The Approach to Philosophy Part 10

- 82. But if a man's life be regarded as a truer representation of his ideals than is his spoken theory, there is little to identify Socrates with the hedonists. At the conclusion of the defence of his own life, which Plato puts into his mouth in the well-known "Apology," he speaks thus:

"When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,--then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing."[194:10]

It is plain that the man Socrates cared little for the pleasurable or painful consequences of his acts, provided they were worthy of the high calling of human nature. A man's virtue would now seem to possess an intrinsic n.o.bility. If knowledge be virtue, then on this basis it must be because knowledge is itself excellent. Virtue as knowledge contributes to the good by const.i.tuting it. We meet here with the _rationalistic_ strain in ethics. It praises conduct for the _inherent worth which it may possess if it express that reason_ which the Stoics called "_the ruling part_." The riches of wisdom consist for the hedonist in their purchase of pleasure. For the rationalist, on the other hand, wisdom is not coin, but itself the very substance of value.

[Sidenote: Eudaemonism and Pietism. Rigorism and Intuitionism.]

- 83. Rationalism has undergone modifications even more significant than those of hedonism, and involving at least one radically new group of conceptions. Among the Greeks rationalism and hedonism alike are _eudaemonistic_. They aim to portray _the fulness of life_ that makes "the happy man." In the ethics of Aristotle, whose synthetic mind weaves together these different strands, the Greek ideal finds its most complete expression as "the high-minded man," with all his powers and trappings. But the great spiritual transformation which accompanied the decline of Greek culture and the rise of Christianity, brought with it a new moral sensibility, which finds in man no virtue of himself, but only through the grace of G.o.d.

"And the virtues themselves," says St. Augustine, "if they bear no relation to G.o.d, are in truth vices rather than virtues; for although they are regarded by many as truly moral when they are desired as ends in themselves and not for the sake of something else, they are, nevertheless, inflated and arrogant, and therefore not to be viewed as virtues but as vices."[195:11]

The new ideal is that of renunciation, obedience, and resignation.

Ethically this expresses itself in _pietism_. Virtue is good neither in itself nor on account of its consequences, but because it is conformable to the will of G.o.d. The extreme inwardness of this ideal is characteristic of an age that despaired of attainment, whether of pleasure or knowledge. To all, even the persecuted, it is permitted to obey, and so gain entrance into the kingdom of the children of G.o.d. But as every special study tends to rely upon its own conceptions, pietism, involving as it does a relation to G.o.d, is replaced by _rigorism_ and _intuitionism_. The former doctrine defines virtue in terms of the inner att.i.tude which it expresses. It must be done in the spirit of dutifulness, _because one ought_, and through sheer respect for the law which one's moral nature affirms. _Intuitionism_ has attempted to deal with the source of the moral law by defining conscience as a _special faculty_ or sense, qualified to pa.s.s directly upon moral questions, and deserving of implicit obediences. It is characteristic of this whole tendency to look for the spring of virtuous living, not in a good which such living obtains, but in a law to which it owes obedience.

[Sidenote: Duty and Freedom. Ethics and Metaphysics.]

- 84. This third general ethical tendency has thus been of the greatest importance in emphasizing the _consciousness of duty_, and has brought both hedonism and rationalism to a recognition of its fundamental importance. Ethics must deal not only with the moral ideal, but also with the ground of its appeal to the individual, and his obligation to pursue it. In connection with this recognition of moral responsibility, the problem of human _freedom_ has come to be regarded in the light of an inevitable point of contact between ethics and metaphysics. That which is absolutely binding upon the human will can be determined only in view of some theory of its ultimate nature. On this account the rationalistic and hedonistic motives are no longer abstractly sundered, as in the days of the Stoics and Epicureans, but tend to be absorbed in broader philosophical tendencies. Hedonism appears as the sequel to naturalism; or, more rarely, as part of a theistic system whose morality is divine legislation enforced by an appeal to motives of pleasure and pain. Rationalism, on the other hand, tends to be absorbed in rationalistic or idealistic philosophies, where man's rational nature is construed as his bond of kinship with the universe.

Ethics has exhibited from the beginning a tendency to universalize its conceptions and take the central place in metaphysics. Thus with Plato good conduct was but a special case of goodness, the good being the most general principle of reality.[198:12] In modern times Fichte and his school have founded an ethical metaphysics upon the conception of duty.[198:13] In these cases ethics can be distinguished from metaphysics only by adding to the study of the good or of duty, a study of the special physical, psychological, and social conditions under which goodness and dutifulness may obtain in human life. It is possible to attach the name of ethics, and we have seen the same to be true of logic, either to a realm of ideal truth or to that realm wherein the ideal is realized in humanity.

[Sidenote: The Virtues, Customs, and Inst.i.tutions.]

- 85. A systematic study of ethics requires that the _virtues_, or types of moral practice, shall be interpreted in the light of the central conception of good, or of conscience. _Justice_, _temperance_, _wisdom_, and _courage_ were praised by the Greeks. Christianity added _self-sacrifice_, _humility_, _purity_, and _benevolence_. These and other virtues have been defined, justified, and co-ordinated with the aid of a standard of moral value or a canon of duty.

There is in modern ethics a p.r.o.nounced tendency, parallel to those already noted in logic and aesthetics, to study such phenomena belonging to its field as have become historically established. A very considerable investigation of _custom_, _inst.i.tutions_, and other social forces has led to a contact of ethics with anthropology and sociology scarcely less significant than that with metaphysics.

[Sidenote: The Problems of Religion. The Special Interests of Faith.]

- 86. In that part of his philosophy in which he deals with faith, the great German philosopher Kant mentions G.o.d, Freedom, and Immortality as the three pre-eminent religious interests. Religion, as we have seen, sets up a social relationship between man and that ma.s.sive drift of things which determines his destiny. Of the two terms of this relation, G.o.d signifies the latter, while freedom and immortality are prerogatives which religion bestows upon the former. Man, viewed from the stand-point of religion as an object of special interest to the universe, is said to have a soul; and by virtue of this soul he is said to be free and immortal, when thought of as having a life in certain senses independent of its immediate natural environment. The attempt to make this faith theoretically intelligible has led to the philosophical disciplines known as _theology_ and _psychology_.[199:14]

[Sidenote: Theology Deals with the Nature and Proof of G.o.d.]

- 87. _Theology_, as a branch of philosophy, deals with _the proof and the nature of G.o.d_. Since "G.o.d" is not primarily a theoretical conception, the proof of G.o.d is not properly a philosophical problem.

Historically, this task has been a.s.sumed as a legacy from Christian apologetics; and it has involved, at any rate so far as European philosophy is concerned, the definition of ultimate being in such spiritual terms as make possible the relation with man postulated in Christianity. For this it has been regarded as sufficient to ascribe to the world an underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates of perfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each proof of G.o.d has defined him pre-eminently in terms of some one of these his attributes.

[Sidenote: The Ontological Proof of G.o.d.]

- 88. The _ontological_ proof of G.o.d held the foremost place in philosophy's contribution to Christianity up to the eighteenth century.

This proof _infers the existence from the ideal_ of G.o.d, and so approaches the nature of G.o.d through the attribute of perfection. It owes the form in which it was accepted in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of the eleventh century. He argued from the idea of a most perfect being to its existence, on the ground that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would contradict its perfection. It is evident that the force of this argument depends upon the necessity of the idea of G.o.d. The argument was accepted in Scholastic Philosophy[201:15] largely because of the virtual acceptance of this necessity. Mediaeval thought was under the dominance of the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and through them rationalism had come to be the unquestioned starting-point for all thought. For Plato reality and rationality meant one and the same thing, so that the ultimate reality was the highest principle of rationality, which he conceived to be the idea of the good. In the case of Aristotle the ideal of rationality was conceived to determine the course of the cosmical evolution as its immanent final cause. But in itself it was beyond the world, or transcendent. For Plato perfection itself is reality, whereas for Aristotle perfection determines the hierarchical order of natural substances. The latter theory, more suitable to the uses of Christianity, because it distinguished between G.o.d and the world, was incorporated into the great school systems. But both theories contain the essence of the ontological proof of G.o.d. In thought one seeks the perfect truth, and posits it as at once the culmination of insight and the meaning of life. The ideal of G.o.d is therefore a necessary idea, because implied in all the effort of thought as the object capable of finally satisfying it. St. Anselm adds little to the force of this argument, and does much to obscure its real significance.

In stating the ontological argument the term perfection has been expressly emphasized, because it may be taken to embrace both truth and goodness. Owing to a habit of thought, due in the main to Plato, it was long customary to regard degrees of truth and goodness as interchangeable, and as equivalent to degrees of reality. The _ens realissimum_ was in its completeness the highest object both of the faculty of cognition and of the moral will. But even in the scholastic period these two different aspects of the ideal were clearly recognized, and led to sharply divergent tendencies. More recently they have been divided and embodied in separate arguments. _The epistemological_ argument _defines G.o.d in terms of that absolute truth which is referred to in every judgment_. Under the influence of idealism this absolute truth has taken the form of a universal mind, or all-embracing standard experience, called more briefly the absolute. The _ethical_ argument, on the other hand, conceives G.o.d as _the perfect goodness implied in the moral struggle, or the power through which goodness is made to triumph in the universe_ to the justification of moral faith. While the former of these arguments identifies G.o.d with being, the latter defines G.o.d in terms of the intent or outcome of being. Thus, while the epistemological argument does not distinguish G.o.d and the world, the latter does so, a.s.suming that independent reality can be attributed to the stages of a process and to the purpose that dominates it.

[Sidenote: The Cosmological Proof of G.o.d.]

- 89. The _cosmological_ proof of G.o.d approaches him through the attribute of creative omnipotence. The common principle of causal explanation refers the origin of natural events to similar antecedent events. But there must be some _first cause_ from which the whole series is derived, a cause which is ultimate, sufficient to itself, and the responsible author of the world. Because G.o.d's function as creator was a part of the Christian teaching, and because explanation by causes is habitual with common sense, this argument has had great vogue. But in philosophy it has declined in importance, chiefly because it has been absorbed in arguments which deal with the _kind_ of causality proper to a first cause or world-ground. The argument that follows is a case in point.

[Sidenote: The Teleological Proof of G.o.d.]

- 90. The _teleological_ proof argues that the world can owe its origin only to an _intelligent first cause_. The evidence for this is furnished by the cunning contrivances and beneficent adaptations of nature. These could not have come about through chance or the working of mechanical forces, but only through the foresight of a rational will. This argument originally infers G.o.d from the character of nature and history; and the extension of mechanical principles to organic and social phenomena, especially as stimulated by Darwin's principle of natural selection, has tended greatly to diminish its importance. When, on the other hand, for nature and history there are subst.i.tuted the intellectual and moral activities themselves, and the inference is made to the ideal which they imply, the teleological argument merges into the ontological. But the old-fashioned statement of it remains in the form of religious faith, and in this capacity it has had the approval even of Hume and Kant, the philosophers who have contributed most forcibly to its overthrow as a demonstration of G.o.d. They agree that the _acknowledgment_ of G.o.d in nature and history is the sequel to a theistic belief, and an inevitable att.i.tude on the part of the religious consciousness.

[Sidenote: G.o.d and the World. Theism and Pantheism.]

- 91. Another group of ideas belonging to philosophical theology consists of three generalizations respecting G.o.d's relation to the world, known as _theism_, _pantheism_, and _deism_. Although, theoretically, these are corollaries of the different arguments for G.o.d, two of them, theism and pantheism, owe their importance to their rivalry as religious tendencies. _Theism_ emphasizes that att.i.tude to G.o.d which recognizes in him an historical personage, in some sense distinct from both the world and man, which are his works and yet stand in an external relationship to him. It expresses the spirit of ethical and monotheistic religion, and is therefore the natural belief of the Christian.

_Pantheism_ appears in primitive religion as an animistic or polytheistic sense of the presence of a divine principle diffused throughout nature. But it figures most notably in the history of religions, in the highly reflective Brahmanism of India. In sharp opposition to Christianity, this religion preaches the indivisible unity of the world and the illusoriness of the individual's sense of his own independent reality. In spite of the fact that such a doctrine is alien to the spirit of Christianity, it enters into Christian theology through the influence of philosophy. The theoretical idea of G.o.d tends, as we have seen, to the identification of him with the world as its most real principle. Or it bestows upon him a nature so logical and formal, and so far removed from the characters of humanity, as to forbid his entering into personal or social relations. Such reflections concerning G.o.d find their religious expression in a mystical sense of unity, which has in many cases either entirely replaced or profoundly modified the theistic strain in Christianity. In current philosophy pantheism appears in the epistemological argument which identifies G.o.d with being; while the chief bulwark of theism is the ethical argument, with its provision for a distinction between the actual world and ideal principle of evolution.

[Sidenote: Deism.]

- 92. While theism and pantheism appear to be permanent phases in the philosophy of religion, _deism_ is the peculiar product of the eighteenth century. It is based upon a repudiation of supernaturalism and "enthusiasm," on the one hand, and a literal acceptance of the cosmological and teleological proofs on the other. Religions, like all else, were required, in this epoch of clear thinking, to submit to the canons of experimental observation and practical common sense. These authorize only a _natural religion_, the acknowledgment in pious living of a G.o.d who, having contrived this natural world, has given it over to the rule, not of priests and prophets, but of natural law. The artificiality of its conception of G.o.d, and the calculating spirit of its piety, make deism a much less genuine expression of the religious experience than either the moral chivalry of theism or the intellectual and mystical exaltation of pantheism.

[Sidenote: Metaphysics and Theology.]

- 93. The systematic development of philosophy leads to the inclusion of conceptions of G.o.d within the problem of metaphysics, and the subordination of the proof of G.o.d to the determination of the fundamental principle of reality. There will always remain, however, an outstanding theological discipline, whose function it is to interpret worship, or the living religious att.i.tude, in terms of the theoretical principles of philosophy.

[Sidenote: Psychology is the Theory of the Soul.]

- 94. _Psychology is the theory of the soul._ As we have already seen, the rise of scepticism directs attention from the object of thought to the thinker, and so emphasizes the self as a field for theoretical investigation. But the original and the dominating interest in the self is a practical one. The precept, ????? sea?t??, has its deepest justification in the concern for the salvation of one's soul. In primitive and half-instinctive belief the self is recognized in practical relations. In its animistic phase this belief admitted of such relations with all living creatures, and extended the conception of life very generally to natural processes. Thus in the beginning the self was doubtless indistinguishable from the vital principle. In the first treatise on psychology, the "pe?? ?????" of Aristotle, this interpretation finds a place in theoretical philosophy. For Aristotle the soul is the _entelechy_ of the body--that function or activity which makes a man of it. He recognized, furthermore, three stages in this activity: the nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls, or the vegetable, animal, and distinctively human natures, respectively. The rational soul, in its own proper activity, is man's highest prerogative, the soul to be saved. By virtue of it man rises above bodily conditions, and lays hold on the divine and eternal. But Plato, who, as we have seen, was ever ready to grant reality to the ideal apart from the circ.u.mstances of its particular embodiment, had already undertaken to demonstrate the immortality of the soul on the ground of its distinctive nature.[209:16] According to his way of thinking, the soul's essentially moral nature made it incapable of destruction through the operation of natural causes. It is evident, then, that there were already ideas in vogue capable of interpreting the Christian teaching concerning the existence of a soul, or of an inner essence of man capable of being made an object of divine interest.

[Sidenote: Spiritual Substance]

- 95. The immediate effect of Christianity was to introduce into philosophy as one of its cardinal doctrines the theory of a spiritual being, const.i.tuting the true self of the individual, and separable from the body. The difference recognized in Plato and Aristotle between the divine spark and the appet.i.tive and perceptual parts of human nature was now emphasized. The former (frequently called the "spirit," to distinguish it from the lower soul) was defined as a _substance_ having the attributes of thought and will. The fundamental argument for its existence was the immediate appeal to self-consciousness; and it was further defined as indestructible on the ground of its being utterly discontinuous and incommensurable with its material environment. This theory survives at the present day in the conception of pure activity, but on the whole the attributes of the soul have superseded its substance.

[Sidenote: Intellectualism and Voluntarism.]

- 96. _Intellectualism and voluntarism_ are the two rival possibilities of emphasis when the soul is defined in terms of its known activities.

Wherever the essence of personality is in question, as also occurs in the case of theology, thought and will present their respective claims to the place of first importance. _Intellectualism would make will merely the concluding phase of thought, while voluntarism would reduce thought to one of the interests of a general appetency._ It is evident that idealistic theories will be much concerned with this question of priority. It is also true, though less evident, that intellectualism, since it emphasizes the general and objective features of the mind, tends to subordinate the individual to the universal; while voluntarism, emphasizing desire and action, is relatively individualistic, and so, since there are many individuals, also pluralistic.[211:17]

[Sidenote: Freedom of the Will. Necessitarianism, Determinism, and Indeterminism.]

- 97. The question of the _freedom of the will_ furnishes a favorite controversial topic in philosophy. For the interest at stake is no less than the individual's responsibility before man and G.o.d for his good or bad works. It bears alike upon science, religion, and philosophy, and is at the same time a question of most fundamental practical importance.

But this diffusion of the problem has led to so considerable a complication of it that it becomes necessary in outlining it to define two issues. In the first place, the concept of freedom is designed to express generally the distinction between man and the rest of nature. To make man in all respects _the product and creature of his natural environment_ would be to deny freedom and accept the radically _necessitarian_ doctrine. The question still remains, however, as to the causes which dominate man. He may be free from nature, and yet be ruled by G.o.d, or by distinctively spiritual causes, such as ideas or character. Where in general the will is regarded as submitting only to a _spiritual causation_ proper to its own realm, the conception is best named _determinism_; though in the tradition of philosophy it is held to be a doctrine of freedom, because contrasted with the necessitarianism above defined. There remains _indeterminism_, which attributes to the will a spontaneity that makes possible the _direct presence to it of genuine alternatives_. The issue may here coincide with that between intellectualism and voluntarism. If, _e.g._, in G.o.d's act of creation, his ideals and standards are prior to his fiat, his conduct is determined; whereas it is free in the radical or indeterministic sense if his ideals themselves are due to his sheer will. This theory involves at a certain point in action the absence of cause. On this account the free will is often identified with _chance_, in which case it loses its distinction from nature, and we have swung round the circle.

[Sidenote: Immortality. Survival and Eternalism.]

- 98. There is similar complexity in the problem concerning _immortality_. Were the extreme claims of naturalism to be established, there would be no ground whatsoever upon which to maintain the immortality of man, mere dust returning unto dust. The philosophical concept of immortality is due to the supposition that the quintessence of the individual's nature is divine.[213:18] But several possibilities are at this point open to us. The first would maintain the survival after death of a recognizable and discrete personality. Another would suppose a preservation after death, through being taken up into the life of G.o.d. Still another, the theory commonly maintained on the ground of rationalistic and idealistic metaphysics, would deny that immortality has to do with life after death, and affirm that it signifies the perpetual membership of the human individual in a realm of eternity through the truth or virtue that is in him. But this interpretation evidently leaves open the question of the immortality of that which is distinctive and personal in human nature.

[Sidenote: The Natural Science of Psychology. Its Problems and Method.]

- 99. So far we have followed the fortunes only of the "spirit" of man.

What of that lower soul through which he is identified with the fortunes of his body? When philosophy gradually ceased, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to be "the handmaid of religion," there arose a renewed interest in that part of human nature lying between the strictly physiological functions, on the one hand, and thought and will on the other. Descartes and Spinoza a.n.a.lyzed what they called the "pa.s.sions,"

meaning such states of mind as are conditioned by a concern for the interests of the body. At a later period, certain English philosophers, following Locke, traced the dependence of ideas upon the senses. Their method was that of _introspection_, or the direct examination by the individual of his own ideas, and for the sake of noting their origin and composition from simple factors. The lineal descendants of these same English philosophers defined more carefully the process of _a.s.sociation_, whereby the complexity and sequence of ideas are brought about, and made certain conjectures as to its dependence upon properties and transactions in the physical brain. These are the three main philosophical sources of what has now grown to be the separate _natural science of psychology_. It will be noted that there are two characteristics which all of these studies have in common. They deal with the experience of the individual as composing his own private history, and tend to attribute the specific course which this private history takes to bodily conditions. It is only recently that these investigations have acquired sufficient unity and exclusiveness of aim to warrant their being regarded as a special science. But such is now so far the case that the psychologist of this type pursues his way quite independently of philosophy. It is true his research has advanced considerably beyond his understanding of its province. But it is generally recognized that he must examine those very _factors of subjectivity_ which the natural scientist otherwise seeks to evade, and, furthermore, that he must seek to _provide for them in nature_. He treats the inner life in what Locke called "the plain historical method," that is to say, instead of interpreting and defining its ideas, he a.n.a.lyzes and reports upon its content. He would not seek to justify a moral judgment, as would ethics, or to criticise the cogency of thought, as would logic; but only to describe the actual state as he found it. In order to make his data commensurable with the phenomena of nature, he discovers or defines bodily conditions for the subjective content which he a.n.a.lyzes. His fundamental principle of method is the postulate of _psycho-physical parallelism_, according to which he a.s.sumes a _state of brain or nervous system for every state of mind_. But in adopting a province and a method the psychologist foregoes finality of truth after the manner of all natural science. He deals admittedly with an aspect of experience, and his conclusions are no more adequate to the nature of the self than they are to the nature of outer objects. An admirable reference to this abstract division of experience occurs in Kulpe's "Introduction to Philosophy":

"For the developed consciousness, as for the naive, every experience is an unitary whole; and it is only the habit of abstract reflection upon experience that makes the objective and subjective worlds seem to fall apart as originally different forms of existence. Just as a plane curve can be represented in a.n.a.lytical geometry as the function of two variables, the abscissae and the ordinates, without prejudice to the unitary course of the curve itself, so the world of human experience may be reduced to a subjective and an objective factor, without prejudice to its real coherence."[215:19]

[Sidenote: Psychology and Philosophy.]

- 100. The problems of psychology, like those of theology, tend to disappear as independent philosophical topics. The ultimate nature of the self will continue to interest philosophers--more deeply, perhaps, than any aspect of experience--but their conception of it will be a corollary of their metaphysics and epistemology. The remainder of the field of the old philosophical psychology, the introspective and experimental a.n.a.lysis of special states of mind, is already the province of a natural science which is becoming more and more free from the stand-point and method of philosophy.