The treatment of personality by Locke, Berkeley and Hume; a study, in the interests of ethical theory, of an aspect of the dialectic of English empiricism

Front matter

THE

PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATION SERIES

Volume i Number i

Preface

This essay represents the substance of a thesis accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Harvard University. Although chiefly expository, it is written from the standpoint of constructive criticism. The standpoint itself was earned during a long apprenticeship in philosophy under Professor George Holmes Howison, of the University of California, who, the writer thinks, is one of the most significant of those contemporary philosophers who have made personality the fundamental problem of metaphysics. That the pupil has since modified the viewpoint of his master in important particulars need not concern the reader in connection with the present study. The writer's total metaphysical doctrine, so far as he has any, is not obtruded here save by suggestion.

All references to Locke's Essay, as well as to Berkeley's Works, are to the editions edited by A. C. Fraser, unless otherwise noted. All references to Hume's Treatise are to the Selby- Bigge edition. Other references are self-explanatory. Portions of citations are italicized where emphasis is desirable and where no perversion of meaning is involved.

J. W. H.

University of Missouri, May, 191 1.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Page The Conception of the Person as related to Ethical Theory i. Personal reference of fundamental ethical concepts I

2. This reference forgotten in abstract discussion 2

3. The fundamental query of ethics is : What is an ethical person, and is he real ? or, How is an ethical person possible? 2- 3

4. For convenience, the query may be narrowed at first to : What sort of person guarantees freedom ? What

is a free person ? 3

The Ethical Person as a priori Knower

5. The school of evolutional moralists : "inner necessity" versus outer necessity 4

6. Their distinction between freedom of persons and things : persons guide life by purposes 4

7. But these purposes resolved to inner and outer necessity 5

8. Crucial question : Does the "natural world" give us an ethically free person ? 5

9. Science tolerates no exception to causal law 5-6

10. Her persons are products of a process in time and space 6- 7

11. So her persons not ultimately real, and thus, not free 7

VII vin Analysis of Contents

Page

12. Is there a realm other than that of natural science? 7

13. The logic of science's assumptions demands one: Space, Time, Causation, Induction, Law, etc., involve persons as a priori knowers 7-8

14. The guaranteeing of a world of persons, free or otherwise, if possible at all, is possible only through an a priori epistemology 8

The Dialectic of Empiricism in English Thought

15. Yet empirical epistemology, in various guises, presumes to guarantee ethical personality 8-9

16. The logical dialectic in general is often exemplified

in concrete history 9

17. The specific logic of empiricism is best exemplified

in the concrete in English thought 9

18. and the dialectical refutation of empiricism in its attempt to guarantee ethical personality is best revealed in the progressive fortunes of the person as treated

by Locke, Berkeley and Hume 10

Aim of this Essay

19. First, and fundamentally to present the treatment of personality, particularly ethical personality, by Locke, Berkeley and Hume 10-11

20. Second, to discover the place of the a priori, explicit

and implicit, in that treatment 11

21. Third, to exhibit by a historical dialectic represented by these three thinkers taken together, the gradual and final self-dissolution of empiricism in its specific attempt to guarantee ethical personality 1 1

22. The three-fold aim is thus a restricted one and does not involve an elucidation of a total doctrine of the person, — that is, a total metaphysics, but rather the indication of one logical condition of such a total doctrine 11-12

Analysis of Contents ix

Page

23. Forecast of results in the case of each thinker .... 12

24. Advantage to the doctrine of the person of the epistemological approach 12

25. Especially in the examination of Locke, Berkeley and Hume 12-13

Chapter II Locke S View Of Personality

1. Locke originates an epoch 14

2. Importance of careful review of Locke because:

In him the logical genesis of Berkeley and Hume 14

He represents the English popular consciousness 14

3. Difficulties in interpretation 14

4. Sources 15

5. That "I exist" intuitive 15

6. But not the Cartesian view 15-16

7. Spiritual being more certainly known than material. . 16

8. Yet not logically primary 17

9. Thus, once more, the view is different from Descartes 5 17

10. Nature of Spiritual Substance "irrelevant to his purpose" 17-18

11. and unknowable 18

12. Ignorant whether spiritual or material 18-19

13. Stillingfleet's objection 19

14. Thinking and Willing belong to spirit : "faculties" . . 19-20

15. Duration and mobility common to matter and spirit. 20

16. Proof of mobility of spirit 20

17. Spirits are timed and spaced 20

18. Immortality is endless continuance 20-21

19. The principium individual onis 21

20. Personal identity distinguished from substance-identity 21

21. Consciousness constitutes personal identity 21-22 x Analysis of Contents

Page

22. Difficulties with this theory : Bishop Butler 22

23. Locke is striving to guarantee an accountable person 22-23

24. Critics of this view 23

25. Locke's tacit supposition 23

26. Account of freedom unsatisfactory 24

27. Freedom of alternatives 24

28. Will determined by "uneasiness" 24

29. Modification of view in Second Edition 24-25

30. Hints a genuine freedom 25

31. Final verdict as to Locke's freedom reserved for further criticism 25-26

Chapter III Critical Discussion Of Lockers View

i. Freedom as a mark of the ethical person 27

2. Our question is, can Locke vindicate this ethical person ? 27

3. Source of all ideas in sense 27-28

4. But Locke not a "radical" empiricist 29

5. Misapprehension of critics 29

6. What I propose to prove concerning Locke and the

a priori 29

7. The Lockean sense of "innate ideas" 30

8. Denial of innate ideas need not be denial of a priori. 30-31

9. Implications and hints of the a priori in Locke :

(a) The mind is "active" 3i~3 2

(b) "Operations," "Innaite Faculties," "Innate powers" 32

(c) Sense-perception reveals both ego and non-ego 32

(d) "Self evident principles" 3 2_ 33

(e) Complex ideas 33

(f) Units of knowledge as relations between ideas 33

Analysis of Contents xi

Page

(g) The causal principle assumed 34

(h) Pure mathematics and abstract ethics .... 34

10. In spite of implications, Locke never asks real question about the a priori 34"35

11. Assumptions uncritically accepted which might have

led to the a priori 35

12. Important questions that are unanswered 35"36

13. Restricted conception of innateness keeps Locke from

the main question 36-37

14. Resulting statements inimical to ethical personality:

(a) Limited knowledge : 37~38

Substance an incalculable factor 38

No predictive science 38-39

Probability and its bases 40

(b) Creationism : 40-41

Locke saw the inconsistency 41

Which is inevitable 41

God can annihilate His creation 41

(c) Rigorism 41-42

(d) Will at the last determined by necessity . . 42

15. Locke not only fails to guarantee true personality, but does not adequately conceive the problem: self-activity, eternity 43

16. Yet another side to Locke 43

17. The personality Locke ignores is needed to make even

his inadequate personality possible 44

18. Locke's practical hold on the great verities ......... 45-46

19. Limitations of Locke's method for the treatment of personality 46-47

20. Locke's definite contribution 47-48 xii Analysis of Contents

CHAPTER IV Berkeley's view of personality

Page

1. Logical approach to Berkeley is through Locke .... 49

2. Contrast of Berkeley's fundamental statement with Locke's 49-50

3. We seem to have a world of spirits at once 50

4. Locke's trouble with Substance 50

5. Distinction between primary and secondary qualities gives Berkeley a hint 50

6. Berkeley's question: "What is 'real existence? ".. 50-51

7. Esse of world is percipi 51

8. Proof of spirits _. 51-52

9. Spirits are substances (objections answered) 52

10. Intuitive certainty of self 52

11. Berkeley and the Cogito ergo sum 52-53

12. Berkeley decides Locke's doubt as to whether soul-substance is spiritual or material 53

13. Not an "idea," but a "notion" of spirit 53~54

14. Spirits are simple, undivided, active, thinking, and willing beings 54-55

15. Spirits not mobile, as with Locke 55

16. Yet, they have Duration 55

17. Natural immortality 56

18. Detailed account of freedom as contained in Alciphron:

(a) Arguments for determinism 57-58

(b) Defense of freedom 59

19. Identity of person and substance the same 60

20. Knowledge of other spirits mediate 60-61

21. Inference to the omnipresent, eternal Mind 61-62

22. God the ultimate support of the being and order of Berkeley's universe 62

Analysis of Contents xiii

Page

23. No causal or necessary connection between ideas . . 62-63

24. "Significative" character of connection between ideas 63

Chapter V Critical Discussion Of Berkeley^ Vtew

1. Berkeley^ interest, as Locke's, fundamentally epistemological 64

2. Berkeley's fundamental proposition would seem to affirm the a priori 64

3. Other hints of the a priori, especially in Siris 64-65

4. But Berkeley an empiricist 65

5. So far as universe referred to mind, it is the Infinite Mind 65

6. Finite minds not constitutive of reality 66

7. Kant's criticism of Berkeley:

(a) Berkeley gives us no external world 66

(b) Order of world grounded in Omnipresent Intelligence, and not in spontaneous unity

of perceiving self 67

8. Berkeley's failure to face the question as to a priori cognition seems to involve failure to guarantee ethical personality 67

9. As Locke, he fails adequately to conceive the problem of personality in important aspects:

(a) Immortality 67

(b) Freedom 67

(c) Self-activity 67

10. As with Locke, even the person Berkeley gives us

needs deeper person for its support 67-69

j 1. Berkeley as the foe of scepticism 69

12. But his own principles lead to scepticism 69-70

13. His true refuge rational self -activity 70

14. Which is all along implied in Berkeley's assumptions 70 xiv Analysis of Contents

Page

15. The Infinite Mind not proved 71

16. If it were, we should have no persons 7i~7 2

17. Berkeley an advance over Locke 7 2 ~73

18. Yet he keeps with him in the logical succession .... 73

Chapter VI Hume And The Self-defeat Of The Person

1. Method of discussing Hume different from that employed in discussing Locke and Berkeley, because of nature of his philosophy 74

2. In Hume is the best criticism of the treatment of personality by Locke and Berkeley 74~75

3. Neither Locke nor Berkeley a radical empiricist 75

4. Thus we do not yet know whether empiricism will really guarantee personality 75

5. Hume carries out the logic of empiricism 75

6. He condemns the doctrine of Substance : 75-76

(a) Neither an impression nor an idea 76

(b) "Inhesion" unintelligible 76

7. No personal identity:

(a) No impression continuing invariably the same 77

(b) Perceptions need no support 77

(c) Introspection gives us nothing but disparate perceptions JJ

(d) Identity a fiction introduced by the imagination through resemblance and causation . . 77-7S

(e) Simplicity also a "feigned" union 78

8. Hume accepts consequences to vital truths 78

9. Hume's predicament : experience gives no self, and yet without a self experience cannot be 78-79

10. He pleads the privilege of the sceptic 79

Analysis of Contents xv

Page ii. But his true significance is the dialectical refutation

of empiricism 79-80

12. Hume not versed in "dialectic" 80

13. Hume as the precursor of Kant 80

14. Kant points out Hume's error 80-81

15. How Kant fulfills Hume 81-82

Chapter VII Summary Of Results

i. Inadequacies of English school in light of Hume's fulfillment in Kant. Philosophy versus Science. Explanation by description 83-84

2. Locke, Berkeley and Hume represent a real progress

in the fortunes of the person 84-85

3. The task of this essay herewith achieved 85

4. Negative results of the criticism of Locke, Berkeley

and Hume not to be taken too literally 85-86

5. A word from Philonous 86

Chapter VIII Suggestions For Reconstruction

i. The object of these remarks to indicate, within the logical condition vindicated by our inquiry, a ground-plan for a doctrine of the ethical person 87

2. Our whole hope now is with the a priori knower, now shown as necessary to reality 87

3. The a priori knower is the source of nature's necessity

and so is not ruled by it 87

4. As the source of Time, he himself is not a mere event, 87-88 xvr Analysis of Contents

Page

5. and thus uncreated either by natural process or God 88

6. Only with an a priori knower is freedom's demand for calculable action possible 88

7. If the a priori knower as such has a moral ideal, his rationality freely creates it 88-89

8. Freedom lost in solipsism or monism material or spiritual : how will the fact of a priori knowing vindicate

the person as saved from these ? 89

9. The knower a priori, the thinking "I" cannot unthink itself, and is ultimately real 89-90

10. and, as such, logically demands other egos as real, —

as self-active Thinkings 90

11. Descartes' error 90-91

12. What a thorough-going metaphysics must do: a new deduction of categories needed 92

13. Provisional definition of the person 92

14. The logical birth of the moral ideal 93 _ 94

15. Values introduced into the world of persons 94

16. Thus, the search for the free person leads to discovery of the ethical person, which not only guarantees,

but demands, the complete circle of ethical conceptions 94

17. Ethics and ontology meet in doctrine of person 94"95

18. Unity and interdependence of ethical notions now truly discerned. Completely to validate one ethical notion is to validate all the rest 95

19. Possibility of a historical critique proposed and illustrated ; 95-96

20. The progress of philosophy to be measured in terms

of the recognition of personality: the modern spirit 96

Chapter I Introduction

The Conception of the Person as related to Ethical Theory

A casual glance at modern ethical systems reveals their use of such notions as: Ideal, Right, Wrong, Obligation, Responsibility, Freedom, and a number of closely allied conceptions which are usually given a meaning, however attenuated, in ethical systems which claim adequacy. Certain other conceptions, whose names have come to be applied to familiar types of ethical theories, find their place in any systematic pronouncements; and their disposal usually indicates the general character of the system. Among such conceptions are: Egoism, Altruism, Publicism, Hedonism, Rationalism, and the like.

In dealing with fundamental ethical conceptions such as have been mentioned, the simplest fact of all concerning them has often been neglected. In ethical discussion they are frequently treated as merely abstract conceptions; whereas their true significance is as determinations of persons, — indeed one might call them predicates of ethical personality. For instance, it is not with Responsibility with which we have to do primarily, but with responsible persons; not with Freedom as an airy something with a name, but with free persons. And so Obligation has no meaning apart from obliged persons. The Ideal is always the ideal of a person, — indeed, it itself may prove to be a person. And as for Right and Wrong, nothing is ever right or wrong in the last resort but persons, however fitly we may apply these terms, in a secondary sense, to particular courses of conduct. And so Hedonism has to do with persons as happy, and Rationalism with rational persons; while Egoism and Altruism directly refer to a world of persons, each with its own peculiar emphasis. We deal not with Morality, but with moral persons, whose morality is with reference to persons. In short, and above all, our question is never just "What is ethics?" Most truly stated, it is "What is the ethical person?"

When this is once said, it all seems so very obvious that one suspects that it is hardly worth while to say it. And yet, one h^s only to read ethical discussions to find that this fundamental personal reference of all ethical conceptions has frequently been forgotten, and that, as a result, these discussions often wander from the vital point, and never irrefragably attain their goal, — however well they play at the game of abstractions. For instance, to cite a conspicuous case, which will have prominent place in this essay, the history of the discussion concerning freedom reveals a series of controversies over what freedom means in the abstract ; what a free "will" is ; what a free "volition" is ; what a free "motive" is; only rarely is the genuine question seriously asked, — "What is a free person?" or, "On what conditions is a free person possible?" And yet this seemingly small change in the putting of the problem transforms the real character of the search and makes the arguments of the ordinary free-will controversy seem trivially foreign to the final issue.

With this discovery of the common personal reference, resident in all fundamental ethical conceptions, it is also hinted that the logically validating ground of them which we seek is to be found in a finally self-sustaining doctrine of the person. One might add that in the nature of the person we may discover precisely that principle of definition, of unity, and of consistency among these conceptions which becomes the indication of what we must rationally mean by an adequate ethical system, as well as the sufficient critique of all inadequate ethical theories.

What is the logical sine qua non of the ethical person? — that is, a person which shall guarantee freedom, responsibility, ideals, and all the rest of the supposed attributes of ethical personality? Further, is such a person a reality, or is he a mere dream of ethical speculation? Is there any way that such an ethical person can be irrefutably proved ? Or, to sum both questions in a form reminiscent of Kant : How is an ethical person possible? It is obvious at the very start that ethics cannot avoid metaphysics, if it is to answer the question in a real sense, — at least the ethical theorist must not be loth to carry his quest into ultimate regions, if nothing short of that will satisfy his search. If it cannot be shown that ethical persons are real, and, we are tempted to add, the ultimate reality, then there is no ethical world, — no ethics is genuinely possible.

It is well, in any such search for the validating ground of the ethical person, to select some one of the conceptions indispensable for ethics from among those noted and ask what sort of personality will guarantee it. If the ethical person thus discovered is also the only one that will guarantee this, presumably we shall have achieved an answer to the query: What is the ethical person? For the interdependence, the inter-reference, of fundamental ethical conceptions becomes apparent as soon as one attempts to work with them. And this interdependence is an indication that their logically validating ground is one and the same. If one seeks a conception which has presented great difficulties in the history of ethics, and yet which is acknowledged to be necessary, in some sense or other, to make ethics possible, the conception just now particularly instanced, that of freedom, conspicuously offers itself. It will always emerge that freedom cannot be discussed adequately without involving the other ethical notions ; if this is true, the inter-reference and intervalidation of ethical conceptions is the more truly maintained.

The Ethical Person as a priori Knower The question, then, What is ethical freedom? should be put in its genuine form, What is an ethically free person? Putting it in this way leads us far toward the answering of the question itself. With reference to this question, let us turn to certain deliverances of modern moralists of a prevailing school, who have come near to putting the question in the ultimate form which has been insisted upon. In that general school where evolution is made the universally reigning law, the question of whether actions, or volitions, or motives are free is often resolved to the deeper question of whether these acts, motives, volitions, belong to the "agent" in some sense or other, — of whether the agent himself is free "in some sense or other". So far, good. But, obviously, the whole question is, which "sense or other" is the one that will guarantee any real freedom, a freedom that makes the agent's act really and finally "his own," and which thus gives him that moral responsibility in whose interest is any search for freedom at all. Now, in the school referred to, what is usually meant by saying that the agent is free is that he is not moved entirely from without, but also from within; that there is a reaction of an inner influence upon extraneous influences. It is explained that each man has an inner necessity as well as an outer necessity; that he has a character of his own. His brain does not merely receive, but it transforms excitations. A man is free in so far as he is not coerced by anything outside himself. In this sense he may be said to mold his own future.

An objection might be made (the hint of a more significant objection to be made presently) that a snowflake, a book, a streetcar, is free in the sense of having an inner as well as an outer necessity, and that in this sense each "molds its own future." But that is the freedom (if freedom it is) of mere things; but surely we discriminate a freedom of persons from that of mere things. Some moralists of the general type we are considering, when pressed for the distinction between the freedom of men and of things, answer that man indeed has a freedom that things and animals (at least, as we conceive them) have not. The difference is this : animals are moved to action by momentary impulses, while man determines himself by ideas of ends. His life is made a purpose, a unity; and all momentary choices are subordinated to that.

When one says that he is free because he determines his life by the idea of a purpose, he has not finally guaranteed his freedom until he answers the crucial question : Who, or what, in the last resort, determines your purpose ? Is your purpose really and finally your own, or is it determined for you? We may conceive most evolutionists as replying that one's purpose is determined not only by the character of one's environment but by his "inner necessity", or "character of his own", which latter consideration, as we have just seen, is, in general, sufficient to satisfy the evolutionist's notion of freedom, so far as such a notion is possible at all. But suppose that a man is free in so far as he has a character of his own (and no one will deny such a general statement), or, as he has an inner influence which must be accounted with along with the extraneous influences called "environment", one cannot rest satisfied in any serious search for free personality until it is guaranteed that a person's character is really and ultimately "his own" and is not merely the product of a process. We come now to a vital query: Strictly in the world of efficient causation, in the world of time and space, taken as the only world there is, are free persons possible in that logically ultimate sense that carries with it moral responsibility? In short, does nature, as such, give us in all her realm an ethically free person?

When the logic of science is asked this question fairly and unequivocally it answers: Science, in any real sense, is made possible only with the supposition that there is no such thing as an uncaused process either in the physical or psychical sphere. There is no reason for making an exception of human willing, or even of the human mind as a whole. It, too, is caught in the causal nexus of the Cosmic Whole. The fact is, science tolerates no exceptions. Suppose we agreed with Professor James that we are not always able to detect the precise causal nexus in subtler regions of psychology, this would be no reason for supposing chance, which he himself would admit, although he espouses chance on other grounds. Where science is not able to find causes, she must, perforce imagine them present, even though their discovery be practically impossible. This is the only rational alternative. For observe, the scientific investigation even of mind seems to show uniformity of action. Under the same circumstances the same states occur. If this were not so, experimental psychology could not be a science at all. But if one is still in doubt as to the absolute determination of all acts, all volitions, in short, of all that pertains even to minds, by the iron necessity of causal law, one need but consider all in the light of science's modern conception of evolution. Then, if not until then, we see that we are not only dependent upon nature, but all that we are is derived from nature. What we are can be accounted for by the causal chain, nor can we say that we could have been otherwise. All is determined. Our parentage, and hence our inheritance, — this, at least, is no matter for choice; nor is our time and place of birth, our sex, the peculiarities- of the family and of the people among whom we find ourselves, their language, their customs, their church, their politics, their society, and their place in that society. Our education reflects the general culture and ideals of our particular times. Through all the seven ages, from the infant in the nurse's arms to the "last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history" in "second childishness and mere oblivion," there is no break in the causal chain ; man's birth is a product ; his career a product; and to both, as to death, his only liberty is to submit; he is a part, and only a part, of the total life of humanity, and finally of universal nature.

Thus, when that science, whose world is the world of space and time and efficient causation, is asked whether her persons are free or determined, she answers unequivocally that all the persons she knows are, in the last resort, determined. Persons are denied as ultimately responsible, as ultimately real, and so as ultimately ethical.

To many moderns this is, indeed, the conclusion of the whole matter. And it is a valid conclusion so far as we have gone. But can we not go farther in our search? Rather, must we not go farther if we follow the lead of that very logic which has made our world of science possible ? Our whole question at once becomes this : Is there a realm other than that of natural science? If so, we can at least renew our thwarted search for free persons.

All the laws of science's world purport to be generalizations from observed spaced and timed "facts", the supreme generalization of all being in terms of the law of Universal Causation. But precisely what is "causation," '"space," and "time;" and, above all, what makes generalization itself possible? Here we come to the Kantian questions. Science explains away the free person, but how is science itself explicable? What guarantees its basal assumptions? If science is self-explanatory, it behooves science to show this. If its assumptions can be explained only by principles, themselves beyond the world of natural science, then perhaps we shall have a realm in the light of which the arguments of science concerning persons will not appear so final, and indeed may have to be essentially revised.

The fact is of course that science as such utterly fails to account for space and time. To say that they are products of evolution, or generalizations from experience, is to ignore the fact that they are presuppositions for the possibility both of experience and its interpretation in evolutional terms. They are logically "prior" to experience, — a priori forms in short, forms which the experiencer himself contributes to his world of experience as constitutive of it. The logic of time and space, if we follow the interpretation of Kant, leads us to a new and significant conception of persons as a priori knowers. But, even apart from the consideration of time and space, granting them for the moment as valid assumptions, the conception of any universal and necessary causal nexus, assumed in all science, is wholly unwarranted by mere experience in time and space. For how, on the basis of what occurs in time and space, can one rise to universal laws at all? How can one say that what has been is a criterion of what is to be? One cannot verify a universal law by any particular experience; one can say only that he has found another example of it. No necessary judgments, causal or other, can be accumulated in the course of time. The series is never complete, and if it were complete, the element of necessity would still be lacking. One can maintain the validty of universal judgments only when he conceives the person as an a priori knower, a person who is the very source of that necessity which he discovers in nature. Before asking whether the conception of the person as a priori knower is identical with the free person in any real sense, it is crucially important for the doctrine of ethical personality to see that no person at all, free or otherwise, is possible to any but an a priori epistemology.

The Dialectic of Empiricism in English Thought

Still, that philosophers by no means are agreed upon such a pronouncement as this must be admitted. The case of a typical school of evolutional moralists has just been cited. Modern Pragmatism, with its radical empiricism and open denial of the a priori would be far from confessing that it has no ethics; indeed, its very name would seem to connote an overwhelming emphasis upon "truth" as in a sense fundamentally ethical in its import and test. And there have been conspicuous attempts in the history of philosophy, to guarantee a person of some sort through a purely empiristic epistemology.