John Dewey's logical theory Part 4

There must be, Dewey again a.s.serts, some vital connection of theory with practice. "Ethical theory must be a general statement of the reality involved in every moral situation. It must be action stated in its more generic terms, terms so generic that every individual action will fall within the outlines it sets forth. If the theory agrees with these requirements, then we have for use in any special case a tool for a.n.a.lyzing that case; a method for attacking and reducing it, for laying it open so that the action called for in order to meet, to satisfy it, may readily appear."[91] Dewey argues that moral theory cannot possibly give directions for every concrete case, but that it by no means follows that theory can stand aside from the specific case and say: "What have I to do with thee? Thou art empirical, and I am the metaphysics of conduct."

Dewey's preliminary remarks are introductory to a consideration of Green's ethical theory. "His theory would, I think," Dewey says, "be commonly regarded as the best of the modern attempts to form a metaphysic of ethic. I wish, using this as type, to point out the inadequacy of such metaphysical theories, on the ground that they fail to meet the demand just made of truly ethical theory, that it lend itself to translation into concrete terms, and thereby to the guidance, the direction of actual conduct."[92] Dewey recognizes that Green is better than his theory, but says that the theory, taken in logical strictness, cannot meet individual needs.

Dewey makes a special demand of Green's theory. He demands, that is, that it supply a body of rules, or guides to action which can be employed by the moral agent as tools of a.n.a.lysis in cases requiring moral judgment. It is evident in advance that Green's theory was built upon a different plan, and can not meet the conditions which Dewey prescribes. The general nature of Green's inquiry is well stated in the following summary by Professor Thilly: "The truth in Green's thought is this: the purpose of all social devotion and reform is, after all, the perfection of man on the spiritual side, the development of men of character and ideals.... The final purpose of all moral endeavor must be the realization of an att.i.tude of the human soul, of some form of n.o.ble consciousness in human personalities.... It is well enough to feed and house human bodies, but the paramount question will always be: What kinds of souls are to dwell in these bodies?"[93] To put the matter in more technical terms, Green is concerned with ends and values. His question is not, What is the best means of accomplishing a given purpose, but, What end is worth attaining? Such an inquiry has no immediate relation to action. It may lead to conclusions which become determining factors in action, but the process of inquiry has no direct reference to conduct. Dewey, having reduced thought to a function of activity, must proceed, by logical necessity, to carry the same reduction into the field of theory in general. This he does in thorough style. His demand that moral theory shall concern itself with concrete and 'specific' situations is a result of the same tendency. Since action can only be described as response to a 'situation,' thought, as a function of activity, must likewise be directed upon a 'situation.'

Conduct in general and values in general become impossible under his system, because there is no such thing as an activity-in-general of the organism. Ends, in other words, exist only for thought, when thought is interpreted as transcending action, and being, in some sense, self-contained. When thought is interpreted as a kind of 'indirect activity,' its capacity for metaphysical inquiry vanishes along with its independence.

It would have been more in keeping with sound criticism had Dewey himself taken note of the important divergence in aim and intent between his work and Green's. As a consequence of his failure to do so, he fails, necessarily, to do justice to Green's standpoint. The criticism which he directs against Green's moral theory may be briefly summed up as follows.

Green tends to repeat the Kantian separation of the self as reason from the self as want or desire. "The dualism between reason and sense is given up, indeed, but only to be replaced by a dualism between the end which would satisfy the self as a unity or whole, and that which satisfies it in the particular circ.u.mstances of actual conduct."[94] As a consequence of the separation of the ideal from the actual, no action can satisfy the whole self, and thus no action can be truly moral. "No thorough-going theory of total depravity ever made righteousness more impossible to the natural man than Green makes it to a human being by the very const.i.tution of his being...."[95] Dewey traces this separation of the self as reason from the self as desire through those pa.s.sages in which Green describes the moral agent as one who distinguishes himself from his desires (Book II, _Prolegomena to Ethics_). "The process of moral experience involves, therefore, a process in which the self, in becoming conscious of its want, objectifies that want by setting it over against itself; distinguishing the want from self and self from want....

Now this theory so far might be developed in either of two directions."[96]

In the first place, the self-distinguishing process may be an activity by means of which the self specifies its own activity and satisfaction.

"The particular desires and ends would be the modes in which the self relieved itself of its abstractness, its undeveloped character, and a.s.sumed concrete existence.... The unity of the self would stand in no opposition to the particularity of the special desire; on the contrary, the unity of the self and the manifold of definite desires would be the synthetic and a.n.a.lytic aspects of one and the same reality, neither having any advantage metaphysical or ethical over the other!"[97] But Green, unfortunately, does not develop his theory in this concrete direction. The self does not specify itself in the particulars, but remains apart from them. "The objectification is not of the self in the special end; but the self remains behind setting the special object over against itself as not adequate to itself.... The unity of the self sets up an ideal of satisfaction for itself as it withdraws from the special want, and this ideal set up through negation of the particular desire and its satisfaction const.i.tutes the moral ideal. It is forever unrealizable, because it forever negates the special activities through which alone it might, after all, realize itself."[98] In completing this argument Dewey refers to certain well-known pa.s.sages in the _Prolegomena to Ethics_, in which Green states that the moral ideal is never completely attainable. Green's abstract conception of the self as that which forever sets itself over against its desires is, Dewey argues, not only useless as an ideal for action, but positively opposed to moral striving. "It supervenes, not as a power active in its own satisfaction, but to make us realize the unsatisfactoriness of such seeming satisfactions as we may happen to get, and to keep us striving for something which we can never get!"[99] The most that can be made of Green's moral ideal is to conceive it as the bare form of unity in conduct. Employed as a tool of a.n.a.lysis, as a moral rule, it might tell us, "Whatever the situation, seek for its unity." But it can scarcely go even as far as this in the direction of concreteness, for it says: "_No_ unity can be found in the situation because the situation is particular, and therefore set over against the unity."[100]

Most students of Green would undoubtedly say that this account of his moral theory is entirely one-sided, and fails to reckon with certain elements which should properly be taken into account. In the first place, Green is defining the moral agent as he finds him, and is reporting what seems to him a fact when he says that the moral ideal is too high to be realized in this life. Having a spiritual nature, man fails to find satisfaction in the goods of natural life. Dewey should address himself to the facts in refuting Green's a.n.a.lysis of human nature. In the second place, with respect to Green's separation of the self as unity from the self as a manifold of desires, Dewey's criticism may be flatly rejected. Green raises the question himself: "'Do you mean,' it may be asked, 'to a.s.sert the existence of a mysterious abstract ent.i.ty which you call the self of a man, apart from all his particular feelings, desires, and thoughts--all the experience of his inner life?'"[101] Green takes time to state his position as clearly as possible. He repudiates the idea of an abstract self apart from desire.

The following pa.s.sage is typical of his remarks: "Just as we hold that our desires, feelings, and thoughts would not be what they are--would not be those of a man--if not related to a subject which distinguishes itself from each and all of them; so we hold that this subject would not be what it is, if it were not related to the particular feelings, desires, and thoughts, which it thus distinguishes from and presents to itself."[102] It will be remembered also, that in moral action the agent identifies himself with his desires, or adopts them as his own, and the ability to do this is the chief mark of human intelligence. But man could not identify himself with his desires, or 'specify himself in them,' as Dewey says, did he not at the same time have the capacity to differentiate himself from them.

Dewey's further remarks on Green's ideal need not be followed in detail, since they rest upon a misapprehension of Green's purpose, and add little to what he has already said. Taking the moral ideal as something that can never be realized in this life, Dewey inquires what use can be made of it. He considers three modes in which Green might have given content to the ideal, as a working principle, and finds that it cannot be made, in any of these ways, to serve as a tool of a.n.a.lysis. Green was not prepared to meet these 'pragmatic' requirements. He did not propose his ideal as a principle of conduct, in Dewey's sense; he stated that, as a matter of fact, man is more than natural, and that, as such a being, his ideals can never be completely met by natural objects. How man is to act, in view of his spiritual nature, is a further question: but the realization which the individual has of his own spiritual nature must of necessity be a large factor in the determination of his conduct.

The 'Spiritual Nature,' in Green's terminology, meant a 'not-natural'

nature, and 'not-natural' in turn meant a nature that is not definable in mechanical or biological terms. Dewey's criticism, therefore, went wide of the mark.

In November, 1893, Dewey followed his criticism of Green's moral motive by a second article in the _Philosophical Review_ on "Self-realization as the Moral Ideal."[103] It continues the criticism which has already been made of Green, but from a different point of departure.

The idea of self-realization in ethics, Dewey begins, may be helpful or harmful according to the way in which the ideas of the self and its realization are worked out in the concrete. The mere idea of a self to be realized is, of course, abstract; it is merely the statement of a problem, which needs to be worked out and given content. By way of introducing his own idea of self-realization, Dewey proposes to criticize a certain conception of the self which he finds in current discussion. "The notion which I wish to criticize," he says, "is that of the self as a presupposed fixed _schema_ or outline, while realization consists in the filling up of this _schema_. The notion which I would suggest as subst.i.tute is that of the self as always a concrete _specific_ activity; and, therefore, (to antic.i.p.ate) of the ident.i.ty of self and realization."[104] Such a presupposed fixed self is to be found in Green's "Eternally complete Consciousness."

The idea of self-realization implies capacities or possibilities. To translate capacity into actuality, as the conception of the fixed self seems to do, is to vitiate the whole idea of possibility. There must, then, be some conception of unrealized powers which will meet this difficulty. The way to a valid conception is through the realization that capacities are always specific. "The capacities of a child, for example, are not simply of _a_ child, not of a man, but of _this_ child, not of any other."[105] Whatever else capacity may be, whether infinite or not, it must be an element in an actual situation. As specific things, moreover, capacities reside in activities, which are now going on. The capacity of a child to become a musician consists in this fact: "Even _now_ he has a certain quickness, vividness, and plasticity of vision, a certain deftness of hand, and a certain motor coordination by which his hand is stimulated to work in harmony with his eye."[106]

How do these specific, actual activities come to be called capacities?

There is a peculiar psychological reason for this which James has pointed out, in his statement that essence "is that _which is so important for my interests_ that, comparatively, other properties may be omitted."[107] When we pay attention to any activity, there is a natural tendency to select only that portion of it that is of immediate interest, and to exclude the rest as irrelevant. "In the act of vision, for example," Dewey tells us, "the thing that seems nearest us, that which claims continuously our attention, is the eye itself. We thus come to abstract the eye from all special acts of seeing; we make the eye the _essential_ thing in sight, and conceive of the circ.u.mstances of vision as indeed _circ.u.mstances_; as more or less accidental concomitants of the permanent eye."[108] There is no eye in general; the eye is always given along with other circ.u.mstances which in their totality make up a concrete seeing situation. Nevertheless, we abstract the eye from other circ.u.mstances and set it up as the essence of seeing. But we cannot retain the eye in absolute abstraction, because the concrete circ.u.mstances of vision force themselves upon the attention. So we lump these together on the other side as a new object, and take as their essence the vibrations of ether. "_The eye now becomes the capacity of seeing; the vibrations of ether, conditions required for the exercise of the capacity._"[109] We keep the two abstractions, but try to restore the unity of the situation through taking one as capacity and the other as the condition of the exercise of capacity.

But we cannot stop even with this double abstraction. "The eye in general and the vibrations in general do not, even in their unity, const.i.tute the act of vision. A mult.i.tude of other factors are included."[110] Preserving the original 'core' as capacity, we tend to treat all the attendant circ.u.mstances which occur frequently enough to require taking account of, as conditions which help realize the abstracted reality called capacity.

The discussion here is very much like that in "The Superst.i.tion of Necessity" (published in the same year), which was reviewed in the last chapter. Dewey calls attention to this connection in a foot-note, remarking that he has already developed at greater length "the idea that necessity and possibility are simply the two correlative abstractions into which the one reality falls apart during the process of our conscious apprehension of it."[111] The danger, Dewey says, is that the merely relative character of a given capacity may be overlooked, and that it may be ontologized into a fixed ent.i.ty. This is the error, he thinks, into which Green fell. The ideal self, as that which capacity may realize, is ontologized into an already existent fact. Then we get a separation between the present self, as capacity, and the ideal self which is to be realized. The self already realized is opposed to the self as yet ideal. "This 'realized self' is no reality by itself; it is simply our partial conception of the self erected into an ent.i.ty.

Recognizing its incomplete character, we bring in what we have left out and call it the 'ideal self.' Then by way of dealing with the fact that we have not two selves here at all, but simply a less and a more adequate insight into the same self, we insert the idea of one of these selves realizing the other."[112] It is in this manner that error arises.

But what is the correct att.i.tude toward the self? First of all, the self must be conceived as "a working, practical self, carrying within the rhythm of its own process both 'realized' and 'ideal' self. The current ethics of the self ... are too apt to stop with a metaphysical definition, which seems to solve problems in general, but at the expense of the practical problems which alone really demand or admit solution."[113] The first point of the argument is that the self activity is individual, concrete, and specific, here and now, and the second point is that if the self is to be talked of in an intelligent way it must be taken as something empirically given. "The whole point is expressed when we say that no possible future activities or conditions have anything to do with the present action except as they enable us to take deeper account of the present activity, to get beyond the mere superficies of the act, to see it in its totality."[114] The phrase, 'realize yourself,' is a direction for knowledge; it means, see the wider consequences of your act, realize its wider bearings.

Dewey says: "The fixed ideal is as distinctly the bane of ethical science today as the fixed universe of mediaevalism was the bane of the natural science of the Renascence."[115] This is a strong statement, which indicates how wide was the gulf which now separated Dewey from Green, whom he formerly acknowledged as his master.

Dewey's interpretation of Green's ideal self is far from satisfactory, largely because of its lack of insight and appreciation. The reduction of thought to a 'form of activity' renders a purely theoretical inquiry impossible. The 'present activity,' the biological situation, becomes the measure of all things, even of thought. Ideals, in his own words, have nothing to do with present action, "except as they enable us to take deeper account of the present activity." Dewey's self and Green's are incommensurable. The former is the biological organism, with a capacity for indirect activity called thinking; the latter is a not-natural being, whose reality escapes the logic of descriptive science, because of the fulness of its content. Dewey's failure to understand this difference is significant. His acquaintance with Green seems to have been formal from the beginning, never intimate, and the articles just reviewed mark the end of Dewey's idealistic discipleship.

His psychological idealism, in fact, was fundamentally ant.i.thetical to the Neo-Hegelianism which he had sought to espouse, and the development of his own standpoint brought out the vital differences which had been hidden from his earlier understanding. The idealism which seeks to view reality together and as a whole is forever incompatible with a method which seeks to interpret the whole in terms of one of its parts.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Vol. I, pp. 186-203.

[76] _Ibid._, p. 186.

[77] _Ibid._

[78] _Op. cit._, p. 187.

[79] _Ibid._, p. 188.

[80] _Ibid._

[81] _Ibid._, p. 191 f.

[82] _Op. cit._, p. 189.

[83] _Ibid._, p. 194. Author's Italics.

[84] _Ibid._

[85] _Op. cit._, p. 195.

[86] _Ibid._, p. 198.

[87] _Op. cit._

[88] _Ibid._, p. 202.

[89] _Ibid._, p. 203.

[90] _Philosophical Review_, Vol. I, 1892, pp. 593-612.

[91] _Op. cit._, p. 596.

[92] _Ibid._, p. 597.

[93] _History of Philosophy_, p. 555.

[94] _Philosophical Review_, Vol. I, 1892, p. 598.

[95] _Ibid._

[96] _Ibid._, p. 599.

[97] _Ibid._ Compare with the pa.s.sage in "Psychology as Philosophic Method," _Mind_, Vol. XI, p. 9.

[98] _Op. cit._, p. 600.

[99] _Ibid._, p. 601.

[100] _Ibid._, p. 602.

[101] _Prolegomena to Ethics_, third ed., p. 103.

[102] _Ibid._, p. 104.