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[The
following essay was originally published in Contemporary British
Philosophy: Personal Statements (First series), ed. J. H.
Muirhead (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1924): 77-100.]
Critical
and Speculative Philosophy
By C.D. BROAD
Biographical
§
1. I understand that it is the wish of the Editor of this collection
of essays that each contributor should describe his own system of
philosophy. Were I to interpret this demand literally I could not
contribute anything at all, for two excellent reasons. In the first
place, I have nothing worth calling a system of philosophy of my own,
and there is no other philosopher of whom I should be willing to
reckon myself a faithful follower. If this be a defect I see no
likelihood of its ever being cured. Secondly, if I had a system of my
own, I should doubt the propriety of "pushing" my crude
philosophical wares in competition with the excellent products of
older firms with well-earned reputations. The best I can do is to
state in outline my own quite unoriginal views about the subject-matter
of philosophy, and about the kind and degree of certainty which we
may hope to reach in different branches of philosophical inquiry.
§ 2. A man's philosophy cannot be altogether separated from his
history; for Mr. Bradley's saying, that "metaphysics is the
finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct, but to find
these reasons is no less an instinct," is as near the truth as
any epigram can well be without sacrificing that brevity which is the
soul of wit. On this ground, and on this alone, a few
autobiographical details are necessary, and may escape the charge of
impertinence. I shall therefore begin by mentioning some of the books
which and the men who have specially influenced me, and by
enumerating those hereditary and acquired tendencies which are likely
to have biassed my philosophical views. I have always been about
equally interested in philosophy and in the more abstract sciences;
and, as a matter of history, I approached philosophy from the side of
natural science. I do not mean by this that I was first a pure
scientist and then took up with philosophy. The latter subject
interested me intensely even in my schooldays. Before I went up to
Trinity I had read Mill's Logic, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,
and Schopenhauer's Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. I went to
Cambridge as a convinced subjective idealist, who would have liked to
believe that Schopenhauer had proved his case, but who felt in his
bones that this was not so. It is true, however, that I studied
natural science seriously long before I began to make an equally
serious study of philosophy. The two subjects simply interchanged
their relative importance for me as time went on.
When I first entered Trinity the college was full of philosophical
discussion. Dr. Moore and Mr. Russell had both gone down; but the
tradition of the former was still very strong, whilst the latter's Principles
of Mathematics, published some four years earlier, was the basis
for endless discussions among intelligent undergraduates. Probably
this book, which I had read hastily in the School Library, but now
studied carefully for the first time, has influenced me more than any
one other. I learned from it not to welcome contradictions as proofs
that such and such features in the apparent world are unreal. I
learned to suspect that, when philosophers discovered contradictions
in apparently fundamental categories, it was just possible that it
might be the philosopher who was at fault and not the category. And
it seemed to me that the contrast between the ways in which
philosophers had dealt with the difficulties of infinity and
continuity, and the way in which mathematicians like Cantor and
Weierstrass had done so was most illuminating. Another writing which
influenced me profoundly was Dr. Moore's Refutation of Idealism.
This knocked the bottom out of my youthful subjective idealism, and
taught me to avoid a trap into which numberless better men than I
have fallen. Of course I do not think that this article does
"refute idealism," even of the Berkeleian kind; but it does
refute the commonest and most plausible argument for it, and forms of
this argument do appear in the writings of philosophers who would be
much hurt to be called "subjective idealists."
At a later stage of my career Mr. Russell came back to Trinity, and
I derived an immense stimulus from his lectures and from conversation
with him. As we all know, Mr. Russell produces a different system of
philosophy every few years, and Dr. Moore never produces one at all.
"Si Russell savait, si Moore pouvait" seems the only
adequate comment on the situation; but I owe more than I can tell to
the speculative boldness of the one and the meticulous accuracy of
the other. In the meanwhile I devoured eagerly all Dr. McTaggart's
books, and enjoyed the privilege of his lectures and his personal
influence. I learned from him to look with suspicion on that
"grateful and comforting" mixture of idealistic metaphysics
with edifying social and ethical theory which used to emanate from
the West of Scotland. His teaching and Mr. Bradley's writing
strengthened in me a natural dislike for every kind of Schwärmerei
and enthusiasm in philosophy. He little knows how nearly he made me
an Hegelian, or perhaps I had better say a "McTaggartian."
From this fate my native scepticism (to which I shall refer later)
about all big systems based on abstract reasoning saved me at a time
when I could not see precisely what was wrong in detail with the argument.
To Mr. W. E. Johnson I owe my interest in the problems of
probability and induction, which have been somewhat neglected by
mathematical logicians of the Frege-Russell school. The last
important external influence which moulded my philosophical views
began to act when I left Cambridge and went to St. Andrews. Here I
was constantly in the closest touch with Professors Stout and Taylor.
It was a great advantage to me to discuss philosophical problems
almost daily with men who were obviously the intellectual equals of
my Cambridge teachers, and who yet belonged to very different
philosophical schools from them and from each other. From Professor
Stout I learned, among much else, to see the importance of
psychology, a subject which I had formerly regarded with some
contempt. It were difficult to mention any subject on which I did not
glean something from Professor Taylor's immense store of accurate and
ever-ready knowledge; so I will content myself with saying that he
led me to read St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Anselm, and to recognize
the wonderful philosophic abilities of the mediaeval theologians.
§ 3. I will end this account of my philosophical development by
enumerating those innate and acquired tendencies which seem likely to
have warped my views.
(i)
I should say that I am much more susceptible to high achievements in
science than in art. I am somewhat obtuse to the influence of
scenery, painting, music, and the highest kinds of pure literature. I
admit in the abstract that Shelley was as great a genius as Newton or
Leibniz and a greater poet than Pope. But I can understand and enjoy
in detail what is great in Newton's scientific work and in Pope's
verbal felicity, whilst I have to take the greatness of Shelley or
Keats largely on trust. I could quite easily be taken in by an
inferior performer on their lyre, but I think I could see through
second-rate science or inferior epigrammatic poetry.
(ii)
Closely connected with this is the fact that I am almost wholly
devoid of religious or mystical experience. This is combined with a
great interest in such experiences and a belief that they are
probably of extreme importance in any theoretical interpretation of
the world.
(iii)
I also intensely dislike and profoundly distrust all strong group
emotions. (I think that this may be an excessive reaction against an
unacknowledged tendency to feel them rather strongly.) This connects
with the last-mentioned defect in the following way. There seem to be
two fundamentally different types of religious person, of whom the
Quaker and the High Churchman are limiting cases. I do not share the
emotions and experiences of either, though I admire and respect many
men of both types. But I find the Quaker type far the more
intelligible of the two. To me a corporate institution is always at
best a necessary evil, like the string of a kite, which cannot be
dispensed with, but which ought to be as thin and light as possible.
Hence the attitude which the High Churchman takes towards his Church,
and which many Hegelians take towards the State, is one which I
simply cannot understand at all. They seem not so much to be
describing something with which I am not acquainted as to be
misdescribing something with which I am all too well acquainted. As
many of them are obviously at least as intelligent as I, the whole
business perplexes me very much indeed.
(iv)
I am fundamentally sceptical, and I feel no confidence in any
elaborately reasoned system of metaphysics. Even when I cannot put my
finger on any definite flaw in it, there is a still small voice
within me which whispers "Bosh!" A great deal of so-called
scepticism is simply a particular kind of dogmatism which leads men
to reject all alleged facts which do not come within the sphere of
recognized science. Mine is certainly not of that type. I have always
been interested in the phenomena dealt with by Psychical Research,
and the attitude of orthodox scientists towards them has always
seemed to me ridiculous. This view has been strengthened by
subsequent intercourse with the skeletons which inductive logic
conceals in its cupboards. Thus my scepticism makes me far less ready
to reject the abnormal than are most educated men of our time. A man
must know a great deal more about the secrets of nature than I do to
reject any alleged fact without investigation, however wild it may seem.
(v)
I tend naturally to take a somewhat gloomy view of the world and its
inhabitants; and I have a particular horror of all attempts to argue
from what ought to be, or what we should like to be, to what is or
will be. Perhaps this sometimes leads me into the opposite mistake of
regarding certain types of theory as improbable simply because they
seem cheerful.
(vi)
Lastly, I have an extreme dislike for vague, and oracular writing;
and I have very little patience with authors who express themselves
in this style. I believe that what can be said at all can be said
simply and clearly in any civilized language or in a suitable system
of symbols, and that verbal obscurity is almost always a sign of
mental confusion. I agree with Dr. Johnson's remark about Jacob
Boehme: "If Jacob saw the unutterable, Jacob should not have
attempted to utter it." I think that this may prejudice me
against some writers who really are struggling to express profound
ideas in imperfect language.
It is obvious that some of the characteristics which I have
mentioned are grave defects in a philosopher, and that all have their
dangers. There are evidently certain very important aspects of human
experience which I can only know imperfectly through the descriptions
of others, and never through my own personal acquaintance. The
necessity of forewarning the reader against probable causes of error
in my views must be my excuse for the apparent egoism of the
preceding pages. I do not imagine that my philosophical biography is
of any intrinsic interest or importance but it has a relative
importance for anyone who troubles to read my philosophical writings.
Critical
and Speculative Philosophy
§ 4. It seems to me that under the name of
"Philosophy" two very different subjects are included. They
are pursued by different methods, and can expect to reach quite
different degrees of certainty. I am wont to call them Critical
and Speculative Philosophy. I do not assert that either can be
wholly separated from the other. The second quite certainly
presupposes the first, and it is probable that in the first we
tacitly assume some things that belong to the second. But they
certainly can be separated to a considerable extent, and it will be
best to begin by explaining and illustrating what I mean by each in turn.
§
5. CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
In
ordinary life and in the special sciences we constantly make use of
certain very general concepts, such as number, thing, quality,
change, cause, etc. Now, although we constantly use them and apply
them with fair consistency, it cannot be said that we have any very
clear ideas as to their proper analysis or their precise relations.
And it is not the business of any of the special sciences to clear up
these obscurities. Chemistry, e.g., tells us a great deal about
particular substances, such as gold and aqua regia, and their
qualities and relations; but we should not go to a chemistry book for
a discussion on substance, quality, and relation. Chemistry simply
assumes these general concepts as fully understood and concerns
itself with particular instances of them.
Now it is certain that our ideas about such general concepts are
highly confused, and this shows itself as soon as we try to apply
them to cases which are a little out of the ordinary. We think we
know what we mean by "place" and "person," for
instance; and we do no doubt agree in the main in applying and
withholding these terms. But suppose we are asked: "in what
place is the mirror image of a pin? And is it in this place in the
same sense in which the pin itself is in its place?" Or
suppose we are asked: "Was Sally Beauchamp a person?" We
find ourselves puzzled by such questions, and this puzzlement is
certainly due in part to the fact that we are not clear as to what we
mean by "being in a place" or "being a person."
Similar difficulties could be raised about all the fundamental
concepts which we constantly use. Thus there is both need and room
for a science which shall try to analyse and define the concepts
which are used in daily life and in the special sciences. There is
need for it, because these concepts really are obscure, and because
their obscurity really does lead to difficulties. And there is room
for it, because, whilst all the special sciences use these concepts,
none of them is about these concepts as such. I regard
Critical Philosophy as the science which has this for its most
fundamental task.
It seems to me that such a science is perfectly possible, and that
it actually exists, and has made a good deal of progress. I will
illustrate this with some examples. Since the time of Berkeley and
Descartes philosophers have devoted much attention to the problem of
the "Reality of the External World." I do not pretend that
there is any agreed answer to the question among them, but their
inquiries have been most valuable in clearing up the meanings of such
terms as "matter," "sensible appearance,"
"sensation," "perception,"
"independence," etc. Any competent philosopher nowadays,
whether he asserts or denies the independent existence of matter, is
asserting or denying something far more subtle and far better
analysed than anything which Berkeley or Descartes would have
understood by the same form of words. Again, we are not agreed on the
right analysis of "cause"; but any view we may reach should
be far subtler and clearer than that which could have been held
before Hume wrote his classical criticism of this category. In making
such statements I am, of course, referring to present-day
philosophers who are really capable of appreciating and continuing
the work of their predecessors. In any age there is plenty of
philosophical writing which is far below the level of the best work
of past ages. Moreover, there are fashions in philosophy, and even
the best men of a certain period may ignore important results reached
by the best men of a certain earlier period which happens for the
time to be unpopular. Thus the philosophers of the Aufklärung
neglected many important distinctions which the Scholastics had
clearly recognized, and I think it probable that some of the summi philosophi
of our time tend to neglect much fine gold which was mined by Kant
and Hegel. Still, with these qualifications, it is pretty obvious
that Critical Philosophy, as partly defined above, does make real and
fairly steady progress.
§ 6. Now Critical Philosophy has another and closely connected
task. We do not merely use unanalysed concepts in daily life and in
science. We also assume uncritically a number of very fundamental
propositions. In all our arguments we assume the truth of certain
principles of reasoning. Again, we always assume that every change
has a cause. And in induction we certainly assume something -- it is
hard to say what -- about the fundamental "make-up" of the
existent world. Now the second task of Critical Philosophy is to take
these propositions which we uncritically assume in science and daily
life and to subject them to criticism. In order to do this we must
first clear up the concepts which the propositions are about. It is
impossible to know what weight to attach to the proposition that
"every change has a cause" until you have assigned definite
meanings to the words "change" and "cause." It is
often found that a man's certainty about such propositions is
directly proportional to the vagueness of the terms concerned in
them. So the second part of Critical Philosophy is dependent on the
first. No doubt it is also true that the first is dependent on the
second. We clear up the meanings of terms by reflecting on the
propositions in which they occur, just as we clear up the meanings of
propositions by finding out the right analysis of their terms. I
fancy that the two processes go on by alternate steps, very much as
the development of thought and of language must have done in
pre-historic times.
§ 7. When we have got a clear idea of the meanings of
propositions which are commonly assumed, our next business as
Critical Philosophers is to expose them to every objection that we
can think of ourselves or find in the writings of others. As a result
of such reflexion and criticism it seems to me that we can divide
propositions roughly according to the following scheme.
By an a priori premise I mean some proposition such as
"Colour cannot exist without extension." This expresses a
connexion between two universals which is seen to be necessary by
reflexion upon instances and which does not need to be deduced from
anything else. By a priori principles I mean the principles
according to which we pass from asserting one proposition to
asserting others. This group therefore includes the principle of the
syllogism, the fundamental axioms of probability, and so on. By inferred
a priori propositions I mean those which can be deduced from a
priori premises by means of a priori principles. The
proposition that pi is not a rational number is an example.
By an inspective empirical proposition I mean one which
asserts of some particular existent with which the mind is acquainted
at the time some property which the mind can notice by inspection to
belong to it. Examples would be: "My headache is of a throbbing
character," "A certain one of the presentations of which I
am now aware is red," and so on. Perceptual propositions
are based on those particular existents about which we can make
inspective judgments, but they make assertions which go beyond these
existents and their properties. They are not reached by
inference from inspective propositions; but, if we were called upon
to defend them, we should do so by a mixture of inductive and
deductive inference from such propositions. Examples would be:
"That is a red pillar-box," "A man is talking to
me," and so on. An inferred empirical proposition is one
that is derived from a number of perceptual propositions either
directly by pure inductive generalization, or indirectly by deduction
from one or more inductive generalizations of the first kind.
Examples of the two would be: "All living grass is green"
and "The benzene molecule consists of six CH groups arranged at
the corners of a regular hexagon."
I have included a third great division, viz. Postulates. The
contents of this group are extremely puzzling to me. There are
certain important general propositions, such as "Every change
has a cause," "All sensa are appearances of physical
objects," etc., which I tentatively put into this group. They
seem to me to have the following characteristics:
-
I
do not find them self-evident.
- I
do not know of any self-evident premises from which they could be
deduced by any known logical principles. Hence I cannot group them as a
priori propositions.
- If
they are to be grouped as empirical propositions they would have to
come under the head of inferred empirical propositions. And this
seems impossible for most of them. All inductions make some
assumption about the structure of nature, which may be called the
"Uniformity of Nature," for want of a better name. It would
evidently be circular to try to prove such a proposition inductively.
Again, any particular perceptual judgment may be defended by argument
if we grant the general principle that all sensa are appearances of
physical objects. But I can see no possibility of inferring this
principle either inductively or deductively from the existent and
correlations of sensa.
- On
the other hand, it is equally impossible to refute these
propositions by argument. And
- in
practice everyone assumes them, and it is difficult to see that we
could possibly unify our experience or that we should have any motive
for carrying our researches further if we did not assume them to be true.
I
take these five characteristics as the marks of a postulate.
§ 8. Now there is one suggestion that I want to make before
leaving this subject. I do not think that we must identity necessary
propositions with those which are self-evident or deducible by
self-evident principles from self evident premises. These properties
seem to me to be tests (and the only available tests) for
necessity. I would define an a priori proposition as one which
is necessary and is recognized by us to be necessary. Hence a priority
probably depends on two factors, viz.:
-
necessity,
which is an intrinsic property of the proposition, and
- some
special relation between the proposition and the mind which
contemplates it.
When
this subsists the mind can see that the proposition is necessary,
and so it is counted as a priori. Now there are some
propositions which we can positively see to be necessary, e.g., the
principle of the syllogism. There are many which we can positively
see not to be necessary, e.g., that all grass is green or that
a certain presentation of which I am now aware is red. But there are
other propositions of which we cannot see either that they are or
that they an not necessary, though they must of course be in fact one
or the other. It is, e.g., a well-known fact that certain
propositions in the theory of numbers which are now deduced a priori
propositions were for many years accepted tentatively as the results
of induction. It therefore seems to be possible that some at least of
the postulates may be necessary propositions which higher or more
favourably situated minds than ours would find self-evident or would
be able to deduce from premises which they found self-evident. It is
worth while to notice that there is a considerable analogy between
the postulates and those a priori propositions which I have
called "principles." The principles of deductive logic and
of the theory of probability happen to be self-evident to us. But, if
they had not been we should certainly have had to put them in the
group of postulates; for we evidently could not have made a step
forward in unifying our experience without them. It does therefore
seem possible that the analogy may be reversible, and that some of
the postulates may really be necessary principles which only fail to
be counted as a priori because we cannot see their necessity.
Postulates may be called "hypothetically necessary"; i e.
they are necessary for the purpose of unifying our experience. A
priori principles are hypothetically necessary, in this sense,
and also intrinsically necessary, as is shown by their self-evidence.
What I have been saying is that some at least of the postulates may
also be intrinsically necessary, although we are not capable of
seeing that this is so.
Suppose now that we take "necessary" and
"contingent" to express intrinsic characteristics of
propositions, and "certain" and "possible" to
express subjective degrees of conviction in a rational but limited
mind. We might then make the following statements.
-
A
priori propositions are those which are certainly or almost
certainly necessary.
- Empirical
propositions are those which are certainly contingent.
- Postulates
are those which are possibly necessary.
Now,
if we are certain of the necessity of a proposition, we are ipso facto
certain of its truth. But to be certain of the contingency of a
proposition implies nothing about our conviction of its truth. We may
be certain that a proposition is contingent, and at the same time
certain that it is true. I may be as certain that my headache is of a
throbbing character as that 2 x 2 = 4, although the former is
certainly contingent and the latter is certainly necessary.
§ 9. To sum up.
-
There
is always a general possibility of error even about uninferred a priori
propositions. It is admittedly possible to think that a proposition
is necessary when it is not. This general difficulty is not a
legitimate ground for doubting any specific proposition; provided
that we have honestly exposed it to all the objections that we can
think of. But it is a ground for being always ready to re-open the
question if fresh specific objections be brought to our notice.
- An
inferred a priori proposition is always less certain in
proportion to the length and complexity of its proof. As Descartes
pointed out, I have to trust my memory at the later stages for the
conviction that the earlier steps were self-evident. Now,
memory-propositions are empirical, and, for our purpose, must be
classed with perceptual propositions. Thus the certainty of inferred a
priori propositions is conditional; they are certain provided we
can trust our memories, and that we have not deceived ourselves over
any of the steps.
- Inspective
propositions are practically certain provided they confine
themselves to the positive non-relational characteristics of
presentations or states of mind. The moment they go beyond this they
are liable to error. Stumpf's argument shows that we can judge two
sensa to be exactly alike when they are really different in
intensity. Again, it would be perfectly possible to think that a
sensum is uniformly red or exactly round when it is not. For these
involve negative assertions, and more inspection will not guarantee
them. Thus inspective propositions, though certain, tend to be very trivial.
- Perceptual
propositions are still less certain. If I make the judgment:
"This which I see is a pillar-box," I may be wrong in the
following ways:
- I
may be basing a perceptual proposition on a mere image or on an
hallucinatory sensum.
- I
may be misinterpreting a genuine sensum. The red pillar-like sensum
may be due to a skilful painting on a flat canvas.
- The
general assumption that all sensa are appearances of physical
objects is only a postulate, and may be wrong. There may be no
physical objects.
- It
is evident that inferred empirical propositions must have all the
weaknesses of perceptual propositions together with others of their
own. For their ultimate premises are perceptual propositions, and
from these we reach inductive generalizations in accordance with the a
priori principles of probability. But it is quite easy to show
that these will not justify us in assigning any finite probability to
inductive generalizations unless we also assume certain premises
about the structure of nature. And, as we have seen, another
postulate has to be made to justify the original perceptual
propositions which the inductive proposition professes to generalize.
Of course this is quite compatible with the fact that some
inductive propositions may be more certain than some perceptual
propositions. It is more reasonable to believe strongly that I shall
be ill if I swallow arsenic than to believe strongly that a conjuror
has really pounded my watch in a mortar and restored it to me,
although I seem to have seen him do so.
§ 10. It is worth while to remark that sometimes it is quite
certain that propositions of some kind are being assumed, and yet it
is by no means easy to say exactly what these propositions are. In
such cases the first business of Critical Philosophy is to find these
assumptions and to state them clearly. This is one of the main
difficulties of the theory of induction. Nearly every one was agreed
that something, which they called the "Uniformity of
Nature," was presupposed in all inductions. But
-
no
one stated clearly what they meant by this; and
- most
writers seemed to think that nothing further was needed except the
ordinary principles of deductive logic.
It
has therefore been an important task of Critical Philosophy to show
-
that
inductive arguments can only be valid if they state their
conclusions in terms of probability, and that they therefore use the
principles of probability; and
- that,
if they do not also use some premise about nature, they will be
unable to give any finite probability to their conclusions.
The
way is then clear for seeking the assumptions about nature which
would suffice to give a reasonably high probability to the
conclusions of generally accepted inductive arguments. It is easy to
show that something more concrete than the Law of Causation is
needed, and that the assumption of something like Natural Kinds at
least is necessary. Finally, we are in a position to estimate the
kind and degree of evidence which there is for such assumptions.
§ 11. It seems to me that we can lay down two useful general
methods in Critical Philosophy. I will call them the Principle of
Exceptional Cases and the Principle of Pickwickian Senses.
I will now illustrate them with some examples.
(i)
If we want to clear up the meaning of some commonly used concept it
is enormously important to see how it applies to exceptional and
abnormal cases. E.g., let us take the concept of "being in a
place." This is commonly applied to things like pins and chairs,
and it seems to be a simple two-term relation between a thing and a
place. But now suppose that we ask: "Where is the mirror-image
of a pin; and is it in its place in the same sense in which the pin
itself is in its place?" It seems plausible to answer
that the place where the image is is as far behind the mirror as the
place where the pin is is in front of the mirror. At once two
difficulties arise
-
If
you go to the place where the pin is said to be you can touch
something correlated with the visual appearances which have guided
you to this place. But, if you go to the place behind the mirror
where the image is said to be, you may touch nothing or you may touch
a brick wall. You will certainly not feel anything like a pin.
- If
you approach the place where the pin is said to be from any
direction there will be a series of visual appearances which
continues till you reach the place. But, if you approach the place
where the image is said to be, you will find
- that
it is only from certain directions that any visual appearance
resembling the pin is there, and
- that
from all directions of approach the series of visual
appearances stops before you reach this place.
Now
in theory you could either take the sense in which the pin is in its
place as fundamental, and try to explain the sense in which the image
is in its place by making a number of supplementary
hypotheses; or you could take the sense in which the image is in its
place as fundamental, and regard the facts which are true of the pin
and not of the image as due to the fulfilment of certain special
conditions which need not be realized but which in fact
generally are. The latter seems to be the only hopeful course to
take. It leads us to two conclusions.
-
A
perceptual object consists of several correlated components: one
visual, one tactual, and so on. Generally the visual, tactual, and
other components are all in the same place in important and definable
(though different) senses. But they may be in different places
when certain special simplifying conditions (homogeneity of the
medium, etc.) are not fulfilled.
- "Being
in a place" is not a simple two-term relation between a visual
appearance and a place. It is really at least a three-term relation,
viz., "being in place x from place y." Under
special conditions, which happen to be often very nearly realized,
there are similar visual appearances in a place from all places
within a certain range. This is true of the pin. With a plain mirror
we get a more general and less simple case. We have
- similar
visual appearances in a place from many, but not from all, directions.
- There
are no such appearances in this place from any place behind the mirror.
- There
is no correlated tactual object at the place.
The
commoner, but more special, case is explained by the existence of a
special set of simplifying conditions, which we refer to as the
"homogeneity of the medium." This way of looking at the
facts might be compared to regarding a circle as a specially
simplified instance of the general conic section. Once you know the
properties of the general conic you can deduce all the properties of
the circle; but, if you insist on starting with the properties of the
circle you will find a great deal to puzzle you in the properties of
the general conic. Another example would be given by the study of
multiple personality, telepathy, and other abnormal psychical
phenomena. If we start with the view, which purely normal cases
suggest, that every human body has one and only one self connected
with it, and that this self is a completely unified continuous
existent, we shall find the abnormal phenomena most difficult to deal
with. But if we start from the other end, and regard the normal cases
as due to special simplifying conditions which happen to be generally
fulfilled, we may be more successful.
§ 12. (ii) The Principle of Pickwickian Senses was first
developed by pure mathematicians in their attempts to define such
things as irrational numbers. They saw that any entity which has the
same formal properties as 2½ and 3½
are supposed to have can be taken to be 2½ or 3½,
even though its internal structure be very different from that which
people had commonly assigned to irrationals. Thus they define 2½
and 3½ as certain series of rational and show that
such series have to each other relations of the kind which
irrationals are supposed by everyone to have to each other. The
advantage of this definition is that it is quite certain that
something exists which answers to it, whereas with other definitions
of the same entities this cannot be shown to be so. Now of course
most people do not think of irrational like 2½ and 3½,
as series of ordinary numbers, but as a special kind of
number. Hence, when we call certain series of rationals by the name
of "irrational numbers," we may be said to be using the
phrase in a "Pickwickian sense." (The name is due to Dr.
Moore.) This principle has always been familiar in Theology. When
theologians say that the Second Person of the Trinity is the son of
the First Person, they are using the word "son" in a highly
Pickwickian sense. Anyone who will read, e.g., St. Thomas's brilliant
discussion of this subject in the Summa contra Gentiles will
see how careful St. Thomas is to point out in his own language that
phrases like "sonship" and "begetting" cannot be
interpreted literally here, and will further see what an elaborate
and metaphorical interpretation St. Thomas puts upon such phrases.
Now Whitehead and Russell have explicitly carried this principle over
into philosophy, where I am quite sure that it is destined to play a
most important part. Whitehead has used it to define points, moments,
etc., and has succeeded in giving Pickwickian senses to these terms,
in which it is certain
-
that
they exist;
- that
they have to each other the sort of relations which we expect points
and moments to have; and
- that
there is an intelligible and useful, though Pickwickian, sense in
which we can say that volumes are "composed of" points, and
durations of moments.
This
seems to me to be one of the most important steps in the philosophy
of applied mathematics.
Russell has used much the same method in dealing with the still
harder problem of the nature of matter, and the relation of a bit of
matter to its various sensible appearances. I am not prepared to
accept Russell's theory as it stands, because I think it still fails
to do justice to the extreme complexity of the problem. But I think
we can safely say that any tenable theory of matter can only admit
its existence if it be defined in a highly Pickwickian sense. Even on
the ordinary scientific view the statement that pillar-boxes are red
must be interpreted in an extremely Pickwickian way before it can be
accepted; and more critical reflexion shows that still more radical
modifications are needed in the common-sense view of the nature of
matter. Thus the problem of matter and our perception of it seems to
come to this: -- "To define a Pickwickian sense of 'matter' in which
-
pieces
of 'matter' shall have to each other the kind of relations which
physics requires them to have;
- the
variability and privacy of its sensible appearances shall be
compatible with its relative constancy and its neutrality as between
all observers;
- justice
shall be done to the apparent dependence of its appearances on the
physiological condition of the observer and the variations of the
medium; and
- the
minimum amount of purely hypothetical entities shall be postulated."
It is most important to understand that questions like: "Does
matter exist?" or "Is the self real?" cannot be
answered with a simple Yes or No. Unquestionably there are facts in
the world to which the names "matter" and "self"
apply; and in that sense they are names of something real. But it is
vitally important to distinguish between facts and the proper analysis
or description of facts. The words "matter" and
"self," as commonly used, do suggest certain theories about
the facts to which they are applied. These theories are never clearly
recognized or explicitly stated by common-sense; and, on critical
analysis, they are often found to consist of a number of propositions
of very different degrees of importance and certainty. E.g., I think
there is very little doubt that the word "self," as
commonly used, implies something like the Pure Ego theory of the
structure of those unities which we call "selves." Hence
anyone who rejects the Pure Ego theory is, in one sense, "denying
the reality of the self." But, if he offers an alternative
analysis, which does equal justice to the peculiar unity which we
find in the things called "selves," he is, in another
sense, "accepting the reality of the self." Whenever one
particular way of analysing a certain concept has been almost
universally, though tacitly, assumed, a man who rejects this analysis
will seem to others (and often to himself) to be rejecting the concept
itself. Thus James raises the question: "Does Consciousness
Exist?", and suggests a negative answer. But really neither
James nor anyone else in his senses doubts the existence of certain
facts to which we apply the name "consciousness." The whole
question is: "What is the right analysis of these facts?"
Do they involve an unique kind of stuff, which does not occur
in non-conscious facts; or is their peculiarity only one of structure?"
To deny the first alternative is not really to deny the existence
of consciousness; it is merely to deny an almost universally held theory
about consciousness. Philosophy seems to me to be full of
unprofitable discussions which depend on a failure to recognize this
kind of ambiguity; and the Principle of Pickwickian Senses has the
advantage that it forces the distinction on our notice.
§ 13. It remains to say something about the relations of other
sciences to Critical Philosophy. It is clear that logic and ethics
are simply branches of Critical Philosophy. Logic is its most general
and fundamental part, being the science which classifies and analyses
propositional forms and discusses their formal relations to each
other. Now all sciences consist of propositions which are of
various forms and stand in such relations that some are supposed to
"follow from" others. But no other science is about
propositional forms or their formal relations. Thus logic deals with
the most fundamental of all concepts, and with those a priori
principles which form the connective tissue of all knowledge. Ethics
is that part of Critical Philosophy which tries to analyze the
concepts and appraise the assumptions which are involved in our
judgments of moral value.
The distinction between mathematics, physics, or chemistry, and what
is called "the philosophy of" these sciences is, I think,
pretty clear. But, as we pass to the more concrete and less advanced
sciences, the distinction becomes in practice less definite.
Discussions about mechanism and vitalism, e.g., are in part at least
questions of Critical Philosophy, and yet they appear in books on
biology. I think that psychology is wrongly counted as a part of
philosophy; it is strictly a natural science based on observation and
induction. But any standard work on psychology is full of discussions
which really belong to Critical Philosophy. Attempts to analyse and
define sensation, perception, selfhood, etc., belong to Critical
Philosophy; but it is quite impossible for the psychologist to avoid
them, for these concepts are not, like those of physics, clear enough
to be used for ordinary scientific purposes without risk of error. It
is generally a bad thing when a science and the philosophy of that
science are mixed up with each other, because two very different
kinds of problems must then be dealt with by the same man, and hardly
anyone combines the special aptitude and knowledge needed for both.
We are all familiar with the nonsense which eminent philosophers have
talked about scientific questions; it is only equalled by the
nonsense which eminent scientists continually talk about
philosophical questions.
§
14. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
It
is quite evident that what I have been describing under the name of Critical
Philosophy does not include all that is understood by
philosophy. It is certainly held to be the function of a philosopher
to discuss the nature of Reality as a whole, and to consider the
position and prospects of men in it. In a sense Critical Philosophy
presupposes a certain view on this question. It assumes that our
minds are so far in accord with the rest of Reality that by using
them carefully and critically we approach nearer to the truth. But it
is still clearer that Speculative Philosophy presupposes a
considerable amount of Critical Philosophy. Its business is to take
over all aspects of human experience, to reflect upon them, and to
try to think out a view of Reality as a whole which shall do justice
to all of them. Now it is perfectly useless to take over the
scientific, social, ethical, aesthetic, and religious experiences of
mankind in their crude, unanalysed form. We do not know what they
mean or what weight to attach to various parts of the whole mass till
we have submitted them to a critical analytic investigations. Two
results follow at once from this consideration.
-
We
cannot admit the claim of any system of Speculative Philosophy to be
the final truth. The best of them will be guesses at truth, and will
be subject to modification as more facts are known and as known facts
become more and more fully analysed and criticized.
- We
must always admit the possibility that Critical Philosophy has not
yet been carried far enough to make any attempt at Speculative
Philosophy profitable.
§
15. There is another general point which it seems important to
notice. I think that, in different forms, it plays a vital part in
such different philosophies as those of Mr. Bradley and M. Bergson,
and in the thought of most great theologians, whether Christian or
non-Christian. This is the question how far the discursive form of
cognition by means of general concepts can ever be completely
adequate to the concrete Reality which it seeks to describe. Thought
must always be "about" its objects; to speak
metaphorically, it is a transcription of the whole of Reality into a
medium which is itself one aspect of Reality. We are bound to think
of Reality as a complex of terms having various qualities and
standing in various relations; because, if we do not think of it on
these lines, we cannot think of it at all. With Mr. Bradley's attempt
to show that this scheme involves internal contradictions I do
not agree. But I do see clearly that we have only to compare a tune,
as heard or an emotion, as felt, with any conceptual description
which we can give of them, to recognize how inadequate every
conceptual description of Reality must be to Reality itself. When we
can both be acquainted with something as a whole and can
analyse and describe it conceptually this difficulty is at its
minimum. But we cannot be acquainted with Reality as a whole, as we
can with a tune or an emotion, and therefore the difficulty is at a
maximum in Speculative Philosophy. This limitation of the whole
conceptual scheme is one which we must simply recognize once and for
all and then ignore. We cannot avoid it in detail, and we cannot
understand in outline any other kind of cognition. Since it is
perfectly general, it applies equally to every system of Speculative
Philosophy, and therefore gives us no ground for preferring one to another.
§ 16. It has been held by many philosophers, e.g., Spinoza and
Hegel in the past and Dr. McTaggart at present, that important
results about the structure of Reality as a whole can be reached by
deductive arguments from self-evident premises. The best general
account of such a view will be found in Dr. McTaggart's Nature of Existence.
I do not think that this view can be refuted; it is theoretically
possible, so far as I can see. But I am completely sceptical about
its practicability. I feel pretty certain that all known attempts to
elaborate a system of Speculative Philosophy on these lines either
contain logical fallacies, or introduce premises which are ambiguous
and only become self-evident when so interpreted as to be trivial.
And I have not the slightest expectation that future essays in this
direction will be any more successful.
§ 17. It seems to me that the main value of Speculative
Philosophy lies, not in its conclusions, but in the collateral
effects which it has, or ought to have, on the persons who pursue it.
The speculative philosopher is forced to look at the world
synoptically, and anyone who does not do this at some time in his
life is bound to hold a very narrow and inadequate idea of Reality.
This is a danger to which the natural scientist is peculiarly liable.
The extraordinary success of physics and chemistry within their own
sphere tempts men to think that the world is simply a
physico-chemical system. These sciences, quite rightly for their own
purposes, ignore the existence of minds; and scientists are liable to
forget that somehow minds have grown up in a world of matter, and
that it is by means of their activities that matter and its laws have
become known. If a man referred to his brother or his cat as "an
ingenious mechanism" we should know that he was either a fool or
a physiologist. No one in practice treats himself or his fellow men
or his pet animals as machines, but scientists who have never made a
study of Speculative Philosophy seem often to think it their duty to
hold in theory what no one outside a lunatic asylum would accept in
practice. If we remember that physics and chemistry are simply
constructed to unify the correlations which we find among a selection
of the sensa of three or four senses, the idea that these sciences
give a complete account of the structure of all Reality becomes
ludicrous. Thus our inability to explain the facts of life and mind
in purely physico-chemical terms is not a paradox to be explained
away, but is what might reasonably have been expected from the outset.
On the other hand, the man who starts from the side of mind is
equally liable to fail to do justice to the facts. The properties
with which physics and chemistry deal are very pervasive, and
we do know them more accurately and thoroughly than we know anything
else. And minds are very closely bound up with certain bits of
matter, viz., our brains and nervous systems, and they do seem
to have gradually developed in a world which once contained nothing
but matter. The characteristic fault of Idealism is to be unable to
see the trees for the wood, and the characteristic fault of Realism
is to be unable to see the wood for the trees. The great merit of
Idealism is that it really has tried to do justice to the social,
ethical, aesthetic, and religious facts of the world. The great merit
of Realism is that it really has tried to face in a patient and
detailed way the problem of matter and of our perception of it. But
neither of these activities is a substitute for the other; and a
genuine Speculative Philosophy must combine the detailed study of the
lower categories with the due recognition of the higher categories,
and must try to reconcile the pervasiveness of the former with the
apparently growing importance of the latter.
§ 18. There is one thing which Speculative Philosophy must take
into most serious consideration, and that is the religious and
mystical experiences of mankind. These form a vast mass of facts
which obviously deserve at least as careful attention as the
sensations of mankind. They are of course less uniform than our
sensations; many people, of whom I am one, are practically without
these experiences. But probably most people have them to some extent,
and there is a considerable amount of agreement between those people
of all nations and ages, who have them to a marked degree. Of course
the theoretical interpretations which have been put upon them are
very varied, and it is obvious that they depend largely on the
traditions of the time, place, and society in which the experient
lives. I have compared the experiences themselves with sensations; we
might compare the common features in the interpretations which have
been put upon them with our ordinary common-sense beliefs about
matter; and elaborate systems of theology might be compared with big
scientific theories, like the wave theory of light. Obviously there
remains a further step to be taken, comparable with the philosophic
criticism and interpretation of scientific theories about matter. It
seems reasonable to suppose at the outset that the whole mass of
mystical and religious experience brings us into contact with an
aspect of Reality which is not revealed in ordinary sense perception,
and that any system of Speculative Philosophy which ignores it will
be extremely one-sided. In fact it cannot safely be ignored. If we
count all such experiences as purely delusive, we must explain how
such a widespread and comparatively coherent mass of illusion arose.
And, if we find it impossible to take this view, we must try to
understand and criticize these experiences; to sift away those
factors in them which are of merely local and temporary interest; and
to see what the residuum has to tell us about the probable nature of
Reality. The great practical difficulty here is that those who have
the experiences most vividly are seldom well fitted for the task of
philosophical criticism and construction; whilst those who are fitted
for the latter task are not often mystics or persons of religious
genius. It is alleged, and it may well be true, that the capacity for
such experiences can be cultivated by a suitable mode of life and a
suitable system of training and meditation. In so far as this can be
done without detriment to the critical faculties it deserves the
serious attention of philosophers; for theories which are built on
experiences known only by description are always unsatisfactory.
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