Table Of ContentROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
Volume 3
LANGUAGE, MIND AND VALUE
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LANGUAGE, MIND AND VALUE
Philosophical Essays
J. N. FINDLAY
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LANGUAGE
MIND
AND VALUE
PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
BY
J. N. FINDLAY
M.A., PH.D., F.B.A.
Professor of Philosophy in the University of London
(King's College)
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London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
FIRST PUBLISHED 1963
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PREFACE
THE articles collected in this volume were written over the last
twenty years: I have selected them for republication because they
seem to me to make some points that are still worth making, and
because they have in some cases interested and influenced others.
The opening articles, 'Some Reactions to Recent Cambridge
Philosophy' (1940-1) and 'Time: a Treatment of Some Puzzles'
(1941), represent the impact of Wittgenstein on my thought, after
I had spent some time attending his courses in 1939, and had
brooded over the Blue Book, Brown Book and what had then been
written of the Philosophical Investigations. They have seemed to
me worth re-publishing because they reflect sides of Wittgenstein's
teaching not usually stressed: his deep love for the philosophical
puzzles he tried to liquidate, as well as his valuable doctrine (mainly
used by him to excuse his own penchant for solipsism) that the
special notations of philosophers serve to bring out important
likenesses and differences (or to suppress these or falsely suggest
their presence), in other words to 'illuminate' or 'mislead'. In this
last doctrine Wittgenstein seems to me to have suggested that
'truth' in philosophy is no mere question of correctness or incorrect
ness, but for the most part a question of goodness and hadness in
speaking, a view which seems to me of incalculable importance,
and which has inspired all the articles in this volume, including
the somewhat homiletic 'Values in Speaking' (my inaugural
address at Newcastle). I hope that I have also testified indirectly to
Wittgenstein's personal inspiration, to the liberating intellectual
light he seemed to diffuse. I do not now think that this personal
influence was a wholly good thing, as it made one blind to the
unquestioned background, the unfinished performance and the
unclear tendency of some of his thinking.
The articles which follow represent my gradual return to an
orbit more natural to myself, but, I think, more sensitive to the
many pulls which render a philosophical orbit 'reasonable'. I have
included my review (1955) of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investi
gations to indicate the extent of my disengagement, and the later
articles include a tribute to G. E. Moore, a philosopher whom I
rank above any other British thinker in the present century. I
7
LANGUAGE, MIND AND VALUE
have also included a lecture on Hegel largely because it contains
points-those comparing dialectic to 'metalinguistic comment'
which seem to me to supplement what I said about the dialectic
in my book Hegel: A Re-Examination (1958). My interest in
Hegel is in no sense new: he was the first philosopher to whom I
devoted myself, and my interest in him (though not in his com
mentators or followers) has persisted throughout several revolu
tions of outlook. I have also tried to give renewed circulation to
an important idea of Husserl in the article 'Some Reflections on
Meaning' (1959).
Of the remaining articles in the volume two, 'Goedelian Sen
tences' (1942) and 'The Notion of Infinity' (1953) reflect an
interest in symbolic logic and mathematical philosophy which
the endless proliferation of these subjects, the bracketless nota
tion of the Polish logicians, and my own limited capacity, have at
length finally stifled. The articles 'Linguistic Approach to Psycho
physics' (1950) and 'The Logic of Bewusstseinslagen' (1955)
express my interest in the philosophy of mind and my great
admiration for the work of the Wurzburg psychologists. The
articles 'Morality by Convention' (1944), 'The Justification of
Attitudes' (1954) and 'The Methodology of Normative Ethics'
(1961) express my basic belief that the supreme heads of goodness
and badness form an ordered family, linked together and arranged
by something that may be called a 'logic', and not having the sheer
arbitrariness that some modern theories have given them. These
convictions are the theme of my Values and Intentions (1961): the
article 'The Methodology of Normative Ethics' should throw light
on the method pursued in that work.
The volume also includes an excursion into theology, 'Can
God's Existence be Disproved?' (1948). I still think that it makes
a valid point: that if it is possible, in some logical and not merely
epistemological sense, that there is no God, then God's existence
is not merely doubtful but impossible, since nothing capable of
non-existence could be a God at all. Kant, who at times suggested
that the existence of anything was a synthetic and a posteriori
matter (though perhaps establishable only by a non-sensuous
intuition) should have seen that his views constituted a disproof
of the existence of God, not left Him a flawless ideal to which
some noumenal reality might correspond. Professor Hartshorne
has, however, convinced me that my argument permits a ready
8
PREFACE
inversion, and that one can very well argue that if God's existence
is in any way possible, then it is also certain and necessary that God
exists, a position which should give some comfort to the shade of
Anselm. The notion of God, like the notion of the class of all
classes not members of themselves, has plainly unique logical
properties, and I do not now think that my article finally decides
how we should cope with such uniqueness.
I wish to thank the Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philo
sophy for permission to reprint articles I and II, the Editor of Mind
for permission to reprint articles III, IV, V and IX, the Editor of
Philosophy for permission to reprint articles VI and XI, the Secre
tary of the Aristotelian Society for permission to reprint articles
VII and VIII, the Editor of the Philosophical Quarterly for per
mission to reprint article X, the Editor of the Indian Journal of
Philosophy for permission to reprint article XII, and the Editor
of the Journal of Philosophy for permission to reprint article XV.
J. N. FINDLAY
King's College
London
June 1962
9
