An Introduction to Philosophy Part 28

Perhaps we may take a suggestion from that prudent man and acute philosopher, Descartes. Discontented with the teachings of the schools as they had been presented to him, he resolved to set out upon an independent voyage of discovery, and to look for a philosophy of his own. It seemed necessary to him to doubt, provisionally at least, all that he had received from the past. But in what house should he live while he was reconstructing his old habitation? Without principles of some sort he could not live, and without reasonable principles he could not live well. So he framed a set of provisional rules, which should guide his life until he had new ground beneath his feet.

When we examine these rules, we find that, on the whole, they are such as the experience of mankind has found prudent and serviceable. In other words, we discover that Descartes, until he was in a position to see clearly for himself, was willing to be led by others. He was a unit in the social order, and he recognized that truth.

It does not seem out of place to recall this fact to the consciousness of those who are entering upon the reflective life. Those who are rather new to reflection upon philosophical matters are apt to seize single truths, which are too often half-truths, and to deduce their consequences remorselessly. They do not always realize the extreme complexity of society, or see the full meaning of the relations in which they stand to the state and to the church. Breadth of view can only come with an increase of knowledge and with the exercise of reflection.

For this reason I advise patience, and a willingness to accept the established order of things until one is very sure that one has attained to some truth--some real truth, not a mere truth of election--which may serve as the basis of a reconstruction. The first glimpses of truth cannot be depended upon to furnish such a foundation.

Thus, we may suspend judgment, and, nevertheless, be ready to act. But is not this a mere compromise? Certainly. All life is a compromise; and in the present instance it means only that we should keep our eyes open to the light, whatever its source, and yet should nourish that wholesome self-distrust that prevents a man from being an erratic and revolutionary creature, unmindful of his own limitations. Prudent men in all walks in life make this compromise, and the world is the better for it.

NOTES

CHAPTER I, sections 1-5. If the student will take a good history of philosophy, and look over the accounts of the different systems referred to, he will see the justice of the position taken in the text, namely, that philosophy was formerly synonymous with universal knowledge. It is not necessary, of course, to read the whole history of philosophy to attain this end. One may take such a text-book as Ueberweg's "History of Philosophy," and run over the summaries contained in the large print. To see how the conception of what const.i.tutes universal knowledge changed in successive ages, compare Thales, the Sophists, Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Bacon, and Descartes.

For the ancient philosophy one may consult Windelband's "History of the Ancient Philosophy," a clear and entertaining little work (English translation, N.Y., 1899).

In Professor Paulsen's "Introduction to Philosophy" (English translation, N.Y., 1895), there is an interesting introductory chapter on "The Nature and Import of Philosophy" (pp. 1-41). The author pleads for the old notion of philosophy as universal knowledge, though he does not, of course, mean that the philosopher must be familiar with all the details of all the sciences.

Section 6. In justification of the meaning given to the word "philosophy" in this section, I ask the reader to look over the list of courses in philosophy advertised in the catalogues of our leading universities at home and abroad. There is a certain consensus of opinion as to what properly comes under the t.i.tle, even among those who differ widely as to what is the proper definition of philosophy.

CHAPTER II, sections 7-10. Read the chapter on "The Mind and the World in Common Thought and in Science" (Chapter I) in my "System of Metaphysics," N.Y., 1904.

One can be brought to a vivid realization of the fact that the sciences proceed upon a basis of a.s.sumptions which they do not attempt to a.n.a.lyze and justify, if one will take some elementary work on arithmetic or geometry or psychology and examine the first few chapters, bearing in mind what philosophical problems may be drawn from the materials there treated. Section 11. The task of reflective thought and its difficulties are treated in the chapter ent.i.tled "How Things are Given in Consciousness" (Chapter III), in my "System of Metaphysics."

CHAPTER III, sections 12-13. Read "The Inadequacy of the Psychological Standpoint," "System of Metaphysics," Chapter II. I call especial attention to the ill.u.s.tration of "the man in the cell" (pp. 18 ff.).

It would be a good thing to read these pages with the cla.s.s, and to impress upon the students the fact that those who have doubted or denied the existence of the external material world have, if they have fallen into error, fallen into a very natural error, and are not without some excuse.

Section 14. See "The Metaphysics of the Telephone Exchange," "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XXII, where Professor Pearson's doctrine is examined at length, with quotations and references.

It is interesting to notice that a doubt of the external world has always rested upon some sort of a "telephone exchange" argument; naturally, it could not pa.s.s by that name before the invention of the telephone, but the reasoning is the same. It puts the world at one remove, shutting the mind up to the circle of its ideas; and then it doubts or denies the world, or, at least, holds that its existence must be proved in some roundabout way. Compare Descartes, "Of the Existence of Material Things," "Meditations," VI.

CHAPTER IV, sections 15-18. See Chapters VI and VII, "What we mean by the External World," and "Sensations and 'Things,'" in my "System of Metaphysics." In that work the discussion of the distinction between the objective order of experience and the subjective order is completed in Chapter XXIII, "The Distinction between the World and the Mind."

This was done that the subjective order might be treated in the part of the book which discusses the mind and its relation to matter.

As it is possible that the reader may be puzzled by differences of expression which obtain in the two books, a word of explanation is not out of place.

In the "Metaphysics," for example, it is said that sensations so connect themselves together as to form what we call the system of material things (p. 105). It is intimated in a footnote that this is a provisional statement and the reader is referred to later chapters.

Now, in the present book (sections 16-17), it is taught that we may not call material things groups of sensations.

The apparent contradiction is due to the fact that, in this volume, the full meaning of the word "sensation" is exhibited at the outset, and sensations, as phenomena of the subjective order, are distinguished from the phenomena of the objective order which const.i.tute the external world. In the earlier work the word "sensation" was for a while used loosely to cover all our experiences that do not belong to the cla.s.s called imaginary, and the distinction between the subjective and objective in this realm was drawn later (Chapter XXIII).

I think the present arrangement is the better one, as it avoids from the outset the suggestion that the real world is something subjective--our sensations or ideas--and thus escapes the idealistic flavor which almost inevitably attaches to the other treatment, until the discussion is completed, at least.

CHAPTER V, sections 10-21. See Chapters VIII and IX, "System of Metaphysics," "The Distinction between Appearance and Reality" and "The Significance of the Distinction."

Section 22. See Chapter XXVI, "The World as Unperceived, and the 'Unknowable,'" where Spencer's doctrine is examined at length, and references are given. I think it is very important that the student should realize that the "Unknowable" is a perfectly useless a.s.sumption in philosophy, and can serve no purpose whatever.

CHAPTER VI, sections 23-25. See Chapters X and XI, "System of Metaphysics," "The Kantian Doctrine of s.p.a.ce" and "Difficulties connected with the Kantian Doctrine of s.p.a.ce."

It would be an excellent thing for the student, after he has read the above chapters, to take up Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," and read and a.n.a.lyze the argument of Antinomies I and II, with the Observations appended. One can understand these arguments without being familiar with the "Critique" as a whole; at any rate, the account of Kant's philosophy contained in section 51 of this book will serve to explain his use of certain terms, such as "the laws of our sensibility."

Kant's reasonings are very curious and interesting in this part of his book. It seems to be proved that the world must be endless in s.p.a.ce and without a beginning or end in time, and just as plausibly proved that it cannot be either. It seems to be proved that finite s.p.a.ces and times are infinitely divisible, and at the same time that they cannot be infinitely divisible. The situation is an amusing one, and rendered not the less amusing by the seriousness with which the mutually destructive arguments are taken.

When the student meets such a tangle in the writings of any philosopher, I ask him to believe that it is not the human reason that is at fault--at least, let him not a.s.sume that it is. The fault probably lies with a human reason.

Section 26. See Chapter XII, "The Berkeleian Doctrine of s.p.a.ce," in my "System of Metaphysics." The argument ought not to be difficult to one who has mastered Chapter V of this volume.

CHAPTER VII, sections 27-29. Compare Chapter XIII, "System of Metaphysics," "Of Time."

With the chapters on s.p.a.ce and Time it would be well for the student to read Chapter XIV, "The Real World in s.p.a.ce and Time," where it is made clear why we have no hesitation in declaring s.p.a.ce and time to be infinite, although we recognize that it seems to be an a.s.sumption of knowledge to declare the material world infinite.

CHAPTER VIII, sections 30-32. Read, in the "System of Metaphysics,"

Chapters V and XVII, "The Self or Knower" and "The Atomic Self."

Section 33. The suggestions, touching the att.i.tude of the psychologist toward the mind, contained in the preface to Professor William James's "Psychology" are very interesting and instructive.

CHAPTER IX, sections 35-36. For a strong argument in favor of interactionism see James's "Psychology," Chapter V. I wish the student would, in reading it, bear in mind what is said in my chapter on "The Atomic Self," above referred to. The subject should be approached with an open mind, and one should suspend judgment until both sides have been heard from.

Section 37. Descartes held that the lower animals are automata and that their actions are not indicative of consciousness; he regarded their bodies as machines lacking the soul in the "little pineal gland."

Professor Huxley revived the doctrine of animal automatism and extended it so as to include man. He regarded consciousness as a "collateral product" of the working of the body, related to it somewhat as is the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine to the working of the machine. He made it an effect, but not a cause, of motions. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XVIII, "The Automaton Theory: its Genesis."

We owe the doctrine of parallelism, in its original form, to Spinoza.

It was elaborated by W. K. Clifford, and to him the modern interest in the subject is largely due. The whole subject is discussed at length in my "System of Metaphysics," Chapters XIX-XXI. The t.i.tles are: "The Automaton Theory: Parallelism," "What is Parallelism?" and "The Man and the Candlestick." Clifford's doctrine is presented in a new form in Professor Strong's recent brilliant work, "Why the Mind has a Body"

N.Y., 1903.

Section 38. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XXIV, "The Time and Place of Sensations and Ideas."

CHAPTER X, sections 40-42. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapters XXVII and XXVIII, "The Existence of Other Minds," and "The Distribution of Minds."

Writers seem to be divided into three camps on this question of other minds.

(1) I have treated our knowledge of other minds as due to an inference.

This is the position usually taken.

(2) We have seen that Huxley and Clifford cast doubts upon the validity of the inference, but, nevertheless, made it. Professor Strong, in the work mentioned in the notes to the previous chapter, maintains that it is not an inference, and that we do not directly perceive other minds, but that we are a.s.sured of their existence just the same. He makes our knowledge an "intuition" in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a something to be accepted but not to be accounted for.

(3) Writers who have been influenced more or less by the Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian doctrine are apt to speak as though we had the same direct evidence of the existence of other minds that we have of the existence of our own. I have never seen a systematic and detailed exposition of this doctrine. It appears rather in the form of hints dropped in pa.s.sing. A number of such are to be found in Taylor's "Elements of Metaphysics."