Man and the cosmos; an introduction to metaphysics

Front matter

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Preface

The following work is a systematic consideration of the fundamental problems and concepts of philosophical thought in the light of recent discussion in science and philosophy. The leading motive of the entire work is the problem of Human Personality. I have therefore given the largest amount of space to the treatment of the Self. But, since one cannot consider the place of personality in the universe without being drawn into the fundamental problem of metaphysics, namely, that of the structure of the universe as a whole, I have tried to give just consideration to the latter problem. Moreover, since philosophy is the thinking consideration of fundamental questions, one must settle accounts with the problems of thought and knowledge. I have, therefore, begun with a comprehensive treatment of these problems.

My theory of knowledge is realistic, but it differs materially from the standpoints of most of the new realists. I hold that the true antithesis in theories of knowledge is not between realism and idealism, but between realism and mentalism or subjectivism. The great idealistic tradition in metaphysics, from Plato to Hegel, Bradley, and Bosanquet, is not subjectivistic in theory of knowledge. In the main, I sympathize most with this tradition, although I have found it necessary to cricitize the concepts of the Absolute, and the equivocal treatment of Time, Progress, and Personality, in recent representatives of metaphysical idealism. To me the dominating note of the great idealistic tradition is the ever renewed attempt to determine, in the light of reason and of the history of culture, the humanistic values of experience and the place of these in the universe. My conception of the meaning of the universe is dynamic. Therefore the metaphysical standpoint of the following work might be called Dynamic Idealism, in the sense that it aims to find in the living universe a home and scope for humanistic ideals or values. My chief quarrel with pragmatic humanism is that its humanism is too narrow, and that it tends to slight the place of order or reason in man and the universe.

But I have no interest in "philosophy as the art of affixing

vii viii PREFACE

labels," to use J. E. Creighton's happy expression. Labels are convenient for cataloguing and storing goods for ready access, but, in the vital, many-sided and global enterprise of thought, which philosophy is, they are dangerous; perhaps their harmfulness outweighs their usefulness. I know no great thinker whose philosophy is not misrepresented by such labels as "idealistic," " realistic,' ' " rationalistic/ ' "empiristic," etc. I hold no brief for any "school" or "movement" of thought. I am interested only in trying to puzzle out such of the meanings of the world as I can.

The extent of my indebtedness to philosophers past and present will be obvious to the instructed reader. It would be quite impossible, within the limits of a preface, to make adequate acknowledgment. In general, I have learned much from those whom I have criticized sharply. I cannot, however, let this opportunity pass without thanking my former teachers in the Sage School of Philosophy of Cornell University, alike for their instruction, example, and continued interest. And to the dear and inspiring memory of the man to whose instruction and warm personal interest I owe the foundation of my philosophical scholarship and the encouragement to go on with it, the late William Clark of Trinity College, Toronto, I here pay my tribute of gratitude and affection.

I am deeply indebted to the thoughtful interest of President William Oxley Thompson in suggesting, and to the, trustees of the Ohio State University in sanctioning, my relief from routine duties in order to bring this work to completion.

I am indebted to my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, Doctors A. E. Avey, A. R. Chandler, and R. D. Williams, for their never failing interest, and, especially, for the cheerful alacrity with which they have relieved me of my teaching duties in order that I might finish and publish this book. For a number of stylistic suggestions I am indebted to Doctor Chandler. Doctors J. E. Creighton, Chandler and Avey have assisted me materially in proofreading.

I have incorporated portions of articles published, at intervals during the past twenty years or more, in The Philosophical Review, The Journal of Philosophy, and The International Journal of Ethics. I make acknowledgments to the editors of these periodicals.

Joseph Alexander Leighton

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introductory— What Is Metaphysics? . . . . 1

I. The Scope of Metaphysics 1

Book I The Theory Of Knowledge

II. What is Thinking? 25

Appendix: Existence and Subsistence: Philosophy and

Gegenstandstheorie 39

III. Percepts and Concepts 44

IV. The Criteria of Knowledge 49

V. Knowledge and Reality 68

Appendix: The New Critical Realism .... 94

VI. Appearance and Reality 98

VII. Error 110

yill. The Final Ground op Knowledge . . . .116

Book II The General Structure Of Reality— The Categories

IX. What Are Categories? 133

X. Likeness and Unlikeness— Identity and Diversity . 137

XI. Quantity and Quality 142

XII. Relations 151

XIII. Order 162

XIV. The Particular, The Individual, and the Universal 169 XV. Substance 181

XVI. Change and Causality 191

Appendix: The Knowledge of Activity .... 203 XVII. Individuality, Value and Purpose •'»..., 206

Book III Empirical Existents

XVIII. Space and Time 215

I. Empirical Space and Time 218

II. Conceptual Space and Time 219

III. Physical Space and Time 223

Appendix : Dr. Alexander's Theory of Space-time . 235

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CONTENTS

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

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PAGE

Appendix: Panpsyehism . . . . . . . 248

I. The Factors of Organic Evolution . . .261 II. The Mechanistic Doctrine of Evolution . . 266

III. Evolution and Teleology 272

IV. Life and Matter 276

Book IV Personality And Its Values— Philosophy Of Selfhood And Society

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

Appendix: Mr. Bradley's Criticism of the Self . . 312 Consciousness 315

I. The Unity of Consciousness 316

II. Consciousness and Its Objects .... 317 III. The Idealistic Theory of Consciousness . . 329

I. Dualism 355

II. Psychophysical Parallelism 359

III. Psychophysical Individualism 366

Appendix I: Matter, Energy and Will .... 377 Appendix II: The Origin of the Soul .... 378 Personality and the Cultural Order . . . 382

The Interpersonal Emotions 445

Book V The Order Of The Universe; Cosmology

XXXV. The Universal Order . . . .

I. The Spatial and Temporal Order II. The Ultimate Noetic Order III. The Cosmic Ground of Values Appendix: The Meanings of the Infinite XXXVI. Finite Selves and the Over-self

Immanence and Transcendence XXXVII. Perfection and Evolution

CONTENTS

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CHAPTER PAGE

XXXVIII. Optimism and Pessimism— The Problem of Evil . 517

I. Natural Evil 517

II. Moral Evil 52fJ

III. Evil and the Idea of a Perfect Being . . .524

XXXIX. Metaphysics and Religion 536

I. The Methods and Aims of Metaphysics and Religion . . . 536

II. Is There Immediacy in Religious Knowledge? . 549

III. The Meaning of Faith 555

Postscript 562

Index 565

CHAPTEK I

INTKODU CTORY I WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?

I. The Scope of Metaphysics

The origin of the term "metaphysics," ta meta ta physica, "the [books] after the physics," the title given by an editor to a collection of writings by Aristotle, does not throw much light on the scope of the discipline. Probably the editor meant by the title to indicate that the problems thereof should be taken up after one had studied natural science. Meta, "after," was later taken to mean "beyond" or "above," and "metaphysics" the science of that which transcends physics. In the body of the writings in question Aristotle calls the study first philosophy, the science of being or ontology, and theology. It may be defined, provisionally, as the science of the first principles of reality, or the theory of the structure and meaning of reality as a whole, or the theory of the nature of the cosmos. Philosophers are not in entire agreement as to the precise scope of the subject. All are agreed that metaphysics deals with the problems of the structure and meaning of reality; but some hold that epistemology, the doctrine of the nature of knowledge and its place in reality, is a separate discipline. Some hold that the problems of the place of values in reality or of the relationships of existence and value (axiology) do not belong to metaphysics. If one accepted these distinctions, philosophical system would consist of three parts — epistemology, metaphysics, and axiology, or the theory of the place of truth, goodness and beauty in the universe. I hold that metaphysics includes all these problems and, therefore, is identical with philosophical system. While it would not be in accord with historic usage to deny the term "philosopher" to every thinker who has not achieved a systematic conception of the universe, a cosmology or metaphysics, a full or well-rounded philosophy is a theory of the universe. Hence metaphysics is identical in scope with philosophical system. It is the theory of the first principles of reality. It is impossible to formulate a theory of truth or knowledge without formulating a theory of reality. It is equally impossible to consider the place of values in reality without raising the entire problem of the nature and place of personality; and the latter problem includes all the problems of the relation of the mental and the physical, of the individual and the universal, of identity and diversity, causation, substance, space and time, thought and reality. Since every fundamental problem of philosophy is interlocked with all the others, it is, in the end, the most consistent procedure to recognize that metaphysics and philosophical system are identical in scope and content.

Of course the term philosophy, as a comprehensive name for certain studies, now is usually employed to include a number of subordinate subjects — logic, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, social and political philosophy. Until recently it included psychology, but the latter is now generally regarded as a more or less independent discipline. Every science involves philosophical problems, but the above-mentioned subjects all raise, in one form or another, the problem of values and thus start metaphysical questions of central import.

Thus metaphysics is the clearing house for all fundamental philosophical problems. It is the comprehensive discipline in which all philosophical issues and theories converge. Indeed, inasmuch as the special sciences, such as physics, biology, psychology, and sociology, set out from unexamined dogmatic assumptions and issue, severally, in various uncoordinated results which require synthesis, in order to yield a consistent world view, to metaphysics belongs the twofold task of critically examining the primary assumptions of the sciences and of synthesizing their conclusions into a harmonious whole. As a critical inquiry into the validity, scope and interrelations of the respective fundamental assumptions and conclusions of the special sciences, metaphysics is the criticism of the categories, that is, of the chief concepts which man uses in the ordering and mastering of experience.

But philosophy is not limited to the consideration of the fundamental problems of pure science. The affective personal and interpersonal value attitudes and experiences embodied in moral and social relations, in aesthetic experience and religion, likewise involve philosophical problems; especially when these value attitudes and the beliefs that are basic to them come into conflict with scientific theories. Thus, we find raised the problem of the ultimate relation of existence and value — how far does the course of reality honor and sustain the values that have their immediate seat in the life of human personality ? To attempt to thresh out such problems is to embark on the wide and stormy ocean of metaphysics.

Metaphysics, the heart of philosophy, seeks by persistent reflection to see things steadily and to see them whole; in Goethe's words, "Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben." In other words, metaphysics seeks a consistent and total interpretation of experience. It cannot be content with any partial or abstract view of life and reality. A system of philosophy, or metaphysics, is a union of a world view and a life view in one harmonious, complete, integral conception. In so far as any man strives to attain, by rational inquiry, a consistent and comprehensive view of life and reality, he is a metaphysician. The only differences between thinking human beings in this regard lie in the persistency, thoroughness, and comprehensiveness with which they pursue metaphysical reflection. It follows, of course, in view of the fragmentariness and the discordancies of our experiences and the imperfection of our analysis and synthesis of the meanings of experience, that metaphysics must remain in this life incomplete. Only a complete or perfect experience of the universe would bring to man a complete metaphysics ; and on the other hand, a perfect experience would abolish the need for metaphysics. It is precisely the fragmentariness and inconsistency in our actual experience that drives us into metaphysics. As Mr. Bradley has wittily said, "Metaphysics consists in finding bad reasons for what we believe on instinct. But to find these reasons is no less an instinct."

Every special science and every special form of practical activity interprets the facts of experience from some limited and one-sided or abstract point of view. Metaphysics aims to correct these abstractions. For example, the physicist and the chemist assume the reality of matter, energy, space, motion, time, the uniformity of causation, the mathematical equivalence of causes and effects, the correspondence of the mental categories of number and magnitude with the facts of nature. They do not inquire critically how far these assumptions may be warranted, or how the mind can know that these so-called entities exist independently of the mind. They do not inquire critically into the relations between our sense perceptions and matter and energy regarded as permanent or substantial entities. Even the mathematician usually assumes the infinitude of space, time and number, without a critical inquiry as to what infinitude may mean in these relations. The physicist and the chemist employ the doctrine of the conservation of energy without stopping to ask how this principle is to be squared with the infinite duration of the universe, the second law of thermo-dynamics, the apparently creative character of the evolutional life process, the belief in human personality and freedom. A biologist may assume the uniqueness of the life processes without raising the question how this uniqueness comports with the mechanistic conception of the universe. Or a biologist may conduct his inquiries on the assumption that there is no difference between vital processes and mechanical processes, without stopping to inquire how the reduction of life to mechanism affects the position of human thought and human values in the world. A psychologist may study the conscious behavior of human beings and the relations of conscious behavior to unconscious behavior. He may treat the mind as a mere mechanism differing only in complexity from a crystal, for example, summarily dismissing the self or personality from court in any other sense than that of a physicochemical mechanism. A sociologist may assume that the individual's character and actions are the joint products of the physical and social environment; ignoring the problems of individuality, responsibility, freedom and creativeness ; whereas the moral agent, the teacher, the judge, the social administrator, assumes as his working hypothesis responsibility and freedom.

When man as a reflective being stops to take stock of the universe as a whole, of himself as a whole and of his place in the universe, he cannot be satisfied with jarring assumptions and doctrines. He must ask himself, "Am I really only a bit of cunning mechanism which has just chanced to occur as one of the infinite number of possible permutations and combinations of mass particles in a blind and meaningless process of things? Is my belief that I am a self-determining rational agent, an utter illusion ; and if so, how could this illusion have arisen ? Are the values, in the seeking and achieving of which I seem to be satisfying the deepest instincts of my being — the values of knowing and contemplating the spectacle of things, of creating and enjoying beauty, inner harmony and social harmony, the values of adding to the sum of knowledge and beauty, of the communion of souls in friendship and love, of loyalty to noble causes, of that communion with the nature of things which is religion at its highest — are all these values illusory and transitory by-products of the insensate mechanism of the universe ?

A man may be a fairly good workman in field or factory or counting house, he may be a reputable citizen and a decent husband and father, he may be even a faithful pedestrian worker in science, without raising these questions. But if he lift his nose from the grindstone of his daily tasks to ask himself what is the good, what is the meaning, wherein consist the value and dignity of human life, he cannot help asking such questions. If he be content with a treadmill existence all his days, he need not philosophize. But if he raise the inner eye of thought to contemplate, however intermittently, the nature of his being, the meaning of the sum of things, and to consider his own place and destiny therein, he thereby becomes a metaphysician. Hence the perennial interest and justification of metaphysics. One need not think seriously or obstinately in regard to the fundamental problems of human existence; but, if one wishes reflectively to apprehend the meaning of human life and its place in the world, one must enter upon the pathway of metaphysical inquiry. For a whole nest of unquestioned assumptions and beliefs is concealed not only in everyday practical knowledge and religious attitudes, but as well in the procedures and conclusions of the various sciences. Every science and every form of practical activity is a special and abstract or onesided way of dealing with the field of experience and reality. Every special science and practical activity involves assumptions or theories as to the meaning and place of its particular data, concepts and interests in the whole system of reality.

Metaphysics corrects the abstractness and the inconsistency of these special assumptions and beliefs by aiming at the most complete and most consistent reflective interpretation of experience in its totality. Naive thought and belief, and science, which is a more rigorous analysis of special aspects of naive thought, are fragmentary and sometimes internally inconsistent in their results. The rational impulse impels us towards a coherent world view, which shall be at the same time a coherent life view. The one common presupposition of rational living and of philosophy is that the universe is in some sense a cosmos, an orderly or intelligible whole. Metaphysics asks whether this presupposition be justifiable. In our quest for a comprehensive and harmonious view we may have to put up with serious gaps. We may be able to discover only broken glimpses of the universal order; but, since the ultimate consistence or coherence of reality and its harmony with the general structure of human thought are postulates which gain better warrant the more we try to understand the world and our place in it, the metaphysical enterprise is justified. Since the realm of experience is a many-hued process, one must not expect to secure a world view cheaply, and the outline sketch of reality which metaphysics may afford will doubtless seem colorless and lifeless by contrast with the vivid hues of concrete experience. "Gmu, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und grim des Lebens goldner Baum." But at least one may hope to attain the satisfaction of knowing more clearly where one stands in regard both to the trustworthiness, the limitations and the implications of human experience and deed. And no clear or consistent notions are attainable on these points without metaphysics.

II. The Method of Metaphysics

Metaphysics takes its point of departure from the nature of human experience as a whole. Its methods are the a/mlysis of experience in its totality in order to determine its main features and their interconnections; and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a consistent and comprehensive conception of the meanings and implications of experience. Metaphysics can be a genuine intellectual procedure only in so far as it draws from actual experience and finds in actual experience the justification for its constructive work. Experience is always in flux and is fragmentary. Thought is impelled, when it is thoroughgoing, to comprehend the flux and to piece out the fragments into a harmonious whole. Every serious attempt to do this is a metaphysics. The philosopher is justified, since he is compelled by the urge of thought, in transcending actual experience in order to render complete and coherent the implications thereof. The problem as to y how far, and in what directions, the philosopher is warranted in transcending the actual can only be solved by the whole course of metaphysical inquiry ; but, in view of the impermanence of experience and the immense difficulties which confront the attempt to make it consistent in implication, only partial success can be expected in this undertaking. "All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare" ; and this most excellent of things is most difficult. Often the claim is put forward that there is some peculiar method by which the problems of metaphysics are solved.

M. Bergson has argued for the method of intuition or direct vision of life as the key to the solution of metaphysical questions, in contrast with the geometrizing and mechanizing procedure of the intellect. We shall examine this doctrine fully later on. Suffice it to say now that vision, feeling or direct experience, without interpretation, is neither science nor philosophy ; and that any proposal which would brush aside the tested methods by which the thought of mankind has advanced steadily, if slowly, is suspect. Fichte and Hegel employed the dialectic method. Briefly, this consists in finding in the development and overcoming of oppositions or contradictions in thought the key to the conception of reality as the absolute and harmonious and living synthesis in which all oppositions are taken up and reconciled, all contradictions healed. Undoubtedly the aim of metaphysics is the resolution of all oppositions, the annulment of all contradictions in a harmonious totality of insight. But this ideal does not give to the dialectic method the prerogative of being the method of philosophy. Its advocates have found their cue in the development of conscious selfhood and the social and spiritual development of mankind. To apply the dialectic method to the interpretation of nature, as well as of human culture, is to assume that the whole reality is the evolution of selfhood or personality. It is to assume the fundamental doctrine of metaphysical idealism or spiritualism. There may be grounds for regarding the development of selfhood as the most important clew to the meaning and purpose of reality. But the philosopher has no right to begin with such an assumption, nor even to assume that dialectical evolution furnishes a sufficient key to the nature and destiny of spirit or personality. We shall find occasion later, in connection with the study of personality, to consider more fully the meaning and value of the dialectical method. Suffice it to say now that we cannot accept it as the method of philosophy or metaphysics, since it is not relevant to the many other problems which belong to our study. If we could begin with the proposition that nothing is real except spirit or conscious selfhood, we might seriously consider whether we should not proceed wholly by the dialectic method. But we must begin with the obvious assumption that experience is the basis of metaphysics ; and it is by no means self-evident that experience not only is always owned by selves, but is of nothing except selves. Truly experience implies that I am as an experient, but it does not necessarily follow that whatever I experience is spirit and nothing but spirit.

"There is experience," and "I, whatever else I may be, am an experiencing and thinking being" — such are the inevitable and indubitable propositions from which the metaphysician must start. He may doubt everything further — how experience comes to him, what it signifies, what more he himself is, whether there is any other self, whether anything is permanent, whether perhaps the world of his experience is not a dream and he the only dreamer, but he cannot doubt that he, the experient of the movement, is having experience and thinking about its meaning. In order to get forward he must analyze his experience to find what it contains and implies and then put together the results of his analysis. He must, as Descartes put it, analyze the complex data into the simplest attainable, begin with the simplest and most obvious, proceed step by step and make sure that nothing has been omitted. Intellectual analysis of the data, inductive generalization therefrom, and deductive synthesis checked up by further analysis of data — such are the elements of genuine intellectual procedure in every field. And such are the elements of philosophical method. The only important difference between science and metaphysics, with regard to method and scope, is this — metaphysics is an analysis of the widest or most general inductions of experience and a synthesis of these into a coherent system of thought, whereas a special science limits itself to an analysis and synthesis of some particular aspect of experience, such as measurable, ponderable and experimentable physical qualities, or the phenomena of living matter, or the social behavior of human beings.

In the metaphysical analysis of experience the problem of knowledge has come, in modern times, to occupy a central and determining place. The rapid change and increase in special scientific theory of nature and man, in sharp contrast and often in contradiction with man's naive and traditional beliefs in regard to his own nature, vocation and destiny, has made the problem of truth an acute and critical one for the determination of man's place in the universe. Consequently I shall approach the other main problems of metaphysics through the problem of knowledge. It is impossible to progress rationally in the consideration of the nature of personality and values, and their place in the world order, and with the problem of the structure and the meaning of reality as a whole without settling accounts with the problem of knowledge. On the other hand knowledge is only one function of personality. In the actual movement of reflective life it is interwoven with feelings and valuations, with impulses and volitions. The world that I must start with is the world of my own experience. But I do not reflect this world passively as a colorless knower, or even actively grind it into categories like a logical machine. I feel its sting and sweetness, I react to its impacts and solicitations at the same time that I try to understand it. No theory of man's nature and his place in reality can be adequate which treats these various aspects of the concrete and living movement of individual experience in isolation from one another, or which elevates one aspect to a privileged position by ignoring the others. I shall, perforce, for purposes of discussion, have to isolate knowledge, valuation, and volition. But the reader is asked to bear in mind that this is an artificial isolation for purposes of investigation.

Experience, as the primary datum of metaphysics, is always individual — yours or mime. The individual's experience is the window through which he views reality, or perhaps better, the point at which reality acts on him and he reacts on it. Whatever conclusion one may reach as to the dependence of the individual experient and agent on the world (inclusive of the physical order and other selves) can be valid only if it takes account of the individuated character of experience.

There are various ways of approach to the central problems of metaphysics. One might begin from any of the starting points aforementioned. One might begin with the ultimate problems of the physical order and of natural science (metaphysics of nature), or of the mental order and psychology (metaphysics of psychology) , or of ethics, aesthetics and religion (metaphysics of values), or of the place of knowledge in reality (epistemology). I have chosen to begin with the latter problems, to proceed from them to the problems of the general structure of the physical order, then to the problems of self and of values, or metaphysics of personality and of society, concluding with the problems of general metaphysics or cosmology, that is, of the meaning of reality as a whole. ,1 have dealt with the problems of the philosophy of nature, i.e., of the metaphysics of physics and biology, only as incidental to the carrying out of my purpose. I have not aimed at a complete treatment of all metaphysical questions. My aim is rather to discuss the main problems and theories in the light of the central problems of personality and values.

I have described the aim of metaphysics to be the attainment of a synthetic or synoptic interpretation of the meaning of experience in its wholeness. To me the classical tradition in philosophy is essentially right in regarding the heart of philosophy to be the striving for a coherent and adequate conception of reality as a whole. And such a conception is to be attained by the analytical interrogation of all the main aspects of human experience and the synthetic organization into a coherent conception of the results of analysis. I do not pretend to any acquaintance with a reality that may exist as such, apart and entirely different from our human world. The only world concerning which I have any knowledge is the world of experience that is revealed to and in human selves. This world is what it is through the reactions of selves to the common physical conditions of their existence. As an individual self I am constrained to recognize that my experience, both active and passive, is conditioned by qualities of which I must take account. These qualities are physical. Moreover, inasmuch as I am a social being, one who experiences and acts only as a member of a community of selves, I am led to recognize that physical qualities are objective to the community no less than to me as an individual. But human feelings and strivings, human values and purposes, human thoughts and human acts, are just as real parts of the world of experience as are physical qualities. I hold, therefore, that no philosophical account of the world is complete which ignores the problems of the meaning and place in reality of human values and purposes, human thoughts and acts. The central problem of philosophy or metaphysics, the one problem into which all other problems merge, is the nature of human personality and its place in the universe.