The Approach to Philosophy Part 22

Thus Plato distinguishes the world of "generation" in which we partic.i.p.ate by perception, from the "true essence" in which we partic.i.p.ate by thought; and Sch.e.l.ling speaks of the modern experimental method as the "corruption" of philosophy and physics, in that it fails to construe nature in terms of spirit.

[Sidenote: Concessions from the Side of Absolutism. Recognition of Nature. The Neo-Fichteans.]

- 199. Now it would never occur to a sophisticated philosopher of the present, to one who has thought out to the end the whole tradition of philosophy, and felt the gravity of the great historical issues, to suffer either of these motives to dominate him to the exclusion of the other. Absolutism has long since ceased to speak slightingly of physical science, and of the world of perception. It is conceded that motions must be known in the mechanical way, and matters of fact in the matter-of-fact way. Furthermore, the prestige which science enjoyed in the nineteenth century, and the prestige which the empirical and secular world of action has enjoyed to a degree that has steadily increased since the Renaissance, have convinced the absolutist of the intrinsic significance of these parts of experience. They are no longer reduced, but are permitted to flourish in their own right. From the very councils of absolute idealism there has issued a distinction which is fast becoming current, between the World of Appreciation, or the realm of moral and logical principles, and the World of Description, or the realm of empirical generalizations and mechanical causes.[402:1] It is indeed maintained that the former of these is metaphysically superior; but the latter is ranked without the disparagement of its own proper categories.

With the Fichteans this distinction corresponds to the distinction in the system of Fichte between the active moral ego, and the nature which it posits to act upon. But the _neo-Fichteans_ are concerned to show that the nature so posited, or the World of Description, is the _realm of mechanical science_, and that the entire system of mathematical and physical truth is therefore morally necessary.[403:2]

[Sidenote: The Neo-Kantians.]

- 200. A more p.r.o.nounced tendency in the same direction marks the work of the _neo-Kantians_. These philosophers repudiate the spiritualistic metaphysics of Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel, believing the real significance of Kant to lie in his critical method, in his examination of the first principles of the different systems of knowledge, and especially in his a.n.a.lysis of the foundations of mathematics and physics.[403:3] In approaching mathematics and physics from a general logical stand-point, these neo-Kantians become scarcely distinguishable in interest and temper from those scientists who approach logic from the mathematical and physical stand-point.

[Sidenote: Recognition of the Individual. Personal Idealism.]

- 201. The finite, moral individual, with his peculiar spiritual perspective, has long since been recognized as essential to the meaning of the universe rationally conceived. But in its first movement absolute idealism proposed to absorb him in the indivisible absolute self. It is now pointed out that Fichte, and even Hegel himself, means the absolute to be a plurality or society of persons.[404:4] It is commonly conceded that the will of the absolute must coincide with the wills of all finite creatures in their severalty, that G.o.d wills in and through men.[404:5]

Corresponding to this individualistic tendency on the part of absolute idealism, there has been recently projected a _personal idealism_, or _humanism_, which springs freshly and directly from the same motive.

This philosophy attributes ultimate importance to the human person with his freedom, his interests, his control over nature, and his hope of the advancement of the spiritual kingdom through cooperation with his fellows.[405:6]

[Sidenote: Concessions from the Side of Naturalism. Recognition of Fundamental Principles.]

- 202. Naturalism exhibits a moderation and liberality that is not less striking than that of absolutism. This abatement of its claims began in the last century with agnosticism. It was then conceded that there is an order other than that of natural science; but this order was held to be inaccessible to human knowledge. Such a theory is essentially unstable because it employs principles which define a non-natural order, but refuses to credit them or call them knowledge. The agnostic is in the paradoxical position of one who knows of an unknowable world.

Present-day naturalism is more circ.u.mspect. It has interested itself in bringing to light that in the very procedure of science which, because it predetermines what nature shall be, cannot be included within nature.

To this interest is due the rediscovery of the rational foundations of science. It was already known in the seventeenth century that exact science does not differ radically from mathematics, as mathematics does not differ radically from logic. Mathematics and mechanics are now being submitted to a critical examination which reveals the definitions and implications upon which they rest, and the general relation of these to the fundamental elements and necessities of thought.[406:7]

[Sidenote: Recognition of the Will. Pragmatism.]

- 203. This rationalistic tendency in naturalism is balanced by a tendency which is more empirical, but equally subversive of the old ultra-naturalism. Goethe once wrote:

"I have observed that I hold that thought to be true which is _fruitful for me_. . . . When I know my relation to myself and to the outer world, I say that I possess the truth."

Similarly, it is now frequently observed that all knowledge is _humanly fruitful_, and it is proposed that this shall be regarded as the very criterion of truth. According to this principle science as a whole, even knowledge as a whole, is primarily a human utility. The nature which science defines is an artifact or construct. It is designed to express briefly and conveniently what man may practically expect from his environment. This tendency is known as _pragmatism_. It ranges from systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which seek to define practical needs and deduce knowledge from them, to the more irresponsible utterances of those who liken science to "shorthand,"[407:8] and mathematics to a game of chess. In any case pragmatism attributes to nature a certain dependence on will, and therefore implies, even when it does not avow, that will with its peculiar principles or values cannot be reduced to the terms of nature.

In short, it would be more true to say that nature expresses will, than that will expresses nature.[408:9]

[Sidenote: Summary, and Transition to Epistemology.]

- 204. Such, then, is the contemporary eclecticism as respects the central problem of metaphysics. There are _naturalistic_ and _individualistic_ tendencies in _absolutism_; _rationalistic_ and _ethical_ tendencies in _naturalism_; and finally the independent and spontaneous movements of _personal idealism_ and _pragmatism_.

Since the rise of the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy, metaphysics and epistemology have maintained relations so intimate that the present state of the former cannot be characterized without some reference to the present state of the latter. Indeed, the very issues upon which metaphysicians divide are most commonly those provoked by the problem of knowledge. The counter-tendencies of naturalism and absolutism are always connected, and often coincide with, the epistemological opposition between empiricism, which proclaims perception, and rationalism, which proclaims reason, to be the proper organ of knowledge. The other great epistemological controversy does not bear so direct and simple a relation to the central metaphysical issues, and must be examined on its own account.

[Sidenote: The Antagonistic Doctrines of Realism and Idealism. Realistic Tendency in Empirical Idealism.]

- 205. The point of controversy is the dependence or independence of the object of knowledge on the state of knowledge; idealism maintaining that reality _is_ the knower or his content of mind, realism, that being known is a circ.u.mstance which appertains to some reality, without being the indispensable condition of reality as such. Now the sophisticated thought of the present age exhibits a tendency on the part of these opposite doctrines to approach and converge. It has been already remarked that the empirical idealism of the Berkeleyan type could not avoid transcending itself. Hume, who omitted Berkeley's active spirits, no longer had any subjective seat or locus for the perceptions to which Berkeley had reduced the outer world. And perceptions which are not the states of any subject, retain only their intrinsic character and become a series of elements. When there is nothing beyond, which appears, and nothing within to which it appears, there ceases to be any sense in using such terms as appearance, phenomenon, or impression. The term sensation is at present employed in the same ill-considered manner. But empirical idealism has come gradually to insist upon the importance of the content of perception, rather than the relation of perception to a self as its state. The terms _element_ and _experience_, which are replacing the subjectivistic terms, are frankly realistic.[410:10]

[Sidenote: Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism. The Conception of Experience.]

- 206. There is a similar realistic trend in the development of absolute idealism. The pure Hegelian philosophy was notably objective. The principles of development in which it centres were conceived by Hegel himself to manifest themselves most clearly in the progressions of nature and history. Many of Hegel's followers have been led by moral and religious interests to emphasize consciousness, and, upon epistemological grounds, to lay great stress upon the necessity of the union of the parts of experience within an enveloping self. But absolute idealism has much at heart the overcoming of relativism, and the absolute is defined in order to meet the demand for a being that shall not have the cognitive deficiencies of an object of finite thought. So it is quite possible for this philosophy, while maintaining its traditions on the whole, to abandon the term _self_ to the finite subject, and regard its absolute as a system of rational and universal principles--self-sufficient because externally independent and internally necessary. Hence the renewed study of categories as logical, mathematical, or mechanical principles, and entirely apart from their being the acts of a thinking self.

Furthermore, it has been recognized that the general demand of idealism is met when reality is regarded as not outside of or other than knowledge, whatever be true of the question of dependence. Thus the conception of _experience_ is equally convenient here, in that it signifies what is immediately present in knowledge, without affirming it to _consist in_ being so presented.[411:11]

[Sidenote: Idealistic Tendencies in Realism. The Immanence Philosophy.]

- 207. And at this point idealism is met by a latter-day realism. The traditional modern realism springing from Descartes was dualistic. It was supposed that reality in itself was essentially extra-mental, and thus under the necessity of being either represented or misrepresented in thought. But the one of these alternatives is dogmatic, in that thought can never test the validity of its relation to that which is perpetually outside of it; while the other is agnostic, providing only for the knowledge of a world of appearance, an improper knowledge that is in fact not knowledge at all.

But realism is not necessarily dualistic, since it requires only that being shall not be dependent upon being known. Furthermore, since empiricism is congenial to naturalism, it is an easy step to say that nature is directly known in perception. This first takes the form of positivism, or the theory that only such nature as can be directly known can be really known. But this agnostic provision for an unknown world beyond, inevitably falls away and leaves _reality as that which is directly known, but not conditioned by knowledge_. Again the term _experience_ is the most useful, and provides a common ground for _idealistic realism_ with _realistic idealism_. A new epistemological movement makes this conception of experience its starting-point. What is known as the _immanence philosophy_ defines reality as experience, and means by experience the subject matter of all knowledge--not defined as such, but regarded as capable of being such. Experience is conceived to be _both in and out_ of selves, cognition being but one of the special systems into which experience may enter.[413:12]

[Sidenote: The Interpretation of Tradition as the Basis for a New Construction.]

- 208. Does this eclecticism of the age open any philosophical prospect?

Is it more than a general compromise--a confession of failure on the part of each and every radical and clear-cut doctrine of metaphysics and epistemology? There is no final answer to such a question short of an independent construction, and such procedure would exceed the scope of the present discussion. But there is an evident interpretation of tradition that suggests a possible basis for such construction.

[Sidenote: The Truth of the Physical System, but Failure of Attempt to Reduce All Experience to it.]

- 209. Suppose it to be granted that the categories of nature are quite self-sufficient. This would mean that there might conceivably be a strictly physical order, governed only by mechanical principles, and by the more general logical and mathematical principles. The body of physical science so extended as to include such general conceptions as ident.i.ty, difference, number, quality, s.p.a.ce, and time, is the account of such an order. This order need have no value, and need not be known.

But reality as a whole is evidently not such a strictly physical order, for the definition of the physical order involves the rejection of many of the most familiar aspects of experience, such as its value and its being known in conscious selves. Materialism, in that it proposes to conceive the whole of reality as physical, must attempt to reduce the residuum to physical terms, and with no hope of success. Goodness and knowledge cannot be explained as ma.s.s and force, or shown to be mechanical necessities.

[Sidenote: Truth of Psychical Relations, but Impossibility of General Reduction to Them.]

- 210. Are we then to conclude that reality is not physical, and look for other terms to which we may reduce physical terms? There is no lack of such other terms. Indeed, we could as fairly have _begun_ elsewhere.

Thus some parts of experience compose the consciousness of the individual, and are said to be known by him. Experience so contained is connected by the special relation of being known together. But this relation is quite indifferent to physical, moral, and logical relations.

Thus we may be conscious of things which are physically disconnected, morally repugnant, and logically contradictory, or in all of these respects utterly irrelevant. Subjectivism, in that it proposes to conceive the whole of reality as consciousness, must attempt to reduce physical, moral, and logical relations to that co-presence in consciousness from which they are so sharply distinguished in their very definition. The historical failure of this attempt was inevitable.

[Sidenote: Truth of Logical and Ethical Principles. Validity of Ideal of Perfection, but Impossibility of Deducing the Whole of Experience from it.]

- 211. But there is at least one further starting-point, the one adopted by the most subtle and elaborate of all reconstructive philosophies. Logical necessities are as evidently real as bodies or selves. It is possible to define general types of inference, as well as compact and internally necessary systems such as those of mathematics.

There is a perfectly distinguishable strain of pure rationality in the universe. Whether or not it be possible to conceive a pure rationality as self-subsistent, inasmuch as there are degrees it is at any rate possible to conceive of a maximum of rationality. But similarly there are degrees of moral goodness. It is possible to define with more or less exactness a morally perfect person, or an ideal moral community.

Here again it may be impossible that pure and unalloyed goodness should const.i.tute a universe of itself. But that a maximum of goodness, with all of the accessories which it might involve, should be thus self-subsistent, is quite conceivable. It is thus possible to define an absolute and perfect order, in which logical necessity, the interest of thought, or moral goodness, the interest of will, or both together, should be realized to the maximum. Absolutism conceives reality under the form of this ideal, and attempts to reconstruct experience accordingly. But is the prospect of success any better than in the cases of materialism and subjectivism? It is evident that the ideal of logical necessity is due to the fact that certain parts of knowledge approach it more closely than others. Thus mechanics contains more that is arbitrary than mathematics, and mathematics more than logic. Similarly, the theory of the evolution of the planetary system, in that it requires the a.s.sumption of particular distances and particular ma.s.ses for the parts of the primeval nebula, is more arbitrary than rational dynamics. It is impossible, then, in view of the parts of knowledge which belong to the lower end of the scale of rationality, to regard reality as a whole as the maximum of rationality; for either a purely dynamical, a purely mathematical, or a purely logical, realm would be more rational. The similar disproof of the moral perfection of reality is so unmistakable as to require no elucidation. It is evident that even where natural necessities are not antagonistic to moral proprieties, they are at any rate indifferent to them.

[Sidenote: Error and Evil Cannot be Reduced to the Ideal.]

- 212. But thus far no reference has been made to error and to evil.

These are the terms which the ideals of rationality and goodness must repudiate if they are to retain their meaning. Nevertheless experience contains them and psychology describes them. We have already followed the efforts which absolute idealism has made to show that logical perfection requires error, and that moral perfection requires evil. Is it conceivable that such efforts should be successful? Suppose a higher logic to make the principle of contradiction the very bond of rationality. What was formerly error is now indispensable to truth. But what of the new error--the unbalanced and mistaken thesis, the unresolved ant.i.thesis, the scattered and disconnected terms of thought?

These fall outside the new truth as surely as the old error fell outside the old truth. And the case of moral goodness is precisely parallel. The higher goodness may be so defined as to require failure and sin. Thus it may be maintained that there can be no true success without struggle, and no true spiritual exaltation except through repentance. But what of failure unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated and unresolved?

Nothing has been gained after all but a new definition of goodness--and a new definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a metaphysical question. The problem of evil, like the problem of error, is as far from solution as ever. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems is due to metaphysical absolutism. For this philosophy defines the universe as a perfect unity. Measured by the standard of such an ideal universe, the parts of finite experience take on a fragmentary and baffling character which they would not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection must by definition both determine and exclude the imperfect. Thus absolutism bankrupts the universe by holding it accountable for what it can never pay.

[Sidenote: Collective Character of the Universe as a Whole.]

- 213. If the attempt to construct experience in the special terms of some part of experience be abandoned, how is reality to be defined? It is evident that in that case there can be no definition of reality as such. It must be regarded as a collection of all elements, relations, principles, systems, that compose it. All truths will be true of it, and it will be the subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical, psychical, moral, and rational. That which is physical is not necessarily moral or psychical, but may be either or both of these. Thus it is a commonplace of experience that what has bulk and weight may or may not be good, and may or may not be known. Similarly, that which is psychical may or may not be physical, moral, or rational; and that which is moral or rational may or may not be physical and psychical. There is, then, an indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidence of principles, in that it contains physical, psychical, moral, logical orders, without being in all respects either a physical, a psychical, a moral, or a logical necessity.[420:13] Reality or experience itself is neutral in the sense of being exclusively predetermined by no one of the several systems it contains. But the different systems of experience retain their specific and proper natures, without the compromise which is involved in all attempts to extend some one until it shall embrace them all. If such a universe seems inconceivably desultory and chaotic, one may always remind one's self by directly consulting experience that it is not only found immediately and unreflectively, but returned to and lived in after every theoretical excursion.

[Sidenote: Moral Implications of such a Pluralistic Philosophy. Purity of the Good.]

- 214. But what implications for life would be contained in such a philosophy? Even if it be theoretically clarifying, through being hospitable to all differences and adequate to the multifarious demands of experience, is it not on that very account morally dreary and stultifying? Is not its refusal to establish the universe upon moral foundations destructive both of the validity of goodness, and of the incentive to its attainment? Certainly not--if the validity of goodness be determined by criteria of worth, and if the incentive to goodness be the possibility of making that which merely exists, or is necessary, also good.

This philosophy does not, it is true, define the good, but it makes ethics autonomous, thus distinguishing the good which it defines, and saving it from compromise with matter-of-fact, and logical or mechanical necessity. The criticism of life is founded upon an independent basis, and affords justification, of a selective and exclusive moral idealism.

Just because it is not required that the good shall be held accountable for whatever is real, the ideal can be kept pure and intrinsically worthy. The a.n.a.logy of logic is most illuminating. If it be insisted that whatever exists is logically necessary, logical necessity must be made to embrace that from which it is distinguished by definition, such as contradiction, mere empirical existence, and error. The consequence is a logical chaos which has in truth forfeited the name of logic.

Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the deduction from it of moral evil or moral indifference loses the very distinguishing properties of goodness. The consequence is an ethical neutrality which invalidates the moral will. A metaphysical neutrality, on the other hand, although denying that reality as such is predestined to morality--and thus affording no possibility of an ethical absolutism--becomes the true ground for an ethical purism.

[Sidenote: The Incentive to Goodness.]

- 215. But, secondly, there can be no lack of incentive to goodness in a universe which, though not all-good, is in no respect incapable of becoming good. That which is mechanically or logically necessary, and that which is psychically present, _may be good_. And what can the realization of goodness mean if not that what is natural and necessary, actual and real, shall be also good. The world is not good, will not be good, merely through being what it is, but is or shall be made good through the accession of goodness. It is this belief that the real is not necessarily, but may be, good; that the ideal is not necessarily, but may be, realized; which has inspired every faith in action.

Philosophically it is only a question of permitting such faith to be sincere, or condemning it as shallow. If the world be made good through good-will, then the faith of moral action is rational; but if the world be good because whatever is must be good, then moral action is a tread-mill, and its attendant and animating faith only self-deception.