The Conflict of Naturalism and Humanism

Front matter

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Preface

The author is deeply conscious of the incompleteness of this study in view of the vast range of the subject But if it may serve to stimulate a few minds to intelligent consideration of a large and important problem in our present-day thought it will have fulfilled its purpose.

My grateful acknowledgments are due to Professor John Dewey, whose vJ^^orous thought has vivified and reshaped my entire philosophy of nature and of man. Likewise I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor John Angus Mac- Vannel, whose instruction first stimulated my interest in the living problems of philosophy ; and to Professor Paul Monroe whose ideals of careful scholarship I have attempted to follow in the preparation of this study.

W. G.

Columbia University, April 1st, 1910.

Table Of Contents

INTRODUCTION p^ge

I. Three dominant attitudes in thought-life i

1 . Supematuralism i

CHAPTER I Naturalism and Humanism in thb Renaissance

I. The htmianism of the early Renaissance 18

1. Influence upon cosmological speculation 19 /

2. Man as a microcosm 19 '

II. The first beginnings of Naturalism 20

1 . Bruno's atomic theory 20

2. Astrology and magic 21

3. Vives and Telesio as heralds of a new order 22 ^

III. The development of naturalism due to Copernicus, Kepler

and Galileo. The revolutionizing of science by the discovery of a reliable method 94

IV. Evidences of naturalism in social theories 28

V. Montaigne as an epitome of his age 30 ^

VI. The errors of both naturalism and htunanism 34

CHAPTER II The Development op Naturalism in the Seventeenth

AND Eighteenth Centuries

I. Tendency toward systematization 35

II. Divergence of science and philosophy 35

III. Bacon as the representative of the new scientific spirit 36 x

IV. The thought system of Descartes. Its influence 38

V. The world view of Leibniz 41

VI. English philosophy as represented by Hobbes and Locke .... 45 -\

Its psychological and moral trend 48

VII. The French Enlightenment 49

1 . Psychological' aspect 50

Condillac and Helvetitis 51

2. The naturalism of La Mettrie 52 vi Contents

The French Enlightenment— CoM/iitM^. page

3. Voltaire as the leader of French thought 53

4. Diderot and the Encyclopedists 56

5. The mechanical world- view of D'Holbach 57

6. The social humanism of Rousseau 59

7. The relation of nature to human perfectibility 65

Chapter III

I. Its early rationalistic character 69

II. The beginnings of Romanticism 70

1 . The transformation of individualism into a broad humani-

tarianism 71

2. Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller 72

III. The influence of Hume 74

— IV. Kant's solution of the problem of man's relation to nature. . 76

V. Fichte's subjective nature-philosophy 86

VI. Schelling's contribution to the problem 88

VII. The humanistic-naturalism of Hegel 91

VIII. Schopenhauer's denial of the harmony between nature and

human life 95

IX. The contrast between the nature-philosophies of France and

Germany 96

CHAPTER IV The Conflict of Naturalism and Humanism in the

Nineteenth Century

I. The positivism of Auguste Comte 100

II. The social and ethical character of English philosophy 108

Bentham and James Mill 108

III. The nature-philosophy of John Stuart Mill 109

IV. The revolutionizing work of Darwin 112

- ■ V. Spencer's htunanistic-naturalism 116

VI. The modem idealistic school 125

Its strong humanistic bent 125

VII. The contrast between present-day naturalism and idealism. . 126

VIII. Pragmatism as a positive means of reconciliation 128

Chapter V

I. The humanism of the early Renaissance i r9

Petrarch and the later humanists 131

-^ II. The educational philosophy of humanism 133

I. Paulus Vergerius 133

a. Castiglione's Doctrine of Courtesy 137

Contents vii

The educational philosophy of hvan&nism-^ aniinued page

3. Vittorino da Feltre 138

III. The spread of humanism to the North 138

1 . Its development in France 138

2. Humanism in Germany 139

Erasmus the master humanist 140 - -

3. The English Renaissance 141

Elyot's Govemaur 14a

IV. Narrow humanistic education 143 •

V. Rabelais' naturalistic humanism 144-

VI. Educational philosophy of Montaigne 145 — .

VII. Naturalism in Education 148

I. Bacon 148 /

a. Comenius 149 ->"'

3. The RealschtUen of Germany 150

4. Science in French and American schools 151

VIII. The conflict of naturalism and humanism in English education isa*-'-^'

I. Spencer and Huxley 153 -^

a. Matthew Arnold's plea for humanistic studies 157

3. Sidgwick and Mill 159

IX. The present opposition of humanistic and scientific studies. . 161

Chapter VI

I. The pragmatic theory of nature and of man in their mutual

relations 164

II. The pragmatic theory of knowledge 167

III. Contrasts presented by pragmatism to :

I. Htunanism 171

a. Naturalism 17a

IV. Application of the pragmatic philosophy to education 17a ~

I. Its general conception of education as an experience

process 17a x

a. Its reconciliation of the opposing views of humanists and

scientists 1 76 - ''

BIBLIOGRAPHY 179

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