Essays in Radical Empiricism [Second ed.]

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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM JAMES. By R B. Perry Svo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Grsen

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ESSAYS \m KADICAL EMPIKICISM BY

WILLIAM JAMES

NEW

IMPKESSION

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ALL 8IOHTS KBSCJIVCD

FIRST EDITION, APSIt, 101 2

REPRINTED, JEBKl'ARY, 1922

MADE

IN

THE UNITED WATSS

CONTENTS *

1.

II.

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS* EXIST?

A WORLD

......

1

.*..."

$9

OF PUKE EXPERIENCE

III.

THE THING ANB

IV.

How Two MINDS CAN KNOW ONE

V.

ITS

RELATIONS

9&

TUB PLACE OF AFFECTIONAL PACTB

THING

IN A

.

.

WOBLD

OF PtJRK EXPERIENCE

187

VI. TlIB EXPERIENCE Of ACTIVITY VII. VIII.

......

THB ESSENCE OF HUMANISM LA NOTION

xra

CONSCIENCE

123

155

190

.......

800

....

84

IX, Is RADICAL EMFIEICISM SOLJPSXSTIC? *

X, ME. PITIUN'S KEFUTATION OF RADICAL EMPIEII8M*

41

XI. HUMANISM AND TBOTH ONCE XII. ABTOLOTISM ANB EMPIMCIBM

***

....

244

..*,..

260

.

81

MOEE

EDITOR'S PREFACE THE

present volume

is

an attempt to carry

out a plan which William James

is

known

to

have formed several years before his death. In 1907 lie collected reprints in an envelope which

lie

inscribed with the title "Essays in

Radical Empiricism'; and he also had duplicate sets of these reprints bound, under the

same

and deposited for the use of stuthe general Harvard Library, and in

title,

dents in

the Philosophical Library in Emerson Hall.

Two

years later Professor James published

The Meaning of Truth and

wne* and

A

Pluralistic Uni-

inserted in these volumes several of

the articles which he had intended to use in the *

Essays in Radical Empiricism/ Whether he

would nevertheless have carried out plan,

had he

lived,

his original

cannot be certainly known.

Several facts, however, stand out very clearly.

In the

first place,

original plan

umes are

the articles included in the

but omitted from

his later vol-

indispensable to the understanding iii

EDITOR'S PREFACE of

Ms

other writings.

peatedly alludes.

To

these articles he re-

Thus, in The Meaning of

he says: "This statement is probably excessively obscure to any one who has not read my two articles *Does ConsciousTruth

127),

(p.

ness Exist

ence/

5*

*

and 'A World of Pure Experi-

?

Other allusions have been indicated

in

the present text. In the second place, the arti*

Essays in

brought together as

cles originally

Radical Empiricism 'form a connected whole.

Not only were most

of

them written consecu-

a period of two years, but they contain numerous cross-references* In the third

tively within

James regarded

place, Professor

piricism 'as

logical

radical

me

em-

This he

an independent doctrine.

asserted expressly: **Let

no

*

say that there

is

connexion between pragmatism, as I

have

recently set forth as ^radical empiricism/

The

I understand

latter stands tirely reject

and a doctrine which

it,

on

its

and

it

own still

feet*

life

en-

be a pragmatist,"

(Pragmatism, 1907, Preface, p* Professor

One may

ix.)

Finally*

James came toward the end of Ms

to regard

*

*

radical empiricism IV

as

more

EDITOR'S PREFACE fundamental and more Important than 'pragmatism/ In the Preface to The Meaning of Truth (1909), the author gives the following explanation of his desire to continue, and

if

possible conclude, the controversy over prag-

matism;

**I

am Interested In another doctrine in

philosophy to which I give the empiricism, and

it

seems to

name of

radical

me that the

estab-

lishment of the pragmatist theory of truth step of first-rate importance In

empiricism prevail"

making

is

a

radical

(p. xii).

In preparing the present volume, the editor has therefore been governed by two motives.

On the one hand, he has sought to preserve and make accessible

certain Important articles not

to be found in Professor James's other books.

This XI,

Is

and

true of Essays XII*

I,

II,

IV, V, VIII, IX, X,

On the other hand,

he has sought

to bring together in one volume a set of essays treating systematically of one independent, co-

herent, it

and fundamental

doctrine.

To this end

has seemed best to include three essays

VI,

and

VII),

(III,

which, although Included in the

elseoriginal plan, were afterwards reprinted

EDITOR'S PREFACE where; and one essay, XII, not included In the original plan.

Essays

ill,

VI,

and VII are

In-

of the sedispensable to the consecutiveness the rest that ries, and are so interwoven wilh it is

necessary that the student should have

them

at

hand

for ready consultation,

Kssay

XII throws an important light on the author's general 'empiricism/ and forms an important link

between "radical empiricism* and the

author's other doctrines.

In short, the present volume

is

designed not

as a collection but rather as a treatise.

It is

intended that another volume shall he issued

which

shall contain

papers having biogrniiliicul

or historical importance which have not yet

been reprinted in book form* The present volume is intended not only for students of Professor James's philosophy,

but for students

and the theory of knowledge* forth systematically and within brief

of metaphysics It sets

compass the doctrine of 'radical empiricism/ A word more may be in order concerning the general

meaning

of this doctrine.

In the Pre-

face to the Will to Believe (1898),

EDITOR'S PREFACE James gives the name "radical empiricism" to his "philosophic altitude/ 'and

adds the follow-

ing explanation; "I say "empiricism/ because it is

contented to regard

most assured con-

its

clusions concerning matters of fact as hypo-

theses liable to modification in the course of

future experience; and I say it

treats

doctrine of

llie

I

hat

is

radical/ because

monism

hypothesis, and, unlike so

empiricism

*

an

itself as

much of the halfway

current under the

name

of

positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism,

it

does not dogmatically affirm monism as

something with which

all

to square" (pp.

vii-viii).

this description

is

experience

An

lias

got

*

empiricism' of

a "philosophic attitude"

or temper of mind rather than a doctrine,

and characterizes writings.

It

is

all

Professor James's

of

set forth in

Essay XII of the

present volume.

In a narrower sense,

5

*

is

empiricism

the

method of resorting to particular experiences for t

the solution of philosophical problems, Ratiof

nalists are the

men

men of principles, empiricists the

of facts*; (Some Problems of Philosophy , til

EDITOR'S PREFACE p. 35;

ci

and Pragmatism, pp.

Or, "since principles are universals,

9, 51.)

and

also, ibid., p. 44;

facts are particulars, perhaps the best

of characterizing the

two tendencies

Is

way

to say

that rationalist thinking proceeds most will-

while ingly by going from wholes to parts, piricist

em-

thinking proceeds by going from parts

(Some Problems oj Philosophy, also ibid., p. 98; and A Pluralistic

to wholes." p. 35;

cf.

Universe, p. 7.) Again, empiricism

"remands

us to sensation/' (Op.

The "em-

piricist

view"

cit.,

insists that,

p. 264.)

"as reality

is

ated temporally day by day, concepts

can never fitly supersede perception.

*

*

*

cre*

.

.

The

deeper features of reality are found only In perceptual experience."

(Some Problem

Philosophy, pp. 100, 97.)

Empiricism in this

sense

is

as

yet characteristic of Professor

James's philosophy a$ a whole. distinctive

of

It

is

and independent doctrine

not the set forth

in the present book.

The only summary of 'radical empiricism

*

in

and narrowest sense appears in the Preface to The Meaning of Truth (pp. xii-xiii); this last

vrn

EDITOR'S PREFACE and

it

must be reprinted here

text that follows.

as the

"Radical empiricism consists

and

finally of a generalized conclusion/*

"The

(1)

a

(1) first of

next of a statement of fact,

postulate, (2) (3)

key to the

1

postulate

that the only things

is

that shall be debatable

be things definable

among philosophers shall in terms drawn from experi-

(Things of an unexperienceable nature

ence*

may exist ad

libitum, but they form

no part of

the material for philosophic debate.)

"the principle of pure experience odical postulate/*

**

"

as

This

is

"a meth-

(Cf. below, pp. 159, 241.)

This postulate corresponds to the notion which the author repeatedly attributes to Shadworth

Hodgson, the notion "that realities are only "

what they

*

are

known as/

(Pragmatism, p.

50; Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 443;

The Meaning of Truth* pp. 43,

118.)

In this

9

*

sense radical empiricism and pragmatism are

pragmatism be defined as the assertion that "the meaning of any pro-

closely allied* Indeed,

if

position can always be brought 1

down

to

some

The use of numerals and italics is introduced by the editor. ix

EDITOR'S PREFACE particular consequence In our future practical

experience^.

-

.

the point lying \in the fact

that the experience must be particular rather than in the fact that it must be active"

(Meaning of Truth,

p. 210)

;

then pragmatism

and the above postulate come to the same thing.

not so late as

The present book, however, consists much in the assertion of this postuAnd the method is in the use of it.

successful in special of a certain

applications

by virtue

"statement of fact" concerning

relations.

"The statement

(2)

of fact

is

that the rela-

tions between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as

much

ticular experience, neither

matters of direct par-

more so nor

less so,

A

Plural-

than the things themselves" (Cf also .

istic

Universe, p.

278.)

This

is

80; The Will to Believe, p,

the central doctrine of the pre-

sent book. It distinguishes

cism* from

Hume, allied*

the

*

radical empiri-

"ordinary empiricism"

J. S. Mill, etc.,

of

with which it is otherwise

(Cf. below, pp. 42-44.)

It provides

empirical and relational version of

an

*

activity/

EDITOR'S PREFACE and so distinguishes the author's voluntarism from a view with which it is easily confused the view which upholds a pure or transcend-

ent activity, (Cf. below 5 Essay VI.) It makes it

possible to escape the vicious disjunctions

that have thus far baffled philosophy: such disjunctions as those between consciousness

and physical nature, between thought and its object, between one mind and another, an d'ou deri-

vent toutes nos constructions theoriques, et

4

laquelle elles doivent toutes revenir et se

rattacher sous peine de flotter dans Fair et

dans

Firreel; cette actualite, dis-je, est

homo-

non pas seulement homogene, mais numeriquement une, avec une certaine partie gene, et

de notre vie interieure. Voila pour la perception ext6rieure.

on s'adresse ^ Fimagination, a S12

la

Quand

memoire ou

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE aux facultes de representation abstraite, bien

que

les faits soient lei

ques, je crois tielle se

que

degage.

la

beaucoup plus compll-

meme homogeneite essen-

Pour

simplifier le probleme,

excluons d'abord toute realite sensible.

nons le

la

pensee pure,

rve ou

telle qu'elle s'effectue

la reverie,

ou dans

Ici encore, Fetoffe

passe. fait-elle

Pre-

la

dans

memoire du

de Fexperience ne

pas double emploi,

le

physique et

le

psychique ne se confondent-ils pas? Si je r^ve d'une montagne d'or, elle n'existe sans doute pas en dehors du r6ve, mais dans le reve

elle est

de nature ou d'essence parfaitement physique, c'est comme physique qu'elle m^apparait* Si en ce

moment

je

me

permets de

me

souvenir de

ma maison en Amerique, et des details de mon embarquement recent pour

Fltalie, le

pheno-

5

mene pur, le fait qui se produit, qu est-il ? dit-on,

ma pensee,

avec son contenu. Mais en-

core ce contenu, qu*est-il?

d'une partie du

C'est,

monde reel,

II

porte la forme

partie distante,

est vrai, de six mille kilometres d'espace et six

semaines de temps, mais reliee a

il

de

la salle oii

nous sommes par une foule de choses, objets 213

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM homogenes d'une part avec la d'autre part avec Fobjet de mes sou-

et evenements, salle et

venirs.

content! ne se

Ce

donne pas comme etant

d'abord un tout petit

au loin, il

projetterais ensuite

comme

blee

le fait

fait interieur

eloigne

que je

se presente d'em-

mme.

Et Facte de

penser ce contenu, la conscience que j'en ai, que sont-ils? Sont-ce au fond autre chose que des manieres retrospectives de

nommer

le

contenu lui-meme, lorsqu'on Faura separe de tous ces intermediaires physiques, et

un nouveau groupe dans

trer

exemple

ma

qu'il

5

que

j

y

porte,

Font suscite

relie

a

d'associes qui le font ren-

vie mentale, les emotions par

a

eveillees

mes

en moi, Fattention

idees de tout a Fheure qui

comme

souvenir?

Ce

n'est qu'en

se rapportant a ces derniers associes que le

phenomene

arrive

a

&tre classe

comme

pensee;

?

tant qu'il ne se rapporte qu aux premiers

demeure phenomene objectif. II est vrai que nous opposons

ment nos images nous

les

interieures

considerons

214

habituelle-

aux objets,

comme de

il

et

que

petites copies,

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE comme

des caiques ou doubles,

vivaclte et

une nettete superieures a

II lui

Fimage.

fait

de reducteur*

celles

ainsi contraste; et

mot de Taine,

servir de Fexcellent

sert

de ces

C'est qu'un objet present a une

derniers.

me

affaiblis,

Quand

les

de

pour lui

11

deux sont pre-

sents ensemble, Fobjet prend le premier plan

Fimage "recule," devient une chose "absente." Mais cet objet present, qu est~il en et

5

lui-meme?

De

quelle etoffe est-il fait?

mme etoffe que Fimage. tions;

il

est chose pergue.

II est fait

Son

De

la

de sensa-

esse est perdpi,

et lui et Fimage sont generiquement homogenes.

en ce moment a mon chapeau que tout ^ Fheure au vestiaire, ou est

Si je pense j'ai laisse

le

dualisme, le discontinu, entre le chapeau

pense et

le

chapeau

chapeau absent que tiens

reel ?

mon

C'est d'un vrai

esprit s'occupe.

compte pratiquement comme

realite.

S'il etait

J'en

d'une

present sur cette table, le

chapeau determinerait un mouvement de main:

je Fenleverais.

De

mme

ma

ce chapeau

congu, ce chapeau en id6e, determinera tant6t la direction de

mes

pas. Jlrai le prendre*

ESSAYS IN EADICAL EMPIRICISM I/idee que fen al se continuera jusqu'a la

presence sensible du chapeau, et s'y fondra

harmonieusement. bien qu'il y ait

Je conclus done que,

dualisme pratique

puisque

les

un

images se

distinguent des objets, en tiennent lieu, et

nous y menent,

il

n'y a pas lieu de leur at-

tribuer une difference de nature essentielle.

Pensee

meme

et actualite sont faites

etoffe,

d'une seule et

qui est Fetoffe de Fexperience en

general.

La

psychologie de la perception exterieure

nous mene a la j'apergois

de

telle

m^me

conclusion.

Quand

Fob jet devant moi comme une table

forme, a telle distance, on m'explique

que ce fait est d& a deux f acteurs, a une matiere de sensation qui me penetre par la voie des yeux et qui donne Felement d^exteriorite reelle, et

a des idees qui se de cette

la rencontre

Finterpretent.

dans

la table

reveillent,

vont 4

realite, la classent et

Mais qui peut

faire la part,

concretement apergue, de ce qui

est sensation et

de ce qui est idee? I/externe et

Finterne, Fetendu et Finetendu, se fusionnent 216

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE un mariage

et font

ces

panoramas

indissoluble.

circulates,

Cela rappelle

ou des objets

reels,

rochers, herbe, chariots brises, etc., qui occu-

pent Favant-plan, sont lies

a la

ingenieusement re-

toile qui fait le fond, et

sente une bataille ou

Ton ne

si

qui repre-

un vaste paysage, que

sait plus distinguer ce qui est objet

de

ce qui est peinture. Les coutures et les joints

sont imperceptibles.

Cela pourrait-il advenir

si

Fobjet et Fidee

6taient absolument dissemblables de nature?

Je suis convaincu que des considerations pareilles

a

celles

que

je viens

d'exprimer au-

ront deja suscite, chez vous aussi, des doutes

au

sujet

Et

du dualisme pretendu.

d'autres raisons de douter surgissent

encore. II

y a toute une sphere

d'adjectifs et

d'attributs qui ne sont ni objectifs, ni subjectif s

d'une maniere exclusive, mais que nous

employons tantot d'une maniere et tantdt d une autre, comme si nous nous complaisions 5

dans leur ambiguite* Je parle des qualites que nous apprecions, pour ainsi dire, dans les 217

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM choses, Jeur c6te esthetique, moral, leur valeur

pour nous. La beaute, par example, ou residet-elle? Est-elle dans la statue, dans la sonate,

Mon

ou dans notre esprit?

vard, George Santayana, a ecrit 1

thetlque,

ou

un

livre d'es-

appelle la beaute "le plaislr

11

objectifie"; et

Har-

collegue a

en verite, c'est bien

icl

qu'on

pourrait parler de projection au dehors* dit indifferemment

On

une chaleur agreable, ou

une sensation agreable de chaleur. La rarete, le

precieux du diamant nous en paraissent des

qualites essentielles. affreux, d'un

Nous

homme

parlons d'un orage

liai'ssable,

d'une action

indigne, et nous croyons parler objectivement,

bien que

ces

termes n'expriment que des

rapports a notre sensibilite emotive propre*

Nous triste,

disons

meme un chemin

un coucher de

soleil

penible,

superbe.

un

ciel

Toute

cette maniere animiste de regarder les choses

qui paralt avoir ete la fagon primitive de penser des homines,

peut

tres bien s'expliquer (et

M. Santayana, dans un autre livre tout recent, 2 1

2

The Sense of Beauty, pp. 44 3. The Life of Reason [vol. i, "Reason in Common Sense," p,

218

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE Fa blen expliquee ainsi) par Ftabitude d'attribuer a Fob jet tout ce que nous ressentons en sa

Le partage du

presence.

jectif est le fait

subjectif et de Fob-

d'une reflexion tres avancee,

que nous aimons encore ajourner dans beaucoup d'endroits. Quand

les

besoins pratiques

ne nous en tirent pas forcement, il semble que nous aimons a nous bercer dans le vague. Les qualites secondes elles-mmes, chaleur, son, lumiere, n'ont encore aujourd'hui qu'une

Pour le sens commun, pour la vie pratique, elles sont absolument objectives, physiques. Pour le physicien, elles sont attribution vague.

subjectives. la

masse,

le

exterieure.

Pour

lui, il

n'y a que la forme,

mouvement, qui aient une realite Pour le pMlosophe idealiste, au

contraire,

forme et mouvement sont tout aussi

subjectifs

que lumiere et chaleur, et

que

la chose-en-soi inconnue, le

il

n'y a

"noumene,"

qui jouisse d'une realite extramentale complete.

Nos

sensations intimes conservent encore de

cette ambigulte. II

y a des illusions de mouve-

ment qui prouvent que nos premieres 219

sen-

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM sations

de mouvement etaient generalises.

C'est le

monde

entier,

avec nous, qui se mou-

Maintenant nous distinguons notre pronous pre mouvement de celul des objets qui entourent, et parmi les objets nous en disvait.

est tinguons qui demeurent en repos. Mais il des etats de vertige OIJL nous retombons encore

aujourd'hui dans Findifferenciation premiere. Vous connaissez tous sans doute cette theorie qui a voulu faire des

Emotions des sommes

de sensations visc6rales et musculaires. Elle a

donne

lieu

a bien des controverses, et aucune

opinion n'a encore conquis Funanimite des suffrages. Vous connaissez aussi les controverses sur la nature de Factivite mentale. Les

uns soutiennent qu'elle est une force purement 6tat d'apercespirituelle que nous sommes en voir immediatement

comme

pretendent que ce que nous

mentale

que

(effort, attention,

le reflet senti

activite

par exemple) n'est eff ets

dont notre

sige, tensions musculaires au

le

crne

gosier, axr^t

au

Les autres

nommons

de certains

organisme est et

telle.

respiration, afflux

de sang, 20

ou passage de etc.

la

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE De quelque manlere que se resolvent ces contro verses, leur existence prouve bien clairement

une chose,

c'est qu'il est tres difficile,

absolument impossible de savoir, par

ou

mme

la seule

inspection intime de certains phenomenes,

s'ils

sont de nature physique, occupant de Fetendue, etc.,

ou s'ils sont de nature purement psydhique

et interieure. II nous faut toujours trouver des

raisons pour appuyer notre avis;

il

nous faut

chercher la classification la plus probable du et en fin

phenomene;

decompte il pourrait bien

que toutesnos classifications usuelles eussent eu leurs motifs plutdt dans les besoins se trouver

de

que dans quelque faculte que nous aurions d'apercevoir deux essences ulla pratique

times et diverses qui composeraient ensemble la

trame des choses. Le corps de chacun de nous offre un contraste pratique presque violent a tout le reste arrive

du milieu ambiant. Tout

au dedans de ce corps nous

time et important que ce qui arrive s'identifie

Ame,

avec notre moi,

il

est plus inailleurs. II

se classe avec lui.

vie, souffle, qui saurait bien

tinguer exactement?

ce qui

les

dis-

Mme nos images et nos mi

ESSAYS IN EADICAL EMPIRICISM souvenirs, qui n'agissent sur le

monde physique

moyen de notre corps, semblent appartenir a ce dernier* Nous les traitons comme que par

le

internes, nous les classons avec nos sentiments affectifs.

faut bien avouer, en

II

du dualisme de

la question

la

somme, que

pensee et de la

matiere est bien loin d'etre finalement resolue.

Et

voila terminee la premiere partie

discours. J'ai voulu

et Messieurs, de aussi bien

mon

de

vous pentrer, Mesdames

mes doutes

et de la realite,

que de Fimportance, du probleme.

Quant 4 moi, apres de longues annees tation, j'ai fini

par prendre

ment. Je crois que la represente

mon

parti carre-

la conscience, telle

communement,

soit

d'hesi-

qu'on se

comme

comme activite pure, mais en comme fluide, inetendue, diaphane,

en-

tit6, soit

tout

cas

vide

de tout contenu propre, mais se connaissant directement crois, dis-jej,

ellemme,

spirituelle

enfin,

je

que cette conscience est une pure

chimera, et que la sonime de realites concretes

que

le

mot

conscience devrait couvrir, m6rite

ene toute autre description, description, du reste, qu'une philosophie attentive aux f aits et

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE sachant faire un peu d'analyse, seralt desor-

mais en etat de fournir ou plutdt de commence!

a fournir. Et ces mots m'amenent a partie de

mon

discours.

la

seconde

Elle sera beaucoup

plus courte que la premiere, parce que

developpais sur la

mme

beaucoup trop longue*

que

je

me

restreigne

si je la

eehelle, elle serait

II faut,

par consequent,

aux seules indications

indispensables.

Admettons que la conscience, la Bewusstheit, congue

comme

irreductible

essence, entite, activite, moitie

de chaque experience,

soit sup-

primee, que le dualisme fondamental et pour ainsi dire ontologique soit aboli et

que ce que

nous supposions exister soit seulement ce qu'on a appele jusqu'ici conscience;

le contenu, le Inhalt,

de

la

comment la pMlosopMe va-t-elle se

tirer d'affaire

avec Fespece de monisme vague

qui en resultera? Je vais tocher de vous insinuer

quelques suggestions positives la-dessus, bien

que

je craigne que, faute

necessaire,

mes

idees

clarte tr^s grande.

du developpement

ne repandront pas une

Pourvu que j'indique un

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM commencement de

sentier, ce sera

peut-tre

assez,

Au

fond, pourquol nous accrochons-nous

d'une maniere

si

tenace a cette idee d'une con-

science surajoutee & Fexistence

du contenu des

choses? Pourquoi la reclamons-nous

ment, que plut6t

celui qui la nierait

un mauvais

si

forte-

nous semblerait

plaisant qu'un penseur?

N*est-ce pas pour sauver ce fait indeniable que le

contenu de Fexperience n'a pas seulement

une existence propre et comme immanente et intrinseque, mais que chaque partie de ce contenu deteint pour ainsi dire sur ses voisines, rend compte d'elle-meme a d'autres, sort en quelque sorte de soi pour tout le

tre sue et qu'ainsi

champ de Fexperience

se trouve

tre

transparent de part en part, ou constitue

comme un espace

qui serait rempli de miroirs?

Cette bilateralit6 des parties de Fexperience,

a savoir d'une part,

qu'elles sont

avec des

qualites propres; d'autre part, qu'elles sont

rapportees a d^autres parties et sues

Fopin-

ion regnante la constate et Fexplique par

un

dualisme fondamental de constitution apparte224

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE nant a chaque morceau d'experience en propre.

Dans

cette feuille de papier

mais

il

n'y a pas seule-

le

contenu, blancheur, minceur,

ya

ce second fait de la conscience

ment, dit-on, etc.,

il

de cette blaneheur et de cette minceur. Cette fonction d'etre "rapporte," de faire partie de la

trame entiere d'une experience plus comprehensive, on Ferige en fait ontologique, et on loge ce fait dans Finterieur

mme du papier, en

Faccouplant a sa blaneheur et a sa minceur.

Ce

un rapport extrinseque qu'on suppose, c'est une moitie du phenomene m6me. n'est pas

Je crois qu*en realite

somme on

se represente la

conune constitute de la fagon dont sont

faites les

"couleurs" qui nous servent a la

peinture.

II

y a d'abord des matieres

tes qui repondent hicule, huile

ou

au contenu, et

colle,

il

coloran-

y a un

ve-

qui les tient en suspen-

sion et qui repond a la conscience.

C'est

un

dualisme complet, ou, en employant certains procedes, on peut separer chaque element de

Fautre

par*

voie de soustraction.

C'est ainsi

qu'on nous assure qu'en faisant un grand effort d'abstraction introspective, nous pouvons sai225

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM sir

noire conscience sur

le vif,

comme une

en negligeant a pen

activite spirituele pure,

prs completement les matieres moment donne elle eclaire. Malntenant rait

je

vous demande

pas tout aussi

un

on ne pourbien renverser absolument si

Supposons, en

eette maniere de voir.

que

qu'a

effet,

premiere soit de nature neutre,

la realite

et appelons-la par quelque

nom encore ambigu,

comme phenomena, donne, Vorfindung. Moimeme j en parle volontiers au pluriel, et je lui donne le nom d'experiences pures. Ce sera un ?

monisme, 4

fait

si

vous voulez, mais un monisme tout

rudimentaire et absolument oppose au

soi-disant

monisme

scientifique

ou

bilateral

du positivisme

spinoziste.

Ces experiences pures existent et se succdent ? entrent dans des rapports infiniment varies les unes avec les autres, rapports qui

sont

eux-mmes

des parties essentielles de la

trame des experiences. ces rapports

au

II

m^me

ya

"

M Conscience de

titre qu'il

science" de leurs termes.

II

y a "Con-

en resulte que des

groupes d'experiences se font remarquer et 226

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE distinguer, et qu'une seule et

vu

grande variete de ses rapports, pent

la

jouer

un

C est

ainsi

?

mme experience,

voisins,

dans plusieurs groupes a

r61e

que dans un certain contexte de classee

serait

elle

nomene physique, entourage

la fois.

comme un

tandis que dans

phe-

un autre

comme un fait de comme une meme par-

elle figurerait

conscience, a

peu pres

ticule d'encre

peut appartenir simultanement

a deux

Fune

tale,

lignes,

pourvu

verticale, Fautre horizon-

qu'elle soit situee

a leur inter-

section.

Prenons, pour

fixer

nos idees, Fexperience

que nous avons a ce moment du

local

ou nous

sommes, de ces murailles, de cette table a de ces chaises,

de cet espace. Dans cette experience

pleine, concrete et indivise, telle qu'elle est la,

donnee,

le

monde physique objectif et le monde

interieur et personnel

de chacun de nous se

rencontrent et se fusionnent se fusionnent

comme

a leur intersection*

des lignes

Comme chose

physique, cette salle a des rapports avec tout le reste

du Mtiment, bStiment que nous autres

nous ne connaissons et ne connaltrons pas. 227

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM Elle doit son existence a toute une histoire de financiers, d'architectes, d'ouvriers.

sur le

sol; elle

temps;

si le

feu

Elle pese

durera indefiniment dans

y

le

eelatait, les chaises et la

table qu'elle contient seraient vite reduites

en cendres.

Comme experience personnelle, au contraire, comme chose "rapportee/

5

connue, consciente,

cette salle a de tout autres tenants et aboutis-

ne sont pas des ouvrice sont nos pensees respectives de tout &

sants. Ses antecedents ers,

Pheure*

un

Bientot

fait fugitif

elle

ne figurera que

comme

dans nos biographies, associe a

d'agreables souvenirs.

Comme experience psy-

chique, elle n'a aucun poids, son n'est pas combustible.

ameublement

Elle n'exerce de force

physique que sur nos seuls cerveaux, et beaucoup d'entre nous nient encore cette influence; tandis que la salle physique est en rapport

dlnfluence physique avec tout

le

reste

du

monde.

Et pourtant c'est de la m&me salle absolument qu'il s'agit dans les deux cas. Tant que nous ne faisons pas de physique sp6culative s

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE le

sens com-

vue et sentie qui

est blen la

taut que nous nous plagons dans

nmn, salle

c'est la salle

De

physique.

quoi parlons-nous done

ce n'est de cela, de cette

m6me

si

partie de la

nature materielle que tous nos esprits, a ce

mme

moment, embrassent, qui entre

telle

quelle dans Fexperience actuelle et intime de

chacun de nous, et que notre souvenir regardera toujours comme une partie integrante de notre

histoire. C'est

etoffe qui figure

texte que

Ton

et physique,

absolument une

mme

simultanement, selon le eon-

considere,

ou comme

comme

fait materiel

de conscience

fait

intime.

Je crois done qu'on ne saurait traiter conscience et matiere

parate.

On

comme etant

d'essence dis-

Fune

ni Fautre par

n'obtient

ni

soustraction, en negligeant

chaque

fois

Fautre

moitied'une experience de composition double.

Les experiences sont au contraire primitive-

ment de nature plut6t simple*

Elles deviennent

conscientes dans leur entier, elles devwnnent

physiques dans leur entier; et c'est par vow d* addition

que ce

resultat se realise.

Pour au-

ESSAYS IN EADICAL EMPIRICISM tant que des experiences se prolongent dans

le

temps, entrant dans des rapports d'influence physique, se brisant, se chauffant, s'eclairant, etc.,

mutuellement, nous en faisons un groupe

a part que nous appelons le monde physique. Pour autant, au contralre, qu'elles sont fugiphysiquement, que leur succession ne suit pas d'ordre determine, mais semble

tives, inertes

nous en plutdt obeir & des caprices emotifs, faisons

un autre groupe que nous appelons

monde

psychique. C'est en entrant a present

le

dans un grand nombre de ces groupes psychiques que cette salle devient maintenant chose consciente, chose rapportee, chose sue.

En faisant desormais partie

de nos biographies

respectives, elle ne sera pas suivie

et

de cette sotte

monotone repetition d'elle-m&me dans

le

temps qui caracterise son existence physique. Elle sera suivie, au contraire, par d'autres experiences qui seront discontinues avec

elle,

ou qui auront ce genre tout particulier de continuite que nous appelons souvenir. Demain, elle

aura eu sa place dans chacun de nos

passes; mais les presents divers auxquels tous 230

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE ces passes seront lies

ents

du present dont

comme

demain seront bien cette salle jouira

differ-

demain

entit6 physique.

Les deux genres de groupes sont formes d'experiences, mais les rapports des experiences

entre elles different d'un groupe a Fautre. C'est done par addition d'autres

phenomenes donne devient conscient ou qu'un phenomene connu, ce n'est pas par un dedoublement d'essence

interieure.

choses leur survient,

manente.

Ce

La elle

connaissanee

des

ne leur est pas im-

n'est le fait ni d'un

moi tran-

scendental, ni d'une Bewusstheit ou acte de

conscience qui les animerait cLacune. Elles se connaissent rune Vautre> ou plutot

connaissent les autres; et

nommons

le

il

y en a qui

rapport que nous

connaissanee n'est Iui-m6me> dans

beaucoup de

cas,

qu'une suite d*experiences

intermediaires parf aitement susceptibles d'etre decrites en termes concrets. II n'est nullement

mystere transcendant ou se sont complus tant de philosophes. le

Mais

ceci

nou^menerait beaucoup trop loin. Je ne puis entrer ici dans tous les replis de la 231

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM ou de ce que, vous

theorie de la connaissance,

autres Italiens, vous appelez la gnoseologie. Je dols

me

contenter de ces remarques ecourtees,

ou simples

suggestions, qui sont, je le crains,

encore bien obscures faute des developpements necessaires.

Permettez done que

je

me resume

trop

sommairement, et en style dogmatique dans

1

les six

La

theses suivantes

Conscience,

telle

:

qu'on Ventend ordi-

nairement, n'existe pas, pas plus que la Matibre,

a laquelle Berkeley a donne

2

Ce qui

coup de grace;

existe et forme la part de verite

mot de "Conscience" tiMUte que possedent d'etre rapportees

3

le

les parties

de

I*

experience

ou connues;

Cette susceptibilitS s'explique

autres

le

recouvre, c est la suscep-

par

que certaines experiences peuvent mener

aux

que

9

le

les

fait

unes

par des experiences intermediates

nettement caracterisees 9 de

telle sorte

que

les

unes

se trouvent jouer le role de choses connues, les

autres celui de sujets connaissnts ;

4

On peut parfaitement definir

ces

deux

roles

LA NOTION DE CONSCIENCE sans sortir de la trame de Inexperience mdme,

et

sans invoquer rien de transcendant ; 5

Les attributions

sujet et objet, represente et

representatif, chose et pensee, signifient

done une

distinction pratique qui est de la derniere impor-

mais qui

tance,

ment,

et

est d'ordre

FONCTIONNEL

nullement ontologique

seule-

comme le dualisme

classique se la represente;

6

En fin de compte, les choses et les pensees ne

sont point foncierement heterogenes, mais elles sontfaites d'une definir

comme

meme

telle,

etqffe, etqffe

qu'on ne pent

mais seulement eprouver,

que Von pent nommer, si on veut, I'

experience en general.

I'etqffe

et

de

IX IS

RADICAL EMPIRICISM SOLIPSISTIC?

IF

the criticisms which the humanistic

all

Weltanschauung is receiving were as sachgemdss as Mr. Bode's, 2 the truth of the matter would

more rapidly

Not only

clear up.

but

lently well written,

of view out clearly,

it

brings

and admits

is It

its

own

excel-

point

of a perfectly

straight reply.

The argument

(unless I fail to catch

be expressed as follows If

a

it)

can

:

be supposed, no one endowed immediately with the self-

series of experiences

of which

Is

transcendent function of reference to a reality

beyond

itself,

series for

no motive

will

occur within the

supposing anything beyond

it

to

remain subjective, and contentedly subjective, both as a whole and in its exist*

It will

several parts. 1

[Reprinted from

Scientific Methods, vol.

The Journal of Philosophy, n, No.

Psychology

and

April 27, 1905.] 2 OB. H. Bode: "'Pure Experience' and the External World/* Journal of Philosophy,, Psychology and Scientific Methods* vol. n, 9,

1905, p. 128.]

34

IS

EMPIRICISM SOLIPSISTIC?

Radical empiricism, trying, as

it

does, to

account for objective knowledge by means of such,

a

explain

series,

how

egregiously

fails.

It can not

the notion of a physical order, as

distinguished from a subjectively biographical order, of experiences, ever arose. It pretends to explain the notion of a physical order,

but does so by playing fast and loose

On

with the concept of objective reference. the one hand,

it

denies that such, reference

implies self -transcendency

on the part

one experience; on the other hand, that experiences point. sidered, there

But,

tive function of pointing, as I

according to

my

critic,

any

claims

critically con-

can be no pointing unless

transcendency be also allowed.

is,

it

of

The

self-

conjunc-

have assumed

vitiated

by the

it,

fal-

lacy of attaching a bilateral relation to a term

a quo, as

if it

maintain

could stick out substantively and

itself

in existence in

advance of the

term ad quern which is equally required for it to be a concretely experienced fact. If the

made concrete, the term ad quern is which would mean (if I succeed in

relation be

involved,

235

ESSAYS IN EADICAL EMPIRICISM that this apprehending Mr. Bode rightly) latter term, although not empirically there, is in other in advance yet noetically there, words it would mean that any experience that *

points'

must already have transcended

itself,

in the ordinary 'epistemological' sense of the

word transcend. Something Bode's text, It

is

it is

is

like this,

if

I understand

Mr.

the upshot of his state of mind-

a reasonable sounding state of mind, but exactly the state of

empiricism,

by

its

mind which

radical

doctrine of the reality of

to dispel. I very conjunctive relations, seeks so difficult does mutual undermuch fear

that standing seem in these exalted regions able critic has failed to understand that

my

doctrine as

it is

meant to be understood. I

on all these conjuncsuspect that he performs tive relations (of which the aforesaid 'pointact of only one) the usual rationalistic he takes them not as they are substitution '

ing

is

given in their

first

intention, as parts consti-

tutive of experience's living flow, but only as in retrospect, each fixed as a

they appear

IS

EMPIRICISM SOLIPSISTIC?

determinate object of conception, fore,

and contained within

static, there-

itself.

Against this rationalistic tendency to treat experience as chopped

up

into discontinuous

static objects, radical empiricism protests.

on taking conjunctions at

insists

value/ just as they come.

It

their 'face-

Consider, for ex-

ample, such conjunctions as 'and,* 'with/ 9

'near/ 'plus, 'towards/ While

one of transition in

conjunctions our state

is

the most

We

literal sense.

we live in such

are expectant of a

5

'more to come, and before the more has come, the transition, nevertheless,

is

directed towards

I fail otherwise to see how,

it.

more comes, there should be feeling of fulfilment;

if

one kind of

satisfaction

but disappointment

the more comes in another shape. will

and

continue, another

more

will

if

One more arrest

or

which our experience moving even now. We can not, it is true,

deflect the direction, in is

name our except

different living 'ands* or

by naming the

different

terms towards

which they are moving us, but we specifications

and

differences

237

withs*

live their

before

those

E.SSAYS IN

RADICAL EMPIRICISM

terms explicitly arrive. various Bands' are

Thus, though the

all bilateral relations,

requiring a term ad quern to define

each

when

it

viewed in retrospect and articulately conceived, yet in its living moment any one of

them may be

treated as

*

if it

3

stuck out from

term a quo and pointed in a special direction, much as a compass-needle (to use Mr.

its

Bode's excellent simile) points at the pole,

even though it stirs not from its box. In Professor Hoffding's massive little article in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology

and

1 Methods, he quotes a saying of

Scientific

Kierkegaard's to the effect that

we

live for-

we understand backwards. Understanding backwards is, it must be confessed, a wards, but

very frequent weakness of philosophers, both of the rationalistic cist type*

and

of the ordinary empiri-

Radical empiricism alone

insists

on

understanding forwards also, and refuses to substitute static concepts of the understand-

ing for transitions in our moving similar to that 1

life.

A logic

which my critic seems to employ Vol. H, [1905], pp. 85-9$.

238

IS

EMPIRICISM SOLIPSISTIC?

here should,

it

seems to me, forbid him to say

that our present

is,

while present, directed

towards our future, or that any physical

movement can have

direction until its goal

is

actually reached.

At

this point does it

not seem as

if

the

quarrel about self-transcendency in knowledge

might drop? Is Call

it

it

not a purely verbal dispute?

self-transcendency or call

whichever you like

it

it

makes no

pointing, difference

so long as real transitions towards real goals

are admitted as things given in experience, and

among

experience's

most indefeasible

Radical empiricism, unable to close

its

parts.

eyes to

the transitions caught in actu, accounts for the self -transcendency

or the pointing (whichever

you may call it) as a process that occurs within experience, as an empirically mediated thing of

which a perfectly

definite description

can

be given. 'Epistemology,* on the other hand,

and pretends that the self-transcendency is unmediated or, if mediated, then mediated in a super-empirical world. To jusdenies this;

tify this pretension,

epistemology has

first

to

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM transform objects,

all

and

our conjunctions into static

this,

arbitrary act*

But

an absolutely

I submit,

is

in spite of

Mr, Bode's mal-

treatment of conjunctions, as I understand

them

and

as I understand

that at bottom ferent,

we

Mm

I believe

are fighting for nothing dif-

but are both defending the same con-

tinuities of experience in different

forms of

words.

There are other criticisms in the question, but, as this seems the I will for the present, at

untouched.

any

article in

most vital one,

rate, leave

them

X REFUTATION OF

MR. PITKIN'S

"RADICAL EMPIRICISM'* ALTHOUGH Mr. Pitkin does not name me in Ms acute article on radical empiricism, 2 I fear that some readers, knowing me to have applied that name to my own doctrine, may [.

.

*

]

possibly consider themselves to have been in at

my

death.

In point of fact

my

withers are entirely

3 unwrung. I have, indeed, said that *to be radical, an empiricism must not admit into its

any element that is not directly But in my own radical empiri-

constructions experienced.*

cism this

is

only a methodological postulate, not

a conclusion supposed to flow from the sic

absurdity of transempirical objects. I have

never 1

intrin-

felt

the slightest respect for the idealistic

[Reprinted from the Journal

of Philosophy, Psychology and No. 26, December 20, 1906; and t&tcL, vol. 1907, where the original is entitled "A Reply

Scientific Methods, vol. in,

iv,

to

No. 4, February 14, Mr. Pitkin.'* ED.]

*

[W. B. Ktkin:

ibid., vol. 8

m, No.

*'

A

24,

[Above, p. 42.

Problem of Evidenced Radical Empiricism/*

November

22, 1906.

ED.]

41

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM arguments winch Mr. Pitkin attacks and of

which Ferrier made such striking use; and I

am

any number

perfectly willing to admit

noumenal beings or events into philosophy

of if

only their pragmatic value can be shown. Radical empiricism and pragmatism have so

many it

misunderstandings to suffer from, that

seems

my

duty not to

let this

one go any

farther, uncorrected.

Mr. Pitkin

V reply 'tome,

1 [.

.

.

]

perplexes

me by

the obscurity of style which I find in

almost

all

our younger philosophers.

He

asks

me, however, two direct questions which I understand, so I take the liberty of answering* First he asks:

Do not experience and science

show 'that countless things are 2 experienced as that which they are not or are only parI reply: Yes, assuredly,

tially?* 6

5

things

distorted

by

refractive media, 'mole-

cules/ or whatever else 1 ["

is

taken to be more

In Reply to Professor James," Journal of Philosophy, Psycho-

logy and Scientific Methods, vol. iv, 2

as, for example,

Mr. Pitkra

experience

No.

, January 17, 1907. ED.] *by reason of the very nature of Not understanding just what reason is meant, I do

inserts the clause:

itself.*

not include this ckuse ia

my answer. 242

PITKIN ON 'RADICAL EMPIRICISM ultimately real than the immediate content of

the perceptive moment.

Secondly: "If experience

any

(in

intelligible sense)

is

*

self-supporting

does this fact pre-

clude the possibility of (a) something not experienced and (b) action of experience upon

a noumenon?"

My

of either

Assuredly not the possibility

is:

reply

how

could

we should be wise not

It?

Yet

In

my

opinion

to consider any thing

or action of that nature,

and to

restrict

our

universe of philosophic discourse to what

is

2 experienced or, at least, experienceable. 1

[See above, p. 193.

2

[Elsewhere, in speaking of 'reality 'as "conceptual or perceptual

ED.] is meant merely to exclude realwhich no account in either perceptual

experiences," the author says: "This *

ity of

an unknowable'

sort, of

or conceptual terms can be given. It includes, of course, any amount of empirical reality independent of the knower." Meaning of Truth, p. 100, note.

ED.]

XI

HUMANISM AND TRUTH ONCE MORE.

1

MJR. JOSEPH'S criticism of

manism and Truth

5

2

is

my

"Hu-

article

a useful contribution to

the general clearing up.

He has

seriously tried

what the pragmatic movement may intelligibly mean; and if he has failed, it to comprehend

is

the fault neither of his patience nor of his

sincerity,

but rather of stubborn tricks of

thought which he could not easily get rid

of.

Minute polemics, in which the parties try to rebut every detail of each of the other's charges, are a useful exercise only to the dis-

They can but breed confusion

putants. reader.

I will therefore ignore as

in a

much

possible the text of both our articles (mine

as

was

inadequate enough) and treat once more the general objective situation. 1

[Reprinted without change from Mind,

April, 1905, pp. 100-198.

N.

S.,

vol. xiv,

No.

54,

P^ges 245-247, and pp. 261-265, have also

in The Meaning of Trnth, pp. 54-57, and pp. 97-100. The present essay is referred to above, p. 208. ED.] 2 [* Humanism and Truth 'first appeared in Mind, N. S., vol. xin, No. 52, October, 1004. It is reprinted in The Meaning of Truth, pp.

been reprinted

244

HUMANISM AND TRUTH As

I

apprehend the movement towards

humanism,

based on no particular

it is

dis-

covery or principle that can be driven into one precise formula

which thereupon can be im-

paled upon a logical skewer. It like

is

much more

one of those secular changes that come

upon public opinion over-night, borne upon tides 'too that survive

all

full for

as

it

were,

sound or foam/

the crudities and extrava-

gances of their advocates, that you can pin to

no one absolutely

essential statement, nor kill

by any one decisive stab. Such have been the changes from

aristo-

cracy to democracy, from classic to romantic taste,

from

theistic to pantheistic feeling,

from

ways of understanding which we all have been

static to evolutionary life

changes of

spectators. Scholasticism

still

opposes to such

changes the method of confutation by single decisive reasons, showing that the new view involves self-contradiction, or traverses

fundamental principle. This

S.,

stopping

Mr. EL W. B. Joseph's criticism, * " James on Humanism and Truth.* appeared in vol xrv, No. 53, January, 1905. Ei>.]

51-101. Cf. this article passim. entitled "Professor

Mind, N.

is like

some

45

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM a river by planting a stick in the middle of its bed. Round your obstacle flows the water

and

'gets there all the

Joseph, I

am

not a

Catholic writers

same/ In reading Mr.

little

who

reminded

of those

Darwinism by can not come from

refute

telling us that higher species

lower because minus nequit gignere plus, or that the notion of transformation it

is

absurd, for

implies that species tend to their

struction,

own

and that would violate the principle

that every reality tends to persevere in shape. tight

The point

and

de-

of

view

is

its

own

too myopic, too

close to take in the inductive argu-

ment.

You can not

formal

logic.

pounced on

settle questions of fact

I feel as

my

words

if

by

Mr. Joseph almost

singly,

without giving

the sentences time to get out of my mouth.

The one condition of understanding humanism is to become inductive-minded oneself,

to drop rigorous definitions,

lines of least resistance

and follow

*on the whole/

other words," Mr. Joseph

may

"In

probably say,

"resolve your Intellect into a kind of slush/'

"Even

so," I

make

reply,

246

"if

you

will

con-

HUMANISM AND TRUTH sent to use

no

word." For humanism,

politer

*

conceiving the more *true* as the more satisfactory' (Dewey's term) has to renounce sincerely rectilinear arguments of rigor

and

and ancient

ideals

finality. It is in just this

tem-

per of renunciation, so different from that of pyrrhonistic scepticism, that the spirit of

humanism

essentially consists.

Satisfactori-

ness has to be measured

by a multitude of standards, of which some, for aught we know, may fail in any given case; and what is 'more 5

satisfactory than

any alternative

in sight,

to the end be a

sum

and minuses,

concerning which

of pluses

we can only

may

trust that

by

and improvements a maxithe one and a minimum of the other

ulterior corrections

mum

of

may some day be approached.

It

means a

real

change of heart, a break with absolutistic hopes,

when one takes up

this

view of the

conditions of belief.

That humanism's

critics

have never im-

agined this attitude inwardly, their invariable tactics. it f ai

is

shown by

They do not

get into

enough to see objectively and from with* 247

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM out what their

own opposite notion of truth, is.

Mr* Joseph is possessed by some such notion; he thinks his readers to be full of it, he obeys it,

works from

us what so

is

it is.

where

*

but never even essays to tell The nearest he comes to doing it,

he says

to think," whether

it is

the

way "we ought

we be psychologically com-

pelled to or not.

Of course humanism agrees to this it is only a manner of calling truth an ideal. But :

humanism

explicates the summarizing

word

'ought into a mass of pragmatic motives from the midst of which our critics think that truth '

itself

takes

Truth

flight.

meaning. It stands

is

a

name

now for an

of double

abstract some-

thing defined only as that to which our thought

ought to conform; and again

it

stands for the

concrete propositions within which

that conformity already reigns so

many

*

believe

they being

Humanism sees that the we ever have to deal with

truths/

only conformity concretely

we

is

that between our subjects and

our predicates, using these words in a very 1

Op.

tit.,

48

p. 37.

HUMANISM AND TRUTH broad sense. It sees moreover that

this con-

Mr.

Schiller's

formity

is

'validated' (to use

term) by an indefinite number of pragmatic tests that

vary as the predicates and subjects

by an SP

vary. If an S gets superseded

that

mind a completer sum of satisfactions, we always say, humanism points out, that we have advanced to a better position in gives our

regard to truth.

Now many

of our

are retrospective.

judgments thus attained

The

S'es, so

the judgment

runs, were SP's already ere the fact

manly recorded.

Common

this state of things, field;

and

example. cates

now

was hu-

sense, struck

by

rearranges the whole

traditional philosophy follows her

The

general requirement that predi-

must conform to

translate into

an ontological theory.

previous Subject of lesser subjects

their subject, they

all is

A

most

substituted for the

and conceived

of as

an arche-

typal Reality; and the conformity required of predicates in detail

is

reinterpreted as a rela-

tion which our whole mind, with jects

all its

sub-

and predicates together, must get into 49

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM with respect to this Reality.

It,

meanwhile,

is

conceived as eternal, static, and unaffected

by our

thinking. Conformity to a

Archetype

like this is

truth which

non-human

probably the notion of

my opponent shares with common

sense and philosophic rationalism.

When now Humanism, fully

admitting both

the naturalness and the grandeur of this hypothesis, nevertheless points to its sterility,

declines to

and

chime in with the substitution,

keeping to the concrete and

still

lodging truth

between the subjects and the predicates in detail, it provokes the outcry which we hear

and which

my

critic echoes.

One of the commonest humanism

that

is

subjectivistic altogether

supposed to labor under a necessity of l It is not denying trans-perceptual reality/

it *

is

parts of the outcry

is

hard to see how this misconception of humanism

may have arisen; and

humanistic writers,

partly from not having sufficiently guarded their expressions,

and partly from not having

yet "got round" (in the poverty of their *

[Cf. above,

pp.

250

liter-

HUMANISM AND TRUTH ature) to a full discussion of the subject, are

doubtless in some degree to blame. to understand

grasp

But

I fail

how any one with a working

of their principles

can charge them

wholesale with subjectivism.

I myself have

never thought of humanism as being subject-

than to this extent, that, inas-

ivistic farther

much

as

it

treats the thinker as being himself

one portion of

some of the are created

reality, it

realities

by

must

also allow that

that he declares for true

his being there.

Such

realities

of course are either acts of his, or relations

between other things and him, or relations between things, which, but for him, would never have been traced. Humanists are subjectivistic, also in this, that,

unlike rationalists

(who think they carry a warrant lute truth of

for the abso-

what they now believe

present pocket), they hold

all

in in their

present beliefs

as subject to revision in the light of future

experience.

The

may be of things this is so the

as

future experience, however, outside the thinker;

humanist

may

and that

believe as freely

any other kind of empiricist philosopher.

\

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM The follow

of

critics

humanism (though here

I

to object to

them but darkly) appear

any infusion whatever of subjectivism into truth. All must be archetypal; every truth

must

pre-exist to its perception.

sees that

Humanism

an enormous quantity of truth must

be written down as having pre-existed to

by us humans. In

perception

we

stances that, fact,

find it

most

its

countless in-

satisfactory to believe

though we were always ignorant of the it always was a fact that S was SP. But

humanism

separates this class of cases

those in which

the opposite,

it is

e.g.,

passing event, or ing act.

Our

from

more satisfactory to believe that S

SP

critics

is

ephemeral, or

created

by the

P

a

perceiv-

seem on the other hand,

to wish to universalize the retrospective type of instance. assertion for

Reality must pre-exist to every

which truth

is

claimed. And, not

content with this overuse of one particular

type of Judgment, our

critics

claim

its

mono-

They appear to wish to cut off Humanism from its rights to any retrospection poly.

"

at

all.

52

HUMANISM AND TRUTH Humanism says that satisfactoriness is what distinguishes the true from the false.

But

sat-

both a subjective quality, and

isfactoriness is

a present one.

critics

Ergo (the

appear to

reason) an object, qua true,

must always for humanism be both present and subjective, and a humanist's belief can never be in anything that lives outside of the belief dates

it.

or ante-

Why so preposterous a charge should

be so current, I find is

itself

it

hard to say. Nothing

more obvious than the

fact that both the

and the past existence of the object may be the very things about it that most seem satisfactory, and that most invite us to objective

believe them.

The past tense can figure

in the

humanist's world, as well of belief as of representation, quite as harmoniously as in the

world of any one

else.

Mr. Joseph gives a accusation.

He

contradictory gories of

special turn to this

me

charges

l

with being

when I say that the main

self-

cate-

thought were evolved in the course of

experience

itself.

For I use these very *

Op.

cit

t

253

p.

n.

cate-

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM of experience by. gories to define the course

Experience, as I talk about

It, is

a product of

I take it as true anteriorly

their use;

and yet

to them.

This seems to Mr. Joseph to be an

absurdity. I hope readers; for

theses at see

all

it

does not seem such to his

experiences can suggest hypo-

if

(and they notoriously do so) I can

no absurdity whatever In the notion of a

retrospective hypothesis having for its object

the very train of experiences

by which

its

own

being, along with that of other things, has

been brought about. 5

If

we must,

'satisfactory

the hypothesis

of course, believe it

to have been true anteriorly to tion

ourselves.

by

is

Every

its

formula-

explanation

of

a present by a past seems to involve this kind of

circle,

The past

is

Is

not a vicious

circle.

causa existendi of the present,

which In turn past.

which

is

causa cognoscendi of the

If the present

were treated as causa ex-

istendi of the past, the circle

might indeed be

vicious.

Closely connected with this pseudo-difficulty

Is

another one of wider scope and greater 254

HUMANISM AND TRUTH more

complication

therefore. 1

excusable

Humanism, namely, asking how truth of fact

is

reached, and seeing that

substituting

more

factory opinions,

is

development.

it

The

must have been

thinks,

dim, unconnected 'feelings/ and only little

by ever

thereby led into a vague

*

opinions/

it is

satisfactory for less satis-

historic sketch of truth's earliest

in point

little

by

did more and

things replace

view of

this

more orderly views of them. Our own retrospective

whole evolution

is

now,

let

us say,

*

the latest candidate for truth* as yet reached in the process.

To be a satisfactory candidate,

must give some definite sort of a picture of what forces keep the process going. On the it

subjective side

we have a fairly definite picture

sensation, association, interest, hypothesis,

these account in a general

way

for the

growth

into a cosmos of the relative chaos with which

mind began. But on the side

the -

roughly, our view

of the object, so to call it is

much

less satisfactory.

1 [This] Mr. Joseph deals with (though in much too pettifogging and logic-chopping a way) on pp. 83-S4 of his article.

255

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM Of which that

the

of our

many objects are we to believe and at work before

truly was there

It

human mind began? Time,

number,

serial

order,

space, kind,

consciousness,

cause,

even tran-

are hard things not to objectify

scendental idealism leaves *

empirically real/

fall

down more

them standing

as

Substance, matter, force,

easily before criticism,

and

make almost no resistance Nevertheless, when we survey the field

secondary qualities at all

of speculation,

from Scholasticism through

Kantism to Spencerism, we find an ever-recurring tendency to convert the pre-human into a merely logical object, an unknowable ding-ansicJiy that but starts the process, or a vague 1 prima that but receives our forms. The reasons for this are not so much logical

materiel

as they are material.

We

can postulate an

extra-mental that freely enough (though some idealists

have denied us the

when we have done 1

Compare some

so,

the what of

elaborate articles

and 1902J

256

it is

but hard

by M. Le Roy and M, Wilbois

in tibe R&tme de MGbipkysigue et de M&rdle, vols,

1901,

privilege),

vm,

ix,

and x [1900,

HUMANISM AND TBTJTH to determine satisfactorily, because of the oppositions

and entanglements

proposed whats history of the

with,

of the variously

one another and with the

human mind. The

literature of

speculative cosmology bears witness to this difficulty.

Humanism

suffers

than any other philosophy

makes

all

of

no more

it

suffers,

but

it

our cosmogonic theories so unsatis-

factory that denial

from

some thinkers seek

relief in

any primal dualism.

the

Absolute

Thought or *pure experience* is postulated, and endowed with attributes calculated to justify the belief that it

may *run itself.* Both

these

hypotheses

truth-claiming

dualistic in the old

are

non-

mind-and-matter sense;

but the one is monistic and the other pluralistic as to the world process

itself.

are non-dualists of this sort

one und zwar of the

Some humanists I myself

pluralistic brand.

am But

doubtless dualistic humanists also exist, as well as non-dualistic ones of the monistic wing.

Mr. Joseph pins these general philosophic difficulties on humanism alone, or possibly on

me

alone.

My

article

857

spoke vaguely of a

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM 5

'most chaotic pure experience coining first, 1 and building up the mind. But how can two structureless things interact so as to produce

a structure?

my

triumphantly asks. Of

critic

course they can't, as purely so-named entities.

We

must make additional hypotheses.

must beg a minimum

The kind

of

minimum

of structure for

is

here.

The

we now

it

is

question

that of the most

by formal

logic purely,

no acquaintance with the at

find actually

the philosophical desideratum

terially satisfactory hypothesis.

handles

them.

that might have tended

to increase towards what

developed

We

ma-

Mr. Joseph as if he had

logic of hypothesis

all.

Mr. Joseph again is much bewildered as to what a humanist can mean when he uses the word knowledge. He vaguely identifying

tries to convict

it

me

2

of

with any kind of good.

Knowledge is a difficult thing to define briefly, and Mr. Joseph shows his own constructive

hand here even 1 2

[Cf.

less

than in the rest of his

The Meaning of Truth, p.

[Joseph: op. tiL> p.

258

S6J

64.]

HUMANISM AND TRUTH I have myself put forth on several

article.

occasions a radically pragmatist account of 1 knowledge, the existence of which account

critic

I

probably does not

know of

my

so perhaps

had better not say anything about knowledge

until

he reads and attacks that, I

will say,

however, that whatever the relation called

knowing

may

prove to consist

itself

in,

I can

think of no conceivable kind of object which

may

not become an object of knowledge on

humanistic principles as well as on the principles of

2 any other philosophy.

I confess that I

by the ics,

habit,

am pretty steadily hampered

on the part

of

of assuming that they

humanism's

crit-

have truer ideas

than mine of truth and knowledge, the nature of

which I must know of and can not need to

have consequently to reconstruct these ideas in order to carry on the dis-

have

re-defined. I

cussion (I have e.g.

had to do so in some parts

1 Most recently in two articles, "Does 'Consciousness* Exist?** and "A World of Pure Experience." [See above, pp. 1-91.] 2 For a recent attempt, effective on the whole, at squaring hu-

manism with knowing,

I

may

refer to Prof.

Woodbridge's veiy able

"The

Field of Logic," printed

address at the Saint Louis Congress, in Science, N. Y., November 4, 1904.

259

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM and I thereby expose myself caricature. In one part of Mr.

of this article)

to charges of

we

Joseph's attack, however, I rejoice that free

from

an im-

It is

embarrassment.

this

are

a genuine portant point and covers probably difficulty, so I take it up last.

and Dewey, I dethe true as that which gives the maximal

When, fine

following Schiller

combination of satisfactions, and say that satisfaction

is

a many-dimensional term that

can be realized in various ways, Mr. Joseph replies, rightly

enough, that the chief

faction of a rational creature his thought that

what he

satis-

must always be believes

is

true,

whether the truth brings him the satisfaction of collateral profits or not.

This would seem,

however, to make of truth the prior concept,

and to

relegate satisfaction to a secondary

place.

Again,

if

to be satisfactory

is

what

is

meant

by being true, whose satisfactions, and which of

Ms

satisfactions, are to count?

tions notoriously

upshot

is

Discrimina-

have to be made; and the

that only rational candidates and 60

HUMANISM AND TRUTH intellectual satisfactions stand the test.

We

are then driven to a purely theoretic notion of truth,

and get out

And

phere altogether. leaves us

truth

of the matter.

show

of the pragmatic atmos-

is

with this Mr. Joseph

truth,

and there

is

an end

But he makes a very pretty

of convicting

me

of self-stultification in

according to our purely theoretic satisfactions in the humanistic scheme.

any place crowd the

collateral satisfactions

They

out of house

and home, he thinks, and pragmatism has to go into bankruptcy

There

is

if

she recognizes

no room

them

at

all.

for disagreement about

the facts here; but the destructive force of the reasoning disappears as soon as cretely instead of abstractly,

we

and

talk con-

ask, in our

quality of good pragmatists, just

what the

famous theoretic needs are known as and

what the

intellectual

satisfactions

in

consist.

Mr. Joseph, faithful to the habits of his party, makes no attempt at characterizing them, but assumes that their nature

is

seK-evident to

all.

Are they not all mere matters of consistency and emphatically not of consistency be-

mi

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM tween an Absolute Reality and the mind's copies of

it,

but of actually

among judgments,

objects,

mind

reacting, in the

?

felt

consistency

and manners

And

of

are not both our

need of such consistency and our pleasure in

it

conceivable as outcomes of the natural fact

that

we

are beings that develop mental habits

proving adaptively beneficial in an environment where the same objects, or the habit

itself

same kinds If this

of objects, recur

were

so,

what would have come

would have been the

first

collateral profits of habit,

would have grown up in In point of fact this seems to

and the theoretic aid of these.

and follow 'law'?

life

have been the probable

case.

At

life's origin,

any present perception may have been 'true* if such a word could then be applicable. Later,

became organized, the became "true* whenever expectation

when

reactions

reactions

by them. Otherwise they were false* or mistaken reactions. But the same class of objects needs the same kind of reacwas

*

fulfilled '

tion, so the

3

impulse to react consistently must

gradually have been established, with a disap262

HUMANISM AND TRUTH pointment

felt

expectation.

whenever the

results frustrated

Here is a perfectly plausible germ

for all our higher consistencies.

Nowadays,

if

an object claims from us a reaction of the kind habitually accorded only to the opposite class

mental machinery refuses to

of objects, our

run smoothly. The situation unsatisfactory.

To

gain

to preserve the reaction

is

relief

by

intellectually

we

re-interpreting the

object, or, leaving the object as it in a

way

contrary to the

Neither solution

is

way

it

so as to permit

claim; but there

react

him

me claiming He can not

to gratify

my

appeal in the claim

enough to induce him to write a whole is

fication of his refusal.

we

Such a situation

easy.

humanism from him.

apperceive

is,

claimed of us*

might be that of Mr. Joseph, with assent to

seek either

If

article in justi-

he should assent to

humanism, on the other hand, that would drag an unwelcome, yea incredible, alteration of his previous mental beliefs. Whichever after it

alternative he might adopt, however, a

new

equilibrium of intellectual consistency would in the

end be reached.

He would

feel,

which-

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM ever

way he decided, that he was now thinking

truly*

But

if,

with his old habits unaltered,

he should simply add to them the new one of advocating humanism quietly or noisily, his mind would be rent into two systems, each of

which would accuse the other of falsehood. The resultant situation, being profoundly unsatisfactory,

would also be instable.

Theoretic truth

is

thus no relation between

our mind and archetypal

reality.

within the mind, being the accord of its

processes

It

falls

some

of

and objects with other processes

and objects

"accord

5

consisting

here

in

So long as the satissuch an accord is denied us,

well-definable relations.

faction of feeling

whatever

collateral profits

may seem

to inure

from what we believe in are but as dust in the balance

provided always that we are highly

organized intellectually, which the majority of us are not. satisfies

The amount

of accord

most men and women

is

which

merely the

absence of violent clash between their usual

thoughts and statements

and the limited

sphere of sense-perceptions in which their lives 64

HUMANISM AND TRUTH are cast. Tlie theoretic truth that

think

we 'ought

5

to attain to

is

do not con-

We preserve it as

by leaving other predicates and

as not

of us

thus the pos-

session of a set of predicates that

tradict their subjects.

most

often

subjects

out.

In some music ency

is

is

men

theory

in others.

cal tables

line at

which

Such men systematize

and schematize and make synopti-

and invent

ideal objects for the pure

Too often the results, glowing

love of unifying.

with

of inner consist-

pursued far beyond the

classify

*

a passion, just as

The form

collateral profits stop.

and

is

truth' for the inventors, seem patheti-

cally personal

Which

is

as

and

much

artificial

to bystanders.

as to say that the purely

theoretic criterion of truth can leave us in the

lurches easily as any other criterion.

Mr. Joseph will but consider all these things a little more concretely, he may find that the humanistic scheme and the I think that

if

notion of theoretic truth sistently

enough to yield

satisfaction.

fall

into line con-

Mm also intellectual

XII

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM

No

seeker of truth can

fail

1

to rejoice at the

terre-a-terre sort of discussion of the issues

between Empiricism and Transcendentalism the latter would prob(or, as the champions of ably prefer to say, between Irrationalism and Rationalism) that seems to have begun in

Mind.*

It

examples

would seem as

like

Mr.

J. S.

if,

over concrete

Haldane's, both parties

ought inevitably to come to a better understanding. As a reader with a strong bias towards Irrationalism, I have studied his article

3

with the

temper and

But the

its

liveliest

admiration of

painstaking effort to be clear.

cases discussed failed to satisfy

and I was at

its

first

me,

tempted to write a Note

animadverting upon them in detail. The growth of the limb, the sea's contour, the vicarious functioning of the nerve-centre, the digitalis curing

the heart, are unfortunately

[Reprinted from Mind, voL ix, No. 34, April, 1884.] 2 [In 1884J 8 ind, vol. ix, 1884 .] ["Life and Mechanism," 1

M

66

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM not cases where

we can

see

any through-and-

through conditioning of the parts

cases of reciprocity where sub-

They

are

jects,

supposed independently to

all

by the whole.

exist,

acquire

certain attributes through their relations to

other subjects. That they also exist through similar relations

is

only an ideal supposition,

not verified to our understanding in these or

any other concrete cases whatsoever. If,

however, one were to urge this solemnly,

Mr. Haldane's

friends could easily reply that

he only gave us such examples on account of the hardness of our hearts. their imperfection,

He knew

full well

but he hoped that to those

who would not spontaneously ascend

to the

Notion of the Totality, these cases might prove a spur and suggest and symbolize something better than themselves.

No

particu-

lar case that can be brought forward

real concrete.

They

are

all

is

a

abstractions from

the Whole, and of course the "through-and-

through" character can not be found in them.

Each

of

them still contains among its elements

what we

call

things,

grammatical subjects,

267

ESSAYS IN EADICAL EMPIRICISM forming a sort of residual caput mortuum of Existence after all the relations that figure in the examples have been told

On

off.

this

"existence," thinks popular philosophy, things

may live on, like the winter bears on their own never entering relations at

fat,

all, or, if

enter-

ing them, entering an entirely different set of

them from those treated

Thus

dane's examples.

if

of in

Mr. Hal-

the digitalis were to

weaken instead of strengthening the heart, and to produce death (as sometimes happens), it

would determine

through determining

itself,

the organism, to the function of "kill of that of "cure." seein adventitious,

a heart the

The

function and relation

digitalis gets

hold

of,

an

ence

"

Mr. Haldane's

illusion.

What

of digitalis

the digitalis

facts external and, so to

speak, accidental to each other.

is

instead

depending on what kind of

and the heart being

lar view,

3*

But this popu-

friends will continue,

seems to us the "exist-

and heart outside

tions of killing or curing,

is

of the rela-

but a function in a

wider system of relations, of which, pro hoc vice,

we take no

account. 268

The

larger

system

ABSOLUTISM AND determines the existence just as abso^ely as 5 the^system "kill/ or the system "ctK*e," de-

termined the function of the

dlgiiiiis.

As-

cend to the absolute system, insteat of biding with these relative and partial ones, and you shall see that the

ness

law of through-ax^d-through-

must and does obtain.

f

i

Of able,

logic

course, this

argument

is

entf^ly reason-

and debars us completely from chopping about the concrete examples Mr. Hal-

dane has chosen.

It is not his

fai%

if

his cate-

an instrument that nothing but the sum total of things can be/ taken to gories are so fine

1

show us the manner

of their

us^

It

is

simply

our misfortune that he has not tl^sum total of things to

show

it

by. Let us

from

concrete attempts and see

all

can do with 4

1

avow-

his notion of

through-and-thr^ttpiness, in taken abstracto. In edly j&bsfTaet systems

the "through-and-through'f Idea| is realized on every hand. In any gyjstem, ak such, the I

^

members are only members in th^ system. Abolish the system and sou abolish its members, for

you have concewed them 269

throiigh

no

IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM

mem-

other ,T?perty than the abstract one of

nor leftness, except bership ^Neither Tightness

nor through >ijii-Iaterality. Neither mortgager

The mortgage*, except through mortgage. If A, then B; but logic of ;hese cases is this; if

B

s

thc-Q

A:

wherefore if either, Both; and

if

not Both Clothing. s

It costs f^thing, not

even a mental

effort,

admit that t ae absolute totality of things

to

may

be organize^! exactly after the pattern of one M abstractions. of these "th^ugh-and-through In

fact, it is vjie pleasantest

and

freest of

men-

movement. Husband makes, and is made by, wife, through marriage; one makes other,

tal

itself

by being through

its

squirrel in

other; everything self-created

you go round But if you stop and

c>j>posite

a

like

a

reflect

upon what you are about, you lay bare the exact point tit issue between common sense and the "through-and4hrough" school. What,

in fact, is the logic of these abstract

systems? It

is,

as

we said above

:

If

any Mem-

Whole System; if not the Whole System, then Nothing. But how can Logic ber, then the

270

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRI< IC >M possibly do anything

more with these two hypotheses than combine them into the single "Either this Whole

disjunctive proposition

System, just as

it

stands, or

Nothkig at

5

all/

not that disjunction the ultimate word of Logic in the matter, and can any exjunction, Is

as such, resolve itself?

Haldane

sees

It

how one horn,

may |^

that Mr.

the cqacept of the

Whole System, carries real existence with it. But if he has been as unsuccessful fs I in assimilating the

ian proof,

Logic

Hegelian re-editings of the Anselm-

1

he

may

be, if it

us that

is,

will

have to

sajf

that though

determine what the! system must

something else than Eogic must

it is.

tell

Mr. Haldane in tMs case would

probably consciously, or unconsciously, make

an appeal to Fact: the disjunction u decided, since nobody can dispute that now, as a matter of fact, something ,

must

therefore,

to admit the sense. 1

Is

and not nothing,

We

he would probably say, go on

Whole System

in the desiderated

not then the validity of the Anselm-

Janet and G. Sailles: Hi^or^offheProU&mofPhikso^y, by Monahan, vol. n, pp. 275-S78; 305-807. ED,]

[Cf. P.

trans,

is*

71

S

IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM

ian proof ttc nucleus of the whole question be-

tween Logic and Fact? Ought not the efforts of Mr. If aldane and his friends to be principally devoted to real

its

elucidation? Is

it

not the

door erf separation between Empiricism

and Rationalism? And leave that cNtor for a

if

moment off its hinges, can

any power keep that

abstract, opaque,

diated, extettyal, Irrational,

monster,

knOVn

the Rationalists

unme-

and irresponsible

to the vulgar as bare Fact,

from getting in and contaminating the whole sanctuary with his presence ? Can anything prevent Faust from changing 5

war das Wort/ into

"Am

"Am

Anfang Anfang war die

That?" Nothing in earth or heaven. Only the Anselmian proof can keep Fact out of philo-

sophy*

The

question, "Shall Fact be recog-

nized as an ultimate principle?" issue

is

the whole

between the Rationalists and the Empiri-

cism of vulgar thought.

Of

course,

if

so recognized, Fact sets a limit

to the "through-and-through" character of

the world's rationality. That rationality might 272

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM then mediate between

the

all

m^bers

conception of the world, but

and

itself

conception

reality,

of our

between the Jteality

would

have to be given, not by Reasor* but by Fact. Fact holds out blankly, brutal^ and blindly, against that universal deliquescence of every-

wh4h the Absolut-

thing into logical relations ist

Logic demands, and

that does hold out. Hence solutist

hence

Logic

i$ the

it

its

only thing

tile ire of

the Ab-

non-recognition, its

'cutting 'of Fact.

The

reasons

that Fact

is

it

gives for the

speechless,

*

5

cutting

a mere word

are

for the

negation of thought, a vacuous unknowability,

a dog-in-the-manger, in truth, which having no rights of its

own, can find nothing

than to keep

its

else to

do

betters out of theirs.

There are two points involved here:

first

the

claim that certain things have rights that are absolute, ubiquitous

and

all

pervasive, and in

regard to which nothing else can possibly exist in its

own right; and second that anything that

denies this assertion

is

pure negativity with no

positive context whatsoever* 273

ESSAYS ?N BADICAL EMPIRICISM Take the what

latter point first.

neg*fc$ve In

is

one way

Is it true that is

thereby con-

victed of incapacity to be positive in any other

way? The word "Fact" is like the word "Accident," like tht- word "Absolute" itself. They all

their

whole conaotation All

tive.

may

it

says

be that

is

is

accident

is,

is

negative and rela-

whatever the thing

that,

denoted by the words, other

things do not control

Where

it*

they must be

fact,

silent, it

But that does not prevent

speak.

In truth,

their negative connotation.

have

where

alone can

its

speaking

you please, in its own tongue. It may have an inward life, self-transparent and as loudly as

active in the

maximum

degree.

An

indeter-

minate future volition on my part, for example,

would be a self is it,

strict accident as far as

concerned*

my present

But that could not prevent

in the moment in which it occurred,

possibly the most intensely living

from being

and lumin-

ous experience I ever had. Its quality of being

a brute fact ab extra says nothing whatever as to

its

inwardness. It simply says to outsiders:

'Hands

off!*

274

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM And

this brings us

back to the

first

point of

the Absolutist indictment of Fact.

Is that

point really anything more than a fantastic

say 'Hands

dislike to letting anything

What lutist

off'?

contempt the Absoauthors exhibit for a freedom defined else explains the

simply on

"from,"

its

etc.?

"negative"

What

side,

as freedom

prompts them to

else

deride such freedom? But, dislike for dislike,

who

Why

shall decide?

having

me "from"

is

not their dislike at

them, entirely on a par

me?

with mine at having them "through"

know very well that in talking of dislikes those who never mention them, I am doing

I

to

a very coarse thing, and making a sort of intellectual

Orson of myself. But, for the

me, I can not help likes

and

dislikes

it,

because I

of

life

feel sure

that

must be among the ultimate

factors of their philosophy as well as of mine.

Would they but admit

it!

How

sweetly

we

then could hold converse together! There

something stand. yet.

We

finite

is

about us both, as we now

do not know the Absolute Whole

Part of

it is still

negative to us. 275

Among

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM the whats of thats,

it still

without which

admit that

just as I

visional, that

come out rational

stalks a

mob

we cannot

of

opaque

But

think.

this is all possibly pro-

even the Anselmian proof

all

right,

and creation may be a

why

through-and-through,

system

may

might they not also admit that it may all be otherwise, and that the shadow, the opacity, the negativity, the "from "-ness, the plurality that

is

ultimate,

from the scene.

may never be wholly driven

We should both then be avow-

edly making hypotheses, playing with Ideals.

Ah!

Why is the notion of hypothesis so abhor-

rent to the Hegelian

And

once

hypothesis, since the

mind ?

down on our common

we might then admit

Whole

is

level of

scepticism,

not yet revealed, to be the

soundest logical position. But since the main not sceptics,

we

are in

we might go on and

frankly confess to each other the motives for

our several faiths. I frankly confess mine

I

can not but think that at bottom they are of

an

aesthetic

and not

of

"

3'

through-and-through 276

a

logical sort.

universe

seems

The to

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM suffocate

me

with

its Infallible

impeccable

pervasiveness. Its necessity, with ties; its relations,

no possibili-

with no subjects,

feel as if I

had entered

no reserved

rights, or rather as

all-

make me

into a contract with if

I

had to

in a large seaside boarding-house with

live

no pri-

vate bed-room in which I might take refuge

from the society

of the place.

am

I

distinctly

aware, moreover, that the old quarrel of sinner

and pharisee has something to do with the matter. Certainly, to

my personal knowledge,

all

Hegelians are not prigs, but I somehow feel

as

if all

prigs ought to end,

becoming Hegelians. There

if

is

by two

developed,

a story of

clergymen asked by mistake to conduct the

same

funeral.

farther than Life,"

One came

"I

am

when the

and had got no the Resurrection and the first

other entered.

"I am the

Resurrection and the Life/* cried the latter.

The "through-and-through" actually exists, reminds

clergyman*

philosophy, as

many

it

of us of that

It seems too buttoned-up

and

white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to

speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious 77

ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM Kosmos with

known there

philosophy. "Let

What then? Again, I know

us I

to see

it fly

I

show

feelings;

I

about

the is

am

away," we say, "from

will

they not show

universe,

through-and-through

from mine, and

which I should very likely be if

mental

have a personal feeling

entirely different

for gaining

my

exhibiting

why

know they

theirs?

away, of that

again, Ick Jcann nicht anders. I

But

my

fly

95

grossness.

which

un-

not the freedom, with a string tied to

and warranted not to

its leg

its

The "freedom" we want

tides.

is

dread abysses and

Its

much

the better

they would only show

Their persistence in telling

me

how.

me that feeling has

nothing to do with the question, that

it is

a

pure matter of absolute reason, keeps me for ever out of the pale. Still seeing a that in things which Logic does not expel, the

most I

can do is to aspire to the expulsion. At present I

do not even

aspire.

Aspiration

is

a

feeling.

What can kindle feeling but the example of feeling? And if the Hegelians will refuse to set an example, what can they expect the 278

rest of

ABSOLUTISM AND EMPIRICISM us to do?

To

speak more seriously, the one

fundamental quarrel Empiricism has with Absolutism is over this repudiation by Absolutism of the personal and sesthetic factor in

the construction of philosophy* That

we

all

of

us have feelings. Empiricism feels quite sure.

That they may be

as prophetic

tory of truth as anything else

some

of

them more

possibly be denied.

and anticipa-

we have, and

so than others, can not

But what hope

is

there of

squaring and settling opinions unless Absolut-

ism

will

hold parley on this

and

will

admit that

theses, to

which

all

all

ground;

philosophies are hypo-

our faculties, emotional

and the truest

of

will at the final integration of things

be

as well as logical, help us,

which

common

found in possession of the men whose

faculties

on the whole had the best divining power?

INDEX ABSOLUTE IDEALISM:

46, 60, 99,

102, 134, 195, 256

Essay XII.

ff.,

EMPIRICISM: iv-v, vii-xiii, 41, '4647, Essay XII. See also under

RADICAL EMPIRICISM. ACTIVITY: x, Essay VI. AFFECTION AL FACTS: 84 ff., Essay EPISTEMOLOGY: 239. See also under KNOWLEDGE. V, 217 ff. ETHICS: 194. AGNOSTICISM: 195. APPRECIATIONS. See AFFECTIONAL EXPERIENCE: vii, xii, 8 ff., 53, 62, ,

FACTS.

ff.,

71, 80, 87, 92, 216, 224, 233,

See also under

242, 243.

PURE

EXPERIENCE. BERGSON, H.: 156, 188. BERKELEY: 10-11, 43, 76, 77, 212, EXTERNAL RELATIONS 110 ff See also under RELATIONS, and 232. :

BODE, B. H.: 234 ff. BODY: 78, 84 ff., 153, 221. BRADLEY, F. H.: 60, 98, 99, 107

ff.,

DISJUNCTIVE. 100.

157, 162.

CAUSE: 163, 174, 181 ff. CHANGE: 161. COGNITIVE RELATION: 52

ff.

also under KNOWLEDGE. CONCEPTS: 15 ff., 22, 33, 54

65

59, 70, 94, 104, 107

:

ff.,

x,

ff.,

44 ff

117

FEELING. See under AFFECTIONAL FACTS.

FREE WILL:

185.

HALDANE,

S.:266

J.

.

,

ff.,

HERBART: 106. HOBHOUSE, L. T.:109. HODDER, A. L.: 22, 109. HODGSON, S.:ix, 48. HOFFDING, H.: 238.

HUMANISM:

163, 240.

CONSCIOUSNESS: 80, 127 ff., 139

ff.

See HEGEL: 106, 276, 277.

ff.

CONJUNCTIVE RELATIONS

.

Essay

ff.,

154, 184, Es-

90, 156,

Essay VII,

Essay XI.

I, 75,

xi,

HUME:

x, 42, 43, 103, 174.

say VIII.

CONTINUITY: 48

ff.,

IDEALISM: 39, 40, 134, 219, 241,

59, 70, 94.

256.

IDEAS: 55

DEMOCRITUS: 11. DESCARTES: 30.

DEWEY,

ff.,

73, 177, 209.

IDENTITY, Philosophy

of:

134,

197, 202.

J.: 53, 156, 191, 204, 247,

INDETERMINISM: 90, 274. 260. DISJUNCTIVE RELATIONS: x, 42 ff., INTELLECT: 97 ff. 105, 107

DUALISM:

ff.

10,

207

ff.,

225, 257.

JOSEPH, H.

281

W.

B,: 203, 244

ff.

INDEX KANT: 1, 37, 162, 206. KIERKEGAARD: 238.

KNOWLEDGE: 87-88, 196

56

4, 25,

ff.,

PRINCE, M. 88. PRINGLE-PATTISON, A. S. 109. PSYCHOLOGY: 206, 209 ff. :

:

ff.,

68

ff,,

231. See also un-

PURE EXPERIENCE:

4, 23,

26-27,

der COGNITIVE RELATION, OB-

35,

JECTIVE REFERENCE.

121, 123, 134, 135, 138, 139, 160,

Essay

II, 74, 90,

193, 200, 226

ff.,

93

96,

ff.,

257.

LIFE: 87, 161.

LOCKE: LOTZE:

RADICAL EMPIRICISM: iv-v,

10.

LOGIC: 269

ix-xiii,

ff.

59, 75, 167.

41

ff

,

vii,

47, 48, 69, 76, 89,

91, 107, 109, 121, 148, 156, 159,

182, 235, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242.

RATIONALISM: 41, 96 ff., 237, 266. REALISM: 16, 40, 76, 82 ff.

MATERIALISM: 179, 232.

MILL, J. S.:x, 43, 76. REHMKE, J. 1. MILL, JAMES: 43. RELATIONS: x, 16, 25, 42 ff., 71, 81, MILLER, D.: 54. MINDS, their Conterminousness: Essay III, 148, 268. See also under CONJUNCTIVE and DISJUNC76 ff., Essay IV. TIVE. MONISM: vii, 208, 267 ff. RELIGION: xiii, 194. MOORE, G. E.:6-7. MUNSTERBERG, H.: 1, 18-20, 158. RENOUVIER: 184-185. REPRESENTATION: 61, 196 ff., 212 ff. See also under SUBSTITUNATORP, P.: 1, 7-8. TION. NATURALISM: 96. NEO-KANTISM: 5-6. ROYCE, J.: 21, 158, 186-187, 195. :

OBJECTIVE REFERENCE: 67 OBJECTIVITY: 23

ff.

79.

ff.,

SANTAYANA, G.:

143, 218.

SCHILLER, F. C.

S.: 109, 191, 204,

249, 260.

PANPSYCHISM: 89, 188. PARALLELISM: 210. PERCEPTION: 11 ff., 17, 33, 82 ff., 197, 200, 211 ff. PERRY, R. B.: 24.

PHYSICAL REALITY: ff.,

139

ff.,

149

:

:

65, 78,

SELF: 45, 46, 94, 128

154, 211

ff,,

W.

B.: 241

ff.,

:

11, 72,

156, 159, 176, 242, 261.

PRIMARY QUALITIES:

147.

94, 110, 114.

SPENCER, H 144. SPINOZA: 208.

ff.

PLURALISM: 89, 90, 110. PRAGMATISM: iv, x, xi~xii, 97

SIDIS, B.: 144.

SOLIPSISM: Essay IX.

SPACE: 30-31, 84,

229, 235.

PITKIN,

ff.

SENSATION: 30, 201.

14, 22, 32, 124

ff.,

SCHUBERT-SOLDERS, R. v. 2. SCHUPPE, W. 1. SECONDARY QUALITIES: 146, 219.

SPIR, A.: 106.

STOUT, G. F.: 109, 158.

STRONG, C. A.: 54, 88, 89, 188.

282

INDEX SUBJECTIVITY:

23ff., 284ff., 251ff.

SUBSTITUTION: 62

ff.,

104, 201.

TIME: 27/04.

TBANSCENDENTALISM:

89, 52, 67,

71, 75, 289.

TAINE: 20, 62. TAYLOR, A. E.:lll. TELEOLOGY: 179. THINGS: 1, 9 ff., 28 ff.>

TEUTH:

WAHD, 37,

See also under

28

ff.,

247 ff,

J.: 157, 162.

WOODBEIDGE, P. 1, 22,

ff.,

Essay WILL: 165, 184.

III, 209.

THOUGHT:

24, 98, 192, 202

87, 218.

KNOWLEDGE.

J. E.: 196.

WORTH: 186-187. WUNDT, W.:152.

flfoe

ttfeetfte

CAMBRIDGE U

MASSACHUSETTS

.

.

S

.

A