be proved through being bolstered up by something more real; it is simply discovered, immediately known. Yet the personalist is not without resource in face of any Hume, past or present, who protests naively: “When I enter into myself … I can never catch myself.”7 For such a protest overlooks the significant fact, stressed by Augustine and Descartes,8 that self is the one reality whose existence can neither be denied nor doubted, since neither denial nor doubt are possible without a self to do the denying or the doubting. I may question or deny the existence of God or of my brother or of my breakfast without thereby implying the existence of any one of them, but as soon as I question or deny myself—ecco, I myself questioning or denying! The personalist has accordingly a right to assert the existence of the self which experiences and “has ideas.” 3. Even with this conception of the world as personal we have not, it must next be pointed out, achieved the fully personalistic conception of the world as a society 6

The Grammar of Science, second edition, p. 752 . Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Part IV, Section VI. 8 Cf. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, II, 3, De Trinitate, X, 10, and XV, I2, 26; and Descartes, Meditations, II, Principles of Philosophy, I, 7. Descartes’s self-doctrine is too often confused (by himself as well as by his critics) with his more medieval conception of the soul. 7

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of interrelated conscious beings, or selves. For directly in the path toward such a conception looms the specter of solipsism: the conception of the world as personal, to be sure, but as narrowed to the confines of myself, the only undoubtable, immediately known self. Thus conceived, solipsistic or subjective personalism as a nature philosophy differs little from impersonal idealism, or ideism. For if only I myself can be metaphysically known to exist, then the physical universe—plants and stars and evolving forms of life—must reduce to a mere system of ideas in a single mind—my mind, the mind which (on this hypothesis) constitutes reality. Now, according to the realistic critic,9 solipsism is the only valid form of idealistic personalism. My certainty of the self, he reminds me, is rooted in my introspective discovery that I can not doubt my own existence; the argument against alleged extra-mental reality pivots on the fact that what I know is my experience. Obviously, the critic insists, the only certainty here is that of myself, of the solitary me, and of my individual experience. Were it necessary to accept this conclusion each of us would accordingly be shut up to the philosophic conception of the universe as a system of his own ideas exclusively.10 A careful consideration of this criticism would, therefore, be the logically next step of this paper. But limits of time prevent this undertaking save in schematic outline. In brief: the personalist holds that the object of my alleged knowledge alike of other-self and of thing is both my own experience, or idea, and something-beside. The personalist justifies himself in asserting the existence of this something-beside-me on the ground that I directly experience myself as a limited, hampered self—limited in my perceptual experience to just these special seeings and hearings, and limited also in my personal disappointments and in my baffled purposes. But a direct experience of being limited is, as Fichte long ago suggested, a direct (not an inferred) knowledge of something existing beyond the limit. When, therefore (to repeat the old illustration), I perceive the sea as blue, my only unchallengeable certainty about the blueness is indeed my own consciousness, but I have also the certainty of being limited to just this sensation of blueness; and this direct experience of being limited includes in it the knowledge of a something-besides-me. But this conclusion constitutes the first step only of the personalist’s refutation of solipsism. He has still to show reason why the something-besides-me must be conceived as invariably personal. And here the pluralistic and the absolutistic personal idealist part company. Both find that I know objects in some sense beyond myself. The pluralist asserts that I could not know these objects unless they were essentially like me, and that non-mental and

9 Cf. G. E. Moore, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1905–06, VI, “The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception”; cf. also, The New Realism, 1912, pp. 1462 –1471 . It is not without interest to add that, some two hundred years before the rise of neo-realism, Berkeley put a closely similar argument into the mouth of Hylas. Cf. the third of the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, the passage beginning: “Answer me Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly inert beings?” (The personalist agrees with the realist in discrediting Philonous’s handling of the situation.). 10 Most neo-realists, on the other hand, unjustifiably imply that to prove idealism solipsistic would ipso facto discredit it.

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impersonal objects would be unknown.11 The absolutist, on the other hand, argues that knowledge implies identity of knower and known; that I know the Absolute by being identically a part of Him; and that I know other selves in so far as they, like me, are genuinely though partially identical with Him.12 Both pluralist and absolutist, however, argue that knowledge is inexplicable unless its objects are personal. Herewith, the second division of this paper reaches the end toward which it has hastened. It has indicated, very summarily, the outlines of the argument at the base of the conception of the universe as completely personal. No resentful hearer or reader can realize more keenly than I the indecent brevity and consequent inadequacy of this statement of the grounds of a personalistic cosmology. The main concern of this paper is, however, with the consequences of the doctrine if true, not with the arguments to prove it true. I propose, therefore, boldly to ask you, whether or not you are satisfied with the metaphysical grounds for the conception, to assume, if you do not believe, that the universe is personal and not confined to the limits of a single self. The way is then open for the discussion of the nature of the personalist’s world. III The third division of this paper is devoted to the working out, in rough fashion, of certain details of an unsolipsistic but personalistic nature philosophy, a conception of the universe as constituted by an indefinitely great number of interrelated selves. The phrase ‘great number of selves’ is used without prejudice to the possibility, which preceding pages have suggested, that the many selves may turn out to be members of an all-including Absolute Self. It matters little to students of nature philosophy whether or not this absolutist doctrine is correct. For the Absolute of modern philosophy is a respecter of persons. Therefore even if the many selves are parts of the One Self they will retain both their personality and their relation with each other through the Absolute. Fundamental to such a sketch of personalistic cosmology is a delimitation of the term self. The self, in the first place, is not the entelechist’s soul: that is to say, the self need not be conceived as having inherently a decisive influence on phenomena; it has not by definition the power to intrude itself, as ultimate cause, among phenomena.13 Self, in the second place, is not to be confused with soul, in Locke’s sense of the term: that is to say, the self is no underlying substratum, no unknown substance, no “something I know not what to support ideas,”14 but is a directly experienced 11

Cf. J. Ward, The Realm of Ends, Lecture I, pp. 10 ff., and passim; C. A. Richardson, “Scientific Method in Philosophy and the Foundations of Pluralism,” this REVIEW, 1918, XXVII, pp. 233 ff., 267 ff. 12 Cf. J. Royce, The World and the Individual, Vol. II, Lecture IV ff.; B. Varisco, The Great Problems, pp. 16 ff., 292 ff.; M. W. Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, pp. 410 ff. There is need for a fuller statement of the absolutist view and a more critical discussion of its difficulties. 13 This unqualified denial of the propriety of defining the self as an essentially potent being, a controlling influence, is not of course a dogmatic denial of the possibility of later proving the self possessed of such a power. This is in truth a question to be determined by argument. What is denied is the right to define the immediately observed, known self as a power. 14 Essay, Bk. II, Chapter 23, 15.

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reality. To turn from negative to positive: By self is meant a being essentially similar to that which any man means when he says ‘I’ or is conscious of ‘myself.’ The self is, strictly speaking, indefinable since there exists nothing else of its class from which to distinguish it. The self is, none the less, a complex being15 possessed of at least the following characters: relative persistence, or identity, which need not mean immortality; change, or growth; uniqueness, that is, irreplaceableness, or individuality; and relatedness to its environment.16 These characters of self, according to the fully personalistic conception, are directly experienced and not inferred. And it cannot be stated too unequivocally that the personalist in asserting that the world of organic and inorganic nature is, in concrete reality, a world of selves must use the word self with the psychological meaning gained through introspection, that he must mean by self a being essentially similar, in its nature, to himself. Otherwise cosmological personalism becomes logomachy, mere metaphorical play on words. The conception of the world of nature as a world of genuine selves does not, however, preclude the possibility or probability that these selves differ vastly from the human selves and from each other. One empirical consideration, later to be discussed in more detail, points directly to such differences. We believe ourselves to communicate directly with other human selves—to put questions to them, to be hailed by them and to share their experience. Such communication with inorganic nature, with plants, and with many classes of animals is either lacking or, at the least, is uncertain and unsystematized. The world of nature is accordingly in great part, to use Royce’s phrase, an uncommunicative world. From this preliminary statement of the basal principles of personalistic cosmology we must turn to detail and to argument. The personalist has first to show the psychological likelihood that beings exist, far less complex than we and yet significantly described as selves. That the higher vertebrate animals are conscious beings is commonly admitted. The question is whether we are to think of earthworms and beetles, of bacteria and amoebae, of pebbles and lichens as selves. Leibniz was first among modern philosophers in the attempt to establish the possibility of the extrahuman self by emphasizing in our human experience, the wide difference (1) between inattentive and inactive and attentive, active consciousness; (2) between simple and complex; (3) between sensuous and non-sensuous consciousness. It is essential to our purpose to study these conceptions and to begin by making them vivid to ourselves. Let each of my hearers, therefore, using Leibniz’s own method, contrast himself in the alert, interested, competent handling of an intellectual problem with himself in the first moments of waking from a very sound sleep, utterly dazed and unaware of where 15

The position: “Either consciousness is a complex entity, not fundamental but definable in terms of simpler entities … or else consciousness is fundamental and simple,” seems to be based on an illicit conversion of the proposition: “The elemental is indefinable.” This is, of course, true, but it certainly does not follow that “the indefinable is elemental.” (Cf. E. B. Holt, The Concept of Consciousness, p. 732 ). 16 On the conception of self, cf. M. W. Calkins, A First Book in Psychology, Chap. I and Appendix, Sec. I. (For bibliography cf. pp. 282 f.) “The Self in Scientific Psychology,” American Journal of Psychology, 1915, XXVI, pp. 495 ff.; The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, fourth edition, pp. 407 ff.

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he is or what he has to do, as little recognizing a past as anticipating the future. In this sleepy state he is an inattentive, sluggish, undiscriminating, inactive self; in the other case he attends, distinguishes, compares, relates, advances, controls. Between the two experiences are innumerable grades of attentiveness, weak and strong, dispersed and narrow; innumerable variations in the importance and complexity of non-sensuous, thought-factors of experience; innumerable gradations between utter passivity and complete self-initiative. The personalist appeals to this incontrovertible experience of widely different levels of our own consciousness as confirmation of the possibility of selves of many grades or types. There well may be, he insists, selves who are even more inactively and inattentively conscious than we are in the sleepiest stage which we can catch by retrospection, selves who remain at this inactive level from which we have risen, though to be sure we periodically fall back into it. These would be the relatively stable selves, which constitute what we call the inorganic world, which we conceive as unconscious mainly because there seems no hope of getting them to talk to us. And corresponding to the successively more attentive, active, discriminating levels of our own consciousness would be other types of selves—until one reached the higher vertebrates whom, implicitly or explicitly, people already treat as selves even if they do not so conceive them. Up to this point, in our attempt, following Leibniz’s clue, to attain a conception of non-human nature-selves, on the analogy of our own widely varying types of experience, we have scarcely touched upon the temporal distinction, emphasized both by Leibniz and Ward and by Royce, which may mark off one group of selves from another. In its genuinely sleepy state every self is unaware of past and future; so far as its own present consciousness goes, it is like Melchisedec “without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” It furnishes, therefore, the basis in human experience for Leibniz’s simple self (his naked monad), mens momentanea seu carens recordatione,17 the momentary, unremembering, unrecognizing self. At the lower extreme from us, according to this view, are, or may be, momentary selves, selves whose consciousness of change does not rise to the contrast of past with present and future. They are thus selves of a moment, unremembering selves. And between them and us would be, as already suggested, an ascending scale of selves roughly rated by their capacity to recall and recognize the past and to anticipate the future. Royce’s characteristic contribution to the conception of selves as temporally distinguished is well known and may best be stated in his own words. It is that of the varying time-spans. He supposes, in common with all personalists, that “when [we] deal with Nature [we] deal with a vast realm of finite consciousness of which [our] own is at once a part and an example.” He next points out that “our consciousness, for its special characters, is dependent upon a fact which we might call our particular Time-Span. If we are to be inwardly conscious of anything, there must occur some change ‘—not too fast nor too slow—’ in the contents of our feelings. What happens within what we describe as the … thousandth of a second necessarily escapes us. On the other hand, what lasts longer than a very few moments no longer 17

Theoriae motus abstract Definitiones. Gerhardt edition, IV, p. 230. Cf. Ward, The Realm of Ends, pp. 255 ff.

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can form part of one conscious moment to us. But suppose that our consciousness had to a thousand millionth of a second or to a million years of time the same relation that it now has to the … length in seconds of a typical present moment. Then, in the one case, we might say: ‘What a slow affair this dynamite explosion is.’ In the other case, events, such as the wearing of the Niagara Gorge, would be to us what a single musical phrase now is, namely something instantaneously present … This simple consideration,” Royce at once applies, suggesting, for example, that “a material region of the inorganic world would be to us the phenomenal sign of the presence of at least one fellow-creature who took, perhaps, a billion years to complete a moment of his consciousness, so that where we saw, in the signs given us of his presence, only monotonous permanence of fact, he, in his inner life, faced momentarily significant change.”18 The special use which Royce makes of this hypothesis, in the discussion of evolution, does not here concern us. We have simply to emphasize the fact that actual experience of the varying time-span justifies the hypothesis of still greater variation and thus the conception of selves with time spans so widened or so narrowed that we may even fail to know their existence. This speculative conception enlarges that gained by direct observation of our own inattentive, inactive, unthoughtful moments—the conception of the relatively simple, sensuous, stable, unremembering self. The immediately preceding pages have mainly tried to show that the conception of non-human selves makes no assumptions which are not verifiable on some level of human consciousness. In other words, emphasis has fallen on the essential likeness of the human to the non-human self. In the pages which follow, the stress will fall upon the different groups of non-human selves and on the methods of distinguishing them from each other. When the superhuman self, whether God or Absolute, is disregarded, it is found, as already suggested, that the non-human selves are most readily grouped, according as they are from our human standpoint (1) intercommunicating, or (2) communicating, or (3) uncommunicating selves—in other words, according as they either signal to us and are signalled back to, or as they signal to us without being aware of us or of our message, or, finally, as they are totally uncommunicative. It will be profitable to dwell for a moment on these distinctions and, in particular, to stress the difference between intercourse, or intercommunication and mere communication.19 Evidently, when any self (A) is in intercourse with another (B), A must be aware (conscious) of B and of B as conscious in his turn of A. Furthermore, since by self is meant inter alia a changing being, that is, a being of successive experiencings, this mutual awareness carries with it an awareness by A of B’s changing experiences and by B of A’s changes. Complete or adequate intercourse, finally, must imply a correspondence between these successive changes in A and B. Mere communication of A with B may be said to occur whenever A modifies B’s experiences, but full intercommunication, or intercourse, implies the mutual relation and the awareness of it. 18

The World and the Individual, II, pp. 227–228. Royce seems not explicitly to recognize what I have called communication. By ‘communicative’ he probably means ‘intercommunicative.’.

19

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From this statement of the principle of classification, we turn back to the problem of grouping the non-human selves. To begin with: everybody will agree to describe the higher vertebrates as intercommunicating selves. In this case we have strong empirical (if not metaphysical) evidence of their intercourse with each other and with ourselves. Nor is there any conclusive reason for limiting the group of intercommunicating selves to the vertebrates, to the exclusion of the higher anthropoids, for example. At the other extreme are the non-human selves which make up what we call the inorganic world. We become aware of their presence through such of our sensational experiences as we do not refer to the communicative selves, men or animals. Suppose, for example, that I have at one and the same time, a great complex of sense-experience—visual, auditory, kinaesthetic—not attributed to my own initiative. Part of this experience I designate as awareness of voices, gestures, and faces; and this part I regard not merely as indication of the existence and presence of other selves but as disclosing to me their changing experience. Another part, however, of my sensational experience, the perceptual awareness, for example, of hardness and grayness or of blueness and rippliness, I describe as consciousness of pebble or of lake. But in this case I am conscious of no give-and-take of experience between pebble or lake-self and me; I find no mutually varying series of changing ideas which enables me to designate or to ‘feel’ just this complex of sensation, as sign of a communicating self. I cannot, in other words, regard either one of these sensation complexes as indications of a single, individual pebble-self or lake-self with the assurance with which, when I am conscious of a gesturing, talking human body, I regard it as a sign of another self. It is true that, on the strength of my personalistic philosophy, I believe that my pebble consciousness indicates the presence of personal being. I have, however, no way of knowing that the pebble is, like my own body, the ‘phenomenal sign’ of a single non-human self. It may, rather, indicate merely one part or aspect of a non-human self, or again, it may indicate a whole group of such selves. In other words, the pebble may correspond not to a human body, as experienced whole, but to one organ or fragment of a body or else to a group of bodies. We have next to consider the status of the vast numbers of living beings, lower in the scale than the intercommunicating non-human selves, yet widely different, it seems, from the stolid inorganic world.20 We have, apparently, no intercourse with them, yet the more we know about them the more we incline to conceive them as conscious beings. For experiments on animal behavior show that animals of every class may learn by trial and error, in other words, may adapt their reactions to their environment. Not merely insects and crustacea but infusoria—the stentor of Jennings’s classical experiments,—have learned both to vary response with changing environment and even to alter their reactions to a fixed environment.21 Now this acquired capacity to vary reactions to a fixed environment is the most significant 20

Merely in the interest of brevity, the following paragraph omits any reference to the possible plant-selves. 21 “Studies on Reactions to Stimuli in Unicellular Animals,” American Journal of Physiology, 1902, VIII, pp. 23 ff. Cf. Behavior of the Lower Organisms, 1906, Chapter X, especially pp. 175 f.

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indication of consciousness. By most biologists the stentor which alters its response to a harmful stimulus and the crab which learns to shorten its progress through a labyrinth are judged to be conscious animals, that is, selves. And we may go even further. Not only is an adaptively reacting animal probably conscious; it is also in a very literal sense communicating with the observer, informing him, by its forward or backward movements, let us say, of its changing experience. On the other hand, nothing suggests that the observer makes the animal aware of his own onlooking experience. The animal is, in other words, a communicating, but not an intercommunicating self; it gives but does not take. Thus experimental observation justifies the recognition of a group of communicating, non-human selves midway between the totally incommunicative and the obviously intercommunicative natureselves. One difficult topic suggested in the preceding pages must at least be touched on.22 The distinction of the uncommunicative from the communicative selves has more than once involved a reference to the human body. These casual references have now to be amplified, and the relation between self and body to be stated in personalistic terms. (It should be emphasized at the outset that the personalist does not share at all in the spiritualistic dualist’s concern to show the independence of some aspect of self-memory or emotion or will-from the body.23 ) For, to the personalist, brain and body are themselves mental, and “the experience of the body is the body.”24 Looked at en bloc and uncritically my body may be described as follows: It is a peculiarly ubiquitous object—in the querulous words which the little girl applied to God, it is always “tagging me around “; and it has two important aspects: (1) In the first place, it is not only, like all physical things, a public object, open to other people’s observation as well as to my own, but it is a mediating, instrumental sort of object, serving to indicate my existence to other people—in Royce’s words, serving as ‘phenomenal sign’ of me.25 (2) My body, in the second place, according to the uncritical observer, is not merely a visible and audible and tangible object, perceived by other people along with me. Rather, it is also a source of unshared organic sensation, the awareness, for example, of stabbing pain, of palpitation, or of bodily vigor. This description of the body in terms of the every-day observer has now to be philosophically interpreted. In the terms of the impersonal idealist, plainly, my body is a persistent complex of sensations, visual and auditory and contact sensations, on the one hand, kinesthetic and visceral sensations, on the other. The personalist goes further. He points out, first, that sensation is somebody’s sensing and that accordingly ‘complex of sensations’ means somebody’s complex sense-experiencing. In the second place, he reaffirms 22

The paragraphs which follow, to the end of this section, have been added to the paper as read. It is curious to find Bergson, of all men, playing into the hands of these dualistic spiritualists by the teaching that memory cannot be cerebrally localized. Cf. Matter and Memory, Chap. II. 24 D. H. Parker, The Self and Nature, p. 861 . 25 It should be noted that these are only relative distinctions of the body from other physical objects. There are other persistent ways of experiencing—the consciousness of clothes and of home, for example. And there are other instrumental ideas, mediating experiences. The experience, for example, indicated by the words “using a microscope” is essential to my having that other experience designated as “seeing the capillaries of a frog’s circulatory system.” 23

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the plain man’s distinction of public from private object, that is, he describes my visible, tangible, and audible body as complex experience shared by me with the other selves who are said to see, hear, and touch me. Finally, and once more in agreement with everyday observation, the personalist describes my body as that part of other people’s shared sense experience which suggests to them the existence, the presence, of me, a self with individuality of its own. (And conversely, the part of my sense experience which I call “consciousness of other human bodies” suggests to me the presence of other selves.)26 My body as directly experienced is, therefore, according to the personalist, a complex and chiefly sensuous experiencing—in part, my incommunicable experience and in part the shared experiencing of many selves which serves as the ‘sign’ of my presence. But this description of the human body is still incomplete. It has left out of account those portions of my body which are not, and need never be, objects or parts of any one’s direct experience. For in addition to (1) my body as seen, touched and heard, and in addition also to (2) my body as ‘felt’ by me alone, in a toothache, for example, there remains (3) my body as inferred object—my body, as containing spleen and liver and cerebral ganglia, for instance. I infer the existence of some of these organs when I have watched the cook drawing a chicken and of still others when I have studied the diagrams in a physiology book or have dissected a cat.27 By the surgeon when he operates, or by the histologist, still other organs—the adrenal glands or the white blood corpuscles—may be directly observed. Yet neither adrenal glands, nor blood corpuscles, nor brain, nor liver can be described (in the way in which my directly experienced body is described) as my peculiarly constant sense-experiencing, in part private but in part shared, and serving as sign of me. The reason, once more, why my body-as-inferred is not to be described as sign of me is clearly this: neither I, nor other people when conscious of me, are inevitably or invariably or even often aware of my caudate nucleus, blood corpuscles, adrenal glands, or even of my liver and my lungs. And yet, according to careful observation and experiment, I, the conscious self, with my experience, am closely related to this merely inferred portion of my body. In particular, that part of my experience which constitutes my directly-perceived body is closely bound, in one organic system, with the inferred portions of the body. For example, my muscular reactions (directly observed), vary with changes in the frontal Rolandic region (inferred) and my bodily vigor in anger or in rage (observed) vary with the secretions of the adrenal glands (inferred). How then shall the personalist conceive these inferred portions of my body? Only two ways seem to be open to him. Either he must content himself with describing them in merely ideistic, not personalistic, terms, as inferences (and in part percepts) of the scientist, forming part of an ordered description of the world of actual and possible

26

For the sake of brevity, no reference is made to the consciousness of my body as phenomenal sign of me which, in addition to my direct introspective awareness of myself, I possess. 27 “Few of us realize the limitations of our direct ‘private’ knowledge of the interior of our bodies. Probably the most important item of it is that knowledge of something beating under our tangible and partly visible ribs.”.

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sense impressions,28 or (basing his speculation on the personalistic conception of body or bodily organ as sign of self) he must follow Leibniz and Ward in supposing that such parts of my body as are not signs of me must be signs of some other self or selves. To such selves I should stand in relation of ‘dominant’ to subordinated self or selves.29 Such selves, other than I, would have direct experience of what for me are my inferred bodily organs. I should stand to them in no adequate relation of intercommunication. For though, truly enough, they might be said to affect me, for example in my unlocalized fatigue, and though I might be said to affect them when I took chloroform or strychnine, we should yet have no mutual awareness each of the other’s awareness of him.30 It is this lack of complete intercourse which would debar me from knowing the number or the exact nature of such subordinate selves. With this parenthetical and speculative consideration of the obscure self-body relation this rough outline study of the personalistic nature philosophy must end. To sum up its main points: It has taken the term self at its introspective face value, yet has distinguished three main groups or grades of non-human self: first, the intercommunicative selves, represented by the higher vertebrates; second, a group even less distinctly limited, of selves imperfectly and one-sidedly communicative; finally, the group of selves which constitute the reality of inorganic nature, selves whom we cannot disentangle from each other or delimit, selves with whom we are apparently related but of whom we are not directly aware, with whom we have not intercourse. IV The final section of this paper attempts to state and to meet the most common of the serious criticisms urged against personalistic cosmology. Purely emotional prejudices must be disregarded since it is obviously futile to combat criticisms after the order of I do not like you, Dr. Fell; The reason why I cannot tell.

Irrationality apart, people ordinarily ignore or discard personalism, as nature philosophy, because they confuse it with what it is not. And of such misinterpretations there are at least three: 1. First and foremost, personalism is confused with pre-scientific animism and our philosophers are consequently desperately eager not to ‘compromise themselves’ with it. But the truth is that present-day personalism differs almost as much from the ancient fashion of personifying laurel trees and rivers as it differs from the modern realist’s apotheosis of mathematical and logical quantities. The modern personalist, as we have seen, turns his back on tree-selves and pebble-selves; emphasizes the differences between selves of different levels; and frankly disclaims the right to a definite conception of any selves with whom he has no communication. 28

Cf. Pearson, op. cit., chapter on “The Scientific Law.” To avoid awkwardness of phraseology, I use the plural ‘selves’ in the remainder of this paragraph but without intending to decide dogmatically between the two hypotheses. 30 The relation of this speculation to the various subliminal-self hypotheses must be passed over, since it would carry us too far afield. 29

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2. More serious is the confusion of personalism with impersonal idealism or the identification of personalism with the solipsistic form of personalism. Such theories reduce to mere series of ideas—whether or not referred to a self makes, at this point, little difference—solar universe after solar universe and geologic epoch after geologic epoch. Against this doctrine the instinctive repulsions of scientists and nature lovers are arrayed. And though this largely affective rejection of ideism and solipsistic nature philosophy cannot be accepted as a metaphysical refutation, though the achievements of Mach and Pearson and the other phenomenalists constitute proof positive that scientific progress is compatible with the adoption of this view—none the less it must be admitted that this reduction of the nature world to the compass of a single mind, to the status of succeeding ideas is, to speak very temperately, a barren and repelling doctrine. And, whether true or false, attractive or repelling, the conception of the world of nature as a series of phenomena simply is not identical with personalism, the conception of nature as a society of concretely real persons. Personalism can not fairly be rejected for characters which it does not have. 3. More important than either of these misinterpretations is the confusion of personalism with the conception of the universe as lawless. Personalism is condemned for its alleged break with the conception of natural law. To conceive the physical world as fundamentally made up of conscious beings, or selves, is held to menace the doctrine of uniformity, the assumption of predictability on which experimental science is based. The advance of science, it is pointed out, is bound up with the possibility of experiment; and experiment presupposes the recurrence of phenomena; and the recurrence of phenomena involves a uniform and necessary causal relation between them. Such a necessary uniformity, we are told, is what is meant by a law of nature; and scientific progress, it is justly held, has consisted and must consist in the establishment of laws of nature, verified hypotheses. The personalistic conception of nature, it is urged, substitutes for this conception of an orderly world of predictable phenomena, causally connected, what is virtually the picture of the nature-world as a mob, a crowd of irresponsible, capricious, lawless conscious beings. The personalist meets this formidable arraignment by protesting that it is founded on an inadequate view of personalism, and on a misconception of scientific law. To start from the first of these positions: it is of capital importance to point out that personalism is not of necessity an indeterministic doctrine. It has been so described largely because it has been confused with entelechistic vitalism which conceives the soul as possessed of genuine initiative. But the self, notwithstanding the characters which it shares with the soul, differs from the soul both in origin and in nature. Thus the soul is inferred as explanation of biological phenomena, whereas the self is directly experienced. And the inferred soul, or entelechy, is conceived as “suspending physical reactions now in one direction and now in another,” whereas the activity attributed to self is a species of consciousness, a feeling of activity. Such a feeling of power or activity is not always a consciousness of capacity for choice—it may consist, for example, in the mere expansive feeling of spontaneity, untrammeledness. And even when it does take the form of feeling of power, such a feeling may perfectly well be illusory. In other words, the active self may be a really determined

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self for all its feeling of power. It is true that most of our modern pluralistic personalisms—Bergson’s, for example,—are indeterministic, but this is not because a self is of necessity an undetermined being. Leibniz’s essentially deterministic personalism is a standing refutation of the uncritical identification of pluralistic personalism with indeterminism. And absolutist personalism offers what is perhaps the only a priori confirmation of determinism. Even more important to the present purpose than the truth that not all personalism is deterministic is the consideration that personalism even of the indeterministic type does not stand irreconcilably opposed to the conception of scientific law. Scientific law is of course to be taken not in the old, traditional and mythical sense of an inexorable sort of external force, an inexplicable coercing power, but in its truly and admittedly scientific sense, as formulation of the results of “humanity’s process of making a survey of the universe “—formulations which, as Jennings points out, reduce to predictions such as these: “When you have such and such experiences you will have such and such other experiences.”31 In a word, a scientific law is an experienced, generalized, justifiably predicted uniformity of experience. Now this conception (obviously stateable, and in fact most often stated, in personal terms) clashes with indeterministic personalism only when the uniformity is regarded as absolute, when the predicted recurrence is conceived as apodictically certain. But the temperate, experimental scientist makes no such claim. He simply postulates absolute uniformity for the purposes of experiment and description. When the union of NaCl and H2 S04 fails to give hydrochloric acid and sodium sulphate the experimenter does not, to be sure, view this as a proof of indeterminism but rather as indication that his salt or his sulphuric acid or both are impure. But this practical postulate of complete uniformity is far from constituting an assertion of axiomatically absolute nature uniformities, of necessary predictions. Here the clear thinker, scientist or metaphysician, must take his stand with Hume. Scientific laws are generalizations from experience: in the nature of the case, finite experience cannot be universal. No human being has ever seen or can ever see every particle of matter; attraction inversely as the square root of the distance is not the only conceivable relation between particles; even the law of gravitation is therefore a generalization from the widest observation, not an intuitive and axiomatic certainty, still less an inexorable compeller of the motion of particles. But when once this is admitted, as it is indeed admitted by most scientists, all incompatibility vanishes between experimental science with its postulate of uniformity and even indeterministic personal cosmology. For the nature world as the indeterministic personalist conceives it is no anarchic universe in which one event is as likely to occur as another, in which prediction is futile. Rather, the world of the indeterministic personalist is itself a world of laws; but these are statistical laws, laws of average behavior, uniformities of the conduct not of individuals but of classes. From their wide observation of the ages at which men die, the insurance companies—in spite of the great diversities of physical constitution—make up their tables of vital

31

“Doctrines Held as Vitalism,” The American Naturalist, 1913, XLVII, pp. 392–393.

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statistics, predictions of the dates of death of their clientele. From their incomparably wider acquaintance with particles, utterly simple beings, physicists formulate the law of gravitation—still a statistical law, but an indefinitely greater, indeed a practically complete approximation toward an absolute uniformity. To quote from James Ward’s illustration of the same point: Supposing that industrial statisticians “instead of trade returns from a score or two of countries had returns from one or two thousand, the inhabitants being increased a myriad fold, and being also severally vastly more the creatures of habit than men now are, we can imagine such statistics would approximate still more closely to those of the physicist. The physicist, like the statist,” Ward insists, “is always dealing with aggregates, but unlike the statist he finds the constituent individuals to be beyond his ken. The statist is aware that individual variations underlie his aggregates but they do not interest him: the physicist is ignorant of those underlying his and assumes that they do not exist.”32 Thus, for the indeterminist, in Royce’s phrase, the statistical not the mechanical (in the sense of the inevitable or absolute) is the canonical form of scientific law.33 But this conception of the nature-law as statement of average behavior, especially when applied as in physical science to the behavior of relatively static individuals, amply justifies the experimentalist in his scientific postulate of complete uniformity. A final criticism must be met. Granting all that has been said—granting that personalism is unjustly identified with pre-animism, with phenomenalism and with the doctrine of the lawless universe, it remains to the end, the critic insists, a conception totally unfitted to interpret the detailed results of scientific observation and experiment. The personalist, it is with some show of reason alleged, is shut up to the unfruitful statement: “there exist non-human selves”, but has no clue to the number or the limit of them; and knows far too little about their nature to translate into personal terms facts of chemical combination, for example, of radioactivity, or of electrical insulation. The personalist, in the face of this objection will admit, in the first place, that nature philosophy, is a more speculative doctrine than social philosophy, and, in the second place, that the physical world has often to be described in terms not of selves, but of spaces and motions and weight, not to name colors and sounds.34 To take random examples: the description of Arcturus as shining like two hundred suns, of the sun as containing sodium, iron and copper in the form of gleaming vapors—these scientific descriptions certainly are not and cannot be in terms of the sun’s or of Arcturus’s conscious experience. The personalist, to be sure, will supplement this admission by pointing out that these descriptions of Arcturus’s brilliancy and of the sun’s gases are descriptions of the world as it appears, or as it might appear, to observing scientists. In other words: even when or if we find it impossible to describe physical phenomena in an adequately personalistic fashion, that is, in terms of individual conscious beings each with its own unique experiencing and initiative, we are yet driven to describe 32

The Realm of Ends, Lecture III., pp. 65–66. “The Mechanical, the Historical and the Statistical,” Science, N. S., XXXIX, 1914, pp. 55I ff., passim. 34 All manufactured things, clothes and houses, and automobiles have to be described in these terms. 33

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these phenomena in terms of the shared experiencing of conscious, observing selves. To use Fite’s phrase in our own setting: when we are no longer able to know things as they feel, we none the less know them as they look—to us human selves.35 The personalist, however, is not content to stop here. He finds in scientific accounts of the physical world, not merely recorded observations, refined and multiplied by modern technique, of things as they look to people, and not merely laws stateable in terms of the uniform and predicted sequences of experience, direct or inferred. He finds also an irrepressible tendency to talk about corpuscles, atoms, ions as possessed of an individuality, a unique being, and, in particular, an activity and initiative of their own. “The atom,” for example, is said to start with a certain “amount of kinetic energy”36 ; radium is said to “emit energy”; bodies are held to “exert force”; “lines of force” are supposed to “repel each other.”37 These conceptions, the personalist boldly asserts, are of value, have a meaning, only as bodies and substances, thus dynamically conceived, and are virtually, though vaguely, regarded as active, initiating selves. Confirmation of this conclusion is derived from the statements of scientists and methodologists of science. Ostwald, for example, bids us study our own “voluntary activity” (Willensbetätigung) in order to “gain an idea of the content of the concept of energy;”38 Montague observes that “potential energy is … perceivable internally or by participation in it through … the muscular sense”39 ; and W. F. Cooley says: “The fact seems to be that for most investigators, as well as for men in general, the straining of which we are conscious in our own organisms when in action is accounted sufficient ground for the posit of an active something within us … which is transferred to similar situations external to us and used as the natural cue for their interpretation … That factor we call force, energy, power, at times will. It is, evidently, an object of immediate experience.”40 It will be remembered that this is Pearson’s contention. And, phenomenalist that he is, he would banish from science the conception of force excepting in the sense of “conceptual measure of motion,” precisely because he believes that force, in any other sense, “is the will of the old spiritualist separated from consciousness.”41 But Pearson and Mach avail no more than Berkeley to hold down the scientist to the purely phenomenalistic categories. Even the supposedly static characters of physical things are conceived in terms which, to say the least, are as truly personal as impersonal. Thus inertia (“the one sole unalterable property of matter”)42 is either defined in terms of passivity or inaction, as the property in virtue of which “matter cannot of itself change its own state,”43 35

Warner Fite: “The Human Soul and the Scientific Prepossession,” Atlantic Monthly, December, 1918, Vol. XXII, p. 778. 36 J. J. Thomson, Electricity and Matter, 1907, pp. 156 f. 37 Ibid., pp. 7 ff. Cf. W. F. Cooley, The Principles of Science, p. 1292 . 38 Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie, pp. 153 ff. 39 Essays in Honor of William James, p. 123. 40 Cooley, op. cit., pp. 110–111. 41 The Grammar of Science, second edition, pp. 305, 119. 42 R. K. Duncan: The New Knowledge, p. 179, quoted by Cooley, op. cit., p. 87. 43 Ganot, transl. E. Atkinson, Physics, 13th ed., p. 10.

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or it is conceived as “resistance to any change of state.” But passivity is a basal character of the perceiving self, and resistance is, once more, a form of activity. In a word, the physicist when he talks in explanatory and not in descriptive terms, really personifies his units. For change and persistence, passivity and activity would be meaningless terms if they did not suggest to each of us his own self-identity and growth, his receptivity and self-initiative. I am not arguing, of course, that these conceptual entities of the scientists, the atoms and ions and electrons which they infer to account for observed phenomena, are really existing selves. I am claiming only that they are beings constructed after the analogy of selves—constructs which are meaningless unless conceived in personal terms. And if this is true, if at the very core of speculative science lies the concept of the conscious self, then assuredly personalism is no negligible factor of a genuine nature-philosophy. In conclusion, therefore, I venture to appeal, in behalf of personalistic cosmology, for the respectful and detailed consideration which it has seldom received. Two tendencies of modern science, as this paper tries to show, seem to favor such an upgrowth of personalistic doctrine. The first of these is the prevalence, suggested in the pages immediately preceding, of dynamic theories in physics. The second is the rising opposition, evident in all the papers of this year’s discussion,44 to vitalism in the biologist’s sense of the term. Biological vitalism, as mere emphasis on the categories of order and fitness, has been rejected on the ground that the biologist has no monopoly on these categories. Biological vitalism, as a capriciously indeterministic entelechy doctrine, has been condemned as a baseless hypothesis. But the elimination of biological vitalism opens the way, as the first division of this paper seeks to show, to psychological vitalism or personalism. I look hopefully, therefore, for a recognition of the claims of personalism as soon as scientists and metaphysicians can be persuaded that it involves neither animism, phenomenalism nor crass indeterminism.

44

Cf. this REVIEW, November, 1918, passim.

Part V

Time

Abstract Part V of this book introduces and collects work on time by Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot and Grace Neal Dolson.

Chapter 22

Introduction Joel Katzav

Abstract Contemporary theories of time largely bifurcate neatly into A-series theories and B-series theories. The former take events to move through time, from future, to present to past. The latter deny that events move in this way, taking being future, present and past not to capture fundamental features of time and taking the relations of before, after and simultaneous with to do so instead. This chapter presents the distinction between A- and B-theories and uses it as a background for presenting the articles on time by Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot and Grace Neal Dolson. We will see that Calkins develops a view of time that recognises the reality of time in a way that is compatible with her absolute idealism but that fits neither A-series nor B-series views. We will see Dolson critically discussing Henri Bergson’s view of time, which rejects both A-series and B-series views. Finally, we will see Talbot offering an A-series view that is a novel alternative to familiar options such as the presentist view, according to which only the present exists, and to the growing block view, according to which the present is the edge of the growing block of time.

22.1 The Nature of Time: Some Distinctions and Views James E. McTaggart (1908) articulated two ways of conceiving of time. One of these makes use of what he called A-series concepts, that is, the concepts of future, present and past. When deploying A-series concepts, we think of each event in time as being successively future, present and past. Thus, when we conceptualize events using A-series concepts, it appears that we are thinking of events as changing their place in time and thus of time as changing. The second way of conceiving of time McTaggart articulates makes use of what he called B-series concepts, that is, the concepts of before, after and simultaneous with. When deploying B-series concepts, we represent events as being simultaneous with each other, or before or after each J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_22

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other. Moreover, we think of events’ positions in the series of events thus ordered as permanent. If an event is before, after or simultaneous with another, this is so at all times. On the B-series way of conceiving of time, then, time is not changing. For example, using A-series concepts, I can correctly say that I am presently writing a draft of this book’s chapter about time but that I will soon take a break from doing so. My writing a draft is present but will soon be past. But I can also say, using B-series concepts, that my writing this draft is before my writing the next draft, which means that my writing this draft will always be before my writing the next one. It has become common to classify theories of time according to whether they take time to change, as our use of A-series concepts seems to suggest. According to A-theories of time, time does change. Moreover, the change is in which moment is present, so that moments successively pass from future, to present and then to past. One prominent A-theory, presentism, tells us that only the present moment, and the objects and events that occupy it, exist and that which moment is present changes. A second prominent A-theory, the growing block view, tells us that only the past and the present exist, and that the past grows as new events become present (are added to one edge of the block of moments) and those that were present move out of the present into the past. According to B-theories of time, time amounts to no more than the ordering of events by B-series relations. Since B-series relations are eternal, Btheories imply that time does not change. Objects do change, but their doing so does not involve their coming into existence as the present moves. Typically B-theories tell us that an object’s changing is just its possessing different properties at different times. The B-theory also seems to imply eternalism, the view that past, present and future objects all exist. Reality, according to the B-theory, can be thought of as an unchanging block of equally existing moments and their constituents, ordered by the relations of before and after. Talk about the passage of time is thus not taken to refer to some fundamental feature of reality. Instead, such talk is explained in terms of relations between things we say or think and B-series facts. Thus, for example, B-theorists might tell us that to say that it is raining now is just to say that rain is simultaneous with one’s utterance of ‘it is raining now’ and that to say it will rain is just to say that it is raining at some time that is after the time of one’s utterance of ‘it will rain’. McTaggart used the differentiation between A-series and B-series concepts in order to argue for the unreality of time, a position that was part of his idealism. He believed that reality comprises a collection of intimately related immaterial persons (‘souls’); matter and space, on his view, are illusions. Further, like some other British idealists of his era, McTaggart believed that time is not real. The community of souls we are part of is not in time. The vast majority of those discussing time in the analytic tradition, however, accept the reality of time and focus on choosing between A-theories and B-theories, with the latter being the more popular (Emery et al., 2020). Thus, the view that time changes generally goes with A-theories and the view that time does not change is generally part of B-theories. We will see that Mary Whiton Calkins proposes, in the first of the articles included in this part, a view that is not a B-theory but that nevertheless does deny that time changes. She

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aims to develop a view that posits the reality of time and fits her absolute idealism. Grace Neal Dolson, in the third article, examines Bergson’s view, which is not an A-theory but nevertheless implies that time changes. Ellen Bliss Talbot’s discussion offers a variant of the A-theory, but one that departs from familiar A-theories such as presentism and the growing block view. Interestingly, Talbot too is an absolute idealist (see the Introduction: ‘American Women Philosophers’).

22.2 Calkins’ Irreversibility Analysis of Time Calkins was not only an idealist but also an absolute idealist. Like McTaggart, she believed that reality includes an interrelated community of finite, immaterial people. But she added that this community is part of a single, all-embracing and unchanging immaterial person, the Absolute. Given a commitment to the Absolute, there is a temptation to deny that time is real. Since the Absolute is unchanging, it seems it cannot have a past or a future and is thus not in time (Calkins, 1936, p. 460; 1930, pp. 210–212). But, at the same time, if the people within the Absolute change, it seems the Absolute must change. So, it seems that the absolute idealist needs, if he or she is to continue to maintain that the Absolute does not change, to reject the reality of change and thus of time. Indeed, many absolute idealists, including Francis H. Bradley, agree with McTaggart and deny that change and time are, ultimately, real. Calkins, we will see, does not.1 The resources Calkins has to reconcile the reality of change and time with her absolute idealism are developed in her ‘Time as Related to Causality and to Space’ (1899). She there holds that the nature of time is best captured not by the idea that objects endure through time but by the idea that time involves a succession of different states. Moreover, she characterises our idea of succession as capturing our commonsense idea of “the flight of time,” construed in what we, post-McTaggart, would call A-series terms (1899, pp. 218–219; this volume, pp. 249–250). She adds that, “if now succession is admitted to constitute the nature of the temporal manifold, it must next be distinguished from other sorts of multiplicity by its characteristic irrevocableness. The moment never returns, the past is gone beyond recall, the present is always a new phenomenon” (1899, p. 220; this volume, p. 250). Thus, on Calkins’ view, A-series concepts capture what is essential to time and what is essential to time somehow involves its irreversibility. In light of this, Calkins proposes to characterise time as the “the irreversible connexion of the irrevocable, relatively abstract manifold” of moments (1899, p. 222; this volume, p. 252). In clarifying her characterisation of time, Calkins explains what the nature of moments is (1899, p. 220; this volume, p. 251) as well as the characteristic way in which they are united or interconnected (1899; this volume, pp. 251–252). When we consider an event while leaving aside exactly what it involved, that is, when we 1

See Thomas (2015) for a discussion of British idealist views of time but note that Thomas is not aware of Calkins’ attempted reconciliation of absolute idealism and the thesis that time is real.

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abstract from the details of an event, we are considering a moment. Moments are just events considered apart from their specificities. This is why Calkins calls moments ‘relatively abstract’. Further, moments are irrevocable in that they cannot (unlike positions in space) have the permanence that permits recurrence. Thus, an object can be at a single position in space at different moments but cannot be at a single moment more than once. Travelling back in time is, on Calkins’ view, impossible. In what sense, however, does the temporal manifold involve an irreversible connection? Calkins tells us that, necessarily, moments are part of the manifold of moments. Moreover, this necessary unity arises because each moment depends directly on the moment that immediately precedes it and, via this dependence, indirectly depends on all preceding moments. The dependence between consecutive moments is, Calkins makes clear, a form of necessary connection. It is not possible for a moment to obtain without the preceding one’s doing so. Further, the dependence is asymmetrical. Prior moments do not depend on the ones that follow (1899, pp. 221– 222; this volume, pp. 251–252). It is this asymmetrical relation of dependence which makes the order of moments irreversible. Keeping in mind that Calkins’ view is that the temporal order is an A-series order, the above means that she thinks that A-series facts obtain in virtue of a dependence between moments. More specifically, what makes it the case that one moment, x, is present and the preceding one, y, is past is that x depends on y while y does not depend on x. Thus, if Calkins is correct, each moment is present relative to the moments that precede it, and what makes it present and them past is just that the moment depends on past moments while they are not dependent on it. There is thus supposed to be a fundamental ontological difference between the present and the past. The commitment to this objective difference means that, on Calkins’ view, Btheories mistakenly assume that time can be fully characterised in B-series terms. Nevertheless, she agrees with the B-theorist that time does not really change. All there can be to the passage of time, on her view, is being further on in the chain of dependent moments. The further a moment is in this chain, the more moments are past relative to it. And a moment’s place in the chain of dependence is unchanging. By implication, it seems, past, present and future exist. As for the before and after relations between moments, it seems she must think that they are fixed by the dependencies between moments. Each moment is always present and future relative to, and thus after, those moments upon which it depends, either directly or indirectly. And each moment is always past relative to, and thus before, those moments which depend on it directly or indirectly. We can now finally see how Calkins might reconcile her absolute idealism with the belief in time and change, that is, might make sense of the view that all finite selves change and are part of the Absolute, while the Absolute does not change. For what supposedly constitutes the passage of time on her view, and thus what makes change possible, are the relations of dependence between moments. But the Absolute is, on her view, all-inclusive and thus is not subject to any kind of dependency. Presumably, then, it is not in time and thus not subject to change. In support of her view of time, Calkins notes that, when we attend to something in our surroundings or to a specific topic of thought, our sense of time is lost. On the

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other hand, when we are aware of time, we are no longer focused on some specific state but are comparing a multiplicity of moments. Thus, she claims, we do have a sense of time as an abstract multiplicity (1899, p. 223; this volume, pp. 252–253). We also have a sense of the way in which the present depends on the past. When we are aware of a change, we are aware of an ‘inner connection’ between the present and the past; we are aware that the present moment could not exist without the previous moment. Moreover, we cannot deny our awareness of this dependency because we inevitably recognise a present moment for what it is, e.g., a present lifting of one’s hand, through an awareness of what preceded it (1899, pp. 223–224; this volume, p. 253). Although Calkins takes time to be a form of necessary connection, she resists reducing it to causation. On her view, time and causation are two distinct, fundamental categories. What distinguishes causation from time is supposedly that causation relates events, that is, recall, concrete goings on in time, rather than moments. Other than that, however, causation and time are the same. Causation is the irreversible connexion of the irrevocable, concrete (rather than relatively abstract) manifold (1899, p. 222; this volume, p. 252).

22.3 Talbot on What We Can Learn About Time from How We Evaluate a Life Absolute idealism also provides part of the background to Talbot’s article, ‘The TimeProcess and the Value of Human Life II’. As noted above, Talbot was an absolute idealist and a common absolute idealist position involves denying the reality of time and change. Talbot aims to argue that such a denial would require a radical rethinking of our system of values. In part I of her paper, which is not included in this collection, she argues that humans tend to place greater weight on the value of the later stages of a (human) life in deciding its worth (1914). In part II, she argues that deciding the worth of a life in this way presupposes not only the reality of time but also its being more than a matter of the ordering of moments, or even of their irreversibility. Our decisions about the worth of a life, further, presuppose a certain view of the relationship between human beings and time (1915; this volume, chap. 24). These presuppositions, according to Talbot, are a problem for the denier of the reality of time who, typically, is not ready to radically revise the way we evaluate lives (1915, p. 19; this volume, p. 263). Interestingly, Talbot’s argument not only applies to those who, like McTaggart, deny the reality of time, but also to those who, like Calkins, offer an account of time which grounds time in irreversibility but do not radically revise their evaluation of lives; Talbot would claim that the latter fail to offer an account of time that is consistent with how they evaluate lives. Similarly, Talbot’s argument raises a challenge for contemporary theories of time according to which

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time can be fully characterised in B-series terms. Such theories generally do not come with a consideration of their implications regarding the value of life. There are, according to Talbot, four kinds of values in terms of which we estimate the value of a life: moral values (good/bad), intellectual values (truth/falsity), aesthetic values (beauty/ugliness) and affective values (pleasure/pain) (1914, p. 634; 1915, p. 17; this volume, p. 261). The question she asks is whether we take the worth of the attainment of one of these values to be affected by which part of a life it occurs in, e.g., early adulthood or middle age (1914, p. 634). She argues that we do. Thus, for example, she argues that substantial suffering early on in life tends to be thought to be atoned for by pleasure in later life, even if to some extent the pleasure in later life is not greater than the suffering in early life. Pain in later life is not atoned for by pleasure in early life, she holds (1914, pp. 634–635). That we suppose that early suffering can be atoned for by later pleasure is supported, according to Talbot, by two observations. First, when making our choices, we tend to make choices that, other things being equal, defer our pleasures, thus indicating that later pleasure is taken to have increased value. Second, we would prefer a life in which suffering precedes pleasure rather than the converse (1914, pp. 636– 639). Similarly, we can see that early moral defects are to some extent taken to be compensated for by later moral virtue, while moral defects later in life tend to suggest overall moral failure. We, on the whole, judge harshly a life that begins with much generosity and enthusiasm but ends up impoverished and focused on lamenting trivialities. So too, we judge harshly a career that begins in an upright way but ends in moral downfall (1914, pp. 639–640). What kind of view of time is compatible with our assumptions about the value of life, according to Talbot? To begin with, the order of events in time and the irreversibility of time must be supposed to be real. If they were not real, there would be no distinction between earlier and later and thus no possibility of preferring what goes on in one over the other. All we could admit is “a whole whose parts exhibit various degrees of good and bad” (1915, p. 20; this volume, p. 263). Further, there must be more to the time-flow from future to past than the irreversibility of time. For only if there is more can we make sense of the idea that the good that happens at some time cancels out the bad that happened at an earlier time (1915, pp. 20 and 30–34; this volume, pp. 263 and 269–272). Thus, Talbot’s argument here applies to positions which, like that of Calkins, identify time with an irreversible order. We can add that her argument applies to B-theories because of their thesis that time comprises events related by B-series relations. In such a series, the past and present stages of a life are located on non-overlapping, unchanging regions of time, so that it seems that the value of one stage cannot cancel out the value of another. Talbot’s argument thus far suggests that our way of evaluating lives presupposes that time is real but also that the past is not just some place that is like the present and is inaccessible from the present. She, however, also argues that we cannot simply deny that the past exists. More specifically, she argues that it will not help to appeal to a form of presentism according to which the time-flow involves (a) things coming into existence when becoming present and (b) things ceasing to exist, without a trace, when becoming past. Such a view suggests that all stages of a life are equally valuable.

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Each stage will, after all, exist for a while, just like every other (1915, p. 22; this volume, p. 264). Talbot, accordingly, concludes that our evaluative practices imply that, in some sense, the past does retain a degree of reality as well as that it cannot continue to exist untransformed. So too, she concludes that our relation to time is not just that of our having non-overlapping stages occupying different periods of time. More positively, she proposes that our implicit presupposition is that each of a life’s “successive stages includes within itself all the preceding ones, and includes them in such fashion that they are at once preserved and transformed” (1915, p. 22; this volume, p. 265). Not every way in which the past might be taken to be preserved and transformed in the present as a result of the passage of time will save our way of evaluating human lives. One can take the past to be preserved in the present by virtue of a subset of the effects of the past, namely memories. So too, once can take the past to be preserved in the present by virtue of the past’s broader causal role in making the present what it is. However, Talbot observes, that some past event, e.g., a misdeed, that detracts from the value of a life, is remembered is almost always irrelevant to whether that past event is eventually atoned for by later events. To be sure, the value of pleasure and pain is a case that is somewhat different from the other values appealed to in evaluating a life. In the case of pleasure and pain, we do speak of a remembered pain as marring a present one. Still, when we do this, it is the present memory that affects the value of the present pleasure or pain (1915, p. 23; this volume, p. 265). More broadly, when the value of some past stage causes some future stage, it is not usually the case that the value of the past stage causes that of the latter. Instead, what usually happens is that the earlier source of value is replaced by the latter one (1915, p. 24; this volume, p. 266). For example, it is not usually the case that the pain-free experiences of youth cause the suffering of old age. Rather, something else, some misfortune or the nature of aging, is the cause. So, it seems that it is seldom that past pain (pleasure) will explain the current, potentially compensatory pleasure (pain), and thus that the effects of past pain (pleasure) might be relevant to any later compensatory effects.2 In what sense, then, must the past be preserved in a later stage of life for what occurs in the past stage to be possibly cancelled out by what happens later? Talbot’s response is that, at least when it comes to humans, the latest stage of an individual’s life must include the earlier stages “enlarged, enriched and transformed” (1915, p. 25; this volume, p. 267). On her view, when a present event involving humans becomes past, the event continues to exist in the present. So, Talbot thinks that our past does continue to exist. And yet, our past exists as a part of the present, so that the passage of time is the inclusion in the present of more and more. Our present thus includes our past and a bit more, and it is only when we die that we are wholly present. This view of time and its relation to ourselves allows us, holds Talbot, to say that later stages of 2

These arguments continue to apply if it is assumed that time does not change. So, Talbot is here also showing that those who believe that time does not change cannot appeal to memory or to causal connections between the past and the present in order to reconcile their views of time with our way of evaluating human lives.

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life are more important in determining the value of a life because later stages include, but are more than, earlier stages. And this view of time makes sense of the idea that a later stage of life can to some extent cancel past good or evil because past stages are transformed as time goes by (1915, p. 26; this volume, p. 267). We have seen that, unlike Calkins, Talbot thinks that the A-series way of thinking about time does capture a real change in time. The passage of time does include the coming into existence of new moments and events. The future is not just a currently inaccessible part of reality. So, Talbot rejects B-theories. But Talbot also rejects the idea that only the present exists, as well as the claim of the growing block view that our past is some real, but to us inaccessible, part of reality. Instead, she takes our present to include the past as a developing part.3

22.4 Dolson’s Interpretation and Critique of Bergson’s Conception of Time Dolson offers a sympathetic reading of Bergson, as well as a critique of his philosophy. Dolson’s Bergson tells us that ultimate reality is revealed to us when we cease to reason and to analyse and instead attend to inner experience, that is, experience of the self, when feeling and willing. In such experience, we have the immediate intuition or awareness of fundamental reality. And what immediate intuition reveals to us is duration. Duration is here to be characterised as continuous change that does not involve some permanent self that underlies change. Further, the experience of change is the experience of successive elements, the nature of each of which essentially depends on–it could not be what it is without–that of those that preceded it, just as what we hear when we hear the final notes of a melody depends on the earlier, heard elements of the melody. And, also like a melody, the earlier elements in the succession are somehow retained in the latest additions to the succession and, because of this retention, each addition to duration is something new (1910, pp. 580–581; this volume, pp. 276–277). Our intellect is focused primarily on facilitating action and, as a result, distorts what is revealed to us in inner intuition. The result of this distortion inevitably pervades language, common sense and science, and involves representing time as being analogous to space. In particular, the successiveness or temporality of duration– that is, time–is represented as a series of independent, identical moments at which quantifiable events occur, just as space is represented as a series of independent, identical locations at which quantifiable events occur (1910, pp. 581–582 and 584; this volume, pp. 277–279). In reality, according to Bergson, neither time nor the successive psychic states in time, can be quantified and thus quantitatively compared. 3

Talbot’s view of our relation to time differs from those typically associated with A-theories and B-theories. A-theories tend to come with the assumption that we exist wholly at each moment in time. B-theories tend to come with the assumption that non-overlapping parts of ourselves occupy different times.

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They are purely qualitative. Another way of putting this is to say that the elements we find in duration are unique complexes or multiplicities. For example, the intensity of a pleasure is not a matter of the pleasure having some quantity it shares with other pleasures to a greater or lesser extent, so that they can be quantified and compared, as lengths are. Rather, each pleasure is a unique whole, and a more intense pleasure is one that is more complex and that colours the context in which it is found in a more comprehensive way (1910, pp. 582–583; this volume, pp. 277–278). The reason why planning for actions leads to representing time in a way that is analogous to the way in which we represent space is supposedly as follows: in order to plan an action, we must conceptually separate our current situation from our goals, as well as delineate a number of steps that are to be taken to reach our goals. We thus must represent reality as involving discrete, distinct elements. So too, we must represent these elements alongside each other, as if they were laid out alongside each other in space rather than being elements in successive stages of duration (1910, p. 584; this volume, pp. 278–279). Bergson’s position about time has two more features that should be emphasised here. First, even the distinction between future, present and past distorts the nature of time by representing it in the form of a line and thus as comprising similar, distinct moments (1910, p. 584; this volume, p. 279). Second, Bergson agrees that the past is retained in the present in its entirety and is retained in the form of unconscious, ever growing memory, conceived of as a repetition of what is perceived. When memory is recalled to consciousness, this is done in a selective way and primarily as a function of practical needs (1910, pp. 588–590; this volume, pp. 281–282). Dolson raises two challenges for Bergson’s view of time. First, she notes that intuition does not point univocally towards the view that the self’s experience is the experience of duration. Instead, she points out, some of us are just as likely to hold that introspection does reveal a stable self or character under the ever-changing flux of experience. Even those who might agree with Bergson about what intuition reveals need not agree with him about its significance, depending on whether they trust in intuition more than they trust the analyses of the intellect. We need, accordingly, more than an appeal to intuition in order to decide in favour of Bergson about duration (1911, p. 55; this volume, p. 286). Indeed, we can imagine that here Dolson is speaking on behalf of positions such as that of Calkins. In asking whether intuition sides with Bergson, Dolson is indicating that positions such as Calkins’, according to which there is an eternal perspective from which changes in time can be viewed, do have a basis in intuition. Calkins, recall, also appeals to experience in justifying her analysis of time. The second of Dolson’s challenges is for Bergson to explain what memory is in a way that is consistent with his account of duration. Much of duration, it seems, is memory. But memory is mostly unconscious and thus no more than a condition for the possibility of consciousness. It is, however, not clear how a condition for the possibility of consciousness is psychical rather than material. Bergson, accordingly, appears to be committed to accepting that memory and duration are material phenomena. At the same time, Bergson identifies consciousness and duration with

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activity; recall, what we find when we turn to inspect our inner states is the successive activity of duration. Accordingly, it seems, Bergson is also forced to identify duration with consciousness (1911, p. 55; this volume, p. 286). Interestingly, one can view Talbot as offering a way out for those who want to maintain something like Bergson’s view of time. As Talbot is aware, her position is in some ways similar to Bergson’s (1915, pp. 28–29; this volume, p. 269). She too views the past (at least in the case of humans) as in some sense being a constituent of the present and she too thinks of which moment is present as eternally changing. However, unlike Bergson, she does not conceive of the past as unconscious memory or of change as consciousness and thus does not have the difficulty of reconciling her account of the past with that of the present. What allows her to avoid falling into this difficulty is partly that, for her, the past makes no particular reference to subjective experience; it is not a repetition of perception. Further, Talbot, unlike Bergson, does not appeal to inner intuition in order to support her view of time. Rather, she makes use of the intellect. She tries to argue that we already are committed to something like this conception of time by our ordinary practices of evaluation. It is worth, finally, noting that Talbot’s position has perhaps a third advantage over that of Bergson. Talbot is not committed to an extreme contrast between time and space. In particular, she is not, with Bergson, forced to suppose that even A-series talk fails accurately to represent temporal succession.

Bibliography Calkins, M. W. (1899). Time as related to causality and to space. Mind, 8(30), 216–232. Calkins, M. W. (1930). The ‘Credo’ of an absolutistic personalist. In G. P. Adams & W. M. P. Montague (Eds.), Contemporary American philosophy (pp. 197–218). George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Calkins, M. W. (1936). The persistent problems of philosophy: An introduction to metaphysics through the study of modern systems (5th ed.). The MacMillan Company. Dolson, G. N. (1910). The philosophy of Henri Bergson, I. The Philosophical Review, 19(6), 579– 596. Dolson, G. N. (1911). The philosophy of Henri Bergson, II. The Philosophical Review, 20(1), 46–58. Emery, N., Markosian, N., & Sullivan, M. (2020). Time. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter ed.; E. N. Zalta, Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/time/ McTaggart, J. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 17(68), 457–474. Talbot, E. (1914). The time-process and the value of human life. I. The Philosophical Review, 23(6), 634–647. Talbot, E. (1915). The time-process and the value of human life II. The Philosophical Review, 24(1), 17–36. Thomas, E. (2015). British idealist monadologies and the reality of time: Hilda Oakeley against McTaggart, Leibniz, and others. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(6), 1150–1168.

Chapter 23

Time as Related to Causality and to Space Mary Whiton Calkins Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract In this chapter, Mary Whiton Calkins examines available conceptions of time and develops her own reconceptualization of it.

23.1 The Phenomenal Category of Necessary Connexion Two fundamental errors, one positive and one negative, still contribute to a radical misunderstanding of the nature of time. Metaphysicians insist, as they have insisted for centuries, on treating Time and Space as analogous, and on attributing to the one the characteristics of the other; and, with the same persistence, they overlook the fundamental and far-reaching likeness between Time and Causality.1 This paper aims to suggest the proper relations of time to causality and to space, and their common reference to a more ultimate category. Everybody will agree that all three may be regarded as varying sorts of unification of different kinds of multiplicity; causality as a connexion of events, time as a series of moments, and space as a relation of points or positions. This unity is, however, phenomenal, not ultimate; a connexion of facts,2 that is of relatively separate, artificially isolated portions of 1

Translations of German quotes by Andreas Spahn. Cf. Bradley’s definition of facts, Appearance and Reality, p. 317. “Any part of a temporal series... can be called an event or fact, for it is taken as a piece....”. 2

Mary Whiton Calkins: First published in 1899 in Mind, 8(30), 216–232. M. W. Calkins (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_23

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reality—qualities, things, events or moments—‘accepted’ without investigation. This relative separateness and independence, which is an essential characteristic of the phenomenon, makes it a convenient object of scientific observation and classification, but debars it from the claim to ultimate reality, on any monistic hypothesis of an absolute unity underlying all multiplicity. To the idealist, for instance, to whom the universe is fundamentally the vital unity of individual selves within an absolute self, the temporal, spatial or causal relation of phenomena is through and through mechanical, superficial rather than essential; a connexion, relatively extrinsic, of isolated bits of reality regarded as relatively independent. Yet however he denies its ultimateness, however strenuously he claims the existence of a deeper unity, monist as well as pluralist acknowledges the subordinate categories of phenomenal reality, that is the unifications of the superficial facts of experience. Of these forms of what is at least phenomenal unity, two may be clearly distinguished: identity, that is the unity of the ‘thing’ or ‘quality’ with itself, in spite of the multiplicity of its temporal moments; and necessary connexion or the unity of the many with each other, that is, the relation, direct or indirect, of every bit of reality with every other, just by virtue of their both forming part of the same world. Such a reduction of the principles of phenomenal unity is suggested to the careful student by an elimination of categories from Kant’s elaborate table: for the categories of Quality turn out to be attributes of sense elements, and not in any true sense functions of unity; those of Quantity prove their practical identity with time and space; and the categories of Modality are admitted by Kant himself to stand on quite another footing from the others—being virtually, indeed, mere varying expressions of his insistence upon the greater reality of the sensuous. The true functions of unity are evidently, then, to be sought under the head of ‘Relation’; and there, we find, Kant recognises substance or permanence (a modification of identity), Causality or the necessary connexion of the Successive, and Reciprocal Determination, or the necessary connexions of the simultaneous. So Schopenhauer, whose metaphysical doctrine has failed, unhappily, of its rightful influence, because overshadowed by his ethical system,—Schopenhauer, though he overlooks permanence and identity, reduces the categories to one, that of necessary connexion, or, as he names it, Grund, of which time, space and causality are subordinate forms. “Alle unsere Vorstellungen,” he says, “stehen unter einander in einer gesetzmässigen Verbindung, vermöge welcher nichts für sich Bestehendes und Unabhängiges, auch nichts Einzelnes und Abgerissenes Objekt für uns werden kann. Diese Verbindung ist es, welche der Satz vom Zureichenden Grunde ausdrückt.”3 To discuss both sorts of phenomenal unity would lead us too far afield. We are more concerned with this last named, so clearly described by Schopenhauer; the necessary relation of all the diverse facts of the universe to each other, a principle of unity manifested in many ways, by the combination of qualities in a thing, by 3

Vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom Zureichenden Grunde, § 16. Trans.: “All our representations,” he says “are in a relation which is governed by laws, according to which nothing that exists solely for itself or independently, nor something isolated or disrupted, can become an object for us. It is this relation which is expressed by the principle of sufficient reason (Grund).”

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the coalescing of feelings in a mood, by the grouping of mathematical quantities in a series, or by the rhythm which binds together notes in a scale. The thesis of this paper is the assertion that Time and Causality are subordinate forms of this principle of the Necessary Connexion of phenomena, and that the third and co-ordinate form of the category is Reciprocal Determination, not, as is often stated, Space.

23.2 Time (a) The Temporal Manifold The reduction of these categories to the one fundamental principle of necessary connexion is best justified by a more detailed consideration of each one of them, and an investigation of the nature of time becomes therefore our immediate problem. To the question, What is time? the traditional answer is from the outset unsatisfactory, for it enumerates two distinct attributes of time, duration and succession, without giving an inkling of their relation to each other. But at the first glance, these so-called time-relations reveal themselves as directly opposed; the first is a form of unity, the second a kind of multiplicity; and yet duration is in no sense the unity of the successive, but quite a different sort of unity; it is a form of identity which consists in the oneness of one phenomenon with itself rather than that of many phenomena with each other. Duration, or permanence, is identity, regarded in direct comparison with succession and, in fact, measured by succession.4 Now if we are to choose between succession and duration as expressions of the real nature of time, there cannot well be any doubt of the decision. Things endure, qualities persist, one experience outlasts several others, but the essence of time is its restlessness, and the nature of time is the multiplicity, the succession, of its moments. The temporal sequence of course implies an enduring permanence, and is known only by contrast with it, but the succession, not the duration, is truly temporal. Everyday reflexion has always, indeed, identified time with succession, and has sharply emphasised its opposition to duration or permanence; the “flight of time,” the elusiveness of the moment, the stream of time, are all expressions of our ordinary consciousness. Nor is there wanting the sanction, sometimes perhaps unwitting, of the great masters in philosophy. “Die Succession,” says Schopenhauer,5 “ist das ganze Wesen der Zeit.”6 “Time in its first appearance,” Hume declares,7 “can never be severed from 4

Cf . Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, § 4, p. 11 (8te Auflage): “Das Zugleichsein vieler Zustände aber macht das Wesen der Wirklichkeit aus, denn durch dasselbe wird allererst die Dauer möglich, indem diese nur erkennbar ist an dem Wechsel der mit dem Dauernden zugleich Vorhandenen” (Trans.: “The simultaneous presence of different states is what constitutes reality because it is only through this that duration becomes possible, for duration is only known by being compared with a cooccurring change”). 5 Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., § 4, p. 9. 6 Trans.: “Succession,” says Schopenhauer, “is the whole essence of time.” 7 Treatise, book i., pt. ii., § 3, Green & Grose, ed. i., p. 343.

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such a succession of changeable objects.” “Time is nothing,” is Berkeley’s expression,8 “abstracted from the succession of ideas.” The theory is sometimes upheld, even by Kant, though his usual view is that succession is merely one of the modes of time,9 while occasionally he makes the misleading statement that permanence is the substratum of time, or even identical with time, of which accordingly succession is denied.10 Before the appearance, however, of the second edition of the Kritik, Kant had realised the inaccuracy of such statements, and a manuscript note in his own hand makes the comment: “Hier muss der Beweis so geführt werden dass er nur auf Substanzen als Phenomena aüsserer Sinne passe, folglich aus dem Raum”.11 The suggested correction does not, however, appear in the second edition text of the Analogy, which, on the other hand, even adds the unequivocal sentence, “Die Zeit … bleibt und wechselt nicht”.12 But in a new section, introduced in the second edition— the Allgemeine Anmerkung zum System der Grundsätze—Kant says definitely, “Der Raum allein bestimmt beharrlich, die Zeit aber, mithin alles was im inneren Sinn ist fliesst beständig”.13 ,14 The tendency to foist permanence upon the restless nature of time is clearly the result of the misleading habit of making time analogous with space. We of modern times owe much of this misunderstanding to Newton’s Principia, and one can hardly read the Scholia of Proposition VIII without realising that this “time absolute, true and mathematical” which “flows regularly (aqualiter fluit)” and which is nevertheless credited with duration, that is with permanence, is but the pale abstraction from absolute space which “ever remains like and immovable (semper manet similare et immobile)”. In the same way, the sections on Time in the Kritik owe their obvious 8

Principles of Human Knowledge, § 98. “Die drei Modi der Zeit sind Beharrlichkeit, Folge und Zugleichsein” (Trans.: “The three modes of time are perseverance, effect and simultaneous existence”). Kritik der reinen Vernunft, editions A., p. 177; B., p. 219. 10 Op. cit. A., p. 183, B., p. 226. “Die Beharrlichkeit drückt überhaupt die Zeit aus. Denn der Wechsel trifft die Zeit selbst nicht, sondern nur die Erscheinungen in der Zeit” (Trans: “Persistence is what in general expresses time…Because change does not affect time, but only appearances in time).” 11 Nachträge, lxxx. Trans.: “Here the proof must be conducted so that it applies only to substances as phenomena of the external senses, thus of space.” 12 Trans.: “Time…remains and does not change.” 13 Trans.: “Only space persistently determines duration, but time, and everything which is part of inner sense, flows continually.” 14 The truth is that there is hardly any part of Kant’s teachings so full of verbal inconsistencies as his doctrine of time. The constant juxtaposition, in successive paragraphs and even sentences, of glaring contradictions like those which have been quoted, amply justifies the critical theory of the Kritik, as written bit by bit and carelessly put together. At least three positions are assumed: (1) the theory that time is fundamentally “the permanent,” and thus the substratum of succession and co-existence; (2) the theory that permanence is one of the modi, attributes or dimensions of time; (3) the theory which contradicts the permanence of time, as in the words, “Das Zugleichsein [ist] nicht ein Modus der Zeit, in welcher keine Theile zugleich sondern alle nach einander sind” (Trans.: “Simultaneous presence is not a mode of time, in which no parts are simultaneous, but all follow each other”). Cf . Reflexionen, pp. 366, 368 and 373. 9

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weakness to the failure inevitably attending every effort to treat spatial and temporal reality after the same fashion. If now succession is admitted to constitute the nature of the temporal manifold, it must next be distinguished from other sorts of multiplicity by its characteristic irrevocableness. The moment never returns, the past is gone beyond recall, the present is always a new phenomenon. More closely studied the ‘irrevocable event or moment’ differs from the ‘revivable’ thing, in that its manifold lacks the identity which belongs to the latter. The ‘moment’ is precisely such a phenomenon as has no permanence and will not recur, while the ‘position in space’ has an identity and thus a permanence and unchangeableness, such that it may be observed again and again. It is for this reason that Kant, as has been shown, in his later discussion treats permanence as a spatial relation, while Schopenhauer repeatedly emphasises15 the “starre, unveränderliche Beharren des Raums”.16 It will be necessary, later, to widen a little this distinction between irrevocable and revivable, so as to include within the latter class mathematical and musical, as well as spatial, series. At this point of our study we have to differentiate the abstract from the concrete succession, that is, moments from events. The distinction is psychologically an abstraction, since we are never conscious of empty time, but always of past, present and future events, but the abstraction is a justifiable one, and we do mean always, by ‘the moment,’ the relatively empty unit of a successive manifold, the event in which the object of our attention is not any part of the specific content—colour or sound or emotional tinge—but just the bare fact of its being one of an unrecurring series. (b) The Temporal Unity Up to this point the temporal manifold has been the topic of discussion. But time means more than bare multiplicity, and its moments are regarded not only as many but as unified or connected. This connexion is moreover considered to be ‘universal,’ that is it is predicated of every possible phenomenon, so that the separateness of the phenomenon is only relative, and just by virtue of being ‘event’ or ‘thing’ it is by hypothesis one of a connected multiplicity. And this universality which is attributed to phenomenal connexion follows from another characteristic, its necessity. By the necessity of connexion is meant that the synthesis of the manifold depends on somewhat more fundamental than itself, that is upon the fundamental unity of reality which makes it impossible that any unconnected manifold should exist. This is the sort of necessary connexion, a phenomenal synthesis, founded upon an ultimate unity, which Kant shows by his transcendental deduction of the categories; and the establishment and explanation of this unity form Kant’s real answer to Hume. Only a pluralist, therefore, can deny the necessity of phenomenal connexion, and conversely no one who affirms the universality of such a relation can consistently defend the pluralist metaphysics. The necessary temporal unity is, moreover, of a particular sort. Geometrical magnitudes, for instance, are also of necessity connected, but the relation of one 15 16

Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., § 4, p. 11. Trans.: “rigid, unchanging persistence of space”.

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angle to another differs in one marked respect from the relation of one moment to another. The temporal series is not only connected but irreversibly connected, that is, past, present and future must be experienced in the same fixed order. One may turn one’s eyes from east to west or from west to east, one may ascend or descend the musical scale, and one may count from 100 to 1 or from 1 to 100, while one cannot live the future before the present. Past, present and future must in truth be defined in terms of the irreversibleness of the necessary connexion. The past is the ‘irrevocable’ member of a series, on which another member, the present, ‘depends’—with which, that is to say, it is irreversibly connected. The present is therefore dependent on the past, and the future on the present, in a sense in which the past is not dependent on the present nor the present on the future; while, on the other hand, mathematical quantities or planets in the solar system, though in a very real sense dependent on each other, yet are mutually determined. Thus the fundamental distinctions of time are based upon two sorts of necessity: first, the dependence of synthesis in general upon Ultimate Unity, and second, the dependence of the moment upon the preceding moment (which as ‘irrevocable’ is regarded as peculiarly real). This now is the essential truth contained in all assertions of the oneness of time; not a unity of one phenomenon with itself, as opposed to multiplicity—the unity of duration—but the unity of the manifold, the related oneness of phenomena necessarily bound together. Schopenhauer states the doctrine unambiguously in his explicit teaching that time is only the “simplest of the forms” of the Law of Sufficient Reason. Schelling means the same by his expression, “Die Zeit hebt das Auseinander auf”.17 Kant also grows gradually to this view of the essential likeness of temporal with causal unity. Only the traditional blunder of coordinating space and time, and of assuming that what is true of one is true of the other, seems to prevent his discovering that time belongs among the categories. The permanently valuable part of his theory of time is to be found, therefore, neither in the Aesthetik, where the discussion of time follows the outline of the space-doctrine, nor in those passages of the Analytik which apply to time, in a matter-of-fact and mechanical way, all the predicates of space, but rather in the Second Analogy and in portions of the First and Third Antinomies, where time is treated as a category by being virtually identified with causality. For by the words,18 “it is a formal condition of sense perception (Wahrnehmung) that the earlier time necessarily determine the later,” Kant indicates that necessary connexion, the essential of causality, is also the fundamental characteristic of time. Time, therefore, or the irreversible connexion of the irrevocable, relatively abstract manifold, is clearly a form of the category of necessary connexion, and is closely related to causality; the lighting of the fuse is no more ‘necessarily connected’ with the explosion, than one moment with another. The only distinction is indeed this, that the temporal manifold is made up of moments, whereas the causal manifold is that of events, but the underlying unity is the same in both cases, that of the irreversible connexion of the irrevocable.

17 18

Weltseele, 3te Aufl., p. xxxv. Trans.: “Time suspends the division”. Op. cit., A., p. 199; B., p. 244.

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(c) The Psychology of the Time-Consciousness. This doctrine of the nature of time, like every philosophical theory, must meet the test of correspondence with admitted facts of consciousness. Now the essential of one’s consciousness of time—that which cannot be lacking, if there is to be timeconsciousness at all—is the awareness of more-than-one, that is of multiplicity, but of a successive multiplicity distinct from the manifold of the compound or of the extended. When this realisation of multiplicity is absent, when one is absorbed in a topic of thought, or in a circumscribed portion of one’s surroundings, then one is lost to the sense of time; but when one wakes up to the fact of change, when one compares this image or object with another, then the consciousness of time reappears. The temporality of the event thus includes its attribute of being one-of-many, and though every moment always is a filled moment, nevertheless one may abstract from its colour or sound or fragrance and attend merely to its temporalness. Thus psychological introspection verifies the metaphysical doctrine of time as an unconcrete, successive manifold. The emptiness of the time-manifold suggests also an explanation of the length of uneventful periods of time; the fewer the interesting events, the greater our attention to the bare fact of multiplicity as such. Similarly, the observation that uninteresting and habitual contents of consciousness—notably breathings and muscular contractions—form the measure of time-intervals19 is a case in which the material of consciousness, itself uninteresting, leaves the attention free to direct itself to the fact of succession. “Awareness of change” is thus, as Prof. James says, “the condition on which our perception of time’s flow depends.”20 But introspection reveals also that the time-consciousness is far more than the awareness of unordered multiplicity, and that rather, as Hoffding ¨ states the truth in his admirable exposition,21 “inner connexion” as well as “change, transition and alternation” is an element of the time-consciousness. Of this inner connexion, psychological theory has taken little account, and for this reason modern discussions of time are peculiarly futile and inconclusive. ‘Past,’ ‘present’ and ‘future’ are distinctions of the moments according to the irreversible nature of their necessary connexion, and must be misunderstood by those who fail to include the realisation of inner relation as a factor of the time-consciousness. When once, however, this truth is firmly held, then it is impossible to dispute about the primariness of either past or present as original time-datum,22 for it has become evident that one cannot know the past at all, except as related to the present, nor the present unrelated to the past. The true doctrine of the nature of the psychical present opposes also the theory that duration is an element of the time-consciousness—either “das elementare, nicht

19

This is sometimes incorrectly interpreted as the observation that breathings and movements form the material of the time-consciousness. 20 Principles of Psychology, i., p. 620. 21 Outlines of Psychology, p. 184. 22 Cf James, op. cit., i., p. 605, where he seems to make the original time datum the ‘past,’ while Strong, Psychol. Review, iii., p. 150, identifies it with the ‘present’ in the words, “The past means that which once was present; and the future that which will be present”.

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weiter reducirbare, Zeiterlebniss,”23 or one among the elementary attributes of the time-consciousness.24 For, as these statements suggest, duration is regarded as a temporal element only when it is virtually identified with ‘the present’. But the present is a temporal moment, and is therefore to be defined as ‘one of a connected succession’ which obviously is not the meaning of ‘duration’. The awareness of permanence or duration though unquestionably a factor of consciousness is therefore not temporal at all. This refusal to treat duration as a factor of the time consciousness is not, of course, a denial that the elements of the consciousness of time, like all phenomena, psychical and physical, may be said to ‘have duration’. Not only temporal position but a certain appreciable persistence are involved, by definition, in the phenomenon or fact, whether elemental or concrete. But the ‘attribute duration’ belongs to the phenomenon from the realistic standpoint of the observing scientist and is not a part of the psychic content at all. The consciousness of temporal position and the consciousness of duration may be added to sensation complexes and so may form parts of psychic contents, but neither is a necessary element.25 Psychology does therefore substantiate our philosophical doctrine by indicating change and inner connexion as elements of the facts of time-consciousness. But another problem remains for psychological theory; how shall the time-consciousness be classified, as sensational or as relational, as direct or as mediate? To answer the question, there is needed, of course, a definition of ‘the immediate,’ and here we are at once confronted by a variety of meanings. Often the word is used as precise synonym for ‘the present’ (as realistic attribute of the phenomenon), and from this point of view every fact of consciousness is immediate since, as experienced, it is present. A variation of this meaning makes ‘immediateness’ equivalent with ‘feeling of presentness,’ so that immediacy is exactly that which may distinguish the sense percept from the image. Dr. Strong, adopting this use of the word, and following in the wake of everyday realism, is obviously consistent in his refusal to call the consciousness of time ‘immediate,’ on the ground that it includes a consciousness of past as well as of present. But on this theory of immediacy, it already involves time, and is therefore useless in describing the time-consciousness. Immediateness if it meant no more than ‘present’ would be a useless distinction, but, as a matter of fact, the word is ordinarily used in a wider sense. ‘The immediate’ is the fact of consciousness without a history—not the syllogistic conclusion which has been reached by way of ordered steps, nor the complex emotion which has passed through earlier and simpler stages, but the simple experience, the instinctive emotion, the undistinguished feeling of familiarity, or the single sensation. In their exact meaning, 23

Meumann (paraphrasing Nicholls) Wundt’s Philos. Stud., viii., p. 503. Trans.: “The elementary, not further reducible, consciousness of temporality”. 24 Cf. Wundt, Külpe, Titchener, Ward; also Stern, Zeitschr. f. Psych. u. Phys., xiii., p. 332. 25 This consideration suggests a criticism upon the ordinary procedure of coordinating duration with quality, extent and intensity, as attribute of sensation. For duration, as has been shown, is an attribute only from a realistic and reflective point of view, whereas intensity and extent, as well as quality, are sensational in their nature.

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therefore, ‘immediate’ and ‘direct’ belong to the vocabulary of genetic, as distinguished from purely introspective psychology, for they treat the mental state from the standpoint of the reflective onlooker. On this basis, the consciousness of succession and of inner connexion are palpably ‘direct,’ just because they are unanalysable elements, for only a compound, whose parts may be traced back to an earlier stage or to a different combination, can be regarded from the genetic standpoint. The immediacy of the time-consciousness is often denied, because it is said to involve what would be the presence in one moment of a succession of moments.26 But the existence of a feeling of succession does not imply that a past feeling has revived and added itself to a present one; such a hypothesis is an illicit, associationist attempt to reduce ‘feeling of succession’ to ‘succession of feeling,’ and is contradicted by unprejudiced observation, which inevitably finds that the ‘feeling of succession’ and the ‘feeling of inner connexion’ are unique, unanalysable minima of consciousness. The reaction against this unjustifiable attack, from the side of metaphysics, upon the immediacy of the time-consciousness is probably responsible for the tendency to define this in terms of perception or of sensation. Wundt,27 following Kant, speaks of Zeitanschauung28 and Külpe29 of Zeitwahrnehmung30 ; while references to ‘timesense’ or ‘time-sensation’ may be found in the writings of Mach,31 of Meumann,32 of James33 and of Stern34 (though James speaks also of the ‘perception of time,’35 while Meumann has lately declared for Zeitbewusstsein,36 and Stern recently proposes Zeitauffassung37 ). Too much emphasis must not of course be laid upon the expression ‘time-sense,’ whose traditional meaning is a very wide one, yet it is not out of place to remark that the complexity of the time-consciousness forbids identifying it with the sensation, which is a psychic element. The time-consciousness as we have seen, is clearly analysable into the two factors, feeling of succession and feeling of connexion, and cannot therefore itself be what Höffding calls it,38 a psychological ultimate. The percept as well as the sensation, moreover, is distinguished by a certain ‘substantive’ character, as James puts it, from the more ‘transitive’ elements of consciousness, like the feelings of identity, of familiarity and of succession. Even Hume recognises 26

Cf. Strong, op, cit., p. 155 seq. Physiologische Psychologie, 4th Aufl. 28 Trans.: Time intuition. 29 Grundriss der Psychologie, p. 416. 30 Trans.: Time perception. 31 Quoted by Stern, “Psychische Präsenzzeit,” Zeitschr. f. Psych. u. Phys., xiii., p. 327. 32 “Beitrage zur Psychologie des Zeitsinns,” Philosophische Studien, vii. and ix. 33 Principles of Psychology, i., p. 605 seq. 34 Op. cit. 35 Op. cit. 36 Philosophische Studien, xii., p. 127. Trans.: time awareness. 37 Theorie der Veränderungsauffassung, pp. 3 and 10. Psychologie der Veränderungsauffassung, p. 21. Trans.: time concept. 38 Op. cit., i., p. 243. 27

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this, though he does not see how it upsets all his philosophising, and expresses it very clearly in the words39 : “the idea of time arises altogether from the manner in which impressions appear to the mind, without making one of the number”. The essential meaning of the teaching that the time-consciousness is immediate, or even sensational, is however retained in the conclusion that it is made up of unanalysable and immediate factors, feeling of change and feeling of connexion. These, as has been said, correspond exactly with the elements of time, metaphysically considered with its irrevocable manifoldness and with the universal connexion of its parts, the moments.

23.3 Causality The definition of causality as necessary connexion of events, though it opposes at once the every-day belief that one thing or object may be the cause of another, is nevertheless in accord with all philosophic thinking since Hume’s time at least. Not the match, but the lighting of the match, causes the fire; not the bell, but the motion of its tongue, causes the sound. Another common theory demands notice; the doctrine that causality is a category of merely physical events, not a relation of phenomena of consciousness, feelings and volitions, percepts and images. On this view causality is distinguished from temporal unity, not only by its concreteness, but by the externality of the phenomena which it unites; it is therefore an external, as opposed to time, an internal category. There is no lack of support for this doctrine. Kant’s definite argument against Hume, by his distinction between objective and subjective causality, rests upon the assumption that causality is a relation of the external. Schopenhauer says distinctly40 that causality is “der Regulator der Veränderungen der aüsseren Erfahrung,”41 and indeed he makes matter synonymous with causality: “Ihr Wesen besteht in der Kausalität”.42 Modern thinkers, finally, very generally hold that the only categories of the inner life are those of worth or value, and that causality is a physical principle. Now it is undoubtedly true that causality is a more important category of the outer than of the inner life, for every natural science supplements observation of facts by investigation of their causal connexion, and only physical causality is capable of exact description and measurement. But these truths prove only that causality 39

Treatise, bk. i., part ii., sec. 3, p. 343. Italics mine. Vierfache Wurzel, u.s.w., § 20. 41 Trans.: “The regulator of changes of outer experience.” 42 Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., p. 10 (Trans.: “Its essence comprises causality”); cf. i., p. 13, “Materie oder Kausalität, denn beide sind Eines”. Trans.: “Matter or causality, since both are one.” A slight modification of this doctrine is the definition of matter as “objektiv gewordene Kausalität,” (Trans.: “objectified causality”) and this again is expanded into the theory that matter is simultaneity, a combination of space and time, or “die Wahrnehmbarkeit von Zeit und Raum” (Trans.: “the perceptibility of time and space”). Throughout, Schopenhauer’s insistence upon the externality of causation is clear. 40

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is a particularly important and fruitful category of the external world, and not an especially emphasised category of the inner life; they do not in the least disprove that the causal is a possible way of regarding the psychical experience.43 On the other hand, in so far as the psychical experience is viewed—as unquestionably it may artificially be viewed—as made up of a series of single states—in so far it must be subject not merely to categories of significance, but to phenomenal categories, including those of universal connexion. This view is strengthened by the ordinary doctrine that time is a category of the inner life, and it cannot be disproved by the assertion, even if substantiated, that we actually come to the conception of internal causality through the previous observation of physical causation. So long as mental facts may be regarded as necessarily connected, each with each, so long causality is a psychical as well as a physical category. Therefore a hypothetical solitary individual, without consciousness of other finite selves, and hence without consciousness of externality, might think of his consciousness as made up of isolated and independent units. These units would have gained their permanence, probably, through repetition; the necessary connexion would have been suggested by repeated experiences in the same order. With physical causality, however, that is, with the application of this conception of necessary connexion to events regarded as common experience of all possible subjects, one enters the sphere of the universal and the describable, and there is introduced at once the possibility of verification through experiences which are readily repeated, imitated and communicated. Through such verification the empirical causal propositions arise, the assertions that such and such an event has such and such a cause. This is the sort of doctrine of causality which Hume’s criticism really touches, and he is quite correct, of course, in his conclusion that necessity never can be predicated of any observed connexion, and that the persuasion of empirical necessity is an effect of habit. But the assertion of this or that cause has no relation to that fundamental universality of causal connexion expressed in the proposition: “Every event has a cause”. For causality is fundamentally, as has been seen, not the connexion of this or that event with another, but the necessary, and therefore universal and irreversible connexion of every event with some other event, its cause. The temporal connexion, that is the necessary relation of one moment with another, has really, therefore, by virtue of its abstraction from the concrete a complete universality which is lacking to any concrete connexion. The irreversibleness of causal synthesis implies, further, another sort of necessity, an unequal relation between cause and effect. The member of a reversible series is equally dependent on every other member of the series, while any term of a succession is specifically dependent on what precedes. This relation of the phenomenal cause to its effect is really what is meant by the ‘power’ of such a cause. 43

Cf . Hume, who, though he usually treats causality as connexion of outer events with each other (or of psychic facts with the ‘real objects’ which he inconsistently assumes), nevertheless, says distinctly (Treatise, bk. i., pt. iii., § 2, end) that the ideas of cause and effect are “derived from the impressions of reflexion, as well as from those of sensation. Passions are connected with one another... no less than external bodies are connected together.”

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Still another principle has to be distinguished from the axiom of causality, namely, the proposition: “The same cause always has the same effect”. Evidently this principle is of far-reaching use and application in empirical science, forming the basis of all reasoning about the unrecorded past and the untried future, but it is not at all a purely causal principle, since it involves a recognition of identity in the assumption that ‘the same cause’ will recur, and since identity really is, as has been suggested, a transcendence of the whole standpoint of fact-multiplicity, not a unity ‘of the manifold,’ but rather a ‘unity in spite of multiplicity’.

23.4 Reciprocal Determination To discuss in detail the unity, reciprocal determination, of the revivable manifold would have led far beyond the limits of a self-respecting philosophical essay. The terms of the relation, concrete things and qualities, and abstract mathematical elements, differ, as has been shown, from events and from moments, by the fact that each possesses a kind of unity which these others lack, identity, and therefore permanence and recurrence. From this follows the feature which distinguishes the connexion of the revivable manifold from that of the irrevocable; a reversibleness or reciprocal relation such that any one of the multiple may be taken as the starting-point. The reciprocally determined manifold is often treated as if completely equivalent with the spatial; Kant states his third analogy of reciprocal determination, with express reference to substances as co-existing in space44 ; Schopenhauer writes,45 “Der Raum ist durch und durch nichts anderes als die Möglichkeit der wechselseitigen Bestimmungen seiner Theile durch einander, welche Lage heist”46 ; and Spencer47 distinguishes coexistence from succession, in that “whereas the terms of the first can be known in the reverse order with equal vividness, those of the second cannot”. Yet it is at once evident that the spatial is, to say the least, not the only form of the permanent and reversible manifold; the notes in a scale and the terms of a numerical series are also reversible but not spatial, for even if one asserts the spatial character of sounds, it is surely not by virtue of their space distinctions that the notes are capable of reversal. One is thrown back upon the question: what is the spatial, since, at best, it is only one among the forms of the reversible? Once more, there can be no doubt of the ordinary answer: the spatial is the external, and just as time is a category of the inner, so is space a category of the outer life. But this doctrine accords ill with the common view that not all sense qualities, but only the visual and the tactual, are spatial. Why should not sounds and odours as well as colours and surfaces have form and location? Or, if one takes one’s stand with the 44

Op. cit., A., 211; B., 256. Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., p. 109. 46 Trans.: “Space is nothing other than the possibility of the mutual determination of its parts through each other, which is called position.” 47 Principles of Psychology, third ed., part vi., c. 22, vol ii., p. 275. 45

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extreme nativists, like James and Ward, and affirm the spatial character of all sensequalities, the questions still remain: What of the mathematical reversible? Is not that still independent of me and so external to me? The true nature, like the invariable test, of externality, is its superiority to the individual, that is, its universality. The outer world is the world whose lights and sounds and fragrance all men share, while the inner world of my imagination belongs to me alone; the external truth is the object of common conviction, while the illusion is the product of the individual mind; in a word, the external world is the world of society as opposed to the world of the lonely self. This impossibility of limiting the ‘external’ or ‘reciprocally determined’ to ‘the spatial,’ fairly drives us at length to the conclusion which psychology has long held before us, that the spatial means something quite other than the external, and is itself nothing more than a concrete: a sense-quality or a complex of sense elements. The arguments of the Kantians against the sensuousness of the spatial are not decisive. To urge that Space is recognised as one, in a sense in which ‘redness’ and ‘softness’ are not called ‘one,’ is to overlook the difference between Space, clearly a construct of experience, and the elementary extension or spatialness from which this Total Space is built up. The other characteristic marks of the spatial clearly result from its greater generality, that is from the greater variety of its combinations with other sense experiences, for whereas the visual, like the tactual, quality, is always in our experience combined with the extended, this may be combined with either of the two. Thus, also, it is easier to abstract the spatial quality from the complex of sense experiences, to shake it free from encumbrances, to make it the object of more constant attention. It follows naturally that space distinctions are more delicate and more complex. Finally, the certainty of the geometrical consciousness, on which is founded Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of Space, is not to be explained by the ordinary assumption that space-consciousness, because different from sense, must have greater certainty, but on the ground that the spatial as a more constant object of attention is more universally apprehended. It is interesting to observe that Kant, whose psychology is so often better than his metaphysics, possesses a truer insight into the nature of the spatial than he can force into the moulds of his philosophical preconceptions. With his distorted notion of the ultimate distinction between sense-quality and thought, he cannot include the spatial within the sense-manifold; yet he keenly realises its character of immediateness, and cannot therefore treat space as a category, a principle of thought. Therefore that anomaly, the ‘Form of Sense,’ the ‘sensible’ which has no sense-attributes, wins its permanent position in the Kantian hierarchy, because Kant could not blind himself to the sense character of space. We are not here at all concerned with the specific controversy between nativist and empiricist. Whether the spatial is a combination of motor sense element with visual or tactual, or whether it is itself a distinct sense-quality, matters little, so one realises what the appeal to the ordinary consciousness of everybody surely shows, that extension is ‘sensible,’ no less than colour or resistance. The spatial is then no fundamental category, or uniting principle, but itself one variety of the manifold tobe-categorised. This conclusion incidentally explains many of the absurdities of the theories about time. The tendency to treat the two after the same fashion has, as we

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have seen, long been rife in philosophy, and the efforts to make time, the category, follow the lead of extension, the sense-quality, or of Space, the notion elaborately built up from the sense-element, must evidently result in hopeless confusion, and in wrong theories of the two. The summary which follows includes the chief distinctions which this paper has tried to justify. Its first section has been added for the sake of completeness, though it involves the allusion to certain metaphysical principles which have not been discussed. Unity and multiplicity A. I. Ultimate unity

II. Fundamental multiplicity

(Variously stated in different systems) (a) Idealistic The absolute self

Individual selves ‘Ideas’ of the absolute self

(b) Realistic 1. Matter or Force, or 2. ‘Unknown Reality’ B. I. The phenomenal unity II. The phenomenal multiplicity (a) Of the many (events or things) with each other; Necessary (a) Events (and moments) Connexion (b) Things (and qualities) (b) Of each of the many (things) with itself: Identity

The results of the closer study of the phenomenal category of necessary and universal connexion may be grouped together after a similar fashion. Phenomenal unity of necessary connexion

Terms of the connexion

1. Irreversible

1. Irrevocable

(a) Causality (concrete) (b) Time (abstract)

(a) Events (b) Moments

2. Reversible, that is

2. Revivable

Reciprocal determination (a) Concrete (b) Abstract

(a) External objects (b) Mathematical quantities

Such a classification may at least suggest the possibility of a simple and accurate classification of principles often confused and as often falsely distinguished.

Chapter 24

The Time-Process and the Value of Human Life (Part II) Ellen Bliss Talbot Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract In this article, Ellen Bliss Talbot affirms the reality of both time and change in individual human lives, asserting that moral growth is possible because an individual is a unity in and through time.

In our first article we considered the way in which men’s estimate of the values that are realized in a human life is affected by the temporal position of the various realizations. We commonly estimate the worth of life in terms of the four values— moral, intellectual, aesthetic, and affective.1 These four, we found, differ in the extent to which they can be separated from the life of the individual and considered by themselves: the intellectual and aesthetic values are more impersonal, and thus more readily detached, than are the moral and affective. That aspect in which they are most completely fused with the personality is revealed in intellectual and aesthetic activity, as distinguished from its products. And if we take this activity in the broadest sense, as including such mental alertness and sensitiveness as may characterize even persons of ordinary ability, we have these two more impersonal values in a form in which we can compare them fairly well with the more personal ones, goodness and pleasure. Now we found that when men try to estimate the value of a particular human life, the question of the temporal relations plays an important role. The worth of an individual life, apparently, does not depend simply upon the degree in which any or 1

Whether religious value, as distinct from moral, should be added to this list is a question upon which we did not enter. For the purposes of our discussion it seemed permissible to leave it undecided, for the reason that even if the religious value is quite distinct, it stands in precisely the same relation to our problem as does the moral value, so that no new point of view would be gained by considering it separately. Throughout the discussion, moreover, the term ‘moral value’ has been used to designate inner attainment, the worth of the personality, rather than outward act. Ellen Bliss Talbot: First published in 1915 in The Philosophical Review, 24(1), 17–36. E. B. Talbot (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_24

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all of these four values are realized in it: their presence in its later stages counts for more than their presence in the earlier ones. If a given value is to be more completely realized in one part of the life than in another, we regard it as desirable that the fuller realization should be in the latter part. Simply to say, however, that the quality of the later stages is, somehow, more important than that of the earlier does not characterize adequately the peculiar relation that we suppose to exist. For many of our evaluations of life apparently imply the belief that the quality of the later stages is not merely more important, but of supreme importance, so that the quality of the earlier stages seems to have been wiped out by that of subsequent ones. Later happiness atones for earlier unhappiness (makes it as if it had not been), later goodness for earlier moral defect, later intellectual or aesthetic activity for an earlier want of it. But earlier joy does not atone in like manner for the later sorrow, nor earlier goodness for the later moral downfall, nor an earlier high level of thought and aesthetic sensibility for the later low level. The value of the later stages seems to cancel or destroy that of the earlier, but not to be in turn canceled by it. Thus the later stages seem to stand for the earlier in a way in which the earlier cannot stand for the later.2 Now we saw that the extent to which a value is affected by these temporal relations appears to depend upon the degree of its fusion with the personality. Truth and beauty, considered quite in themselves, are above the vicissitudes of time and change. And even as the products of human activity, they are, regarded from one point of view, equally secure. The greatness of a scientific or artistic achievement cannot be destroyed by any later failure on the part of its author. But our estimate of the intellectual or aesthetic worth of the man, as distinguished from that of the particular achievement, is more or less affected by his subsequent failure. It is not then value as such that is influenced by temporal relations, but value as an integral part of human personality. And the reason why our estimate of hedonic and moral value seems to be more readily affected by temporal considerations is that these two ordinarily fuse with the personality more completely than intellectual and aesthetic value do. The outcome of our first article then may be expressed by saying that human beings show a marked tendency to believe that so far as the value of the individual life is concerned, its later stages are of supreme importance.3 Later excellence, men seem to think, makes up for earlier defect, makes it as if it had not been; and in similar fashion later evil swallows up, destroys, earlier good. The task of the present paper is to try to determine the connection between this belief and the problem of the relation of the individual life to the time-process. My purpose is primarily neither to defend the belief nor to offer arguments in support of any particular theory of the time-process, but rather to ask what conception of the relation of the individual life to the temporal process is logically implied in the belief.

2

As a matter of convenience I shall regard the phrase ‘supreme importance’ as indicating this compensatory function that the later stages seem to have. 3 In this paper, as in the preceding one, we shall limit our consideration to the life of the human individual. To ask as to the value of the life of the race, taken as a whole, would be to raise questions which are of much interest and importance, but which lie beyond the scope of this discussion.

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Some might feel inclined to dispose of our task at once by the simple method of condemning the belief outright. Men seem, they might tell us, to regard the later stages of life as supreme in importance, but this opinion, however cherished, is quite mistaken. If pleasure, and goodness, and intellectual and aesthetic activity have any value, they have as much at one time as at another. The belief to the contrary is simply one of the many errors to which popular opinion is liable. It seems to me, however, that we are scarcely justified in throwing aside the belief in this summary fashion. And in point of fact I think that few philosophers are willing to reject it altogether. Many whose theory of the nature of time seems incompatible with it try, none the less, to find some place for it in their account of reality. And since this is the case, it may be worth our while to inquire somewhat carefully into the relation between the belief and the various ways in which the temporal aspect of human life may be conceived. I proceed at once then to ask how we must regard the temporal character of the individual human life in order that our conception may be consistent with the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages. The first thing to be said is that we must regard the time-process as having at least a certain degree of reality. For if time is utterly unreal, it cannot matter whether the so-called ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ stages of a human life contain more of happiness; and it must be equally indifferent which stages reveal the greater moral, intellectual, and aesthetic attainment. If our time-consciousness is altogether illusory, the distinction of earlier and later is void of real significance. All that we can admit is a whole whose parts exhibit various degrees of good and bad.4 The order in which these degrees appear to us to be arranged and the direction of this order—the irreversibility of the time-process—have no significance. And thus it must be a matter of indifference whether the more complete realization of value is in what we call the earlier or in what we call the later part. The acceptance of our belief then would involve the assertion that the order and the irreversibility of the time-process are real. But this is not all: it would involve also, I maintain, the reality of change, of the time-flow, of the passage of earlier into later. For unless change is real, the value of the later stages cannot cancel that of the earlier. Our defence of this thesis will occupy the greater part of this paper. As a first step we must inquire in what sense we are to conceive change as real. As soon as one asserts the reality of change or of the time-process,5 a question arises as to the nature of the past. To some it seems that a consistent believer in the reality of change must ruthlessly banish past events from the domain of the real.6 But if we do this, 4

I use the terms here in the broader sense in which ‘good’ includes all value, not merely moral value. The same usage appears occasionally in other parts of this paper, but I think that the meaning is clear in all cases. 5 Throughout the rest of this paper I shall use the terms ‘change’ and ‘time-process’ indifferently to signify the concrete flow of events, the replacing of one (earlier) content by another (later). ‘Time’, if conceived as an empty form in which events are arranged, is at best real only in the degree in which any abstraction is real. Our concern here is simply to defend the reality of that aspect of life that we call change. 6 Cf. Bradley, “How, if we seriously mean to take time as real, can the past be reality?” Appearance and Reality (1897), p. 208.

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have we a conception of the time-process that will justify our belief in the supreme importance of the later stages of life? At first glance it might seem that we have. As life goes on, one stage after another passes into non-existence. At any moment then we can say that the happiness of the past, being dead and gone, can in no way compensate me for the fact that I am unhappy now, and similarly that the sorrow of the past cannot interfere with my present joy. But though the past has no power to alter the value of the present, the present seems in a certain sense able to affect that of the past. The present, since it alone is real, is all in all. Hence its happiness sweeps triumphantly away the griefs of an earlier time; or its misery settles like a pall over the fair face of bygone joys. In the insistent reality of the present it is as if the joy or the pain of the past had never been at all. And the same thing, mutatis mutandis, may be said of moral, intellectual, and aesthetic achievement. I am only that which I am now. If I am now sinful or intellectually slothful or insensible to beauty, the virtue, the mental activity, the aesthetic sensibility of my earlier life shall avail me nothing. But if I am now high-minded, mentally alert, or appreciative of beauty, the intellectual stagnation, the aesthetic insensibility, or the moral weakness of my past is wiped out by the attainment of this later period. But although it may seem at first thought that this account of the matter makes room for the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages of life, a brief reflection will convince us that it does not. For what we have been saying goes to show merely that present is more important for us than past, not that present and future are more important than past, or future than past and present. In fact, the inference that this way of thinking most naturally suggests is that the present has a value far outweighing that of either past or future. Now it is doubtless true, as we pointed out in our first paper, that for the naïve consciousness the present has precisely this supreme value. But what we have maintained is that for the higher insight of the reflective consciousness the future, if we can in any way overcome the disadvantages arising from its uncertainty, has greater value than the present. It does not, of course, even to the most highly reflective consciousness, give so keen a sense of reality as the present; but it has greater weight in determining the worth of life. Or, to put the matter more accurately, in our most serious estimation of this worth we make our distinction, not between present on the one hand and past and future on the other, but between the earlier and the later stages of a process, each moment of which is in turn future, present, and past. It is clear then that we cannot justify the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages by appealing to the unique reality that the present moment has for us. Nay, more, if this unique reality should beguile us into supposing that only because of it has the present more importance than the past, we should be forced in the end to admit that the temporal position of the various realizations of value in an individual history is of no significance whatever. For we should have to say that any stage of the history, when present, is of more consequence than any of the others—past or future—but that its peculiar importance vanishes when it becomes part of the past. And since each stage in its turn is present, no stage would ultimately have more importance than any of the others. Thus, given so much of good in an individual life, it must be a matter of indifference in what part of it this good is contained.

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It seems clear then that if we interpret change as meaning simply the emergence of a given content into the status of ‘present’ and its subsequent lapse into the status of ‘past,’ and if we suppose further that what is past is completely gone, we cannot justify the belief that we are considering: so far as the defence of the belief is concerned, we might quite as well declare change to be illusory. But is it not possible to assert the reality of change and at the same time to take a different position with regard to the past? May we not suppose that although the time-process is real, the earlier stages of a human life do not fade into utter non-existence when the later ones come into being? That in the history of the individual which was real is still real, let us say, in a highly significant sense. The life of the human being is a unity, not merely when you take it in cross-section, but also when you take it longitudinally. Each of its successive stages includes within itself all the preceding ones, and includes them in such fashion that they are at once preserved and transformed. Let us ask in what the preservation and the transformation must consist. The most obvious sense in which an earlier stage may be said to live on in a later one is found in the case of memory. Almost every one would admit that what is remembered has not utterly ceased to be, and that thus in a certain sense it may be said that the earlier stages, in so far as they are recalled, live on in the later. But the appeal to the fact of memory is far from giving us a solution of our problem. For in the first place, if no more of my past is preserved for me than my memory can illuminate, it is probable that the larger part of it is gone forever. And in the second place, quite apart from this consideration, it is obvious that the mere fact of memory can furnish no justification of the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages. The fact that a man happens to remember his former intellectual or moral deficiencies in no way provides a rational basis for our belief that these deficiencies are atoned for by his later attainment. Nor are we any better off in the case of past affective states. On the contrary, in this case it even seems at first glance as if the assertion that memory gives existence to the past might furnish an argument against the belief in question rather than for it. The memory of former pain, one might urge, may mar a present joy, and the recollection of bygone happiness may soothe a present sorrow; but if this is so, the affective value of the earlier seems to cancel that of the later in much the same way in which we have said that the value of the later cancels that of the earlier. So it might seem at first thought; but second thought shows that this is not a true statement of the case. For the affective tone and the affective value of any memory belong to the moment of the remembering, not to the moment of the experience remembered.7 It is obvious then that the fact of memory does not indicate that the value of the earlier can in any degree cancel that of the later. But it is equally obvious that it cannot justify our belief that the value of the later cancels that of the earlier. 7

This is borne out by the reflection that “a sorrow’s crown of sorrow” may consist in “remembering happier things,” and that similarly the recollection of a past painful experience may serve to enhance a present joy. It is borne out also by the fact that a pseudo-memory—a supposed recollection of a pleasant or painful experience that never actually occurred—would have the same influence upon the affective tone of the present consciousness that a true memory would have.

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There is, however, another sense in which we may say that an earlier stage lives on in later ones; namely, that it has helped to make these what they are, that they are bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. In this second sense we may declare that a man’s life is a whole in which each moment bodies forth all of it that has gone before. Through memory a part of what I have been lives on in me, but in the fact of which we are now speaking the past is preserved more completely and in a more significant sense. This second fact also would doubtless be admitted by most of those who say that the past is non-existent. Few, if any, of those who make this assertion mean it in the bald sense in which it is opposed to the recognition of any continuity of character and conduct. But when we have said that an earlier stage continues to live in a later one in the sense that it has helped to give this later its character, we have not gone very far toward explaining the compensatory function of the later stages. For it is comparatively seldom that we can say that the later good exists because of the earlier evil or the later evil because of the earlier good.8 In most cases it seems that we must rather say that the evil replaces the good and that the good replaces the evil; that the later good exists in spite of, not because of, the earlier evil, and similarly the later evil in spite of the earlier good. Now in such cases it does not seem possible to explain the compensatory function of the later by an appeal to the influence of the earlier. At the same time I believe it to be true that the later stage has its compensatory power because it is what the earlier has come to be. What I have in mind is not, however, the influence of earlier upon later, but a different relation, which we must now try to describe. If one were to assert the complete determination of the later by the earlier, this would amount to declaring that the earlier contains the later, wrapped up within itself. And thus we could say that the very first stage of an individual history is virtually the whole life. Everything is there, folded up in that earliest stage; and what we call the living is simply the unrolling of a scroll upon which all the characters are already inscribed. But instead of saying that the earlier thus contains the later, one might reverse the procedure and say that the later contains the earlier. In our ordinary conception of the individual human life, we think of its various stages as so many different parts of it. The whole life would thus be the sum total of these stages. But from the point of view that we wish now to suggest, the life is to be regarded as a unity in a sense that makes the whole something other than this. We can perhaps best express our meaning by saying that the final stage in the history of 8

The instances that are most commonly given in support of the assertion that evil leads to good are the spiritual enrichment that sometimes seems to result from suffering and the strengthening of moral fiber that comes from the conflict with obstacles of various kinds. Much has been said of the ennobling effect of the conflict with pain and difficulty; and I am far from wishing to deny the deep truth involved in the contention, although it seems to me that in our emphasis upon it we sometimes overlook the fact that in a large number of instances the effect is apparently the reverse of ennobling. Be this as it may, the point that I wish to make is that when a man’s nature is refined by suffering or strengthened by the struggle against heavy odds it is not quite accurate to say that good has come out of an earlier evil. For the increase in moral strength, e.g., which shows itself at a later period, came not from the obstacle (the evil), but from the heroic battling against it; and this was not an evil, but a good.

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a human being—assuming for the nonce that there is a final stage—is not a part of that history, but the whole; that it gathers up into itself and keeps in existence the entire past, which but for its maintaining power would be dead and gone. It is only with reference to the future, never with reference to the past, that we could speak of the present moment in a life as one of its parts. My present is my whole life, so far as that life has yet been lived; it is a part only in the sense that it, in its turn, will be taken up and preserved in what we call a later stage. According to this way of regarding the matter, the earlier stage is one with the later, not merely in so far as it is preserved in memory, not merely by virtue of the subtle influence of past thoughts and deeds upon present character and conduct, but also because the later stage is the earlier, the earlier enlarged, enriched, transformed. This way of looking at the matter emphasizes the unitary character of the individual life. But it should not be confused with the doctrine that the human life is essentially a timeless unity, which is revealed in varying degrees of completeness in the different parts of the temporal process. When I say that each human life is a unitary whole, I do not mean to imply that the unity is something that is once for all there and that the various stages are so many different manifestations of it. I mean rather that it is a unity that has its very being in time. Each stage in its turn is in a sense the whole life; but each new stage is more truly, because more fully, the whole life than any of the preceding ones were. Now if the life of the human being is a unity of this kind, it is clear that the temporal position of the various realizations of value in it is a matter of profound significance. A man’s life is more nearly identical with certain of its stages than with others: every new stage is more truly the life than any of its predecessors have been. And if this is so, we can understand, at least in some measure, how it is that the value of the earlier may be canceled by that of the later. We said above that the inclusion of the earlier stages in the later, implied in our conception, involves not only their preservation but also their transformation. The transformation consists in the fact that the earlier has come to be the later. Whatever may be true of change in general, the change that characterizes the life of a human being is not a replacing of one content by another content, but the transformation of the one into the other. Now if the earlier is changed into the later, we can see how the value of the later may stand for that of the earlier, how later good can atone for an earlier evil and later evil can wipe out an earlier good. But at this point we must pause to answer an objection that may arise in the minds of some of our readers. Granted that the greater importance of the later stages of life could be explained on the assumption that has been made, one may yet ask whether it could not be equally well explained by a simpler assumption. May it not be that the later stages are more important than the earlier simply because the quality of still later stages depends more upon them than upon their predecessors? In the life-series a, b, c, … n, the stage g is more important than b because of the strong probability that h, i, j, … n will be like it rather than like b. To this objection we can make two answers. In the first place, we can reply, men apparently feel that the quality of the later stages is more important than that of the earlier, even when that of still later ones is not in question. This is shown, I think,

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when we try to estimate the value of a life taken as a whole. When we survey a life that has been ended by death, we believe that the quality of its latter part is of the greatest importance. And while in many cases this feeling is probably in some measure due to the belief in immortality, I incline to think that it is equally strong in those who either reject the doctrine or are in doubt with regard to it. Of course it is open to any one to urge that even in these cases the feeling has its origin in the belief in a future life, and thus that those who reject the belief are yet unconsciously influenced by modes of thought that have their source and their sole justification in it. To discuss this assertion would take us too far afield; I can only say that personally I doubt its truth. Moreover, even if we should grant it with reference to the other values, it seems hardly possible that our estimates of the pleasure-pain value of the earthly life are thus influenced by a belief in immortality. The affective quality of a particular stage offers no guarantee of the quality of subsequent stages, whether in this life or in a life to come. Nevertheless men seem to feel that, judged from the point of view of pleasure and pain, a life is more desirable if the fuller realization of affective value is in the later rather than in the earlier part. But it matters comparatively little whether or not this first answer to the objection that we are considering brings conviction. For the second, to which I now pass, seems conclusive. The objection proposes to substitute for our explanation one that has the advantage of being simpler. But unfortunately this substitute explains, not the fact that we are trying to account for, but a different one. At the very best our opponent has explained only the greater importance of the later stages; he has not explained their compensatory function, the power that they seem to have to transform the values of the earlier stages. Even supposing that he has justified us in regarding the quality of the later stages as more important than that of the earlier, he has done nothing to validate our belief that later good makes up for earlier evil, and later evil spoils earlier good: he has not shown how it is possible that the quality of one stage should fix the value of the whole preceding life. For this compensatory function of the later stages the only explanation that we have yet found is that furnished by our conception of the individual human life as a whole that more and more comes to be. Let us now gather up the threads of our discussion. We began by asking how we must conceive the relation of the individual life to the time-process in order to justify our belief in the supreme importance of its later stages. We showed in the first place that the order and the irreversibility of the time-process must be accepted as real. Next we made the assertion—to be defended later—that the reality of change must also be affirmed. At this point it seemed necessary to explain what we meant by asserting the reality of change, and in particular to define our position with reference to the problem of the existence or nonexistence of past events. In considering this problem we limited ourselves to the life of the human individual. And the theory that we tried to develop is that the past of such a life is not altogether non-existent: it lives to some extent in memory; it lives still more completely in the influence of the earlier upon the later; it lives most truly of all in the sense that this later is what

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it has become and that thus it is held in solution, as it were, in this later.9 And it is this third aspect of the continued existence of the past that we must affirm in order to justify our belief in the compensatory function of the later stages of life. For only the evil that has become good is atoned for; and only the good that has become evil is spoiled.10 Our contention then is that in order to justify the belief in the compensatory function of the later stages of human life we must assume the reality of change as characterizing that life in the sense that we have just described. We must now ask what can be said in support of this contention. A part of our defence has already been offered in connection with the discussion of the nature of past events. We have shown, I think, that we cannot justify the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages if we assert the utter non-existence of the past, nor if we regard the past as existing simply through its being remembered and through its influence upon later stages. We have shown also that we cannot explain it by appealing to the fact that in general the later stage has more influence than its predecessors in determining the quality of still later ones. But one more point remains to consider before we can regard our defence as complete. It seems fairly evident that if we assert the reality of change, we can justify the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages only by supposing that the later include the earlier and thus in a sense keep them in existence. But we have not as yet shown that we cannot vindicate it equally well if we deny the reality of change altogether. And we can imagine some reader protesting, at this juncture, in the following fashion. If the later stage is more important because 9

If any one thinks that he finds in this conception some resemblance to a certain view of Bergson’s I shall not try to dispute the point. I shall only say that if I have been influenced here by the doctrine of the French philosopher I have been influenced unconsciously, and that I have been led to my opinion by considerations quite other than those that seem to have moved him. Furthermore, the difference between my conception and his seems to me at least as great as the resemblance. I have tried to show that in the life of the human individual the earlier stages must in some way be preserved in the later, and that this preservation is something more than that which is afforded by memory or by the influence of the earlier stages upon those that follow them. Precisely what this ‘more’ is it is not indeed easy to say, and I must plead guilty to the charge of being rather vague upon this point. But I cannot see that we should gain anything by appealing to the conception of ‘unconscious memory.’ About all that we can say is that the preservation of the earlier stages is a corollary of the fact that there are beings whose nature is essentially temporal, whose wholeness is something that comes to be. Aside from the fact that I do not follow Bergson in appealing to the conception of unconscious memory, there is the further difference that my theory involves not only the preservation of the earlier stages by the later, but also the fixing of their value. The conception that I am trying to develop is something other than the mere notion of cumulation. The preservation of the past, whether through unconscious memory or by other means, is only a part of the matter; the transmuting of the value of the past is of equal or greater importance. 10 It might be urged that our solution of the problem consists simply in an appeal to the conceptions of growth and development. And in the sense in which these terms are ordinarily used they have no doubt much in common with the conception that I am trying to present. I have tried, however, to avoid them because it seems to me that both concepts are sorely in need of a clarifying analysis. As commonly employed they have various biological implications which such analysis should bring out. And though not identical in meaning, they are frequently used as if they had the same significance.

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it is more nearly the whole life, is it not clear that our interest is not in change, but in wholeness? And if so, does it not seem that the way in which men evaluate life can be defended equally well upon the assumption that change is a guise that reality wears for us, but is not characteristic of its inner nature? What we call a difference in temporal position is ultimately only a difference in degree of completeness; and the so-called later stage is simply a larger part of the non-temporal whole. To this objection I reply as follows. It is indeed true that our chief interest is not in the time-process merely as time-process; one of our main contentions has been that the later stages are more important simply because the life that fills them is more nearly complete.11 But this does not require us to admit that change is illusory. Moreover, I think it can be shown that if one admits that change is illusory one cannot justify the belief in the compensatory function of the later stages, no matter how strenuously one may insist that wholeness, rather than change, is the thing of chief significance. We shall now try to show this. Let us designate by a one of the so-called earlier stages of an individual life, by b, c, etc., somewhat later stages, and by n the final stage, assuming for the sake of the argument that there is one. Now according to the view that we are criticizing, which regards the temporal process as illusory, n, which we call the final stage, is, properly speaking, simply our view of the whole life, N; A, the reality corresponding to our a, is a small part of N; B is a larger part, which includes A within itself; C is a still larger part, which includes B; and so on. The series A, B, … N, which is the real order corresponding to our time-series a … n, might thus be symbolized by a number of concentric circles, of which A is the smallest and N the largest.12 Now according to our opponent, man’s belief that if n be good its character atones for that of a, which we will suppose to be evil, can be justified without our assuming the reality of change. If the whole, N,—represented to us in n, the final stage,—is good, it compensates for the fact that a certain part A,—represented to us by a, one of the early stages—is evil. The excellence of the whole atones for the evil of some of the parts. But it is precisely at this point that we must raise an objection. It is only if change be real that the excellence of the whole can atone in the slightest degree for the evil of the part. If change is real it is possible, we have urged, that the part—one of the earlier stages—may be transmuted in the whole, the final stage. But if change is unreal, how can this be? If A becomes N, it is conceivable that N might atone for A. But if change is unreal, A, B, C, N are all equally existent, equally eternal. Now N, which by hypothesis is good, includes A, which is evil; but A does not in its turn include N. Hence for A there is eternally nothing but A. That is, there is no escape from misery or sin: a ‘temporary’ suffering or sin is really eternal. And if it be eternal its evil is not transmuted. 11

In other words, our chief interest is not in change as such, but in change as the form of human life. 12 The true nature of the relation of A, B, C, etc., to one another and to N must be in great part unknown to us, since we view reality, not as it is in truth, but in its illusory temporal aspect. We must therefore emphasize the point that the series of concentric circles is merely a symbol of an order whose true nature we cannot describe. By hypothesis, however, the order A, B, C, etc., is one of increasing completeness.

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But, one may here interpose, does not our own experience present many cases in which the excellence of the whole cancels the evil of the part, and vice versa the evil of the whole the excellence of the part? In many a noble deed there is some slight admixture of unworthy motive; in many a glorious achievement of art there is some minor defect in conception or execution; and it is a commonplace of experience that Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught.

Yet each of these wholes is ‘good,’ and its excellence seems to atone for the deficiency of some of its parts. But, I ask, does it really atone? Is it not rather the case that if there be the least taint in the part, the whole falls short of perfection? It is true that we regard a slight defect as practically negligible. Because our experience seldom, if ever, shows us anything quite free from flaw, we accept with glad thankfulness that in which the good seems far to outweigh the evil, feeling that in the face of so much excellence it would be carping to allow our thought to dwell upon the defect. None the less, sober judgment must admit that the evil of the part is ignored rather than destroyed. Now what I am trying to bring out is the difference in this respect between an existing whole and a whole that comes to be. An existing whole cannot be completely good unless each of its simultaneously existing parts is good. But a whole that comes to be, might be completely good in spite of the fact that some of its (serial) parts were bad. It will always be true, if you like, that certain of the earlier stages were evil. But when they have grown into the final stage, they have become good.13 I repeat then that if the temporal process be unreal, I can see no way in which the evil of some parts can be in the least degree atoned for by the excellence of the whole. There are indeed many who would try to escape from this conclusion by declaring that evil is illusory, but this theory offers no safe refuge. The definitive answer to all attempts to deny the reality of evil has been made by Dr. McTaggart, for one, in his paper on ‘The Relation of Time and Eternity’.14 To the assertion that evil is mere illusion we must reply, he says, that in such case the (undeniable) existence of the erroneous belief in it would itself be an evil.15 It is equally futile to try to avoid the difficulty by saying that evil is merely incompleteness. Evil is absence of value, lack of that which ought to be. And if it is this, it is not mere incompleteness; it is something other than being a part instead of a whole.16 But if by the identification of evil with incompleteness one means rather 13

Another point that might be urged is that in a whole whose parts are co-existent with it we can ignore the evil of some parts only if this is slight in comparison with the excellence of the whole. But in a human life, taken as what I may call a serial whole, the case seems to be different. A considerable amount of pain or intellectual or moral defect in the earlier stages is atoned for if the later stages are good. 14 Mind, N. S., Vol. XVIII, pp. 343 ff. 15 Op. cit., p. 360. 16 This conclusion cannot be avoided, I think, unless we are prepared to say that the concept of value is merely a derivative from the concept of completeness. And this is by no means certain. Certainly the burden of proof rests with those who ask us to believe that value is such a derivative,

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that the sense of evil arises from our taking a part as if it were the whole, from our viewing it in isolation from the whole to which it belongs, this is simply going back to the doctrine that evil is an illusion. And we can reply to it, after the fashion of Dr. McTaggart, by urging that the fact that men view the part in isolation from the whole is itself an evil—is something other than incompleteness, is that which ought not to be. There is still one more way in which we might try to reconcile the belief in the compensatory power of the later stages of life with the doctrine of the unreality of change. The character of the human individual, it might be urged, is something fixed and definite, which stands as an unchanging reality back of the process of our life in time. This changeless character—the true self—is manifested in different degrees of adequacy in the various stages of the life, but more fully in the later stages than the earlier, while the final stage is virtually a complete manifestation. The quality of the later stages is the more important because these reveal more fully what the life essentially is. This hypothesis may be regarded as an application to the individual life of Dr. McTaggart’s attempt to reconcile the two doctrines of the unreality of time and the reality of progress.17 We can refute it by the help of considerations that we have already used in attacking a slightly different argument.18 If the time-process is unreal, all the less and more adequate representations of the changeless reality exist eternally. And the existence of the more adequate can in no sense do away with that of the less adequate. If the time-process is real, such atonement for the earlier by the later—for the less adequate representations by the more adequate—is conceivable; but if it is unreal, the atonement is not conceivable.19 We have now considered the various ways known to us in which one might try to reconcile man’s belief in the compensating power of the later stages of life with the doctrine of the unreality of change, and we have shown that each of these attempts must end in failure. We cannot as a result of our survey assert outright that the doctrine and no satisfactory proof of this thesis, I think, has ever been given. It is one thing to declare that only the whole is altogether good and that thus any part must be in some degree evil—though even this proposition seems to some of us to lack adequate proof—and it is quite another thing to say that excellence is nothing but completeness and evil nothing but incompleteness. 17 Op. cit. 18 See above, p. 31. 19 The conclusion that is really indicated by Dr. McTaggart’s argument is, to my mind, not that change is unreal, but that the universe, at present actually imperfect and in process of change, may eventually reach a state of perfection and that then change will cease. This is the only intelligible interpretation that I can give to the doctrine of the eventual passage of time into eternity. And it is, it seems to me, a theory that one might conceivably adopt, although personally I do not feel sure that perfection and change are incompatible. But although this seems to be the conclusion to which his argument points, it is evident that Dr. McTaggart would not be willing to accept it. For while apparently he would not object to the identification of eternity with changelessness, he is definitely committed to the doctrine of the unreality of change. Professor Overstreet, in an article entitled ‘Change and the Changless’ (this journal, Vol. XVIII, pp. I ff.), seeks to show, among other things, that a perfect being may undergo change. While there are some parts of his theory that I am unable to accept, it seems to me that on this particular point he has presented a forceful argument and that he has at least shown that the common belief in the incompatibility of change and perfection is open to question.

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and the belief are incompatible; for perhaps one might attempt a reconciliation in some other way that has not occurred to us.20 But I think that we are justified in saying that so far as we can at present see, man’s belief in the supreme importance of the later stages can be defended only if we conceive the temporal character of human life in the way that we have suggested. As the matter stands at present, we must either adopt this conception or condemn as utterly mistaken our belief in the transforming power of the later stages. Now there can be little question that we feel it to be of vital importance that the fuller realizations of value shall appear in the later stages of a man’s history. So long as a life falls short of complete attainment, we demand that at least it shall show progress—perhaps in happiness, certainly in intellectual power, in aesthetic sensibility, in moral attainment. And this conception of progress—important for all aspects of our nature—is so fundamental in our idea of the moral life that any theory of the time process that robs it of its meaning fails to satisfy one of the most insistent demands of our being. And with this I am content to leave the matter. I do not profess to have proved that my conception of the relation of the individual life to the time-process is correct. But it seems to me that I have shown that so far as we can at present see, we must either accept it or repudiate all those evaluations of life that give it its deepest significance for us.21 Some there may be who will still maintain that the belief in the compensatory power of the later stages is a mistaken one. But when we consider how intimately it is related to our sense of the value of life we may well refuse to condemn it without strong reasons. That the majority of thinkers are loath to repudiate it is shown by the fact that many who assert the phenomenal character of the time-process still try to justify, by some means or other, the conception of progress.22 With regard to this conception there are three questions that should be carefully distinguished. (1) Is progress possible? I.e., is reality of such a character that either in the whole or in some part the later stages might contain fuller realizations of value than the earlier? (2) Is progress in this sense actual? (3) If progress is possible, is it significant, desirable, valuable? Is it any better than retrogression? Of course if a progressive series, taken as a whole, contains more good than a regressive one, we should unhesitatingly declare it to be better. But what our third question means to ask is whether, given a certain amount of good in the series as a whole, progress is any more to be desired than retrogression. It is this question with which I have been concerned in the present discussion. For the purposes of this study I do not care to know whether progress is actual or not. What I have tried to show is that as progress it can have no value unless the later stages can compensate for the earlier as the earlier cannot for the later. I.e., unless there is such one-sided compensation, it can make no difference—given a certain amount of value in the whole of a particular life—whether that life in its 20

It should be remembered also that we did not try to prove that value is something other than completeness but merely declared that the burden of proof rests with any one who may ask us to regard the two as identical. 21 I should not wish it to be thought that this is the only consideration that leads me to accept the essential reality of the time-process. But my concern in this discussion is not to examine the arguments for and against that doctrine. 22 E.g., Dr. McTaggart (op. cit.) and Professor Howison (The Limits of Evolution, 1904, pp. 373 ff.).

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course progresses or retrogrades. And thus even if there were progress, it would be, qua progress, of no significance. Now if one declares that change is phenomenal it is not easy to see how one can assert the possibility of progress at all. But even if we waived this difficulty and assumed that one might reconcile the two doctrines of the unreality of time and the possibility of progress, we should still be unable to see how the later stages of a life could in any way compensate for the earlier. And in this case, though we might be willing to grant that progress is possible in the life of an individual, we should have no ground for regarding it as significant, as any better than retrogression. If however we accept the reality of change and if further we conceive the temporal aspect of human life in the way that I have proposed, we have a theory that implies the desirability of progress and thus furnishes an adequate basis for our most fundamental judgments as to the value of life.

Chapter 25

The Philosophy of Henri Bergson (Part I & II, Excerpts) Grace Neal Dolson Edited by Joel Katzav

Abstract In the selections that follow, Grace Neal Dolson offers a critical reading of experience, intuition, and duration in Bergson’s thought.

(Excerpt from Part I) According to a French philosopher quoted and approved by William James,1 people are led to accept the philosophy of Bergson by a process resembling that of religious conversion. One is either a disciple or one is not. In the former case, although Bergson’s theories may have been made the subject of long study, the final conviction of their truth is based less upon reason than upon feeling. There is a sudden change of attitude, the standard of philosophical values is found to have altered, and in the new light all things take on a different aspect. Such a view of the nature of Bergson’s philosophy, in spite of its attempt to rule out the ordinary canons of criticism, possesses a certain measure of truth. Bergson’s style of treatment, the variety and vividness of his imagery, his eager enthusiasm, all become more impressive the oftener his books are read, and all alike mark him as belonging to the family of the prophets. Moreover the reason fares so badly at his hands that the critic feels ashamed to subject such brilliant speculations to the despised rules of logic, and thus is forced to believe or to reject in silence. Nevertheless it is as philosophy that Bergson propounds his doctrines, and as philosophy they must be judged. A sympathetic appreciation of his standpoint is doubtless necessary, if we are to understand him; but before we can even try to determine the value of his writings, they must be not only appreciated, but tested by rational criticism. Perhaps it is true, as Bergson 1

A Pluralistic Universe, p. 266.

Grace Neal Dolson: Part I was first published in 1910 in The Philosophical Review, 19(6), 579–596. Pages 579–592 are included here. Part II was first published in 1911 in The Philosophical Review, 20(1), 46–58. Pages 52–58 are included here. G. N. Dolson (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_25

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contends, that the construction of a metaphysic should be the work of intuition rather than of intellect; but it is to the intellect alone that the final evaluation of even an intuitive metaphysic must belong. That Bergson has written deliberately and without haste, is shown by the dates of his books. The Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience appeared in 1889, Matière et mémoire in 1897, Le rire in 1900, and L’évolution créatrice in 1908. If one leaves out of consideration the third of these, which is much shorter and slighter than the others, there is an interval of about ten years between his publications,— a good record for a philosopher. Besides his books Bergson has written to some extent for various French periodicals; but his articles are almost entirely upon the same subjects. Either he repeats and explains what he has already said in a previous book, or else what he writes serves as a foundation for some future volume. With one or two unimportant exceptions, the chronological succession of his publications follows the logical order of their subject matter; and already in the Essai we find the fundamental principle of his whole philosophy clearly stated in much the same terms as those employed in his latest books. It is hardly necessary to say that this fundamental principle is duration and that it is of absolute not relative value. Metaphysic, if it exists at all, must be the possession of reality, not a merely relative knowledge of it. There is at least one absolute reality with which we are in immediate contact, namely, the ego which experiences duration, notre moi qui dure.2 In duration we have the subject matter of all metaphysics and our knowledge of it is the absolute truth. Kant’s contention of the relativity of knowledge is justified only because he is thinking of a metaphysic constructed after the Platonic pattern, in which realities are regarded as timeless. It has no application to a philosophy which looks upon time as the very essence of reality.3 That the duration of the ego is the ultimate truth of existence needs no further proof than immediate experience, if only we will take that experience as it is in itself and not as it is represented to us by the intellect.4 In fact, the instrument of knowledge is not intellect but intuition, through which we have an immediate grasp of ultimate reality which can be obtained in no other way. When we cease to reason and to analyze, when we turn to inner experience as it appears in feeling and volition, then we become conscious of the nature of true duration, which is constant, never-ending change. It can hardly be said that we are something that changes, for such an expression implies a permanent substrate, and there is no underlying stability. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, change changes. When we are most ourselves, then we are most conscious of the restless flow of duration, which is pure succession without any admixture of co-existence. In it there is no separation into parts; its different elements mutually penetrate one another, and are multiple without being distinct. They are related as the different parts of a melody are related, where each phrase in a sense embraces all that preceded and modifies all that follows.5 Duration knows no repetition; the 2

“Introduction à la métaphysique,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale, Vol. XI, 1903, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 29–36. 4 Essai, p. 76; L’évolution créatrice, pp. 295 f. and 322 f. 5 Essai, pp. 76–9; Matière et mémoire, pp. 205 f; L’Évolution créatrice, pp. 5 and 218. 3

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current which is forever changing is also forever new, just because it carries the part along with it, as a rolling snowball grows. It is absolute heterogeneity; it is motion; it is life. Yet, perhaps on account of the eternal flux of duration, our intuitive glimpses of it are brief and serve no practical end. Since we are primarily active and not speculative beings, the greater part of our attention must be turned away from what can be of no service to our immediate purposes, and we consequently content ourselves with the account of duration that is provided for us by the intellect, our most serviceable tool for action. The failure of philosophy, both in the past and in the present, is the result of a misconception of the nature of this tool.6 We have regarded the intellect as a knowing faculty, whereas in reality its function is purely to facilitate action. As such, it has given us science, and thus enables us to extend and correlate our activities; but when it pretends to provide us with disinterested knowledge, it is outside its province. From it we obtain an intellectual construction of duration in which the unceasing flow of an organized whole is broken up into small pieces and then fitted together again. The result is exactly like a cinematograph.7 The living, indivisible motion is translated into a series of immovable pictures, which are afterwards treated as if they were themselves the motion they replace. These two conceptions, namely, that of duration as the ultimate reality and of intuition as the instrument of true knowledge, form the basis of Bergson’s metaphysics and of his epistemology respectively. The resulting philosophy has a double aspect, one negative, the other positive. In the first place, he is concerned to show that not only science and philosophy but also the ordinary consciousness consists of the intellectual construction of reality which is best adapted to our practical ends; and secondly he makes the attempt to wrest from intuition a metaphysic which, so far as it exists at all, shall be the living truth. Both philosophical systems and the ordinary mode of conception unite in regarding time and space as correlatives. They are sometimes treated as the empty receptacles for objects, sometimes as forms of the knowing consciousness; but in either case they are put upon the same basis, without a hint of the possibility that they may be incompatible with one another. Even where the attempt is made to deduce one from the other and so to give one of them the priority, as is done for instance in Lotze’s theory of local signs, the essential differences between the two are ignored. The confusion is the more deplorable because upon it depends our whole interpretation of physics and of its relation to psychology. Just because we regard space and time as equally quantitative, we get an entirely false conception of the nature of quality, and even consider the reduction of the latter to quantitative terms as an advance in knowledge, whereas it is really only a means of making the world more amenable to our own practical operations. We are constantly dealing with a multiplicity of external objects and with a multiplicity of conscious states, with intensities that are physical and with those that are psychical. We treat them all as if they were alike, and thus, while increasing our efficiency, we ignore the peculiar characteristics 6 7

Matière et mémoire, p. 203. L’évolution créatrice, p. 331.

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of duration. In reality there is nothing quantitative in the intensity of a psychical state; on the contrary, it is pure quality. A greater degree of intensity means an increasingly complex progress, which is confusedly perceived, and the different degrees of which for purposes of convenience are regarded as a single quality with quantitative variations.8 An examination of the different kinds of states of consciousness will show that the statement applies equally to them all, though its truth is especially evident with regard to conation and affection.9 No two pleasures are qualitatively identical, and no two pleasures are quantitatively different; each has its own peculiar quality, and quantity is totally inapplicable. If we compare pleasures of different intensities, we find varying complexities; and as we shall see in a moment, complexity is qualitative. We call a joy intense, when it colors the whole of consciousness, when everything takes on a different aspect because of it; whereas a moderate pleasure is less pervasive and induces less radical changes. The case is a little different where we have to deal with states of consciousness that are representative of an external cause.10 In them the perception of intensity consists in the evaluation of the size of the cause by means of the quality of the effect; for instance, the volume of a sound contains an implicit reference to the size of the exciting body. The two intensities are found as a rule more or less confused with each other, because the simplest effort or emotion contains some show of representation, while representative states are usually affective and conative also. The ideas of intensity, therefore, may be reduced to two elements, (1) the idea of extensive size, transferred to consciousness from the external world and not really an integral part of the psychical state as such; and (2) an internal multiplicity which comes from the depths of consciousness and which is quality, not quantity. The constant confusion in our thought is due to the fact that there are two kinds of multiplicity, that of material objects and that of facts of consciousness.11 The first multiplicity is that of space and number. It is plurality, juxtaposition, the quantitative separation of one object from another which we call the impenetrability of matter and which, in its ignoring of quality for purposes of mathematical calculation, recognizes the solidarity of the notions of space and number.12 The multiplicity of our conscious states, however, has, on the contrary, not the least analogy with the units of a number. The two are totally disparate, and the true duration is entirely unrelated to space. Psychical multiplicity is complexity; there is no separation between the different parts, which are mutually interpenetrating and which are divided only through a spatial analysis, which has no basis in their own nature. The intellect, with its clever manipulation of the material at its disposal, falsifies psychical multiplicity by reconstructing it in terms of quantity. In order to free ourselves so far as possible from this confusion, we must recognize that we know two realities, though, as afterwards appears, they are by no means equally real,—one heterogeneous, that of sensible qualities, the other homogeneous, 8

Essai, pp. 19 f. Ibid., pp. 28 f. 10 Ibid., pp. 54 f. 11 Ibid., pp. 66, 92. 12 Op. cit., pp. 68 f. 9

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which is space.13 Where, then, shall we place time as it is ordinarily conceived, namely as a homogeneous and indefinitely limited medium, the parts of which can be separated and counted? Such a time is by no means identical with duration, but is the spatialized form given to states of consciousness, by means of which they may be treated as unchanging solids and thus made to yield a point of leverage for action. The very representation of succession under the form of a straight line spatializes it; so does every distinction between past and present successive states. In pure duration the ego lets its own life go on without even implicit distinctions. This does not mean that it is wholly absorbed in the passing sensation or idea, nor that it forgets what has preceded; in that case we should have mere instantaneity and no duration; but in the recall of such past experiences, it does not place them side by side with the present in a spatial juxtaposition, but holds them all together in a single pulse of activity, which resembles the solidarity of a living organism, each part of which is distinguished from the rest only for the abstractions of thought. To attribute the least homogeneity to duration is equivalent to the introduction of space.14 In the ego there is succession without reciprocal exteriority; outside the ego, a reciprocal exteriority without succession.15 Each influences our ideas of the other, and the result is a conception of external things and of internal states of consciousness as both quantitative and both existing in homogeneous time. Real space is without duration, and in it phenomena appear and disappear simultaneously with our states of consciousness. Real duration is made up of heterogeneous moments, all interpenetrating one another, but where each moment may be brought into relation with a contemporaneous event of the external world and is separated from the other moments just by this relationship. From the comparison of the two realities there is born the symbolic representation of duration which depends upon space. Duration takes on the illusory form of a homogeneous medium, and its intersection with space is what we call simultaneity. Each of the states of the external world called successive exists alone, and their multiplicity has reality only for a consciousness capable of preserving them and putting them into an exterior juxtaposition with one another.16 They are preserved, because these different events of the external world give rise to facts of consciousness, which form an organization and in which the past is united to the present by the effect of this solidarity. They are kept external to one another, because consciousness remembers the original distinction in which one ceased before the other appeared, and thus ranges them alongside one another in the space in which each one originally existed separately. The space which is employed in this way is called homogeneous time. Due entirely to the utilitarian proclivities of the intellect, it facilitates action but vitiates speculation. The universality of the application of such a category and also its artificial nature will be immediately evident to reflection. In scientific calculations we are constantly dealing with what is called motion but in reality is the limiting boundaries of motion. 13

Op. cit., pp. 74–77. Op. cit., p. 79. 15 Op. cit., pp. 82–84. 16 Op. cit., pp. 91 f. 14

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The space traversed by a moving body is divisible and measurable, and therefore we conclude that the motion itself has the same properties.17 Mechanics and astronomy deal with this space, not with the motion traversing it; with the beginning and end of intervals, not with the intervals themselves; with movements which have been completed and analyzed and thus resolved into static simultaneities. That there is no question of real duration is shown by the fact that the equations which express quantitative relationships would remain unchanged, if the motions with which they deal were all either quickened or retarded. So long as the change was uniform, science need take no account of it, in fact, could not do so. But for duration the rate of movement is of the utmost importance; it is the very stuff of which reality is made. To say that one might have the same experience but more or less rapidly is nonsense; under such circumstances the experiences would cease to be the same. When one turns from science to the less systematic constructions of the ordinary consciousness, one finds the spatial influence especially prominent in the more superficial aspects of mental life.18 Those conscious states which seem least essential to the experiencing personality are the ones which fall into distinct and separate form, which lend themselves to scientific description and classification, and to the exteriority implied in language and in social intercourse. But when we feel our innermost selves, there is no such separation possible. Instead we experience the heterogeneous fusion of a qualitative multiplicity, which has duration but no spatial distinctions. Yet just because the more profound and the more superficial ego make up a single personality, they seem to have the same kind of duration, and to be equally simultaneous and successive. We construct an elaborate philosophy to account for time and space and movement thus misinterpreted, oblivious of the fact that intuition is constantly showing us motion in duration, and duration and space as antagonistic to each other.19 If we leave the abstractions of homogeneous space and time, and return to more concrete experiences, we are confronted with other questions which are as fundamental for psychology as the former are for physics. The one reality with which we are in immediate contact is le moi qui dure, and it is necessary to understand how much the phrase includes. Evidently Bergson does not mean it to apply to the whole of consciousness in the ordinary sense of the term, for that is to be largely attributed to the spatialized constructions of the intellect, which are not reality at all. The appeal to the certainty of inner experience has little resemblance to Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum. It often seems to be merely an expression for the vague feelings which lie beneath the more definite contents of the shifting stream of consciousness. When Bergson really deals with the latter, he takes it in its broadest possible sense, and speaks of the whole sum of images as the equivalent of the world of phenomena. Everything that enters into my experience—and I know no other—is my image; and I cannot go outside of consciousness, even when I am distinguishing most sharply between the ego and the non-ego. These images are not all alike, and their principal difference seems to be in their relation to the ego. For instance, I distinguish between 17

L’évolution créatrice, pp. 295 f. Essai, pp. 95, 97, 152 f. 19 Ibid., pp. 86 f. 18

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a chair and my perception of a chair, although they are both images, and upon reflection I cannot see that the one exists apart from the other. In the whole assemblage of chairs and chair-perceptions certain particular images, those of my own body, assume a privileged position, upon which it depends whether the image is to be regarded as matter or as perception. Whereas matter is the whole sum of images, such portions of the latter as are related to the possible action of my body constitute perception, which is thus a selected part of matter, and belongs to the object rather than to the subject.20 The problem of both materialism and idealism is to explain how it is possible for the same images to enter into two different systems; the one where each image varies for itself in definite proportion to the action of surrounding images; the other where they all vary together in accordance with their reflection of the real or possible action of a single image, namely, that of the body.21 Neither materialism nor idealism has been able to solve the problem, for the former makes of perception an accident, while the other destroys the order of nature. The basis of both difficulties is the same, for both theories regard perception as speculative in character, and the whole discussion turns upon its rank in relation to scientific knowledge. That this postulate as to the nature of perception is false, may be shown by the most superficial examination of the nervous system in the animal series, the development of which is parallel to that of perception, while both are equally instruments of action.22 A simple nervous system means definite, unvarying action, while more complicated organs signify a lack of determination. Perception therefore symbolizes the increasing latitude of choice at the animal’s disposal, and appears at the precise moment when a stimulus received from without does not prolong itself in a necessary reaction. The difference between perception and matter is one of degree, not of kind.23 Matter consists in the totality of images, and in order that it may become perception, everything must be eliminated which has no relation to our needs. Perception is a selection from matter, and the only real question concerning it is how it comes to be confined to such narrow boundaries, when apparently it might just as well be the image of the whole. The answer is the same as that which provides the solution for other difficulties.24 We are formed for action rather than for knowledge. Perception is not to be regarded as a photograph, but as a tool. As such it takes the form best adapted to the use to which it is to be put. The case is entirely different with memory, which is idea with no motor elements.25 Perception is virtual action, but memory taken by itself is a dream in which the entire past is preserved without the loss of a single detail. The flow of duration loses nothing as it moves, but constantly adds the succession of events to a whole which has no parts but which is infinitely complex. Practically inseparable from perception, memory pushes the past into the present, and thus brings still 20

Matière et mémoire, pp. 4, 7, 65 f. Ibid., pp. 11–14, 36 f. 22 Op. cit., pp. 17 f. 23 Op. cit., pp. 22–25. 24 Op. cit., pp. 29, 56, 62 f. 25 Op. cit., pp. 60, 62, 148. 21

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another instrument for the use of action.26 It is able to do this because the past survives under two distinct forms: (1) in motor mechanisms called habits, and (2) in memories proper.27 One passes by insensible degrees from the recollections disposed along time to the incipient or possible actions in space. The latter depend upon the brain, but the existence of memory is totally unconnected with the integrity of the cerebrum. There are no memory or association centres. Memory exists in its own right, so to speak, and cannot be affected by lesions of any part of the nervous system. That it seems to be so affected and to such an extent that it is usually regarded as conditioned by brain action, is due to its intersection with perception, through which it becomes complicated with movement. A lesion of the brain cuts off the motion by which memory enters consciousness and thus externalizes itself.28 When perception takes place, the mind chooses one by one the different analogous images, which are launched in the direction of perception. This choice is not operated haphazard, but depends upon the imitative and habitual movements which serve as a bond between perception and memory. The images from the latter are reflected and united with the perception, which thus is centrifugal as well as centripetal. There is a solidarity between the mind and its object, and a different amount of attention means a new experience. The whole mind is present in every act, but it chooses its images from different depths, according to its degree of tension. In lesions of the cerebral cortex, sometimes the body can no longer take the automatic attitude required for the selection of images, and sometimes the memories no longer find there a means of prolonging themselves into action. In either case it is movement which is injured, while memory remains intact. Memory belongs to duration, to the eternal flux; perception makes a section in the flowing mass, and thus constitutes the sensible world.29 The latter is not that which exists, it is that which is being made, which is making, for consciousness is the synonym for activity. Memory therefore becomes conscious, in so far as it is related to activity; and since this is always a small part of the whole, most memories will be unconscious. They all strive to push their way through the door opened to them, but the body, which selects from matter those images that are useful for its own purposes, plays the same role here, and chooses the memory-images suitable to the exigencies of the moment. This selection is by no means so rigid as the first, and so in connection with the memories useful for action, others appear also, which are mere dreams and fancies, and which form the basis for works of artistic creation.30 The study of perception and memory serves to strengthen the view previously set forth of the artificiality of space.31 If perception is merely a part of things, then the two must have the same nature, and material extension cannot be the abstraction of which the geometrician speaks. Rather it will take on the characteristic of extensiveness 26

Op. cit., pp. 67, 152; L’évolution créatrice, p. 5. Matière et mémoire, pp. 74 f. 28 Op. cit., pp. 101, 105–109. 29 Op. cit., pp. 150, 153, 162. 30 Op. cit., pp. 167 f., 197 f. 31 Op cit., pp. 200 f. 27

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which belongs to images, and which differs so widely from the space of mathematics and of science. In the same way the recognition of the nature of pure memory lessens the opposition between quality and quantity. Every concrete perception is a synthesis for the memory of an infinite number of perceptions succeeding one another, and the heterogeneity of sensible qualities may depend upon their contraction, while the homogeneity of objects is due to the relaxation of the spring. The difference then would be one of tension, and thus not so radical as at first it seemed to be. From whatever aspect consciousness is regarded, reference is constantly being made to the activity of the ego. Evidently the question of the freedom of the will must be of peculiar importance for a philosopher like Bergson; that is, if for such a thoroughgoing voluntarism it can be said to be a question at all. The whole difficulty rests, he thinks, upon an inexact representation of conscious states and especially upon a misconception of duration.32 All physical determinism may be reduced to psychological, and the latter implies an associationist view of the mind. The associationist puts the facts of consciousness into space. He reduces the ego to an aggregate of sensations, feelings, and ideas, and thus never gets more than a phantom projection of the ego into space. A personality is not made by putting together different states of consciousness; it is present in its entirety in each one of them. The external manifestation of such a state will be an essentially free act because the ego alone is its author. The determinist explains every action as a separate piece of consciousness due to another equally separate piece, and supposes that, if all the circumstances were known, it would be possible to predict exactly what the resulting action would be.33 If Peter could know all that was in Paul’s mind, and all that had previously been there, he could foretell exactly what Paul would do. But since duration is a reality and not an empty form of intuition, the rapidity of succession must be considered. The events of Paul’s life cannot be separated from their duration, and this could not be shortened without changing the events. Peter would be compelled to live Paul’s life; and since at any other period of time or in any other place it would not be the same life, he would be obliged to become Paul. He could not get the knowledge of Paul from the outside; and with Peter once identified with Paul, the supposition of the possible prediction of Paul’s action ceases to have any meaning. Moreover, the determinist assumes also that like events will have like results, that the same thing can happen twice, whereas this is true only of our intellectualized conceptions, never of the reality of duration, which is always new.34 The libertarian, on the other hand, may admit the fundamental postulate of freedom; but since he too accepts the mosaic view of consciousness, his defence will be based on mechanical grounds, which logically end in determinism.35 True liberty is to be found in a certain quality of the action, and not in the relation of the act to what it is not nor to what it might have been.36 Deliberation is not an oscillation in space, but a dynamic progress of 32

Essai, pp. 109, 119, 125–127. Op. cit., pp. 148 f.; Lévolution créatrice, pp. 7 f. 34 Essai, p. 152. 35 Ibid., pp. 135 f., 168. 36 Ibid., pp. 140, 167. 33

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the ego and its motives. It can be experienced but not analyzed. When the theories of determinism and liberty are transferred from man to the universe, they become mechanism and teleology. Mechanism implies a metaphysic in which the totality of the real is given en bloc, and where the apparent duration of things expresses simply the infirmity of a mind that cannot know everything at once.37 The reality of duration is denied. Teleology, on the other hand, implies that the universe realizes a ready-made program. It supposes that everything is already given; it admits nothing new. This is nearer to the truth than mechanism, but both are vitiated by the use of intellectual concepts. Life is larger than the intellect, and it is only through intuition that we become conscious of the vital current in ourselves and in the universe.38 (Excerpt from Part II) But difficult as it is to form a clear idea of instinct and of its relation to intellect, the fundamental problem of Bergson’s epistemology concerns the nature of knowledge itself. For him no knowledge is possible if subject and object are kept separate; the relation between knowing subject and its object is that of identity. Peter can know Paul only by becoming Paul, and thus having experiences which are not merely like Paul’s, but are actually his. There ceases to be any Peter as distinguished from Paul. Reflection upon an event, for instance one’s own conscious processes, is not knowledge at all. Such a view is, of course, not new, and many recognized facts of experience, especially those of feeling and emotion, may be cited in its favor. We say that a man may write learnedly of anger and of compassion, of aesthetic appreciation and of religious ecstasy, but that he cannot really know that of which he is speaking until he has experienced in himself the feelings described. In fact, every elementary conscious process, which is from its very simplicity incapable of definition, is a case in point. There can be no real knowledge prior to experience. Nevertheless this is not equivalent to a refusal to recognize any distinction between knowledge and experience; much less does it mean that the experiencing subject becomes his experience. There is no possible way in which knowledge, in the ordinary sense of the term, can be made to fit this conception; and though Bergson would doubtless reply that he is expressly avoiding the usual significance, he does not substitute for it any comprehensible idea. To deny that it can be defined or described is simply to put it outside all possible discussion, to make it a word and nothing more. If knowledge is taken in this way as an identification of subject and object, the choice of instinct as the knowing faculty becomes in a certain sense justified. The predominance of feeling, the tendency toward a degree of consciousness not much above the limen, the very lack of clearness, would all be in its favor. If Bergson’s view of knowledge is accepted, then his account of the development of instinct to its culminating point in the hymenoptera, which are thus made superior to men in capacity for knowledge, ceases to be improbable and becomes a verifiable hypothesis which may easily prove to be well-founded. Whether such a statement, even if proven, could be regarded as knowledge, would of course be doubtful. Instead, it would appear to be merely a tool for action and thus restricted to the number of the intellect’s useful 37 38

L’Évolution créatrice, p. 42. Ibid., pp. 50–54.

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fabrications. True knowledge could hardly contain theories at all, even Bergson’s theories. To reply to objections, as he does, with an exhortation to take the risk and thus experience knowledge, is an absurdity. It is as if a man replied to a denial that mathematical properties could be predicated of virtue with a command to be of good courage and compute its square root. The philosophy which will result from taking leave of the intellect will be, of course, a philosophy made up of intuitions with no rational significance. We must have a philosophy which is lived and willed, not one that is thought. If by such a philosophy Bergson meant a theory of the conduct of life which should include its practical application, one could understand him, though this would be an unfortunate limitation of the term; but apparently the philosophy of his dreams will be equally free from application and from theory, since both are inextricably bound up with the intellect. The second of the three main problems presented by Bergson’s system is that of duration of time and its relation to space. The two notions are so commonly regarded as correlative, it is so universally assumed that what is true of the one will be true of the other, that to separate them and to regard one of them as real while the other is not, seems to be at first sight a wholly arbitrary speculation without any rational basis. Nevertheless, although the theory has aroused much hostile criticism, some of its strangeness is purely a matter of terminology. When we speak of time and space as each implying the other, we mean homogeneous time and homogeneous space, and Bergson would be the last to deny the applicability of the same mode of conception to them both. The trouble is that when Bergson speaks of time without any modifying adjective, he means something altogether different from the abstract and spatialized succession designated as homogeneous time. Time considered as duration is life, movement, activity, an eternal flux in which each moment includes within itself the whole of its past and for which no repetition is possible. Bare succession, on the other hand, abstracted from all notion of content or of rate of movement, must be imaged, if imaged at all, in terms of space. A good deal of what Bergson says concerning homogeneous time and its spatial characteristics may be due to his evident preference for visual imagery. Whatever one may think of his explanation of space itself, the latter is in perfect agreement with his conception of homogeneous time; and the polemic which he addresses against the tendency to translate quality into terms of quantity, and to regard it as thereby explained instead of destroyed, as it must be by such a transformation, is in the highest degree justified. When Bergson makes duration the fundamental reality, he is not speaking of time in the usual sense of the term. Time proper is not opposed to space as the reality to the appearance, but is its correlative. Duration, on the contrary, means succession in the sense of change, which may be symbolized by a flowing current, but concerning which one must always remember that nothing is ever lost from the stream. The present includes the past in a heterogeneity where nothing is exterior to anything else, but where multiplicity signifies complexity with no numerical coloring. It is the complexity of a musical composition, not that of a heap of bricks. To prove that duration is the ultimate reality, Bergson appeals to intuition. Anyone who will take the trouble to examine the depths of his own consciousness will find under all the spatialized constructions of the intellect the successive heterogeneity which

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constitutes duration. The findings of introspection are definite and unambiguous, and no one who makes the attempt will be in doubt as to the nature of the result. The obvious answer to such a mode of argument is that as a matter of fact intuition is extremely ambiguous, and people differ both as to their results and also as to the significance of the latter. It is quite as easy to look upon one’s own reality as a permanent ego that abides amid changes as it is to regard it as an eternal flux. The ultimate nature of change is by no means self-evident. Like other ultimate conceptions it is accepted or rejected by something much resembling an act of faith. It is difficult to decide to what extent Bergson intends duration to be regarded as conscious. I must admit that I do not understand what is meant by psychical existence which is unconscious, unless the term is taken to imply the permanent or shifting conditions of consciousness, which are not represented by Bergson as in any way incompatible with matter and so could hardly be called psychical. The duration which constitutes the reality of each experiencing individual is a part of the larger duration which is described in L’évolution créatrice as the vital impulse and which is said to be analogous to consciousness. On the one hand, duration and memory are identified and both said to be unconscious; on the other, consciousness is declared to be activity rather than existence, and so could not fail to be merged in duration. The whole difficulty, however, is one of those that might be solved by fuller explanations from Bergson and is not necessarily inherent in the subject. The main problem is, of course, that which was the point at issue between Heracleitus and the Eleatics, namely, the relative value of permanence and of change. Every voluntaristic philosophy seems bound to decide for the latter, to resolve things into processes, and substance into flux. Why, Bergson asks, should we find it so much easier to posit logical existence than physical or psychical? Why should we suppose that anything continues or that there is anything to continue? Π αντ ´ α´ ·ε˜ı—even those figments of the reason by which we strive to give permanence to the changing, fixity to the free play of vital impulse, and substance to activity. Again the appeal is not to intellect but to faith. With regard to the third question, it has been pointed out more than once that Bergson’s view of matter is confused and contradictory and that he does not really determine its status. He says, to be sure, that materialism and idealism are equally false and that both may be avoided by the recognition that the material world really is exactly what it appears to be; but he fails to see that people have always been at issue concerning the nature of the appearance, no less than with regard to that of the underlying reality. To say that objects are there where we see them, and that perception belongs to the object rather than to the subject, sounds satisfactory, but in reality provides no suggestion as to what it means to be an object and what is signified by its existence. When Bergson develops his own theories instead of arguing against those of other thinkers, he gives two descriptions of matter which hardly seem compatible with each other. Matter is defined as the sum of images and also as a movement interrupting that of the vital impulse and proceeding in the opposite direction. Matter as the sum of images is to be especially distinguished from perception, which is made up of selected images. The difference is one of degree, not of kind, for those images which are useful to action are thus marked off from the larger

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sum of which they form a part. Matter is the world of phenomena, and the images composing it enter into perception to just the extent that they are related to certain images having peculiar properties, namely, images of the body. But such an account is not intended so much to suggest an idealistic interpretation of matter, as to relegate perception to its proper place as a mere tool. The nature of matter itself is not thereby determined, except that it is evidently neither substrate nor cause. It is not a Ding an sich but the phenomenon itself. Such a view, however, hardly seems consistent with the definition of matter as inverse movement. If the individual checks within himself the flow of duration which is his deepest reality, the tension relaxes and what has been quality becomes quantity. The same thing happens with the universal stream which is the vital impulse, and with the cessation of its movement, its elements spread out, become spatial, and thus constitute the material world. But such a material world has no necessary relation to consciousness; and if it thus ceases to be an object, how is it to be conceived? It is said to be as real and as original as the duration which it interrupts; and at the same time it has the unreality pertaining to everything spatial. It affords a genuine opposition to the vital impulse, yet is merely the slackening of its tension. Matter and intellect are adjusted to each other so that they correspond, yet neither is dependent on the other. Again, matter is the potentiality of action, almost in the Aristotelian sense of the term, and, viewed by itself, it has no existence worthy of the name. If intellect alone is conversant with it, there can be no knowledge of it, for intellect affords none. Whether instinct is cognizant of it, is not made clear; but matter so far as it is inert, could hardly be referred to instinct. Altogether the ontological and cognitive status of matter is veiled in obscurity, and a clear idea of it can be formed only by ignoring some of Bergson’s statements and by giving an arbitrary interpretation to others. It may easily be, as in the case of duration, that the contradictions are merely apparent and that the confusion would disappear with fuller explanations. With regard to the system as a whole, it seems to me that a sharp line should be drawn between the epistemology and the metaphysics, in that the difficulties in the former are inherent in the theory itself, while in the latter they are less radical and seem often due to ambiguities rather than to positive contradictions. The fundamental doctrines of the epistemology, on the contrary, are made perfectly clear. They are all based upon the demand that knowledge should be, not know, its object, and such a demand implies a contradictio in adjecto. Consequently, what begins with an attempt to satisfy the reason, ends with a denial of the latter’s validity, almost of its existence. The reason is employed against the reason, and the result is mysticism. Of course the contention that such a demand and such a procedure are logically vicious, will be of no avail where logic has already been intentionally discarded. Arguments for the position or against it are equally worthless. A direct appeal must be made to the feelings of the philosophical votary, and his acceptance or rejection will be an act of free choice, in which his intellect will have no part. There is a close affinity between mysticism and a voluntarist metaphysics, for both are based upon a denial of the claims of reason; and therefore their union in Bergson is by no means a matter of chance. With respect to the particular form of his voluntarism, he has doubtless been influenced by many thinkers, but his likeness to

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Heracleitus can hardly escape notice. Both viewed the nature of ultimate reality in the same way. Next to Heracleitus, Bergson is most akin to Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, although the differences are here so great as sometimes to conceal the fundamental similarity. But wherever he is classified, Bergson must be recognized as a great and original thinker. With an epistemology that ends in mysticism and a metaphysics that shows the limitations threatening every purely voluntaristic system, he is nevertheless a genius in both; and as such, he is likely to have followers and opponents rather than critics. By all of them the appearance of his next book will be awaited with the keenest interest, for it can hardly fail to be of the greatest importance for the philosophical thought of the present and the immediate future.

Part VI

Freedom and the Individual

Abstract Part VI of this book introduces and collects work on freedom and the individual by Ellen Bliss Talbot, Marjorie Silliman Harris and Grace Andrus de Laguna.

Chapter 26

Introduction Joel Katzav and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract This part introduces the discussion of human free will, including of the problem of whether free will is compatible with determinism and of what free will amounts to if it exists. We begin by presenting standard compatibilist, incompatibilist and libertarian responses to this problem. Against this background, we discuss in detail the idealist views of freedom presented by Ellen Bliss Talbot, Marjorie Silliman Harris and Grace Andrus de Laguna in the articles included here. All three authors argue that an individual’s freedom is grounded in their unique and unrepeatable, self-determining nature.

26.1 Introduction Determinism is the view that the sum of events occurring at any particular time in conjunction with the laws of nature uniquely determine all later events, including everything humans might do at later times. The problem of free will arises partly from the conjunction of determinism with the assumption that we are able freely to use our powers of reason to choose our own courses of action. How is it possible for us to be free if determinism is true? This question matters, partly because whether we are free seems to be intimately tied to whether we are responsible and morally accountable for our actions. The recent literature on the problem of free will characterizes responses to it as either compatibilist or incompatibilist. According to compatibilism, free will is compatible with determinism. According to incompatibilism, free will is incompatible with determinism. While some incompatibilists go on to accept determinism and J. Katzav (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] D. Rogers Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_26

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reject the assumption that we are free, others, libertarians, reject determinism and insist that we are free (O’Connor & Franklin, 2022). There is a long history of compatibilism. Eliza Ritchie—the fourth woman to earn a doctorate in philosophy in the U.S. (Cornell, 1889)—offers an illustrative example of a compatibilist argument and position. She urged philosophers to adopt a theory of human moral agency based on new discoveries in science, the emerging discipline of psychology in particular. Ritchie maintained that human beings are physical and psychological creatures whose nature is fixed. Further, if we could attain “full and exact knowledge” of all aspects of a person’s nature, we could understand their “character... with mathematical accuracy” (1889, p. 29). Indeed, we can in principle predict which choices given individuals will make. Thus, Ritchie accepts determinism. She charges, however, that the challenge it poses for the idea of free will has not been addressed head on by most proponents of free will. Given that it is not plausible to reject determinism, proponents of the idea of free will need to show how their position is compatible with the existence of free will. She is thus urging for compatibilism. Ritchie’s compatibilism asserts that a person’s “freedom means just this, that he is not a mere machine, without consciousness and therefore without volition, but that he has a purpose in view, an idea of which he desires the realization” (1893, p. 533). She clarifies that a free choice, accordingly, is one that results from a purpose-directed reasoning process in which the reasoner is conscious of the purpose, of some of the means available for attaining that purpose and prefers the more desirable one (ibid., p. 533). Importantly, Ritchie’s view implies, as she notes, that freedom is a matter of degree. The more we use our rationality in our decisions, and thus the less the decision is merely instinctual or habitual, the more free we become (ibid., p. 534). A free choice must, further, be one that is due to the ego or real self. More specifically, the purpose that guides the choice must be due to one’s real self (ibid., pp. 535–536). However, while Ritchie articulates a form of compatibilism, she does not explicitly address two of the key challenges incompatibilists have raised for compatibilism. The first of these challenges is that, if determinism is true, we cannot choose in any other way than the way we do. But, if we cannot choose in any other way than we do, we are not free. Compatibilists have tended to accept that freedom requires the ability to choose otherwise and have traditionally put much effort in trying to show that determinism is compatible with the ability to choose otherwise, when this ability is appropriately understood. Ritchie, note, explicitly accepts that we cannot choose otherwise (ibid., p. 531). In the analytic tradition, views according to which freedom does not require being able to choose otherwise came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, largely in the wake of the work of Harry Frankfurt (Berofsky, 2011).1 A second key challenge is that, if determinism is true, we are not the ultimate source of our actions, that is, we are not self-determining. But, the argument goes, 1

When, however, our authors talk about being able to do otherwise, they are concerned with being able to do otherwise without any change in circumstances, including external conditions, characteristics of the self and the laws of nature. This contrasts with what many in the analytic tradition have meant by ‘being able to do otherwise’.

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we are only free if we are the ultimate sources of our actions. Compatibilists tend to accept that there is a need to explain how self-determination is compatible with determinism and hence a need for an appropriate determinism-compatible notion of self-determination. Julia Gulliver, who was one of those responding to Ritchie’s paper, provides us (1894) with an illustrative libertarian argument and position. Gulliver claims that there is a tension between Ritchie’s view that determinism is true and precludes our being able to choose otherwise, and Ritchie’s claim that we are self-determining. Gulliver adds that, since Ritchie acknowledges that, if we go far enough into the past, we reach events which determine us but are beyond our control, she leaves no room for self-determination and thus no room for real freedom (ibid., pp. 65–66). Gulliver’s own libertarian proposal about how to understand freedom tells us that Ritchie conflated psychological causation and physical causation. Ritchie essentially said that those who deny determinism assume that individuals’ decisions have no cause at all. But, according to Gulliver, denying determinism involves no more than denying that the law of physical causation applies to volitions as such, that is, to volitions insofar as they are subject to psychological causes. Moreover, the laws of psychological causation merely tell us that individuals’ choices are prompted or conditioned by psychological characteristics, so that the ability to choose lies in the will of any given individual. As Gulliver puts it, “[a] modern and scientific form of libertarianism,” simply holds that “volitions [may be] subject to the physical law of cause and effect.... But volitions, as volitions, [are beyond] physical causation” (ibid., pp. 64–65). Here Gulliver puts forward a version of causal indeterminism. According to causal indeterminism, the law of causality does not hold, that is, some events do not obey exact laws and thus, at most, obey statistical or probabilistic laws. Gulliver concedes that the liberty of indifference—the view of many free will proponents that a person “chooses independently of, and without reference to, motives”—does merit criticism. It involves no real freedom. But this is an “extremely radical... form of libertarianism [not the] prevailing form,” according to Gulliver. The more mainstream view is that volitions are subject to the law of causation in two senses: (a) human choices are “caused” by an individual’s own motives in that they are standing conditions for specific choices, (b) “volitions are caused by the conscious, choosing ego [which is] their efficient cause” (ibid., p. 64). Libertarianism of the kind articulated by Gulliver, that is, libertarianism of the kind that allows us to choose otherwise even if the entire history of the world, including of ourselves, and the laws are fixed, also faces its challenges. In particular, it is unclear whether it really avoids the kind of challenge put forward by Ritchie, according to which libertarians are saying that our choices are not caused at all. According to John Dewey, if we follow Gulliver and suppose that the ego could have chosen otherwise, we seem to be left without any explanation for why the ego made the choice it made. As a result, we are simply denying that the choice is caused by the ego (1894, pp. 337–338). The “ability of an independent ego to choose between alternatives” does not yield “causation” in any scientific sense of the word (ibid., pp. 338–339). Further, in Dewey’s view, a discussion of human choice making must focus on the aptitudes and capabilities of specific individuals, not on a vague notion

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of ego, detached from lived realities. For Dewey, it is unclear what role the ego might have in explaining freedom given that choice is the normal outcome of an awareness of possibilities for action and the reflection such awareness causes. Freedom, on his view, can accordingly amount to no more than this ordinary process of choice (ibid., pp. 340–341). The framework of ‘compatibilism’, ‘incompatibilism’ and ‘libertarianism’ as well as the exchange just presented provide us with context for arguments about free will and determinism by the women whose work is featured in this part: Ellen Bliss Talbot, Marjorie Silliman Harris, and Grace Andrus de Laguna. Here we see three women continuing the discussion of free will but taking on challenges that this exchange leaves open and doing so in what are, from a contemporary perspective, non-standard ways. All three agree with Gulliver that, as proponents of the idea that we are free, they need to accept that we are self-determining and that self-determination is incompatible with determinism. These authors thus place themselves firmly in the libertarian camp. However, unlike the majority of contemporary libertarians and with Ritchie, our authors deny that freedom requires the ability to choose otherwise. For they accept, with Dewey, that a self that does not fully determine a choice and thus is threatened by making a choice that is in the end indifferent, is an insufficient basis for freedom. On their view, freedom requires that an individual’s choices are necessitated by who they are but who they are is, ultimately, not externally determined. As we will see, their view fits neatly into what we, in our introduction, referred to as speculative philosophy.

26.2 Talbot on the Unique and Self-sufficient Individual Talbot’s paper ‘Individuality and Freedom’ (1909) considers whether being free, in the sense of being able to choose otherwise, is necessary for our being individuals and for the self-sufficiency, and thus for the freedom in the sense of self-determination, we associate with individuality. She held that individuality chiefly consists in qualitative unity, qualitative uniqueness, and self-sufficiency. Qualitative unity is a function of internal complexity and inner coherence for each individual; such unity increases with the complexity of the unified whole and with the extent to which the constituents of the whole cohere. Qualitative uniqueness entails differentiating oneself from all others but doing so against a background of similarity. In the case of human individuals, for example, uniqueness is not idiosyncratic, but involves developing a distinctive personality while also “speak[ing] the common language of humanity” (ibid., p. 602; this volume, p. 27). Qualitative uniqueness too is a matter of degree, with the high degree of uniqueness of humans being made possible by their complex mental lives. Self-sufficiency is a matter of degree and, in the case of individual organisms, amounts

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to self-direction. A person, in particular, needs the ability to direct their own life, even while being part of a community or the larger society.2 Talbot examines each of these elements. Qualitative unity is central to individuality. As we proceed from less complex to more complex individuals, e.g., from heaps, to rocks, to plants and then to animals, we find that a greater degree of coherence of constituents goes along with a greater degree of individuality (1909, p. 601; this volume, p. 302). Similarly, the more qualitatively unique an individual is, and in the case of an organism this means the more complex it is, we find that the greater its degree of individuality. Finally, the more self-sufficient an individual and, in the case of an organism, the more power it has to direct its own life, the more it counts as an individual. Talbot next makes her case for the compatibility of individuality with the rejection of freedom, in the sense of being able to choose otherwise. She suggests that, “other things being equal, the more harmonious and coherent a personality is, the more individuality we ascribe to it” (1909, pp. 605–606; this volume, p. 305). But then, it seems, we should also accept that not being able to choose otherwise contributes to individuality rather than is a threat to individuality. For that someone is not able to choose otherwise suggests that their actions are intimately connected to who they truly are. Having some degree of self-sufficiency also seems to require rejecting the possibility of choosing otherwise. After all, if we are indifferent which of two options is preferable, the choice of one cannot be ours (1909, p. 607; this volume, p. 306). So, insisting that we cannot choose otherwise seems essential to being self-directed and thus to human individuality. One might, to be sure, worry that, if we cannot choose otherwise, all our actions are determined by factors beyond our control, so that we are not self-sufficient and thus are not true individuals. However, according to Talbot, that our actions are determined by ourselves does not imply that what we are is fully determined by our past. Since we are unique, our choices and actions are not only due to us but cannot be due to anything else, including all that precedes us in time. The past does not, according to Talbot, fully determine who we are and, as a result, we have a modicum of self-sufficiency and an associated unpredictability (1909, pp. 609–612; this volume, pp. 307–309). In this way, Talbot denies that we are free in the sense that we could have done otherwise. She agrees, with Dewey and against Gulliver, that if we permit that we might have done otherwise, indifference will determine our actions, and that the freedom of indifference is no freedom at all. At the same time, Talbot thinks that she captures what really matters to us in our belief that we are free. We are still individuals and thus to some degree unique and self-determining. Here, Talbot rejects the determinism which Ritchie thinks we are all obliged to accept. While we determine our choices and actions, we are not fully determined by our pasts. Thus, Talbot

2

Qualitative unity and qualitative uniqueness are to be distinguished from the corresponding quantitative features of individuals. Quantitative unity is just being numerically one. Quantitative uniqueness is just being numerically different from everything else.

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is, like Gulliver, a libertarian.3 Nevertheless, Talbot leaves unaddressed—if only because it was not part of her goal to address—Dewey’s worry about the role of the self in explaining freedom. Dewey’s worry was that ordinary choice—reflection on recognized possible actions and selection from among these—suffices to bring about action and that, therefore, there is no room for the self to play a role in explaining our freedom. And Talbot says nothing about how the uniqueness of the individual, which explains our freedom, might have a role in explaining our actions given that our goals and ordinary deliberation appear to suffice to do so. Here the problem is partly that the self is given no clear role and partly that the explanation appeals to factors (the reasons we might give for action) which appear to be general and repeatable rather than unique.

26.3 Harris’s Idealist Critique of Bergson Harris’s paper, ‘Bergson’s Conception of Freedom’ (1933) considers how any flexibility the then recently developed quantum mechanics might reveal in the world bears on the free will debate. She focuses on two questions: If there is flexibility in the intellectual and moral world, does this demonstrate that freedom exists? Could there be flexibility in human activity without thus concluding that human beings are free? Stating that the world contains flexibility is Harris’s way of stating that some events are not governed by exact laws and thus of stating what we have described above as ‘causal indeterminism’. Harris explores her questions about flexibility largely through a discussion of Bergson’s view of human will and decision making. As she understands Bergson, he criticizes both indeterminist and determinist thinkers, in part because they assume that what choices we might make in the future is uniquely fixed in the present. The determinist assumes that the present causally determines that there is only one possible future, one in which we will make a predestined choice. The opponent of determinism assumes that there are two or more fixed possibilities between which the present is indifferent. For Bergson, however, how the future might be is not fully determined until it occurs. There is flexibility about how things will be but exactly which possibilities this involves is itself something that unfolds with time. There is thus no fact of the matter about what precisely the future is or might be and thus no future we can (fully) predict. Instead, we create our future when we choose and act (ibid., p. 514; this volume, p. 316). An individual’s act is free, for Bergson, when the future it creates in acting is an expression of its real self. Since this self is supposed to be a whole the different states of which are what they are by virtue of their interrelations, a decision by the real self is inevitably a decision it makes as a whole. Moreover, the interdependency 3

Katzav and Rogers discussed the stances of Ritchie and Talbot on free will/determinism at some length. See Rogers (2021; pp. 38–40; 68–70), who argues that while Talbot may have accepted a qualified determinism, Ritchie objected to theological or metaphysical notions of free will.

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of later and earlier states of the real self means that our acts involve a kind of backwards causation; when a later state is created in an act of choice, the nature of that state plays a role in making earlier states what they are. By contrast, the acts of the superficial self, that is the self that is formed by the interaction between the real self and its environment, and that comprises ideas and feelings that have not been properly assimilated into the real self, does comprise a series of states that are what they are successively, over time, independently of their interrelations (1933, pp. 514–515; this volume, pp. 316–317). The acts of the superficial self are thus acts of its parts not of its entirety.4 While the real self appears largely to develop independently of the social environment, ideas from this environment can be properly assimilated by the real self. When this happens, they can modify the real self. Such properly assimilated ideas can, in turn, give rise to free acts. Nor does freedom have to arise solely from ideas. When passions or feelings impregnate the entirety of the self and give rise to action, the self is also free. Indeed, not only can freedom arise without reason, it can go contrary to all reason. The free act is free because of its spontaneity and novelty. Finally, the real self is largely unknown to itself, even when it acts freely. And, because we have to use language to communicate, our real selves are hidden from others; our shared concepts fail to capture who we really are (1933, pp. 515–516; this volume, pp. 317–318). Harris raises quite a few objections to Bergson’s conception of freedom. We focus on three. First, she points out that while Bergson does not intend to split the superficial and real self—the former is supposed to be an outward manifestation of the latter—he does distinguish between the two. But our development is largely dependent on interaction with a social environment and, given that our interaction with this environment often involves uncritical imitation, it is unclear whether there is, or even can, develop a hidden, largely socially independent real self (1933, p. 517; this volume, pp. 318–319). Second, there is the worry about whether a self that is expressed in a single idea, feeling or act should really be termed free. Here, Harris recalls the Greek tragedy Medea and “how Euripides’ Electra brooded over the wrongs done by her mother to Agamemnon and herself until she was almost consumed by her feeling of hatred for Clytaemnestra. Only when her mother was dead did Electra realize the monstrosity of what she had done” (1933, p. 517; this volume, p. 319). Third, most importantly, even if we assume that a Bergsonian, real self exists, its acts are not those of the whole self and thus are not, according to Bergson himself, free. Harris points out that reason is a substantial ingredient in any act of the whole self. But, if Bergson is correct and the free act is characterized primarily by its flexibility and unpredictability, such an act limits reason and, as a result, is not the expression of a whole self. The act of willing, Harris points out in sharpening her objection, is always directed at some content, that is, one always wills something specific. But Bergson is clear that we do not know what the future might bring and insofar as an individual “lacks insight into the content of [their] act 4

For more on Bergson’s view about the interdependence of the states of the self, see the section on time (Part V: ‘Time’).

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of willing, in so far... as he does not understand what he is willing, one is not free” (1933, p. 520; this volume, p. 321). In other terms, “in so far as one cannot predict the outcome of his act of willing, he is limited in that act” (1933, p. 520; this volume, p. 321). Thus, Harris’s critique of Bergson brings out her agreement with Talbot that a free self is one the acts of which are fully determined by the self. Insofar as Bergson, or quantum mechanics, imply that how our self affects the world is flexible, we are not free. Moreover, recall, Talbot takes the human self to be unified to a high degree and increased unification to bring with it increased self-determination and freedom. So, it seems Talbot, like Bergson, takes it that the truly free act is one that is an expression of the whole self. Here too, Harris agrees with Talbot. Indeed, in doing so, Harris makes clear that she is developing a speculative, idealist position. In supporting the essential role of reason in bringing about the acts of the self, Harris explicitly appeals (1933, p. 518; this volume, pp. 319–320) to what she takes to be a conception of the self and its action that is found in the work of the idealist and speculative philosophers James Edwin Creighton and Bernard Bosanquet. The self acts as a whole that has, as essentially interdependent aspects, thought, feeling and will. Moreover, the self is through and through social. All this said, Harris does not, any more than Talbot, respond to Dewey’s worry that ordinary reflection suffices to explain choices, so that it is not clear what role the self as such might have in doing so.

26.4 De Laguna on Freedom, Rationality and the Self ‘The Freedom of the Person’ is a chapter from de Laguna’s book Existence and the Human World (1966, chapter 6). In this chapter, de Laguna draws together the threads from earlier chapters in order to present her account of the freedom of the person. In particular, she draws on her view (ibid., chapter 2) that the human individual is qualitatively unique. This is a view she held from the outset of her career (Andrus, 1904). De Laguna takes it that the qualitative uniqueness, and thus the unrepeatability, of humans implies that they cannot be exhaustively described in general terms and thus in terms with which laws of nature are formulated. Thus, on her view, while the laws of nature apply to humans, humans, in a sense, transcend these laws and thus transcend nature. The human individual transcends nature in a further way. He or she is not merely biological but also participates in the cultural world (1966, p. 147; this volume, p. 324). Participating in a cultural world is needed to make the freedom of the person possible. The cultural world alone can provide humans with many of the key ‘tools’ needed to make decisions and to act and, by implication, to be free. These tools include concepts (which are needed to understand decision-relevant circumstances and how these might develop), ends (these are what choice and action are directed at), values (which are needed so that ends might be ranked for choice) and the means by which ends might be achieved. Another condition for freedom provided by the cultural world is the participation in customary patterns of behaviour, and thus the

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following of the rules or norms which guide these patterns. Customary patterns make possible the sharing of concepts, ends, values and means (1966, pp. 150–152; this volume, pp. 326–327). There is a final key aspect of the cultural world that is essential to freedom, according to de Laguna, and that we should bring out here. The values of the cultural world belong to a number of different systems of hierarchies of values. Moreover, how these systems are related in terms of importance and exactly what values they involve is to some extent not fixed. The rival sets of values and the lack of fixedness of value systems are needed to make it possible for the individual to exercise choice and accordingly to be free. Thus, while internalising the concepts, values, norms and patterns of behaviour of the cultural world enables human individuals to act, the conflict and limited fixedness of values gives such individuals the opportunity to be free. Indeed, this conflict makes freedom unavoidable. People have to apply and reconcile the systems of values of their culture when participating in their various cultural roles, e.g., those of a parent, professional, member of a religious community and so on. Interestingly, the system of moral values and norms is the system which has as its special function the application and reconciliation of the other cultural systems of values and norms (1966, pp. 153–158; this volume, pp. 327–330). The cultural world is, nevertheless, not sufficient to make possible the freedom of the person. According to de Laguna, if a society determined what the moral laws are as well as how they are to be applied, there would be no freedom in that society. In practice, however, such a situation is not possible. In the end, there are no rules for resolving conflicts between accepted moral principles or for deciding on what one’s duties are in concrete cases. This is a matter of principle because, in the end, there are no rules for the applications of rules (1966, p. 158; this volume, p. 330). There is thus, in choice and action, a key factor that is not determined by general principles and thus by the shared cultural world. Instead, it is the individual who must ultimately decide how to resolve conflicts between moral principles and to apply such principles in determining duties. Thus, the unique way in which an individual plays their social roles is needed to explain individual choices and actions. Moreover, this uniqueness means that not only does the human individual transcend nature, they also transcend culture. With some of de Laguna’s conditions for freedom specified, we can now formulate her view of freedom itself. On her view, our freedom is not a matter of our exercising a will that is independent of reason. Nor is it a matter of being solely determined by rationality. For her, our freedom comprises our playing our unique role within our respective cultural worlds. It is the freedom of an individual who is participating in the customs of their culture and, in doing so, deciding how to apply, and even to some extent to legislate, moral principles in order to carry out, and integrate, their cultural roles. Such a person is free because of their use of reason in decision making but also, since reason is inherently limited, because they are expressing themselves in the unique way in which they decide and act. De Laguna, then, is a libertarian. She thinks, with Gulliver, Talbot, Harris and Bergson, that it is only by escaping the net of laws that we can be free. It is partly for this reason that de Laguna, like Talbot and Harris, takes individuals to be unique.

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However, de Laguna also provides a response to Dewey regarding why the self’s role is a real one, though she does not explicitly mention him. She points out that reasoning on the basis of one’s knowledge of relevant possibilities, values and norms does not uniquely determine a decision. There is room, and need, for the individual to balance, in their own unique way, their cultural roles through their making of decisions. Nor does de Laguna fall into the trap which, according to Harris, Bergson finds himself in. De Laguna’s free person is fully social and acts as a result of internalising and applying the cultural rules in their own way. The free person is, by implication, driven by reason and by self-expression. The actions of such a person are self-determining but in a way that is constrained by their reasoning and thus by culture. The person’s actions are accordingly not a matter of indifference. So too, the person is, by virtue of his or her essential inculturation, more realistic than the self of Bergson and does not count as free when driven by the kind of consuming vengefulness that drives Electra. De Laguna’s position, it seems, involves a fully developed, idealist notion of freedom. She, like Talbot and Harris, thinks of freedom as the (partly) self-determining act of a unique, (partly) rational individual.

Bibliography Andrus, G. (1904). Professor Bawden’s functional theory: A rejoinder. The Philosophical Review, 13(6), 660–665. Berofsky, B. (2011). Compatibilism without Frankfurt: Dispositional analyses of free will. In R. Kane (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of free will (pp. 153–174). Oxford University Press. Dewey, J. (1894). The ego as cause. Philosophical Review, 3(3), 337–341. De Laguna, G. A. (1966). On existence and the human world. Yale University Press. Gulliver, J. (1894). The ethical implications of determinism. The Philosophical Review, 3(1), 62–67. Harris, M. S. (1933). Bergson’s conception of freedom. The Philosophical Review, 42(5), 511–520. O’Connor, T., & Franklin, C. (2022). Free will. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, forthcoming. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/freewill/ Rogers, D. G. (2021). Women philosophers volume II: Entering academia in nineteenth-century America. Bloomsbury Academic. Ritchie, E. (1889). The problem of personality. Andrus & Church. Ritchie, E. (1893). The ethical implications of determinism. The Philosophical Review, 2(5), 529– 543. Talbot, E. B. (1909). Individuality and freedom. The Philosophical Review, 18(6), 600–614.

Chapter 27

Individuality and Freedom Ellen Bliss Talbot Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this article, Ellen Bliss Talbot explores the free will/determinism debate through an examination of the notions of individual unity, uniqueness, and selfsufficiency.

In the present paper I wish to discuss the relation between the problem of freedom and the conception of human individuality. It is often asserted that if we deny the existence of real alternatives in the choices of men, we rob ‘personality’ of all its significance, that unless the will is ‘free,’ in the sense of there being real alternatives, we have no true individuality. It is the correctness of this assertion that I wish to consider. Our first task is to try to make clear to ourselves what we mean by individuality. An exhaustive study of the concept would lead us beyond the limits of this paper, but we can, I think, give an account that will be sufficient for the purposes of our discussion.1 The ordinary conception of an ‘individual’ seems to include three chief factors,—unity, uniqueness, and completeness or self-sufficiency. We shall consider each of these briefly. That individuality always involves some sort of unity will hardly be denied. That which is in no sense one is in no sense an individual; and the more truly a thing can be 1

The purpose of this paper limits us to the ordinary notion of individuality. Such an analysis as Professor Royce, e.g., attempts in his Supplementary Essay to The Conception of God (p. 135ff.) is not called for. I wish simply to show that human individuality, in the sense in which we ordinarily take it, is not in any way endangered by the denial of real alternatives in men’s choices. This limitation of the problem seems justifiable because the protests against such denial are commonly made from the point of view of the ordinary conception. Ellen Bliss Talbot: Originally published in 1909 in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 600–614 E. B. Talbot (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_27

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called one, the more truly can it be called an individual. We must distinguish, however, between two aspects of unity,—the quantitative aspect or numerical unity, and the qualitative aspect or inner coherence. Both quantitative and qualitative unity are essential to any high degree of individuality, but the qualitative is the more important of the two. The lowest phase of unity is exemplified in the mere aggregate,—for instance, in a heap of stones. Here there is numerical unity of a sort, but inner coherence is almost or wholly lacking. The heap of stones is, in a sense, one, and as one it may also be called an individual thing. But unless it is more than an aggregate, unless as a heap it fulfills a certain purpose,—e.g., the marking of a goal,—its unity, and hence its individuality, is of the lowest grade. A single stone is more truly one; its numerical unity is more obvious, and it has a certain small degree of inner coherence,—the mechanical coherence of its particles. A plant, in turn, has more unity, more inner coherence, than a stone; a highly organized plant, more than one of the lower forms of the vegetable kingdom. And with the progress in unity, there is a corresponding progress in individuality: the single stone has more individuality than the heap of stones; the plant, more than the stone; the highly organized plant, more than the less highly organized one. It is obvious that qualitative unity involves multiplicity and complexity. From the quantitative point of view, the fresh-water hydra is just as truly one as the human body is; but from the qualitative point of view the latter has a much greater degree of unity. If a fresh-water hydra be cut into halves, each portion, under ordinary conditions, will regenerate its missing parts and will then perform all the necessary functions of life; but if the human body be cut into halves, both portions will die. We have the highest unity in a whole composed of many different, but firmly coherent, parts. Qualitative unity, as involving multiplicity and complexity, leads us naturally to uniqueness, the second element in individuality. That is unique which is unlike all other things, which is, in greater or less degree, different from everything else. Uniqueness, like unity, has two aspects, a quantitative and a qualitative. In the lowest sense of the term, anything is unique, just as, in the lowest sense, anything may be called a unity. Uniqueness of the lowest kind is conferred by temporal and spatial position. Whatever occupies a given space at a given time is, in this respect at least, unique, different from everything else. Position in time and space serves to distinguish one grain of sand from a second grain, which, in all other respects, is exactly like it. And in the degree in which each of these grains of sand is unique, it is also individual; as Schopenhauer has said, space and time are principles of individuation. But, obviously, we have here a low form of individuality; uniqueness which is merely quantitative cannot bestow upon its possessor individuality of a high order. For this, qualitative uniqueness is essential.2 And, within limits, the degree of individuality increases with the qualitative uniqueness; the more complex the organism is,—the

2

It is true, of course, that ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ are not wholly unrelated terms. As Hegel has shown, differences in degree often pass over, by almost imperceptible stages, into qualitative differences. But the general distinction between qualitative and quantitative uniqueness is clear, and of this distinction my statement holds.

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more qualitative differences there are which distinguish it from all other organisms,— the more individual it is. The human being represents a higher type of individuality than the most highly organized plant or brute, because the play of his mental life gives to him a greater degree of qualitative difference from the other members of his kind than is possessed by any brute or plant. Similarly, men themselves differ greatly in the degree of their individuality; and, speaking generally, a man is more individual, the more clearly his inner life and his mental characteristics are differentiated from those of his fellows. But, as has already been hinted, this is true only within certain limits. The uniqueness which constitutes the truest individuality rests upon a broad basis of likeness. All normal human beings share in a certain common nature; and the most individual man is not he who violates this common nature. There is a point beyond which unlikeness ceases to be valued by us; individuality has passed over into bizarrerie. It is not that, beyond a certain limit, individuality does not appeal to us as desirable; it is rather that we feel that that which is bizarre is less truly individual than that in which the uniqueness recognizes certain bounds. We do not regard the crank as having more originality than the genius, but as having less. The genius is always, indeed, a highly differentiated being; but at the same time, unless a man can make us feel that he speaks the common language of humanity, that he sounds the deep note of universal passion, that he gives expression,—in his own way,—to the experience of us all, we refuse him the name of genius; we refuse to recognize in him individuality of the highest order. Apparently, then, the uniqueness which is a factor in individuality must rest upon a basis of similarity. This is true, at least, in the case of an individual which is, at the same time, part of a larger whole. Reality taken in its entirety is unique in a somewhat different sense; and if we say that the whole of reality is an individual, it is obvious that we must modify our conception of individuality. Into this question, however, we need not enter; for our concern is to determine the nature of human individuality, and the human being, certainly, is an individual which is part of a larger whole.3 We pass on to the third factor in individuality. We have spoken of it as completeness or self-sufficiency; but in its higher degrees it may also be called self-direction. That some measure of independence is essential to our notion of individuality will hardly be questioned. The hand is less truly an individual than the body, because it is in much smaller degree sufficient unto itself. And, in general, the more power any organism has of directing its own life, the more truly individual it is. Hence, we regard the animal as having more individuality than the plant of equally complex structure. And in the animal kingdom itself, the higher we rise in the scale, the greater becomes the self-sufficiency or power of self-direction, and the greater the individuality. With the development of the rational faculty in man, this power is enormously increased; and for this reason, among others, we have in man a higher type of individuality than we find in any brute. Similarly, within the human race the degree of individuality varies with the power of self-direction. A man who has no opinions of his own, who 3

That the human being is, in some sense, part of a whole every one except the mythological solipsist will, I suppose, admit. The most thorough-going pluralist will hardly carry his doctrine of the independence of the individual to the point of denying this.

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borrows from others his theory of life and his code of morals, whose choices seem to be decided by the play of circumstances, is said to lack individuality. In our consideration of uniqueness, we saw that, beyond certain limits, it does not conduce to what we ordinarily mean by individuality. The case of self-sufficiency is somewhat different. It is clear that the human being, since he is part of a whole, can never attain to complete self-sufficiency. But whereas, we think that a man is more truly individual who does not depart too far from the rest of his kind, we do not feel that power of self-direction can exist in such degree as to destroy the individuality. We recognize the fact that no human being has complete power of self-direction, but we regard this as a limitation of his individuality. Here, at any rate, the individuality of the part seems to point to a higher individuality, which could be possessed, if at all, only by the whole of reality.4 What we must say, then, seems to be this. The individuality of the part implies unity, uniqueness, and some degree of self-sufficiency. In its higher forms, the unity involves great inner complexity, while the uniqueness rests upon a broad basis of similarity. Finally, while, in general, individuality increases with the degree of selfsufficiency, yet, by its very nature, the part cannot be completely self-sufficient. Other things being equal, that part will be most truly individual which has the highest degree of independence that is compatible with its fulfilling its function in the whole. More than this, it seems, we cannot say; but this is all that we need for our present purposes. What, now, is the bearing of this conception of individuality upon the problem of freedom? The question actually at issue to-day, the live question in the discussion, is that of ‘real alternatives.’ Confronted with the necessity of deciding between two opposed courses of action, a and b, I choose, let us say, a. The question in dispute, as I understand it, is: Was it really possible for me to choose b instead of a, possible, i.e., in the sense that I could have chosen b without anything, either in myself or in the attendant circumstances, being different from what it was? To answer this question in the affirmative is to accept, and to answer it in the negative is to reject, the doctrine of real alternatives.5 It is unfortunate that we have no words to indicate the respective opponents and champions of this doctrine. I should be inclined to use the words ‘determinism’ and ‘indeterminism’ to mark the distinction but for the fact that some who reject the theory of real alternatives are unwilling to be labeled as ‘determinists.’ And it must be admitted that ‘determinism’ has a certain connotation that is not involved in the mere denial of real alternatives. It seems better, therefore, to discuss the question without employing these labels.6 4

I say ‘if at all’ because, while it seems clear that the whole of reality has self-sufficiency and a certain kind of uniqueness, its possession of any high degree of unity is often questioned. 5 Though some who call themselves ‘indeterminists’ might dissent, I think that we are justified in saying that this is the vital point in the present-day discussion of ‘freedom’. And at least three prominent champions of ‘freedom’ seem so to regard it. Cf. James, “The Will to Believe and other Essays” (1897), p. 150ff.; Schiller, “Studies in Humanism” (1907), p. 392ff.; Perry, “Freedom as Practical Postulate,” International Journal of Ethics, Vol. XIII, pp. 42, 46, 51. 6 ‘Freedom,’ of course, is still more misleading. Professor James, with his humorous reference to “the word-grabbing game” (op. cit., pp. 149, 179), has called attention to the fact that determinists

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A word of explanation is necessary before we enter upon the discussion. I am not primarily concerned with attacking the doctrine of real alternatives. My purpose is defensive,—namely, to show that there is nothing in the denial of real alternatives which should, in itself, prevent our conceiving of the human being as having the three requisites of individuality which were brought out in our analysis. Let us begin with unity. That the human self is a complete unity no one would be so bold as to assert. The lack of consistency in our opinions, the variability of our feelings and our purposes, the sense of inner discord, all this shows indubitably that we fall far short of that complete inner coherence which forms part of our ideal of individuality. But the fact remains that, other things being equal, the more harmonious and coherent a personality is, the more individuality we ascribe to it. Granting, then, that the human being only partially fulfills this requirement, our question is, what unity has to do with the doctrine of real alternatives in human choice. So far as I can see, it touches the doctrine at only one point. The denial of real alternatives implies the insistence upon the continuity of the moral life. When we say that the man who has made a certain choice could not have decided otherwise unless he had been, in some respect, a different sort of man, we assert the vital connection between what one is and what one does. It is because we regard the man’s act, not as something externally connected with him, but as, in deepest truth, his very self that we say, He could not have chosen otherwise. The denial of real alternatives, then, instead of being in any way hostile to our conception of the self as unitary, is fully in harmony with it,7 and seems, indeed, in closer harmony than the assertion of the doctrine is. I think we may say, then, that so far as the element of unity is concerned, individuality does not suffer from the denial of real alternatives. Indeed, all the objections which men most commonly feel to this denial seem to be connected with the other two factors. We shall, therefore, devote the rest of our discussion to them. It will be convenient to begin with the last one, with self-sufficiency. We have already said that this characteristic cannot belong to the human being in the highest measure. We are “members one of another,” and we must pay the costs, as well as reap the advantages, of this fact. The tremendous force of heredity, the subtle influences of and indeterminists alike have an ardent affection for the term and are equally anxious to be known as believers in ‘freedom.’ The reason for this is not far to seek. The word has so many associations with what we hold highest and dearest,—with political liberty, with intellectual and social opportunity,— that the desire is by no means unnatural. 7 To this, the believer in real alternatives might raise the objection that it asserts a greater unity in human nature than actually exists. A character that is completely self-consistent and coherent, he might urge, could act, under given circumstances, in only one way. But for any being that lacks this perfect coherence there may be, in many cases, real alternatives. (Cf. Schiller, op. cit., p. 399ff.) My reply to this would run somewhat as follows. There is, of course, a sense in which one might say that two quite different acts are possible for the ordinary man. His personality is not perfectly harmonious; there are in him opposed tendencies, conflicting desires. Hence, you may say that, taking the man as a whole,—a whole of many selves,—each of the opposed courses of action appeals to, something in him and is possible for him. But in the moment of decision, the self which chooses is fairly coherent. It is not many selves; for so, there could be no choice. One of the many selves chooses. And if there is any bond of union between the self and its acts, this choosing self could not find its expression in either one of two directly opposed courses, but only in one.

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other personalities upon ours, these we can no more escape than we can avoid taking air into our lungs. But when all the considerations of this sort have been urged, it remains true that we have a certain measure of self-dependence. And we must now inquire whether the denial of real alternatives is consistent with the affirmation that the human being has a moderate degree of independence. The believer in real alternatives will make haste to tell us that it is not. The theory which we are defending, he declares, leaves no room for the independence of the individual. If you say that the choice which I have just made could not have been other than it is unless something, either in myself or in the circumstances, had been different, you are virtually admitting that this choice of mine was determined long ago,—at my birth, nay, ages before my birth. And if this be true, it is mere mockery to suggest that I have any power of self-direction. Let us at least be honest with ourselves and face the bitter fact that we are mere puppets, controlled by some external force, that all our deep-rooted conviction of our responsibility, all our quivering sense of the importance of our choices, is illusory. There is no middle ground between the two positions: either real alternatives or complete lack of the power of self-direction. I am far from wishing to deny that these considerations have weight. There are few of us, I think, however strongly we may be convinced of the untenability of the doctrine of real alternatives, who do not, in certain moments, feel the force of an appeal like this. None the less, it seems to me to involve more than one misconception. In the first place, as I look at the matter, it is the assertion of real alternatives that is actually fatal to the belief in man’s power of self-direction. If, for the self of a given moment, two opposed courses of action are equally possible, how can we say that either one of them is really representative of that self, is its choice? My self, in the moment of choice, is not anything and everything, but something particular. And how we can say that from this particular self either one of two utterly different actions can issue, I cannot see. If both actions are equally possible, this can only be because the choice does not proceed from the self. If I really have the power of self-direction, my act must be one with me; and two utterly unlike acts could not be equally one with the me of a given moment. I suspect, however, that it is of little use to dwell upon this point. To those of us who accept it, it seems hardly conceivable that any one can believe the opposite, and our opponents have, doubtless, as great difficulty in understanding how we can accept it. We may pass on, therefore, to another consideration. We have said that in certain moments the appeal for real alternatives strikes a sympathetic chord in the hearts of most of us. And it may be useful to inquire how this feeling of sympathy is to be accounted for. If we reject the doctrine of real alternatives and yet are conscious of sometimes having the feeling,—as I, for one, am,—it is incumbent upon us to try to analyze it. Before we are through with this analysis, it will have carried us over from the conception of self-direction to that of uniqueness. What, then, is the reason for our shrinking from the thought that in the case of a choice which we have made, we could not, being just what we were, have decided differently? It seems to me that there are four chief reasons. The first of these is a real misunderstanding, a misunderstanding which is continually reappearing after it has been corrected. Very frequently, when we are told, ‘You could not have chosen

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otherwise,’ there is, implicit in our thought, the idea that we might have desired to choose differently and have been unable. The thought which the words suggest to us is of something that can thwart our will. We know, perhaps, that this is not what is meant; we are told, at any rate, that,—physical compulsion excepted,—there is nothing save ourselves that can prevent our acting in a certain way. But in spite of this, we smuggle in, almost unconsciously, the idea which alters the whole situation. The consequence is that we think of ourselves as not being able to choose that which we really desire. In the dim background of our consciousness, there lurks the thought of a thwarted self, a self compelled by some mysterious power,—the force of hereditary tendency, the influence of environment, the fatal power of its past choices,—to do that which it would not do. Closely connected with this is another consideration that will help to explain further the feeling of which we are speaking. It is sometimes said that whereas, in the case of human choice, we shrink from the thought that there are no real alternatives, most of us are quite ready to believe this in regard to the divine mind; we do not hesitate to say that God, being what he is, can act only in the way in which he does act. This has suggested to me the thought that our so-called ‘yearning for freedom’ is, in part, a yearning for complete self-sufficiency. It does not distress us to think that an ‘infinite’ being could not act in another way than that in which he does act, because we see clearly, in this case, that the ‘could not’ has no reference to any power other than his own. If, then, we were but infinite we should not shrink from the thought that our choices could not be other than they are. It is because we realize our limitations, because we recognize the fact that we are only a part of reality, that we shrink. For to say of us that we can act only in a certain way seems to put the ultimate source of the ‘can’ in something not ourselves. Our ‘yearning for freedom,’ then, is an expression of our sense of our own limitation, is the longing of the spirit for greater independence and self-sufficiency than it is conscious of possessing. But this, I think, cannot be held to constitute a valid objection to the denial of real alternatives. All that it amounts to is that we should like to be more nearly self-sufficient than we actually are. The third reason why many persons are unwilling to think that there are no real alternatives expresses itself in a protest against the doctrine with which we are all familiar. If there are no real alternatives, it is urged, the choice that I am to make to-morrow is already determined, was determined ages ago. But if this be true, it robs human action of its significance, takes from life all its vivid sense of real happenings, of momentous things to be decided, of great issues depending upon us. We still live on and go through our daily round of work and play. But the deep sense of the meaning of life, the consciousness that we are contributing to reality, that we are helping to determine the fate of ourselves and others,—all this is gone, and with it all zest and passion die out. So, human life, which might have been great and glorious if only the philosophers had left us our vivid sense of ‘freedom,’ becomes ‘aimless, helpless, hopeless.’ It will be convenient to postpone the answer to this objection until we have considered the last of our four reasons. This has quite as much to do with uniqueness as with self-sufficiency, and will thus lead us on to the remaining element in our conception

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of individuality. This last reason has its source in the belief that unless there are real alternatives in human choice, any one who knew a certain man through and through could tell in advance precisely how he would act under given circumstances; that, to quote the words of John Stuart Mill, “given the motives which are present to an individual’s mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act may be unerringly inferred; that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event.”8 Mill himself, it will be remembered, maintains that there is no good reason why any one should object to this supposed consequence of the denial of real alternatives. Unfortunately, however, the ordinary man does object to it seriously. While, in many cases, it does not distress him to learn that a certain choice which he has made was predicted, he cannot bear the thought that some one, knowing him completely at his birth and foreseeing all the external circumstances of his life, could confidently foretell how he would act under every one of these circumstances. The reason for his objection is, I think, twofold. In the first place, if all my choices can be thus resolved into the tendencies which I inherited from my forebears and the external influences to which I have been subjected, what is there, in this whole life of mine, that I have done? What has become of that power of self-direction which is one of the essential factors in individuality? And what has become, in the second place, of that other factor which we call uniqueness? For the supposition that any one could thus predict all the details of my thought and feeling and conduct seems to involve the assumption that in my essential nature I am like every one else. He who could thus foretell my life would have changed me into an abstract formula, which he could deal with as he could with a formula of mathematics. And against such transformation of our palpitating life, with its vivid sense of its uniqueness, its individual worth, our spirit rises in passionate protest.9 And well it may. If this is what the denial of real alternatives means, it is no wonder that men hesitate to make it. I hope to show, however, that this is not the inevitable consequence of such a denial.10 The first thing to be said, it seems to me is this: if the denial of real alternatives has for its consequence the theoretical possibility of infallible prediction,11 it is certainly hostile to the conceptions of uniqueness and self-direction; but that it has this logical consequence is, so far as I can see, pure assumption. If there were no real alternatives and if a man were not in a very true sense unique, it would follow logically that one who had knowledge of a certain kind could foretell all his actions. But without this second hypothesis it does not logically 8

“Logic,” Bk. VI, Chap. II, § 2. No one has better voiced this feeling than Mr. Bradley, in his essay on “The Vulgar Notion of Responsibility” (Ethical Studies, Essay I). See particularly pp. 16, 18 f. 10 Many determinists, indeed, have assumed that it is. And this is one reason why I have not used the word ‘determinism,’ in the present paper, to designate the position which I am defending. 11 I say ‘theoretical’ because we all admit that our actual predictions of conduct are, at best, only highly probable. 9

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follow. For if the man is unique, we have not, and cannot conceivably have, sufficient data for predicting how he will act in all cases. My own conviction is, on the one hand, that the doctrine of real alternatives is fatal to the conception of ‘choice,’ and on the other hand, that every element of reality is, in some sense or other, unique.12 This uniqueness is found in unusual degree in the human being. Every human life, and every choice in that life, is something unique. Now if this be true, it follows that such prediction as we were objecting to above is, not only practically, but also theoretically, impossible. For that which is unique cannot by any possibility be infallibly predicted.13 Even if you knew everything about me; if my whole past and all the past of my ancestors for countless generations were open to your gaze; if,—to suppose the impossible,—you had penetrated the inmost recesses of my thought and feeling,—even so, you could not infallibly predict how I would act at a certain future moment of great temptation. For we can predict only on the basis of likeness to the past, and we can predict infallibly only where the likeness is complete. Now this requirement of complete resemblance is never met in the case of any real choice on the part of a moral agent. In any real choice we have a complex set of conditions which has never, in all the history of the past, been precisely duplicated; infallible prediction is, therefore, a sheer impossibility. It is true that those who know us well are often able to foretell our conduct and our mental attitudes with a large measure of assurance. They can tell, i.e., how we are likely to feel and act under circumstances which are very similar to others in which they have known us to be placed in the past. But there are two factors which tend to make the prediction more or less uncertain. The circumstances are never precisely the same again, and we ourselves are never precisely the same. Thus the prediction can never rightfully claim to be more than highly probable. But can we, then, predict anything infallibly,—any event in the outside world even? Here, too, in the physical world,—if my theory of the nature of reality be correct,—everything that happens is in some measure unique. Strictly speaking, therefore, no event, in its concrete fulness, can be infallibly predicted. This concrete fulness natural science tries to express in abstract formulae; and in so far as the event can be reduced to a set of such formulae, in so far it can be foretold. But what science foretells is always, after all, only a certain aspect of the total event. The abstract formulae are correct, perhaps, from their limited point of view. But they are never adequate to the fulness of reality. The matter may be put briefly in this fashion: In so far as an event is not unique, in so far,—granting certain conditions of knowledge on our part,—it can be predicted. Now, in the case of physical happenings, it may be possible so to limit ourselves to a particular aspect of reality that we can foretell with complete assurance. That is, we can say, Given ordinary air of a certain temperature and humidity, a definite fall in 12

‘Every element of reality,’ I have said. But of course all that is needed for the purposes of the argument is what immediately follows, that every human being and every real choice is unique. 13 Humanly speaking, i.e. What a divine intelligence could or could not do, I hardly feel qualified to suggest. It seems safe to say, however, that no mind could exactly foretell my future save one,—if such a one be possible,—to whose gaze the future is open just as the present is to ours. And of such an intelligence it would hardly be accurate to say that it foretells.

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its temperature, without change in any other of its conditions, will be followed by a precipitation of moisture. We can predict here, because we have arbitrarily so limited our view of reality that what we are dealing with is precisely similar to something which we have experienced before. But try to do this with a human being, and what is the result? In order so to limit your view of him that infallible prediction would be, even theoretically, possible, you would have to disregard everything in him that is unique; and that in him which is unique —is the very essence of him. It seems to me that we have removed the supposed difficulty with regard to the possibility of prediction. We may now turn back to our other objection, namely, that if there are no real alternatives in human choice, all our sense of real happenings, of actual contributions which we make to reality, of the vital importance of our decisions, becomes illusory. Here, again, my purpose is simply to show that this is not a necessary consequence of the denial of real alternatives, taken in itself. A theory which maintains that time and change have no part in the fundamental nature of reality is, to say the least, difficult to reconcile with a belief in the vital significance of human choice; for ‘choice’ seems to have no meaning left if time and happenings are not real. If, however, one maintains that time and change are of the very essence of the real, the case is different. It is no part of my purpose to prove that reality is essentially temporal. Neither do I care to inquire here whether it is possible to unite the two aspects of timelessness and temporality in such a way as fully to preserve the rights of the latter. I wish simply to consider what are the consequences for human individuality if we assert the fundamental reality of time and yet deny that there are alternatives in human choice. If we say that time is real and if we add to this the assertion, which we have already made, that every element of reality is unique, there is no good reason why the denial of real alternatives should destroy our sense of the vividness of life.14 For what have we, on these conditions? We have a universe which is constantly changing, continually bringing forth the new. In particular, each human life, and each human choice, is something that has never been before and will never be again. This world is not something fixed and once for all there; it is a world in which new things are continually coming to be. And every human choice, since it is itself unique and helps to create a unique set of conditions, plays its part in the making of reality. How then should we say that life lacks zest or significance? But what one is to do to-morrow, you tell me, is already determined. I can reply only by pointing out that this is the old error which has been exposed again and again, the error of assuming that my past self can determine my action, but that my present self cannot. What I am to do to-morrow is determined only in the moment when I choose it, and is determined only by me who choose. What I who choose am, is, indeed, not something utterly disconnected with what I have been,—and if we saw clearly, we could not wish that it should be. But it still remains true that I,—the ‘I’ of the moment of choosing,—decide. Our objection, it seems to me, is a case of the 14

Those philosophers who say that it must, might well be asked to try to discover whether, in point of fact, it does.

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confusion of which we have already spoken, the thought of a present self, desiring to act in a certain way and prevented from realizing its purposes by the clutch upon it of the dead hand of the past. And here we must leave the matter. Real happenings in which we ourselves play a part, momentous decisions which we ourselves have to make, the power of determining, in no inconsiderable measure, our own future and the future of others,—all these we assert. And yet we must remember that we are not gods, but men. We are not entirely self-sufficient, not strictly independent centers of power and action; we are part of a great whole. The same life-blood is in us which flows in the veins of these other men, our brothers. By all the subtleties of heredity and of personal influence, our lives and our destinies are interwoven with those of countless other human beings. Such complete independence as we sometimes long for is seen, when we consider it aright, to be quite impossible. And yet, in spite of all, there is given to each of us some degree of unity, of self-direction, of uniqueness, some measure of that priceless possession which men call individuality.

Chapter 28

Bergson’s Conception of Freedom Marjorie Silliman Harris Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this article, Marjorie Silliman Harris offers a critical reading of Henri Bergson’s view of freedom as a creative act by the fundamental self.

The Science News Letter for April 4, 1931 contains the following statements, which preface A. H. Compton’s summary of a lecture he gave recently: “Only because the world in a physical sense is not wholly reliable can it have any human meaning.... This important philosophical deduction from the new principles of physics, introducing a new discussion of ‘free will’, is expected to cause great interest.” The lecture dealt with the flexibility that Heisenberg’s theory posits. According to Heisenberg, “the resolution of the paradoxes of atomic physics can be accomplished only by further renunciation of old and cherished ideas. Most important of these is the idea that natural phenomena obey exact laws—the principle of causality.” Compton’s own experiments “are partly responsible for this dramatic reversal of the physicist’s point of view”. The reason for the abandonment of the law of causality is that “any observation of the present state of a system disturbs that system”. Consequently, one cannot exactly predict its future state. Thus, for example,1 if an ideal observer were equipped with the means for seeing or photographing an electron, he would be able to locate it with a precision dependent upon the length of the light-wave illuminating it, the shorter ones making for greater accuracy. The reason is that “an electron cannot emit or reflect light without undergoing an abrupt and discontinuous change in its 1

I turn, at this point, to follow an exposition of the matter given in an article by W. H. Williams on “Determinism and Indeterminism in Quantum Physics”, The Personalist X 4. Where I do not quote, I follow his explanation closely. Marjorie Silliman Harris: Originally published in 1933 in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 42, No. 5, pp. 511–520. M. S. Harris (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_28

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velocity.” Thus one cannot assume with classical mechanics that, if one knew the state of an isolated mechanical system at one o’clock, one could predict completely its state at two. “The new quantum mechanics enables one to predict the probability of the state of a system at two o’clock if one knew the probability of its state at one o’clock.” Hence there is “indeterminism at both ends of the equation”. These new developments in physical theory must interest all thinking persons. The experimental substantiation of the view that there is flexibility in the physical world is thought-provoking. Since, however, Heisenberg “has based his uncertainty principle upon the limitations inherent in physical measurements”,2 I am not yet certain whether the flexibility posited by the holders of the quantum theory implies any more than that we cannot know enough about the electron to forecast its course. Compton seems to mean more than this by indeterminateness, but just what he means is not clear. He says, “Consider the action of a beam of X-rays on the air through which it passes. The X-rays are found to eject electrons from the air at high speed. Each electron is observed to proceed in a different direction from every other. The question arises, when the air is first exposed to the X-rays, in what direction will the first electron be ejected”. His answer is that the probable direction can be determined on the basis of many observations but the “particular direction … cannot be predicted”. The reason is diffuseness, caused by the wave-character of the X-ray. Consequently, the inability to predict is not due to “the limitations of our present apparatus”, but “there is an essential indefiniteness about the event itself”. Yet it is difficult to understand just what Compton means by “essential indefiniteness”. Does this mean any more than that quantum physics is introducing us to new things-inthemselves, whose isness is hidden from us, whose state we cannot determine, but whose activity may approximate accordance with a principle of causality? Would this principle omit or contradict anything that was worth while in the older notion? I leave this matter as an open question, for the special interest that the philosopher has in the indeterminateness posited in accordance with the newer discoveries in physics is in the possible bearing that this indeterminateness may have on the problem of free will. Here two questions present themselves, the second of which is the only one which we shall consider in detail. The first question is whether, if one could prove real flexibility in the physical world—flexibility that is more than a confession of man’s ignorance and implies some positive quality—that flexibility would have any significance for the problem of free will. This point would have to be demonstrated. Of course formerly certain philosophers have admitted a difference between mind and body and yet have maintained that, since the principle of causation obtains in the physical world, it may be regarded as obtaining in the mental world. If one may do that in connection with the principle of causation, it would seem as if one might assume that the only necessary ground for positing flexibility in the mental world is proof that it exists in the physical world. But the justification for assuming causation in the mental world because it was posited in the physical world has not been made clear. Moreover, Bertrand Russell, a confessed neutral monist, has expressed a different

2

W. H. Williams, op. cit., 245.

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attitude on the point.3 One would think that if any one might say that what is true in the physical world is presumably true in the mental world, a neutral monist might do so, but only a neutral monist. One wonders whether those philosophers who have argued uncritically concerning the application of causation to the mental world will now regard the principle of flexibility as applying to mental phenomena on the basis of its application to the physical world. Compton has noted that “those who deny freedom of choice do so primarily because of its conflict with the supposed uniformity of the physical world”. Now, he points out, modern physics suggests non-uniformity of action. Indeed, “it is not impossible that choice might alter the statistical distribution of particles in a brain current. Such alteration might well determine the action of the organism and would not violate any fundamental principle of science”. This statement makes obvious the fact that Compton is assuming a particular theory of mind without having first established the validity of that theory. Before one can make such an assumption, one must come to grips with the question how much importance conclusions about physical phenomena have for views concerning things mental. But I leave this question also unanswered to turn to the problem with which this paper is primarily concerned: whether, if one could prove (1) that there is real flexibility in the physical world and (2) that consequently there is flexibility in the mental world, such a conclusion would prove conclusively the existence of freedom. May not flexibility be established as a characteristic of human activity without concluding that therefore man is free in any important sense? The conception of flexibility in the world is not a new one, and its significance in relation to free will may be most clearly seen by an examination of Bergson’s conception of freedom. In the first place, those who reason from the Heisenberg principle of indetermination that there is freedom seem to regard unpredictability, which is a consequence of indeterminateness, as in part the ground for assuming freedom.4 Such a view is that of the plain man. Now Bergson does deny the possibility of predicting human conduct. The reason he advances is that this assumption does not take account of the true nature of time. It is a mathematical conception of time that leads one to think that the self of the future is the sum of the states preceding it. But real time bites into beings and modifies them. Thus I do not behave as I did yesterday because I change, I endure. If one anticipates what a friend’s action will be, one is judging the future in the light of the past or present; one is not really predicting. Our anticipation of the conduct of another is a probable prediction and not an actual prediction based on calculation. Actual prediction is possible only if some antecedent occurs again and again, but that is impossible in the realm of human 3

Cf. Our Knowledge of the External World 232. Russell does not think that one is justified in assuming causation in the mental world simply because experience has shown uniformity, in some cases, in the physical world. 4 An interesting point to note in comparing the view of the advocates of the quantum theory with Bergson’s theory is the different significance that discontinuity has for each. From discontinuity in atomic processes—designated as “the very essence of the quantum theory”—the former thinkers infer unpredictability; whereas Bergson implies that the intellect can grasp discontinuity, which exists in the realm of matter, and can predict there, but cannot grasp the continuity of life and therefore cannot predict in the realm of life.

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activity.5 It is not, however, on unpredictability that Bergson rests his assumption of freedom, although unpredictability is a consequence of flexibility. For him the free act is indefinable; yet “freedom is the relation of the concrete self to the act which it performs”.6 An act is free that expresses the real self. It is, therefore, because an act originates from the fundamental self that Bergson regards it as free. Furthermore, and this is our special reason for considering his theory, he holds that the free act is characterized by indeterminateness, of which unpredictability is a consequence.7 To understand more clearly Bergson’s conception of the free act we should note his criticism of both the determinists and the free-willists. The substance of this criticism is that they do not understand the nature of the self or the fact that one creates rather than chooses his future. The plausibility for the deterministic theory rests on a misconception of the self; it is thought of as the sum of its states. Consequently, the assumption is made that each state is conditioned by the preceding states. But this self of the associationistic theory is only the superficial self, the self that is the result of the interaction of the real self with its environment. As for the real or fundamental self, it remains hidden from us for the most part. Its states are not external to one another—as are those of the shadow-self—but interfused. If in a special case one can account for a new state by its antecedent states, one does not necessarily prove that the antecedent states caused the new states, for “our will is capable of willing for willing’s sake and then of leaving the act which has been performed to be explained by antecedents of which it has really been the cause”.8 Thus a special relation with the past is read into the act, once it is accomplished. Since determinists and free-willists have a mechanistic conception of the self, they represent an act of choosing in the following manner: the self is viewed as at a point O hesitating between definitely marked out courses of action OX and OZ. According to the determinists, if the self decides on OX, that is the only path it could take. According to the free-willists, if one decides on OX, he has chosen one of two paths that were equally open to him. He is free because he might have chosen the alternative. The truth of the situation, according to Bergson, is not that there were, in the first place, two definite courses; but that there is a hesitating self which is modified by entertaining the thought of each possibility in turn. The self is different after such deliberation. The course it finally decides on is something that it must create; for the self creates rather than chooses its future. Freedom, then, is “in the shade or quality of action and not in the relation of this act to what is not or to what might have been”. Free acts spring from the whole personality and express it and “have the same resemblance to it which one sometimes finds between an artist and his work”. Because free acts have this origin, they are very rare. Some people live and die without ever having known freedom. As Bergson states, we often act in an automatic

5

Cf. H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil II 303. Time and Free Will (tr. by Pogson) 219. 7 Ibid., 221. 8 Op. cit., 157. 6

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way. Thus, if it is our custom to arise at a certain hour, we do so without the interference of the self. “Even in more serious circumstances, we allow the local process to run its course when our whole personality ought, so to speak, to vibrate.” The whole self must enter in to create the future if such creation is to be free. But one must investigate further to find out in just what light Bergson represents the self that, by virtue of its origination of acts, renders them free. We have already indicated his hostility to the associationistic conception of the self. That superficial self is the self that lives on the surface, determined by ideas and feelings which we do not assimilate. These are imparted by friends or by our education. They “float on the surface like dead leaves”. They are those which we have not cherished and so wither in neglect. These ineffectual ideas and feelings limit our freedom. But there are also ideas and feelings which do not limit us. They penetrate to our very nature and change it. Thus “the most authoritative education would not curtail any of our freedom if it only imparted to us ideas and feelings capable of impregnating the whole soul”. In other words, the self, if changed by its education, is free when it—now a different self by virtue of the change wrought—originates activity. The ideas and feelings that make it other than it was do not limit its freedom. Only the ideas that have no affect on the fundamental self limit it. The reason is that, in the former case, the self has assimilated those ideas and so, in expressing them expresses itself and is free. Furthermore, even one idea or one feeling may reflect the whole self.9 “Feelings, provided they go deep enough, each make up the whole soul since the whole content of the soul is reflected in each of them”. Again, “passion, even sudden passion, would no longer bear the stamp of fatality if the whole history of the person were reflected in it”. This self is hardly known to itself; for we ourselves “mostly perceive nothing but the outward display of our mental states. We catch only the impersonal aspect of our feelings, and that aspect which speech has set down.... Thus, even in our own individual, individuality escapes us”.10 Consequently the fundamental self is hidden from ourselves. It is also hidden from others. Man bears no organic relation to his fellows. One cannot communicate his inner experiences to others. His attempt to do so—providing he himself knows what those inner experiences are—eventuates in an articulation of conscious states but the very articulation robs them of their living reality. The requirements of social life are such that we must continue to express ourselves in language; but the self so expressed is merely a shadow. It is this superficial self that is known to others. Such a view of the relation of the self to society makes us wonder why Bergson said that “the France of to-morrow will be what we will it to be, for the future is dependent on us and is that which free human wills make of it”. In thus addressing his countryman he does not explain how the fundamental selves—the free selves—of the nation can work together purposefully, since society calls forth only the superficial self and since the free act is the expression of the fundamental self.

9

Cf. op. cit., 135, 165, and 167. Laughter (tr. by C. Brereton and F. Rothwell) 153–54.

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From this consideration of the nature of the self that wills free acts, we conclude that it is not limited by outside influences that entirely change it; that it may be expressed in a feeling, a passion, or an idea11 ; that it enters only superficially into relation with other selves; that it is even hidden from itself. This self may inaugurate free acts. It does so when the fundamental self asserts itself, when the real self boils over and breaks the crust that unassimilated ideas form. Then one may decide without any reason or “perhaps even against every reason”. Such irrational action, however, expresses the self. Indeed, “the absence of any tangible reason is the more striking the deeper our freedom goes”. In short, this boiling over of the real self is the essence of the free act. Here we have a graphic description of the significance of indeterminateness in action that the self inaugurates. Moreover, Bergson tells us12 that it is the spontaneity of these acts, their indeterminateness, their newness, their ‘upspringing’ quality, that characterizes them as free. The consequence of such characteristics—which all go to emphasize the flexibility of the free act—is that the outcome of the free act is unforeseeable. Thus Bergson is partly at one with those holders of the quantum theory who regard flexibility, with its resultant unpredictability, as the essence of freedom. Our problem is whether, if flexibility of acts is established, freedom is proved. And we have presented Bergson’s theory because he equates freedom with flexibility. But, as we have noted, he also rests his assumption of freedom on the origination of the act by the self. Consequently we have in his theory two assumptions with regard to the free act: first, it is free by virtue of its origination from the whole self and, second, that it has indeterminateness as an essential characteristic. Is it possible that the second assumption is based in part on an imperfect understanding of the first? I say in part because the conception of flexibility in the realm of life is fundamental to Bergson’s thought. The question I am raising is whether he would have made the second assumption if he had understood the significance of the first. Here we turn to a critical estimate of Bergson’s theory of the nature of the self. As we have noted, he conceives of two aspects of the self. He does not mean to split up the personality; yet he does talk of the deep-seated and the superficial self. The question arises whether the so called shadow of the self—which is the result of the reaction of the primary self to its social environment—is not an essential and significant aspect of the self: the self as functioning. It is hard to understand just how he distinguishes between this superficial self, which is an outward manifestation of the inner self, and the outward manifestation, which is the free act.13 Furthermore, one gets the impression that the real self goes on developing quite unhampered, for the most part, by any significant contact with its environment. Does not Bergson lack Comte’s insight that the self apart from society is an abstraction? Of course, in so far as we accept uncritically conventional points of view, we do live superficially. Can we, in that case, be so optimistic as to assume the existence of a more fundamental

11

Cf. Time and Free Will 135, 165, and 167. Cf. Creative Evolution (tr. by Mitchell) 126, 164, 223–24. 13 Cf. Time and Free Will 165–66. 12

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self which is living a hidden life? It is hard to understand in what significant way such a self is developing. It seems to be another Topsy who just grows up.14 Yet some ideas and feelings do impregnate the whole soul. These change but do not limit the self; only the ineffectual ideas limit the self. Here again Bergson is hard to follow, for one wonders in what sense the terms ineffectual and limit are used, since those ideas and feelings that “are capable of impregnating the whole soul” do not curtail its freedom. Again what sort of self is it that may be expressed in a passion, a feeling, or an idea? Also one wonders by what criterion one may distinguish between the feeling that expresses the whole personality and that which usurps it. We are told that if aversion goes deep enough it may do the former, whereas violent anger may usurp the whole personality. In this connection one calls to mind Medea, who was so filled with the desire to wring her husband’s heart that she murdered her own children. She was mastered by passion according to her own admission. One remembers how Euripides’ Electra brooded over the wrongs done by her mother to Agamemnon and herself until she was almost consumed by her feeling of hatred for Clytaemnestra. Only when her mother was dead did Electra realize the monstrosity of what she had done. One might call to mind other tragic characters who were narrowed to one feeling or one idea so that they lost all sense of proportion. One wonders whether such selves, thus narrowed, could originate any act that might deserve the designation of free.15 Is Bosanquet right in assuming with Plato that no important inferences may be made about the self, if its social aspect is neglected? And Bergson thinks of that aspect as hiding the real self. Not only is the real self usually hidden from others but also from itself. If this is so, who is to know that any “boiling over” of an assumed fundamental self is really an expression of that self? It would of course be much more difficult to know that such boiling over is an expression of the whole self. Who is to know that “in the simplest state of consciousness the whole soul can be reflected” when that soul’s nature is hidden even from itself? In short, one seems to have in Bergson’s self an unknown x, sometimes manifesting itself as a feeling, sometimes as an act of will, a self that is unnecessary to the actual business of developing a life that shall be significant; a self that is a process, a becoming, of unknown origin and of no destination. As opposed to such a theory we have the view that the self seen from the point of view of psychology has distinguishable aspects; those of thought, feeling, and will; and that yet “no actual moment of life is reducible to any one of these forms taken by itself. Each faculty, on the contrary, represents a logical distinction within the experience of any moment, and the functioning of each penetrates and is penetrated by that of the others. As elements of experience, they do not represent actual states of 14

Cf. Creative Evolution 47–48 and Time and Free Will 231. In connection with Bergson’s thought that the self may be reflected in a passion, one is reminded of Santayana’s statement that “to throw the whole mind upon something is not so great a feat when the mind has nothing else to throw itself upon. Every animal when goaded becomes intense.” The Life of Reason IV 88–89.

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the mind that are chronologically separable, but aspects of one inner experience that are isolated only through the logical analysis that psychology effects”.16 Furthermore the self is an achievement, that is, a self that deserves recognition as a self in any important sense. In Bosanquet’s words, it is “to be made and won, to be held together with pains and labour, not something given to be enjoyed”. Moreover, it is organically related to other selves. If this idealistic theory is an adequate statement of the nature of the self, Bergson’s conception of it is most unsatisfactory. One might well agree with Bergson that the free act is inaugurated by the self; but, if the theory just indicated is an adequate one, a person could not follow him in his second assumption that the free act is characterized chiefly by flexibility. If the idealistic theory of the self is correct, one cannot say with Bergson that the free act is “incommensurable with the idea”; that, “though it be the realizing of an intention, it differs as a present and new reality, from the intention, which can never aim at anything but recommencing or rearranging the past”; that the free act drops “like an over-ripe fruit”, developing, one would gather, without purposive direction. The consequence of Bergson’s theory of freedom resulting from his inadequate conception of the self is best given in his own words. “All that is serious in life comes from our freedom. The feelings we have matured, the passions we have brooded over, the actions we have weighed, decided upon and carried through, in short, all that comes from us and is our very own, these are the things that give life its ofttimes dramatic and generally grave aspect”.17 One is not surprised that the feelings, actions, and passions, of a self that is believed to be hampered by reason should be regarded as of a nature that would involve the self in a tragic situation, a situation that can be viewed as comic if we regard ourselves as marionettes. A self uncontrolled by rational purpose is not the whole self. If it is not the whole self, it does not originate free acts—as Bergson would have to agree. It is after all a puppet of passion or of the whim of the moment. This puppet might be characterized as Medea characterizes herself as “overcome of evil...; passion evermastereth sober thought and this is the cause of direst ills to men”. If Bergson had followed out his first insight that the free act is initiated by the whole self—of which surely reason is an essential aspect—he might have gone on to represent the self as creating a future that is not darkened by emotional prejudices, passions augmented by brooding over them, and actions unenlightened by reason. The conception of the self as Bergson develops it, together with his characterization of the freedom he claims for it, leads one to wonder whether that freedom is not the freedom of caprice, which is not real freedom. “The will of the capricious man is one whose motive is to show the bare self as a power in the world. To him it is more important that it is his will and not another’s that is realised than that what he wills is realised”.18 In other words, the capricious man is interested in the fulfilment of the act of the will rather than in the act of the will as the expression of any content. Not unlike this man is Bergson’s free person who wills “for willing’s 16

J. E. Creighton, “Reason and Feeling”, The Philosophical Review XXX 468–9. Laughter 79. 18 Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant II 270. 17

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sake”, whose feeling breaks through the crust that is assumed to have been formed over the fundamental self by the advice of his most trustworthy friends. As a result of this “boiling over” the man acts freely from Bergson’s point of view. But in viewing the act of willing thus, Bergson is regarding it abstractly. The act of willing is divorced from the object of willing, and then the will, identified with its capacity to act, is regarded as free because of its indeterminateness. Due consideration, however, will show us that the will so represented is viewed merely under its formal aspect. To separate the thatness of willing from its whatness or content is to take from the act what makes it concrete and to regard the will abstractly, as it may be thought but never found in experience. An act of will is never without content. When one wills, he wills something; he does not just will. In so far as one lacks insight into the content of his act of willing, in so far, in other words, as he does not understand what he is willing, one is not free in his willing. That is, in so far as one cannot predict the outcome of his act of willing, he is limited in that act.19 Moreover, to the extent that there is unreliability in the world, contrary to Compton’s postulate, man acts without knowing in how far his intention can be accomplished. In short, in so far as one can prove indeterminateness and its attendant unpredictability in the realm of human action, that action is shown to be limited and not free. Only to the extent that the will is enlightened concerning the goal it wills can one postulate freedom of its action.

19

Cf. Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World 234–36, and Dewey, The Quest for Certainty 249–50. Substantially this point has been made many times since Hegel’s day, but in the light of Bergson’s conception of freedom it seems to need further reiteration.

Chapter 29

The Freedom of the Person Grace Andrus de Laguna Edited by Joel Katzav, and Dorothy Rogers

Abstract In this article, Grace Andrus de Laguna develops a view of human freedom, one according to which it is made possible by the uniqueness of human individuals and the cultural worlds in which they live.

In becoming a person, a human being at once undergoes and achieves a transformation of himself. With this transformation, we shall now try to show, he acquires freedom both of choice and of creativity. But he could neither attain nor exercise such freedom if he did not live in a world which not only makes freedom possible, but demands it of him as a person. This is not the universal “world of nature” in which all individuals exist and act as individuals, but the human Lebenswelt, the cultural world. It is because this world differs in distinctive ways from the universal order of nature that it makes freedom possible. Yet as man has his source in the same nature in which all individuals exist, so the cultural world has itself arisen from nature. If the world of culture is in a peculiar sense the “work” of man, man is dependent on the evolutionary generation of this world for his own humanity. If there is a sense in which man transcends nature, there is a deeper sense in which the potentiality of such transcendence belongs to what nature is. That nature exhibits an order in which differences of “higher” and “lower,” “better” and “worse” have no place is, in an obvious sense, undeniable. This is an order of regular repetitions of coexistences and sequences. It is indeed because there are such repetitive regularities that nature contains kinds and classes of things and events related to one another in ways that are describable in terms of universal law and are indefinitely formulable mathematically. It was the dream of finding such an order that Grace A. de Laguna: Originally published in 1966 in On Existence and the Human World, Grace A. de Laguna (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp 146–170. G. A. de Laguna (B) School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Department of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_29

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inspired the beginnings of modern science in the seventeenth century and spurred the rejection of final causes as having any place in the processes of nature. If this dream has not been fully realized, the mounting successes of science in formulating and applying such laws is testimony that nature is amenable to such ordering. We have already argued that if the order of nature is all that nature is—if the being of nature is exhausted in the order it manifests—then the existence of individuals is incomprehensible. For individuals and their acts can belong to the order of nature only so far as they are particulars, instances of the general, and existentially repeatable. But each individual is an unrepeatable and unduplicatable entity, and since individuals do exist, the being of nature is not wholly resolvable into the order it manifests. As an unrepeatable entity, a human being, like all individuals, escapes the net of universal laws. But there is a further ground for the claim that man as a person and the human world in which he lives as a person, “transcend” nature. For human life can only be understood in terms of a seeking of goals which are not only biological but cultural and ideal. To act as a person is to act with reference to ends approved as valuable. The human world in which alone he can live and act as a person is not merely an order of repetitive regularities—although it exhibits such regularities—it is an organization, and as such is structured with reference to ends. It is only within the world of human culture that a person can live and act, because it is only this world that provides the ends for which men seek and the means of their possible attainment. Human freedom would be meaningless unless there were ends for which to act; choice would be impossible if there were not a plurality of possible ends and means, differing not only in the possibility of attainment but in their desirability as ends. The human world is no mere order in which distinctions of higher and lower, better and worse have no place. On the contrary, as the anthropologists point out, it is structured in terms of value. It is for this reason that as scientists they insist that values belong to nature. To justify this claim and to solve the problem which they are forced to acknowledge, they have need of a metaphysical conception of nature compatible with their science. The claim that man and his world belong within nature finds its strongest support in the evidence that these—both man and his human world—came into being in the evolutionary course of nature. If we admit, as surely we must, that man is the latest stage in a continuous process from inanimate matter to the simplest living organism and then through the biological evolution of species to man and his cultural world, we are faced with a philosophical problem which is insoluble in terms of a natural order of repetitive regularities. The alternative, as we have argued, is not, however, between a deterministic “mechanism” and a “teleology” which conceives evolution as a process directed to a predetermined end. What distinguishes the living organism from its nonliving predecessor is its ability to replicate its own structure in another individual. The genetic processes of replication may indeed be analyzable as physico-chemical processes taking place in accordance with nature as an order or repetitive regularity, but the reproductive organism is also an organization having a teleonomic structure describable with reference to the end of reproduction. This fact has a scientific importance for the theory of the evolution of species: it is organization for reproduction that is “selected” by nature. But it is not only the theory

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of biological evolution that is dependent on the recognition of the essential role of teleonomy. The evolution of the primitive organism from nonreproductive molecules is itself theoretically unintelligible unless teleonomic structure is recognized as an irreducible and universal factor in the being of nature. No individual, we maintain, endures through sheer passive inertia, but only as it so acts as to maintain itself in its potentiality for acting in reciprocity with the acts of other individuals. The so-called “chemical selection” that presumably led to the appearance of the first living beings is to be conceived not as the selection of the more complex kinds of individuals, but of those organized to the end of self-maintenance under changing conditions. What marks the biological evolution of species as a distinctive stage, or phase, of the evolutionary course of nature is not the emergence of teleonomic structure from mere “order,” but the transition from one type of teleonomic structure to another. But while reproduction as the supreme end has been the critical factor in the evolution of living species, it has not replaced the self-maintenance of the individual as a necessary means. The advent of man (genus homo) marks the third stage in the continuous course of evolution. As a living organism, man is structured for the end of reproduction, but this end is no longer primary or dominant. The end for which man is uniquely organized lies outside himself as an individual and also beyond the reproduction of his structure in other individuals, although it must include these ends as subsidiary. Man’s unique goal is the maintenance of the culturally patterned human community and its “way of life.” It is not to be supposed that man with his distinctive teleonomic structure arose first, as the result of natural selection, and then as a result of his genetically determined organization, produced, or generated, the cultural world in order to attain the ends to which his biological organization was directed. Man did not come first, and then his culture. Rather we may suppose that the world of human culture has had an evolutionary continuity with the “behavioral environment,” the proto-cultural world, of man’s anthropoid ancestors, and that the evolution of this world and of man as a distinctive biological species occurred together in mutual dependence. The organization uniquely distinctive of the human individual, the organization he must achieve for himself, is that of the person. As the evolution of man from his hominid predecessors and the evolution of culture took place in mutual dependence, so the transformation of each human individual into a person can only be achieved within a cultural world he shares with other persons, and which he re-creates as his in becoming a self. The person, too, must maintain his own existence. But since he can exist as a person only as a self within a world he shares with other selves, so he can maintain his self-existence only by so acting as to maintain this common world. By making it his, he re-creates it both for himself and for others. The end to which man’s teleonomic structure is directed thus transcends the maintenance of his existence as an individual and the maintenance of his organic structure in the reproduction of offspring. Yet in this very transcendence of the ends for which all living beings are organized, continuity of the evolutionary course of nature is manifest. The cultural world could not make freedom possible unless it were a realm not only of ends and means, but of order, of repetitive regularities. Nature could not, as it does, manifest itself in organizations unless it also exhibited existential order. But the

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order essential to the organized structure of the cultural world is not merely that of nature: it is the order of custom, and not that of natural law. The regularities of custom differ in important respects from those expressible in terms of natural law. Customs are not universal, but vary from one culture to another. They are also subject to change from one period to another in the same culture. Moreover the regularities of custom are, for the most part, looser and less clearly and exactly definable than those of the order of nature. If natural laws are stated in terms of conditions never exactly realized in actual existence, they are not conceived to be subject to exceptions or deviations. It may be claimed that while customs change, these changes themselves take place in accordance with natural law and subject to universal conditions, and that conformity and nonconformity to custom also occur in accordance with underlying laws of nature. But conformity to custom is not conformity to law, nor are the regularities of custom regularities of law. Conformity to a custom does not consist merely in acting in a general way that is the same from occasion to occasion and from individual to individual, under the same conditions, although a custom would not continue to exist without such repeated regularity of action. Conformity to custom involves conformity to a standard, a norm of conduct. The order represented by custom is not merely an existential order; it is a normative order, an established order, a traditional order. It can continue as an existential order only as long as it continues to be approved. To be sure, the practices actually followed by the members of a society do not always coincide with the standard they profess. It is also true that customs differ widely in the degree to which acknowledgment of a standard is involved in conformity to them. Customs have been established by tradition and must be learned by each generation of individuals during childhood and youth. They are not acquired merely as habitual but are inculcated through the approval and disapproval of others. Conformity to some customs is also supported by more or less specific sanctions. The child who deviates too far from the customary way of speaking his mother tongue not only is likely to be ridiculed but will not make himself understood, and the youth who fails to conform to the standards of polite behavior may suffer ostracism from certain circles. And as some customary ways of acting become differentiated and established as “law,” the sanctions become specific and standardized and enforced by established authority. The customary ways of acting which are essential constituents of the human world of culture, represent, on the one hand, an order like that of nature—an order of repetitive regularity. Customs exist only so far as they are actually followed. But conformity to custom, on the other hand, differs from conformity to natural law in that it involves conformity to a standard. While the continued existence of the customs depends on the acceptance of this standard, the distinction between custom as an order of existence and customs as a normative order—an order of what “ought to be”—remains. It is because persons live in a world structured in terms of value and act in ways established by tradition and approved as representing a standard, that men are capable of a freedom of choice no other animal enjoys, or suffers. Other animals live in an environment which may also be said to be a “world” insofar as it has an organized structure of potential ends and means correlative to the teleonomic structure of the

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individuals of the species. But the choices open to animals of species even most closely related to man are not only limited but fundamentally different in character. It is true that some species of mammals, and even birds, act as a group and in ways, such as bird migrations, established by former generations and learned by the young through association with older members of the group. But if the migrating birds follow a “customary” route, their behavior reflects neither approval nor tacit acknowledgment of any standard involved. And while the “world” in which the members of a socially organized group of animals live is in some degree shared by all, it is not a “common world” in the sense in which the cultural world is common. For the human world is common because it is a world in which communication in terms of language and other symbolization is possible, and such communication is conditioned by the sharing of value. But while it is only human beings who live in a world structured in terms of values, research discloses a proto-type of this world in the world of the anthropoids. That distinctions of value are involved in structuring all human society is evident. This is especially clear in the case of organization in terms of class and caste. Distinctions between classes depend not only on differences of social function, but carry with them differences in “prestige,” in rights, and privileges. In societies without class, distinctions may yet be organized as a hierarchy, or set of hierarchies, of ranks, to which different individuals belong and to which the same individual may belong at different stages of his life as he passes up or down a ladder of hierarchical steps. And a democracy in its maintenance of “equal” political status and “equal” rights of its citizens, is also dependent on the recognition of value. We may, indeed, go further, and say that all human cooperation and competition are based on the acceptance of common values. Values have their roots in the relations which objects in a common world bear to one another, to the persons who are members of the community, as well as in the relations which connect persons to one another as holders of status and players of roles. The set of values which characterizes a particular culture reflects its mode of organization. The passage from hunting to agriculture, the rise of a military organization, and the development of urban civilization, of a money economy and industrialization with its growth of technology, have all brought with them and depended upon a correlative shift in former values and the emergence of new ones. In every culture and at every period of its development, the values essential to its organization themselves form an interrelated set. If a cultural world were, or could be, an entirely unified system, the values would also be completely organized as a single system. Even in the relatively homogeneous and simple organization of the most “primitive” culture, the values present in it belong to more than one class or kind; in the highly complex civilizations, like our own, there is a corresponding multiplicity of the kinds and classes of values. The values of each kind fall into a more or less definite hierarchy; each has a place in a scale of better or worse, higher or lower, than the value of others of its kind. Moreover, one kind of value is also recognized as higher or lower than another. A complete system of values would exist if the different kinds of value were ordered in a single hierarchy of degrees culminating in the supreme value of the Absolute

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Good. But such a system could be realized only, as Plato taught, in an Ideal State. In any case no such single hierarchy of values is to be found in any actual human culture. The kinds of value belonging to a cultural world fall into no single hierarchy and can be rated according to no single scale. Some different kinds of value are incommensurable. We may, by way of illustration, think of the money economy of a complex industrial society as a means of standardizing and measuring different kinds of value in terms of exchange. So works of art have a market value and are thus measurable in comparison with potatoes and television sets. Yet while their market value is by no means independent of their aesthetic value, aesthetic values and economic values are fundamentally and irreducibly incommensurable. Nor do we suppose that the salary scale or the monetary returns received by government officials, research scientists, physicians, and corporation lawyers furnish a measure of the social value of their respective services. We may rate the services of one commanding general higher than those of another, but we cannot rate them as unquestionably higher or lower than the services of the governing head of the state. If all values of a cultural world formed a single hierarchy, so that the value of every object and act were fixed relatively to that of every other, a world so organized would offer no alternatives between which to choose freely. Freedom of choice is possible only in a world whose values are not already fixed and completely organized; a world in which there are real potentialities of value which may or may not be actualized. Choices are free, not merely because men are ignorant of values and so must choose in the dark, but because it is through the choices that men make that the potential values of a cultural world can become realized. But while the values of every cultural world belong to no single system, every culture possesses one set of values supreme above all others and incommensurable with them: the moral values. What distinguishes moral values and constitutes them as supreme is that the attainment of them, at least in some degree, is the necessary condition for the attainment of other values. We have already argued that the integration of the personality of the individual is dependent on the attainment of certain fundamental and universal personal virtues, and that it is with reference to his self-ideal that the individual must organize his life as a person. So it is the recognition of common ideals and conformity to common standards of moral conduct that is essential to the organized activities of men in their common world. Moral ideals and standards combine the intrinsic value of being ends in themselves with the instrumental values of necessary, if not sufficient, means to the attainment of other values. While there are universal values implicitly acknowledged in every culture, the particular moral values recognized and their respective ratings will vary as the organization of one culture differs from that of another. But despite such variation and relativity, moral values perform the same essential function in every culture. It is because the attainment and preservation of its moral values is a necessary condition for the realization of other cultural values that the corruption of its moral order is destructive of the organization of its common world. The normative order which distinguishes the cultural world from that of nature not only contains value standards in accordance with which things are ordered as

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higher or lower; it also contains a standard of what ought to be as distinguished from what is. This distinction is inherent in the nature of custom. The laws of nature represent universal regularities of what is; the order of nature is wholly existential. The regularities of custom, which constitute the order of the world of culture, are also an order of what is, for if a custom is not followed, it ceases to exist. Yet customs are also approved. That standards are essential to the maintenance of customary modes of action follows from the fact that culture is transmitted from generation to generation; it must be learned by the individuals of each new generation. Custom represents and is made possible through the accumulated experience of past generations. If an individual of one generation is to profit by such accumulated experience he must learn from others, and, as we have seen, this involves not only responsiveness to their approval and disapproval of himself, but the development of similar approval and disapproval by one’s self. Standards are essential because no common world could come into being or be maintained without the sharing of approval. But while the maintenance of the regularities of custom, which constitute the order of the world of culture, depend upon their acceptance as norms, and while what has become established as “customary” tends to be approved as “proper,” the practices followed and the standards approved do not entirely coincide. A cultural world could not exist without standards of what ought to be, but if there were complete conformity to these standards, so that “what is” and “what ought to be” were one and the same, the world of culture would be indistinguishable from the natural world, and there would be no scope for human freedom. The same consequence follows if we consider the matter from the standpoint of the person as a participant in culture. As we have seen, participation in culture involves the internalization of culture—the acquisition of customary ways of acting and of cultural standards as a “second nature.” But if this process were to be completed the human individual would not be a person but a robot—or an angel. It is not merely the limitations of human nature that prevents conformity to standards becoming identified with the inclinations of an acquired “second nature.” Such a consummation would be possible only if the culture to be internalized were itself completely integrated. This would mean not only that the customary regularities coincided with conformity to approved standards, but that the standards themselves formed a system. But there are conflicting standards present in every culture. Recorded history and literature of all ages and all peoples are full of such cases. Loyalty to wife and child may conflict with loyalty to king and country, and both of these with conformity to the standards of established religion. A culture may include many different standards which are socially complementary. The standards of an aristocracy, for example, are different from those of either peasants or tradesmen, and there are codes for different professions. No conflict would, however, occur if the society were so organized that the difference in standards corresponded to roles played by different persons or at different times and occasions by the same person. In some cultures and at some periods in the same culture, such correspondence is more nearly achieved than by others, but it is never complete. Conflicts of standards occur just so far as individuals are forced, or attempt, to play roles with differing standards. As we pointed out

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earlier, the culture to some extent provides established ways of combining roles and standards for the subordination of some roles to others. It is, at least in part, because the individual participants in a culture are caught in such conflicts that every culture has developed a more or less explicit set of moral standards, rules or principles by the applications of which the claims of conflicting standards may be adjusted. But the moral standards of duty, no more than the moral value standards of virtue, form a unified system or can be codified as a set of moral laws. Moreover they can be explicitly formulated only in very general terms. In relatively simple and homogeneous cultures with fewer and less divergent standards, conflicts occur less often, and in such cultures moral standards tend to remain implicit or to be expressed and passed on in the form of myths, while there is little formulation of moral principles in general terms. It is when conflicts between the more specific standards become more frequent and serious, as happens in cases of culture contact and acculturation, that the need for the explicit formulation of general moral principles must be met. Such formulations may gain currency and become accepted because they are made by those whose authority is already recognized, or it may be that their acceptance as filling an inarticulate need, itself lends authority and respect to the “wise man” or prophet who proclaimed them. But however moral principles become formulated and gain acceptance, they can fulfill their function of settling conflicting claims and organizing human life only through being applied to individual cases. That there are, in the last resort, no rules for the application of rules is a commonplace. As the individual person must, in the last analysis, himself combine the playing of different roles and achieve the integration of his own personality, so it is the individual who must resolve his own conflicts of standards and make his own moral decisions. He may avoid this in particular cases by seeking advice and counsel of others whose authority to make moral decisions he has accepted. But he must choose to accept such authority. If, indeed, a society were so organized that the authority both to formulate moral laws and to decide how they should be applied in individual cases were delegated to some single individual or institution, such a culture would not be a moral order, nor would the individuals in such a world be persons and moral beings. It has generally been recognized that there can be no morality without freedom, and it might be argued that even if the individual were relieved of all responsibility for resolving moral conflicts and for deciding what his duty was on particular occasions, he would still be free to obey or to disobey its dictates. But the freedom of the person, we contend, is more than this: it is the freedom both to decide how to apply accepted moral principles in the individual case and, in doing so, to act in some degree as a legislator of moral laws. It will be recalled that Kant held that man was free in that as a rational being he was himself the legislator of universal moral laws. But, as Kant himself held, it was not man as an individual who could so legislate, but man as a rational being, nor was there scope for any freedom of choice. We have argued that human freedom is possible because the cultural world in which men live differs in important respects from the world of nature. It differs, first, because its structure is that of custom and historical tradition rather than that of natural law. Its order has not only come into being, but it remains incomplete

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and subject to modification and change. Secondly, it differs from nature in that its order is normative and not merely existential. The cultural world contains values as essential to it; it is organized with reference to value distinctions and relationships. Its order is also normative in that the customary regularities constitutive of it involve conformity to standards. The existential order of what is and the normative order of what ought to be are mutually dependent; each is distinct from, yet essential to the maintenance of the other. Because the values and standards of the cultural world form no single system, but result in conflicts when internalized by the individual persons in whose existence and by whose acts the culture is actualized, the maintenance of the cultural world depends on the presence of moral standards as the necessary, although insufficient, condition for the resolution of conflicts, and for the integration of the personality of the individual. The structure of the cultural world, thus, not only makes freedom possible and demands it of the individual, but is itself maintained and reorganized by the free activity of individual persons. An act of true choice is possible only to an individual who is both rational and free. The mere selection of one thing or one action rather than another does not constitute an act of choice. We do not think of the chick who has learned to avoid the fuzzy caterpillar and peck at the smooth worm as choosing the worm. All animals are selective in their actions: the bat flies at twilight and not at noonday; the salmon returns to spawn in the stream where it was hatched; the bear hibernates in a cave but not in the open; one species of bird nest in a tree and another on the ground. While such actions show selectivity we do not think of them as acts of choice by the individual concerned. The case is less clear, perhaps, with regard to the individual bear or robin. Does the bear “choose” the particular cave in which he hibernates, or does the robin “choose” this site to build her nest rather than some other she has apparently looked over before settling down? We would ordinarily say so. Yet we should hesitate to ascribe freedom of choice to either the bear or the bird. It has long been generally agreed that it is only man who has freedom of choice and that it is as a rational and moral being that he is free. It is clear from the preceding discussion that this is our own position. But it is important to consider further how the choice possible to man as a rational being differs from the bear’s “choice” of a cave or a bird’s “choice” of a nesting site; and how and in what sense a rational choice is free. A choice is rational insofar as it rests upon an analysis of its object and of the situation. The bird before building its nest does indeed “look over” several inviting places, but it is not to be supposed that it has made its selection on the basis of comparing it point for point with others and after weighing the relative advantages, say, of protection from weather, inaccessibility to marauders, distance from feeding grounds, etc. Rather it is to be assumed that the selection of the site follows what Kohler has called a moment of “insight” in which the site is perceived as a total configuration more inviting on the whole than the configuration of other sites. The man who chooses a site for a house, however, acts in a radically different way. He too will look over a number of possible sites, but his choice is reached by an analysis in conceptual terms of what he perceives, and by the relating of what he perceives to what is beyond the reach of perception. He considers not only the view, but the price, the neighborhood, educational opportunities for his children, distance from his

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place of business, etc. A more cautious and thoughtful man may carry this analytic discrimination farther than another, but no man, however impulsive he may be, makes a choice without some analysis and conceptualization of the object. Nor is choice a mere matter of preference, as one may be said to “choose” a peach rather than a pear, or an olive rather than lemon peel in his cocktail. Choice involves a consideration of values, a weighing of the advantages and disadvantages that attach to general features discriminated in analysis. To choose one house site as on the whole more desirable than the others is to have made a synthesis of the values analytically discriminated. What is important for us to note is, first, that the analytic discrimination must be made in terms of general concepts and in terms of equally general and common values. One man may attach a higher value to a “good” neighborhood or educational advantages than another, and rate higher the probable increase or decrease in the market value of the land, but no man can make a choice without a recognition of some common values and a rating of them for himself and with reference to his own situation. Secondly, it is important for us to note that while the synthesis essential to an act of choice involves a rating of the values discriminated, it is no mere calculation of an algebraic sum. If the synthesis were reached by calculation, as prizes are awarded at a dog show, for example, when fixed numerical values are assigned to a definite number of points, such a calculated result would not constitute a choice. Only an individual who is a person can make either the analysis or the synthesis essential to an act of choice. Choice is rational in that both the analysis and the synthesis are made in general, and hence common, terms and with reference to common standards; choice is free in that the individual is not subject to rule in making either his analysis or his synthesis. Choice is possible only between more or less fixed and mutually exclusive alternatives. And, as we have seen, it involves a comparative evaluation of these alternatives. But if such evaluation showed the value of one alternative to be, on the whole, much greater than that of the others, there would in that case be no room for choice. Again, if no difference in value could be detected, an individual would be equally debarred from making a choice—he could only, so to speak, “flip a coin.” One cannot, we would maintain, make a real choice without taking a risk. This risk is not susceptible to exact calculation, but it must be considered and accepted. The choice one makes may turn out to have been a “bad choice,” since the outcome was unfortunate, and yet have been the “best choice” one could have made at the time and under the circumstances. The choices a man makes he must make “in the dark” since he is incurably ignorant. But to make a choice he must do it “with his eyes open,” and see the darkness made visible by the light. As men we are indeed “condemned to freedom,” but the choices we are condemned to make each individual must accept as his in his freedom; else he makes no choice. But human freedom is not limited to the freedom of choice between alternatives. If we are “condemned” to this freedom, there is another freedom, that of creativity, open to us. If our cultural world were completely organized, the only freedom open to us would be a choice between fixed and mutually exclusive alternatives; but while we are sometimes faced with the necessity of such choice, this is by no means always the case. We must on occasion decide whether to speak or be silent, whether to wait

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or move on; but if we choose to speak rather than to remain silent, we are not limited to fixed alternatives of what to say. And examination of alternatives may reveal a possible compromise, a via media between them. Better still, and just as often, we ask ourselves how we can have, or do, both. We find or invent new ways of gaining our ends by varying or combining old ways; and the following of new ways and using new means may reveal ends and values hitherto unrecognized and unappreciated. Yet we must recognize that making a choice is not to be identified with making a value judgment. Making a choice involves committing oneself to overt action. A man might judge one house site to be more desirable than another, but unless he takes steps to gain possession of it he has not actually chosen it. That choice must be actualized in overt action is more evident when the choice to be made involves a consideration of moral values. There is a sense in which the familiar dictum, “one may see the better but choose the worse,” holds true. A man may, for example, acknowledge that “honesty is the best policy,” and yet act dishonestly on a given occasion. He may, indeed, justify his action on a number of different grounds; and, so far as he does so, he has not chosen what he “sees” to be the worse. He may also, as a matter of fact, feel uncomfortable in acting as he does (and for that very reason feel the need of self-justification). But we are, all of us, often uncertain about the choices we make. To feel uncertain and dissatisfied with a choice is not to “choose the worse.” Indeed, as we have urged, if one alternative is clearly and unquestionably more desirable than others, there is no room for choice. It has been claimed, however, that when we act, as we often do, from passion or from strong desire or fear, and in disregard of consequences, we are choosing the worse. But such a contention surely rests upon a confusion. In being overcome by passion we become incapable of choice, and to act merely from desire or fear is not to act from choice. Only the individual who as self-conscious retains control of himself and his actions is free to choose. To yield to passion is to lose self-control and with it the ability to choose. Only so far as what is desired is also appreciated as desirable can it be an object of choice. If only man as a rational and moral being can make choices, it is because he can, and does, desire what he finds desirable and also acknowledges what he does desire as more or less desirable. Few philosophers have held that objects of even “carnal” desires are as such undesirable, or that the pleasures of sense have no value, although many have debated how they are to be evaluated and what place they have in the “Good.” It has often been pointed out that an object of sensuous desire appears more desirable because of its immediacy. But whether in choosing it rather than an alternative acknowledged to be intrinsically more desirable but less immediate, one is, or is not, choosing the worse has long been debated. Our point, however, is that no choice is possible between an object of desire as such and one recognized as desirable. It is only so far as an object of desire (or aversion) is recognized as desirable, and conversely, so far as an alternative recognized as desirable is also an object of desire, that any choice is possible. That men do on occasion act from passion or on impulse regardless of consequences is undeniable, but such action is not the result of choice. The question will be asked, however, whether one may not choose to yield himself up to pleasure even though the consequence of his choice may be the loss of freedom

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to make further choices. It is, let us admit, possible to choose a life of pleasure, accepting the risk or even the certainty of paying ultimately a ruinous price. One may also choose to commit suicide rather than live under some conditions. So also one may—as many men have done—attempt to escape the burden (the “anguish”) of the responsibility involved in all choice by seeking the peace of the monastic life or of the solitary recluse. But there are admittedly cases of a very different sort. Granting that one may be “overcome with pleasure,” “yield to temptation” or to fear or threat choosing to do so, is there in such cases no freedom to resist? Freedom, as we conceive it, is not freedom of a “Will,” distinguishable as a separate and independent determinant of action. It is the person as an individual whole who is free, and his freedom is a function of the organized structure of his personality. As we have maintained, this organization is never completely integrated or completely fixed. It is subject to change as the individual passes from youth to maturity and into senescence. A man remains a natural individual as well as a person, and so subject to the natural vicissitudes of his state. Senility thus brings not only a change in personality but a disintegration of its structure and a corresponding loss in the scope and degree of his freedom. Disease, accident, and the use of drugs may bring a similar consequence; a man in high fever is no longer free to choose. And, as we have learned of late, there are ways of combining physical and psychological torture which degrade him as a man and destroy him as a person—they wreck the structure of his personality. Some men do, indeed, die without succumbing to such tortures, but it would be extravagant to claim that a man has the ability to withstand all forms of torture or to remain free under its influence. Human freedom is limited and conditional. Men differ from one another in the degree of freedom that belongs to them as individual persons, and the same person varies, under changing conditions, in both the scope and degree of his freedom. While there is a distinction to be recognized between freedom of choice and freedom of initiative, or creativity, the line between them is not always clear, and they may merge into each other. An act of choice depends on the presence of alternatives. Every culture offers to its participants alternative ends to be attained and alternative means for their attainment. To live and act in his cultural world the individual person must constantly choose between these alternatives. For a genuine choice to be possible, the individual must recognize the alternatives as desirable, as having value; and to make a choice the individual must make some analysis of the alternatives in conceptual terms and make his own individual synthesis of the relative values attaching to them. It is partly because a free choice involves some uncertainty and an individual commitment that a free choice is akin to an act of initiative in which something new is produced or undertaken. The clearest case of choice occurs when the person finds himself faced with alternatives which are clear-cut and mutually exclusive, when he sees no possible compromise and no way of securing the advantages of both. But while every person is obliged on occasion to make such a clear-cut choice, he often finds himself in a situation offering him a number of possible alternative ends, or in which a combination of these ends is possible by a judicious choice of means. Moreover, customary and approved modes of acting, since they are general, may be conformed to in a variety of ways, and since the limits

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within which conformity is recognized are not always clearly defined, the acts of an individual may serve to modify the custom or to set a model for a differing custom. Furthermore, as we have already emphasized, not only does every person play a number of roles, each in his own idiosyncratic way, but he must combine the playing of several by the exercise of his own initiative. While every culture offers some alternative to individual choice and some scope for individual initiative, cultures differ widely both in the fields in which choice is possible or in which there is scope for individual initiative, and in the range of freedom they offer and demand of their participants. Moreover, every cultural world not only exhibits its own characteristic form of structure and its established order of custom, but each has its own distinctive potentialities for the further development or modification of its specific forms of organization and customary modes of action. A form of social organization, a kinship system for example, may be capable of great elaboration, such as is found in Australia; the potlatch, to cite another example from a “primitive culture,” has received differing elaborations among different groups in the Pacific Northwest. And an industrialized money economy provides for an expansion of exchange and a range of possible individual choice and the exercise of individual initiative far greater than that potentiality present in a barter economy. What we have to emphasize here is not, however, the difference between cultures in the range and degree of freedom they offer to their participants, but the fact that every culture contains potentialities inherent in and characteristic of its own organization. If the cultural world in which the child grows to maturity is a world already ordered, with well-trodden paths he learns to follow to well-charted destinations, it is also a world of unexplored regions, through which he may make new paths and reach new destinations; it is a world containing resources to be discovered and exploited in new ways and by new forms of human association and cooperation. If every culture, however rigidly structured, offers alternatives and demands a choice, it also provides some scope for individual initiative and in some respects invites and rewards individual inventiveness. Range of choice open to a person and the opportunities for the exercise of his own initiative will vary with the cultural conditions under which he acts. But freedom of choice and of initiative also vary with differences in the natural endowment of individuals. We have already argued that the making of any choice is dependent on rationality, since it involves some conceptual analysis of alternatives and some appreciation of values. However clear-cut and well established the alternatives offered by his culture may be, they must be recognized by him as alternatives for himself. A stupid person has fewer opportunities for choice simply because he is oblivious to alternatives a more intelligent person would discern as present in the situation confronting him. The cultural world in which a person lives is indeed a world of social institutions and established technology, a world in which works of art, literature, and even science are unquestionably there and independent of him. Yet it is also true that a cultural world exists and can be maintained only as it is internalized in the individual persons who are its participants. While no individual internalizes a culture completely, some individuals participate in it more deeply than others. How deeply a given individual participates will depend not only on the circumstances of his nurture

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and education, but upon his native intelligence and sensitivity. The more deeply he participates and the deeper his insight into the latent potentialities of his culture, the greater are the alternatives open to his choice and the greater the opportunities for the free exercise of his own initiative. To discern what possible alternatives there are other than those already established, the possible variations from, or extensions of, the customary and familiar; to discern new ways of attaining old ends, or new uses to which old procedures may be put, requires intelligence of a high order—and a deeper and more penetrating insight. The innovator, the ingenious inventor, the scientific discoverer and the moral reformer, are those who participate most deeply in their culture. No one can create what is impossible; he can only elicit and bring into actual existence what was present as potential in the already existent. Yet although creative activity in any field would be impossible without a deep understanding, it must be admitted that understanding is not enough; a man may be highly intelligent and have a wide understanding of a subject and yet lack originality and inventiveness. It is also essential, we would hold, that the creative person be highly active as an individual. To act creatively is to act with intensity. Every individual is essentially active. He maintains his existence through the acts by which he actualizes potentialities belonging to him. But while all human beings are endowed with the same generic potentialities, they differ from one another in their particular potentialities. They also differ, we would suggest, in the degree of activity needed to actualize their potentialities. No potentiality is actualized except by the acts of individuals, and while these acts are subject to conditions, they spring from the activity inherent in the individual. It is doubtless true that creativity in one field depends upon the particular potentialities with which the creative individual is endowed by nature. A Newton has natural abilities different from those of a Martin Luther, and each has distinctive abilities which differ from those of a Shakespeare or a Michaelangelo. But each of these as a “creative genius” differs from the men of mere “talent” in his field by what we may call the intensity of his activity as an individual. We may admit this and yet hold, in opposition to Kant, that the “genius” is not separated from the “man of talent” by any sharply drawn line, or that it is only the artist who is a creative genius. It is undeniable, of course, that the creative artist differs in important and significant respects from the scientific genius or the religious or moral reformer. The creative thinker uses concepts, and from them he discovers or creates new conceptual structures; the artist uses, not concepts, but imaged forms from which he creates an individual structure of unique value and universal significance; the prophet discerns and gives symbolic expression to values hitherto unrecognized but implicit in his culture-or perhaps in every culture. Every human being in becoming a person has some freedom of choice and some freedom of initiative. The personality he develops is made possible to him both by his individual endowment and by the pattern of his culture, but he has achieved it through the free choices he has made and the initiatives he has ventured. And while the range of personality open to him is limited by his individual endowment and conditioned by the culture in which he is reared, the personality he acquires is his individual personality, and its uniqueness his own individual achievement.

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But if every person is free, his freedom is limited and conditional. Human freedom is at once made possible by culture and conditioned by it. As the range and kinds of choices provided by one culture differ from those provided by another, so do the opportunities for individual initiative. Not only do persons living in one culture enjoy—and are condemned to—greater freedom than persons living in a world of different culture, but individuals living in the same world differ from one another both in their freedom to choose and to initiate. Human freedom is neither to be conceived, as it was by Descartes and others, as the freedom of a Will independent of Reason and absolutely unconditioned in its activity; nor, on the other hand, as the self-determination of a rational being. Rather we should conceive freedom as limited and conditional, varying in scope and in degree from person to person, and with the same person in the course of his life. For every person may both gain and lose freedom as he passes through life. The choices he makes at one period may open a wider range of choice later on or preclude the possibility of choices once open to him. Moreover, if, as we have urged, his freedom depends on the intensity of his activity, he will suffer a loss of freedom with the senility of old age, or the impairment of his vital energy through illness or emotional exhaustion. If, as a person a man can significantly be said to transcend nature, he still remains an individual within nature and subject to its conditions.

Index

A Absolute, 26, 27, 32, 33, 37, 39, 41, 45, 63, 70, 82, 84, 94–96, 98–101, 123, 143–146, 148, 153, 157, 158, 169, 172, 179, 193, 221, 224, 230, 231, 239–241, 248, 250, 276, 277, 337 Analytic knowledge, 71, 73 Analytic philosophy, analytic tradition, 23–26, 70, 183, 238, 292 Anthropology, anthropological, 44, 73, 124, 142, 149–151, 153, 154, 161–163, 165 A posteriori, 118, 120, 126, 134 Appearance, 73, 74, 88–91, 110, 112, 170, 172, 195, 197, 250, 285, 286, 288, 325 A priori, 63, 71, 73, 79, 101, 118–121, 124, 126, 132, 134–136, 138, 155, 156, 158, 193, 201, 230 Aristotle, 35, 38, 157, 171 Art, aesthetics, 28, 35, 46, 55–57, 65, 88, 105, 107, 168, 172, 242, 261–264, 271, 273, 284, 328, 335 Association, associationism, 31, 46, 56, 94, 132, 133, 145, 198, 282, 327, 335 Atomism, atomistic, 34, 63, 160 Augustine, 219 Austin, John L., 71 Ayer, A.J., 70

B Bacon, Francis, 94, 162 Behaviorism, behaviourism, 179, 183, 184, 206, 207, 209

Belief, 33, 46, 50, 69–71, 75–77, 83, 85, 88, 108, 110, 120, 125, 150–162, 168, 177–179, 184, 205, 209, 214, 240, 256, 262–265, 268–273, 295, 306, 308, 310 Benedict, Ruth, 124, 149, 159 Bergson, Henri, 54, 230, 239, 244–246, 275–277, 280, 283–288, 296–300, 315–321 Berkeley, George, 37, 218, 220, 232, 250 Boas, Franz, 124 Bosanquet, Bernard, 298, 319, 320 Bradley, Francis H., 239, 247, 263, 308 Bridgman, Percy W., 139, 147 Broad, Charles D., 70

C Calkins, Mary Whiton, 26, 27, 31–35, 178, 179, 184–187, 221, 222, 238–242, 244, 245 Calkins’ own philosophy, 27 Cassirer, Ernst, 61, 159 Cattell, James McKeen, 5 Cause, causality, causation, 24, 72, 79, 84, 88, 100, 106, 112, 144–146, 155, 162, 178, 180, 183, 191, 212, 221, 241, 243, 247–249, 252, 256–258, 278, 287, 293, 294, 297, 313–315, 324 Cognition, 70, 87, 90, 122, 142, 143, 146–148 Cohen, Morris R., 62 Coherentism (and non-coherentism), 69, 70, 78

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Katzav et al. (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers, Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7

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340 Compatibilism, 291, 292, 294 Compton, A.H., 313–315, 321 Comte, Auguste, 318 Concept, conception, 24, 26, 28, 29, 32, 33, 39, 44–49, 52, 61, 62, 75–78, 94–96, 98–101, 104, 105, 137–139, 141, 143–148, 150–158, 160, 161, 163, 166, 172, 181, 191, 192, 199, 200, 207, 209, 212, 217–224, 228–233, 237–239, 246, 257, 262–264, 266–269, 271, 273, 277, 279, 283–286, 297–299, 301, 303–309, 315–318, 320, 321, 324, 332, 336 Consciousness, 36, 38, 39, 93, 107, 180, 181, 186, 189–196, 198, 204, 205, 210, 220, 222–227, 229, 245, 246, 249, 253–257, 259, 264, 265, 277–280, 282–287, 307, 319 Cooley, W.F., 232 Creighton, James E., 70, 218, 298, 320 Critical philosophy, critical tradition, 23, 25, 100, 101, 150 Culture, cultural world, 44, 124, 125, 150–154, 156, 159, 161–166, 196, 298–300, 323–332, 334–337 Custom, 44, 152, 162–164, 299, 317, 326, 329, 330, 335 Cutler, Anna Alice, 5 D Darwin, Charles, 7 De Gre, Gerard, 137, 145 de Laguna, Grace A., 2, 70, 71, 73–77, 79, 87, 93, 124–126, 128, 146, 179, 181–185, 294, 298–300, 323 Descartes, René, 37, 38, 185, 209, 210, 219, 280, 337 Determinism, deterministic, 186, 230, 283, 284, 291–296, 304, 308, 324 Dewey, John, 59, 61, 70, 162, 293–296, 298, 300, 321 Dogmatism, 75, 100, 155, 156, 201 Dolson, Grace N., 239, 244, 245 Dualism, dualistic, 38, 163, 178–180, 183, 185, 204–206, 217, 226 Duncan, Robert K., 232 Duration (theory of time), 244, 245, 249, 250, 252–254, 276, 279, 285 E Education (field of study), 150, 317 Ego, 276, 279, 280, 283, 284, 286, 292–294

Index Empiricism, empirical knowledge, 45, 61, 120, 122 Epiphenomalism, epiphenomenal, 204 Eternalism (theory of time), 238 Evolution, evolutionary theory, 94, 101, 106, 108–110, 112, 224, 323–325 Existentialism, existentialist(s), 10 Experience, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 44–47, 49, 51, 55–57, 60, 61, 63, 65, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 78, 82–86, 100, 101, 104–106, 108–110, 112, 113, 118–120, 122–126, 131–135, 140–145, 155, 156, 158, 173, 178, 180–182, 185, 186, 191–198, 200–204, 210–215, 218–220, 222–228, 230–233, 243–246, 248, 249, 254, 257, 259, 265, 271, 276, 279, 280, 282, 284, 285, 293, 303, 304, 310, 315, 317, 321, 329

F Fallibilism, 76 Feigl, Herbert, 179 Fite, Warner, 232 Fodor, Jerry, 179 Foundationalism, 69–71, 75, 77, 78 Frankfurt, Harry, 292 Freedom, free will, 41, 155, 171, 172, 283, 291–301, 304, 305, 307, 313–321, 323–326, 328–337 Functionalism, functionalist, 25, 178, 179, 184

G Ganot, Adolphe, 232 Gardiner, Henry Norman, 5 Gilbert, Katherine, 4 Glicksman, Marjorie, 32–34 God (free will debate), 28, 41, 160, 224, 226, 307 Growing block (theory of time), 244 Gulliver, Julia, 293–296, 299

H Hagengruber, Ruth, 2 Haldane, R.B., 36 Harris, Marjorie Silliman, 294, 296–300 Harris, William Torrey, 5 Hegel, G.W.F., Hegelianism, 36–38, 64, 101, 149, 150, 302, 321 Heidegger, Martin, 13

Index Heisenberg, Werner, 313–315 Hempel, Carl G., 117, 127, 179 History, historian, historical, 24, 26, 29, 33, 34, 38, 43, 44, 47, 59, 61–63, 65, 94, 100, 101, 107, 110, 119, 126–128, 140, 145–148, 150, 151, 160, 167–173, 254, 264–267, 273, 292, 293, 309, 317, 329, 330 Hobhouse, Leonard, 88 Holism, 76 Holt, Edwin B., 9, 222 Humanism, humanistic, 127, 169, 171–173 Hume, David, 37, 38, 44, 60, 61, 85, 219, 230, 249, 251, 255–257 Huxley, Thomas H., 210 I Idealism, idealists, 26, 27, 61, 70, 71, 101, 178, 179, 184–186, 217–220, 226, 229, 238–241, 248, 281, 286, 298, 300 Ideism, 219, 220, 229 Imagination, 55, 74, 82, 83, 88, 107, 112, 144, 160, 181, 198, 201, 259 Incompatibilism, 291, 294 Indeterminism, indeterminate, indeterminateness, 86, 314–316, 318, 321 Indifference (free will debate), 295, 300 Individual, individuality, 26, 28, 34, 38, 45, 46, 50, 55, 62, 111, 120, 124, 127, 131, 132, 135, 142, 150–152, 154, 156, 161, 163, 164, 172, 186, 191–193, 197, 200–202, 211–215, 220, 222, 225, 227, 230–232, 243, 248, 257, 259, 261–270, 272–274, 286, 287, 292–306, 308, 310, 311, 323–337 Induction, inductive method, 112, 118–121, 131–133 Inference, 65, 69, 73, 95, 97, 99, 105, 120, 179, 200, 202, 205, 227, 264, 319 Interdependence, 29, 297 Introspection, introspectionist, 182, 183, 185, 202, 203, 205–207, 214, 222, 245, 253, 286 Intuition, 30, 46, 49, 244–246, 276, 277, 280, 283–286 J James, William, 32, 59, 70, 231, 255, 259, 275

341 Jennings, Helen H., 196, 197, 225, 230 Jones, E.E.C., 9 Judgement, 69, 70, 73

K Kant, Immanuel (Kantianism), 37–39, 63, 64, 99, 140, 149, 150, 155, 156, 165, 248, 250–252, 255, 256, 258, 259, 276, 330, 336 Kantor, Jacob R., 147 Kies, Marietta, 6 Klineberg, Otto, 139 Knowledge, a priori, 71, 73, 79, 121 Knowledge, scientific, 73, 79, 104, 112, 118, 122–124, 126, 281 Kohler, Wolfgang, 331 Kuhn, Thomas, 119, 123, 126, 128

L Ladd-Franklin, Christine, 4, 5 Ladd, George, 5 Lakatos, Imre, 126 Lavine, Thelma Z., 121–124, 126, 128 Leibniz, Gottfried W., 37, 113, 170, 222, 223, 228, 230 Lewis, Clarence I., 60, 61, 124, 137, 142–144, 155, 156, 158 Libertarian, libertarianism (free will debate), 293, 294, 299 Linguistics, linguistic, 30–32, 51–57, 152 Locke, John, 37, 61, 72, 85, 221 Loeb, Jacques, 191, 193, 206 Lovejoy, Arthur O., 126, 137

M Mach, Ernst, 219, 229, 232, 255 Malebranche, Nicolas, 13 Mandelbaum, Maurice, 137, 140, 141 Mannheim, Karl, 121–124, 137–139, 146 Materialism, materialist(s), 178, 217, 281, 286 McTaggart, James E., 237–239, 241, 271–273 Memory, 107, 109, 181, 191, 196–198, 226, 243, 245, 246, 265–269, 281–283, 286 Mental state(s), 178, 179, 181–185, 198, 204, 219, 255 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 13 Merton, Robert K., 137, 140

342 Method, methodology, 24, 32, 33, 38, 46, 47, 60–65, 81, 97, 109–114, 122, 123, 125, 126, 132, 133, 138, 143, 147, 157, 161, 162, 165, 167, 168, 192, 199, 202, 206, 207, 222, 224, 263 Michelson, Albert A., 111 Mill, John Stuart, 308 Mills, Wright C., 144, 147 Mind-body problem, 177–179, 184 Mind-independence, mind-independent, 185 Mind, philosophy of mind, theory of mind, 25, 27, 71, 72, 74, 78, 79, 83, 86, 90, 95, 99, 103, 104, 106–110, 112, 161, 163, 179–181, 186, 189–193, 195–200, 204, 205, 209, 211, 218–220, 229, 240, 259, 266, 267, 272, 282–284, 307–309, 314, 315, 319 Monism, monist(s), 27, 38, 39, 145, 146, 248, 314, 315 Montague, William P., 232 Moore, George E., 24, 25, 27–29, 32, 34, 45, 46, 70–72, 74, 81–85, 179, 220 More, Henry, 12 Morgan, Clifford T., 191 Morley, Edward W., 111 Morris, George Sylvester, 5 Multiple realizability, 183 Münsterberg, Hugo, 210 N Naturalism, naturalists, 24, 25, 27, 28, 44–47, 70, 71, 77–79, 105–111 Nature, natural world, natural law(s), 23, 24, 26–31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39–41, 43–47, 49, 53, 55, 57, 60, 63, 70, 72–79, 84, 86, 94, 96, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108–112, 117, 120, 121, 123, 125–127, 131–134, 138, 141, 144, 145, 151, 153, 154, 157, 164, 165, 167–173, 177, 179, 180, 183, 185, 186, 190, 191, 195, 211, 215, 217, 219–222, 228–231, 239, 243–245, 247, 249–251, 253, 254, 259, 263, 266, 269, 270, 273, 275–279, 281–284, 286–288, 291, 292, 297–299, 303–305, 308–310, 315–320, 323–326, 328–331, 336, 337 Neo-realism, neo-realist, 64, 87, 209, 218, 220

Index Neurath, Otto, 71 Newton, Isaac, 111, 155, 156, 250, 336 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 12 Novalis, 40, 41

O Object, objectivity, 26, 29–31, 33, 35, 36, 39, 51, 55, 56, 62, 63, 65, 70–74, 77, 78, 81–91, 95, 99, 105–107, 109, 111, 112, 114, 119, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 140, 143, 154, 155, 163, 164, 168, 169, 173, 191, 197, 199–201, 212, 213, 218, 220, 221, 226, 227, 238–240, 248, 251, 253, 256, 259, 272, 277, 278, 281–284, 286, 287, 308, 321, 327, 328, 331–333 Operationism, 147, 148

P Paganini, Gianni, 2 Parallelism, 209–211 Parker, Dewitt H., 226 Parkhurst, Helen Huss, 4 Parmenides, 63 Parsons, Talcott, 137, 138 Paulsen, Friedrich, 37 Pearson, Karl, 219, 228, 229, 232 Peirce, Charles S., 59 Perception, 28, 46, 48, 55–57, 60, 65, 70–75, 85, 88, 90, 91, 99, 107, 111, 142, 146, 170, 184, 186, 198, 202, 210, 213, 215, 246, 255, 278, 281–283, 286, 287, 331 Perry, Ralph Barton, 61, 304 Personalism, 184–186, 217, 220, 222, 228–231, 233 Person, personality, 26, 52, 55, 61, 72, 73, 83, 144, 163, 177, 201, 217, 221, 238, 239, 261, 262, 280, 283, 292–295, 298–301, 305, 307, 308, 314, 316, 318–320, 323–332, 334–337 Perspectivalism (perspectivism, Laguna), 65, 70, 73–75 Phenomenalism, 72, 149, 185, 231, 233 Phenomenology, phenomenological, 73 Physicalism, 178, 179, 183 Physiology, physiological, 65, 94, 180, 183, 184, 191, 193, 209–214, 227 Place, Ullin T., 179

Index Plato, 35, 54, 63, 149, 157, 163, 171, 319, 328 Pluralism, pluralist(s), 33, 38, 39, 220, 221, 248, 251, 303 Poetry, 30–32, 52, 54–57, 171, 173 Polanyi, Michael, 13 Positivism, positivist, 143 Pragmatism, pragmatist, 61, 70, 71, 75, 77, 78, 93, 95–99, 102, 122, 123, 145, 209 Prall, David W., 14 Pratt, Carroll C., 147 Prediction (free will debate), 315 Presentism, presentist(s) (theory of time), 238, 239, 242 Private language argument, 11 Probability, 94, 106, 119–121, 132–135, 144, 196, 222, 267 Psychology, psychological, 25, 26, 45, 60, 65, 71, 74, 77, 82, 83, 88, 89, 101, 107, 111, 122, 127, 139, 140, 148, 163, 173, 179–184, 199–207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 222, 233, 253–255, 259, 277, 280, 283, 292, 293, 319, 334 Putnam, Hilary, 179

Q Qualia, 178, 179 Quine, Willard V., 25, 26, 32, 34, 71, 77, 79

R Realism, realists, 46, 61, 72, 77, 142, 143, 185, 218, 220, 228, 254 Reason, 24, 28, 31, 35, 36, 43, 47, 53, 54, 56, 64, 77–79, 84, 87, 89, 93, 96, 98, 101, 103, 105, 107, 108, 110–112, 119–121, 127, 132, 138, 180, 186, 190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 207, 213, 215, 220, 225, 227, 231, 244, 245, 251, 253, 261, 262, 273, 275, 276, 286, 287, 291, 296–300, 303, 305–308, 310, 313–318, 320, 324, 333, 337 Reason, rationality, rationalism, 98, 99, 101, 113, 117–121, 123, 126, 146, 154, 292, 299, 335 Relativism, 32, 60, 64, 65, 73, 87, 119, 122–124, 126, 143, 144, 149–153, 161, 162 Religion (field of study), 156, 329

343 Representation, 74, 89, 90, 107, 108, 112, 113, 132, 133, 157, 272, 278, 279, 283 Richardson, C.A., 221 Ritchie, Eliza, 77, 292–295 Romanes, George J., 191 Romero, Francisco, 14 Royce, Josiah, 194, 221–224, 226, 231, 301 Russell, Bertrand, 70, 75, 82, 179, 218, 314, 315, 321 Ryle, Gilbert, 179

S Sabine, George H., 8, 137 Santayana, George, 54, 319 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 13 Scepticism, 78, 79, 100, 150 Schiller, Ferdinand C.S., 41, 304, 305 Science(s), scientific knowledge (philosophy of science), scientist, scientific method, 73, 157 Self-determining, self-determination (self-direction), 104, 162, 295, 303, 304, 306, 308, 311 Self, selves, selfhood, 27, 30, 39, 177, 178, 181, 184–187, 217, 219–229, 231–233, 240, 248, 257, 280, 297, 305, 317–320, 325 Self-sufficiency (free will debate), 304, 305, 307 Sellars, Wilfred, 71 Sense data, sense impressions, sensation(s), 33, 62, 70–75, 77, 81–83, 103, 181, 185, 186, 190, 195–198, 200, 203, 204, 210, 214, 218, 220, 225, 226, 228, 254, 255, 279, 283 Sensible (G.E. Moore), 71, 72, 74, 81–83 Sherif, Muzafer, 142, 143, 146, 147 Sinclair, May, 218 Skinner, Barrhus F., 179 Sociology (field of study), sociological, 44, 122–124, 137–148 Socrates, 35, 149 Solipsism, 28, 46, 220 Sophists, 63, 149 Space, 55, 106, 110, 121, 134, 139, 159, 203, 231, 238, 240, 244–250, 252, 258–260, 277–280, 282, 283, 285, 302 Speculative philosophy, speculative tradition, 2, 6, 23, 294 Speier, Hans, 137

344 Spinoza, Baruch Benedict, 38 Standpoint, 39, 73, 74, 87–90, 101, 103, 104, 107, 111, 113, 144, 204, 224, 254, 255, 258, 275, 329 Stearns, Isabelle, 4 Stroud, Barry, 79 Stumpf, Carl, 37 Subject, subjectivity, 41, 43, 45, 71–73, 79, 83, 90, 111, 113, 118, 122, 126, 127, 143, 153, 155, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170, 179, 180, 182, 185–187, 193, 199, 200, 206, 215, 220, 240, 246, 256, 257, 275, 276, 281, 284, 286, 293, 326, 331, 332, 334, 336, 337 Succession (theory of time), 239, 249, 250, 253, 254, 279, 285 Swabey, Marie Collins, 70–75, 77–79, 119–121, 123, 126, 128, 185 Synthetic knowledge, 27, 121

T Talbot, Ellen Bliss, 239, 241–244, 246, 291, 294–296, 298–300 Teleology, teleological theory, 284, 324 Teleonomic structure, 324–326 Temporal order, 240 Theology (field of study), 4 Thomson, Joseph J., 232 Tolman, Edward C., 11 Transcendence, 90, 110, 111, 125, 154, 161, 165, 166, 258, 323, 325 Tyndall, John, 160, 210, 211, 214

U Uniformity, 85, 110, 131, 157, 186, 190, 218, 229–231, 315 Uniqueness (free will debate), 298, 299, 308, 336 Unity (free will debate), 294

Index Universal(s), 62, 63, 77, 83, 86, 95, 98, 99, 105, 106, 109, 111–114, 119, 122, 124, 126, 131, 133, 135, 142, 150, 151, 154, 157, 160, 161, 163, 165, 172, 186, 230, 251, 256, 257, 260, 287, 303, 323–326, 328–330, 336

V Validity, 46, 60, 64, 65, 75, 94, 96–98, 100, 122, 123, 127, 137, 138, 140–143, 153, 161, 163, 168, 173, 287, 315 Value(s), 24, 25, 29, 30, 32, 38, 40, 45, 47–49, 52, 53, 57, 61, 79, 98, 108, 112, 113, 124, 127, 140, 145, 151, 152, 154, 163–165, 168, 171–173, 193, 194, 207, 218, 219, 228, 232, 241–244, 256, 261–265, 267–269, 271, 273–276, 286, 298–300, 324, 326–328, 330–336 Venn, John, 134 Vitalism, 229, 233 Volition, 83, 127, 171, 256, 276, 292, 293 Von Schelting, Alexander, 137, 140, 141, 145

W Waithe, Mary Ellen, 2 Walsh, Dorothy, 27–34, 126–128 Ward, John, 221, 223, 228, 231, 259 Washburn, Margaret Floy, 179–181, 183–186, 199, 200, 203, 205, 206 Watson, John B., 179, 183, 205, 211, 212 Weber, Max, 137 Williams, Michael, 79, 121, 313, 314 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 179, 182 Woodbridge, James E., 5

Y Yerkes, Robert, 193, 205