George Stuart Fullerton - An Introduction to Philosophy

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Thus, it does not seem unreasonable to charge Kant with being a good
deal of a rationalist. He tried to confine our knowledge to the field
of experience, it is true; but he made a number of assumptions as to
the nature of experience which certainly do not shine by their own
light, and which many thoughtful persons regard as incapable of
justification.

Kant's famous successors in the German philosophy, Fichte (1762-1814),
Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831), and Schopenhauer (1788-1860),
all received their impulse from the "critical philosophy," and yet each
developed his doctrine in a relatively independent way.

I cannot here take the space to characterize the systems of these men;
I may merely remark that all of them contrast strongly in doctrine and
method with the British philosophers mentioned in the last section,
Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill. They are _un-empirical_, if one may
use such a word; and, to one accustomed to reading the English
philosophy, they seem ever ready to spread their wings and hazard the
boldest of flights without a proper realization of the thinness of the
atmosphere in which they must support themselves.

However, no matter what may be one's opinion of the actual results
attained by these German philosophers, one must frankly admit that no
one who wishes to understand clearly the development of speculative
thought can afford to dispense with a careful reading of them. Much
even of the English philosophy of our own day must remain obscure to
those who have not looked into their pages. Thus, the thought of Kant
and Hegel molded the thought of Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) and of
the brothers Caird; and their influence has made itself widely felt
both in England and in America. One cannot criticise intelligently
books written from their standpoint, unless one knows how the authors
came by their doctrine and out of what it has been developed.

63. CRITICAL EMPIRICISM.--We have seen that the trouble with the
rationalists seemed to be that they made an appeal to "eternal truths,"
which those who followed them could not admit to be eternal truths at
all. They proceeded on a basis of assumptions the validity of which
was at once called in question.

Locke, the empiricist, repudiated all this, and then also made
assumptions which others could not, and cannot, approve. Kant did
something of much the same sort; we cannot regard his "criticism" as
wholly critical.

How can we avoid such errors? How walk cautiously, and go around the
pit into which, as it seems to us, others have fallen? I may as well
tell the reader frankly that he sets his hope too high if he expects to
avoid all error and to work out for himself a philosophy in all
respects unassailable. The difficulties of reflective thought are very
great, and we should carry with us a consciousness of that fact and a
willingness to revise our most cherished conclusions.

Our initial difficulty seems to be that we must begin by assuming
_something_, if only as material upon which to work. We must begin our
philosophizing _somewhere_. Where shall we begin? May we not fall
into error at the very outset?

The doctrine set forth in the earlier chapters of this volume maintains
that we must accept as our material the revelation of the mind and the
world which seems to be made in our common experience, and which is
extended and systematized in the sciences. But it insists that we must
regard such an acceptance as merely provisional, must subject our
concepts to a careful criticism, and must always be on our guard
against hasty assumptions.

It emphasizes the value of the light which historical study casts upon
the real meaning of the concepts which we all use and must use, but
which have so often proved to be stones of stumbling in the path of
those who have employed them. Its watchword is analysis, always
analysis; and a settled distrust of what have so often passed as
"self-evident" truths. It regards it as its task to analyze
experience, while maintaining that only the satisfactory carrying out
of such an analysis can reveal what experience really is, and clear our
notions of it from misinterpretations.

No such attempt to give an account of experience can be regarded as
fundamentally new in its method. Every philosopher, in his own way,
criticises experience, and seeks its interpretation. But one may,
warned by the example of one's predecessors, lay emphasis upon the
danger of half-analyses and hasty assumptions, and counsel the
observance of sobriety and caution.

For convenience, I have called the doctrine _Critical Empiricism_. I
warn the reader against the seductive title, and advise him not to
allow it to influence him unduly in his judgment of the doctrine.

64. PRAGMATISM.--It seems right that I should, before closing this
chapter, say a few words about Pragmatism, which has been so much
discussed in the last few years.

In 1878 Mr. Charles S. Peirce wrote an article for the _Popular Science
Monthly_ in which he proposed as a maxim for the attainment of
clearness of apprehension the following: "Consider what effects, which
might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of
our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the
whole of our conception of the object."

This thought has been taken up by others and given a development which
Mr. Peirce regards with some suspicion. He refers[4] especially to the
development it has received at the hands of Professor William James, in
his two essays, "The Will to Believe" and "Philosophical Conceptions
and Practical Results." [5] Professor James is often regarded as
foremost among the pragmatists.

I shall not attempt to define pragmatism, for I do not believe that the
doctrine has yet attained to that definiteness of formulation which
warrants a definition. We seem to have to do not so much with a
clear-cut doctrine, the limits and consequences of which have been
worked out in detail, as with a tendency which makes itself apparent in
the works of various writers under somewhat different forms.

I may roughly describe it as the tendency to take that to be _true_
which is _useful_ or _serviceable_. It is well illustrated in the two
essays to which reference is made above.

Thus, Professor James dwells upon the unsatisfactoriness and
uncertainty of philosophical and scientific knowledge: "Objective
evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but
where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?"

Now, among those things regarding which it appears impossible to attain
to intellectual certitude, there are matters of great practical moment,
and which affect deeply the conduct of life; for example, the doctrines
of religion. Here a merely skeptical attitude seems intolerable.

In such cases, argues Professor James, "we have the right to believe at
our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will."

It is important to notice that there is no question here of a logical
right. We are concerned with matters regarding which, according to
Professor James, we cannot look for intellectual evidence. It is
assumed that we believe simply because we choose to believe--we believe
arbitrarily.

It is further important to notice that what is a "live" hypothesis to
one man need not tempt the will of another man at all. As our author
points out, a Turk would naturally will to believe one thing and a
Christian would will to believe another. Each would will to believe
what struck him as a satisfactory thing to believe.

What shall we say to this doctrine? I think we must say that it is
clearly not a philosophical _method of attaining to truth_. Hence, it
has not properly a place in this chapter among the attempts which have
been made to attain to the truth of things.

It is, in fact, not concerned with truths, but with assumptions, and
with assumptions which are supposed to be made on the basis of no
evidence. It is concerned with "seemings."

The distinction is a very important one. Our Turk cannot, by willing
to believe it, make his hypothesis true; but he can make it _seem_
true. Why should he wish to make it seem true whether it is true or
not? Why should he strive to attain to a feeling of subjective
certainty, not by logically resolving his doubts, but by ignoring them?

The answer is given us by our author. He who lives in the midst of
doubts, and refuses to cut his knot with the sword of belief, misses
the good of life. This is a practical problem, and one of no small
moment. In the last section of this book I have tried to indicate what
it is wise for a man to do when he is confronted by doubts which he
cannot resolve.

Into the general question whether even a false belief may not, under
some circumstances, be more serviceable than no belief at all, I shall
not enter. The point I wish to emphasize is that there is all the
difference in the world between _producing a belief_ and _proving a
truth_.

We are compelled to accept it as a fact that men, under the influence
of feeling, can believe in the absence of evidence, or, for that
matter, can believe in spite of evidence. But a truth cannot be
established in the absence of evidence or in the face of adverse
evidence. And there is a very wide field in which it is made very
clear to us that beliefs adopted in the absence of evidence are in
danger of being false beliefs.

The pragmatist would join with the rest of us in condemning the Turk or
the Christian who would simply will to believe in the rise or the fall
of stocks, and would refuse to consult the state of the market. Some
hypotheses are, in the ordinary course of events, put to the test of
verification. We are then made painfully aware that beliefs and truths
are quite distinct things, and may not be in harmony.

Now, the pragmatist does not apply his principle to this field. He
confines it to what may not inaptly be called the field of the
unverifiable. The Turk, who wills to believe in the hypothesis that
appeals to him as a pious Turk, is in no such danger of a rude
awakening as is the man who wills to believe that stocks will go up or
down. But mark what this means: it means that _he is not in danger of
finding out what the truth really is_. It does not mean that he is in
possession of the truth.

So I say, the doctrine which we are discussing is not a method of
attaining to truth. What it really attempts to do is to point out to
us how it is prudent for us to act when we cannot discover what the
truth is.[6]

[1] "An Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book II, Chapter I,
section 2.

[2] Book I, Chapter I, section 4.

[3] Book I, Chapter I, section 1.

[4] "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology," article "Pragmatism."

[5] Published in 1897 and 1898.

[6] For references to later developments of pragmatism, see the note on
page 312.

V. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES

CHAPTER XVI

LOGIC

65. INTRODUCTORY: THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.--I have said in the first
chapter of this book (section 6) that there is quite a group of
sciences that are regarded as belonging peculiarly to the province of
the teacher of philosophy to-day. Having, in the chapters preceding,
given some account of the nature of reflective thought, of the problems
touching the world and the mind which present themselves to those who
reflect, and of some types of philosophical theory which have their
origin in such reflection, I turn to a brief consideration of the
philosophical sciences.

Among these I included logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics,
metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I did not include
epistemology or "the theory of knowledge" as a separate discipline, and
my reasons for this will appear in Chapter XIX. I remarked that, to
complete the list, we should have to add the philosophy of religion and
an investigation into the principles and methods of the sciences
generally.

Why, it was asked, should this group of disciplines be regarded as the
field of the philosopher, when others are excluded? The answer to this
question which finds the explanation of the fact to lie in a mere
historical accident was declared unsatisfactory, and it was maintained
that the philosophical sciences are those in which we find ourselves
carried back to the problems of reflective thought.

With a view to showing the truth of this opinion, I shall take up one
by one the philosophical sciences. Of the history of philosophy I
shall not speak in this part of the work, but shall treat of it in
Chapter XXIII.

66. THE TRADITIONAL LOGIC.--Most of us begin our acquaintance with
logic in the study of some such elementary manual as Jevons' "Lessons
in Logic."

In such books we are shown how terms represent things and classes of
things or their attributes, and how we unite them into propositions or
statements. It is indicated at length what statements may be made on a
basis of certain other statements and what may not; and emphasis is
laid upon the dangers which arise out of a misunderstanding of the
language in which we are forced to express our thoughts. Finally,
there are described for us the experimental methods by which the
workers in the sciences have attained to the general information about
the world which has become our heritage.

Such books are useful. It is surely no small profit for a student to
gain the habit of scrutinizing the steps by which he has come into the
possession of a certain bit of information, and to have a quick eye for
loose and inconsistent reasonings.

But it is worthy of remark that one may study such a book as this and
yet remain pretty consistently on what may be called the plane of the
common understanding. One seems to make the assumptions made in all
the special sciences, _e.g._ the assumption that there is a world of
real things and that we can know them and reason about them. We are
not introduced to such problems as: What _is_ truth? and Is _any_
knowledge valid? Nor does it seem at once apparent that the man who is
studying logic in this way is busying himself with a philosophical
discipline.

67. THE "MODERN LOGIC."--It is very puzzling for the student to turn
from such a text-book as the one above mentioned to certain others
which profess to be occupied with the same science, and which, yet,
appear to treat of quite different things.

Thus, in Dr. Bosanquet's little work on "The Essentials of Logic," the
reader is at once plunged into such questions as the nature of
knowledge, and what is meant by the real world. We seem to be dealing
with metaphysics, and not with logic, as we have learned to understand
the term. How is it that the logician comes to regard these things as
within his province?

A multitude of writers at the present day are treating logic in this
way, and in some great prominence is given to problems which the
philosopher recognizes as indisputably his own. The term "modern
logic" is often employed to denote a logic of this type; one which does
not, after the fashion of the natural sciences generally, proceed on
the basis of certain assumptions, and leave deeper questions to some
other discipline, but tries to get to the bottom of things for itself.
The tendency to run into metaphysics is peculiarly marked in those
writers who have been influenced by the work of the philosopher Hegel.

I shall not here ask why those who belong to one school are more
inclined to be metaphysical than are those who belong to another, but
shall approach the broader question why the logicians generally are
inclined to be more metaphysical than those who work in certain other
special sciences, such as mathematics, for example. Of the general
tendency there can be no question. The only problem is: Why does this
tendency exist?

68. LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.--Let us contrast the science of arithmetic
with logic; and let us notice, regarding it, the following points:--

It is, like logic, a _general_ science, in that the things treated of
in many sciences may be numbered. It considers only a certain aspect
of the things.

Now, that things may be counted, added together, subtracted, etc., is
guaranteed by the experience of the plain man; and the methods of
determining the numerical relations of things are gradually developed
before his eyes, beginning with operations of great simplicity.
Moreover, verification is possible, and within certain limits
verification by direct inspection.

To this we may add, that there has gradually been built up a fine
system of unambiguous symbols, and it is possible for a man to know
just what he is dealing with.

Thus, a certain beaten path has been attained, and a man may travel
this very well without having forced on his attention the problems of
reflective thought. The knowledge of numbers with which he starts is
sufficient equipment with which to undertake the journey. That one is
on the right road is proved by the results one obtains. As a rule,
disputes can be settled by well-tried mathematical methods.

There is, then, a common agreement as to initial assumptions and
methods of work, and useful results are attained which seem to justify
both. Here we have the normal characteristics of a special science.

We must not forget, however, that, even in the mathematical sciences,
before a beaten path was attained, disputes as to the significance of
numbers and the cogency of proofs were sufficiently common. And we
must bear in mind that even to-day, where the beaten path does not seem
wholly satisfactory, men seem to be driven to reflect upon the
significance of their assumptions and the nature of their method.

Thus, we find it not unnatural that a man should be led to ask; What is
a minus quantity really? Can anything be less than nothing? or that he
should raise the questions: Can one rightly speak of an infinite
number? Can one infinite number be greater than another, and, if so,
what can greater mean? What are infinitesimals? and what can be meant
by different orders of infinitesimals?

He who has interested himself in such questions as these has betaken
himself to philosophical reflection. They are not answered by
employing mathematical methods.

Let us now turn to logic. And let us notice, to begin with, that it is
broader in its application than the mathematical sciences. It is
concerned to discover what constitutes _evidence_ in every field of
investigation.

There is, it is true, a part of logic that may be developed somewhat
after the fashion of mathematics. Thus, we may examine the two
statements: All men are mortal, and Caesar is a man; and we may see
clearly that, given the truth of these, we must admit that Caesar is
mortal. We may make a list of possible inferences of this kind, and
point out under what circumstances the truth of two statements implies
the truth of a third, and under what circumstances the inference cannot
be made. Our results can be set forth in a system of symbols. As in
mathematics, we may abstract from the particular things reasoned about,
and concern ourselves only with the forms of reasoning. This gives us
the theory of the _syllogism_; it is a part of logic in which the
mathematician is apt to feel very much at home.

But this is by no means all of logic. Let us consider the following
points:--

(1) We are not concerned to know only what statements may be made on
the basis of certain other statements. We want to know what is true
and what is false. We must ask: Has a man the right to set up these
particular statements and to reason from them? That some men accept as
true premises which are repudiated by others is an undoubted fact.
Thus, it is maintained by certain philosophers that we may assume that
any view of the universe which is repellant to our nature cannot be
true. Shall we allow this to pass unchallenged? And in ethics, some
have held that it is under all circumstances wrong to lie; others have
denied this, and have held that in certain cases--for example, to save
life or to prevent great and unmerited suffering--lying is permissible.
Shall we interest ourselves only in the deductions that each man makes
from his assumed premises, and pay no attention to the truth of the
premises themselves?

(2) Again. The vast mass of the reasonings that interest men are
expressed in the language that we all use and not in special symbols.
But language is a very imperfect instrument, and all sorts of
misunderstandings are possible to those who express their thoughts in
it.

Few men know exactly how much is implied in what they are saying. If I
say: All men are mortal, and an angel is not a man; therefore, an angel
is not mortal; it is not at once apparent to every one in what respect
my argument is defective. He who argues: Feathers are light; light is
contrary to darkness; hence, feathers are contrary to darkness; is
convicted of error without difficulty. But arguments of the same kind,
and quite as bad, are to be found in learned works on matters less
familiar to us, and we often fail to detect the fallacy.

Thus, Herbert Spencer argues, in effect, in the fourth and fifth
chapters of his "First Principles," as follows:--

We are conscious of the Unknowable,
The Unknowable lies behind the veil of phenomena,
Hence, we are conscious of what lies behind the veil of phenomena.

It is only the critical reader who notices that the Unknowable in the
first line is the "raw material of consciousness," and the Unknowable
in the second is something not in consciousness at all. The two senses
of the word "light" are not more different from one another. Such
apparent arguments abound, and it often requires much acuteness to be
able to detect their fallacious character.

When we take into consideration the two points indicated above, we see
that the logician is at every turn forced to reflect upon our knowledge
as men do not ordinarily reflect. He is led to ask: What is truth? He
cannot accept uncritically the assumptions which men make; and he must
endeavor to become very clearly conscious of the real meaning and the
whole meaning of statements expressed in words. Even in the simple
logic with which we usually begin our studies, we learn to scrutinize
statements in a reflective way; and when we go deeper, we are at once
in contact with philosophical problems. It is evidently our task to
attain to a clearer insight into the nature of our experience and the
meaning of proof than is attainable by the unreflective.

Logic, then, is a reflective science, and it is not surprising that it
has held its place as one of the philosophical sciences.

CHAPTER XVII

PSYCHOLOGY

69. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.--I think I have said enough in Chapter
II (section 10) about what we mean when we speak of psychology as a
natural science and as an independent discipline. Certainly there are
many psychologists who would not care to be confused with the
philosophers, and there are some that regard philosophy with suspicion.

Nevertheless, psychology is commonly regarded as belonging to the
philosophical group. That this is the case can scarcely be thought
surprising when we see how the psychologist himself speaks of the
relation of his science to philosophy.

"I have kept," writes Professor James[1] in that delightful book which
has become the common property of us all, "close to the point of view
of natural science throughout the book. Every natural science assumes
certain data uncritically, and declines to challenge the elements
between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from which its own deductions
are carried on. Psychology, the science of finite individual minds,
assumes as its data (1) _thoughts and feelings_, and (2) _a physical
world_ in time and space with which they coexist, and which (3) _they
know_. Of course, these data themselves are discussable; but the
discussion of them (as of other elements) is called metaphysics and
falls outside the province of this book."

This is an admirable statement of the scope of psychology as a natural
science, and also of the relations of metaphysics to the sciences. But
it would not be fair to Professor James to take this sentence alone,
and to assume that, in his opinion, it is easy to separate psychology
altogether from philosophy. "The reader," he tells us in the next
paragraph, "will in vain seek for any closed system in the book. It is
mainly a mass of descriptive details, running out into queries which
only a metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope
successfully to deal with." And in the opening sentence of the preface
he informs us that some of his chapters are more "metaphysical" than is
suitable for students going over the subject for the first time.

That the author is right in maintaining that it is not easy to draw a
clear line between philosophy and psychology, and to declare the latter
wholly independent, I think we must concede. An independent science
should be sure of the things with which it is dealing. Where these are
vague and indefinite, and are the subject of constant dispute, it
cannot march forward with assurance. One is rather forced to go back
and examine the data themselves. The beaten track of the special
science has not been satisfactorily constructed.

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